GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, our amendment would strengthen the capability, stature, and effectiveness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The language in the amendment is largely drawn from S. 3595, the United States Emergency Management Authority Act, which we introduced in this Chamber 2 weeks ago. We believe this is the appropriate time and the right vehicle for improving our Nation's emergency management system.

The wounds of Hurricane Katrina are still fresh. A new hurricane season is upon us, and the recent news on the law enforcement and military front reminds us that the terrorist threat to America continues. Bitter lessons have been learned from the experience in responding to Hurricane Katrina, but they have not yet been applied. The time for action is now.

The amendment reflects the Senate Committee on Homeland Security's 8- month investigation into the failed preparations for response to Hurricane Katrina.

As the Presiding Officer is well aware, the committee conducted an extensive and exhaustive investigation. We held some 23 hearings at which nearly 90 witnesses testified. We formally interviewed 325 individuals, and we reviewed some 838,000 pages of documents. We distilled all of this into a comprehensive report with many recommendations for improving the response at all levels of government.

Some of these recommendations have to do with how the Federal Government should be organized to effectively respond to future disasters, whether they are manmade or whether they are natural ones such as Katrina. These recommendations have been distilled in part in USEMA legislation that forms the basis for this amendment.

I note that this is the first step in implementing the committee's comprehensive recommendations. We will be introducing a subsequent bill to implement other findings and recommendations. Most significant will be a package of reforms to the Stafford Act, but that is not what we are proposing today. The amendment before us today has four key features. It seeks to restructure, reform, and strengthen the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, which we would rename as the United States Emergency Management Authority.

The four key features are as follows: First, it would give this new authority statutory protection against administrative actions that could diminish its capabilities and effectiveness, such as department- wide reorganization that could strip essential functions away from the new agency.

Second, it would ensure that the administrator has direct access to the President and serve as his principal adviser on emergency management issues.

Third, it would reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities. After all, preparedness and response are really two sides of the same coin. I believe it was a mistake when the Department decided to strip FEMA of its preparedness functions.

It would reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibility and restore a full range of work relationships with State and local government, the essential partners in emergency response.

Fourth, the amendment would strengthen the new authority's regional focus.

I know that as a former mayor the Presiding Officer has a special appreciation for just how important it is for the Federal Government to work closely with State and local governments. That is an issue that he has brought up throughout this investigation.

We would create Federal strike teams that have representatives from all the agencies that are involved on the Federal side of the response. They would be located in regional offices to foster cooperation, coordination, and joint training with State and local emergency managers and with first responders.

A crisis, whether it is due to a hurricane, an ice storm, or a terrorist attack is the last time that people should be exchanging business cards. We should make sure the Federal, State, and local governments are training together, planning together, exercising together; that they know one another; that they know the culture, the capabilities, and the essentials.

The overarching objective of the amendment is to strengthen FEMA which, as I pledged, we would propose to rename as the United States Emergency Management Authority. The new name signals a fresh start for FEMA with new authority, including some authority that it has never had before over critical infrastructure, for example. It signifies new capabilities and new responsibilities to all-hazards emergency preparedness and response. And, surely, those of us who investigated for some months the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, as well as anyone who followed the issue peripherally, can have no doubt that FEMA urgently needs to be restructured and reformed to be more effective.

Part of this help entails giving the new people a special legal status within DHS. Our amendment's prohibition against further departmental reorganization of this agency and mission alterations affecting the authority will give USEMA exactly the same kind of protection that has already been extended to the Coast Guard and to the Secret Service.

This is something completely new. We paralleled the kind of protection, the distinct legal status that is given to the Coast Guard and to the Secret Service. I know the Coast Guard was the stellar performer in the response to Katrina. The Coast Guard, by all accounts, did an exceptional job in its preparedness and response, yet as part of the Department of Homeland Security.

I think those who think the answer is to sever FEMA or the new agency from the Department should take a hard look at the Coast Guard's experience. But in looking at the Coast Guard, I think we can also learn that it benefited from having this legal protection, and we would extend that to the newly constituted FEMA.

This protection will help achieve congressional intent that DHS be the focus for comprehensive, all-hazards Federal preparation and response to disasters.

When the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21st Century memorandum recommended just 5 years ago a new approach to homeland security and that America establish a single department to plan, coordinate, and integrate homeland security operations, it called FEMA the necessary core of that new department. To that end, USEMA, like FEMA, needs to be a part of the DHS structure. That analysis has been confirmed by experience.

Admiral Allen of the Coast Guard explained at one of our hearings that having FEMA and the Coast Guard in the same department leads to certain synergies that do not otherwise occur, and that led in particular to a 350-percent increase in joint training exercises. That is the kind of integration that we need more of.

More generally, keeping key capabilities within a single DHS umbrella permits faster communication and response than a more formal and bureaucratic procedure required for interdepartmental requests from a setting within DHS. However, FEMA needs to have far better lines of communication.

I know the Presiding Officer was as shocked as I was to hear the former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, talk about circumventing the chain of command within the Department and his failure to order critical commodities, to order the buses, to communicate just how dire the situation was in Louisiana.

We want to make sure that we improve those lines of communication, both within the Department and between the Department and the White House and other agencies. That means giving the administrator more status.

We would upgrade the administrator so he is the equivalent of a Deputy Secretary. That gives him more clout and more stature in dealing, for example, with the Department of Defense and other departments that play important roles in responding to a disaster.

We designate the administrator of USEMA the principal adviser to the President on matters of emergency management. And we adopt a system that for the Pentagon has worked well in outlining the reporting responsibilities. We parallel the relationship between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President. So there is both a reporting relationship to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and yet the new administrator would be the principal adviser to the President on emergency management.

In addition--I think this also responds to a key weakness that our intensive investigation revealed--the administrator would be authorized to give recommendations directly to Congress. The administration would have to make sure he informs the Secretary of what he is going to say, but there is a direct link, a direct line of communication.

I know the Presiding Officer recalls that Michael Brown claims he was stifled in reporting to Congress. We don't know for a fact whether that is an accurate statement. But we put in reforms to ensure that the administrator has the ability to communicate his recommendations, his needs, his findings directly to Congress.

Our amendment, as I indicated, specifically rejects the notion that FEMA should be cut off of DHS and made a freestanding agency. The DHS needs FEMA's capability. What would happen if FEMA, a weak FEMA, were cast alone is that DHS would have to recreate many of the capabilities that FEMA has at great cost, at great duplication of effort. What we would end up having is one agency that deals with natural disasters and another agency within DHS that deals solely with disasters resulting from terrorist attacks. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Many of the challenges in the aftermath of a catastrophe, whether it is manmade or natural, are exactly the same--sheltering people, getting them food and water, an evacuation plan.

It also makes no sense from the perspective of State and local governments. We don't want them to just deal with one agency if they are planning for a natural disaster and another agency if they are planning for a terrorist attack since many of the challenges are identical. Just think, if the levees had been blown up by terrorists rather than breached by Hurricane Katrina, many of the challenges would have been exactly the same. There just would have been a stronger law enforcement component.

It is a mistake, in that the Coast Guard's stellar performance proves it is a mistake, to think the location of FEMA is the cause of the problems. Even if that duplication were cost free, a virtual impossibility, the Secretary of the Department estimates it would cost billions of dollars to duplicate the necessary capabilities within DHS if FEMA were separated. Even if that were possibly cost free, it would be destructive. Divided preparation and response systems would force State and local officials to have to engage one to prepare for natural disasters and another for terror attacks.

As one of our committee's expert witnesses, Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Pennsylvania, said: Separating response to terrorism from response to natural disasters, separating preparedness from response, separating FEMA from DHS, would inevitably bring problems.

I agree with the professor. This is consistently what we hear from those who are on the front lines, from those who know what it takes to respond to a catastrophe.

In that regard, I note that there is extraordinarily strong support from first responder groups for the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-Carper amendment. It has been endorsed by the National Troopers Coalition, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the Congressional Fire Services Institute, Advocates for EMS, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the International Association of EMT's and Paramedics.

This is quite a list of those who truly are on the front lines when it comes to responding to a disaster. I am very proud to have their support for our amendment. They recognize we have worked very hard and consulted fully with them to come up with the right approach.

I also note the amendment we are offering has been endorsed by the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council. This is a council that provides advice to the Secretary. It is made up of very distinguished members of the private sector. They, too, have endorsed it.

I ask unanimous consent these letters from first responder groups and from the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.

Mr. President, I also note planning and response capabilities are already too weak in many States, as evidenced by the recent DHS reviews. We don't want to splinter those efforts further by needlessly multiplying their Federal points of contact. For many reasons, therefore, preserving those close working ties with other agencies within the Department, the new FEMA must stay within DHS.

Allow me to briefly summarize a few more of the provisions of the bill before yielding to my colleague from Connecticut. First, as I mentioned, it establishes a strong position for the administrator of the new USEMA. This administrator would be nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and have the standing of a Deputy Secretary. Day by day, the administrator would report to the DHS Secretary, but the bill explicitly provides that direct line of communication to the President as well as the authority to make recommendations to Congress on which I have already elaborated.

The amendment provides for two directors. There was an issue on which we worked very closely with DHS. The language we have incorporates the feedback we got from the Department. Both of these individuals--which, again, would be high-level individuals within the Department--would be nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and would provide the administrator and the Department with highly qualified professionals in preparedness and mitigation and in response and recovery.

Our amendment would give the administrator responsibility for managing preparedness grant programs. The Presiding Officer knows, as the former mayor, that i you control some of the money that goes out to State and local governments, if you are helping to allocate that funding, you will have a good relationship with State and local governments. Inevitably, the authority follows the money. This is going to ensure we have far better coordination. This is an important restoration of authority to this agency. It was a mistake, in my view, that authority was taken away from FEMA. That will help ensure better oversight and coordination of preparedness at all levels of government.

I have talked about how important I think these regional structures are for the new agency. It will ensure that Federal officials are familiar with the people, the vulnerabilities, the capabilities, and the resources of the regions they protect, and they won't be introducing themselves to strangers on unfamiliar ground when disaster strikes.

I could not help but be struck during our hearings by the fact that so many individuals from FEMA were sent from region 1e--the region that the Senator from Connecticut and I represent, New England--down to New Orleans. I like to believe we New Englanders can handle anything, but the fact is, the response would be far more effective if we had people who are in the area who worked every day with the emergency management officials in the area, who understood the weaknesses and the strengths of particular States rather than sending someone from the Northeast down to the hurricane region or vice versa in times of an ice storm or some other disaster.

Further recognizing the importance of multilevel governmental coordination, the bill creates a national advisory council on emergency preparedness and response that would be made up of State and local officials, emergency management professionals from the public, private, and NGO sectors to advise the administrator of USEMA. This is important. We know the critical role nonprofits and the Red Cross play. They, too, should be involved in the training, the planning, the exercising. We learned from our investigation that, too, was flawed. This will help ensure the agency's thinking does not proceed in a stovepipe, but is fortified with comments and expertise from a wide range of vitally concerned partners.

Our amendment addresses the glaring and urgent needs highlighted in our investigation of Hurricane Katrina. As I mentioned, I am very pleased we have the support of so many experts. Nothing could speak more eloquently of the need for reform or be more encouraging than to receive the words of support from those who do put their lives on the line every day to protect the American people. We also have the support of the administration for this proposal.

Amending the Homeland Security appropriations bill by adding the provisions of our USEMA bill will go far to ensuring in a timely way that we will have a far more effective structure to protect our fellow citizens' lives and livelihoods from disaster.

I am very pleased this is a bipartisan effort. I recognize the work of the Senator from Connecticut who has led, with me, the investigation of the committee and the drafting of this legislation. We are also grateful for the input of Senator Lott who knows better than any of us--except his fellow Senators from Mississippi and Louisiana--the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I am grateful for his input, as well as the input from Senator Carper who also has worked very hard on this issue.

Finally, I recognize all of the participation of the Presiding Officer, Senator Coleman. There was no more loyal committee member who came to virtually every single hearing, participated actively, and contributed greatly to our investigation. I thank him for his work, as well

Exhibit 1

July 11, 2006.

Hon. Susan Collins,

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Joseph Lieberman,

Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman: On

behalf of the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council

(the Council), I am writing to support S. 3595, the U.S.

Emergency Management Authority Act. On behalf of the private

sector, the Council is pleased to endorse this measure to

reinvent, protect, and strengthen FEMA. The new FEMA,

reconstituted as the U.S. Emergency Management Authority,

would ensure that the nation will be better prepared to

address, either, natural or man-made disasters.

The Council is a non-partisan, non-profit 501 C6

organization that comprises the major companies that serve

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Our focus is to

align private sector resources to support the mission of the

Department on behalf of the nation's interests. The Council

is pleased to see language that elevates the importance of

FEMA within DHS and reunites preparedness functions with

response capabilities.

The Council supports provisions of S. 3595 that would:

Give the new U.S. Emergency Management Authority statutory

protection against actions that could diminish its

capabilities and effectiveness;

Ensure that the Administrator of US-EMA has direct access

to the President and serves as Principal Emergency Management

Advisor, at all times;

Reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities

to reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibilities

and restore the full range of working relationships with

state and local government; and

Strengthen the Authority's regional focus with federal

strike teams for a faster and more coordinated response and

to provide better familiarity with the states in which the

strike teams will operate.

Thank you for your continued commitment to improving

emergency management and response and for engaging the

private sector to leverage industry best practices. Should

you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to

contact me anytime.

Sincerely,

Michael M. Meldon,

Executive Director.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for his

comments, for his support, and for his enormous contribution to the amendment that is before us today. He, more than any other Member of this body, has personal experience with the devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused, and he has been, along with Senator Cochran and the two Louisiana Senators, a fierce advocate for reforming the system to make sure that never again does government at all levels so fundamentally fail in its obligation to our citizens.

I very much appreciated the opportunity to work with Senator Lott to strengthen the language in our bill to make sure that the exact same safeguards and protections that the Coast Guard enjoys would now apply to the new FEMA organization: USEMA. I think that was an excellent suggestion. We used the same language, and we will protect the new agency from being reorganized by the Secretary, from having its mission altered, from having it split up or dispersed or its budget cut through administrative fiat. Those kinds of changes should come to Congress, and we have put those protections in place.

As Senator Lott recommended, we have upgraded the status of the whole agency. The head of the new agency will be the equivalent of a Deputy Secretary and will have the clout and the stature that is needed to deal with other agencies. We have done enormous reforms. This version of an emergency management agency will have authorities that the current FEMA has never had. In addition, we restored the preparedness and the grant-making functions, and I think we have come up with a very good product.

So I want to thank my colleague and friend from Mississippi for his considerable contributions to this amendment, and I am very grateful that he was willing to sit down and find--as he put it--a third way and, indeed, I believe, a far better solution. So I thank him for his support.

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

Mr. President, in deciding how to vote on this issue, I would encourage our colleagues to consult the experts, the first responder organizations that overwhelmingly support the Collins- Lieberman-Lott-Carper approach and do not support the amendment that has been proposed by my colleagues from New York and Hawaii.

For example, the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents 270,000 professional firefighters and emergency medical personnel, has endorsed the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-Carper amendment and says this about the alternative approach we have just heard described:

We believe that proposals to return FEMA to its status as

an independent agency would hinder efforts to reform our

nation's emergency response system. Removing FEMA from DHS

would create competing agencies, sowing confusion among

emergency responders. Furthermore, such an approach would

undermine an all-hazards approach, leading to the perception

that DHS deals with terrorism while FEMA is in charge of

natural disasters.

That is what the International Association of Fire Fighters says.

Other groups, such as the Major Cities Chiefs Association, say something very similar; the National Troopers Coalition, the National Association of Police Organizations, Advocates for EMS--the list goes on and on and on. The fact is, those who put their lives on the line, who are on the front lines of emergency response, say it would be a colossal mistake to take FEMA out of DHS, to sever that connection.

Does the Senator from New Hampshire wish for me to yield the floor?

Fifteen minutes.

Mr. President, those who are on the front lines--our police associations, our firefighters associations, the emergency medical personnel organizations--have all endorsed the approach we have suggested. This approach would strengthen FEMA but leave it within the Department of Homeland Security so we can establish a comprehensive all-hazards approach to emergency management.

We do not want to take FEMA out of the Department in the way particularly that Senator Clinton's and Senator Akaka's amendment would entail. I refer my colleagues to page 7 of their amendment, section 612, ``Transfer Of Functions.'' This provision says the functions FEMA has as of the date of enactment should be transferred to the new agency. Well, let me tell you what that means. That means that preparedness would still be separate from response despite the fact that the experts agree that one of the reasons for FEMA's weak performance was the separation of preparedness from response--two sides of the same coin that should be together in one agency. Yet the Clinton-Akaka amendment keeps preparedness within the Department of Homeland Security and only has the response functions going to the new independent agency that they would propose.

Our bill consolidates the grant-making for preparedness--that is billions of dollars of preparedness grants--we would put in the new FEMA. Infrastructure protection, the national communications system, the chief medical officer, the cybersecurity office all would be in this new agency which we call the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. So we are not simply leaving FEMA within the Department of Homeland Security; we are strengthening, reforming, and upgrading FEMA so it can be effective.

I must say, I am at a loss why the proponents of the alternative approach want to take a FEMA that everyone deems is inadequate and has poorly performed, take this shell of an agency that has been stripped of many of its essential functions and cast it adrift by making it an independent agency. That approach makes absolutely no sense at all.

If the problem were FEMA's location, then why did the Coast Guard do such a stellar job in performing in response to Hurricane Katrina? By all accounts, the Coast Guard's preparedness and its response were superb. It pre-positioned its assets, it responded quickly, and it rescued some 35,000 people.

If the problem, in fact, were the location of the agency, then how did the Coast Guard manage to do such a good job? It is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Obviously, that is not the issue.

What we have done in our proposal is give the new emergency management agency the same kinds of protections that the Coast Guard has within DHS. No longer could the agency's mission be altered or its assets stripped away or could it be reorganized. You would have to come to Congress to do that. The issue is how can we best create a

strong emergency management agency. That is the question that our proposal answers. It stresses giving FEMA back the authorities that were stripped away. It emphasizes giving it new authority so that it can be a strong, all-hazards agency. It elevates the stature of the appointees. It requires them to have relevant experience for those positions. It gives it the tools to do the job effectively. It protects it from reorganization. It makes the head of the new agency the principal adviser to the President on emergency management, but it allows it to have all the advantages of being part of the Department of Homeland Security, the advantage of a close relationship with the Coast Guard, a close relationship with the law enforcement agencies that are within DHS.

Taking the weakened version of FEMA and casting it adrift and thinking that somehow that is going to solve the problem flies in the face of the 23 hearings that we held to get to this solution, the 838,000 pages of evidence, the 325 people we interviewed, and the expertise of the first responder community. It would be a terrible mistake.

The Hart-Rudman commission 5 years ago said FEMA is the essential core of DHS, and they are right. If FEMA were pulled out of DHS, DHS would be forced to create a very similar, costly, duplicative agency in order to handle a response to terrorist attacks. It makes no sense to have one agency that deals with natural disasters and another agency within DHS that deals with the response to terrorist attacks. If the levees in New Orleans had been bombed rather than breached, the same challenges of evacuation, sheltering, and caring for individuals would have been present. It makes no sense and will be extremely costly--to the tune of billions of dollars, according to Secretary Chertoff--for us to have to recreate within DHS essential capabilities that DHS will need if FEMA is taken out of the Department.

I am reminded during this debate of a saying by H.L. Mencken that for every problem there is a solution that is neat, plausible, and wrong. Taking FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security is wrong. At first blush it may look like the easy solution. But after looking at this issue for more than 8 months, it is not the solution. I hope our colleagues will listen to the true experts, our first responders and their organizations warning that this would be a disaster, that it would force them and State and local emergency managers to have to deal with two agencies, two sets of regulations, depending on whether or not this was the result of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. That is contrary to the all-hazards approach that the experts have encouraged us to take.

The Homeland Security Council, a very prestigious group of private sector businesses and experts, conducted its own 6-month review of what went wrong with the preparedness and response to Hurricane Katrina. It, too, concluded that DHS preparedness assets and FEMA need to be more closely aligned, not split apart into two separate agencies.

I am going to reserve the remainder of my time. It is my understanding Senator Lautenberg will be speaking on this issue.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, since Senator Lautenberg has not arrived, I am going to continue to expound on why the Collins-Lieberman-Lott- Carper amendment should be agreed to and the Clinton-Akaka amendment should be rejected.

As I look at this issue, I realize that people look back at FEMA with rose-colored glasses. There is this myth of the golden age of FEMA. Indeed, FEMA in the past has had some talented leaders which proves my point that this really is about leadership more than anything. Clearly, Michael Brown was an abysmal failure as FEMA's leader. There is unanimity on that as well. But the fact is, when FEMA was an independent agency, it also experienced severe problems dealing with major disasters.

If you look at the GAO and other reports, and, indeed, the hearing records before the committee I now chair back after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, you could take out the word ``Andrew'' and substitute ``Katrina,'' and you would get exactly the same indictment. In the hearing after Hurricane Andrew, my colleague, Senator Akaka, noted the difficulties that FEMA has had with response to catastrophic disasters. It is those catastrophic disasters, the fact is, that FEMA has never been able to handle, both when it was independent and when it was in

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the approach offered by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman, and Senator Lott, Senator Carper, and myself, and reject the approach offered by Senator Clinton and Senator Akaka.

Senator Clinton said earlier that we are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic but, in fact, that is what her amendment does. It takes the weak FEMA that we have now and moves it outside of the Department with no new personnel, no new function, no new authorities, no new funding, no infrastructure protection responsibilities, no new communications assets, no new medical assets, no new cyber-security assets.

That is exactly contrary to the approach that we have taken. We have built a new FEMA within the Department with strong authorities-- authorities that FEMA has never had--to allow it to respond effectively to a disaster, regardless of its size. We create a new regional structure that will improve the management and the relationship with State and local governments. That is why the first responder groups are all supporting the Collins-Lieberman amendment, and I hope my colleagues will, too.

Mr. President, the Clinton-Akaka amendment does nothing to strengthen FEMA. It takes a weak FEMA and casts it adrift as an independent agency. It is not the answer. My colleagues, you have just voted for the right reform. I urge opposition to the Clinton amendment, as do all the first responder groups.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Chairman Collins, for an excellent introductory statement and to say, once again, how much I am honored and pleased to work with her as the ranking Democrat on our homeland security committee, and how pleased I am to join with her today and with Senators Carper and Lott to introduce this amendment to make FEMA into an agency capable of responding swiftly and effectively to the most serious disasters, whether a hurricane the size and scope of Katrina, a natural disaster the likes of which we see more routinely, or a terrorist attack which, of course, our enemies hope will be even more devastating than the attacks of September 11 and for which we must be perpetually on the defensive and prepared.

This amendment would literally reinvent FEMA to give our Federal emergency preparedness and response experts the authority, the capabilities, the resources, and the integration with State and local officials needed to avoid the confused, uncoordinated, and ultimately ineffective response that the Nation and the world witnessed last August when Katrina made landfall. It would strengthen emergency preparedness and response within the Homeland Security Department which this Congress created a short time ago to prevent, prepare for, and ultimately respond to all kinds of disasters.

In doing so, this amendment would create a truly national system of emergency management that will be able to draw on the Nation's vast resources for a cohesive and complete local, State, and Federal response.

Mr. President, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee spent 7 months in 2005 and 2006 investigating the botched Government response to that catastrophic hurricane. We found all levels of our Government were ill-equipped to deal with the massive human suffering all along the gulf coast that followed that terrible storm's landfall, suffering that shocked, angered, and embarrassed the American people who expect more support from their Government for fellow Americans in need.

These failings were caused by negligence in some cases, by a lack of resources in other cases, by a lack of capabilities in some cases, but most of all by a lack of leadership and preparation that comes with leadership from the very top to the very bottom.

We cannot legislate leadership, although as Senator Collins said, we can at least require the kind of experience in the people who will lead America's emergency management effort that would make it more likely they would be leaders, and we can legislate changes in Government structures to make them more sensible and better suited to protect people in times of disaster.

The homeland security committee's report had merit because we told the story of what happened and didn't happen, of the clear warnings that such a hurricane would one day strike the gulf coast, and the clear predictions that we were not ready. In telling the story, right through the weekend before landfall and then the days following the disaster itself, I believe the committee, on a truly bipartisan basis, made a contribution. Because sometimes just telling the truth and putting it before those in positions of responsibility is one of the great curatives, one of the great sources of reform. But the committee went beyond just telling the story and offered a number of recommendations about what was needed to improve our preparations, response, and recovery.

Chairman Collins and I will soon introduce broader legislation to encompass all of our committee report's recommendations. These include changes to the Stafford Act to address the different kinds of assistance that are needed in response to catastrophic events rather than ``ordinary'' disasters; provisions to ensure that communications systems can work--and that first responders can talk to each other-- even in devastating disasters; requirements for the national planning for disasters and catastrophes that FEMA was never able to fully accomplish; and steps to ensure that USEMA has the kind of robust and capable workforce it needs to success. All of these are crucial pieces of the effort to remake our nations emergency response and recovery capabilities.

But we begin today with the foundation, the most important recommendation we made, which is to rejoin the functions of disaster response with disaster preparedness within a new agency, a reinvented FEMA, which we will call USEMA, the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. It would be at the very core of the Department of Homeland Security, just as FEMA was originally intended to be when we proposed the new department in 2002 based on the recommendations of the Hart- Rudman Commission the previous year.

How could one have a Department of Homeland Security, which is aimed at preparing for and responding to disasters, including terrorist attacks, without the Federal agency that is primarily responsible for emergency management? It makes no sense. Our investigation of what went wrong during Hurricane Katrina made it clear that part of the problem was caused by separate and uncoordinated Federal preparedness and response functions within the Department of Homeland Security.

In the years before Katrina, FEMA, the agency charged with coordinating our Nation's response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters, too often was out of the loop when critical decisions about how to prepare were being made. It had no say in how to spend billions of dollars in preparedness grants. Training exercises were designed and held without serious input by FEMA. Relationships with State and local officials on the front lines were not fully developed and sometimes were nonexistent. So FEMA's ability to respond was crippled because it was not working hand in glove with those making preparations for responding to disaster.

Our amendment, first and foremost, therefore, will ensure that our preparedness efforts are inseparable from the capabilities needed to respond. As Chairman Collins has said, preparation and response are two sides of the same coin. And the coin, which is the coin of America's emergency management in times of disaster, is stronger if those two sides are together.

USEMA will provide the resources and it will have the ability and the responsibility to plan and train with State and local emergency management officials, just as it will have the responsibility to coordinate with them at the time of a disaster.

Where FEMA has often struggled to cope with normal hurricanes, the mission of the new Authority will be to partner with State and local governments, other Federal agencies, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations to build a national system of emergency management that can respond effectively to catastrophic incident.

Where FEMA has been slow to respond and too often reactive, the new Authority will be charged with developing a Federal response capability that can and will act rapidly and proactively when necessary to deliver assistance essential to saving lives in a disaster.

Where FEMA has not been fully integrated with DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, the new Authority will be charged with coordinating with key agencies in the Department also involved in emergency management, also on the front lines at a time of disaster, such as the Coast Guard.

Our amendment would also give the new Authority special status within the Department--the same status the Coast Guard and the Secret Service now have. With that status, changes to the agency's functions and its assets could only be made by congressional statute, not by executive action. That is a way of protecting the strength we intend to give this new authority.

We would also insist in this legislation that the administrator and other key agency officials have the necessary experience and qualifications for the job. In other words, USEMA will not be plagued by unqualified appointees, as FEMA has been in the past.

Chairman Collins and I also envision a new agency with robust regional offices which would focus on coordination of preparedness and response with local and State agencies. Let's take the focus away from Washington and place it where it belongs, where the real work of preparedness is done, on the front lines, in the States and in the municipalities. This will guarantee that Federal officials are familiar with regional and local threats and know their counterparts at the State and local levels. Different parts of the country face different natural disaster prospects. Unfortunately, most every part of the country is vulnerable today to terrorist attack. This regional approach will help ensure that officials are not exchanging business cards on the day the disaster strikes, that the local, State, and Federal officials are not meeting on the day or the day before the disaster or the day after the disaster.

I know some of my colleagues in the Senate believe FEMA should be removed from the Department of Homeland Security and given independent status. Bu Senator Collins and I, after our extensive investigation, have concluded that is not the solution to the problems we saw in response to Hurricane Katrina, but instead would compound the problems. It would be a serious mistake to separate FEMA out of the Department. Even when it was independent, FEMA never developed the capacity to respond to a catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina. So returning it to independent status, as if those were the golden days of yore, is not based on fact, and it will in no way solve the problems we saw in response to Katrina and that we face today. In fact, it will make solutions and, I would say, preparations and responses to disaster far more difficult.

Removing the agency from the Department would only create additional problems, duplications, and disconnectedness. The Department of Homeland Security, containing other emergency response agencies, such as the Coast Guard, and other components, would begin to rebuild the functions of FEMA in the Department, even though it was independent. FEMA--independent, out of the Department--would duplicate activities and functions that are in the Department resulting in a waste of money, bureaucratic inefficiencies and a lack of coordination that would not only put us at risk of repeating the inadequate response we saw to Hurricane Katrina last year but of making it even worse.

To cope with a catastrophe, the Government's chief preparations and response agency must have access to the vast resources of the Department of Homeland Security, and it needs to work seamlessly with other agencies that have critical roles to play during a catastrophe. Those working relationships are going to be much easier and more real if officials know one another and if agencies have a history with each other and, of course, if everyone ultimately serves the same Secretary of Homeland Security.

The grievous conditions of gulf coast communities in the week after Katrina's landfall embarrassed us before the world and, quite appropriately, angered us because we know that America can do better. But the gulf coast and the force of Katrina are not isolated examples. Other American communities and regions are similarly vulnerable today-- whether to a natural disaster or terrorist attack. We also know significant flaws in the Nation's readiness remain. Another response like the one we saw during Katrina is simply not an option.

Our proposal is not about rearranging bureaucratic boxes. We have studied past failings and carefully considered how to improve our performance, the Federal Government performance, the next time. We have been driven by that singular goal. We have not had any thoughts in mind of protecting the status quo or favoring one bureaucratic entity over another. We have tried to come up with a recommendation that will put America's Government in the best position to protect America's people the next time disaster strikes. We are driven by the imperative to save people's lives, like the lives lost during Hurricane Katrina.

The changes embodied in this amendment, I am convinced, promise a strong response, if enacted, the next time disaster strikes. So I ask my colleagues for their support of this amendment.

I thank Senator Collins for her leadership and express once again my pleasure at the opportunity to work with her and in this instance to be joined by Senator Lott and Senator Carper in a truly bipartisan national-interest homeland security amendment.

I would just say amen to everything Senator Collins has said, but I will speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to quite literally say amen to everything Senator Collins has said on behalf of our amendment and in respectful opposition to the amendment that Senator Clinton has proposed.

We had a disaster, a catastrophe last year in Hurricane Katrina that was natural, and then we had a manmade disaster which was the shockingly inadequate response of the Federal, State, and local governments to that catastrophe that was called Katrina. So our committee spent months investigating, told the story, and considered what we could do to make sure nothing like the Federal Government's inadequate, incompetent reaction and response ever occurred again.

We considered the responsibility that some have raised of taking FEMA, or a replacement agency such as we are proposing, out of the Department and making it independent again. But it made no sense to us. If you have a Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to be our major Department to prepare for and respond to disasters, natural and manmade, then why would we want to take the emergency management agency, which is all about responding to disasters, natural and terrorist, out of that Department? It would be, as I said at one of our hearings, like taking the U.S. Army out of the Department of Defense because you were not happy with the management of the U.S. Army, so you take it out. Or you had memories that there used to be a Chief of the Army who was good in a different time way back when it was independent, and you make it independent. It makes no sense. It is inefficient. I am afraid it would compromise the ability of our Government to prepare for and respond to another disaster.

In some ways, this is a comparison between James Lee Witt and Michael Brown. I will be real specific about it. I am happy to say in public that James Lee Witt did a great job, and Michael Brown did not, particularly in Katrina. That shouldn't lead us to think that going back to the time when FEMA was independent and James Lee Witt was the Director would solve all of our problems.

FEMA, under James Lee Witt, as good as he was--and he was very good-- never faced a catastrophe such as Katrina. We heard testimony to this effect from people in the Department, from inspectors general, from outside authorities that FEMA never, no matter how good James Lee Witt was, could have independently given an adequate response to a catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina or, God forbid, a catastrophe such as a significant terrorist attack. That is why we kept FEMA, our new USEMA, in the Department of Homeland Security.

We have strengthened it considerably. Senator Lott, who was an initial cosponsor of the amendment to take FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security, is now with us on keeping it in the Department because we made some significant changes. We gave the U.S. Emergency Management Agency that we would create, USEMA, the special legal status that only the Coast Guard and Secret Service have within the Department of Homeland Security. That means it cannot be changed except by statute. No executive action can change its status.

We also made clear that during a time of crisis, though the head of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority normally reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security, that person reports directly to the President of the United States.

I happen to have joined with Senator Specter, my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania, in introducing the original legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. We did it a month or two after 9/ 11 because we felt we had entered a new age. We had been attacked here at home, innocent citizens were killed by terrorists, and we needed a whole new structure to prepare to defend the American people against similar attacks in the future--our enemies are still obviously out there--and to respond to those attacks.

We built our proposal on the work of an independent commission headed by our former colleagues Warren Rudman and Gary Hart. They said loudly and clearly that FEMA must be the heart of this new Department if it is to adequately protect the American people from disaster or terrorism.

It would be a profound mistake to take it out. That is why I urge my colleagues to support the amendment that Senator Collins and I are offering with Senator Carper and Senator Lott, and to oppose the amendment of Senator Clinton.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I saw Senator Lautenberg come into the Chamber. I do not see him now, so I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I was just saying as I came in, I saw these young pages here--I have been around here quite a long time, but I haven't gotten used to these. Our country has put a man on the Moon and brought him back to Earth again, but it hasn't yet perfected a really good public address system. A Senator such as myself is not used to the public address system and has to learn how to use the ones we have.

As I was saying, I said the person who really introduced court reporting in the Roman Senate was Cicero, which I will discuss at another time.

Amendment No. 4557

Madam President, when the President sent his budget to the Congress in February, it was based on a false premise. The President's budget assumed that the Appropriations Committees would raise the aviation fees on airline passengers by $1.23 billion. The President and his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were aware that the Congress would not approve this tax increase on airline passengers because the administration tried a similar proposal last year, and the Congress responded with a bipartisan no. Thus, the President's budget is kind of a hollow one--h-o-l-l-o-w, hollow. It leaves a gaping $1.23 billion hole in the homeland security budget.

The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran, provided the subcommittee with some additional resources, but the fact remains that this bill is still $515 million below the President's request and $350 million lower than the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last month.

The amendment I am offering today attempts to rectify this discrepancy. My amendment provides an additional $350 million for border security infrastructure enhancements, and it is fully paid for.

I am pleased that the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Gregg, is working with me on this amendment. As we continue to hire more Border Patrol agents and other immigration enforcement officials, we need to give them the tools they need to do their job, and we need to start paying for those tools now so they will be available as more and more Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officials are hired and trained.

The Border Patrol needs new helicopters because the average age of its helicopters is nearly 40 years. The average age of our Customs primary fixed-wing aircraft is 30 years. All of our border enforcement officials, including the newly hired officials, need more vehicles, including all-terrain vehicles, high endurance vehicles, and even more buses to transport and remove illegal aliens.

Customs and Border Protection has a requirement for 18 unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. The Senate-passed immigration bill authorizes more UAVs. Yet the only one we had operating on our border crashed in the desert this past spring.

The amendment I am offering provides real dollars for our aging border infrastructure. It provides $90 million for additional fencing, tactical border infrastructure, and facilities. It provides $105 million for air and marine items, such as new helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, the standing up of all planned northern border air wings, and the facilities to house and maintain these aircraft. It provides $55 million for replacement vehicles for our border and immigration personnel, and it also provides $15 million for the ongoing Information Technology Modernization Program at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The President's budget requested $47 million in direct appropriations for the Business Transformation Program at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Because of the hollowness of the President's budget submission, these funds were not included in the bill reported out of committee. The program is a multiyear effort to modernize immigration benefits services.

So this amendment will help to reduce the rate of fraud in the program and to ensure the security and the integrity of the immigration system. This amendment provides the $47 million requested by the President for this program.

Finally, my amendment adds $38 million for fraud detection and national security activities at USCIS. This $38 million will add 100 new positions to enable FDNS to conduct benefit fraud assessments of additional immigration benefits, including training efforts necessary to further enhance the background checking process. We must have the technology and trained personnel in place now if we are to ensure that only those individuals who are legally allowed to be in this country are obtaining benefits and other privileges.

How is the amendment paid for? The amendment is fully paid for through increases in existing fees on non-U.S. citizens.

Border security in this country must be more than just a political slogan in this campaign year. Do you know this is a campaign year? I do. I am running. Border security must be one of the Nation's top priorities. The people out there watching through those lenses will agree with that. Border security must be one of this Nation's top priorities.

The United States is on track to hire over 6,500 new Border Patrol agents and immigration enforcement officers. But what happens once they are on the job? Do we send them to the border without weapons, without radios, without trucks and Jeeps? Without this amendment, without these resources, we will be telling our Border Patrol agents in essence to stem the tide of illegal immigration with little more than a polite smile--little more than a polite smile. Asking illegal immigrants to please turn around just won't cut it. Our Border Patrol must have the law enforcement resources to get the job done.

If we are truly serious about securing our borders--and not just engaging in hollow rhetoric--then we will put real dollars on the border. I commend my chairman, Senator Gregg, for his support, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I thank my chairman for his support. I ask unanimous consent that further consideration of the amendment be waived.

Mr. President, the President of the United States, in his January State of the Union Address, told America: ``The enemy has not lost the desire or the capability to attack us.'' He was right. I am sure the President is correct about that. But some of the speech writers and policy writers for the administration seem to be living in alternative worlds.

After the administration's decision to allow Dubai Ports World to operate terminals in six major U.S. ports, the administration asserted that it has a robust, layered security system for our ports. Yet the White House has proposed for the second straight year now to eliminate the Port Security Grant Program.

How serious is the administration about port security when it decides to allow Dubai Ports World to control six major U.S. ports? How serious is the administration when it underfunds port security? How serious are they about port security when Customs and Border Protection inspects only 5 percent of the 11 million containers that come into the country each year? How serious is the administration about port security when the Coast Guard inspects only one-third of the foreign ports that trade with our country? How serious is the administration when the Coast Guard Deepwater budget for replacing its ships, planes, and helicopters will not be completed until 2026? How old will I be then, in 2026? Well, it really doesn't matter. That is 20 years away.

How serious are they when it takes over 11 months to make grant funds available to ports for needed security measures?

My amendment would provide $648 million to fill critical gaps in our paper-thin--paper-thin--do you see how thin this paper is--our paper- thin port security programs. The amendment would provide resources for more container inspection equipment and personnel, more port inspections, more Coast Guard ships, more Coast Guard planes that are essential to securing our borders, and more port security grants.

Currently, only 5 percent of all of the cargo containers entering the United States are physically inspected by opening the containers. Now, this is paper-thin security. My amendment would fund 60 more cargo container imaging machines at our seaports and rail border crossings that can view inside a container. It will also fund the hiring of 354 additional Customs and Border Protection officers to inspect these containers and address anomalies in cargo containers that may be triggered by the radiation portal monitors deployed at the ports.

Currently, the Coast Guard has only 82 inspectors to conduct facility investment compliance at domestic ports and 34 inspectors to review security plans at foreign ports. Of the 144 countries that conduct maritime trade with our country, the Coast Guard has assessed security at only 51. At the current rate of inspections, Coast Guard inspectors will visit countries that trade with the United States only once every 4 years. Now, this is paper-thin security.

Under my amendment, the Coast Guard would complete the assessment of all 144 countries every 2 years. My amendment would also provide the Coast Guard with funding to conduct random spot checks of all domestic port facilities and assess the vulnerability of our most strategic ports here at home.

Domestically, the Coast Guard inspects the 3,064 U.S. facilities that are subject to the Maritime Transportation Security Act regulations just once per year. The Coast Guard has no funding to conduct random spot checks of these facilities. My amendment includes funding for approximately 80 new positions to establish a robust spot check program at each Coast Guard sector office, an important element in any enforcement regime, wouldn't you think so?

The Coast Guard has completed vulnerability assessments at 55 militarily and economically strategic ports. Currently, no funding is available to update these assessments which were completed 2 years ago. But my amendment would allow the Coast Guard to reassess the vulnerability of approximately 10 ports.

The condition of Coast Guard ships and planes is declining rapidly. These assets spend more and more time out of service. For example, total patrol boat hours in 2004 were 25 percent lower than in 1998. Current Coast Guard maritime patrol airplanes can only provide half of the hours required to meet operational commitments. At the same time, funding constraints require maintenance on these aging assets to be deferred more and more every year.

My amendment provides $184 million for the Coast Guard to buy new patrol boats, maintain existing cutters, buy new maritime patrol aircraft, and arm its helicopters for homeland defense in U.S. ports and harbors.

Coast Guard Patrol boats are operating in theater less today than they were in 1998. Total boat hours were only 75,000 in 2004, compared to the 1998 baseline of approximately 100,000 hours. The decline in operational hours has been the result of aging assets and the loss of 8 patrol boats deployed to the Middle East for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Under the Coast Guard's Deepwater modernization plan, this gap won't be closed until 2012 at the earliest. Funding in my amendment would enable the Coast Guard to purchase 2 additional patrol boats for a total of 5 in fiscal year 2007. This will provide the Coast Guard with 6,000 desperately needed Deepwater patrol boat hours in drug and migrant transit zones.

Finally, my amendment includes $190 million for port security grants, which would bring fiscal year 2007 funding to $400 million. The Coast Guard estimates that $5.4 billion is needed

through 2012 for security at our ports. To date, only 15 percent of that amount has been funded despite the fact that United States ports handle over 95 percent of U.S. overseas trade. Last year, Homeland Security was able to fund only 24 percent of the projects requested. This is paper-thin security.

I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the American Association of Port Authorities supporting the amendment be printed in the Record.

The White House knew, when it sent the budget to the Congress, that the funding relied on a tax hike on air travelers--a tax hike the Congress had already rejected. The Appropriations committees lack jurisdiction to increase the aviation passenger tax, and, of course could not do so in this bill. As a result, despite Chairman Gregg's best efforts, the bill that is before the Senate does not provide the necessary resources for port security. My amendment addresses that shortfall.

Just 2 months ago, the Senate approved my $648 million port security amendment to the supplemental. Regrettably, the President threatened to veto the supplemental unless what he characterized as low-priority spending was dropped from the bill. In conference, port security funding was stricken from the supplemental. I hope that the Senate will approve this port security amendment again and that this time, it survives in conference.

The amendment is within the allocation available to the subcommittee for fiscal year 2006.

The American people expect more than just a paper-thin security plan for our ports. I thank Chairman Gregg for his support.

I thank my illustrious chairman, Senator Gregg, for his support, and I urge the adoption of my amendment.

Exhibit 1

American Association

of Port Authorities,

Alexandria, VA, July 10, 2006.

To: All Members of the United States Senate.

From: Kurt Nagle, President and CEO, American Association of

Port Authorities.

Subj: Support Port Security Amendment on the Senate Floor.

As a member of the United States Senate, I am writing to

urge you to support an amendment to the Department of

Homeland Security's (DHS) FY '07 appropriations bill being

offered tomorrow by Senator Byrd to increase funding for port

security. This amendment represents a critical opportunity to

make port security a higher priority for this nation. The

American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) represents

the leading public ports in the U.S., handling most of the

maritime cargo imported or exported from this country. We

strongly endorse this amendment to provide an additional $635

million to enhance port security by providing: an increase in

port security grants, additional port security inspectors at

foreign and domestic ports, additional cargo container

inspection equipment, and improved maritime security through

expedited purchase of Coast Guard planes and boats.

Earlier this year, Congress and this nation focused its

attention on the P&O Ports/Dubai Ports World transaction,

which resulted in a nationwide debate on port security and

calls for more security funding for this critical

transportation asset. In response, the Senate and the House

began working on legislation to strengthen maritime security.

The Senate Greenlane Maritime Security Act (S. 2459--Collins/

Murray) and the House SAFE Ports Act (H.R. 4954--Lungren/

Harman) both call for significantly more funding for port

security. The Senate-based emergency supplemental followed

the recommendations in these bills, but much of the port

security funding was eliminated due to concerns over the

total spending level for the bill.

Senator Byrd's amendment is aimed at once again adopting

the funding levels in the House and Senate bills and making

port security a high priority for this country. AAPA is

especially interested in properly funding the Port Security

Grant program. The Byrd amendment would bring the funding

level up to $400 million for the year. This would help pay

for the very costly new regulations DHS has proposed

following the Dubai Ports controversy to require all maritime

workers and facilities to comply with new Transportation

Worker Identification Credential or TWIC requirements. DHS

estimates that 40 percent of the $1 billion cost of this

regulation will fall on port facilities. By supporting this

amendment, Congress will provide federal funds critical to

help co-fund this new mandate.

With 99% of our international cargo by volume flowing

through ports, we urge you to show the nation that port

security is a priority in Congress by voting ``yes'' on this

port security amendment tomorrow.

Mr. President, I ask that my amendment be called up and the clerk state it for the consideration of the Senate.

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

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

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the pending amendment?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside and we return to debate on amendment No. 4560 by Senator Collins.

I am asking that the pending amendment be set aside to return to debate on amendment No. 4560.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join in the support of amendment No. 4560 to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. I thank Senator Collins for her leadership in this area and for her willingness to work on a solution that I think will be good for the Federal Emergency Management Administration, as it is now known, in the Department of Homeland Security, and result in a better effort by the successor to FEMA in the future.

Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the support of my colleagues in the Senate as we have gone through the aftermath of Katrina and we have come to the floor three or four times asking for help in a variety of areas to help us with the recovery, to get funds for the different Federal agencies, to get funds even to the Federal Emergency Management Administration to help us recover. A lot of progress has been made. I want to acknowledge that.

In 3 years or 5 years, we are going to look back and say that the aid we received from the Federal Government was absolutely indispensable and allowed us to get through this very difficult process.

In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, there were wonderful stories that could be told about the actions of the Coast Guard specifically, let me point out, and by other military installations, faith-based groups, volunteer groups, charitable organizations, by corporate America that sent aid, supplies, money, people. The utilities worked laboriously to get power back on and telephones operative. It was a monumental undertaking.

For those who want to be critical of the recovery effort--and I am one of those--you have to first acknowledge that this was a devastating disaster of Biblical proportions, more than any of us could have comprehended, more than any of us who lived in the line of fire from Hurricane Katrina understood even in the immediate aftermath, including me.

I was there in the immediate aftermath. We lost our house. We are like everybody else along the coastline of Mississippi and Louisiana. It is a very difficult experience. But our people have been resilient, they have been determined, and we are making progress.

We did get through the preparations for the hurricane, saving lives immediately after, getting basics to people who needed them--just basic water and ice. We have gotten almost all of the debris removed, except in some of the swamp and water canals and channels that still has to be removed. We are seeing rebuilding start. Just yesterday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released $3 billion for the home grants through CDBG so that people who lost their home, had no insurance, and had a mortgage and probably lost their job and their car, their truck, or their dog will have some way to get up to $150,000 to get their homes repaired or rebuilt. So we have made a lot of progress.

I think it is time that we look even more to the future: How are we going to get through the rebuilding period? We are working with elevations, heights that FEMA is requiring; we are dealing with small business loans, all that goes on with the rebuilding effort.

But I am worried about the next disaster. There were some very disappointing results at FEMA. And I want to hasten to say that FEMA, which became a dirty, four-letter word, has a lot of good people in it and has done a lot of really good things, but it could have been and it should have been better. And what troubles me so much, as a Congressman and Senator and even before that as a staff member--I have dealt with the recovery effort after five hurricanes, two major tornadoes, two major ice storms, and a flood. I have dealt with disasters. I have dealt with the emergency arm of the Federal Government, going back to 1969 after Hurricane Camille, when the disaster effort and recovery was carried out by the Office of Emergency Preparedness, OEP. Its offices are right across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, run by a general, a retired Army general, and reportable only to the President of the United States.

They did a marvelous job after Hurricane Camille. The chain of command was short. In those days, the Corps of Engineers brought in the heavy equipment, the trucks, the bulldozers, the front-end loaders, the Bobcats. They cleaned up the debris. Now you have to go through Treasury, a check goes to FEMA, FEMA goes to the Corps, the Corps of Engineers goes to the contractor--out of State probably--and the contractor goes to subcontractors, to sub-subcontractors and, meanwhile, a lot of money is frittered away as everybody takes their bite, on down the line.

Of course, one of the most difficult things was getting the trailers, the temporary housing to people in the area. The logistics of getting trailers is not a big problem, but getting them to the people turned out to be a huge problem. The insanity of how it was managed was inexplicable. I won't go through how difficult it was.

We are still dealing with that. We still have some people who are living in tents because FEMA said: We won't deliver you a trailer if you are in a flood zone. If that is all the property you have--you could bring a trailer into a flood zone, and if you had to, you could hitch it up and pull it out. But people are still living in very difficult circumstances.

I believe we made a mistake when we were creating this huge, new, mammoth Department of Homeland Security where we put all of these different entities, agencies, and bureaus into that agency that wound up having 150,000 or more people in it.

I remember when we were discussing creating this Department of Homeland Security in an office right down the hall. Senator Stevens and Senator Collins and some of us raised questions about how the Coast Guard was going to be handled, and we wound up carving out a special arrangement for the Coast Guard. I won't get into the details of it at this moment. But I raised questions about FEMA, too: Are we sure we want to put our emergency management organization into this big, mammoth department and maybe become overrun by homeland security and terrorism? And the answer was: Oh, absolutely. They need to coordinate manmade disasters, natural disasters, disaster preparation, disaster recovery; it needs to be seamless and they all need to be operating under the same authority.

Well, I relented. I think it was a mistake. I think the emergency management organization has a unique responsibility in preparation for disasters. Yes, they can be manmade as well as natural disasters, but also in the recovery. But I think the chain of command was out of control. The number of officials who were meeting in a room, they would fill up the room and identify all the problems: Oh, we have a flood main broken here. We have schools where the wall is falling in. We have debris in the road. They would get through with the meeting, everybody would leave, and somebody would say: Did anybody get any assignments? Did they agree to do anything? No.

The people that did do something, though, were in the Coast Guard. They helped move people out before the hurricane, rescued people during and after the hurricane, and generally did a magnificent job. Do you know why? Because they had this carved-out, unique position, even though they were in the Department of Homeland Security. They didn't have to go through the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to do what was necessary.

Another example was the Seabees at Gulfport, MS. When they went to these meetings with all of these muckety-mucks, all of these different agency heads, to hear the problems and do nothing about it, the Seabees would make lists of things they could do and they went out and did it. They went out and stopped the leaky water main. They went and removed the debris so you could get into a neighborhood. They went to the school and they took action to tear down or repair or fix a wall so it would at least be safe for their children. You know what. They just did it.

By the way, they could have gotten in trouble because if FEMA hadn't agreed to reimbursement, they would have had to eat the cost of what they did, and some captain in the Seabees could have been in real jeopardy. But, thank goodness, they worked through it. They got reimbursed and did well.

So I think that is part of the problem. I asked the Seabees: Why were you able to do that?

They said: Well, the chain of command was so long and laborious, we decided we would find the things we could do and we would just go out and do it.

FEMA, I think, meanwhile, had been sort of pushed back into the back 40 part of Homeland Security. They had been underfunded, undermanned, and had not been really getting the involvement and the attention they needed. Plus, I was shocked one time when I heard the Secretary of Homeland Security complaining that the head of FEMA was going around him directly to the President. Yes, he should have. You shouldn't have the emergency management and recovery people having to check with the Assistant Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Secretary, the Chief of Staff, the OMB, to get to the President. This is an emergency. It is a disaster, for heaven's sake. So I don't think it worked well.

I don't blame a lot of the good men and women at FEMA; I blame us. We did it. We created a system that didn't work.

So I introduced legislation to move FEMA, like its predecessors, back into a role as an independent agency with specific authorities for natural disasters, reporting only to the President. I was joined in sponsoring that legislation by the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, who knows something about how the predecessor to FEMA worked under its Administrator at the time, James Lee Witt, who also had a little experience with disasters, although the ones he dealt with on 9/11, as the Senator from New York knows, were manmade. Others joined in cosponsoring that legislation.

I still believe that is the best way to go. I think it should be independent.

In the House, you have two separate approaches. You have the independent approach and you have the approach that would keep it locked in Homeland Security. But it seemed to me that there was a third way. There is always a third way, if you will just look for it. I think that is one of the things we have lost in this institution. We get locked into the Republican position, the Democratic position, or some other division, and then we won't talk to each other.

So Senator Collins, to her credit, on her own initiative, said: Can I come talk to you about the proposal that Senator Lieberman and I have, which was to keep it in the Department of Homeland Security, with some changes, and some recommendations I thought would have been positive but still was not the solution I thought we needed. But she came and took the time to explain it to me. It had some attractive features to it. She gave it more authority.

But then I thought about it for a while and I went back to her and I said: Let's find this third way. I think maybe the thing to do is to carve FEMA out into a position like the Coast Guard but within the Department of Homeland Security but with an independent authority, the ability to report directly to the President of the United States. Yes, they could be involved in coordinating and in the preparation for disasters of all kinds, but set them up basically independent within the Department of Homeland Security.

I think it will work. An example is the Coast Guard. So much of the language that we have in this amendment came from the Coast Guard language. I know Senator Collins has taken the time to explain the details of what is proposed here, and I am painting a broader picture of what is involved. But we were able to come to an agreement. Her staff was cooperative. My staff, which has had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, worked with them, and we came to an agreement. By the way, I then went to Senator Clinton and said: I think we can get something done if we do this, rather than just having a big fight. Do you want a big fight or do you want a result? The new hurricane season is upon us.

Now, the media made it sound like on June 8, or whatever the date was that hurricane season begins, we would get hit immediately. Well, those of us who are hurricane pros know that hurricanes generally don't hit in June and July, but they will come in August and September, and this time it may not be Mississippi or Florida; it may be Maine. But it will come somewhere. I don't want to be sitting around here complaining about what it was like because FEMA did not have the authority they needed, didn't have the money, didn't have the power they needed 6 months or a year from now. So we needed to get something done.

Senator Clinton understood what I was trying to do. It is part of the way I think we need to do things around here. It is part of being honorable with each other. She had been a cosponsor. I thought I should explain what I was working on doing. So we came to the agreement that has been produced with this amendment. I think it makes good sense. I think the House will find some wisdom in it, and the most important thing is we will get something done.

It is so difficult to move something through the Senate anymore. Do you think we could really move a whole new, freestanding bill through the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, get it to the floor of the Senate, all kinds of amendments--and let me tell you, I would be one of the ones waiting here with lots of amendments. I have lots of other things stuck in my craw about the hurricanes that I am worried about for the future--or could we go with an amendment, which seems appropriate to me, to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, get it to the House, get their input, and get a result. Even then, it won't be perfect, but I believe it will be better. This is something we should do.

I will be coming back, until the last day I serve in this institution--whenever that may be--to talk to my colleagues about lessons we learned and things we can do that will hopefully help our people be more secure; that will help people who will be hit with other kinds of disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes, crickets, or whatever, but we will do it better because of what we learned from Hurricane Katrina.

So I am delighted to be here to support this amendment. In a perfect world I might do it differently, or I might still insist that it can be a separate entity. The amendment even proposes that it be renamed the Emergency Management Administration, I believe--EMA. It is something we can say, and it is not a four-letter word. I think while that is not going to cure a single problem, it is part of creating a new atmosphere and a different mindset, hopefully.

I think the Administrator of FEMA that we have in place now, Mr. Paulson, is a good man. I think he is going to move toward trying to get professional disaster-experienced people in FEMA throughout this country, and I certainly hope he will.

So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and then support this appropriations bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from Hawaii, who has been a strong voice on behalf of our Nation's security and joins with me in putting before the Senate one of the most important issues we face: How will we manage our emergency preparedness and response?

I have the greatest respect and regard for my colleagues, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman. They have done an extraordinary job in leading a committee that has had so much responsibility over the last months for the well-being and the homeland security of our Nation. I respectfully disagree with the solution they are putting forth, but I know it comes after not only many hearings but incredible thought and extraordinary attention to the details about how best to rescue the situation in which we find ourselves.

We had a functioning, effective Federal Emergency Management Agency 5\1/2\ years ago. By all accounts, on all sides of the political spectrum, we had a crown jewel, an agency where performance was highly regarded not only in our own country but literally around the world. Unfortunately, that agency became a victim of the governing philosophy of the current administration.

We have seen, in stark terms, the failures of the existing Federal Emergency Management Agency, so-called FEMA. We saw it in the disastrous failures in the days and weeks, continuing until this day, along our gulf coast when people lost everything--their homes, their neighborhoods, their churches, even their loved ones. Our Nation lost something precious as well: we lost faith in our Federal Government and in the response capabilities of the organization that until 5\1/2\ years ago we could count on.

When we created the Department of Homeland Security after September 11, I warned, along with others, that moving FEMA into that large bureaucracy was a mistake. I said that on the basis of what I thought was the mission of the Department of Homeland Security, which was, first and foremost, to deal with the potential for terrorism and to deter and prevent terrorist attacks like the horrific attacks of September 11.

The decision was made to move FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security, and my worst fears came true. It became a stepchild. It became a holding pen for political cronies. It was no longer viewed as the crown jewel of the Federal Government but as a stepchild that did not really deserve the attention and the resources of this administration. Our worst fears about what would happen to FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security came true when we saw the images on television coming out of New Orleans and up and down the gulf coast.

I applaud Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman for the extraordinarily thorough investigation they did. We got even more sickening detail of e-mails from FEMA officials at the time the disaster struck, what their concerns were--which were hardly focused on saving the people who were suffering. We have seen thousands of people displaced. We see 10,000 mobile homes sitting empty at the Hope, AR, Municipal Airport, and on and on. We have a GAO report that says there may have been up to $1 billion--yes, that is billion with a ``b''--$1 billion in Federal assistance that has been misspent.

It is not only the facts about Katrina that bring me to urge we restore FEMA to an independent status, give it back Cabinet-level access, make it independent of the behemoth that the bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security has become, but it is also my worry about the future.

Hurricane Katrina was a foreseen disaster. We watched it on the Weather Channel. We saw it coming across the gulf. It was not a sneak attack by suicide bombers in airplanes, it was a huge storm. I worry, as incompetent as FEMA has become, how would they handle the unforeseen?

It is tragic to me that we have come to this position, and I think the new leadership at FEMA is laboring mightily to try to turn the situation around. But I worry it will be impossible, if FEMA stays within the Department of Homeland Security. If it stays within the Department and is renamed and reconfigured, I do not think that eliminates the primary problem, which is that it is stuck in a department with a focus and mission that cannot help but be to try to prevent and deter terrorist attacks. Believe me, I am all for that. We are about to come up on the fifth anniversary year of the attacks of 9/ 11.

Although I really respect what Senators Collins and Lieberman are trying to do, I think they are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They are stuck with the Department of Homeland Security, and so they are trying to figure out a way to shoehorn it in, to detour around the dysfunctional organization and leadership that the Department has. And I do not think that will work.

The amendment Senator Akaka and I and others have offered would do three things: first, reinstitute FEMA as an independent Cabinet-level agency; second, require the Director and Deputy Director to have the appropriate emergency service qualifications; and third, require the FEMA Director to report directly to the President of the United States.

During Katrina, who was in charge? Was it our President? Was it the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security? Was it the FEMA Director? I do not know who it was. And one of the problems is that no one was. If we just sort of move the deck chairs on the Titanic, I do not think that solves the problem.

FEMA's response capabilities have been degraded since Katrina even, because people are not there. They are not able to have the same sense of morale and commitment. When you look at all the reports that have been done--one from the White House, one from the Senate, one from the House, as well as the various reports from the Government Accountability Office--you can see all of the things that went wrong. Unfortunately, these reports have not been coordinated, and it is very difficult to figure out how we are going to get ourselves back on the right track with a functioning world-class FEMA, and I just do not believe the answer is for it to operate as a subagency within the Department.

Now, I know there are those who are rightly concerned that if we take FEMA back to an independent status, then we will have duplicative efforts, we will not have coordination. I think the amendment tries to specifically say this does not detract in any way from the Department of Homeland Security's mission to secure the homeland. But I believe having it back in an independent status, with full accountability to the President, statutory authority under the Stafford Act to carry out all of the necessary mitigation, response, and recovery actions, is the way to go. If under our amendment we

make FEMA report directly to the President, then the FEMA Director will have more authority under Stafford Act designation than if he is a sub- Cabinet official within DHS.

My bottom line is we should get FEMA back to a functioning, effective agency again, and there is a difference of opinion about how best to do that. Obviously, we are back in hurricane season. We do not want to do anything, either within a reorganization or an independent status, that would further disable FEMA from responding. But if we reempower FEMA, restore its independence, and staff it with qualified people, we will be back on the right track.

We have a regional structure for FEMA, and it is not clear from the proposal from the committee how that will work, who appoints those regional directors, who has to be in charge. I do not want people exchanging business cards at the site of a disaster, which is what has been happening. I believe we have to build on the strong track record FEMA had during the 1990s.

I know the committee has said this would be comparable to the Coast Guard, but I think that is a slightly different role and mission. The Coast Guard is a military, multimissioned maritime service. It is one of our Nation's five armed services. Its mission is to ``protect the public, the environment, and U.S. economic interests--in the nation's ports and waterways, along the coast, on international waters, or in any maritime region as required to support national security.''

They did a superb job with respect to Katrina and Rita. But FEMA has a different role. It is supposed to be managing dollars of considerable numbers in advance of catastrophic events, coordinating Federal agencies, carrying out the President's statutory authority for emergency response. It is supposed to be the go-to entity for full management.

I believe we have a better chance of getting back the FEMA we should have, that the people should be able to count on, that can work with State and local governments, that can help to mitigate disasters, by returning it to independence.

So, Mr. President, I ask our colleagues to support the amendment to restore FEMA to an effective, independent, Cabinet-level agency once again and send a message to the country that FEMA is back--it is back, it is ready for business, and people can have trust in it once again.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the recently passed amendment did try to improve upon the status quo, and I commend Senators Collins and Lieberman for attempting to do so. But the answer is we need to restore the independence of FEMA. We need to give back to it Cabinet-level status with a direct line to the President. My amendment will allow us to do that. I urge you to vote for this amendment even if you voted for the last amendment because it improves the status quo vote which gets us back to the kind of independent FEMA that can actually respond to disasters and mitigate and help us prepare for them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.