Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the Chair. First of all, I rise to encourage my colleagues to vote for the appropriations bill that is before us. It is the appropriations bill to fund The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. I would like to thank the chairman of the committee, the distinguished Senator from Utah, Mr. Bennett, as well as the ranking member, for the excellent bill that they have put together, and therefore it warrants our support because it does fund the agricultural needs of our communities, and also funds the Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. President, Maryland is an agricultural State. It might surprise people because usually we are thought of as the home of high-tech research, Johns Hopkins University, the National Institutes of Health, but we are agricultural in soybeans and poultry. Also, we are the proud home of the Food and Drug Administration. We are so proud of the fact that the FDA is in Maryland and that the agency is charged with the mission of food safety and also with the safety of our drugs and our medical devices.

One might ask why is FDA in Agriculture appropriations. Well, because its original mission was food safety. But now it has expanded to the mission of ensuring the safety of our drugs and also of our medical devices.

It is wonderful to have them in the State, these competent people who work very hard putting America first, putting the safety of our people first, and also ensuring that drugs and medical devices move to areas of clinical practice.

But I am telling you I am really worried about what is going on at FDA currently. FDA has always been the gold standard in maintaining drug safety and drug efficacy. Yet today this agency is being politicized and degraded. The current administration has shown a persistent pattern of bringing incompetent leaders into critical positions. We have seen it at FEMA. We have seen it at other agencies. And now it is true at FDA. I see appointments being made on the basis of ideology instead of competency. I have seen people who have worked and devoted their

lives to FDA resigning because they saw science being politicized. I am worried about this.

Now, I voted against the current FDA Director, not because he is not a pleasant man but because there were so many problems under his watch. And they are not getting better. Let's take the situation that occurred in the consideration of something called plan B. Regardless of how you feel about whether plan B emergency contraception should be available over the counter, I think we would all agree that a decision should be made. I understand it is controversial from a cultural standpoint, but the question is was it controversial from a scientific standpoint? Well, delay, delay, delay, delay. Even the head of the FDA recently promised Senators Clinton and Murray that a decision would be made. Guess what happened? What happened was after the scientists made their decision, the Director delayed it because he said: How can we prevent teenagers from getting it? Well, Madam President, you are a mom. You know if we can keep alcohol and cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers, surely the Food and Drug Administration would know how to handle this issue of contraceptives with teenagers. Put it behind the counter. Dr. Susan Wood, the Director of the FDA Office of Women's Health, resigned in protest. Dr. Wood is a distinguished scientist. She is a competent policymaker. She headed up the Office of Women's Health that the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator Snowe, and I worked to establish, to be sure that as drugs and clinical devices went through the evaluation, special needs of women would be taken into consideration and also children--another aspect led by our colleague from Ohio, Senator DeWine.

So this is what Wood's job was. Did she quit because of pay? Did she quit because she got some big job with the pharmaceutical industry? Why did she quit? She quit because, she said, ``after spending the last 15 years to ensure that science forms policy decisions, I can no longer serve when scientific and clinical evidence are being overruled by the leadership.''

Well, she quit. So what happened? Guess who they announced would serve as the acting director of the office last week? They announced a male, a guy, with a background in veterinary medicine. What a dismissive attitude of the Office of Women's Health.

Now, I am not saying a man could not handle that job. He probably would have to work twice as hard to prove himself. But nevertheless, an individual with a background in veterinary medicine in charge of the Office of Women's Health? I admire the veterinarian community. They play a very important role in our community. They are respected. They are admired. They have sophisticated training. But I do not believe, as we are looking at the impact of a drug on pregnancy, or of postmenopausal women that someone with a background in veterinary medicine should be in charge.

Guess what. Advocates and scientists pounded the table, and they put someone else in charge. And the FDA doesn't even have the guts to stand up for the immediate appointment it made. It backed off, saying: Oh, we never announced his appointment. However a lot of people have that e- mail. I do not know the qualifications of the new acting director, but we are not heading in a good direction.

I want FDA to be the gold standard on safety and efficacy. There are many countries around the world that are poor. They rely on what is approved by FDA because they could never afford to have an FDA. Doctors in clinical practice rely on the FDA to tell them what is a good and safe drug, or what is a good and safe medical device, or an effective device. This is phenomenal. I had the benefit of this myself. I wore a heart monitor, invented in the United States of America, that could tell my doctor whether the drugs they were giving me controlled a condition of arrhythmia that I have. It was wonderful to know it had been approved by FDA, that it could tell me if what I was doing was safe, and could give advice to my physician on how best to treat me. This is what we want the FDA to be able to do.

We have a lot of problems. Look what is happening. We know what happened to Vioxx, out there prematurely, or with data withheld. We have all of these questions.

If you want to worry about teenagers, let's worry about antidepressants. I worry they can get antidepressants faster than they can get plan B. That is up to parents and others to control. But these antidepressants have had a very negative and dangerous effect on some teenagers. Where was FDA?

Now we have these implantable defibrillators that can go into your body, wonderful devices that can jump-start a heart. But guess what. They are found to have short circuits. The manufacturer knew about it, FDA knew about it, and they took no action on this. What is happening to our FDA?

I have fought for the right resources, I fought for the right legislative framework for FDA, and I am going to fight for the right leadership.

I wish Dr. Crawford would, No. 1, take charge of his agency. I am not calling for his resignation today, though he has to think about what he is doing over there. He cannot continue to politicize this agency. I am saying to him now that if he continues to politicize it, we will have to look at further action. I believe he is a decent person, but either he is getting direction from somewhere else or he has lost direction. This is meant to be a scientific agency, standing sentry over the safety of our food supply, doing the necessary evaluations as to whether a drug should come into clinical practice, and making decisions about whether a medical device can be safe and reliable and be the tool it was supposed to be, such as the one I had the benefit from.

So I say let's support the appropriations, let's make sure they have the right resources, but I sure in heck want them to have the right leadership so we can come to the right conclusions, and people all over the world--doctors, clinicians, and the American people can rely on FDA. I want to rely on FDA for science and not politics.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield to me for a request.

Will the Senator allow me to be a cosponsor of her resolution?

I compliment her for her forceful words on the Coast Guard, and I wish to align myself with them, as I fully believe in the remarks of the Senator.

Madam President, I wish to acknowledge the validity of the fact that the Senator from Arizona has worked long and hard on this issue and sees this as a consumer protection issue, and protection-of- our-sovereignty issue also.

Without taking any prejudice on the merits of the amendment, I have to make a point of order under rule XVI that the amendment does constitute general legislation on an appropriations bill and is not in order.

Madam President, I say to my friend and member of the Judiciary Committee, I do not know. I truly do not know. I do know that these parliamentary mechanisms were worked out at the leadership level.

I call for the ruling.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

No objection.

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

Mr. President, pretty soon we will be coming to the last round of amendments to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. When he is on the floor, I will thank, publicly and personally, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby. We certainly worked on a bipartisan basis to move this bill, to accomplish national objectives, and to respond to the compelling human and financial needs of our neighbors in the Gulf States. Moving this legislation has been enjoyable because there has been such a spirit of bipartisan cooperation. Senators have worked on their amendments. They have offered them jointly. In a few minutes, we will be voting on an amendment by Senator Snowe of Maine and John Kerry of Massachusetts to help small business, particularly, in relation to Katrina. That has been the example throughout.

As the ranking member on this new subcommittee, I hope the spirit of the Senate, in moving forward on this bill, will be the spirit of the Senate all the time. We need more of that. We need more civility. We need more collegiality and more of that spirit of ``let's get it done'' and ``let's get it done together.''

There were many issues that were new to me, at least the depth of the national problem. We are all familiar with Katrina. One of the things that came up was the whole methamphetamine issue, which seems to have the country in its grips, to listen to the Senators from North Dakota talk about what it means in a rural State, to listen to other Senators who have come in either with individual projects or with national issues. Again, in a spirit of bipartisanship, Senators Dayton and Chambliss came in with a request to restore over $200 million to fight this scourge that seems to be gripping people at all economic levels. The methamphetamine issue has reached epidemic levels. That bipartisan support added money to the budget and added resources for local communities.

Another champion, of course, was the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell. She offered an amendment for $20 million on the Hot Spot Program. Where are the real hotspots of meth? We worked with her to adopt that amendment. We thank her and particularly the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, for being strong advocates. Every other Senator came to me and said: We are glad this is in the bill.

Senator Cantwell, focusing on the hotspots, sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responders who are on the frontlines of the meth epidemic. Actually, those crime fighters have a great friend in Senator Cantwell.

We thank everyone who has helped move this legislation. We are looking forward to moving to final passage. We have two more amendments, and then we will move to final passage. Again, the spirit of the Senate has been wonderful. We are meeting real needs--whether it is Katrina, fighting the methamphetamine epidemic, providing weather services, and so on.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first of all, once again, we are coming now to the final aspects of this bill. We have been able to achieve this because of the wonderful bipartisan support that existed between Senator Shelby, myself, and our staffs. We want to thank them for doing that. I will thank them as we go into wrapup.

Our colleagues, we thank them again for their cooperation in moving the amendments, working on a bipartisan basis. And now as we go to the Snowe-Kerry amendment and the vote, we ask Senators who have those outstanding amendments to consult with the floor and leadership staff, and ourselves as well, because we think we could have a vote--not promptly but expeditiously--after the conclusion of the Snowe-Kerry amendment.

Again, I say to my colleagues to come, vote, stick around, let's work together, and we can finish our bill. People need this bill. It funds the FBI. It funds Katrina help. It funds the methamphetamine help about which we have been talking, and our very important Weather Service. There are so many provisions in it.

I yield the floor and look forward to the vote.

Amendment No. 1717

Mr. President, before we move to the vote on the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw Bingaman amendment No. 1706.

I thank the Chair.

I ask for regular order.

Amendment No. 1678

Mr. President, we have no objection.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, only to say that as we move to the closing of this bill, I want to thank Senator Shelby and his staff for all the many courtesies. It has been an outstanding way to move this bill.

I do not object to the Senator's request.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I say to my colleague from Florida that I understand the importance, to the Gulf states and the Nation, of providing funding for research and analysis of weather systems. The Senator from Florida has been a leader on this issue. While in these tight budget times, we are unable to fund every worthy program, I will continue to work with him to ensure that our Nation has the very best research available to understand hurricanes and other environmental concerns.

It is wonderful to see collaboration between the Federal Government and our Nation's top universities, and we should support those efforts whenever possible. In these tight budget times, it is difficult to fund every deserving project such as this one. I will work with the Senator from Florida so that we can find ways to further partnerships like these.

We have all become aware of the dangers of exposure to contaminated water and the health risks to residents, first responders and volunteers. Many challenges lay ahead, as flooded gulf communities continue to pump out this contaminated water as we speak.

I thank the Senator from New York for bringing this program to my attention and I will work with him to find ways to further this important program.

Noaa's National Weather Service

Let me be clear, I am absolutely opposed to efforts to privatize the weather service. The National Weather Service must continue to provide forecasts and warnings through its website and other sources without limitation. The National Weather Service provides critical information to our citizens and saves lives and livelihoods and it must continue to do so.

National Science Foundation

Mr. President, I share the views of my colleague from Colorado. Money is tight, but our future competitiveness as a nation hangs on our ability to educate our future scientists and engineers.

It is important to make sure that we encourage our children to take interest in science, technology, engineering and math. It is important to make sure we provide our teachers with the appropriate tools and training so our children will keep that interest. And it is important to research how our students learn science, and to research the best ways to teach them these disciplines.

I would like to see science education funding returned to at least last year's levels and will work toward that goal in conference.

I respectfully join the Senator from Colorado and also ask the Chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee to help me reach that goal.

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Cantwell for tireless leadership in the fight against meth. Methamphetamine abuse has reached epidemic levels across our country, and by working to ensure that we don't shift the burden onto local communities, Senator Cantwell has given State and local law enforcement an important ally. Accepting her amendment to add $20 million to the hotspots program brings funding for meth State and local enforcement to $80 million. Coupled with the bipartisan addition of $43 million of meth authorization dollars that Senator Cantwell cosponsored and other meth- related funding, this bill makes an enormous Federal commitment to help our State and local effort to fight the meth battle. Senator Cantwell's amendment sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responder on the front lines of the meth epidemic everywhere. These crimefighters need more funds to help combat this dangerous drug, and Senator Cantwell has fought to give them resources they need. I appreciated her work to improve this bill, as do countless law enforcement officers across America.

Mr. President, as part of H.R. 2862, the fiscal year 2006 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, the Senate has included comprehensive relief assistance for small business harmed by Hurricane Katrina. I am glad we were able to come to agreement on a bipartisan package and I thank Senators Snowe, Kerry, Vitter and Landrieu for their work and for ensuring that we could move forward to pass these provisions so vital to small businesses in the Gulf Coast. One of the key differences between the Snowe-Vitter and Kerry-Landrieu amendments was that the latter included appropriations for the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program. Our support of the compromise Hurricane Katrina small business package should not be interpreted as our taking a position today on whether to include appropriations for the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program. While we were not able to address the 7(a) program today, I am aware that there is $79 million included in the House version of our bill for the 7(a) program and that we will be addressing this issue in conference. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that the 7(a) program continues to provide access to capital to small businesses across the Nation.

Mr. President, we are now coming to the end of our bill. We thank the leadership for all the help and support they gave us, and also working with the Judiciary Committee to accommodate their schedule.

This is the first time this subcommittee has come out with a bill. We are a newly constituted committee. I have had the chance to work with someone I had worked with in the House. Chairman Shelby and I worked together in the same committee in the House of Representatives. Now we are together in Appropriations. I thank him for working with me in such a collegial and consultive way.

Also, his staff is outstanding: Katherine Hennessey, Jill Long, Nancy Perkins, Art Cameron, Allen Cutler, Shannon Hines, and Ryan Welch.

I also thank my staff: Paul Carliner, Kate Fitzpatrick, Gabrielle Batkin,

and Alexa Sewell, who is not here today because she has a new baby.

So I thank everyone because I think we are about to pass a good bill. I think the Senate can be very proud of this bill because we support law enforcement at all levels in our communities. We support technology and development and scientific discovery. And working with agencies such as the National Weather Service, we save lives and livelihoods.

So I am ready to move to final passage and, once again, express my appreciation.

Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from Michigan to speak on her amendment. I believe her amendment on interoperability is the pending amendment.

I yield her such time as she may require.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Madam President, as I understand it, in about 5 minutes we will be voting on two amendments. One is to establish a Truman-like commission to see if there has been profiteering in the contracts in relation to the Iraq war.

Amendment No. 1660

Madam President, there is also another amendment offered by the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, on a Katrina commission recommendation. I am a cosponsor of that amendment. Prior to the vote, I would now like to make a few remarks in support of the establishment of a Katrina commission.

This weekend I reflected--as I am sure the Presiding Officer did when you

were with your family and maybe made it back to Alaska with constituents--that two tragedies have hit our country. One is 9/11, which we can never, ever forget. How grateful we are to the 9/11 Commission for their rigorous investigation as to what happened: what went wrong, what went right; what went wrong--the failure of communications and technology and intelligence; what went right--the bravery of people, the spirit of America.

Then, also, the 9/11 Commission made concrete recommendations. In fact, they are meeting this week to issue a report card on how well we have done to implement their recommendations. Three cheers for the 9/11 Commission on what they have done and what they continue to do.

All of America has been mesmerized by what has happened in the Gulf-- in New Orleans, in Louisiana, in Alabama, and, of course, in Mississippi.

Senator Clinton's idea--she will be here shortly to express it, and I concur--is that we also have a commission now to look at the response to the Katrina situation. We appreciate the fact that the President has taken responsibility, and he himself wants to know what went right and what went wrong. We think that is a very good move on the President's part. We support him.

Second, we know there will be good efforts by our own colleagues, particularly in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is very ably chaired by our colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, and of which Senator Lieberman is ranking member.

But it is us investigating us. It is the President looking at his own executive branch. I do not doubt the integrity of the President. I do not doubt the vigor and pursuit that the Governmental Affairs Committee will have. Golly, just look at their record on intel reform. I think we know they really do operate with intellectual rigor and integrity. But I do believe we need an outside group that will look at us and develop an opinion that will be truly independent, made up of appointees from both sides of the aisle. They would absolutely not be political, even though some might have a background in politics.

Governor Kean did a fabulous job chairing the Commission along with our former colleague, Congressman Lee Hamilton. They had a wonderful array of people on the 9/11 Commission.

So we owe it to the people of the Gulf and we owe it to the people of the United States of America to examine this situation and not to do finger-pointing. We do not need any more finger-pointing but we sure do need pinpointing as to what collapsed, what was not in place.

Some years ago, I led the reform effort of FEMA. We started with President Bush 1 and then kept going under President Bill Clinton, who gave us James Lee Witt. FEMA should be one of our premier agencies focusing on readiness, response, and recovery. What went wrong? Was it us? Did we neglect in oversight? Did we neglect funding Corps of Engineers projects? I really don't know that. And maybe we did not neglect anything, but nature had enough with our bad behavior and kicked us a little bit.

So I really want to know that, and why. One reason is so it will never happen again, just like we never want a predatory attack on the United States of America, which is why out of 9/11 came intel reform and now the followup. We do not want this result ever to happen again when a natural disaster strikes--whether it is a hurricane that hits coastal States or whether it is an earthquake, which I know the Presiding Officer's own dear beloved State is possibly subjected to and which our colleagues from California worry about, and our colleagues from Missouri worry about that fault that goes right down through Missouri.

So we have to make sure we have an independent analysis. We would then take what the President finds, take what our colleagues find, and listen to an independent commission so we can make sure we are truly ready, we are truly able to respond, and then to make sure we have the wherewithal to do recovery.

This could have been a dirty bomb in any city in the United States. Could we evacuate? Would communications be interoperable? What would happen to the poor and the sick? Are they collateral damage? Nobody in America is ever collateral damage. We have to have plans. What happens to our first responders? If there is an evacuation plan, who evacuates their families while they are protecting us? These are the kinds of questions, these are the kinds of things that need to go into the planning.

Right now, all that many of us see is that we have spent a lot of money on homeland security. But what I see is a lot of salesmen out there selling gear. In fact, sometimes I think there are more salesmen selling gear than there are first responders. We need to be effective. We need to be smart. I want my country to be safer. I want my country to be stronger. But I think we need to be smarter. This is why I think a good step forward would be an independent commission, not to finger- point but to pinpoint, so that never ever again would any community have to suffer or that they could be in a position to recover better.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we, too, concur with the managers' package. We think the amendments are very good. We look forward to moving the bill. We are ready to vote.

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

Mr. President, I know for those who are watching on C- SPAN, they wonder what are we doing as we go through names such as Akaka and Baucus in a quorum call. Actually, what we have been doing is working very quietly with other Senators to see, where they have offered amendments, if we could negotiate compromises and just take them. We have been working very collegially with my wonderful colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby.

As you can see, we just cleared eight amendments on which we could come to bipartisan support. So there is a lot of work going on right in back of these doors and also with other Senators in their offices.

Amendment No. 1648

Mr. President, pretty soon we are going to be debating the Coburn amendment. We could not reach an agreement on it, even though there was a good-faith effort.

This Coburn amendment could bring great damage to the efforts for innovation and discovery in this country. What the Senator from Oklahoma wishes to do is eliminate a program called the Advanced Technology Program that is currently at the National Institute of Standards.

This is a Government agency under the Department of Commerce, and its job is, No. 1, to establish standards of products that are coming to the marketplace so that they would be uniform--for example, that every firehose would have the same gauge so the guys coming down from New York, working with the people from Alabama, could bring their equipment and it could be joined together. That is what a standard is.

Madame Curie discovered radium, and it was there they established the Curie standard on how to measure radioactivity. But it does more than that. The Advanced Technology Program actually promotes innovation and technology transfer.

The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma would eliminate the funding, and commitments that have already been made to those people primarily in the private sector would be eliminated. It would hurt critical research and development. This is very important to our competitiveness. We keep talking about offshoring. We don't want to offshore jobs. What we need to do is come up with the new ideas, come up with the new products that create the new jobs right here in the United States of America.

The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma is well intentioned. He wants to eliminate a Government program and provide it to local law enforcement and to weather. We understand what his priorities are. In the bill, working on a bipartisan basis, we feel we have done that.

I know, in the reading of the bill, one can see we provide over $1 billion to State and local law enforcement. We provide half-a-million dollars to the COPS program that helps local law enforcement be able to add more COPS on the beat. We add more money, $775 million, to the Weather Service operation, which has proved so wonderful and effective in predicting hurricanes and, actually, tornados and other things.

I support the goal of the Coburn amendment to increase funding for these critical programs, but we cannot support the cutting of the Advanced Technology Program.

On March 17 of 2005, 53 Senators voted to support the ATP program in an amendment to the budget resolution. So I am going to urge my colleagues to defeat the Coburn amendment.

I have come not to defend another Government program. I am not here to defend another agency. I am here to protect the interests of the United States of America in innovation, discovery, and partnerships with the private sector that actually come up with those new ideas. Many of those ideas save lives, and they create the jobs that save livelihoods.

My colleague from Oklahoma had some great charts, and it implied that ATP was corporate welfare. This is not corporate welfare. This is a creative approach that offers partnerships between the Federal Government and the brain power of the private sector. Through these partnerships, ATP accelerates the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits for the Nation, but they are so early in the development it is very difficult for them to attract private investment, even venture capital.

How does this agency work? ATP funds development in technology that is too new or too risky for private sector investment in the so-called ``valley of death'' between research and commercialization. There is lots of money around for research and there is money around for commercialization but not for that bridge between those. ATP fills this gap. It does not displace private capital because these projects cannot get private capital. ATP applicants are required to look first for private capital, venture, wherever they can find it. ATP is the funder of last resort.

For example, in the 1990s, NIH was conducting research on the human genome and DNA. It was a breakthrough effort, and at the same time NIH worked simultaneously with ATP and industry. Why? We needed practical tools to use the discoveries that benefit the Nation so we just would not have this research in the lab. Guess what came out of it. ATP's investment came out with new ideas for DNA technology to detect disease, to get lifesaving drugs to the market, to catch criminals.

State crime labs are using that technology. They are using DNA to go back to old death penalty cases to make

sure that we have the right person who committed a particular crime. DNA is saving lives, and it is also restoring justice in this country. It is a phenomenal breakthrough. We helped take it from the lab, worked with the private sector, and came up with these new ideas.

Is ATP important and effective? Sure. It has benefited the Nation for two reasons. One, we partnered the Government with industry and the private sector to develop those new technologies. For example, ATP was a partner in the development of something I am tremendously interested in, and I know the Presiding Officer is. It helped come up with a new generation of digital mammography and radiology. It provided far more accurate detection at far lower cost, and it is projected to save over $200 million in health care costs. Helping develop that one idea is saving lives, helping families and, at the same time, what it saves in the burgeoning health care costs would pay for ATP itself.

ATP has contributed to the development of more than 240 new technologies that have been commercialized. It improves our economy. Just 41 of their 700 projects to date have given us economic benefit.

The other thing that my colleague from Oklahoma suggests is, again, we are funding big corporations. Why are we doing that? I will not give their names but this blue chip and this S&P 500 and so on. Well, what colleagues need to know is that 75 percent of all ATP recipients are small businesses.

Are large companies involved in ATP? Yes. How? Because they have joint ventures offered with smaller companies in their chain of development. In these arrangements, almost all ATP funding goes to the smaller company, but the larger companies handle all administrative costs so that the small companies can focus more on product development. By the way, large companies do not get a free ride. Large companies must match the ATP by 60 percent. So this is a partnership to leverage these private sector efforts.

For example, large automakers partnered with the auto parts supply people to improve the manufacturing of American automobiles. It has improved our aerospace industry, making manufacturing more competitive.

Finally, ATP does not subsidize companies to do product development. Companies have to have their own scientific plan. They have to have a business plan on how the technology will go to market. Our ATP only funds the development of the new technologies. Companies must then take it to the marketplace.

We understand that our new colleague wants to use the Federal taxpayer dollar wisely, and he wants to protect communities by using the money to go to law enforcement and weather. We want to help that, too, and we have put the money in the budget for that. What we want to do, when we are talking about protecting the American people, is protect them through innovation, discovery, and the new ideas for the new products that lead to the new jobs that keep this country ahead and an economic superpower.

I hope that when our colleague comes and discusses this and we have a vote, my colleagues--certainly those on my side of the aisle--will take my word for it that we have supported law enforcement, we have supported the Weather Service, and this Advanced Technology Program is crucial to the future of our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN, Mr. President, the Advanced Technology Program, ATP, promotes the development of new, innovative products that are made and developed in the United States, helping American companies compete against their foreign competitors and contribute to the growth of the U.S. economy.

We have lost nearly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001. In the face of these losses and strong global economic competition, we should be doing all we can to promote programs that help create jobs and strengthen the technological innovation of American companies.

The ATP is a very modest program which, according to the Department of Commerce, has had a result eight times more in technologies developed than the amount of money we have put into the program. This is an eight-time return on investment in advanced technologies which is achieved when the Department of Commerce partners with industry through the ATP.

During consideration of the Senate budget resolution in March, the Senate adopted a Levin-DeWine amendment to restore funding for the Advanced Technology Program, putting the Senate on record in support of this program. Leaders on the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee also support this important innovative program and have funded it at $140 million in their bill for fiscal year 2006. I urge my colleagues to continue their support for the ATP and oppose this amendment that would gut the ATP.

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Cantwell for her tireless leadership in the fight against meth. Meth abuse has reached epidemic levels across our country, and by working to ensure that we don't shift the burden onto local communities, Senator Cantwell has given State and local law enforcement an important ally.

Accepting her amendment to add $20 million to the hotspots program brings funding for meth State and local law enforcement to $80 million. Coupled with the bipartisan addition of $43 million of meth authorization dollars that Senator Cantwell cosponsored and other meth- related funding, this bill makes an enormous Federal commitment to help our State and local effort to fight the meth battle.

Senator Cantwell's amendment sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responders on the front lines of the meth epidemic everywhere. These crime fighters need more funds to help combat this dangerous drug, and Senator Cantwell has fought to give them resources they need. I appreciate her work to improve this bill, as do countless law enforcement officers across America.

Mr. President, I rise as the ranking member of this subcommittee, and also as a cosponsor of the Pryor amendment.

First of all, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for offering this amendment which would give $1 million to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether there is some type of price gouging, price fixing, going on in the marketplace.

I thank the Senator for his leadership and the fact that he wants to proceed on the basis of fact and not just rhetoric and finger-pointing.

We thank the Senator from New Mexico, the chairman of the Energy bill. This has received bipartisan support, exactly what we need. Boy, do we need it.

We in Maryland are hot. We are absolutely hot about these gas prices. Maryland has the third highest gas prices in the United States of America. Who are we behind? Are we behind California with complicated environmental rules? No, we are behind the District of Columbia, and we are behind New York. No one can say why. Our Governor convened a special meeting of oil executives to tell him why, and he is dissatisfied. Our general assembly is working on it to see if there is something we can do at the State level.

There is clamor for getting rid of the Federal or State taxes. People want the prices to come down.

We want to know, is there gouging? Is there fixing? We want to operate on the basis of fact.

In my home State of Maryland, my cost of commuting has gone up $30 a week. I can afford it, but many Marylanders cannot. I saw on a local TV station a mother who filled up her minivan, a soccer mom. It was $90. She put her head on the windshield and cried; how could her family afford it?

We see the variance in prices, block by block; in one neighborhood gas is selling for $3.49 and less than 5 miles away, in Baltimore City, it is selling cheaper. Go to another pump further out in a valley situation and it is selling for $3.63. Guess what. Over in another neighborhood, it is selling for $3.03--a 60-cent-per-gallon difference. Can anyone tell me what it is about the marketplace that it is 60 cents difference? Who is pulling the strings?

The consequences are severe. If you have a family and are a commuter, you wonder how you can continue to be a soccer mom and a dad and go to work every day.

Business in my community is affected, big and small; small businesses, from the florist who delivers the flowers, to the pharmacist who is willing to deliver prescription drugs, to the electrician, to the plumber using a pickup.

Much of our food supply comes by truck to our supermarkets. They will have to charge more. It means food is going to go up. People love Maryland and love our crabs, but our watermen are aghast to take the boat out. It is costing a fortune. Marylanders want to know the facts.

I am pleased to join with the Senator from Arkansas. This has been a bipartisan agreement. This will move it forward. Let's fund this at the FTC. Let's get the investigation underway and get ahold of the gas prices affecting so many Americans.

I thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Shelby, for his patience while we worked so assiduously on the bipartisan agreement.

I ask unanimous consent the Pryor-Mikulski amendment be agreed to.

I move to reconsider the vote.

I will talk about another amendment from the senior Senator from Arkansas. I ask that Lincoln amendment No. 1652 be withdrawn because that policy content will be accomplished on another bill.

I thank the Senator for his withdrawing of the amendment yet maintaining his stand. I, too, am sympathetic to the policy direction the Senator is interested in under eminent domain.

The Senator might not know my history, but I got into politics fighting a highway. Had the recent Supreme Court decision stood, we would not have had a fighting chance. Just to tell the consequences of that, the highway would have gone where our Inner Harbor is; it would have gone through Camden Yards, the Ravens Stadium, and where we are trying to create the digital harbor. We got our economic development but not the way the planners wanted.

I am sympathetic. It has raised some liberal eyebrows, but I look forward to working with you, and maybe we will have a Sununu-Mikulski amendment.

Mr. President, first I would like to thank the senior Senator from Illinois for his kind words about my advocacy.

You see, I wanted not only new leadership at home--that is why I called for Michael Brown to step down--but I believe FEMA needs a new focus. It needs a new energy. And it needs a new independence.

In the 1990s I worked to form FEMA, after Hurricane Andrew, and actually worked with President Bush (I) and Andrew Card. We started that. President Clinton came in, we kept our reform efforts up, we got James Lee Witt, and what we really focused on was, No. 1, that FEMA become independent; No. 2, that it be run by professionals--meaning emergency management, military, or even private sector people with crisis management experience because this is enormously important to saving lives, saving livelihoods, and quite frankly, being good stewards of taxpayer money. We are about to spend $60 billion, and we are into no-bid contracts? OK?

So that is why I wanted Brown to go. The President has appointed someone. I look forward to getting acquainted. I supported the commission, not to finger-point, but to pinpoint, just like the 9/11 Commission. Where do we need to reform? Where do we need to reinvigorate? Where do we need to refocus?

Yes, the President is going to look into it, and he should. Yes, the Congress is going to look into it, under the able leadership of Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman. But I believe in independence. Frankly, as you know, I say to the Senator, just as in medicine, nothing goes wrong when you get a second opinion from outside. So that is what I hoped would happen. But I look forward to working with the President on recovery.

We have to make sure we are ready and able to respond if it happens again. Thank you for your kind words.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1688, which was submitted by Senator Stabenow, be modified with

the changes that are at the desk and, further, that the amendment be considered and agreed to with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

It has been laid upon the table.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 1662

I concur.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, may I make a request of the Senator from Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee? I want to be able to speak on the Pryor amendment. I wonder, given what the Senator needs to do and, of course, the responsibilities that are pressing, should we do that after this?

It was 5, but I could get it to 3.

Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor of the Pryor amendment. Why? Because American people believe there is gasoline price gouging. We have to find out if there is. What this amendment does is add $1 million for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether there is price gouging.

There seems to be evidence of price gouging throughout the supply chain and in the distribution markets. The impact of gasoline price spikes on our country is severe. They impact people's day-to-day lives at the family level, at the small business level, and at the macro level. And the American people believe deep down there is gouging.

All of America knows that Hurricane Katrina had a terrible impact on our country, that the storm had a significant impact on oil production and oil refining capacity in the gulf. We understand refineries were down and badly damaged, distribution pipelines were affected, shipping channels were blocked due to obstructive deposits and, of course, we have seen offshore drilling impacted. But these disruptions happened over a 3 week period. Why were the gas prices being spiked an hour and a half after Katrina happened? We saw price spikes in Maryland even before that. Marylanders are hot about this and so is this Senator.

Now, my cost of commuting from Baltimore to Washington has already gone up $30 a week. I can afford it; I am a Senator. But I saw on a local Baltimore TV station a woman who filled up her minivan--a soccer mom--and it was $90. She put her head on the windshield and wept about how her family was going to afford filling the family vehicle with gas.

My Governor is also deeply concerned. He brought in the gasoline station operators to find out why prices were the third highest in the Nation. Little Maryland, behind California. And who are the other two highest? New York and the District of Columbia, our neighbor.

What are we saying? The average price in Maryland is over $3, compared to $2.46 just a month ago. Throughout the Baltimore-Washington corridor, gas is selling at $3.49, $3.39. But do you know what. We think there is some kind of deal going on because it can vary within a 3-mile radius. Over where I live, gas has been selling for $3.63 a gallon. If you go into another neighborhood, just 5 miles away, it is selling for $3.03--a 60-cent-a-gallon difference.

Tell me, who is pulling the strings? Who is setting these prices? Well, right now, we could end up just with finger-pointing. I want to pinpoint the problem.

First of all, I salute Governor Ehrlich for convening the meetings he had. His meetings broke up, and he was not satisfied. He is going the next step. I want us to now operate on facts because we see how gasoline prices are affecting families, such as the cost of commuting to work, and Maryland is a commuter State.

The price of gasoline is skyrocketing. It is affecting small businesses, from the florists who deliver flowers, to the pharmacies that deliver prescription drugs, and so on.

Then, you look at our businesses. So much of our food supply comes to our communities, our wonderful supermarkets, by truck. Also, you go out along the Chesapeake Bay where people love our crabs, but my watermen are just aghast at what it costs to take their boats out to harvest seafood.

So I could give story after story. But Marylanders want to know, is there price gouging? If there is, we have to go after it and stop it. We know there are record high profits in the oil and gas industry. We know there is price variance with the oil companies. We know there is price variance even block by block as to how much consumers are being charged for gasoline.

But, most of all, we know there is going to have to be shared sacrifice because of Katrina. We are going to have to examine how we build refineries in our country. We have to have an oil conservation strategy; conservation could be our next North Slope. We should focus on those things.

But right now I am worried about what is being charged at the pump. We want to make sure there is not price gouging, and that there is not price fixing. We are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. I want to advocate an amendment to put money in the Federal checkbook to do so.

Mr. President, know that we Marylanders want to move ahead, we want to cooperate, but we want to know why gasoline is so expensive and what is behind the price spikes and price fluctuations?

And hello, oil companies out there, if you are listening, if you want to respond to me, I am right there at 503, in the Senate Hart Building. I have an open line to listen to what you have to say because I am getting an earful in Maryland.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the distinguished Democratic leader yield for a question?

Mr. President, is the distinguished Democratic leader aware we have amendments that require votes--and that would help us-- but we have seven that are not Katrina related? So while the negotiations are going on, on Katrina, is the distinguished Democratic leader aware that we do have seven votes, but we do not have a time for those votes? Also, we have about five votes on Katrina. So if we could dispose of the non-Katrina amendments, is the Democratic leader aware of the number of amendments?

If we have votes.

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

Mr. President, the pending business is the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations. As the Presiding Officer knows, I am the ranking member. So our colleagues know, there are about 20 outstanding amendments. We are busy clearing those--Senator Shelby is on his way to the Senate--that Senator Shelby and I could agree to, so when we do rollcall votes, we hope to have those reduced to a minimum, or at least a reasonable number. We will also be awaiting direction from the leadership, Senator Frist and Senator Reid, as to how we will proceed tomorrow on rollcall votes. We believe we have some that will be ready tomorrow to move this very important bill expeditiously.

For those who might not know, this new subcommittee handles all the Commerce funding, it handles the funding for agencies such as NOAA, which was so great in telling Americans about the hurricane. It also has a variety of provisions that would be very helpful to Katrina victims, including small business disaster loans that are available not only to business but particularly small business, as well as residential homeowners, up to $200,000, EDA money, to help local communities rebuild, particularly infrastructure.

While we are mesmerized by the tragedy in New Orleans, we cannot forget Mississippi and Alabama and their needs for roads and other infrastructure projects, including water supply.

The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Shelby, of course, of Alabama, and I want to move the bill. We understand our leadership, Senator Frist, is not going to have rollcall votes during the important Roberts hearings, so we will work with him to see how to do it. One of the ways we will work with him is in how to reduce the number of amendments. We are now waiting for our distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn, to join us. We know he has something to say on the bill.

This is a new subcommittee that has been constituted. I used to be the ranking member of a subcommittee that has been dissolved, VA/HUD and Independent Agencies. Under the ``independent agencies,'' was the important agency of FEMA. Now I understand the leadership of FEMA, Mr. Brown, has resigned. We look to the President to give us a topnotch person. We know the vice admiral of the Coast Guard is now in the Gulf. We look at leadership, such as the wonderful person running Red Cross, RADM Marty Evans, whom I knew when she was at the Naval Academy, one of the first women in this country to make admiral rank. Then she went on to a distinguished career running nonprofits and is now with the Red Cross, very much in the spirit and competency of our colleague from North Carolina, Senator Elizabeth Dole. We look forward to that leadership.

We need to focus now on two things: Recovery and reform. In moving our bill, we want to work on a bipartisan basis on recovery. There are three Rs to emergency management: Readiness and preparedness; and then response, which needs to be swift and effective; third is recovery.

Recovery is tough. In my home State of Maryland, we have had tornadoes, we have been hit by Hurricane Isabel, when it looked like Baghdad on the Chesapeake Bay. In no way is this akin to what has happened to our friends in the Gulf. But, still, when it is your house and your neighborhood, whether it is 3 blocks or 3,000 acres, we want to work with recovery and do it on a bipartisan basis.

It will take a lot, No. 1, of rebuilding infrastructure so business and people can come back. Things such as water supplies have been damaged or contaminated. Roads and bridges need repair in order for commerce to pass through.

What comes back? Business, such as the supermarket, or do they wait for the people to come back? We have to be able to help rebuild those communities. We cannot do it without the help of the private sector.

I hope those running Homeland Security, as well as the President's good office, would bring to bear the best of what we know from our home building and construction agency on what we can do to marshal the forces for rebuilding homes and those neighborhoods, particularly the small business--everyone knows what I am talking about, the dry cleaner, the pharmacist, as well as the supermarkets, et cetera, that are lifeblood. We also will have to rebuild schools for our children, as well as coming back with their mom and dad into the safety of a new home.

We also worry that while we are rebuilding the Gulf, and rebuild the Gulf we must, we do not want to create shortages in other parts of other country. Lumber is already in short supply, along with other building materials, even the talent, the electricians, plumbers, contractors. That is why we need a national effort.

We hope those who are leading Homeland Security will now look at the recovery phase while we go through the grim task of recovering bodies. We have to recover ourselves. What we do not need to recover, though, because we have never lost it, is the spirit of working together and the spirit that we will be able to do this.

It is September 12. I remember where we were 4 years ago on September 11. Yesterday morning, when I got up to go to church, I had this eerie feeling that the weather was exactly the way it was on September 11. When I went to church, I wore the jacket that I had on that day. I saved that jacket so I would never ever forget what I wore and what I experienced that day.

For all of the fear and all of the grief, I remember on the Capitol steps we sang ``God Bless America.'' I stood shoulder to shoulder with Senator Lott that day, then as the Republican leader, and stand with him today in terms of recovery of his own community. We have to get back to that spirit where we thought we could work together in this institution, in the House, and with the people.

On September 12, we want to honor, again, pay our respects to those who were killed on September 11, to our wonderful first responders who risked life and limb to save people. Now we are at it once again. For our first responders and our responders in the Gulf now, going through that mercury-contaminated water, they each have their own risk.

They are counting on us to be able to work together, bring in the national

resources and marshal the private sector resources, as well as the nonprofit resources, so that by the time we get to Thanksgiving we will have been well on our way. So we look to be able to do that. We in Commerce, Justice, and Science look forward to doing our part, carrying our heavy lifting. There is no lifting too heavy to help people in our own country that have been so devastated.

For everyone working on this out there in the field, the tremendous number of volunteers, the generosity of spirit of the people and, I might add, the private sector that is marshaling, we say thank you. We have a big job to do. One of the big jobs we have to do is here, working on a bipartisan basis, to be collegial, to be civil, and to get the job done.

Let's ask of ourselves exactly what we ask the people working down in the Gulf. Let's not have a slow, sluggish response from the Congress. Let's be effective in targeting our resources.

I have a long-range idea I would like to share on the idea of reform. When I was the chairman of VA/HUD, before the 1994 Republican Gingrich revolution, I found that FEMA was a dated agency. It was focused on the Cold War. It was worrying about where to send the Coast Guard if we had a nuclear attack. It was riddled with staff at Federal and State levels, with cronies and hacks and people with no experience in emergency management.

When Hurricane Andrew hit Florida with such enormous devastation, we found Andrew people were doubly victimized. They were victimized by the hurricane, and then they were victimized by the inept approach of FEMA.

I went to work on reform. I worked with President Bush's dad--I call him President Bush 1--and Andy Card, who is now the President's Chief of Staff, to reform FEMA. We did. Let me tell you we totally reformed FEMA. When President Clinton came in, he took that early work that we had begun with President Bush 1.

What did we do? First, we said goodbye to the Cold War. The Cold War was over, except for the Federal bureaucracy. We said goodbye to the Cold War. We said that FEMA now had to be a professional agency; that it needed to be headed by someone who had either emergency management experience, and actually responded to emergencies, or comparable experience in the military or in private sector with crisis management. President Clinton gave us James Lee Witt.

Second, we encouraged Governors to do the same thing at the State level. The more they did, the more we could help.

Third, we said that FEMA had to become an all-hazards agency, it had to be ready for a hurricane or tornado. But in becoming ``all hazards,'' it had to go to the risk-based strategy. We analyzed what Americans were most likely to have, particularly in terms of natural disasters. It was tornadoes and hurricanes, followed of course by earthquakes, though less frequent, severe, and devastating. We then encouraged the States to have real plans for evacuation; that they had to be ready, they had to have things pre-positioned where things were most likely to happen. If you were worried about hurricanes and ``northeasters,'' you did not pre-position in Maryland from Allegany County, where we are subjected more to floods.

So, readiness and then recovery. Readiness, response, and recovery. It worked very well.

After September 11, and our desire to be effective and supportive in fighting the global war against terrorism, FEMA was moved to Homeland Security. I supported that. I felt again that was the home of the first responders. That was the home where the local fire departments could apply for protective gear that firefighters needed.

I now have second thoughts because when FEMA moved to Homeland Security, it lost its focus, it lost its way, and it definitely lost its leadership. I believe the President will focus now on giving us the right leadership.

We have to get a new focus, and this is why I would like to see the Federal Emergency Management Agency again become an independent agency that is an all-hazards agency, goes to the risks facing the American people. There are natural disasters and there are terrorists. We cannot forget there are those who have a predatory intent against the United States of America and its communities. So we have to be ready to respond if they get through the fabulous intelligence network that we have to protect us. We want to be ready for that.

Quite frankly, there are those who say: Well, Senator Mikulski, are you saying we are going to worry more about tornadoes than terrorists? Absolutely not. We have to be ready. But if you look at our cities and our larger communities, which are often the greatest targets of these international predators, these international thugs, these international terrorists, we have to be ready.

Just think, New Orleans could have been hit by a dirty bomb. New Orleans could have been hit by a chemical or biological attack. New Orleans could have been hit by bin Laden or Zarqawi or whomever, by blowing up the levees. So the consequences to the city--whether it is New Orleans or Baltimore or a city in California or any city--would be the same. We would have to be ready to respond, and to respond swiftly. Then, of course, we would have the recovery.

So if we have to evacuate the Capital region, it is the same whether we are hit by some natural disaster or predatory attack. If we have to evacuate San Francisco or LA in California, it is the same. So the reform comes after the recovery. Right now, we have to be swift and sure in responding to the people who need us the most.

Mr. President, I note the Senator from Oklahoma has come to the floor. I ask the Senator if he is prepared to speak?

Mr. President, I will yield the floor. Again, I reiterate my pledge for bipartisan support on our recovery efforts. And I look forward to working on a reform package with equal bipartisan support.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time from 5 o'clock to 5:30 today be a period of morning business and that that time be under my control or, in my absence, the control of the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer.

Mr. President, I will put on a different hat. I was talking about appropriations. Now I will talk about a drama that is unfolding in the Senate which is the confirmation hearings on Judge John Roberts to go to the Supreme Court and to be the Chief Justice. I rise today to talk about this nomination because this is a decision of enormous consequence. One of the most significant and far-reaching votes a Senator can make relates to the Supreme Court. Why? Because it is irrevocable. When you vote for a Supreme Court Justice, that Justice has a lifetime appointment. Unless there is an impeachment, which is rare, it is forever.

The hearings are incredibly important, they provide the Senate and the American public with the opportunity to know more about where the nominee stands on core constitutional principles. I urge Judge Roberts to answer the questions that the Committee asks of him.

But equally important is completing the picture. The Senate should have access to the full record of the nominee who is going into the hearings. We need to know more about Judge Roberts. We have all met him. We find him personable. We find him smart. We find him capable. But we wonder, what is his judicial philosophy. What will he be like, not only as a member of Court but now as the Chief Justice. Look back to the record, not only the resume but to the record.

This is why I am joining with a group of other Senators to urge the White House to release documents on 16 cases argued by the Solicitor General when Judge Roberts was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General. You might ask: Why do you need to know this? This is when then Mr. Roberts played a very important role in shaping strategy, recommending policy, and it is one of the best insights we have into his judicial philosophy, his views, his legal reasoning. We want to know: Where does he stand on an issue such as the implicit right of privacy, on issues related to civil rights, on religious expression, on title IX, on affirmative action, and voting rights. And we want to know because the record before us now raises serious questions about his commitment to women's and civil rights. Prior to any vote, the American people need to know where he stands on these issues. We, the Senators, need to know, too, so we can make an informed, rational decision.

The administration has refused to release these documents, even though they did so before. They did it when Mr. Bork was nominated, and they did it when William Rehnquist was nominated. This is particularly compelling since now the Roberts nomination has gone from a replacement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to replacing the Chief Justice. These documents matter because they represent the views from later in his career when he held his highest political appointment and was responsible for making policy recommendations. These documents will illuminate his beliefs and his approach to the law, and they will help this Senator and others to know where he stands on the important issues.

It is the constitutional duty of the Senate to conduct a thorough examination of the nominee, and we can only do it if we hear from the nominee himself through the confirmation processes, and have a complete record before us. We have his resume, he has received his rating from the American Bar Association, but we now need the documents on these 16 cases in order for us to do our homework and to do our due diligence. This is probably one of the most important votes I will ever take, along with my 99 colleagues. We need to know:

What type of Justice will John Roberts be?

Before the Senate left for its August break, I joined with six of my Democratic women colleagues to launch a website allowing Americans to have a voice in the confirmation process. The American people have a right to be part of the process and let the Senate know what they want Judge Roberts to answer. And we want them at the table. We want them to feel included and have the chance to participate. The Democratic women launched a Web site to allow them that opportunity. We remember how we were shut out during the judicial proceedings on Clarence Thomas. There were no women on the Judiciary Committee. Now there are. But we know what it is like not to have a seat at the table. We know what it is like not to be able to raise our questions. So we established this Web site so the public could ask about issues that impact them every day.

Guess what. Over the past month alone, 25,000 Americans responded to this Web site--with over 40,000 questions. They wanted to know where Judge Roberts stands on Roe v. Wade, privacy rights in light of national security challenges, the right to privacy, such as under the PATRIOT Act, what about so-called religious expression in schools, protecting our environment, protecting our civil rights, protecting our voting rights. And I am standing with them, because the record before us shows that Judge Roberts has argued against established constitutional protections against sex discrimination. He has argued that disparate treatment of men and women is reasonable when you don't have the resources to provide for both. He supported a very narrow interpretation of title IX. All arguments which the Supreme Court has squarely rejected.

Clearly, there are reasons people are troubled. Questions that Americans sent us were on the deepest and most heartfelt concerns of their families. A woman in Ohio wanted to ask Judge Roberts where he stands on women's equality. She said not just on choice and reproductive rights, but on wage equality, childcare options, glass ceilings. Where is he in the enforcement of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination.

A man from my home State of Maryland wanted to know did Judge Roberts support title IX. His niece played sports in high school and wanted to be sure that college sports teams would have resources and access to scholarships, as the guy teams do. A mother from Indiana wrote us. A single mom. In the 1950s, she was earning 60 cents for every dollar a man earned. She wanted to know where the judge stands on pay equity. These were the kinds of things they wanted to know. Quite frankly, I would like to know too. How Judge Roberts chooses to respond is his business. But whether we support the nominee based on those responses is our business and how the administration responds to our requests for documents is also our business.

That is why the White House must release those documents to the Senate. We want to have access to the documents relating to those 16 very important cases that were argued by the Solicitor General before the Supreme Court. These documents will help us evaluate the nominee and will enable us to make the kind of decision the American people want us to make.

As Judge Roberts begins his testimony and is asked about his past decisions, judicial philosophy and legal background, Americans will be watching. I urge the nominee to be forthcoming. He should not conceal his views on issues that the majority of Americans care about like reproductive choice, civil rights, congressional power, the environment and separation of church and state.

I also urge the White House to be forthcoming. They should not conceal documents that may illuminate those views. Judge Roberts' past career causes concern about his commitment to core constitutional principles and we need to have, and the American people deserve, a complete picture.

Yes.

First, in terms of senatorial courtesy, I have no reason to object. But as I understand it, the order of the day is that at 5:30, we must go into consideration of the mercury rule for 1 hour. I ask the Presiding Officer, what is the order?

May I ask the Presiding Officer, at 5:30 the Senate will go into morning business?

Who controls that morning business?

I misunderstood. I thought there was a mandate at 5:30 to go to the mercury rule. I have no objection to the Senator's request.

Yes.

Mr. President, I have now concluded my remarks and yield to the Senator from California, Senator Boxer, such time as she may consume.

Mr. President, I yield the floor to the senior Senator from the State of Washington, Mrs. Murray, for such time as she may consume.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I come to the floor as the ranking member of this very brandnew subcommittee called Commerce, Justice, and Science. As the Presiding Officer knows, and our colleagues remember, the Appropriations Committee reorganized itself, and I had been the ranking member of a subcommittee called VA-HUD and Independent Agencies. It exists no more. But now we have Commerce, Justice, and Science, which we think is an outstanding subcommittee, funding the important agencies related to making us a safer, stronger, smarter, more innovative country.

Originally, I anticipated our bill would come up today with such enthusiasm and such joy in working with my colleague, Senator Shelby, whom I served with in the House, that we would work together on a bipartisan basis to fashion the bill, but on its way to the floor a great national tragedy occurred with Hurricane Katrina.

I want to say here today on the floor to the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, who has just spoken, Mr. Cochran, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, first of all, know that you can count on me for full support to move all appropriate legislation to help the people of our gulf coast. I know the distinguished Senator is from a wonderful State with a great heritage and is a great contributor to our economy. And we know his State has been hit hard. We watched him tour the hit zones.

This is a time we all do work together. I know all of our colleagues are so proud of the rescue workers who are going to continue to rescue people throughout the gulf coast region. Our hearts and prayers and thoughts go out

to the families who have lost everything in this terrible tragedy.

At the same time, we acknowledge the tremendous role of scores of National Guard soldiers, our Coast Guard rescuers, those Navy guys who rescued 110 people--and they might have gotten a reprimand from their commander, but they would certainly get a hug and kiss from this Senator for what they did--and the doctors and nurses and the paramedics and all the first responders and law enforcement. Everybody who is out there working a 36-hour day, we thank you and we salute you.

As of Monday, there have been so many who have been rescued, shelters that have been opened, and hot meals being served. Also, under the doctrine of mutual assistance, other States have opened their doors-- Texas, Arkansas. My own State of Maryland has sent tremendous help and support. So we all need to pull together now.

I am glad the press has stopped calling those people who have lost everything refugees. ``Refugee'' is an honorable title, but this is not ``Hotel Rwanda.'' This is the United States of America. All those people are our citizens. They have been evacuated, but they have a home to go back to. And they have another home called the United States of America, where every State, every city would have an open door toward them. They have not lost their home. They have not lost their homeland. And they cannot lose their way.

In my own home State, we have sent people down to rescue people-- first responders. Governor Ehrlich sent our National Guard. We are so proud of the hospital ship, the USS Comfort, that is steaming down heading toward the coast of New Orleans. But whether it has been first responders, local law enforcement, charitable aid from the nonprofits and faith-based organizations, they all wanted to offer a contribution.

But we cannot do this on philanthropic activity alone. We cannot do this with just good will. And to be sure, eventually fatigue will set in. But the U.S. Federal Government must be tireless. It must be responsive. It is critical we approve the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill quickly. The distinguished Senator from Mississippi has outlined this bill.

This bill provides a downpayment for the victims of Katrina to rebuild their lives and communities. We know a supplemental is coming, and we will work expeditiously on a bipartisan basis to also help. We will not play politics with the lives of our citizens and with all of those who are conducting the rescue and cleanup.

There are some important things in this bill that can be of specific and immediate help. One is the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program. It is not just for business, it is for families. SBA provides low-interest loans of up to $200,000 to repair damaged property to primary residences, and up to $40,000 for personal property.

SBA provides low-interest loans to businesses and nonprofits of up to $1.5 million to repair damage to their real estate, machinery, equipment, and inventory. So SBA will not only help businesses become businesses again, but it will help families be able to get their home going again. And for all those nonprofits that will be there when the TV cameras leave, this will also help them get on their feet.

Another area where we will be very helpful is in the area of the Economic Development Administration. This is in the Commerce Department. It provides grants to State and local governments for infrastructure repair and modernization. And, boy, do they do that. Roads need to be built, and not only the great Federal highways, but those blue highways that make our rural areas so great and provide a livelihood to those communities.

Economic development assistance money can help recover from sudden and severe dislocation. This bill includes $315 million for EDA, and we presume that in the supplemental this could be a very specific line item that would not get lost in big bureaucracy.

We want to provide assistance in the Department of Justice to our State and local police. They provide the safety and security of first choice so we want to make sure that they are supported. They themselves have lost police stations. They have lost their equipment. They have lost their homes. We need to be able to help them.

While we also are repairing the damage, we need to look ahead and be sure we can always give the best predictions possible so people can get out of harm's way. This bill funds the National Weather Service. It is a branch of NOAA, and it has already done a great job of predicting hurricanes, storms, flooding, and tornadoes. But we want to bring even more innovation to them and more resources so they can predict not only hurricanes but any other natural disaster coming to a community so that we can prevent loss of life and secure property. Those are some of the things that can be focused immediately on Katrina and future prevention. As we know, there are some hurricanes gathering with names like Ophelia off the coast now. That is what we can do.

At the same time, Senator Shelby and I, taking our new charge very seriously, said we wanted to work together to build a safer, stronger, smarter America. So we concentrated on the Department of Justice to make this a safer country. What we then did was look at the agencies within our portfolio, the FBI, Drug Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as alcohol and firearms. We know that the Department of Justice protects us from terrorists and protects our neighborhoods and communities. They protect us against those who have a predatory intent against our country, the terrorists, but it also protects our children against sexual predators. We want to salute President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales for developing a specific watch list for the registration of sexual predators. It has given a wake-up call to all States. Predatory behavior doesn't go in our country.

The Department of Justice accounts for almost 50 percent of our entire bill. The FBI is the lead agency. It will receive $5.3 billion, a $100 million increase, so that they can continue to fight organized terrorism and organized crime as well. We have given the FBI a record amount to do that. We look forward to working with them to correct some of their problems in technology, and we know they are improving their management. At the same time, we thank them for focusing, No. 1, on protecting our children through the Missing and Exploited Children's Program, which, by the way, the Missing and Exploited Children's Program is now going to be used to help locate over 100 to 1,000 children, where their parents don't know where they are. We are going to find those children, and we are going to bring them back to their parents one way or another.

Working together with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, we want to make sure they have the resources to protect us against arson, street crime, and gangs that are now menacing our communities. We thank them for the outstanding job that the ATF arson laboratory did in Maryland. It identified the DC serial arsonist that burned down homes in Charles County. It also provided the ballistic laboratory that helped to solve the DC sniper case. Our law enforcement is on the job, and they are protecting us every day. We have tried to protect them in the Federal budget so that they can do their job.

At the same time, while we are doing law enforcement, we look at commerce and science. This is where we talk about building a stronger economy and a smarter America. We do all we can to fund the programs in the Commerce Department. One of our most important places, though, is where we protect our intellectual property. As we are working to protect our citizens, we have to protect what our citizens invent. We are the country of discovery, of innovation, of invention. If you invented it, we think you ought to be able to keep it. We, therefore, provided $1.7 billion for the Patent and Trademark Office. It is a record amount that should help them reduce their backlog of patent applications and help us make sure we secure those new ideas that are going to create the new jobs right here in the United States.

We are also supporting our great Federal laboratories that help come up with the new ideas and set the standards for products so they can go to the marketplace. That is the National Institute of Standards and Technology located in Maryland. It sets standards that are critical to successful commerce and, because of what they do,

transfers technology to the American business community.

The bill fully funds the Advanced Tech Program and the Manufacturing Extension Program which are important to fostering competitiveness. In science, we have NOAA, which I have spoken about, which does fantastic work on weather prediction, saving lives, and saving communities through their predictions. But at the same time, they do fantastic research on our oceans, on our bays and so on. We know that we are going to face, because of Katrina, a real impact on oysters and clams and shrimp on the gulf coast. What are the ideas to be able to help out and restore the bays that produce those delicious morsels but that are so important to the economy and to little people who have names like watermen and fishermen and seafood? This is what we are challenging NOAA to do, continue their great research. But we need immediate and practical solutions to protect the seafood industry on the gulf coast.

Then there is NASA. Originally, we thought the only risky operation was going to be the Hubble telescope. Now we have human need pressing us, and we are going to meet that need. For NASA, we have provided $16.4 billion, a $200 million increase over last year. This does include the money for the Hubble servicing mission. We are going to provide full funding for the space shuttle, for the space station, and work with Dr. Griffin on the new Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Because of Katrina, we know two major NASA facilities were heavily damaged. One was the Michoud assembly facility in New Orleans. The other was the Stennis facility in Mississippi. This is everything from shipyards to spaceships, from Navy ships to spaceships. We know those facilities suffered tremendous damage, and 50 percent of the employees lost their homes. We expect the administration and the agencies to tell us what happened to those employees and how we can help them.

On the bright side, we are so happy about the successful mission of Discovery last month. Weren't we proud of Colonel Collins and that daring-do, can-do crew that got out there and did the kind of repair work that had never been done in space, showed our courage and our tenacity and our technological capability. We want to support them. We know they want to return to space. The shuttle tanks were to be prepared in New Orleans. We are going to have to make adjustments. But then again, everybody is making adjustments, and we are all going to work together. The National Science Foundation is also in here. Just think what the Committee on Science is--NIST, NOAA, NASA, the Science Foundation. These are the new ideas. It is going to help with funding for important research in new ideas in basic science like physics and also breakthrough things again for new jobs like biotech and nanotech.

One of the important things we did was preserve the funding for historically Black colleges and universities. This is also coming at a very important time. Louisiana, I believe the entire gulf, was the home of 28 colleges and universities that were affected by Katrina. Historically Black colleges all over America, such as Morgan State in my hometown, are accepting the young men and women from the historically Black colleges of the gulf coast. They are accepting them and not asking questions about tuition and other things. This is a way of also being of help. So we are all pitching in together.

One of the flashing yellow lights in the bill is the census. Because of staying within our 302(b) allocation, we funded the Census Bureau with $17 million below last year's level and $150 million below the President's request. The census is important. They don't just do something every 10 years where they knock on your door and give you a complicated form. It continually evaluates who we are and where we live and gives us important information so that communities and businesses can develop everything from transportation and education plans to business targeting the new demography in our country. We are proud of the civil servants that work in Maryland, and we look forward to looking at how we can restore funding. When we looked at our priorities, we thought Census could do without an increase and even a very modest $17 million cut. We hope to restore that in conference. But when we looked at all that we needed to do in Justice and all that we needed to do, particularly in agencies such as the FBI, we felt that these were our priorities. Now that Katrina has hit us, we will be reevaluating as we go along.

That is our bill. We are proud of our bill because we have tried to focus on where America is today and where America needs to go tomorrow. We tried to look at the day-to-day needs of our constituents and know that they needed to be protected in their local communities. That is why we looked at local law enforcement. We know that we face predatory assault from everything from organized crime to organized terrorists. We focused on our Justice Department, but also on our science and on our commerce for new ideas, for new products and invention, but also to fund those agencies that help them protect their intellectual property against often international predators and also come up with those new ideas.

Along the way, Katrina has happened. We are going to make sure this bill serves the needs now, the immediate needs of our neighbors in the gulf and those States that have been so kind and so generous and welcoming. We view this bill as a work in progress, but work it will be, and progress we will make. We are going to work together.

These are not refugees. They are evacuees, as our Senators are. We need to remember all of the people who have been affected. We are one nation, under God, and we are indivisible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this side of the aisle concurred when the majority leader offered the unanimous consent allowing the Federal court to do their business outside of their jurisdiction. It is the people's business. How fitting we have the wheels of justice providing that flexibility. I am sure there will be other legislation; we hope it all goes as smoothly.

For the Commerce, State, Justice appropriations, we are now waiting for the chairman to give his statement. We will correct some technical amendments. We are urging colleagues to come and offer amendments. We know of six on our side of the aisle. We are doing our best. We would like to be able to finish this bill today, but if we start offering amendments at sundown--sundown is a great cocktail party, but that is not a great way to do appropriations. So we really want to do this bill because it funds the FBI, it funds the Justice Department, it funds important help to the FEMA victims. We would like to move it along.

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

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

Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Iowa for offering this amendment. I know he has been a passionate supporter of Legal Services and quite frankly so have I over the years, having used it when I was a social worker in Baltimore and a child abuse worker, I might add, when many of these children had very little protection, the kind of protection we have now.

Legal Services will perform services at multiple levels. One is the traditional services in all 50 States. No. 2, though, they will be very important now to people with Katrina, particularly those who are unfamiliar with paperwork and bureaucracy and applying and all of those things and will need someone to help them navigate.

One might ask, why would they need a lawyer? Legal Services offers more than lawyers, and they will be there. I think the Senator's amendment is excellent. I think what we need to be able to do is find both the will and the wallet to fully support Legal Services.

When I think back on what Legal Services has meant, it often helped people get their lives together. I know in my own case as a social worker, it helped a welfare mother get a divorce from an abusive husband. It helped her be able to clear up all of her credit issues so that she could begin a new life. She got a GED so she could move off of welfare and establish herself. The credit card mess was due to the abusive husband. So Legal Services, really, in many instances helps families get their lives together.

So we look forward to supporting this amendment and working with him on other advocacy issues.

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to comment on the amendment that has been offered by the senior Senator from Maryland, the ranking member on Housing on the housing voucher program. I want very much to support his amendment because I think it is absolutely crucial that we do this.

There are people who are living under three basic circumstances. No. 1, some are shelters, which is emergency housing. God bless all of the communities, the Red Cross, the people of Texas, and everywhere that have provided shelter housing. But shelter housing is for an

emergency situation, and people do need to move to stable housing.

Then there are those people who did evacuate. They might be of modest means, they might be of middle-class means, but they have been living in hotels and motels along the way. They have been living off of their credit cards. They are now out of money, they are out of gas, and they wonder what to do next. They need to be able to move into housing. Also, in order to be able to get a job, you need an address. In order to get a benefit, you need an address.

Then there is the third group of people who have been embraced by churches, who are living maybe with strangers or even living with relatives. But for many people, their relatives are also on a tight budget, living on a shoestring or a small pocketbook. We have had generosity of spirit, generosity of heart, and even generosity of wallet. But that is limited until people can move into other types of housing.

In this case, as someone who once was an appropriator for HUD, we need so-called housing vouchers, known as Section 8, for either the poor or the elderly. Because of what has happened, everyone is poor and stretched to the limit, with no income. They need help. I believe this program offers both the reimbursement--the voucher--and also enough constraints so that it is not a lavish giveaway program.

The point I also want to make is that housing is really limited, even temporary housing. My colleague, Senator Sarbanes, has spoken about FEMA and its trailers. We know about FEMA and its trailers because we were hit by Hurricane Isabel. We were absolutely grateful for them. But when I heard the FEMA trailers were coming to the Eastern Shore or Bailey's Quarters or to Miller Island, I thought they were trailers-- almost a version of a manufactured home. When I went to see them and meet with the people in them, they were campers. So when we hear that the trailers are coming, these are not trailers the way we see in a trailer park. These are kind of campers you see for an overnight and they are very limited and they are also very expensive to heat or to air condition. But, thank God when they come.

Yesterday I spoke to one of the leading private-sector people who has a substantial number, whose corporation has a substantial number of employees in both Louisiana and Mississippi.

They tried to rent trailers and RVs to take out to their employees. They were going to get hold of them and lease them--or almost rent free--to their employees so the employees would have a place to work. They would know where those employees were, and begin to put them back to work.

Guess what. They couldn't find any. Practically every trailer and every RV in America is on its way down to the gulf. They have already been purchased or leased. We think that is great. This is a private sector corporation with deep pockets which is trying to jump in to help.

We have a sense of the magnitude of the crisis. These vouchers will add an ``R'' to what we need when we talk about emergency management response. I helped to form FEMA. I will not talk about that today. We have a reformed FEMA that went over to the Department called Homeland Security.

I believe when it did that, it lost its focus. But we had three ``R's'' we practiced: readiness, response and recovery. I am going to add a fourth ``R''--reimbursement. We have to reimburse these communities that are taking in people.

Look at Texas and other communities. I know your community, Mr. President, has been very generous. Again, we salute you. But we can end up in compassion fatigue and we need to have a government safety net.

I think this voucher will do a lot. I think it will also do a lot for mental health. If you have your own kitchen, your own stove, your own address, and your children can go to school, not at a shelter--though God bless the shelters--I think it will do a lot to begin to restore people's sense of stability.

I think this is a very good idea. It is temporary. It is time limited, both in terms of the flexibility of the rent, and so on. I think it will go a long way to using the private marketplace and the private sector and also be able to reimburse other nonprofits that are already also finding housing.

I salute my colleagues and the leadership for doing this, and I look forward to supporting it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I know we have been alternating between the Democrats and Republicans. I note that there is no Republican on the Senate floor, and I will therefore now proceed in the interest of economy of time.

I note Senator Lott has come to the floor of the Senate. I didn't know if the Senator wished to speak, as someone who has lost his home in his State. I am happy to return to my time. Would the Senator like to talk now?

Certainly. We welcome you back. And to the people of Mississippi, know that we extend our concern and want to put our good intentions into operation.

I come to the floor of the Senate to speak about what has happened to our country and ideas on how we can move forward and make sure this never happens again. I note that the Presiding Officer himself has been a mayor and a Governor, so he knows what these kind of challenges are.

Last week on the Senate break, when I saw what was happening in Louisiana, in Mississippi, and in Alabama, I couldn't believe it. I could not believe the devastation that occurred in these communities where entire neighborhoods were wiped out, that a wonderful city we have all loved and admired and enjoyed, New Orleans, was now under 10 feet of water, that the people of Mississippi all along their coast lost their homes, where with the flyovers all you saw was wreckage, people on a beach and an American flag and a sheet saying: Please help us. And then also this going on in Alabama. We in Maryland know what it is like for a hurricane to hit. Just a few years ago, we survived Hurricane Isabel where we had communities that looked like Baghdad on the bay. So we were very concerned.

One thing we had was confidence that hope and help would be on the way.

Well, my gosh, this did not happen. I could not believe the slowness and the sluggishness of the response to these communities; that it was the private sector that was on response a lot faster than our own Government.

Mr. President, this is just unacceptable. This failure of Government to be able to respond more quickly and more effectively shows that the people in these States have been doubly victimized. They were victimized by the natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and now by the response of their own Government.

It did not have to be this way. It did not have to be this way. In 2000, a tiptop FEMA was turned to the Bush administration. President Bush appointed Joe Allbaugh to be head of FEMA. We kept the legacy of reform that had begun under President Bush 1 and had started with Andrew Card and myself working on a reform of FEMA. This reform left FEMA in tiptop condition to respond to a crisis of a natural disaster in an American community.

I want to recall this to my colleagues. Back in the 1990s, I chaired an appropriations subcommittee called VA-HUD and Independent Agencies. One of the independent agencies was FEMA. We saw its lackluster performance in Hugo. But when Andrew hit Florida it was a disaster. It was a disaster of proportions from the hurricane and then again the ineptness of FEMA.

Well, we went to work, hands on. President Bush 1 sent Andy Card to Florida and he began to work and we on appropriations began to work, and we worked across the aisle on a bipartisan basis to help not only Florida but to take a longer look at the need to reform FEMA. And again, working on a bipartisan basis, reform FEMA we did. We took it from an agency that was focused on the Cold War, was riddled with cronyism both at the National and State Governments. There was a tradition that because FEMA was only organized in the case of a nuclear attack that you did not have to put in professionals because it would not matter; we would all be dead anyway. So there was cronyism, it was unfocused, it was of the Cold war, but again, working on a bipartisan basis, we in appropriations worked with the White House to change it.

President Clinton came in, and we kept the reform momentum going. And what did we do? We said, No. 1, that FEMA, first of all, should say goodbye to the Cold War and hello to being a risk-based agency, to take a look at what most American communities would be threatened by. In those days, it was a hurricane, it was a tornado, it was an earthquake. And then for it to go to an all-hazards agency, whether it was a train that got stuck in a Baltimore tunnel with toxic fumes that we worried about or whether it was an earthquake in California or a tornado in one of our Midwest States.

The other thing we focused on was that FEMA had to be run by professionals. It had to be run by someone who had dealt with management situations. And that was either a civilian involved in emergency management or possibly someone from retired military, and we asked each Governor to also reform themselves at the State level. We literally upgraded FEMA from the State and local level to the national level. We have had James Lee Witt. We had Joe Allbaugh, things were improving.

The other thing we did was we made sure that we practiced the three Rs for FEMA. What were the three Rs? Readiness, response, and recovery. It took time, it took money, and it took cooperation. But again, working on a bipartisan basis, we had it accomplished. We worked, as I said, with President Bush 1, then with President Clinton, and then, even though I chaired FEMA appropriations and was the prime mover in 1994, Senator Kit Bond became the chairman of that wonderful subcommittee, and for a decade, he too, working hand in hand, kept the momentum of reform going concentrating on a professionalized FEMA that could work on readiness, recovery, and response.

The States were ready, we were ready, and I think everyone agreed during that time it worked well.

Well, now something terrible has happened since 2000, since 9/11, and I will tell you what happened.

First of all, somehow or another, FEMA has lost its way. Since it has moved into Homeland Security, it has become unfocused, it has become unclear, it has lost its direction of being an all-hazards independent agency. Therefore, today, I am proposing a couple of things. I am proposing that, No. 1, we restore FEMA to being an independent agency responsible to the President the way it was before 9/11; No. 2, that we also make sure that, as an independent agency, it is an all-hazards agency run by a professional. I think it is time that Michael Brown leave FEMA. I think he either should leave voluntarily or involuntarily, but we need a professional in charge of FEMA; No. 3, there should be a commission to look at what happened. But we can't wait. There is much to be done. There is much rebuilding that needs to be done. We need to make sure that we are helping our own communities.

First of all, we want to congratulate the people at the local level for their tremendous resiliency, the people of Mississippi, Alabama, and, of course, Louisiana. No. 2, we need to congratulate the nonprofit sector--the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, also universities that are taking in students. We need to thank people from around the world who not only have sent condolences but have sent resources, and we appreciate their help. But we need to make sure that we have a FEMA that the American people can count on. We need to restore it to an independent level, make it an all-hazards agency, make it one that focuses on readiness, response, and recovery.

What we can do now with new leadership is focus on the recovery part. We want to say to the people of these States we know that when the TV cameras leave, your Government cannot leave you, we cannot forsake you, we cannot abandon you. To the Governors of the States that have welcomed these people, from Texas to Georgia to Arkansas, each struggling, we say that we

need to be there to help you. For all those other States that have sent help, including my own State of Maryland, we need to back those States and back those communities.

I say to all those people who have no home and living in temporary shelters, we need to help you find a way. For all of you who are living in motel rooms because you could evacuate, running out of time, running out of money, we need to identify who you are, see where you are, to make sure you are connected with your family and begin to see if we can't connect you with a home and with a job. We need to be able to do that. But in order to do that, No. 1, we need new leadership at FEMA. No. 2, we need to reform FEMA. And No. 3, we need to look ahead.

There are those who say: Well, Senator Mikulski, FEMA went under Homeland Security because of a global war against terrorism. We know that, and I was one who voted to put it there. Well, I will tell you, would you trust FEMA now if a dirty bomb hit a city? Would you trust FEMA now to be able to respond to a chemical or biological weapon? The answer is no, no, no.

Much needs to be done. First of all, we need to support those communities that are helping other communities. We need to also salute that which is working. Three cheers for the Coast Guard that was one of the first on the job doing rescue; support the private sector, America's corporations that are both paying their employees and sending in incredible donations. We need to support the nonprofits that are also helping. But most of all we need to support each other.

I want to, once again, as I did at the time of Hurricane Andrew, reach across the aisle to an American President to say let's stop using the term ``refugee.'' Let's start using the term ``Americans.'' Let's start using the term ``citizens.'' Let's start acknowledging that we are all one people under God, indivisible. Let's work to reform FEMA. Let's get in the right leadership. And then let's work with the right resources, and let's do it in a spirit of cooperation. We had that spirit after 9/11. That is what somebody did to us. Now, we had a hurricane do something terrible to us. We should not do unto ourselves by not responding to the needs of our own people. Somebody once said it takes a village to raise a child. Right now it takes a country to raise these villages and all of those towns. My heart goes out to them. As I said, we in Maryland know what it is like to be on the coast and be hurt. I say to my colleague who has lost his beloved home that has been in his family for years, looking at him as a Senator, he has some power, and we are going to help him, but we think about all the little people, all the little people, and we think about how we can help them. If we work together as a country and make sure we work with America's corporations, we will get the resources in the United States of America. And then for the long haul, let's make FEMA an independent agency--an all-hazards, professionally run independent, responsible only to the call of the Commander in Chief.

Mr. President, I once again say, God bless America and the people of its communities. I look forward to working, on a bipartisan basis, to resolve this issue. I thank the Chair.