Floor Statements

On Monday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on the Trade Adjustment Assistance health coverage tax credit, HCTC. The report confirms what many in Congress have been saying since the HCTC program began--the credit is not enough, the program has several barriers to enrollment, the premiums are prohibitively high for some workers because of medical underwriting, and the program is very expensive to administer.

It is long past time for Congress to focus on the problems with the TAA health coverage tax credit. That is why I am introducing legislation today that will make much-needed improvements to the HCTC program. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act of 2004 offers solutions to many of the problems with the HCTC identified by GAO. This legislation will go a long way to make the TAA health care tax credit a realistic option for displaced workers and their families.

When Congress passed the Trade Act of 2002, we made a promise to American workers that the potential loss of jobs will not equal the loss of health care coverage. Unfortunately, Congress has failed to make good on that promise. For the last two years, I have heard from steel retirees and widows in my State about how unaffordable the TAA health care tax credit is. And I have been very frustrated, just as I was when this bill passed, that we were not able to make the credit more affordable and accessible for people who need it the most--laid- off workers and retirees who have very limited income.

For a good number of supporters of the Trade Act of 2002, the health insurance tax credit was the single most important factor in overcoming their concerns about giving the President fast- track authority to move trade agreements through Congress. In my own judgment, the fast-track would not have passed Congress without the health care tax credit. The TAA health credit was the trade-off to balance the President's authority.

Yet, the success many of us envisioned for the health care tax credit has not been realized through implementation. The number of people who have been able to access the health care tax credit over the last two years is extremely disappointing. As of July 2004, only 13,194 out of 229,044 who are eligible for the credit are enrolled in the program. That is less than six percent, which means that over 94 percent of those eligible are not participating.

I must say to my colleagues that Congress has had a hand in these disappointing enrollment figures. We have ignored every opportunity to improve the health coverage tax credit and enhance the lives of workers displaced by trade. Most recently, the members of this body voted against the Wyden-Coleman-Rockefeller-Baucus TAA amendment to the FSC/ ETI bill. Not only would this amendment have extended Trade Adjustment Assistance to service workers, it also would have addressed some of the problems GAO has identified with the health coverage credit.

The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act makes long overdue improvements to the TAA health care tax credit. First, this legislation addresses the issue of affordability. In addition to GAO, several consumer advocacy groups and research organizations--including the Commonwealth Fund, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Families USA--have cited affordability of the credit as the primary reason for low participation in the HCTC program. The bottom line is that a 65 percent subsidy is not enough. With a 65 percent credit, an eligible individual still has to pay an average of $1,714 out-of-pocket per year for single coverage. This figure is particularly astounding given the fact that the average worker, while actively employed and earning a paycheck, paid just $508 in 2003 for single employer- sponsored health insurance coverage. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act makes the credit more affordable by increasing the subsidy amount to 95 percent.

This legislation also addresses the issue of affordability by placing limits on the use of the individual market, as Congress intended under the original law. The Trade Act of 2002 specified that the health insurance credit could not be used for the purchase of health insurance coverage in the individual market except for HCTC-eligible workers who previously had a private, non- group coverage policy 30 days prior to separation from employment. However, States have been allowed by this Administration to create state-based coverage options in the individual market for any HCTC beneficiaries, including those who did not have individual market coverage one month prior to separation from employment.

Because of the Administration's interpretation of the law, there are people who had employer-based coverage prior to separation from employment who are now being covered in the individual market. This was not the intent of the law. To make matters worse, this interpretation undermines the consumer protections set forth in the law because individual market plans are allowed to vary premiums based on age and medical status. In one State GAO reviewed for its report, because of medical underwriting, HCTC recipients in less-than-perfect health were charged almost six times the premiums charged to recipients rated in the healthiest category. The legislation I am introducing today addresses this problem by clarifying that states can only designate individual market coverage within guidelines of 30-day restriction and by requiring individual market plans to be community-rated.

Second, this legislation guarantees that eligible workers will have access to comprehensive group health coverage. Group coverage is what people know. The vast majority of laid-off workers and PBGC retirees had employer-sponsored group coverage prior to losing their jobs or pension benefits. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act designates the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) as a qualified group option in every State, so that displaced workers nationwide will have access to the same type of affordable, comprehensive coverage they were used to when they were employed.

Third, the TAA Health Coverage Act clarifies the three month continuous coverage requirement. Under the original TAA statute, displaced workers are required to maintain three months of continuous health insurance coverage in order to qualify for certain consumer protections. Those protections are guaranteed issue, no preexisting condition exclusion, comparable premiums, and comparable benefits. Congress intended this 3 month period to be counted as the 3 months prior to separation from employment. However, the Administration has interpreted the 3 month requirement as 3 months of health insurance coverage prior to enrollment in the new health plan, which usually is after separation from employment and after certification of TAA eligibility. Many laid-off workers and PBGC recipients cannot afford to maintain health coverage in the months between losing their jobs and TAA certification and, therefore, lose eligibility for the statutorily provided consumer protections. This legislation corrects this problem by clarifying that 3 months of continuous coverage means 3 months prior to separation from employment.

Fourth, this bill allows spouses and dependents to receive the health coverage tax credit. Over the last 2 years, younger spouses and dependents of Medicare-eligible individuals have not been able to receive the subsidy because eligibility runs through the worker or retiree. This technicality is unfair to individuals who rely on health coverage through their spouses or parents. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act allows younger spouses and dependent children to retain eligibility for the health coverage tax credit in the event the qualified beneficiary becomes eligible for Medicare.

Finally, this legislation streamlines the HCTC enrollment process and makes it easier for trade-displaced workers to access health insurance coverage. According to GAO, two of the factors contributing to low participation include a complicated and fragmented enrollment process and the inability of workers to pay 100 percent of the premium during the 3 to 6 months they are waiting to enroll in advance payment. This legislation includes a presumptive eligibility provision that allows displaced workers to enroll in a qualified health plan and receive the HCTC immediately upon application to the Department of Labor for certification. There is also a provision which directs the Treasury Secretary to pay 100 percent of the cost of premiums directly to the health plans during the months TAA-eligible workers are waiting for advance payment to begin.

As a former Governor, I know how important Trade Adjustment Assistance is to individuals who have lost their jobs due to trade. In West Virginia, thousands of workers have lost their jobs as a result of trade policy. While adjusting to the loss of employment, these individuals still have to pay mortgages, put food on the table, and care for their families. Finding affordable health care adds a significant burden to their worries. The TAA health coverage tax credit is designed to help American workers retain health insurance coverage during this very difficult transition.

Unfortunately, the HCTC program is not living up to its potential. The Government Accountability Office has given us a very specific diagnosis of the problems. Now, it is up to us to fix them. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act builds upon the Trade Act of 2002 and the lessons we have learned since in order to make the health coverage credit workable for eligible individuals and their families. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the amendment of my good friend from Virginia, Senator Warner. The Warner amendment would effectively undermine the ability of the national intelligence director to manage the intelligence programs by changing the definition in the bill of what constitutes a national intelligence program.

Under the Collins-Lieberman bill, the national intelligence program includes all programs--all programs--projects, and activities of a number of national intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office.

The Collins-Lieberman bill has been carefully crafted to provide the new intelligence director with the consolidated budget, personnel, and tasking authority necessary to manage the newly defined national intelligence program. The Warner amendment seeks to unravel this. It is a major ``undoing'' amendment. It unravels these unified authorities under the intelligence director by giving the Secretary of Defense significant control over the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office.

I specifically mention this troika of national intelligence agencies--NSA, NGA, and the NRO--because each agency is partially funded through the Joint Military Intelligence Program budget, known as

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Michigan.

Madam President, I rise today to not offer but to talk about an amendment because things are in the works. Therefore, I can only talk, not offer.

The amendment, were it to take place, would be amendment No. 3712. Of course, it is to No. 2845, which is our basic bill. I think it is widely agreed that Congress has an obligation to ensure that the efforts of the 9/11 Commission to improve our system of homeland security is accurately captured by any legislation that we pass out of this body.

Last week, Senators McCain and Hutchison offered constructive amendments on aviation security, but I believe my talking points offer the most comprehensive approach to improving aviation security, so I put them forward to my colleagues. I am pleased that Senator McCain was an original cosponsor of my Aviation Security Amendment Act, which I am talking about today as if it were an amendment, which it is not, for the moment anyway.

My idea would be to take needed steps to make certain that Commission transportation security recommendations are reflected in the pending legislation faithfully.

The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are wide ranging. They build on the work we did in the House-Senate joint inquiry in 2002. I strongly believe that we must reform our Government, our Congress, and our intelligence agencies to meet the threat of terrorism as has been eloquently discussed by the two floor managers on many occasions.

Although the recommendations for transportation security are a small part of the overall report, their importance cannot be understated. They are

sort of the most visible parts of security. I agree with the Commission's report when it states that targeting terrorists' ability to travel is a potent weapon against our efforts to protect against future terrorist attack.

In my position as chairman and now ranking member on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation, I have worked on many of these issues that face Congress after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

I should point out that the Commerce Committee has looked at these issues and developed other recommendations in the years preceding 9/11. I also want to note that while we need to incorporate legislation consistent with the 9/11 recommendations, the report contains specific criticisms of the FAA prior to 9/11 that I do not believe are justified.

For example, the report criticizes the Administrator of the FAA for being more focused on the delays than on security prior to 9/11, but we all were. We addressed those needs collectively with a new process to expedite airport construction.

Unfortunately, I found it to be one area of the report that failed to put into context the actions of the FAA prior to 9/11 and what the congressional role was during that period.

Additionally, after TWA 800 went down in July 1996, we all know that we spent countless hours trying to develop measures for aviation security. That was well before 9/11 by 5 years. Ultimately, we mandated that more equipment and canine teams be dispatched as quickly as possible, but clearly the events of 9/11 have required an even more comprehensive approach.

I have worked closely with Senators McCain, Hollings, Lott, and many others over this period to take action to help ensure that the events of 9/11 are not repeated. Congress has passed a number of landmark bills to address critical needs in filling gaps in our aviation security. While the legislation that passed in the days immediately following the terrorist attacks was responsive to the crisis our aviation system faced, these laws primarily addressed the immediate needs we had regarding commercial passenger airline security, including aircraft passenger and baggage screening. I believe we have a much improved aviation security network because of the laws that were adopted. Improving aviation security is a continuous process, an expensive process, and we must continue to make improvements to our aviation security network. I think we all know much more needs to be done.

Over the last 3 years, TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, has had an appropriate opportunity to get up and running. It was awkward at first. They are much better at it now. I, along with my colleagues on the Commerce Committee, have conducted numerous oversight hearings on TSA and aviation security, a number of them in closed session. Because of this oversight and our understanding of the transportation system, we were better able to understand where we had made progress and identify what more work needed to be done about aviation security.

To further address these needs, Senators McCain, Hollings, and myself introduced S. 2393, the Aviation Security Advancement Act, which included measures to tighten air cargo security and bolster other existing programs.

As we know, after the 9/11 Commission was established, they began a complete review of the events surrounding 9/11 and the requirements that would be necessary for a comprehensive strengthening of all of our homeland defense. When this report was released in July, it contained specific recommendations regarding transportation security, along with express concern about cargo and general aviation security. Both cargo and general aviation security have been subjects considered at hearings before the Senate Commerce Committee this year, and I introduced S. 2393 in an effort to make these issues a focus of Congress.

Last week, there was the amendment that I am talking about--not offering but talking about--which would do the following: Standardize the Federal screener workforce to properly address staffing needs and promote more efficient and effective screening at airports; require DHS to consider coordinating aviation-security-related functions to improve efficiency and effectiveness of passenger screening; increase funding for all-cargo aviation security to establish an improved security program and to promote the use of improved technology for cargo screening; provides an additional $450 million to fund priority capital security projects at airports; develops a streamlined baggage screening system by requiring a schedule for the in-line placement of explosive detection systems; it bolsters the Federal Air Marshal Program; advances the development of biometric technology for precise identification of workers and travelers; and improves perimeter security at airports by authorizing more than $20 million for TSA to develop biometric technology and fund a biometric center of excellence.

I believe these changes significantly improved the underlying legislation and have left us with a product that speaks to many of the problems that the 9/11 Commission found and which continue to exist in our airport transportation security network.

As I indicated, this is all in some flux now. It is being worked out with the floor managers. I simply thank my colleagues and the Presiding Officer and the two floor managers for allowing me to speak on what I think would be potentially quite a helpful amendment.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today in opposition to amendment No. 3903, offered by Senator Ted Stevens. This amendment strikes the provision in the bill that calls for the disclosure of the aggregate amount of funding requested, authorized, and appropriated for the national intelligence program.

There is one of the fundamental reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission and one that I have long supported.

The proponents of this amendment have made two central arguments. First, they suggest we are rushing into this decision without fully understanding the implications.

Second, they suggest that revealing the amount of overall spending could somehow damage our national security.

Let us address the first argument, that we are rushing into this decision. I must point out this is not a new debate. The Congress has been considering this particular question for at least a decade. In 1993, the Senate adopted an amendment calling for the disclosure of the aggregate amount of intelligence spending.

Let me repeat that the Senate endorsed the idea 11 years ago.

That effort and a subsequent attempt to make the top line public, which is what we are talking about--the total amount of the intelligence budget--in 1997 had the support of Senators Specter, Boren, and DeConcini, all of whom served as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. We had a full and complete debate in 1993, and this issue has been reviewed, debated, and discussed numerous times in the intervening years. The argument that we are being rushed into this decision is an excuse being used to stop this important change.

Regarding the second argument, that disclosing the overall budget will damage our national security, I cannot cite a better source than the Deputy Director of the CIA John McLaughlin who testified last month that this important step would reinforce responsibility and accountability, not only for those receiving the money but for the Congress as well. In addition, Robert Gates and John Deutch, former Directors of Central Intelligence, have said that releasing the number would not damage national security.

Arguing that disclosure of the total spending for national intelligence would compromise our security and provide enemies with useful information about our intelligence programs ignores the reality of the current situation. While the number is in fact classified, it is widely reported in the press. It also was officially declassified for fiscal years 1997 and 1998 by former DCI Tenet.

Some have argued that the total amount is not the problem; it is the budget trends that need to be protected. Again, current practice undermines this argument. Every year when we do the intelligence authorization bill, the chairmen and vice chairmen in both Houses come to the floor and talk about whether we have increased or decreased the budget that year. Often those statements include specific percentage increases. These discussions and trends disclose nothing about the specific intelligence programs being funded.

The idea that our enemies can somehow determine something about our intelligence capability by knowing the total of what we spend is simply not accurate. Year-to-year changes in any specific program will not move the overall total number enough to give an adversary any indication of how that money is being spent.

In other sensitive national security areas, we disclose much more information without doing damage. We currently disclose an enormous amount of detail about our defense budget and military capabilities. The amount of money we spend on personnel, acquisition, and research and development is unclassified. Also available are the amounts for specific weapons systems, such as tanks, aircraft, and missile defense.

Even much of the spending in the defense budget for specific tactical intelligence programs is unclassified currently.

The disclosure of the total of the national intelligence budget is simply not an academic debate. This step is critical to many of the other reforms in

this bill which our floor managers are trying so hard to get done, and to some of the proposed congressional reforms we will be discussing later this week. Without a separate unclassified budget number, the fund for the National Intelligence Program will still need to be included in the Defense Department budget. This arrangement will hinder effective control by the national intelligence director and will restrict our ability to organize in a way to streamline congressional oversight, which is what the 9/11 Commission and our floor managers are seeking in their legislation.

To conclude, it will be virtually impossible to have a separate appropriations for intelligence without the declassified intelligence budget. If we do not take this step and make this number public, we are seriously undermining the reforms in this bill.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the Stevens amendment and support this key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, yesterday marked a critical juncture in the fight to provide comprehensive and affordable health care coverage for our Nation's children. Congress had a tremendous opportunity to improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of children, not just for the foreseeable future, but also over the long term. September 30, 2004, should have gone down in history as the day Congress set aside partisan politics and took a stand for children. Unfortunately, yesterday will be remembered as the day Congress chose political rhetoric over action and failed to protect health care coverage for children in working families.

Some of my colleagues will argue that September 30 only marked a statutory deadline and didn't really matter in terms of coverage for kids. I strongly disagree. Yesterday's deadline was about keeping our promise to America's working families that their children will have access to comprehensive, affordable, and reliable health care coverage. We in Congress have broken that promise, and it is unconscionable to think that Members would go home to campaign while the health care of some of most vulnerable children hangs in the balance.

We must act now to preserve health care coverage for children enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP. This is too important an issue to delay even a day. Senators Chafee, Kennedy, Snowe, and I, along with Congressmen Barton and Dingell, have a bipartisan, bicameral bill on the table right now that will protect coverage for America's children. The Children's Health Protection and Improvement Act has the support of 48 bipartisan cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 33 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate. Our legislation has been endorsed by over 100 local, state, and national organizations including the National Governors Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Hospital Association, the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the Catholic Health Association, Families USA, the Children's Defense Fund, and the March of Dimes. There is no reason why we cannot pass this legislation today.

If my colleagues were to talk to their Governors about the merits of the Children Health Protection and Improvement Act, all 50 Governors would say that our legislation addresses the long-term Federal funding shortfalls that will occur in SCHIP over the next 3 years.

If my colleagues were to visit doctors' offices and hospital emergency rooms and talk to general practitioners, pediatricians, and surgeons, these providers would confirm that our legislation makes it easier for children to access health services and reduces our Nation's growing uncompensated health care burden.

Most importantly, if my colleagues were to talk to working families in their home states who rely on CHIP, working families would say that our legislation guarantees real coverage for their children. Our legislation gives working families the peace of mind that comes from knowing their children would not just receive health care coverage tomorrow, next month, or next year, but for the next several

years until the CHIP program is reauthorized in fiscal year 2007.

It seems that some in this body are more concerned with sound bites than with actually providing health coverage for children. Of course, we can all attest to the success of the Children's Health Insurance Program over the years. We can all cite the 5.8 million children who were covered last year. But, I ask my colleagues, how are we going to do to protect the coverage of those 5.8 million children and ensure that even more children are covered?

While I strongly support greater outreach and enrollment in the CHIP program, the bottom line is that outreach is not a solution to States' coverage problems. States aren't covering additional children under CHIP because they cannot afford to cover the children already enrolled in their programs. In fact, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, states are implementing measures--such as enrollment caps, premiums and enrollment fees, eligibility cuts, restricted benefits, and increased co-payments to scale back outreach and enrollment instead of increase them. The State of Florida is a prime example of this. Enrollment in Florida's CHIP program is closed for some children who are undeniably eligible. Outreach to more children who meet the eligibility requirements for Florida KidCare is futile if those kids cannot access actual coverage.

States are experiencing both State and Federal funding shortfalls that prevent them from covering kids. Senator Gordon Smith and I offered legislation earlier this year to address State budget shortfalls. The State Fiscal Relief Act would extend the federal fiscal relief enacted last year to help resolve state budget deficits and prevent cuts in critical programs and services, including health care. Yet, Congress has yet to consider this important legislation. And now, Congress has failed to preserve approximately $1.1 billion in expiring CHIP funds for coverage. Our failure to act is sending a very strong message to the states that not only is Congress not willing to assist with budget shortfalls during an economic downturn, Congress is also not willing to uphold the federal guarantee of CHIP coverage.

CHIP is a Federal entitlement, and the Federal Government has a responsibility to make certain the program has the requisite funding to insure eligible children. Additional Federal funding for CHIP outreach should only be pursued after we have made sure states have the federal funding needed to cover the children currently on their rolls. Otherwise, outreach efforts will be ineffective because children will not have access to actual coverage.

The Children's Health Protection and Improvement Act would prevent nearly $1.1 billion in expiring CHIP funds from reverting to the Treasury so that states with unmet needs can use the money to preserve coverage for children currently enrolled and higher-spending states can cover additional children. Our legislation would also establish redistribution rules that will keep CHIP money in the CHIP program through fiscal year 2007.

Some of my colleagues have expressed concerns that our bill would not lead to new children being enrolled in CHIP. These concerns are simply unfounded. My home State of West Virginia, for example, is looking at the feasibility of a CHIP expansion that would cover an additional 4400 children under 300 percent of poverty. The biggest barrier to West Virginia going forward with this expansion is the lack of Federal funds. My state and many others are still recovering from the so-called ``CHIP dip,'' when Federal CHIP funding was $1 billion lower in fiscal years 2002-2004 than it was in fiscal year 2001. However, under the Children's Health Protection and Improvement Act, WV would qualify for redistributed funds which would give the state the ability to proceed with the expansion.

Finally, I respond to the claims made by some that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should be allowed to redistribute approximately $660 million in unspent fiscal year 2002 funds to the six states projected to have shortfalls next year. There are several problems with this approach. First, such an approach would concentrate the vast majority of the expiring fiscal year 2002 funds in just six states, when a total of 30 states would qualify for redistributed funds.

Second, unlike the Rockefeller-Chafee-Kennedy-Snowe bill, this approach would not address Federal funding shortfalls in these states in fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Moreover, such a proposal is likely to open up a larger Federal shortfall in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 for the other 12 states projected to have insufficient Federal funding before SCHIP is reauthorized in fiscal year 2007. This is because these 12 states would receive less in redistributed fiscal year 2002 funds under such a proposal than they would otherwise receive under our legislation.

Third, and most importantly, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, has not offered a specific formula for allocating funds to states that need them the most in fiscal year 2005, so there is no guarantee that CMS would actually do so. Furthermore, it is critical to note that Congress acted in both 2000 and 2003 to set a specific statutory formula for redistribution and has never allowed the administration, neither the previous one nor the current one, decide how to reallocate unspent funds. Leadership in both the House and the Senate supported these previous redistributions, which have directly contributed to the success of the CHIP program in recent years, so it is unclear why there seems to be a change in position now.

In recent days, several new ideas have been proposed for how to deal with expiring CHIP funds. Perhaps if it were March or April, and we had ample time to analyze these far-reaching proposals, then we could adequately consider each one. But, the fact of the matter is that we have a strongly bipartisan bill, supported by the Governors of all 50 States, that is ready to go right now. Our legislation has been properly vetted and appropriately scrutinized. The score of our bill is relatively small in relation to the number of children who would be covered. And, our legislation is the product of a long collaborative effort between states, advocacy groups, and Members of Congress instrumental in the creation of the CHIP program. I see no reason why we cannot pass this legislation now.

I am encouraged by Chairman Grassley's statement that he wants to address the long-term Federal CHIP funding shortfalls. After all, the Finance Committee has a history of protecting health care coverage for children. It is where the CHIP program was created and where previous redistributions were conceived. I cannot imagine that members of the Finance Committee would want to jeopardize such a remarkable history by failing to protect CHIP coverage for hundreds of thousands of children over the next three years. I look forward to working with Chairman Grassley and other members of the Finance Committee to pass a unanimous consent agreement on CHIP before we go home next week.

I also call on the President to take a similar stand for children. For reasons that are inconceivable to me, some of my colleagues on the other side of the isle have indicated that our legislation is partisan or politically motivated. That could not be further from the truth. Our legislation has strong bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, and all of the cosponsors have worked hard to keep this bill from becoming part of election-year politics. There is no reason for Congress not to pass our legislation next week and for the President not to sign it into law. Our children cannot afford to wait.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside and call up amendment No. 3815, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I rise to offer, along with Senator Hutchison, and also Senator Roberts and Senator Mikulski, this amendment. I will explain it in further detail. But the main objective of our amendment is to institutionalize much needed reform, based upon our recent experience, which is, namely, the practice of alternative analysis, or, as we say, ``red teaming,'' in the production of significant intelligence assessments.

As to this Rockefeller-Hutchison amendment, I am very pleased to say I believe the distinguished chair and ranking member of the Committee on Governmental Affairs have indicated their support for this amendment--that is my hope--and that, therefore, the amendment will be accepted by them and supported, obviously, by our colleagues without the need for a vote.

Section 123 of the Collins-Lieberman bill provides for placement of the National Intelligence Council within the office of the national intelligence director. The Council is currently under the Director of Central Intelligence.

As the Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar intelligence on Iraq explains, National Intelligence Estimates are the intelligence community's most authoritative written judgments--they are the golden standard--on national security issues.

The Collins-Lieberman bill reforms the work of the National Intelligence Council, based in significant part on the findings of the Intelligence Committee's Iraq review.

Importantly, it requires the National Intelligence Estimates to distinguish between the intelligence underlying estimates and the judgments of analysts about the intelligence itself. The bill also requires that the estimates describe the quality and reliability of the intelligence underlying the analytical judgments, present and explain alternative conclusions, and characterize any uncertainties. Our amendment builds upon this important reform in two ways.

First, our amendment applies these reforms not only to National Intelligence Estimates, to which they are currently limited, but also to other analytical products of the National Intelligence Council, which is the senior group made up of intelligence people and people from public and private sectors--the senior group.

Second, our amendment will institutionalize a method of ensuring that an alternative analysis is used in the preparation of National Intelligence Estimates and is available to policymakers reviewing the estimates so they get the full picture.

It does this by providing for the establishment within the national intelligence authority of an office of alternative analysis, whose head will be appointed by the national intelligence director. The national intelligence director is required to ensure the independence of the office of alternative analysis. The unit is directed to review every National Intelligence Estimate, and any other intelligence report designated pursuant to guidelines established by the director.

The important purpose of the Rockefeller-Hutchison bill is the following: To thoroughly examine all facts, all assumptions, analytical methods, and judgments used in the estimate--in other words, the ability to question, to

be a contrarian, to dig deeper, to ask questions that otherwise and heretofore have not been asked. To make sure that the alternative analysis is available to policymakers, our amendment also requires that each National Intelligence Estimate or other product that is subject to an alternative analysis include the alternative analysis in its appendix.

While our Intelligence Committee's Iraq review did not include committee recommendations, I can assure our colleagues of the widespread support within our committee of the importance of alternative analysis or ``red teaming'' as it is called informally. It remains important for the body of the National Intelligence Estimate to state dissent from within the intelligence community. But beyond that, it is vital for a dedicated group of analysts to examine all aspects of an estimate--data, assumptions, analytic methods, and judgments.

The ultimate objective is to enable the National Intelligence Council personnel, the national intelligence director, and the executive and legislative branch policymakers to appraise the intelligence community's analysis on matters central to our national security.

I would like to express my special appreciation to Senator Hutchison who has been working on this for a long time and had a similar amendment. Our staffs worked flawlessly together. Senator Roberts, chairman of the full Intelligence Committee, also had a related amendment making it clear that the national intelligence director is responsible for ensuring competitive analysis throughout the intelligence community. I thank both Senators for their contribution.

I also wish to express my appreciation to Congresswoman Jane Harman for developing in the House an alternative analysis proposal from which we have benefited preparing this amendment.

I hope the Rockefeller-Hutchison amendment is acceptable.

I yield to the distinguished Senator from the State of Texas.

Mr. President, every 18 seconds a fire department somewhere in America responds to a fire. And sadly, in 2001, not including those killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, there were almost 4,000 deaths in America resulting from fires, including the deaths of 99 firefighters. Obviously, the Government cannot prevent every tragedy. But when we can help, we ought to. That is why I am proud to introduce legislation today with my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Santorum, that will create incentives for the installation of fire sprinkler systems, which are indisputably effective in limiting death and destruction by fires. The Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act of 2004 will make retrofit installation of fire sprinklers more affordable.

The National Fire Protection Association has no record of a fire killing more than two people in a building that had a properly installed and functioning sprinkler system. Less important than saving lives, but still important, sprinklers can dramatically reduce the property damage caused by fires. Because sprinkler systems are so successful, many jurisdictions require that newly constructed buildings be built with proper fire suppression technology.

Unfortunately, building codes for new construction cannot protect the many people who are living, working, or meeting in older buildings that do not have sprinklers. And because retrofitting buildings is so expensive few property owners can reasonably afford the upgrade. The legislation that the Senator from Pennsylvania and I are introducing today will provide some tax relief to property owners who are willing to make the investment in sprinkler systems that can save lives.

A business that operates nursing homes, for example, may not be able to afford to retrofit its older facilities without charging residents insupportable fees. The Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act will help ameliorate the costs of sprinkler installation by enabling property owners to depreciate the investment over a five-year period. This small change to the Tax Code can result in lives saved and property preserved.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to get this important legislation enacted.

Mr. President, I am pleased to support my colleague's amendment to implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on improving aviation security. Senator McCain and I have worked closely over the last several years to strengthen our aviation security network. Although I strongly agree with the 9/11 Commission's recommendations for improving aviation security, I believe that Congress must go further than the Commission's recommendations if we are to continue to improve our aviation security system.

It is for this reason that I have filed my bill, S. 2393, the Aviation Security Advancement Act, as an amendment to this legislation as well. I would note that Senator McCain is a cosponsor of my bill. In addition, to incorporating the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, my bill also includes specific requirements to improve air cargo and general aviation security, which I have long felt to be significant gaps in our security system and the 9/11 Commission specifically cited as a weakness. My bill also authorizes funding for these new security requirements.

This legislation was passed unanimously out of the Commerce Committee last week. This legislation is also supported by the airline industry. I hope that the Senate will consider this legislation later this week. My amendment is cosponsored by Senators Hollings, Lautenberg, Snowe, and Schumer.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment offered by Senator Specter. I do so with regret but with conviction. Regarding the phrase ``direct and control their day-to-day operations,'' if somebody wants to make the national intelligence director strong, that will certainly do it. The question is, what does that mean? What are the implications? That goes into the law, and then people have to interpret what that law means. I think if there is anywhere we want to be quite clear, we want the American people, through public law, to understand how far the national intelligence director can go and, on the other hand, to what point can that particular person not go.

We give that person all kinds of authority, and I think the appropriate authority, but when we get into managing and direct control of the day-to-day operations, that is a phrase which concerns me greatly, and I say so not as one Senator from West Virginia but as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

My understanding is that this was brought up in the Governmental Affairs Committee and was defeated by a vote of 12 to 5, which is not nip and tuck.

I think the recommendations that were central to the 9/11 Commission were very forthright, and Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman have reflected in their bill, which I am proud to cosponsor, very strong measures: a unified budget--oh, there are some people around town who are not very happy about that, which is all right--personnel, management authority over the national intelligence programs.

But then we come back to the phrase ``direct and control their day- to-day operations,'' and that makes me go to an argument which I am quite sure, since I was not on the floor, was used by both good Senators who are managing this bill. And that is, what I think they tried to do is they figured some people would want to have the national intelligence director stronger than what they proposed, and others would want to have the national intelligence director weaker than what they proposed. I heard cases on both sides.

As I hear those cases, I am drawn more back to the possibility of the one I think is the more sensible approach as a person who has been in government for a long time but also, quite frankly, I am interested in passing a bill and passing a bill that we are pretty sure will be doing no harm as a result of the passing of that bill. I am not sure the Specter amendment meets that particular test.

We have all these agencies, and we want to create some sense of order, but we do not want to get unnecessarily in the way in places where we should not of the combatant commanders, which Senator Collins mentioned in her excellent opening statement yesterday. There are some things which the military should be able to make decisions about outside of the national intelligence director, and they are allowed to so do on a modest basis, but on an important basis, by this bill.

The Collins-Lieberman bill strikes exactly the correct balance on this matter, and I think balance, generally speaking, is what works in this country and balance is generally what gets bills passed in a closely divided Senate.

Their bill explicitly acknowledges the connection and, at times, the tension with what I have just spoken about, and that is the needs of the military and the needs of the intelligence community.

The Collins-Lieberman bill accommodates the uniformed military's legitimate need to control its operations. I think that is right without shortchanging the consumers of the intelligence, such as the President of the United States, Congress, and senior officials throughout the Government, such as the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Their bill correctly recognizes the new national intelligence director will have to rely on the expertise of his newly created deputies which are left, to my way of thinking, in their bill very intelligently just floating a bit so that he can decide wisely how best to do that rather than decide everything in a period of a week or two.

I think Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton have endorsed the approach contained in the Collins-Lieberman bill. That would be good

enough for me on most matters, and it certainly is on this matter. The notion that the national intelligence director established under this bill would not be sufficiently empowered to effectively manage the intelligence community is not borne out when one reads this legislation, and that is what they are doing. They are doing the managing of the national intelligence aspect.

Without going on at great length, I like the balance. It is the nature of this body to seek out that kind of balance. We have to be realistic that we are faced in the days ahead with some fairly strong probable assaults upon this bill by those from the Armed Services Committee and perhaps some from other committees, and our strength in being able to get a bill passed, in knowing we passed a good bill, is by sticking to a moderate and centrist course which, in fact, is quite radical in terms of everything which has taken place since the National Security Act of 1947. This bill is an enormous update.

I just wish to be understood as being strongly for the approach of Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Madam President, I rise in support of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, the bill that Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman have discussed. I speak not only as the Senator from West Virginia but also as the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

I begin by expressing my thanks for the bipartisan cooperation of Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman, their staffs, and members of their committee for the way in which they worked and reached out across the intelligence community. It was an extraordinary thing, something one does not see around here very often.

I lend my voice as strongly as I can to theirs in saying that Congress--and by that I mean both the Senate and the House--should pass and enact this critical legislation before we recess.

I certainly am committed to making that happen, as I know Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman are. With an equal level of commitment from the Senate leadership, the House leadership, and the President of the United States, we can meet this ambitious goal, a goal about which, a month ago, even 3 weeks ago, people would have said is absolutely impossible. This has to not be put off. Distinguished statesmen from eras gone by have said we can't do these things, we have to take our time.

I say, from time to time, when you give Congress the time to do something, we may not. If you give us a little bit of time to do something very important, we may very well. I believe this is one of those cases.

In just the past 2 years, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has put forth not one, but two, frankly, quite devastating investigative reports about what surely rank among the greatest intelligence failures in the history of our country, to wit, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the intelligence estimates prior to the war in Iraq, particularly those that related to weapons of mass destruction.

In December of 2002, after 2 years of painstaking work by a congressional joint inquiry--it was the House and Senate Intelligence Committees acting together as one, for a very long period of about a year and a half, where we worked side by side and we also issued a report and series of recommendations reflecting the suggestions about the 9/11 attacks. It is extraordinary when one reads that and one reads the 9/11 Commission Report, how much is familiar, as between the one and the other; more eloquently expressed by far in the 9/11 Commission Report but nevertheless in both reports.

In early July of this year, less than 3 months ago, we released a report on the collection and analysis and dissemination of prewar intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq, as I have indicated. That 511-page investigation, reported out of our committee by a unanimous vote of 17 to nothing, thoroughly detailed how the analytical judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were flawed, exaggerated, and misleading. And there were no doubters. There were no doubters. There were different points of view, but there were no doubters on those central premises.

It showed in plain terms that the intelligence community had failed to provide intelligence assessments prior to the war that were timely, objective, and in this Senator's opinion, independent of political considerations, as is legally required under the National Security Act which defines so much of what we do.

Then, a few weeks later, the independent national 9/11 Commission, led by Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, himself a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, published its findings and recommendations, and in so doing took our work a much needed, a very critical step down the road.

The 9/11 Commission not only very powerfully described the individual organizational and systematic failures prior to the attacks, but they also set forth a very specific agenda for reform in what I thought were clearly readable, logical, and understandable ways. They addressed our intelligence shortcomings and proposed restructuring the intelligence community so that it would be more effectively managed, better prepared to deal both offensively and defensively with the terrorist threat that faces our Nation.

By the end of July, mere days before this Senate was scheduled to adjourn for a lengthy recess that is called August, the case for reforming the intelligence community had been described in more convincing detail than ever before, and the question suddenly became no longer should the intelligence community be reformed, but when. Most Members of Congress understood this. The American people certainly understood this. Even the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies seemed to have concluded on their own that the intelligence communities, after 57 years of largely static existence, denigrating nothing that they have done following its Cold War birth, rooted in that tradition and in that culture, is in need of an overhaul. One does not simply say let us have an overhaul. One produces legislation to create it, and that is exactly what the Governmental Affairs Committee has so brilliantly done, which is not to say that this is all new, or even a reflection of only recent events.

I am aware of no fewer than 46 significant studies, reviews, and commissions on the organization of the U.S. intelligence community, dating back to 1949. Nearly half of those were completed in the past 10 years, each proposing ways to improve and restructure our intelligence operation.

The issue of reforming the intelligence community has been swirling about Capitol Hill for decades now. The concept of creating a position such as a national intelligence director, in fact, dates back to the Nixon administration. These past commissions' recommendations were never enacted, for a whole host of reasons, some of which we will not discuss at the present time, not the least of which was that there was really no momentum. There was no sort of galvanizing event or series of events and the will, therefore, in the Congress, joining with the administration, never came to be.

Today we have that commitment, largely and sadly because we are gripped by present and growing signs of terrorism around the world and at home, true terrorism in which violence is not merely a means but also an end unto itself. I am talking now beyond even the tragedy of the 9/11 event itself.

Madam President, 95 percent of the population growth in this next generation throughout the world will take place in precisely the 5 percent of the land on the Earth which is poorest. If that is not a precalculated formula for the unleashing of people who want to find a cause or reason for justifying themselves as young men and women--I talk about 14- and 15-year-olds. One looks at the average age of people in

Iraq, which is 19. 40 percent of them were born either during or after the Persian Gulf war. They have known nothing but violence.

So it is a part of our future. Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman understand that, and they have created legislation to help us deal with that from the intelligence perspective. As Senator Lieberman said, intelligence has taken on a new role because terrorists, jihadists, those who misinterpret good doctrine in the Koran, religious doctrine-- they are not afraid in the same way of military might as they used to be. Still very much so, still very much in play, the attempts to find Osama bin Laden have shown us, in a peculiarly unpleasant way, that it is not just airplanes and bombs and laser bombs and smart bombs and the rest of it that can find the people we must find. It is, indeed, intelligence or the lack of intelligence which has made that impossible.

So we have now the best chance in at least a generation, thanks to Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and their committee, for getting at the heart of the problem in the intelligence community. It is past time to get the work done. The Senate bill we are considering is serious, comprehensive, and careful. On the other hand, I must say I am somewhat dismayed at reports of the efforts in the House--I must be frank; I mean to offend nobody--where I understand the bill which is under consideration may be much weaker, perhaps by design, and contains unnecessary and highly controversial items meant to slow debate. I pray that I am wrong on that. But we must have that in mind.

If reports are also true that the minority has been shut out of the process, with exactly the opposite of what happened in the Collins- Lieberman approach to crafting this bill, then the House leadership has a great deal of work to get things back on track.

I think the President will face a great test of his leadership. Will he step forward to encourage full and far-reaching intelligence reform, as he has partly done so far already, taking steps which some were not sure that he would be willing to take? Or will he look the other way, and let things happen as they will? We need him and his influence in this Chamber and in the House Chamber, and I am confident that will happen.

If the Senate and the House and the President squander this opportunity to allow the momentum behind the reform to lapse in the next year, we will have failed--and we will not fail. Other things will grab our attention even as exacting and devastating as this problem is. So we must not fail. We must not fail the American people. They expect reform, and we are not going to fail them.

As to the substance, briefly: The Governmental Affairs Committee's work embraces the key principles of the 9/11 Commission except in a few instances where they saw things otherwise, such as the 9/11 Commission suggested locating the new national intelligence director inside the Executive Office of the President. The Commission felt that was a good idea. The committee felt that was not such a good idea, so it is not happening. They dealt in the same way with the suggestions made by paramilitary activities ongoing by the CIA, with respect to changing those. And once again the Collins-Lieberman committee made those changes.

As my colleagues know, the lead recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are the creation of a national intelligence director and a national counter-terrorism center. Senators Lieberman and Collins have both explained those very thoroughly here today. The Commission correctly saw in the intelligence community's current organizational arrangement a fragmented array of budget, personnel, and tasking authorities that inhibit the sharing of information and prevent coordination of efforts under a single accountable individual. This lack of consolidated authority undercuts the ability and the willing ability of the intelligence community to function as a true community, and more specifically prevents America from bringing the maximum force of intelligence, military, and law enforcement weapons to bear against al-Qaida and other terrorists both here and abroad.

I have had a chance to carefully review the bill. I don't enjoy reading bills, but I have read this bill of the Governmental Affairs Committee. And it is, so far as this Senator can say, and many others, faithful to the 9/11 Commission's most important recommendations, and creates many of its own.

The bill creates a national intelligence director, of course, and a national counter-terrorism center with unified authorities that will correct the inefficiencies and lack of accountability that exists.

That was the beginning. Some will say--it is important to say these things--that the national intelligence director established in this legislation is too strong because the position will manage the budget and operations of three national intelligence agencies currently under the Pentagon's control. Here we get onto somewhat sacred ground. I speak of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

Others will criticize the bill by saying that the national intelligence director is too weak because the position does not have so-called ``day-to-day operational control'' over these three agencies I have just mentioned which also serve important combat functions inside the Pentagon. These critics are advocating in effect the creation of a new department of national intelligence. Senator Lieberman indicated that was not what they wanted to do, and thankfully that is not what they have done. In my view, the bill that was reported out unanimously by the Governmental Affairs Committee strikes precisely the right balance between these two positions.

The budgetary, personnel, and management tasking authorities consolidated under the national intelligence director are substantial improvements over those now at the disposal of the current Director of Central Intelligence.

I remember asking George Tenet when he was Director of the CIA, on several occasions--I think he was not happy with the question, but he was forthright with his answer--if you could control, don't you want to control what goes on at NSA, or NRO, or the Geospatial folks--it wasn't called that then--and he said, I can only and will only seek to have authority over what in fact I have budgetary authority. I cannot exercise control beyond that.

The committee has reached that point to say that we have to have one person who has the budgetary control to do these things. The budgetary control of personnel, management, and tasking authorities consolidated in the national intelligence director is an enormous improvement over those now at the disposal of the current Director of Central Intelligence.

Moreover, the bill recognizes that the national intelligence director will have to rely on the expertise of the newly created deputies and the agency heads beneath them to manage the intelligence collected from domestic, foreign, and military forces. It acknowledges implicitly and explicitly the connection of the time and attention between military and intelligence. Chairman Collins addressed this very directly. It accommodates the military's legitimate need to control its own operations without giving short shrift to all of the nonmilitary consumers of intelligence, one of whom, incidentally, happens to be President of the United States.

To put it another way, this bill achieves the fundamental restructuring of the intelligence community while preserving an underlying management arrangement that can implement the new director's directives in a coordinated way which is altogether missing today. Fifteen pairs of oars pulling at the same time under the direction of one captain--that is the concept at the heart of this legislation.

I would also like to highlight a couple of additional items the committee made which I feel very good about. Both have been mentioned by Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman.

The communitywide ombudsman to handle concern from the analysts--we heard a great deal about this--over the shaping or politicalization or potential, referring to the future, of intelligence, such as were voiced by analysts in the preparation of intelligence reports on Iraq in the fall of 2002.

Creating this ombudsman, which the bill does, is an important way to ensure that policy considerations do not compromise the independence and objectivity of the intelligence community's judgment.

Second, Senator Lieberman referred to this--I believe we need an intelligence reserve corps. The intelligence community can get stretched very thin. It was, for example, during Kosovo. We saw that during that time. Currently, in Afghanistan and Iraq, we see it now. We simply stop doing other important intelligence work, which in fact must continue in other parts of the world because resources are moved from some important place which is evolving into the current situation. One can't afford to do that in intelligence. We need to support the war site foremost at all costs, but we need to have the backup to make sure we are looking at intelligence on a worldwide basis. The intelligence reserve corps will do that. We don't want to miss a nuclear test. I am sorry; we have in the past. The intelligence community has missed it. We don't want that to happen again.

Finally, I do think that our reform bill should establish a permanent analytical red team under the national intelligence director to test the key underlying--I use the word ``assumptions'' in analytical reports.

The legislation before us includes a review unit under the office of the new ombudsman which is helpful but, if I may be allowed to say so, I don't think goes quite far enough and simply will be a matter of discussion for the floor. I believe we need a red team unit to work inside the analytical process before it has produced a product. In other words, as intelligence reports are being formulated, not after the fact of their formulation into a product. I hope we can work on that concept as we debate the legislation.

In closing, I believe the bill before the Senate has taken an extremely complex and in certain respects arcane subject matter, the organization of the U.S. intelligence community, and proposed a sensible approach to long overdue reform. This bill will make considerable headway toward learning from the mistakes of the past and strengthening our national security.

I again thank Senator Collins, Senator Lieberman, and their staff for working in the highest tradition of this body.

I also want to extend my appreciation to Majority Leader Frist and Minority Leader Daschle for making the national intelligence reform the top priority of the Senate in the waning days of this Congress.

Two weeks from the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we stand on the threshold of passing landmark legislation that few would have thought possible even 3 weeks ago. The planets are aligned. Let's finish our work and pass this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent I be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, today the Senate is taking important action to protect working Americans from a tax increase at the end of the year. I am pleased to join my colleagues in voting for this bill and supporting middle class families. Of all the tax cuts enacted in recent years, these are the tax cuts that are most valuable and important for working families in West Virginia. These tax cuts should never have been set to expire at the end of the year, and I am relieved that we are putting to rest any worries about taxes increasing next year.

The Working Families Tax Relief Act extends three critical tax cuts that Congress enacted last year. First, it will keep the child tax credit at $1,000. Second, this bill maintains the expanded 10 percent tax bracket, covering just over $7,000 in income for individuals or $14,000 for married couples. And third, it will provide marriage penalty relief. These provisions provide a benefit to virtually every American who

pays income tax, and I have always believed that they ought to be the cornerstone of our tax relief efforts. I objected last year when Congress passed tax relief that provided middle class tax cuts for only 2 years while providing $150 billion worth of tax cuts for dividends and capital gains over four years. I opposed last year's bill, because tax relief for families was shortchanged to provide more benefits to wealthy investors. The legislation I am supporting today is an important step toward fixing the bad bill passed last year.

The legislation we will pass today also includes a critical increase in the child tax credit for low-income families. I have fought for a long time to increase the amount of the credit that could be refunded to families earning between about $10,000 and $25,000. These families are struggling to provide clothes, school supplies, and other necessities for their children. Today, Congress is recognizing how hard they work and increasing the value of the refundable child tax credit for them by as much as 50 percent. More than 55,000 West Virginia children will benefit from this improvement.

I would also like to send word to all of our forces fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that we appreciate the work they are doing and today we are fixing the tax code to be sure that it does not punish them for serving in a combat zone. Because combat pay is not subject to regular federal income tax, some service personnel have found themselves ineligible for the child tax credit or the earned income tax credit, EITC. This was certainly never the intent of making combat pay tax exempt. This legislation rectifies the situation, so that combat pay will be counted as earned income for purposes of calculating both the child credit and the EITC. I daresay that if any American anywhere is earning their income, it is the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are fighting in some of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Unfortunately, this legislation still has some serious shortcomings. Perhaps the most appalling is that the provision to ensure that service personnel are able to count combat pay toward the earned income credit is set to expire after 2 years. As much as I would like to think that Americans will not be fighting in combat zones two years from now, I am not that naive, and the tax code should be fixed permanently. I am also disappointed that the child tax credit income threshold was not adjusted to protect some of our poorest working families. We know that low wages are not keeping pace with inflation, and because the child tax credit threshold increases with inflation more and more families will lose their child credit every year. I will continue to fight for those families.

I also believe that this legislation irresponsibly and unnecessarily increases the federal deficit. Tax relief to working families should not be passed down as a bill to our children. But much to my disappointment the leaders on the other side of the aisle have rejected efforts to offset the cost of this legislation, at least in part by closing indefensible corporate tax loopholes. I will continue to fight to eliminate abusive tax shelters, and I hope that all of my colleagues will come to appreciate the need to do so.

Mr. President, this is certainly not a perfect bill. But I have been in the Senate long enough to know how unlikely a perfect bill ever is. The Working Families Tax Relief Act will protect West Virginians from facing higher taxes next year, and I look forward to casting my vote in favor of it.

Yes.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, the nomination of Representative Porter Goss to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency comes, obviously, at an absolutely critical time in our Nation's history.

The documented intelligence failures prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11 and leading up to the war in Iraq have left the intelligence community's credibility bruised and their image tarnished, which none of us wants.

The community's objectivity, their independence, and their competency have been called into question. That is fair in some cases. As a result, a bipartisan call for reform has steadily grown to the point where the Congress is on the threshold of passing landmark legislation, I believe and I hope, to create a stronger, better managed intelligence community before we adjourn this year. I do not think we should stretch it out and wait. I think we should do it, and do it now.

The next Director of Central Intelligence will be the most important person for that position ever confirmed by the Senate. Our decision on who should lead the Central Intelligence Agency, and the other 14 intelligence agencies, according to the law, should not be a rubberstamp job.

The importance of this position requires a thorough examination of the nominee's record and his ability to carry out the weighty responsibilities of the job.

As I have indicated, never before in the 57-year history of the intelligence community has there been such a need for a Director of Central Intelligence with unimpeachable character, proven leadership and management experience, and strong national security credentials.

The new Director will face, in my judgment, no fewer than four major challenges: waging an unrelenting offensive clandestine campaign against al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations around the world; supporting ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; managing an intelligence community in a state of transition; and, restoring the intelligence community's lost credibility.

The next Director of Central Intelligence must be extraordinarily qualified in order to successfully carry out these and other national security tasks.

I simply say all of this to say the stakes are enormous. Perhaps most importantly, the next Director of Central Intelligence must be nonpartisan, independent, and objective. This standard is not simply this Senator's; it is what the law, the National Security Act law, requires specifically in language.

I know of no other position of importance in Government requiring that independence, objectivity, and non-partisanship as a requirement for confirmation. The very first responsibility of the Director of Central Intelligence under the National Security Act--and these are the words--says that his advice to the President, the executive branch, the military, and the Congress must be timely, must be objective, and must be independent of political considerations, and based upon all sources available to the intelligence community. That is the law.

I have reviewed Representative Goss's record closely. I have gone over his writings and his speeches of the past 10 years. We have just completed two open hearings, which I thought were good hearings, in the Intelligence Committee, where Representative Goss was asked questions about his past record, his commitment to reform the intelligence community, and his ability to be forthright, objective, and independent.

Representative Goss is, without question, qualified in many respects. He is a fine person. I have been able to work with him well over the past few years--that is not one of the requirements, but it happens to be true--both in the joint congressional inquiry into 9/11, and also in House-Senate conferences. His past employment with the Central Intelligence Agency, doing extremely dangerous work, and his 7-year tenure as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have given him both an insider's and outsider's perspective of the intelligence community. There is no doubt that he is an extremely knowledgeable person with respect to the inner workings of the Central Intelligence Agency and the other agencies he is nominated to manage.

But Representative Goss's record is troubling in other regards. I wish to speak about them. He has made a number of statements relative to intelligence matters--many in the past year--that are, in fact, highly partisan and displayed a willingness on his part to use intelligence issues as a political broadsword against members of the Democratic Party. Again, ordinarily, that is kind of routine around here, but with respect to the Director of Central Intelligence, that should not be and cannot be according to the law. When taken collectively, this list of partisan statements and actions on intelligence matters raise a serious doubt in my mind as to whether Porter Goss can be the type of nonpartisan, independent, and objective national intelligence adviser our country needs.

What is the public record of the person the President has nominated to be the next director of the CIA? Has he been independent, objective, and nonpartisan on intelligence issues, again, as required by law?

In March of this year, Representative Goss coauthored an intelligence op-ed piece entitled ``Need Intelligence? Don't ask John Kerry.'' In this political attack piece, he made a number of highly charged political allegations relating to intelligence spending. These are quotes from the Congressman:

. . . when Democrats controlled the Congress, the cuts were

deep, far-reaching, and devastating to the ability of the CIA

to do its job to keep America safe.

. . . during the Clinton years, the Intelligence Community

was given a clear message that if they failed in politically

risky operations . . . there would be no backing from the

Clinton White House or the Democratic-controlled Congress.

And then Representative Goss targeted Senator Kerry, who he claims ``was leading the way to make deep and devastating cuts in the intelligence community's budget'' and ``was leading efforts in Congress to dismantle the Nation's intelligence capabilities.'' Severe criticism. A few months later, in a June 23, 2004 statement on the floor of the House, Representative Goss claimed that ``the Democratic Party did not support the Intelligence Community.'' And in the same June floor debate, he offered the following justification for his claim:

My comment is that when there was opposition to

intelligence and, year after year, efforts to cut the

intelligence budget, they did come from the Democratic side

through the period of the 1990s.

I have gone back over the record and determined that Representative Goss's election year claims mischaracterize the intelligence record of both the Democratic Party and Senator Kerry, in my judgment. He also failed to point out his own record as a member, and eventual chairman, of the House Intelligence Committee during this time. Had he stated the intelligence record factually, it would have taken the sting out of his political attacks and created an entirely different picture than the one he painted.

It is true that during the first two years of the Clinton administration, the intelligence budgets declined. That is true. This was a period of deep cuts in almost all areas of Government, as we tried to grapple with the legacy of the previous 12 years of uncontrolled deficits. Over the next 6 years, however, the Clinton administration's budget increased every single year for intelligence. During that 6-year period, fiscal years 1996 to 2001, Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, and the Congress cut the President's request in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2001. In 1999, the Republican-controlled Congress initially cut the intelligence budget, but then passed a large one-time supplemental appropriation.

In fiscal year 2001, the Republican-controlled Congress returned to its pattern of cutting intelligence funding. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress once again passed emergency supplemental funding. By that point, the Democrats had a majority of the Senate--briefly.

Representative Goss voted for every Intelligence authorization bill and every Defense appropriation bill during this period. So he must have thought that the so-called underfunding President Clinton was requesting was acceptable.

Now, I want to look at exactly what Senator Kerry proposed in 1994, and I want to contrast that with a bill, H.R. 1923, introduced by Representative Solomon that had as its first cosponsor Congressman Goss.

In 1994, Senator Kerry introduced a bill to cut the deficit by $45 billion over 5 years--at a time when Congress was searching for ways to undo the 12 years of uncontrolled deficits under the Reagan and Bush administrations. Senator Kerry's proposal would have rescinded $1 billion from the 1994 Intelligence appropriations and then increased intelligence spending over the next 4 years by the inflation rate. Representative Goss's proposal in 1995 would have cut not less than 4 percent of the personnel from all intelligence agencies in each of the following 5 years. After the initial cut in 1994, Senator Kerry's proposal would have provided significantly more funding for intelligence than was appropriated by the Congress controlled by the Republicans, beginning with the fiscal year 1996 budget.

Representative Goss's proposal, on the other hand, would have resulted in dramatically lower intelligence funding and, in fact John Kerry's proposal would have resulted in $8.8 billion more for intelligence than Congressman Goss's lead-cosponsored bill.

And worse, all of the cuts Representative Goss proposed in 1995 would have been achieved by firing 20 percent, by law, of America's intelligence officers at the very time the terrorist threat from al- Qaida was growing. In fact, had the Congress followed the Goss plan, the intelligence community would have had tens of thousands fewer intelligence officers in the year 2000: fewer intelligence collectors in the CIA, NSA, and elsewhere; fewer intelligence analysts across the community; fewer intelligence officers in the military service; and fewer counterterrorism officers in the FBI.

The Goss plan would have made, using his own words, in fact, ``deep and devastating cuts in the intelligence community budget.'' But this year, an election year, Representative Goss chose to level that charge against the Democratic Party as a whole and Senator John Kerry by name. Why? When asked at the nomination hearing to reconcile these facts with his charge that it was the Democrats who did not support intelligence, Representative Goss simply said, ``The record is the record,'' about four or five times. He also refused to admit that his accusations might have been in error.

When asked whether anyone from the White House or the President's reelection campaign asked him to write the March editorial and to give the June floor statement against John Kerry, he said he couldn't recall.

Representative Goss's unwillingness to be forthright in his answers on this matter were troubling to me and a number of my colleagues on the committee. His dismissive answers to tough, but as I said repeatedly, I thought fair questions lacked candor.

I was left with doubt that as Director of Central Intelligence, he would have a forceful and independent voice on intelligence assessments that do not necessarily support a political agenda, if there is one, of the current President.

There are other instances where Representative Goss, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, played the partisan blame game. It is against the law for the Director of the CIA to

be involved in such. That was then. He is being confirmed now. Does this man's life change completely after 15 years from partisanship to total nonpartisanship?

In 1999, when it was disclosed that the Chinese espionage efforts against our Department of Energy weapons laboratories may have resulted in loss of sensitive nuclear weapons design information, a counter- investigation was begun, eventually resulting in charges being brought against Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Representative Goss repeatedly laid the blame for this espionage activity on the Clinton administration's failure to protect national security. In the final days of the 2000 Presidential election campaign, Representative Goss took to the House floor and stated:

We have in the Clinton-Gore administration seen a cultural

disdain for security.

Again, Representative Goss's statements on important intelligence issues mischaracterized the record in the attempt to score political points.

The Cox Commission, which Porter Goss served on as vice chairman, found that the security problems at the Department of Energy weapons laboratories predated the Clinton administration and that the Chinese espionage collection program against the weapons lab began in the 1970s.

The Cox Commission report also noted it was the Clinton administration that issued Presidential Decision Directive 61 requiring the Department of Energy to improve counterintelligence programs.

Evidently, mentioning these points was not helpful to Representative Goss when he was making sweeping statements about ``a cultural disdain for security,'' which is highly offensive to me as a Democrat who is vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and I think all Republicans and all Democrats care desperately, seriously about what happens in intelligence.

In the rush to assign partisan blame, Representative Goss ignored the record. In a number of other statements, Representative Goss erroneously singled out the Clinton administration and congressional Democrats for cutting human intelligence programs in the 1990s that, in turn, he said, limited the intelligence community's ability to carry out its mission.

Yet it was Representative Goss himself who said in 1998 that human intelligence collection programs needed to be cut by the time the 1990s began. His comment specifically was:

I am convinced that the U.S. clandestine service, the CIA

Directorate of Operations was in the mid to late 1980s too

large.

When the identity of Valerie Plame, an intelligence officer with the CIA whose clandestine identity is protected by law from unauthorized disclosure, was leaked and published by columnist Robert Novak, Representative Goss was asked whether the disclosure warranted investigation. His response was stunning. He said:

Someone sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an

investigation.

The whole basis for the law protecting the identity of covered intelligence community employees from being disclosed is to protect the lives of American intelligence officials that are endangered if their true identity is known to our adversaries.

As a former CIA case officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Goss knows this. For him to make such a statement, with its clearly implied shot at President Clinton, was wrong, inappropriate, and insensitive to the gravity of the matter. I hope Representative Goss, if confirmed by the Senate to lead the CIA, will have a more serious attitude toward the outing of CIA employees undercover.

When Richard Clarke, the coordinator for counterterrorism for the National Security Council from 1993 to October 2001, provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission that was clearly damaging to Bush administration claims, Representative Goss, and others, questioned his integrity and claimed he may have lied before the joint congressional inquiry in closed session, vowing to declassify his testimony to prove it.

These claims were never substantiated, and when the National Security Council forwarded to Chairman Goss, as requested, a declassified version of Richard Clarke's testimony on June 25, nearly 3 months ago, he took no action to publicly release it so that allegations of perjury and the like could be laid to rest.

While the Senate voted to support the creation of the independent National 9/11 Commission, which eventually became the Commission led by Governor Tom Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton, Representative Goss opposed the measure on the House floor.

When the Senate and House Intelligence Committees met in the fall of 2002 to conference this issue, he continued to oppose the creation of an independent 9/11 Commission stating that the issue would be decided ``above my pay grade.''

When the Senate Intelligence Committee undertook an investigation into the use of intelligence--not the collection, analysis, and production of intelligence, but when you hand it to policymakers--the use of intelligence by the administration officials prior to the war as part of our broader Iraq intelligence inquiry, Representative Goss made disparaging comments about two Democratic Senators in particular who, like many others in this body, are profoundly concerned about the veracity of public statements made about the U.S. intelligence agency, calling them ``two old attack dogs gumming their way through artificial outrage about something they should know a lot more about and be more responsible about.''

What makes this particular criticism curious is Representative Goss's lack of action on the issue of pre-war intelligence. Despite assurances over a year ago that the House Intelligence Committee was evaluating the intelligence community's performance on Iraq since the end of the gulf war, Chairman Goss failed to issue the promised report on the failures and mistakes leading up to the war.

Chairman Roberts and I, in a thoroughly bipartisan fashion, did so in a 17-to-0 vote. I think we are both proud of that, and justifiably so, along with our colleagues on the committee. The House produced nothing. They produced press releases, but nothing else.

When both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, as committees with shared jurisdiction, began holding difficult but necessary oversight hearings into the improper treatment and interrogation of prisoners in Iraq, Representative Goss viewed our actions with disdain, saying:

I am not comfortable with what the Senate is doing . . . I

do honestly question whether or not they have balance over

there on this issue . . . We've got a circus in the Senate,

which is always the likely place to look for this circus.

Porter Goss chose to denigrate the Senate's investigation, while the House chose to largely ignore the matter and not ask the tough questions about what happened inside Abu Ghraib prison and at other detention facilities in Iraq or elsewhere.

All too often, Representative Goss's statements and actions as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee seemed designed to protect the administration by avoiding contentious issues which could be embarrassing to the administration and placing blame on Democrats for shortcomings in the intelligence community.

Not surprisingly, one thing missing from Representative Goss's records is any public statements on intelligence critical of Members of his own party or the administration. During his nomination hearing, Representative Goss assured the committee that these partisan inclinations of the past would not prevent him from carrying out his duties as Director of Central Intelligence. He said he understood the Director must be an independent adviser to the President and the Congress, beyond reproach and beyond the reach of politics.

While I appreciate his testimony and commitment to being a nonpartisan Director of Intelligence, I cannot say with absolute certainty that he will be exactly that. I must vote on his record. I cannot vote on his promise, and I do not think the Senate should. His record is his record. He said it.

The truth is, Chairman Goss and I have a very good working relationship, one that I expect will continue and improve in the future. We had a good exchange in recent days, even during difficult nomination hearings. In contrast to those who wish to gloss over this issue, Porter Goss himself understands exactly the dilemma that I and

many of my colleagues face with this nomination. He knows this is one of only a handful of positions in the entire U.S. Government that requires by law nonpartisanship and objectivity, and in this case the demand is all the greater because it is about our national security.

Porter Goss openly acknowledged in his testimony before the committee this week that he has at times approached national security issues with excessive partisanship, and he expressed regret about that. And I respect that. I believe Porter Goss knows that in essence, on this whole question of independence, he is asking us to take it on faith, so to speak, that he can make a clean break from the last 10 to 20 years of his political career.

I hope he is right. I very much want him to be right about that, but at end of the day I do not think taking it on faith is enough for this vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee when it comes to such a critical position of Director of Central Intelligence. It does not meet the legal standard, and it does not meet my obligation, in my judgment, as vice chairman.

These are troubled times for the intelligence community in our country. In so many ways, we are still recovering from the tragedy of 9/11. We are grappling with the tragic impact of flawed and exaggerated intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq, and we are struggling still to understand the truth about what is happening in the world.

Just yesterday, our President surprised and shocked many of us by dismissing outright the highest level of consensus view of the intelligence community when he said they were ``just guessing'' about the gravity of the situation in Iraq.

In light of all of this, I believe I owe it to the men and women of the intelligence community to send a clear and strong signal about the paramount importance of independence and objectivity. It needs to be said not only in words but in action. So I will vote against the nomination of Porter Goss to be the next DCI.

I sincerely hope Porter Goss will prove my vote wrong, and I told him that. In fact, I intend to work with him in order to help him prove me wrong. But based on his record of partisanship, based on the dictates of the law, and based on my own strong conviction against mixing politics and intelligence at the CIA, I must vote no.

I yield the floor.

I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from Oregon.

I yield such time as the Senator from New Jersey wishes to express his views. I yield him that amount of time.

Mr. President, at the proper time, which I believe will be at 5 o'clock, I will call for the yeas and nays, or can I do that now before I make a statement?

I wish to make a short statement, and then I will call for the yeas and nays.

Porter Goss has been very well vetted. What has come from this discussion back and forth are several things.

One, he is a very good man. Second, he knows the intelligence business. Third, I think there is still a question of whether he has run any larger organizations, and that becomes a factor. The third had to do with partisanship. It was interesting to me that a number of people said everybody around here is partisan. Of course, that is true. But this has to do with a nomination for the Central Intelligence Agency. That is a position where the national security law forbades a nominee from being political in any way, shape, or form.

I think the question really is with him. I want to believe it is true, but based upon the record, I cannot accept it as true to this point, and I have to look at what has happened as opposed to what he says will happen; that he has been very partisan and very partisan within the field of intelligence and very partisan within the field of intelligence very recently at a time, obviously, when we are engaged in a broad election.

I think it is probable that he will be confirmed, but that does not take away from my responsibility to point out what I think is critical: That now, more than ever, it is important for a CIA Director or for anybody in intelligence to tell the truth, to make sure that if there was a reference in a Cincinnati October 2 speech about Niger and uranium enrichment and the possible seeking of it by Iraq, and then when it comes to the State of the Union that somehow that the CIA Director disappeared and never said, Oh, no, that shouldn't be in the State of the Union because it was never true--I don't want to get into that now. The point is we need somebody who is independent and takes pride, who describes himself, defines himself as being independent and standing up for the intelligence business and, therefore, is speaking the truth. I hope that person will be Porter Goss. That is not yet proven, and based upon the record it is not possible for me to vote anything but no at this time.

It being very close to 5, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a very special family from my home state of West Virginia. I am delighted that Pam and Morgan Lacefield of Moundsville, WV, will be recognized later this month as ``Angels in Adoption,'' a special award created by the Congressional Adoption Caucus.

I would like to take a moment to tell you more about Pam, Morgan, and the entire Lacefield family. Pam and Morgan Lacefield are the proud parents of nine wonderful children. This large, loving bunch is typical of many: they are involved in a host of sports and activities. They do homework. They enjoy family meals together. There is one quality, however, that makes the Lakefield family special: Pam and Morgan have adopted every one of their nine children. It is not surprising that such a loving couple would also run a shelter for homeless animals with no where else to turn.

In 1991, Pam and Morgan were managing a successful group of restaurants that they owned while also raising two children, whom they had previously adopted. They soon became aware of four siblings who were in need of a loving permanent home and who did not want to face separation. Pam and Morgan adopted them, too, bringing to six the total number of children in their home under the age of five. Later, they adopted another ``sibling group'' of three children, and they have been on the go ever since!

True leaders in their community, Pam and Morgan have been involved in a number of charitable organizations within West Virginia, and were named West Virginia Parent Teachers' Association's Partners in Education for 1999-2000. And, eleven years after adopting their first sibling group, Pam and Morgan opened a ``no-kill'' animal shelter, which they named Webark Estates. Their examples of selflessness and commitment have not been lost on the youngest members of their family-- each of their children now helps at the shelter in some capacity, and it has become a labor of love for all of the Lacefields. It is a lucky child who can claim over 20 dogs and 80 cats as his pets, and it is a luckier child still who can claim Pam and Morgan Lacefield as parents. As you can see, they are clearly ``angels.''

The Angels in Adoption Award recognizes individuals like the Lacefields who open their hearts and homes to children in foster care. On September 23, the Lacefields and other Angels will come to Washington in order to be recognized for their good works. The Lacefield family and the other Angel in Adoption nominees from around the country can help inspire everyone to continue efforts to ensure that every child has a safe, healthy, and permanent home and that, for some children, this is only possible through adoption.

I have worked for many years in bipartisan coalitions to promote adoption and improved services for abused and neglected children. While these issues rarely command headlines, they change the lives of children and families across our country. People like the Lacefields and programs like Angels in Adoption remind us of the importance of our adoption and child welfare programs. In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act to ensure that a child's health and safety are paramount, and to express the belief that every child deserves a permanent home. Since then, adoptions from foster care have nearly doubled. While this is wonderful news, more than 100,000 children remain in foster care. As the Lacefields and other adoptive parents would tell us, we clearly have more work to do.

Mr. President, I am delighted to have had this opportunity to tell you more about the Lacefield family. I have long believed that the people of West Virginia are its greatest resource; individuals such as the Lacefields prove this point again and again.

Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor and to speak in support of the amendment offered yesterday by my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd. As members of Congress, our most sacred duty is protecting our fellow Americans. We do this in several ways, of course, by supporting our troops at home and abroad, by our oversight of the intelligence community, and now, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, with an annual appropriation to fund the security activities of the various agencies that make up DHS, and to fund grant programs to states, localities, and private industry to make certain that citizens of the United States are protected from terrorist attacks, life-threatening accidents, and acts of God.

In the last 3 years I have sat down with hundreds of first responders around my State of West Virginia, as well as local elected officials and experts from my State's core industries, to discuss what they were doing to protect West Virginians, and to hear from them directly where they needed help from the Federal Government. I am sure that each of my colleagues has had similar meetings. While I would not presume to know specifically what was said at these meetings, I would be willing to wager that no Member of Congress heard anything other than ``We have huge unmet security needs and we need federal resources to make our country safer.''

When we created the Department of Homeland Security, and when we authorized many billions of dollars in additional funding to protect this Nation, I am sure we convinced some people that we had learned the harsh lessons of September 11. In fact, I think we have done well making increased safety and security priority issues for the Federal Government and for all Americans. Unfortunately, we have fallen short on addressing these needs, and the Byrd amendment is a very good step in the right direction. This amendment would not do everything that needs to be done for Congress to be able to say we are delivering the goods to our first responders, State and local officials, and to the industries that make up our critical infrastructure, but it would be a much-needed boost for all those trying to make America safer.

I commend Senator Byrd for making his usual strong, principled stand on this matter. Let me be clear, too, that I do not believe the funding levels in the underlying bill reflect any lack of understanding of the scope of the problem on the part of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, my friend, Senator Cochran, has done very well with the amount he was given to distribute. The problem is, quite simply, that the administration's past policy choices and the need to adequately support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have left Senator Cochran and his fellow appropriators with too little to do this all-important job.

It is not a question, let me reiterate, of our Republican colleagues or the President not wanting to see our Nation adequately protected. I do question, I am sad to say, the idea that it is vitally important to make unaffordable tax cuts permanent, but it is not more immediately important to secure our chemical facilities, our railroads, our electricity grid, or provide training and technical assistance to our firefighters and emergency medical personnel.

I hope that my colleagues will see just how important this is. It would be a tragedy beyond measure if we failed to do the right thing when we had the chance, and only provided funding, for instance, to fix the problem of interoperable radios after another tragedy where first responders were at risk because they could not talk to each other.

Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor and to speak in support of the amendment offered today by my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd. As Members of Congress, our most sacred duty is protecting our fellow Americans. We do this in several ways, of course, by supporting our troops at home and abroad, by our oversight of the intelligence community, and now, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, with an annual appropriation to fund the security activities of the various agencies that make up DHS, and to fund grant programs to States, localities, and private industry to make certain that citizens of the United States are protected from terrorist attacks, life-threatening accidents, and acts of God.

In the last 3 years I have sat down with hundreds of first responders around my State of West Virginia, as well as local elected officials and experts from my State's core industries, to discuss what they were doing to protect West Virginians, and to hear from them directly where they needed help from the Federal Government. I am sure that each of my colleagues has had similar meetings. While I would not presume to know specifically what was said at these meetings, I would be willing to wager that no member of Congress heard anything other than ``We have huge unmet security needs and we need Federal resources to make our country safer.''

When we created the Department of Homeland Security, and when we authorized many billions of dollars in additional funding to protect this Nation, I am sure we convinced some people that we had learned the harsh lessons of September 11. In fact, I think we have done well making increased safety and security priority issues for the Federal Government and for all Americans. Unfortunately, we have fallen short on addressing these needs, and the Byrd amendment is a very good

step in the right direction. This amendment would not do everything that needs to be done for Congress to be able to say we are delivering the goods to our first responders, State and local officials, and to the industries that make up our critical infrastructure, but it would be a much-needed boost for all those trying to make America safer.

I commend Senator Byrd for making his usual strong, principled stand on this matter. Let me be clear, too, that I do not believe the funding levels in the underlying bill reflect any lack of understanding of the scope of the problem on the part of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, my friend, Senator Cochran, has done very well with the amount he was given to distribute. The problem is, quite simply, that the administration's past policy choices--and the need to adequately support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan--have left Senator Cochran and his fellow appropriators with too little to do this all-important job.

It is not a question, let me reiterate, of our Republican colleagues or the President not wanting to see our Nation adequately protected. I do question, I am sad to say, the idea that it is vitally important to make unaffordable tax cuts permanent, but it is not more immediately important to secure our chemical facilities, our railroads, our electricity grid, or provide training and technical assistance to our firefighters and emergency medical personnel.

I hope that my colleagues will see just how important this is. It would be a tragedy beyond measure if we failed to do the right thing when we had the chance, and only provided funding, for instance, to fix the problem of interoperable radios after another tragedy where first responders were at risk because they could not talk to each other.

Mr. President, I rise today with my friend and colleague from Rhode Island, Mr. Chafee, to introduce legislation that will protect the health and well-being of America's children by restoring funds to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). In 1997, Senator Chafee and I worked together to create the Children's Health Insurance Program as part of the Balanced Budget Act. I am proud of the work we have done over the years to make improvements to this critical program, which helps so many of our nation's children.

Since its inception, the CHIP program has been an unqualified success. It has directly contributed to the decline in the number of children without health insurance in recent years. Last year, 5.8 million children were enrolled in CHIP, including over 35,000 children in my home state of West Virginia.

However, the continued success of the CHIP program is in serious jeopardy. A number of States are projected to have insufficient Federal funding to sustain their existing CHIP programs over the next several years. On September 30, 2004, $1.07 billion in Federal CHIP funds are scheduled to expire and revert to the national treasury, despite growing unmet need in a number of States. If Congress does not act to preserve these funds, States will have no choice but to cut coverage for low-income children.

Last year, we acted to protect children's health care by passing legislation to prevent $2.7 billion in Federal funding for CHIP from reverting to the treasury. While this legislation went a long way to address immediate CHIP funding shortfalls, it did not address the long- term financing problems that will persist until CHIP is reauthorized in fiscal year 2007. The legislation we are introducing today would solve the current CHIP financing problems and preserve health care coverage for children through reauthorization, when Congress will have to consider a better Federal financing mechanism for the program.

I am pleased to be joined by Senators Chafee, Kennedy, and Snowe in introducing legislation that represents a comprehensive approach to shoring up CHIP financing through reauthorization, thereby preventing a devastating

enrollment decline and facilitating continued CHIP growth. Our bill would extend the availability of the $1.07 billion in expiring CHIP funds and target some of the funds to the States that need them the most. It would also establish redistribution rules that will keep CHIP money in the CHIP program through fiscal year 2007.

The Children's Health Protection and Improvement Act will allow States to continue offering health care to our Nation's children--the most vulnerable population among us. It will ensure that healthy children have access to preventative check-ups and exams and that sick children can get the medication and treatment they need. This legislation enjoys bipartisan support and is endorsed by the National Governor's Association (NGA).

I urge my colleagues to make enactment of this critical legislation a priority. Congress must act on this legislation this year. We must do this when we return. I recognize that we have very few legislative days left, but this must be at the top of our list because our children cannot afford to wait. We must guarantee the continued success of the CHIP program and sustain the significant progress CHIP has made over the years in reducing the ranks of uninsured children.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.