Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), he has convinced me; and to the gentleman from Northern Virginia, he convinced me also that he has a very good motion to recommit to add some money for FEMA, $1.1 billion, I understand.

I, for one, had concerns when we created the Department of Homeland Security and put FEMA in it that it would mean that what was a very efficient, small, responsive governmental agency would get lost in the maze of the new Department. And in some ways, and especially as it relates to funding, I think that has happened. FEMA's funding had been allowed to dip to a very low level, down to $44 million, before the administration insisted to Congress that they should have some supplemental funding. This is not good for the program or for the country, to have such low balance.

The gentleman from Virginia's (Mr. Moran) motion to recommit would put the disaster relief program back on sound financial footing. So I would urge Members to vote for the Moran motion and do good things for the country and do good things for FEMA.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as we meet today on the eve of September 11, I am one Member who remains very concerned about America's safety and the safety of the flying public. We can and must do more. My motion is just one important step in the right direction.

This motion to instruct conferees is very straightforward. It is a motion to instruct the House conferees to insist on the highest possible level of funding for each homeland security, preparedness and disaster response program in the bill and to insist on the amendment adopted on the House floor by a vote of 278 to 146 to require the screening of cargo carried in the belly of passenger aircraft.

As the conference on the fiscal year 2004 homeland security appropriations bill begins, we now have an opportunity to provide additional homeland security resources and help close known security gaps. We should do so. We should correct one of the most glaring gaps in our aviation security program, the fact that all passengers and their bags are screened for explosives and weapons, but cargo carried in the same place as passenger baggage is not screened at all. The Markey amendment adopted on the floor seeks to eliminate this air security gap. The House conferees should insist on it.

Some have argued that the screening of cargo carried on passenger aircraft is impossible to do immediately and would result in a $3 billion loss to the airline industry. This is an argument of a pre-9/11 America. We now screen passengers and their baggage. We did not before. We now secure cockpits. We did not before. Where there is a will, there is a way. The Congress either does or does not have that will. I think that the American public would ``will'' us to have the cargo carried on the airplanes they fly in screened.

I must point out, however, that the Markey amendment addressed only one of the homeland security gaps that exist today. There are many others. The higher levels in some of the funding differences between the House and Senate bills would help address other homeland security and preparedness shortfalls. The first affects the preparedness of our first responders. The House bill provides $3.5 billion for the Office for Domestic Preparedness, $625 million more than the Senate. If we were to accept the Senate level, our States and localities would lose $625 million in funding that helps to better equip and train our Nation's first responders.

Only a few months ago, the Council on Foreign Relations released a report entitled, ``First Responders, Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared.'' The report stated that billions of dollars are needed to properly equip first responders. I do not know if their estimate is right, but I do know that a great deal of additional funding is needed. Therefore, our conferees should insist on the highest funding level possible.

The second has to do with our ability to identify and respond to medical emergencies. The House bill provides $50 million for the Metropolitan Medical Response System. The Senate bill provides no funding. Not to fund this system would widen the homeland security gap that we have been trying to close.

The third deals with the porousness of our northern border, which is well known. The Air and Marine Interdiction office has told us of instances of smugglers and others being caught coming across our northern border.

Yet today we have no permanent air surveillance of our northern border.

The Senate bill provides a total of $71 million to permanently monitor air activity along our northern border. The House bill provides no funding for this. I think we all see the need to fund this homeland security improvement.

The Senate bill provides a total of $459 million for procurement and installation of airport explosive detection systems. The House bill provides $335 million. A number of our Nation's airports may not meet the December 31 deadline for electronic screening of all checked baggage due to the fact that TSA has been slow to fund needed modifications. We should provide all of the funding we can to allow TSA to act quickly.

The Senate bill provides $74 more than the House for 570 new Border Patrol agents and additional inspectors. The House bill provides few staffing increases in this area. The PATRIOT Act called for tripling of the number of agents and inspectors on our northern border, and the Senate funding would result in us meeting that requirement for border agents.

Lastly, the Senate bill provides $156 million more than the House bill for Disaster Relief. We have woefully underfunded the Disaster Relief program for this year and now it looks like FEMA only has enough funding to get them to the beginning of the fiscal year 2004.

FEMA has been distributing only the funding that States and localities can immediately spend, so the backlog is growing. This further strains our citizens and communities that are already in distress.

Because all of these important programs may help close some of today's homeland security gaps and better prepare our Nation, this motion to instruct directs the House conferees to agree to the highest funding levels possible for homeland security, preparedness, and disaster response programs and to insist on inclusion of the Markey amendment to screen air cargo on passenger aircraft.

In summary, let me say that we should be doing all we can to close known security gaps today, not tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I do. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking Democrat of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), the ranking Democrat on the authorizing committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that I have the right to close, so I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have one speaker for the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, today I will introduce the Public Access to Science Act, PASA, of 2003, legislation to make federally funded research available to the public.

It is wrong when a breast cancer patient cannot access federally funded research paid for by her hard-earned taxes. It is wrong when a family whose child has a rare disease must pay again for access to research their tax dollars already paid for. Common sense dictates we provide the most cutting-edge research to all who may benefit from it, especially when they have already paid for it with their tax dollars.

The United States Government funds basic research with the intention and the belief that the new ideas and discoveries that result will improve the lives and welfare of the people of the United States and around the world. Our government spends $45 billion a year to support scientific and medical research whose product is new knowledge for the public benefit. We must remember that government funded research belongs to, and should be readily available to, every person in the United States. Lifting restrictions that prevent the widespread sharing of federally funded research can only speed scientific advancement.

I urge you to join me by cosponsoring this legislation to require research substantially funded by the Federal Government to be ineligible for copyright protection, and thus available in the public domain.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to the rule for the fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security appropriations bill. The rule should be opposed for several reasons. I will raise two of them.

First, the rule does not protect an amendment I offered that was adopted in committee which concerns the Transportation Security Administration's new computerized airline passenger profile system called CAPPS2.

As proposed, CAPPS2 potentially represents the largest-ever intrusion of the Federal Government into our personal lives. Under it, a Federal agency would mine sensitive personnel data on millions of people for the routine event of flying on an airplane. The privacy and due process concerns are immense. The administration has been working on CAPPS2 since late last year.

But there remains many unanswered questions about it. It deserves far more scrutiny than has been paid so far. I am concerned that TSA may not currently possess the expertise to design a fair and effective passenger screening system, one that catches the people who mean us harm, while protecting those who do not.

I am concerned for law abiding people, especially those with common names and those who move residences often or who do not have well- established credit histories like college students and older Americans. I worry that these honest people will be singled out for further TSA screening, not based on risk but simply because the system is not well designed.

I am concerned that while TSA may set up a mediator to deal with passenger problems, it may be a mediator in name only. There may be no adequate process for passengers to get problems fully resolved because TSA will not control all the data bases it plans to use. If so, once red flagged, will law abiding people be needlessly hassled every time they fly? And to make matters worse, would such mistaken red flags of people who pose no risk cause the passenger and baggage screening systems to become overburdened, thereby raising the risk of lowering it?

My amendment, the CAPPS2 provision in the bill, requires the GAO to review CAPPS2 as it exists today before funding can be obligated on a planned pilot program.

GAO's review would mirror the recommendations put forth by the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General in the report they submitted on May 20 on DOD's Terrorism Information Awareness Program. It is unclear how many of these recommendations, if any, have been filed by the TSA or by the Department of Homeland Security. I suspect none.

The CAPPS2 provisions in the bill are reasonable and should have been protected in the rule from points of order.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, first let me congratulate the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) on the first homeland security bill and congratulate him on a job well done and also add my thanks to the staff, both minority and majority, for their hard work in putting this bill together. We really do appreciate their efforts.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security appropriations bill. But I must say that in many ways I think it is premature for this bill to be the first appropriations measure brought to the floor. The Department is in serious disarray, and the committee received very little support from the Department in putting together this bill and report. In fact, many of the agencies transferred to the Department were prevented by the Department from providing responsive information to the subcommittee.

Hearings could not even be arranged for four of the largest and most important of the Department's 11 major agencies. Those four agencies constitutes $9 billion, or 31 percent, of the Department's total budget. And I must say that that is an additional reason for thanking the staff, both minority and majority of this committee, for putting a bill together with the lack of information coming from the Department.

In some ways the current state of the Department of Homeland Security reminds me of the situation we faced 1 year ago and still face today with TSA. The management failures of TSA are well known, and I fear that the Department of Homeland Security is going down the same path. The Department so far has failed to develop a useful road map of its security goals for the Nation. If anyone at the Department has a strategy for basic objectives, such as securing the northern border, tracking all vessels entering American waters, or ensuring that airline cargo is effectively screened, no one has been willing to share that information with us. I find that disturbing.

If the Department will not define its goals, it is up to the Congress to do them. This bill provides $29.4 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Homeland Security. This is only $536 million, or 1.8 percent, above fiscal 2003 funding. The gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) has managed to fill some of the most glaring funding gaps contained in President Bush's 2004 budget, specifically funding for first responder programs contained in this bill. However, the tightness in the budget resolution restricts this bill from doing more to protect our borders, secure our ports and other critical infrastructure. This does not serve our Nation well.

In conclusion, while I support the bill overall, I have many concerns with the current abilities, or rather inabilities of the Department of Homeland Security to adequately address obvious homeland security gaps.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), a member of our subcommittee.

How much time is remaining on both sides, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, one of the disappointments I had in this rule was it did not waive a point of order on what I thought was a very reasonable limitation on the development of CAPPS2. The gentleman from Kentucky graciously accepted that amendment in committee. I would hope that the folks who are objecting would not raise a point of order when we get to that in the regular bill.

The provision is a moderate attempt to make sure that this very, very large system of compiling information on the American public receives the closest of scrutiny and the closest of examination by GAO and others before it is implemented.

Our amendment left in place the money for the program, left in place the capacity of the Department to proceed with work on how they want to put the program together, but requires it be scrutinized by GAO and the Academy of Science to look at the privacy issues and also to look at its effectiveness. It has the potential to be the largest intrusion of the American government into the private lives of American people that has ever occurred. It also, on the other hand, has the ability to be a system that totally complicates our screening process if it is not done well. Rather than simplify, it may make our whole screening process more cumbersome and more costly and less effective.

If a point of order is raised, the only alternative we will have is to seek a pure limitation without the language. I would hope the House would adopt such a limitation, if that is the situation we find ourselves in, but I much prefer we preserve the language which is for new activity of the Department, one not specifically authorized with guidelines by Congress. It is a new activity that the Department is pursuing and we simply want to put some regulations in place as they move forward to make sure this whole new large complicated program is put in place in a fashion that would work.

I might remind people this is an agency that has had trouble figuring out whether their own workforce has had criminal involvement in the past. They are struggling to make sure that their personnel do not have criminal backgrounds. They have not succeeded doing that yet. So we should be a little cautious before we give them a blank check to move forward with a huge new complicated screening process of the American public.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In relationship to our latest colloquy, I understand the concern of people over the situation in New York. They clearly have unusual problems. Would the chairman agree with me that we do not know precisely how the agency sets criteria for the balance of funds in this particular discretionary program?

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. Chairman, we have a little trouble getting a precise understanding of what criteria are used.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), a distinguished member of the Committee on Appropriations.

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) and congratulate the gentlewoman on Rice's victory in the NCAA baseball tournament last night.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would join the chairman in opposing the amendment. The committee and the chairman have been very tough task masters of TSA when it comes to the number of screeners. We have been urging them for a long time to use more part-time people and to make more efficient use of their personnel. On the other hand, if we get too harsh, there may be imbalance around the country in terms of where there are vacancies and where there are an overabundance. So if we get too tough, we can be very counterproductive.

I agree with the chairman that first responder money is important, but the committee has been very disciplined in dealing with TSA, and I would join the chairman in opposing this additional cut.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I would like to ask the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) a question.

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. Chairman, did I just hear correctly a little while ago that the Secretary's request of our committee for the high-threat urban grant was zero?

And our committee has recommended what?

Five hundred million. And this goes to a limited number of communities in the country?

Which criteria that many of us have trouble understanding yet. The balance of the money flows by formula to the States, including the States that are eligible for this additional $500 million?

Reclaiming my time, for those of us who come from the heartland of the country, we are having discussion over how much money should go to ports. We have allocated a significant amount, and others would like to allocate more. My assumption is most of that goes along the coast.

No. We do have a river one but fairly small. So I think it would be fair to say we made a special effort to try to allocate more money to ports, that that will go to a limited part of the country.

But we find that when we raise threat levels in this country, the law enforcement and local responders are expected to respond throughout the country and they have the same problem over time, training, teaching people how to use new equipment, wondering what it means, increasing pressure on local law enforcement. What I hear from all of them is that their expenditures exceed whatever revenue they are getting from the Federal Government. I expect the gentleman hears the same thing.

And this amendment, as I understand it, would take some of this little money that we distribute throughout the country and say we are going to cut that from everyone. Where they are working, trying to coordinate expenditures to make most efficient use of it, take it from that and give them to a few areas where we have already increased the administration's budget by $500 million; am I right?

Reclaiming my time, and this is money that local responders can use for buying new equipment in a coordinated fashion, in a State plan or for training to have them become equipped to meet the threats that may occur in this country?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I think he has given good advice to the body.

Mr. Chairman, I do.

It is sort of strange. Would the gentleman from Florida yield?

In discussion of his point of order, we are trying to figure out how----

Okay. Let me see if I figure out how we do this, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I think I understand what the gentleman from Florida is saying is that he is raising a point of order against this provision because it is legislation on an appropriation bill. However, he is also telling me that the authorizing committee is meeting tomorrow and it is their intent to adopt provisions that are similar in substance to what is contained in

the language of the appropriations bill, which will then be amended in another bill.

The gentleman from Minnesota would observe that, as he has read what is intended to be offered tomorrow, that in many ways it is similar and if that bill were before us we would not be subject to a point of order. However, the gentleman from Minnesota has also observed that some of the enforcement techniques within the proposed language are significantly weaker.

I would observe that the proposal that the committee will be considering tomorrow leaves the responsibility for reviewing CAPPS2 proposal internally in the Department while the language in question, which is subject to a point of order now, gives that responsibility to the GAO; and I would hope the gentleman from Florida would consider such language because frankly one of my concerns is the Department may not be equipped to make a good judgment.

We, frankly, have watched an agency that has had a problem trying to figure out which of their own employees do or do not have criminal backgrounds, and we think it might be a significant advantage to have the GAO look at their proposed plans before they are implemented rather than waiting until a year after deployment and development of these plans to have a GAO study.

So I would urge the gentleman from Florida, as he ponders whether he should continue to press this point of order, that they might well consider expanding at an earlier stage the review of GAO of the pending plans of the agency.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I was trying to listen to the gentleman from Colorado as he explained his amendment. I have read the amendment several times and I, frankly, have to admit I do not understand it.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we now have a new department. It could not have existed in 1996.

So it applied to the INS, the existing law?

Would it now apply to all parts of the Department of Homeland Security, so it would also apply to TSA?

But does it expand who the law applies to?

Are there new and different grants that could be restricted?

I am trying to understand, again, Mr. Chairman. Can the gentleman tell me who the original law applied to, in what form?

Yes.

But, Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to get at, I guess, is my understanding that you are saying that the old law applied to the INS; this law now applies to the Department of Homeland Security, which is 22 agencies rather than one agency.

So it would be a significant expansion in the scope of what the current law is?

I thank the gentleman.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I am having trouble following what this amendment does or does not do. It may be of significant relevance to some people.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I want to ask the gentleman a question. What cities would this apply to?

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Houston. And do I understand correctly, because I have tried to read this language. I am sorry, there was so much noise I could not clearly hear what the gentleman was saying.

Under old law, under the INS, there were certain restrictions that we passed that in some fashion applied to the transfer of funds from the INS if a city did certain things; is that what it states?

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, as I read this amendment, this says, none of the funds can be used to provide assistance to any State or local government, entity, or official that does certain things. I do not quite understand the end of this, what they are or are not doing.

My assumption is that now this would apply to FEMA funds, emergency funds; it would apply to airports that are receiving funds under the Transportation Security Act.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am sorry, I am having trouble again. But as I read this, none of the funds made available in this act may be used to provide assistance to any State or local government or official that restricts any government entity or official from sending or receiving funds, and I am not sure what agency the gentleman is referring to. But ``none of the funds that are used to provide assistance'' would now include all of the funds flowing to airports from the TSA; and it would apply to FEMA funds, I would assume. It would apply to all of the first responder funds that are in this bill. I would assume it would apply to all the port funds that are in this bill.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chairman, I will let someone else maybe try and figure it out. I remain confused. It just seems to go farther to me than what the gentleman has indicated.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, in this institution of democracy there is always a small group of smart, talented, hardworking, honest people who labor anonymously behind the scenes. They are absolutely essential to the success of our form of government. Al Davis was at the top of that group. His brilliance was exceeded only by his work effort and his integrity.

Al worked hard to help those of us who are Members of Congress fulfill our responsibilities in developing, debating, and voting on tax and budget laws. He also helped other staffers, policy thinkers, academics, reporters, and the general public understand the issues. I am told that whenever tax policy experts around town ran into a particularly thorny problem, they looked at each other and would say, this is an Al question.

Al was also brutal in his honesty. If he thought something was a bad idea, it did not matter where it came from, he would tell the truth. Al made himself learn budget rules even when they

seemed silly, so that he could bring his understanding of economics and tax law into the budget process. He spent endless hours late into the night doing calculations and grinding out memos on every possible point of argument or challenge that might come up from a floor debate.

Al patiently answered the same questions over and over, so Members who had not been in the committee debates could understand what they were voting on. He spent endless hours helping our staffs learn what they needed to know.

Having said all that, I have to admit there are other staffers here who share these same traits. So what about Al made him so special and so sad to lose him? Much has been said of Al's love of irony and quick humor, but I do not remember him that way. To me, the best single word to describe Al is ``twinkly.'' He was always smiling and winking about something, usually involving numbers. His eyes would sparkle as he saw wonderful number games and possibilities in his mind long before the rest of us caught up with him. There was a little bounce in those long, lanky strides as he walked down the hall, and when he had his special numbers game going in his head, he literally danced.

Like many of the people in the world I come from, Al was a man of few words, but he also was a man of many numbers. He used his profound understanding of numerical relationships and the flow of money to make life better for all Americans, but particularly for people in need. At heart, he was a deeply kind man and a true populist. The House of Representatives, indeed all the people of this country, have lost a great resource, and I have lost a dear friend. I will miss him very much.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) for yielding me time, and commend my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline) who is handling the bill and the resolution on the majority side.

Mr. Speaker, Minnesota is a hockey State. I think we are the premiere hockey State in the country, and it has been a great year for hockey in Minnesota. Most recently, we have been excited about the, I suppose what you call, surprising success of the Wild in getting into the division championship in the NHL. But while they are new to our State, Golden Gophers have been playing hockey for 81 years. And that rich tradition we salute today as we congratulate them on winning a second consecutive NCAA championship.

But that is part of a rich tradition. This is their fifth national championship. In their 81 years, they have been in the NCAA Frozen Four Finals 18 times, 27 times to the NCAA tournaments. They have appeared in the national tournament for 13 consecutive years, an NCAA record; 12 conference playoff championships; 10 conference championships. So they come with a rich, rich tradition of outstanding hockey. Five national championships.

It is a unique team, a unique school with a rich tradition of good hockey, good athletes, good scholars. So we are proud of them. We are proud. We also know that unless there is some unusual circumstances, like pro hockey, most of the team is going to be back next year. Clearly, if you were to pick a favorite today for the NCAA hockey championship a year from now, the Gophers would lead the way.

So to Coach Don Lucia, to all his staff, all his players, the University administration, we say a hearty congratulations on your great success these last 2 years. We congratulate you for a rich tradition of hockey in the hockey State of the United States. We are proud of you and we wish you well in the future.