Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will help crack down on illegal sales of tobacco to underaged young people by banning the shipment of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the U.S. mail. Not only does the delivery of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the mail create opportunities for tax evasion, but it also creates an easy means through which children and young people can obtain these potentially deadly products.

Tobacco remains the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States today, accounting for more than 400,000 deaths a year and billions of dollars in health care costs. Moreover, tobacco addiction is a ``teen-onset'' disease: Ninety percent of all smokers start before they are 21. If we are to put an end to this tragic, yet preventable, epidemic, we must accelerate our efforts not only to help more smokers to quit, but also to discourage young people from ever lighting up in the first place.

Internet sales of tobacco are growing and growing fast. Unfortunately, effective safeguards against illegal sales to young people are virtually nonexistent on the more than 400 Web sites selling tobacco, making it easier and cheaper for kids to buy cigarettes.

A 2002 American Journal of Public Health study found that 20 percent of cigarette-selling Web sites do not say anything about sales to minors being prohibited. More than half require only that the buyer say they are of legal age. Another 15 percent require only that the buyer type in their date of birth, and only 7 percent require any driver's license information.

It is no wonder that Internet ``stings'' conducted by attorneys general in at least 15 States have found that children as young as 9 years old are able to purchase cigarettes easily. One study in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that kids as young as 11 were successful more than 90 percent of the time in purchasing cigarettes over the Internet. Moreover, since Internet cigarette vendors typically require a two-carton minimum purchase, many high school and middle school buyers of Internet tobacco also end up serving as suppliers of cigarettes to other kids.

In an effort to combat this problem, all of the major credit card companies have taken steps to ensure that their systems are not used to process payments for illegal cigarette sales. Moreover, all of the major commercial carriers--UPS, DHL and FedEx--have agreed to put a stop to the mail order sale and delivery of tobacco products. This leaves our U.S. Postal Service as the sole remaining courier for the delivery of tobacco products to minors. I believe that it is time for us to close this final delivery gap so that cigarettes and other tobacco products are not so easily accessible to our Nation's children.

The Postal Code already makes it illegal to mail alcoholic beverages and guns. The legislation I am introducing today will amend title 39 of the United States Code to add cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to the list of restricted, nonmailable matter. Any person found guilty of mailing such a product would be liable for a civil penalty of up to $5,000 or 10 times the estimated retail value of the tobacco products, including all Federal, State, and local taxes, whichever is highest, for a first violation. Civil penalties of up to $100,000 would be imposed for a second or each subsequent violation.

Mr. President, the U.S. Postal Service should not be the delivery agent for illegal cigarette traffickers. The legislation I am introducing today will close a loophole that has allowed Internet and mail order companies to circumvent the law, and I urge my colleagues to support this reform.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Creating Opportunities for Minor League Professionals, Entertainers and Teams through legal Entry--COMPETE--Act. This bill will level the playing field for minor league sports teams that depend on getting the best athletic talent. I thank Senators Feinstein, Cornyn, Lieberman, Mikulski, and Leahy for joining me in introducing this measure.

The core problem we address is that under current law, minor league players who have to use the H-2B visa category face severe visa shortages, while major league players qualify automatically for plentiful P-1 visas.

The H-2B visas are intended for use by industries facing seasonal demands for labor, such as the hospitality and logging industries. However, this type of visa is also used by many talented, highly competitive foreign athletes who are recruited by U.S. teams.

A chronic H-2B visa shortage over the last few years has posed challenges for all industries using the H-2B visa category. In recent fiscal years, including 2006, the 66,000 visa cap was met early in the year. While we were successful last year in crafting a temporary, 2- year fix for the H-2B shortage, this fix will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

However, solving this problem goes beyond fixing the H-2B visa cap. Minor league players simply do not belong in the same visa category as seasonal workers. There is no rational basis for automatically qualifying major league players for P-1 visas, which are granted to talented athletes, artists, and entertainers, while denying them to minor league players. My amendment would remedy this unfair situation.

The problem of requiring minor league athletes to use the H-2B visa category has posed a particular challenge to those of us in Maine who enjoy cheering on our sports teams. The MAINEiacs, a Canadian junior hockey league team that plays its games in Lewiston, ME, has faced tremendous difficulties obtaining the H-2B visas necessary for the majority of its players to come to the United States to play in the team's first home games.

Last year, due to uncertainty surrounding the availability of H-2B visas at the end of the fiscal year, the team had to reschedule its season home opener and cancel several early season games. This forced the team to schedule make-up games for those normally played in September. The problems created by the visa situation creates an unnecessary hardship for this team, in addition to threatening the revenue the team generates for the city of Lewiston and businesses in the surrounding area.

The Portland Sea Dogs, a Double-A baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox, is another of the many teams that relies on H-2B visas to bring some of its most skilled players to the United States. Thousands of fans come each year to see this team, and others like it across the country, play one of America's favorite sports. Due to the shortage of H-2B visas, however, Major League Baseball reports that, in 2004 and early 2005, more than 350 talented young, foreign baseball players were prevented from coming to the United States to play for minor league teams. These teams have been a traditional proving ground for athletes hoping to make it to the major leagues and players often move from these teams to major league rosters.

Including these highly skilled athletes in the H-2B visa category seems particularly unusual when you consider that major league athletes are permitted to use an entirely different nonimmigrant visa category-- the P-1 visa. This visa is available to athletes who are deemed by the Citizenship and Immigration Services to perform at an ``internationally recognized level of performance.'' Arguably, any foreign athlete whose achievements have earned him a contract with an American team would meet this definition.

CIS, however, has interpreted this category to exclude minor and amateur league athletes. Instead, the P-1 visa is typically reserved for only those athletes who have already been promoted to major league sports. Unfortunately, this creates something of a catch-22 for minor league athletes--if an H-2B visa shortage means that promising athletes are unable to hone their skills and prove themselves in the minor leagues, they are far less likely to earn the major league contract required for a P-1 visa.

A simple, commonsense solution would be to expand the P-1 visa category to include minor league and certain amateur-level athletes who have demonstrated a significant likelihood of graduating to the major leagues. Major League Baseball strongly supports the expansion of the P-1 visa category to include professional minor league baseball players. In correspondence to me, the league has pointed out that making P-1 visas available to this group of athletes, teams would be able to make player development decisions based on the talent of its players, without being constrained by visa quotas. The P-1 category, the league believes, is appropriate for minor league players because these are the players that major league clubs have selected as some of the best baseball prospects in the world.

There is no question that Americans are passionate about sports. We have high expectations for our teams and demand only the best from our athletes. By expanding the P-1 visa category, we will make it possible for athletes to be selected based on fair competition in talent and skill, rather the artificial limits of visa availability. In addition, we would reduce some pressure on the H-2B visa category making more of those visas available to the industries that need them.

Mr. President, the inequity of our current policy is clear. Let us take this simple step toward a more rational visa policy.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will help crack down on illegal sales of tobacco to underaged young people by banning the shipment of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the U.S. mail. Not only does the delivery of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the mail create opportunities for tax evasion, but it also creates an easy means through which children and young people can obtain these potentially deadly products.

Tobacco remains the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States today, accounting for more than 400,000 deaths a year and billions of dollars in health care costs. Moreover, tobacco addiction is a ``teen-onset'' disease: Ninety percent of all smokers start before they are 21. If we are to put an end to this tragic, yet preventable, epidemic, we must accelerate our efforts not only to help more smokers to quit, but also to discourage young people from ever lighting up in the first place.

Internet sales of tobacco are growing and growing fast. Unfortunately, effective safeguards against illegal sales to young people are virtually nonexistent on the more than 400 Web sites selling tobacco, making it easier and cheaper for kids to buy cigarettes.

A 2002 American Journal of Public Health study found that 20 percent of cigarette-selling Web sites do not say anything about sales to minors being prohibited. More than half require only that the buyer say they are of legal age. Another 15 percent require only that the buyer type in their date of birth, and only 7 percent require any driver's license information.

It is no wonder that Internet ``stings'' conducted by attorneys general in at least 15 States have found that children as young as 9 years old are able to purchase cigarettes easily. One study in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that kids as young as 11 were successful more than 90 percent of the time in purchasing cigarettes over the Internet. Moreover, since Internet cigarette vendors typically require a two-carton minimum purchase, many high school and middle school buyers of Internet tobacco also end up serving as suppliers of cigarettes to other kids.

In an effort to combat this problem, all of the major credit card companies have taken steps to ensure that their systems are not used to process payments for illegal cigarette sales. Moreover, all of the major commercial carriers--UPS, DHL and FedEx--have agreed to put a stop to the mail order sale and delivery of tobacco products. This leaves our U.S. Postal Service as the sole remaining courier for the delivery of tobacco products to minors. I believe that it is time for us to close this final delivery gap so that cigarettes and other tobacco products are not so easily accessible to our Nation's children.

The Postal Code already makes it illegal to mail alcoholic beverages and guns. The legislation I am introducing today will amend title 39 of the United States Code to add cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to the list of restricted, nonmailable matter. Any person found guilty of mailing such a product would be liable for a civil penalty of up to $5,000 or 10 times the estimated retail value of the tobacco products, including all Federal, State, and local taxes, whichever is highest, for a first violation. Civil penalties of up to $100,000 would be imposed for a second or each subsequent violation.

Mr. President, the U.S. Postal Service should not be the delivery agent for illegal cigarette traffickers. The legislation I am introducing today will close a loophole that has allowed Internet and mail order companies to circumvent the law, and I urge my colleagues to support this reform.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Creating Opportunities for Minor League Professionals, Entertainers and Teams through legal Entry--COMPETE--Act. This bill will level the playing field for minor league sports teams that depend on getting the best athletic talent. I thank Senators Feinstein, Cornyn, Lieberman, Mikulski, and Leahy for joining me in introducing this measure.

The core problem we address is that under current law, minor league players who have to use the H-2B visa category face severe visa shortages, while major league players qualify automatically for plentiful P-1 visas.

The H-2B visas are intended for use by industries facing seasonal demands for labor, such as the hospitality and logging industries. However, this type of visa is also used by many talented, highly competitive foreign athletes who are recruited by U.S. teams.

A chronic H-2B visa shortage over the last few years has posed challenges for all industries using the H-2B visa category. In recent fiscal years, including 2006, the 66,000 visa cap was met early in the year. While we were successful last year in crafting a temporary, 2- year fix for the H-2B shortage, this fix will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

However, solving this problem goes beyond fixing the H-2B visa cap. Minor league players simply do not belong in the same visa category as seasonal workers. There is no rational basis for automatically qualifying major league players for P-1 visas, which are granted to talented athletes, artists, and entertainers, while denying them to minor league players. My amendment would remedy this unfair situation.

The problem of requiring minor league athletes to use the H-2B visa category has posed a particular challenge to those of us in Maine who enjoy cheering on our sports teams. The MAINEiacs, a Canadian junior hockey league team that plays its games in Lewiston, ME, has faced tremendous difficulties obtaining the H-2B visas necessary for the majority of its players to come to the United States to play in the team's first home games.

Last year, due to uncertainty surrounding the availability of H-2B visas at the end of the fiscal year, the team had to reschedule its season home opener and cancel several early season games. This forced the team to schedule make-up games for those normally played in September. The problems created by the visa situation creates an unnecessary hardship for this team, in addition to threatening the revenue the team generates for the city of Lewiston and businesses in the surrounding area.

The Portland Sea Dogs, a Double-A baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox, is another of the many teams that relies on H-2B visas to bring some of its most skilled players to the United States. Thousands of fans come each year to see this team, and others like it across the country, play one of America's favorite sports. Due to the shortage of H-2B visas, however, Major League Baseball reports that, in 2004 and early 2005, more than 350 talented young, foreign baseball players were prevented from coming to the United States to play for minor league teams. These teams have been a traditional proving ground for athletes hoping to make it to the major leagues and players often move from these teams to major league rosters.

Including these highly skilled athletes in the H-2B visa category seems particularly unusual when you consider that major league athletes are permitted to use an entirely different nonimmigrant visa category-- the P-1 visa. This visa is available to athletes who are deemed by the Citizenship and Immigration Services to perform at an ``internationally recognized level of performance.'' Arguably, any foreign athlete whose achievements have earned him a contract with an American team would meet this definition.

CIS, however, has interpreted this category to exclude minor and amateur league athletes. Instead, the P-1 visa is typically reserved for only those athletes who have already been promoted to major league sports. Unfortunately, this creates something of a catch-22 for minor league athletes--if an H-2B visa shortage means that promising athletes are unable to hone their skills and prove themselves in the minor leagues, they are far less likely to earn the major league contract required for a P-1 visa.

A simple, commonsense solution would be to expand the P-1 visa category to include minor league and certain amateur-level athletes who have demonstrated a significant likelihood of graduating to the major leagues. Major League Baseball strongly supports the expansion of the P-1 visa category to include professional minor league baseball players. In correspondence to me, the league has pointed out that making P-1 visas available to this group of athletes, teams would be able to make player development decisions based on the talent of its players, without being constrained by visa quotas. The P-1 category, the league believes, is appropriate for minor league players because these are the players that major league clubs have selected as some of the best baseball prospects in the world.

There is no question that Americans are passionate about sports. We have high expectations for our teams and demand only the best from our athletes. By expanding the P-1 visa category, we will make it possible for athletes to be selected based on fair competition in talent and skill, rather the artificial limits of visa availability. In addition, we would reduce some pressure on the H-2B visa category making more of those visas available to the industries that need them.

Mr. President, the inequity of our current policy is clear. Let us take this simple step toward a more rational visa policy.

I would also like to thank Chairman Domenici, as well as Senators Alexander and Salazar, for confirming that the LWCF funds provided by this legislation are intended as additional funds to supplement the program, not a replacement for full funding through the normal appropriations process. I would also note that over 50 senators signed the Collins-Salazar-Alexander letter in support of $100 million in funding for LWCF-stateside in fiscal year 2007. As evidenced by this support, this program is absolutely vital to communities throughout the Nation. Almost every county in the Nation has taken advantage of this program to conserve open spaces or build playgrounds, ballparks, and trails. I sincerely hope the Senate will restore this historic level of funding through the appropriations process, in addition to those funds that will be made available under this bill.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce S. 3721, the Post- Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. It contains a vital set of reforms and innovations for our emergency-management systems that are designed to save lives and ease suffering when disaster strikes. The crafting of this bill has benefited from the insights of my principal cosponsor, Senator Lieberman, and from the support of our other cosponsor, Senator Salazar.

The Senate has already acted on one critical measure to apply the bitter lessons of Hurricane Katrina. The 87 to 11 vote on July 11, adding creation of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, adopted a major element of today's bill. That was a great step forward.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee conducted an 8-month investigation with 23 hearings, more than 325 formal interviews, and a review of more than 838,000 pages of documents to ascertain why the response to Hurricane Katrina was so inadequate at all levels of government. The investigation revealed serious failures of leadership. It also revealed an urgent need for broad reforms ranging from communication-technology standards to the structure and missions of entire Federal agencies.

Some of the 88 recommendations that flowed from our investigation can be adopted by administrative action. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act comprises important steps that only Congress can take. I will outline the five key components of our bill.

First, we strengthen FEMA and rename it as the United State Emergency Management Authority, or US-EMA, to signify a fresh start. We elevate US-EMA within DHS, restore its preparedness authority, and protect it from departmental reorganizations that could erode its budget and assets. These measures give the agency mission and asset protections like those of its DHS siblings, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service.

These statutory protections are important. Securing the integrity of FEMA preserves the cooperative benefits of its operating within easy reach of other DHS agencies. It also avoids the duplication, cost, and confusion for State and local officials that would come from carving FEMA out as a weak, stand-alone agency for natural disasters. Keeping FEMA where it was placed by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 avoids the need for DHS to recreate a similar terror-response capability.

Improving contact and coordination among Federal, State, and local agencies is essential. For that reason, our bill provides for regionally based, multi-agency Federal strike teams that will be ready to act and deploy in a region they will already know and understand before a disaster occurs.

The bill also provides continued funding for the interstate Emergency Management Assistance Compact that proved so valuable in marshaling aid for the gulf coast last year. It commits the US-EMA to work with States and localities to develop a standardized credentialing system that will help responders and selected private-sector personnel move quickly into disaster areas anywhere in the country, and it requires the US-EMA to offer technical assistance to State and local governments.

To help remedy the communications gaps revealed by Hurricane Katrina, we also improve the agency's organizational and technical communications systems. Our bill designates the Administrator of the US-EMA as the principal advisor to the President on emergency- management issues. Meanwhile, national and regional advisory councils will ensure that the US-EMA has open channels of communication with State and local officials, emergency responders, key private-sector and nongovernmental entities, and with representatives of people with disabilities.

On the equally important technical side, our bill consolidates several communications programs within a new Office of Emergency Communications within US-EMA. This office will devise a national emergency-communications strategy, administer grants for interoperable communications, and regularly assess the operability and interoperability of the communication systems that are essential for disaster response and that failed so widely during the Katrina catastrophe.

This US-EMA portion of the bill has received a great deal of attention. But it is only one part of this package of essential reforms.

The second part of our bill permits an enhanced Federal role in emergency management when major disasters require it. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, better known as the Stafford Act, authorizes a variety of Federal assistance measures to State and local governments when the President has declared a disaster.

Congress has amended the Stafford Act over time to make it more effective. Our bill continues that process of improvement by applying lessons learned from Katrina.

At the highest level, it directs the Federal Government to develop and maintain a national disaster-recovery strategy in coordination with the State and local governments which will lead each recovery. This fills a remarkable planning void in our current system, which focuses on response. When disaster overwhelms state and local governments and devastates large areas, recovery can be a long process requiring extended Federal assistance.

We increase the potential for more effective Federal aid in several ways. For example, the legislation enhances Federal agencies' ability to respond when the President uses his authority to direct their assistance in major-disaster response and recovery.

The bill requires a national-disaster housing strategy and authorizes making semipermanent housing units a part of Stafford Act assistance. In many cases, the modular ``Katrina cottages,'' for example, would be less costly, safer, more livable, more easily sited, and more durable than the notorious trailers FEMA purchased.

A new title VII for the Stafford Act gives the President discretion to offer increased Federal assistance when disaster overwhelms state and local governments. This discretionary--but limited--authority for catastrophes includes raising the cap on individual assistance, assisting victims with rent or mortgage costs, extending disaster- unemployment benefits, increasing community loans, and raising the reimbursement to communities for the cost of food, clothes, and other essential goods they distribute to victims.

Among other Stafford Act revisions, our bill clarifies that Federal mitigation efforts can extend to man-made hazards like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that funneled deadly storm-surge waters toward New Orleans. It establishes a missing-child location system and a database to help reunite families, a major problem in the aftermath of Katrina. And it requires that planning and training exercises, as well as evacuation and sheltering plans, give consideration to people with disabilities or special needs, or who are not fluent in English, or who have pets.

These improvements to the Stafford Act would be a major accomplishment by themselves. But the demonstrated need for reforms goes deeper still.

The third key element of our bill will provide more and better- trained emergency professionals. The US-EMA will establish a contingency cadre to meet surge workforce needs; implement a human- capital strategy to improve recruitment, development, and retention; and make quarterly reports to Congress on staffing levels. These actions should reduce the chronic workforce shortfalls--at times as great as 25 percent--that have hobbled FEMA in the past.

Looking to staffing quality across the full spectrum, our bill creates a National Homeland Security Academy. The academy will offer both classroom and distance-learning instruction and training to DHS, state, and local homeland-security professionals.

The fourth element in our reform bill will correct the confusion and lack of training on incident management and unified-command operations that frustrated a fully effective response to Katrina. Our bill mandates a comprehensive review of the National Response Plan, and requires that the DHS Secretary employ the NRP and the National Incident Management System to guide Federal actions in a natural or manmade disaster.

The Secretary is also directed to work with the US-EMA Administrator and with the National Advisory Committee to implement a national training-and-exercise program to ensure that vital knowledge and skills are in place and are kept sharp.

The fifth key aspect of our bill targets the waste, fraud, and abuse that outraged both our compassion for disaster victims and our sense of stewardship for taxpayer dollars. Based on the investigations by our committee, the GAO, and the DHS inspector general, I believe far more than a billion dollars has been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse in the aftermath of Katrina. The purchase of unusable mobile homes, long- distance moving and storage of unneeded ice, and abuse of debit cards indicate that DHS has lacked even rudimentary controls to safeguard tax dollars.

Our bill directs the Department to identify emergency-response requirements that can be contracted in advance with pre-screened vendors, so that vital commodities and services can be secured and delivered promptly. This simple change could curtail the waste of time and money as officials scramble to make ad-hoc purchase and distribution arrangements, often paying excessive prices. We also provide for a contingency corps of Federal contracting officers who can work in the field for an extended period following a disaster, so that response and recovery spending is better directed and controlled than with Katrina.

Our bill also faces the unfortunate reality that thieves and con artists will try to abuse even programs for disaster victims. Our bill imposes civil and criminal penalties for misrepresentation, requires fraud-awareness training for contracting officers and for the relief workforce, mandates systems to verify identities and addresses, and requires issuing explicit directions on legitimate uses of purchase cards.

Our bill is no single-issue, silver-bullet exercise but a careful and comprehensive program of improvement and innovation. It takes on each of the vital areas that our Hurricane Katrina investigation determined require action by Congress: reconstituting FEMA, updating and expanding the Stafford Act, improving emergency staffing, enhancing planning and preparedness, and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse.

Floods, earthquakes, storms, fires, and other natural disasters are abiding threats that exempt no one living on this planet. And the threat of manmade disasters has, perhaps permanently, forced itself into our plans for sustaining this great Nation.

Hurricane Katrina showed us in tragic terms that our mechanisms for disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery urgently need many improvements. If we leave untouched the gaps, the confusions, and the missteps revealed during Katrina, we will see more unnecessary loss of life and prolonged misery. We do not know when the next great disaster will strike, or what form it will take. But we know it will come. We know what needs to be done. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act gives us the tools to do it.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce S. 3721, the Post- Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. It contains a vital set of reforms and innovations for our emergency-management systems that are designed to save lives and ease suffering when disaster strikes. The crafting of this bill has benefited from the insights of my principal cosponsor, Senator Lieberman, and from the support of our other cosponsor, Senator Salazar.

The Senate has already acted on one critical measure to apply the bitter lessons of Hurricane Katrina. The 87 to 11 vote on July 11, adding creation of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, adopted a major element of today's bill. That was a great step forward.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee conducted an 8-month investigation with 23 hearings, more than 325 formal interviews, and a review of more than 838,000 pages of documents to ascertain why the response to Hurricane Katrina was so inadequate at all levels of government. The investigation revealed serious failures of leadership. It also revealed an urgent need for broad reforms ranging from communication-technology standards to the structure and missions of entire Federal agencies.

Some of the 88 recommendations that flowed from our investigation can be adopted by administrative action. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act comprises important steps that only Congress can take. I will outline the five key components of our bill.

First, we strengthen FEMA and rename it as the United State Emergency Management Authority, or US-EMA, to signify a fresh start. We elevate US-EMA within DHS, restore its preparedness authority, and protect it from departmental reorganizations that could erode its budget and assets. These measures give the agency mission and asset protections like those of its DHS siblings, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service.

These statutory protections are important. Securing the integrity of FEMA preserves the cooperative benefits of its operating within easy reach of other DHS agencies. It also avoids the duplication, cost, and confusion for State and local officials that would come from carving FEMA out as a weak, stand-alone agency for natural disasters. Keeping FEMA where it was placed by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 avoids the need for DHS to recreate a similar terror-response capability.

Improving contact and coordination among Federal, State, and local agencies is essential. For that reason, our bill provides for regionally based, multi-agency Federal strike teams that will be ready to act and deploy in a region they will already know and understand before a disaster occurs.

The bill also provides continued funding for the interstate Emergency Management Assistance Compact that proved so valuable in marshaling aid for the gulf coast last year. It commits the US-EMA to work with States and localities to develop a standardized credentialing system that will help responders and selected private-sector personnel move quickly into disaster areas anywhere in the country, and it requires the US-EMA to offer technical assistance to State and local governments.

To help remedy the communications gaps revealed by Hurricane Katrina, we also improve the agency's organizational and technical communications systems. Our bill designates the Administrator of the US-EMA as the principal advisor to the President on emergency- management issues. Meanwhile, national and regional advisory councils will ensure that the US-EMA has open channels of communication with State and local officials, emergency responders, key private-sector and nongovernmental entities, and with representatives of people with disabilities.

On the equally important technical side, our bill consolidates several communications programs within a new Office of Emergency Communications within US-EMA. This office will devise a national emergency-communications strategy, administer grants for interoperable communications, and regularly assess the operability and interoperability of the communication systems that are essential for disaster response and that failed so widely during the Katrina catastrophe.

This US-EMA portion of the bill has received a great deal of attention. But it is only one part of this package of essential reforms.

The second part of our bill permits an enhanced Federal role in emergency management when major disasters require it. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, better known as the Stafford Act, authorizes a variety of Federal assistance measures to State and local governments when the President has declared a disaster.

Congress has amended the Stafford Act over time to make it more effective. Our bill continues that process of improvement by applying lessons learned from Katrina.

At the highest level, it directs the Federal Government to develop and maintain a national disaster-recovery strategy in coordination with the State and local governments which will lead each recovery. This fills a remarkable planning void in our current system, which focuses on response. When disaster overwhelms state and local governments and devastates large areas, recovery can be a long process requiring extended Federal assistance.

We increase the potential for more effective Federal aid in several ways. For example, the legislation enhances Federal agencies' ability to respond when the President uses his authority to direct their assistance in major-disaster response and recovery.

The bill requires a national-disaster housing strategy and authorizes making semipermanent housing units a part of Stafford Act assistance. In many cases, the modular ``Katrina cottages,'' for example, would be less costly, safer, more livable, more easily sited, and more durable than the notorious trailers FEMA purchased.

A new title VII for the Stafford Act gives the President discretion to offer increased Federal assistance when disaster overwhelms state and local governments. This discretionary--but limited--authority for catastrophes includes raising the cap on individual assistance, assisting victims with rent or mortgage costs, extending disaster- unemployment benefits, increasing community loans, and raising the reimbursement to communities for the cost of food, clothes, and other essential goods they distribute to victims.

Among other Stafford Act revisions, our bill clarifies that Federal mitigation efforts can extend to man-made hazards like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that funneled deadly storm-surge waters toward New Orleans. It establishes a missing-child location system and a database to help reunite families, a major problem in the aftermath of Katrina. And it requires that planning and training exercises, as well as evacuation and sheltering plans, give consideration to people with disabilities or special needs, or who are not fluent in English, or who have pets.

These improvements to the Stafford Act would be a major accomplishment by themselves. But the demonstrated need for reforms goes deeper still.

The third key element of our bill will provide more and better- trained emergency professionals. The US-EMA will establish a contingency cadre to meet surge workforce needs; implement a human- capital strategy to improve recruitment, development, and retention; and make quarterly reports to Congress on staffing levels. These actions should reduce the chronic workforce shortfalls--at times as great as 25 percent--that have hobbled FEMA in the past.

Looking to staffing quality across the full spectrum, our bill creates a National Homeland Security Academy. The academy will offer both classroom and distance-learning instruction and training to DHS, state, and local homeland-security professionals.

The fourth element in our reform bill will correct the confusion and lack of training on incident management and unified-command operations that frustrated a fully effective response to Katrina. Our bill mandates a comprehensive review of the National Response Plan, and requires that the DHS Secretary employ the NRP and the National Incident Management System to guide Federal actions in a natural or manmade disaster.

The Secretary is also directed to work with the US-EMA Administrator and with the National Advisory Committee to implement a national training-and-exercise program to ensure that vital knowledge and skills are in place and are kept sharp.

The fifth key aspect of our bill targets the waste, fraud, and abuse that outraged both our compassion for disaster victims and our sense of stewardship for taxpayer dollars. Based on the investigations by our committee, the GAO, and the DHS inspector general, I believe far more than a billion dollars has been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse in the aftermath of Katrina. The purchase of unusable mobile homes, long- distance moving and storage of unneeded ice, and abuse of debit cards indicate that DHS has lacked even rudimentary controls to safeguard tax dollars.

Our bill directs the Department to identify emergency-response requirements that can be contracted in advance with pre-screened vendors, so that vital commodities and services can be secured and delivered promptly. This simple change could curtail the waste of time and money as officials scramble to make ad-hoc purchase and distribution arrangements, often paying excessive prices. We also provide for a contingency corps of Federal contracting officers who can work in the field for an extended period following a disaster, so that response and recovery spending is better directed and controlled than with Katrina.

Our bill also faces the unfortunate reality that thieves and con artists will try to abuse even programs for disaster victims. Our bill imposes civil and criminal penalties for misrepresentation, requires fraud-awareness training for contracting officers and for the relief workforce, mandates systems to verify identities and addresses, and requires issuing explicit directions on legitimate uses of purchase cards.

Our bill is no single-issue, silver-bullet exercise but a careful and comprehensive program of improvement and innovation. It takes on each of the vital areas that our Hurricane Katrina investigation determined require action by Congress: reconstituting FEMA, updating and expanding the Stafford Act, improving emergency staffing, enhancing planning and preparedness, and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse.

Floods, earthquakes, storms, fires, and other natural disasters are abiding threats that exempt no one living on this planet. And the threat of manmade disasters has, perhaps permanently, forced itself into our plans for sustaining this great Nation.

Hurricane Katrina showed us in tragic terms that our mechanisms for disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery urgently need many improvements. If we leave untouched the gaps, the confusions, and the missteps revealed during Katrina, we will see more unnecessary loss of life and prolonged misery. We do not know when the next great disaster will strike, or what form it will take. But we know it will come. We know what needs to be done. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act gives us the tools to do it.

Mr. President, as a long-time supporter of stem cell research, I want to commend the majority leader for working out an agreement that will give the Senate the opportunity to act on this critically important issue.

I am particularly pleased that the Senate will finally have the opportunity to vote on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bipartisan bill which will expand the number of stem cell lines that are eligible for federally funded research, enabling scientists to take full advantage of the scientific and medical opportunities provided by stem cells. At the same time, it establishes standards and creates a framework to ensure that this research is conducted ethically.

The promise of embryonic Stem cell lines lies with their potential to develop into virtually any cell, tissue, or organ in the body. As a consequence, this research holds considerable potential to treat and even cure a vast array of diseases and conditions. Researchers could, for example, potentially generate insulin-producing islet cells for patients with juvenile diabetes; neurons to treat Parkinson's disease, ALS, and Alzheimer's disease; as well as bone marrow cells to treat cancer. It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans are currently afflicted by diseases or disabilities that have the potential to be treated through this research.

On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced that Federal funds could, for the first time, be used to support research on embryonic stem cells. This research, however, was limited to existing embryonic stem cell lines created prior to 9 p.m. on that day.

In the 4 years since the President made that announcement, this stem cell policy has fallen far short of its original goals. While the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry at the NIH lists 78 stem cell lines, at best, no more than 212 lines will ever be available for research under the current policy.

Moreover, as Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University told the Special Committee on Aging last year, existing lines are ``contaminated with animal cells, lack genetic diversity, are not disease-specific and are not adequate for researchers to apply to a wide variety of diseases.'' Limiting researchers to these lines therefore places huge and unnecessary roadblocks in the way of possible treatments and cures for devastating diseases like Alzheimer's disease, ALS, cancer and diabetes.

We have learned a lot about stem cells since 2001. For example, scientists have now crated methods for growing stem cell lines that are free of animal cells, greatly improving their potential for treating and curing disease. They have also created ``disease specific'' stem cell lines. Under the current policy, however, these ``new and improved'' stem cell lines are not available to federally funded researchers in the United States.

It is therefore time for us to update our stem cell policy to reflect what we have learned so that we can accelerate this important research, which hold such promise for millions of Americans and their families.

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act lifts the current restriction so that stem cell lines are eligible for federally funded research regardless of the date on which they were created. Federal funding, however, would continue to be restricted to stem cells derived from embryos originally created for fertility treatments that are in excess of the clinical need and that otherwise would be discarded.

The legislation also requires the informed consent of the donors and prohibits any financial inducement to donate. Finally, the bill calls on the National Institutes of Health to develop strict guidelines to ensure that researchers adhere to clear ethical and moral standards.

As the founder and co-chair of the Senate Diabetes Caucus, I am particularly excited about the promise that stem cell research holds for a cure for diabetes. Early research has shown that stem cells have the potential to develop into insulin-producing cells to replace those that have been destroyed in people with type I diabetes.

Last year, I chaired a hearing in conjunction with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Children's Congress to examine the devastating impact that juvenile diabetes has had on American children and their families. We heard heartbreaking testimony from children who had traveled to Washington to tell Congress what it is like to have diabetes, just how serious it is, and how important it is that we fund the research necessary to find a cure.

Steffi Rothweiler from Falmouth, ME, told the committee that she actually couldn't remember having a normal life without nights and weekends, and every hour of every day to take care of diabetes. She told us about her parents, who have given up their nights and weekends, and every hour of every day to take care of her and make sure that she stays in tight control of her blood sugar levels so that she can stay as healthy as possible. Steffi asked that we do all that we can to find a cure for diabetes as quickly as possible. We simply cannot ignore the potential that embryonic stem cell research holds for wonderful young people like Steffi.

I am sensitive to the ethical concerns raised by opponents of this research. That is why I have cosponsored the legislation introduced by Senators Santorum and Specter to encourage the development of alternative methods for deriving stem cells without using embryos.

The fact is, however, that the embryos that will be used for this research would otherwise be discarded. In my view, the ethical choice is to use them for research that may benefit millions of Americans rather than discard them as medical waste.

Moreover, what is often ignored in this debate is that embryonic stem cell research is occurring in the private sector, where it is outside the purview of the NIH. It therefore lacks the scientific and ethical oversight that routinely occurs with federally funded research. Dr. Allen Spiegel, who was then the Director of the National Institute of Diabetes anti Digestive and Kidney Diseases, testified at our Children's Congress hearing last year. He told the committee that, while NIH routinely works very closely with the private sector, in the area of stem cell research, ``there is a wall.'' By expanding our current stem cell policy, we are tearing down that wall, allowing more research but with clear ethical standards.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research contend that adult stem cells derived from tissue, such as bone marrow, are a sufficient replacement for embryonic stem cells in forwarding this important research. I believe that we need both. But, as Dr. Speigel told our committee, with regard to diabetes research:

We need to do embryonic stem cell first because it can give

us a better understanding of what causes Type I diabetes . .

. because it will actually inform our ability to work with

adult stem cells . . . and finally, because, and one cannot

guarantee or promise this, the embryonic stem cells

themselves, if successfully turned into insulin-secreting

beta cells, could be the source of cell therapy.

Mr. President, I believe that it would be tragic not to take advantage of this opportunity to accelerate research that can potentially help millions of people. I therefore urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the amendment offered last evening by the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez. To me, this feels like Groundhog Day. Last year on this very bill the Senate debated exactly the same issues regarding the funding for the Homeland Security Grant Programs. The proposal last year, with the exact same minimum as the Menendez amendment, was soundly defeated. Senator Lieberman and I offered an alternative that was agreed to by a vote of 71 to 26.

The chart I am going to display explains it to our colleagues. The Menendez amendment would slash homeland security dollars for 36 States and the District of Columbia. It would take funding from 36 States and hand it over to 14 States--14 States that already receive more than 70 percent of the funding.

I am particularly surprised that this amendment is being offered after the widespread criticism and outrage over the funding allocation decisions by the Department of Homeland Security just a few weeks ago. I have told Secretary Chertoff that I believe he achieved what I would have thought was impossible: he made both New York and the State of Maine equally unhappy with his allocation decisions.

Many of the advocates for this amendment criticized the way in which the Department used its discretion to distribute funds. I share in their criticism. Their concerns are understandable, but their proposed solution is absolutely baffling because it would give even more discretion to the Department of Homeland Security to decide, with virtually no guidance, how to allocate these funds.

The Department has clearly demonstrated that it has a long way to go in perfecting a risk allocation methodology. Indeed, if you look at the recent inspector general's report from the Department on critical infrastructure, which was used in part to help determine these funding allocations, you will see that the Department has a very long way to go in coming up with a worthwhile risk-based system.

On that list of critical infrastructure was a petting zoo, for example, an ice cream shop, a doughnut shop. This is part of our critical infrastructure, absolutely essential assets? Yet the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey provides virtually no guidance on how a risk-based formula would work. By contrast, the legislation approved by the committee I chair puts forth risk factors that the Department should weigh.

The Menendez amendment simply hands the reins over to the same Department that was so widely criticized in its funding decisions. The result of the approach of Senator Menendez will be that more funding will be given out under a flawed and inexact methodology. That is exactly why we still

need to maintain a healthy State minimum, to assure that flawed distribution methods do not lead to gaps in our security system.

The minimum in the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey, .25 percent, is simply too low. It slashes by two-thirds the Homeland Security grants that every State is now guaranteed. Under his amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million, for both the State Homeland Security Grant Program and the law enforcement program for this year. Compare that with a minimum allocation of slightly more than $7 million for fiscal year 2006 and $9 million the year before.

Again, let me emphasize this. Under the Menendez amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million for homeland security, prevention, and response needs. That is a 72-percent cut in guaranteed funding to each State. I encourage my colleagues to talk to the emergency managers in your State, to talk to your first responders, your police officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, to find out what gaps in homeland security would be left unfilled if they faced such a sharp and massive reduction.

If we are going to become better prepared as a nation, each State must receive a predictable and reasonable base allocation of homeland security funding. States need a predictable base level of funding each year in order to support multiyear projects such as creating interoperable communications networks or first responder training regimes on a natural basis.

Risk-based funding, if distributed properly, certainly is important, and I support it and have proposed it. But it doesn't take away the need for this steady funding stream so that every State can bring its security up to a base level.

Let me give you perhaps the best example of the need for multiyear, steady, predictable funding, and that is the interoperability of first responder communications.

I am sure you recall, Mr. President, that the 9/11 Commission pointed to the lack of compatibility in communications equipment as contributing to the loss of life on 9/11.

The investigation that the Senate Homeland Security Committee did into the failed response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated beyond any doubt that there is still a major problem. We saw different parishes in Louisiana using incompatible communications equipment that slowed and hampered the response to victims.

The National Governors Association reported last year that 73 percent of States have not developed Statewide communications interoperability networks. That is a complicated, expensive and multiyear process.

That is exactly the kind of goal--the interoperable communications network--that the steady, predictable funding from the Homeland Security Grant Program is designed for.

The National Governors Association during last year's debate wrote to me saying:

To effectively protect our States from potential terrorist

events, all sectors of government must be part of an

integrated plan to prevent, deter, respond and recover from a

terrorist act. For that plan to work, it is essential that it

be funded through predictable, sustainable mechanisms, both

during its development and its implementation.

It is important to know that current law requires States to develop a 3-year homeland security plan. Multiyear planning is critical to developing a successful prevention and response strategy. Yet, if we are going to ask States to plan 3 years out, we have to be prepared to guarantee them a predictable base level of funding.

When we talk about the significance of preventing the next terrorist attack, it is important to note that terrorists often stage their operations training and hideaway from their most obvious targets.

This hits home to those of us in Maine because two of the terrorists that flew the plane into the World Trade Center on 9/11 started their journey of death and destruction from Portland, ME, a city of approximately 65,000 people. That is where they started.

Just think if they could have been apprehended in Portland and maybe the number of lives that could have been saved.

As the publication of the International Association of Chiefs of Police notes, several of the terrorists involved in the attack had routine encounters with State and local law enforcement officials in the weeks and months prior to the attack.

If the State, tribal and local law enforcement officers are adequately equipped and trained, they can be invaluable assets in efforts to identify and apprehend suspected terrorists before they strike. We must provide State and local law enforcement with the tools they need to keep our country secure.

I note that it isn't only the two terrorists who started from Portland, ME that are good examples of terrorists hiding or training or transiting through rural areas. The 9/11 Commission told us that two of the terrorists, for example, were in Norman, OK, and others were in Norcross, GA.

All of these examples illustrate the vulnerability of towns and cities across America while highlighting the need for effective cooperation among all levels of government.

The Menendez amendment takes rational evaluations of need or effectiveness out of the distribution methodology. I hope my colleagues will take a close look at the exact language of the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey. I think they will be very concerned by that language if they do so.

This language factors out of the funding equation consideration of whether an area actually needs funding or whether it has a plan to spend the funding effectively.

That is an invitation to waste, fraud, and abuse if ever I have heard one.

The amendment would inevitably lead to more wasteful spending. It assures that we will hear about more cases of first responders' dollars being wasted.

For example, New Jersey spent a small fortune worth of dollars that were supposed to go for homeland security purposes on air-conditioned garbage trucks.

That is the kind of waste that we want to avoid. But when you take out any consideration of need, of effectiveness, of planning from the formula, that is exactly the kind of wasteful spending you are going to get.

The RAND Corporation recently cautioned us that homeland security experts and first responders have cautioned against an overemphasis on improving the preparedness of large cities to the exclusion of smaller communities and rural areas.

The report recognized that much of the Nation's critical infrastructure--water plants, for example, or chemical plants and other potential high-value targets--is located in rural areas.

We all know of the threat of a terrorist attack on our food supply. That is another example.

There are so many rural hospitals which have shown that they are unprepared. I could give you example after example.

But, surely, it makes no sense to give the Department of Homeland Security, which has already proven that it does not have the systems in place to handle an allocation that is based on the Department's interpretation of risk--surely, it doesn't make sense to give discretion to the Department. But that is exactly what the Menendez amendment would do. It would give more discretion. It strikes any consideration of whether an area needs the funding, whether it has a good plan for the funding, and whether the funding will be used effectively.

The Menendez amendment will hurt our national efforts to protect our country from terrorist threats. It will leave most States worse off. It leaves the District of Columbia worse off than under current law.

Under his amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million for both State Homeland Security Grant Programs and the law enforcement programs this year.

Again, I compare that to a minimum allocation of approximately $7 million last year and $9 million the year before.

Thirty-six States and the District of Columbia would be clear losers.

The Department would be given more discretion--discretion it has already shown it cannot handle. And this amendment, because it does not consider need and effectiveness and does

not set out criteria for the Department to use, would result in additional wasteful spending.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I had reserved the final 4 minutes of my time in opposition to the Menendez amendment. I am going to claim that time now.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey. Let me briefly summarize three issues that make the amendment so problematic.

First, it slashes the minimum allocation for homeland security grant moneys for States. It would impose a two-thirds cut in the guaranteed allocation which would undermine the efforts of States that have entered into multiyear projects such as improving the interoperability of their communications equipment which is an expensive multiyear proposition.

Second, the amendment makes absolutely no sense. If my colleagues are unhappy, as I am, with the Department of Homeland Security's allocation of funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program, why would they want to give unfettered discretion to the Department on how to allocate the funds?

The amendment has absolutely no criteria included in it to define risk. By contrast, the proposal that was approved by the Homeland Security Committee sets out criteria--such as whether there had been a terrorist attack previously, the population density, whether it is a border State, whether it is on the coastline--and gives guidance to the Department since it has clearly shown that it does not have a well- developed system for allocating based on risk. We have seen the results of that.

Third, the Senator from New Jersey strikes the requirement in current law to have the Department look at the need for the funding. All of us are concerned about reports that homeland security grant money in some localities has been wasted, whether it is on leather jackets or air- conditioned garbage trucks, actual cases, one in the District and one in New Jersey, or for other questionable purposes. We need to make sure that the Department is allocating the funds not only based on risk, threat, and vulnerability but also on need and effectiveness. There are no requirements for this funding to be developed and allocated based on the need for it nor the effectiveness of the State's plan.

For those three reasons and many more, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Menendez amendment. Thirty-six States and the District of Columbia would lose funding under his proposal. The funding instead would be reallocated to 14 States which already receive more than 70 percent of all the funding for homeland security.

This is a misguided amendment. It will lead to wasteful spending. It will undermine the efforts to bring all States up to a base level of preparedness and response. I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

I see the Senator from Delaware is on the floor. He has been very active in

this area. If I do have any time remaining, I would be happy to yield to my colleague, the Senator from Delaware.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exhibit 1

July 11, 2006.

Hon. Susan Collins,

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Joseph Lieberman,

Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman: On

behalf of the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council

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

Emergency Management Authority Act. On behalf of the private

sector, the Council is pleased to endorse this measure to

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

reconstituted as the U.S. Emergency Management Authority,

would ensure that the nation will be better prepared to

address, either, natural or man-made disasters.

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

organization that comprises the major companies that serve

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

align private sector resources to support the mission of the

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

is pleased to see language that elevates the importance of

FEMA within DHS and reunites preparedness functions with

response capabilities.

The Council supports provisions of S. 3595 that would:

Give the new U.S. Emergency Management Authority statutory

protection against actions that could diminish its

capabilities and effectiveness;

Ensure that the Administrator of US-EMA has direct access

to the President and serves as Principal Emergency Management

Advisor, at all times;

Reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities

to reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibilities

and restore the full range of working relationships with

state and local government; and

Strengthen the Authority's regional focus with federal

strike teams for a faster and more coordinated response and

to provide better familiarity with the states in which the

strike teams will operate.

Thank you for your continued commitment to improving

emergency management and response and for engaging the

private sector to leverage industry best practices. Should

you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to

contact me anytime.

Sincerely,

Michael M. Meldon,

Executive Director.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We believe that proposals to return FEMA to its status as

an independent agency would hinder efforts to reform our

nation's emergency response system. Removing FEMA from DHS

would create competing agencies, sowing confusion among

emergency responders. Furthermore, such an approach would

undermine an all-hazards approach, leading to the perception

that DHS deals with terrorism while FEMA is in charge of

natural disasters.

That is what the International Association of Fire Fighters says.

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

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

Fifteen minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lieberman and I be recognized for 30 minutes equally divided, but that prior to that recognition, my colleague from South Dakota be recognized for not to exceed 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I know of no objection to that request. I would not object.

If the Senator will withhold, I will object to that because the Senator from Connecticut and I had been planning to speak at 11:30. So what I would suggest, if it would be acceptable to the Senator from Illinois, is that the Senator from Connecticut and I would cut our time from 30 minutes to 20 minutes but proceed immediately before the other Members are recognized. Would that be acceptable to the Senator from Illinois, since we were here first?

Mr. President, I am very pleased to join my friend and colleague, Senator Lieberman, in introducing a bill that addresses an urgent challenge facing our Nation: the need to ensure a strong and effective capability to deal with natural and manmade disasters, whether they are hurricanes and ice storms or terrorist attacks and pandemic diseases.

The U.S. Emergency Management Authority Act is intended to remedy many of the glaring deficiencies that we all saw in the preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina. The U.S.-EMA bill reflects the evidence that the Senate Homeland Security Committee examined during the course of an exhaustive and bipartisan 7-month investigation. The committee convened 22 hearings, heard testimony from 85 witnesses, conducted more than 325 formal interviews, and examined more than 838,000 pages of documents.

The result is a 737-page report that contains 88 recommendations for improving our emergency management system at all levels of government.

Our legislation is an important first step toward implementing the committee's major recommendations for reforming FEMA. We will, as my colleague, Senator Lieberman, indicated, be introducing subsequent legislation to implement other recommendations.

The four key features of the bill that we introduce today will, first, give the new authority statutory protection against actions that could diminish its capabilities and effectiveness, such as departmental reorganizations; second, ensure that the administrator of U.S.-EMA has direct access to the President; third, reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities while expanding U.S.-EMA's authority over other key functions; and fourth, strengthen the authority's regional focus with Federal strike teams for faster, more coordinated and effective responses.

Senator Lieberman and I strongly believe that the best way to achieve the goal of improving the Federal Government's ability to protect American citizens from disaster, to mitigate the impacts, and to promote recovery is to strengthen and expand the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which we have proposed to rename the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. As we saw so starkly and so tragically demonstrated last year, FEMA simply must be made far more effective.

We believe FEMA needs special status within the Department of Homeland Security. Our bill would extend to the reconstituted FEMA the same kinds of statutory protections against departmental reorganizations and raids on resources that currently shield the Coast Guard and the Secret Service. I acknowledge the critical role played by the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Lott, in helping us draft this portion of the bill.

FEMA would also require more regional focus and closer coordination with local State entities, as well as with our nongovernmental partners. They are the first line of response in a disaster. Our legislation bolsters the role of FEMA's regional centers by authorizing the creation of multiagency strike teams to ensure rapid and effective cooperation with first responders and public officials in disaster areas. These strike teams would comprise representatives from all of the Federal agencies that play a role in responding to the disasters. They would train and exercise with their State and local counterparts.

I was struck by the fact that during our investigation, we learned that FEMA sent officials from region I--New England--down to help out in New Orleans. Often they were the lead officials. These were trained and dedicated people, but just think how much more effective they could have been if they had been stationed in the region and working regularly with the public officials in that region and with the first responders.

We believe FEMA needs top-level access and visibility. The administrator of the new U.S. Emergency Management Authority would be designated by our bill as the principal adviser to the President on matters of emergency management and would have direct access to the President. This would establish the administrator in a capacity that is analogous to that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition, the administrator would be authorized to communicate any recommendations, any needs and requirements directly to Congress.

Our intention to keep the strengthened FEMA as part of DHS has stirred more debate than perhaps any other of our recommendations emerging from the Katrina investigation. Some Members of this Chamber, as well as proponents of a bill introduced in the House, insist that FEMA must be extracted from the Department of Homeland Security and restored to independent status. We share the view that the actions of both FEMA and DHS officials before and during the Katrina disaster revealed troubling and, at times, shocking lapses in awareness, agility, and judgment. But we also believe that both logic and practical realities point to reform, not amputation, as the best approach to improved protection for our citizens.

Please recall that it was only 5 years ago--before the 9/11 terror attacks--that the distinguished panel chaired by two of our former colleagues, Senator Hart and Senator Rudman, recommended that America establish a single agency to plan, coordinate, and integrate homeland security operations. The Commission correctly deduced that FEMA was the ``necessary core'' of that new department, and Congress agreed. The logic of that decision stands intact. The Department of Homeland Security's mission extends to all types of hazards and to preparation and mitigation as well as to response. DHS needs FEMA's capabilities and would have to re-create many of them at great cost and with great duplication of effort if FEMA were to be removed from the Department.

Even if that re-creation could somehow be done economically--and the evidence is that it would cost billions of dollars--the result would be new problems for State and local officials who direct first responders. Bifurcated, competing preparedness systems would force State and local officials to engage one system to prepare for natural disasters and another to prepare for terrorist attacks. That does not make sense. Many of the response capabilities are exactly the same whether the catastrophe is caused by a natural disaster such as a hurricane or whether it is the result of a terrorist attack. We know planning and response capabilities are already far too weak in many States. DHS's recent survey of the States proves that. We should not make the problem worse.

For those who argue that FEMA simply cannot thrive, cannot be successful within DHS, an obvious and telling question arises: How, then, did the U.S. Coast Guard, also a unit within DHS, emerge as the universally acclaimed hero of the Katrina response? Everyone believes the Coast Guard was the stellar performer, yet the Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security. So clearly FEMA's problem does not lie in its placement within DHS. Unlike FEMA, however, the Coast Guard has congressionally mandated protections, and our legislation would extend that exact same protection to FEMA's successor agency.

The temptation to think that the answer is simply to remove FEMA is

strong, but it is wrong. Just as not all motion is forward, not every change is progress. Emergency management expert Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Pennsylvania put it well when he told our committee:

It is tempting to send a strong signal by pulling FEMA out

of DHS. But that would only undermine its ability to

accomplish its mission. Breaking these pieces apart--

separating response to terrorism from response to natural

disasters, separating preparedness from response, separating

FEMA from DHS--would inevitably bring problems.

I would suggest these are just a few of the serious implications that severing FEMA from DHS would cause.

First, coordination and reaction time would suffer. David Paulison, the new Director of FEMA, says that he closely coordinates with the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, and the Secret Service through weekly meetings. In times of disaster, he can simply make a request to these fellow DHS units; he doesn't have to go through a bureaucratic, formal process. They are all parts of the same department.

Second, training and preparedness would suffer. ADM Thad Allen of the Coast Guard testified before the committee that having FEMA within DHS has allowed much closer working ties and a 350-percent increase in joint training exercises.

Third, DHS's mission capability would suffer. The Homeland Security Act specifies that part of DHS's mission was to act as the focal point for natural and manmade emergencies and for emergency planning. As the Comptroller General has said:

Removing FEMA from DHS might impact the ability of the

department and its remaining components and FEMA itself in

fully addressing the close links between preparedness,

prevention, response, and recovery from all hazards.

Fourth, State and local governments would suffer. If preparedness functions for natural disasters and terrorist attacks were divided, State and local governments would have to deal with two primary points of contact, two sets of regulations, two sources of funding, and two sets of officials. It greatly complicates their tasks.

Fifth, I strongly believe that FEMA would suffer. Removed from DHS, FEMA would lose many of the working relationships I have already described as well as the direct access to the information-gathering and analysis capabilities of other DHS agencies. This would degrade FEMA's ability to plan and train for both natural and manmade disasters and to make efficient use of grant-making authority.

To me, it is clear that a strengthened--a much strengthened--FEMA still belongs in DHS, that the necessary reforms can be carried out while it remains in DHS, and that severing FEMA from DHS would create a host of new problems, resulting in considerable extra expense and duplication, without securing any significant benefits. It is worth noting that America's largest group of first responders has come to the same conclusion. The president of the 274,000-member International Association of Firefighters has written us to say:

Removing FEMA would hinder--rather than help--efforts to

reform our Nation's emergency response system. Having both a

DHS and an independent FEMA would create confusion among

local response personnel and lead to an unproductive

duplication of efforts and turf battles.

Having summarized what I see as compelling arguments for strengthening and protecting FEMA as a component of DHS, let me outline some of the key provisions of our U.S.-EMA bill.

First, the bill establishes a strong position for the Administrator of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. Once nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Administrator will have the standing of a Deputy Secretary, and will operate on a reporting and chain of command model like that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Day to day, the Administrator will report to the DHS Secretary, but the bill explicitly provides a direct line of communication between the President and the Administrator during a catastrophe. In addition, the Administrator may make whatever recommendations to Congress that he or she deems appropriate.

The bill provides for directors, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, to provide the Administrator with highly qualified professionals in Preparedness and Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. Apart from bolstering the organization, authorizing these posts would send a clear signal to the Nation's Governors and mayors that they will have people of stature with whom to work and confer.

Besides providing the Administrator of U.S.-EMA with an advisory link to the President, the bill specifically tasks the Administrator with providing the federal leadership necessary to prepare for and respond to a disaster, whether man-made or natural. It gives the Administrator responsibility for administering preparedness grant programs, and for monitoring and evaluating the readiness of each of the emergency support functions under the national response plan. These are critical steps for ensuring close cooperation and oversight of preparedness at all levels of government.

The bill specifies that U.S.-EMA is a distinct entity and protects it from reorganization without explicit Congressional approval. This gives U.S.-EMA security identical to that of the Coast Guard.

Another critical element of the bill authorizes a strong regional structure for U.S.-EMA and creates regionally based federal strike teams for rapid response. This will ensure that U.S.-EMA officials are familiar with the people, the vulnerabilities, and the resources of the regions they protect, and will not be introducing themselves to strangers on unfamiliar ground when disaster strikes.

Further recognizing the importance of mult-level government coordination, the bill creates a national advisory council on emergency preparedness and response--made up of State and local officials and emergency management professionals from public, private and NGO sectors--to advise the Administrator of U.S.-EMA.

Our bill provides a statutory basis for chief medical officer to advise the DHS Secretary on medical and public-health issues. Other sections promote public and community preparedness; evaluate the effectiveness of equipment for first responders; reauthorize and expand the emergency management assistance compact; and create an office of terrorism prevention at DHS.

Mr. President, the U.S. Emergency Management Authority Act is not a symbolic gesture, or a quick fix for our problems. It is a thoroughly researched, carefully drafted collection of reforms that will lay the foundation for years of hard work.

The result, we firmly believe, will be a significantly more effective national system of preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery against natural disasters and terror attacks. Building on the insights of the Hart-Rudman Commission and on the important advances embodied in the Homeland Security Act, the U.S.-EMA bill will greatly improve the protections that American citizens need, and deserve.

Mr. President, my statement has outlined the reforms we are making to this new agency. They are considerable. They are going to make a real difference, and I hope we can pass legislation before the end of this year to greatly strengthen and improve FEMA and our emergency response system and preparedness on all levels of government.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to join my friend and colleague, Senator Lieberman, in introducing a bill that addresses an urgent challenge facing our Nation: the need to ensure a strong and effective capability to deal with natural and manmade disasters, whether they are hurricanes and ice storms or terrorist attacks and pandemic diseases.

The U.S. Emergency Management Authority Act is intended to remedy many of the glaring deficiencies that we all saw in the preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina. The U.S.-EMA bill reflects the evidence that the Senate Homeland Security Committee examined during the course of an exhaustive and bipartisan 7-month investigation. The committee convened 22 hearings, heard testimony from 85 witnesses, conducted more than 325 formal interviews, and examined more than 838,000 pages of documents.

The result is a 737-page report that contains 88 recommendations for improving our emergency management system at all levels of government.

Our legislation is an important first step toward implementing the committee's major recommendations for reforming FEMA. We will, as my colleague, Senator Lieberman, indicated, be introducing subsequent legislation to implement other recommendations.

The four key features of the bill that we introduce today will, first, give the new authority statutory protection against actions that could diminish its capabilities and effectiveness, such as departmental reorganizations; second, ensure that the administrator of U.S.-EMA has direct access to the President; third, reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities while expanding U.S.-EMA's authority over other key functions; and fourth, strengthen the authority's regional focus with Federal strike teams for faster, more coordinated and effective responses.

Senator Lieberman and I strongly believe that the best way to achieve the goal of improving the Federal Government's ability to protect American citizens from disaster, to mitigate the impacts, and to promote recovery is to strengthen and expand the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which we have proposed to rename the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. As we saw so starkly and so tragically demonstrated last year, FEMA simply must be made far more effective.

We believe FEMA needs special status within the Department of Homeland Security. Our bill would extend to the reconstituted FEMA the same kinds of statutory protections against departmental reorganizations and raids on resources that currently shield the Coast Guard and the Secret Service. I acknowledge the critical role played by the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Lott, in helping us draft this portion of the bill.

FEMA would also require more regional focus and closer coordination with local State entities, as well as with our nongovernmental partners. They are the first line of response in a disaster. Our legislation bolsters the role of FEMA's regional centers by authorizing the creation of multiagency strike teams to ensure rapid and effective cooperation with first responders and public officials in disaster areas. These strike teams would comprise representatives from all of the Federal agencies that play a role in responding to the disasters. They would train and exercise with their State and local counterparts.

I was struck by the fact that during our investigation, we learned that FEMA sent officials from region I--New England--down to help out in New Orleans. Often they were the lead officials. These were trained and dedicated people, but just think how much more effective they could have been if they had been stationed in the region and working regularly with the public officials in that region and with the first responders.

We believe FEMA needs top-level access and visibility. The administrator of the new U.S. Emergency Management Authority would be designated by our bill as the principal adviser to the President on matters of emergency management and would have direct access to the President. This would establish the administrator in a capacity that is analogous to that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition, the administrator would be authorized to communicate any recommendations, any needs and requirements directly to Congress.

Our intention to keep the strengthened FEMA as part of DHS has stirred more debate than perhaps any other of our recommendations emerging from the Katrina investigation. Some Members of this Chamber, as well as proponents of a bill introduced in the House, insist that FEMA must be extracted from the Department of Homeland Security and restored to independent status. We share the view that the actions of both FEMA and DHS officials before and during the Katrina disaster revealed troubling and, at times, shocking lapses in awareness, agility, and judgment. But we also believe that both logic and practical realities point to reform, not amputation, as the best approach to improved protection for our citizens.

Please recall that it was only 5 years ago--before the 9/11 terror attacks--that the distinguished panel chaired by two of our former colleagues, Senator Hart and Senator Rudman, recommended that America establish a single agency to plan, coordinate, and integrate homeland security operations. The Commission correctly deduced that FEMA was the ``necessary core'' of that new department, and Congress agreed. The logic of that decision stands intact. The Department of Homeland Security's mission extends to all types of hazards and to preparation and mitigation as well as to response. DHS needs FEMA's capabilities and would have to re-create many of them at great cost and with great duplication of effort if FEMA were to be removed from the Department.

Even if that re-creation could somehow be done economically--and the evidence is that it would cost billions of dollars--the result would be new problems for State and local officials who direct first responders. Bifurcated, competing preparedness systems would force State and local officials to engage one system to prepare for natural disasters and another to prepare for terrorist attacks. That does not make sense. Many of the response capabilities are exactly the same whether the catastrophe is caused by a natural disaster such as a hurricane or whether it is the result of a terrorist attack. We know planning and response capabilities are already far too weak in many States. DHS's recent survey of the States proves that. We should not make the problem worse.

For those who argue that FEMA simply cannot thrive, cannot be successful within DHS, an obvious and telling question arises: How, then, did the U.S. Coast Guard, also a unit within DHS, emerge as the universally acclaimed hero of the Katrina response? Everyone believes the Coast Guard was the stellar performer, yet the Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security. So clearly FEMA's problem does not lie in its placement within DHS. Unlike FEMA, however, the Coast Guard has congressionally mandated protections, and our legislation would extend that exact same protection to FEMA's successor agency.

The temptation to think that the answer is simply to remove FEMA is

strong, but it is wrong. Just as not all motion is forward, not every change is progress. Emergency management expert Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Pennsylvania put it well when he told our committee:

It is tempting to send a strong signal by pulling FEMA out

of DHS. But that would only undermine its ability to

accomplish its mission. Breaking these pieces apart--

separating response to terrorism from response to natural

disasters, separating preparedness from response, separating

FEMA from DHS--would inevitably bring problems.

I would suggest these are just a few of the serious implications that severing FEMA from DHS would cause.

First, coordination and reaction time would suffer. David Paulison, the new Director of FEMA, says that he closely coordinates with the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, and the Secret Service through weekly meetings. In times of disaster, he can simply make a request to these fellow DHS units; he doesn't have to go through a bureaucratic, formal process. They are all parts of the same department.

Second, training and preparedness would suffer. ADM Thad Allen of the Coast Guard testified before the committee that having FEMA within DHS has allowed much closer working ties and a 350-percent increase in joint training exercises.

Third, DHS's mission capability would suffer. The Homeland Security Act specifies that part of DHS's mission was to act as the focal point for natural and manmade emergencies and for emergency planning. As the Comptroller General has said:

Removing FEMA from DHS might impact the ability of the

department and its remaining components and FEMA itself in

fully addressing the close links between preparedness,

prevention, response, and recovery from all hazards.

Fourth, State and local governments would suffer. If preparedness functions for natural disasters and terrorist attacks were divided, State and local governments would have to deal with two primary points of contact, two sets of regulations, two sources of funding, and two sets of officials. It greatly complicates their tasks.

Fifth, I strongly believe that FEMA would suffer. Removed from DHS, FEMA would lose many of the working relationships I have already described as well as the direct access to the information-gathering and analysis capabilities of other DHS agencies. This would degrade FEMA's ability to plan and train for both natural and manmade disasters and to make efficient use of grant-making authority.

To me, it is clear that a strengthened--a much strengthened--FEMA still belongs in DHS, that the necessary reforms can be carried out while it remains in DHS, and that severing FEMA from DHS would create a host of new problems, resulting in considerable extra expense and duplication, without securing any significant benefits. It is worth noting that America's largest group of first responders has come to the same conclusion. The president of the 274,000-member International Association of Firefighters has written us to say:

Removing FEMA would hinder--rather than help--efforts to

reform our Nation's emergency response system. Having both a

DHS and an independent FEMA would create confusion among

local response personnel and lead to an unproductive

duplication of efforts and turf battles.

Having summarized what I see as compelling arguments for strengthening and protecting FEMA as a component of DHS, let me outline some of the key provisions of our U.S.-EMA bill.

First, the bill establishes a strong position for the Administrator of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority. Once nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Administrator will have the standing of a Deputy Secretary, and will operate on a reporting and chain of command model like that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Day to day, the Administrator will report to the DHS Secretary, but the bill explicitly provides a direct line of communication between the President and the Administrator during a catastrophe. In addition, the Administrator may make whatever recommendations to Congress that he or she deems appropriate.

The bill provides for directors, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, to provide the Administrator with highly qualified professionals in Preparedness and Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. Apart from bolstering the organization, authorizing these posts would send a clear signal to the Nation's Governors and mayors that they will have people of stature with whom to work and confer.

Besides providing the Administrator of U.S.-EMA with an advisory link to the President, the bill specifically tasks the Administrator with providing the federal leadership necessary to prepare for and respond to a disaster, whether man-made or natural. It gives the Administrator responsibility for administering preparedness grant programs, and for monitoring and evaluating the readiness of each of the emergency support functions under the national response plan. These are critical steps for ensuring close cooperation and oversight of preparedness at all levels of government.

The bill specifies that U.S.-EMA is a distinct entity and protects it from reorganization without explicit Congressional approval. This gives U.S.-EMA security identical to that of the Coast Guard.

Another critical element of the bill authorizes a strong regional structure for U.S.-EMA and creates regionally based federal strike teams for rapid response. This will ensure that U.S.-EMA officials are familiar with the people, the vulnerabilities, and the resources of the regions they protect, and will not be introducing themselves to strangers on unfamiliar ground when disaster strikes.

Further recognizing the importance of mult-level government coordination, the bill creates a national advisory council on emergency preparedness and response--made up of State and local officials and emergency management professionals from public, private and NGO sectors--to advise the Administrator of U.S.-EMA.

Our bill provides a statutory basis for chief medical officer to advise the DHS Secretary on medical and public-health issues. Other sections promote public and community preparedness; evaluate the effectiveness of equipment for first responders; reauthorize and expand the emergency management assistance compact; and create an office of terrorism prevention at DHS.

Mr. President, the U.S. Emergency Management Authority Act is not a symbolic gesture, or a quick fix for our problems. It is a thoroughly researched, carefully drafted collection of reforms that will lay the foundation for years of hard work.

The result, we firmly believe, will be a significantly more effective national system of preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery against natural disasters and terror attacks. Building on the insights of the Hart-Rudman Commission and on the important advances embodied in the Homeland Security Act, the U.S.-EMA bill will greatly improve the protections that American citizens need, and deserve.

Mr. President, my statement has outlined the reforms we are making to this new agency. They are considerable. They are going to make a real difference, and I hope we can pass legislation before the end of this year to greatly strengthen and improve FEMA and our emergency response system and preparedness on all levels of government.

Mr. President, this morning, at 10 a.m., the Senate will vote on the supplemental appropriations conference report. Following the vote, the Senate will resume consideration of the Defense authorization bill. The two managers have made substantial progress, but we will need to work through a number of amendments today in order to complete the bill in a timely fashion.

Those Senators who have amendments should be working with Chairman Warner and Senator Levin to get in the queue. The Santorum amendment on Iran is the pending business and we will need to schedule a vote on that today. The majority leader has announced that Members should stay close to the floor so that we can make significant progress during today's session.

Mr. President, I am delighted that our opening prayer this morning was so eloquently delivered by the Reverend Ken Dutille of Swans Island Atlantic Baptist Church in my home State of Maine. It is a great pleasure to welcome him to the Senate today. In fact, as he offered the invocation in this Chamber 11 years ago, on October 18, 1995, it is a pleasure to welcome him back to the Senate today.

Pastor Dutille's words give direction and purpose to our work. His actions also inspire us; they are a vivid reminder of the commitment and compassion that exists among people of faith throughout our Nation.

His ministry is truly unique. His church is joined with churches on three other islands to form the Maine Sea Coast Mission. This nondenominational organization was founded more than a century ago to provide spiritual guidance and educational opportunities to the remote seafaring communities of Downeast Maine. In its early years, the mission's boat, which was called Hope, would deliver a minister to isolated island communities where there were no churches and books where there were no libraries.

Today, the Sunbeam V not only continues that vital work, but it also serves as a mobile health clinic bringing medical services--including screenings, inoculations, and telemedicine--to four islands that otherwise would not have access to medical services.

Pastor Dutille is the founder of another outstanding mission project, the Bread of Life Food Pantry on Swans Island. The food pantry is often all that stands between the pangs of hunger and a healthy meal for some people in this disadvantaged area of my State. Although the demands upon the food pantry are always considerable, they increased exponentially this last July when the only grocery store on Swans Island was destroyed by fire. The pastor and the rest of the mission community immediately rose to the challenge with a major fundraising campaign. The power of God was evident in their strength of purpose as they responded to this crisis.

The pastor is a fisher of people and a person of many accomplishments. He is a graduate of the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO, as well as of the University of Maine. He holds a master's degree from the California Graduate School of Theology. He has served in churches throughout Maine and has

preached throughout New England. He is a published author, too, and a successful small business owner. He has also had experience that all of us can relate to. In a previous community, he served as a town selectman, so he has a keen understanding of the challenges of public service, as his opening prayer demonstrated today.

It is a great pleasure to have such a dedicated spiritual and civic leader with us today and giving the opening prayer. I am sure I speak for all of my colleagues in extending him a warm welcome and in giving thanks for his inspiring prayer.

Thank you, Mr. President.