Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the attached correspondence from the Executive Office of the President be printed in today's Record.

Mr. President, today, I submit a revised allocation to subcommittee for fiscal year 2005. The allocation has been modified to conform outlays for the outcome on the conference on the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.

These allocations are a revision to those printed in Senate Report 108-356, submitted on September 23, 2004.

I ask unanimous consent that a table setting forth the revised allocation to the subcommittees be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the current occupant of the Chair for yielding me 5 minutes from this bill.

Delay Of Conference Reports

Mr. President, I come to the Senate once more to ask that the Senate consider what is delaying the Homeland Security bill and the Military Construction bill which carry with them the money for the hurricane recovery in the southeastern part of this country, including Florida.

I first want to say to my good friend from West Virginia, he reminds me very much of the comments my grandmother used to say to me about doing things on Sunday. And we tried to observe the commands of the Bible.

This is not the first Sunday since I have been in the Senate, in 36 years, that we have had to meet. I, too, regret we have to meet on Sunday. But we are meeting today primarily because of the objection of one man. We should have taken up the Military Construction bill and the Homeland Security bill when it arrived from the House last evening. The House of Representatives had passed both of those bills in the course of about 2 minutes, and not one person spoke against those bills. It was a unanimous vote on both those bills.

They came over here--and I congratulate the minority leader. Yesterday, when we opened the Senate, he said, without question-- without question--we should pass the Homeland Security bill and the Military Construction bill before we leave.

The impact of this is an astounding delay because of one Senator, the other Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, who is objecting because of an offset that was used in the Military Construction bill to enable us to proceed with the drought provisions in the bill.

For the first time, we are putting up money to assist the people who are suffering around the country, primarily farmers, from drought. We needed an offset. This is the same offset we took once before. And we straightened out the program after that borrowing of budget authority was used effectively.

Now, I told the Senate last night I was informed that last evening FEMA ran out of money. On October 1, it had $836 million, including a $500 million carryover from fiscal year 2004. There was a $336 million apportionment under the continuing resolution, which was intended to last until November 20, but because of the demands in Florida, they have run out of money. And we want to see these bills passed.

We and the leadership on both sides tried to clear this bill. We are primarily here voting on this cloture now rather than tomorrow because we had to come in in order to qualify cloture votes for tomorrow. We will not vote on the Military Construction and Homeland Security bills until tomorrow because one Senator--one Senator--wants to delay them.

Now, I want the Senate to know--this is my last year as chairman of the Appropriations Committee--we have worked hard with Congressman Young on the other side, who is from Florida and is very disturbed about the delay. We worked our committees, and worked them literally night and day, particularly the staffs, to get these bills ready to move. And the Senator from West Virginia says we should only be working if it is an emergency. Well, it is true there are emergency bills right behind this bill.

I would hope we would get cloture and pass this bill as quickly as we can so we can move to the Military Construction bill. We cannot interfere now. We cannot call up the Military Construction bill or the Homeland Security bill until this process is over.

But I urge the Senate, every Member of the Senate, to talk to Senator Harkin and ask him not to delay these bills any longer. These bills will take time to prepare and get what we call enrolled, and then they will be signed by the Speaker of the House and by the Vice President or myself, and they will go to the President. That could be done today. That could be done today, if this one Senator will relent in this procedure to delay these two bills.

I do not understand why the Homeland Security bill has been delayed at all. We were ready to put it in what we call wrap-up last night. The Senator from West Virginia and I and all those connected with it said: Let's just pass this. It has passed the House without objection at all.

The matter was reviewed by the Senator from Arizona. I am pleased to say

for one time we are in total agreement. That bill does not have to have any re-specification of anything we put in that bill that would raise the objection of my friend from Arizona. And he is my friend, despite our disputes.

But I tell the Senate, it is time to pass the Military Construction bill and the Homeland Security bill today.

Yes, he was.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, the Senate now has before it two of our appropriations bills. The first is the homeland security bill, H.R. 4567. That bill has $6.5 billion, among a lot of other money, for FEMA. That is to be used for those disasters that were not part of the hurricane disaster but for those such as the tornado damage and flood damage, the things that spun off from the hurricane. That money is going to be particularly used for that.

We sought to add some money to that bill for that purpose. We urged to let FEMA do its work and see how much would be needed, and if we have to have a supplemental next year we will have it.

We also have the military construction bill, H.R. 4837, before us. It has some $9.1 billion in it in the supplementals that were included in that bill that are primarily aimed at recovery from the four hurricanes to hit the Southeast, particularly Florida. There is no question that money is vitally needed, also. That money, by the way, would have been in the $6.5 billion had the homeland security bill passed, as we should have been able to do by October 1. It would have been available immediately and there would not be the emergency in that area now.

But homeland security has been traveling on a continuing resolution. As I pointed out this morning, the moneys that were allocated to FEMA under the continuing resolution since October 1 are supposed to last until November 20. They ran out last night.

I have not seen two bills of this type, of this magnitude, passed by the other body as rapidly as they passed these two yesterday. They passed them in less than 2 hours. There was not one single vote in opposition, not a single word opposing it. As a matter of fact, every Member of the House voted for each of those bills.

Now, we tried last night, when the bills were received here, to proceed with the homeland security bill, and that was not possible because of an objection.

Mr. President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that this procedure under cloture on the FSC bill be put aside so that we may consider the homeland security bill.

Regular order. Is there objection to my motion?

This is to proceed with the homeland security bill, H.R. 4567. And if it is brought before the Senate, I intend to ask unanimous consent that it be immediately adopted.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Is it possible for me to amend the conference report, as the Senator requests, by unanimous consent?

I have the floor.

Is there an objection, Mr. President?

Mr. President, I still have the floor.

I am about ready to make another motion pertaining to the bill from the subcommittee that the distinguished Senator from Mississippi chairs.

I want to point out that the military construction bill, as I said, has the moneys for the immediate repair and assistance to the people who have been severely harmed in the wake of these hurricanes. And we would like to get that, too, before the Senate. So unless the Senator has some objection--

Mr. President, the request of the Senator from Iowa is that we amend the conference report. The conference report contains a directed scoring concept that we put in there to assure the Senator that the program that he authored, against which we have sought to offset some of the budget authority required for this military construction bill, would be taken so we could proceed with that program. The drought program is not specifically authorized by law. The House of Representatives required, as is their right, an offset to the moneys that would be appropriated within the military construction bill for the drought program. And it was the House of Representatives that made this proposal.

In conference we did as I said, put in a directed scoring provision, and it was the directed scoring provision that the staff of the Senator from Iowa requested.

Now, it is that provision the Senator is using as a basis for objecting to consider even the homeland security bill. The homeland security bill does not have the drought program. He has objected to taking up the homeland security bill because we will not change the military construction bill.

Now, to me, in view of the crisis that faces this country, particularly in regard to the use of FEMA funds, I find that appalling--just appalling. And I am going to come back again and again and again.

I repeat the request. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we place before the Senate the homeland security bill. It does not contain the drought provisions. It does not contain the provision the Senator objects to. I know of no other Senator who is objecting to that bill. So I ask unanimous consent it be brought before the Senate and the current procedure be put aside so we may consider it.

Mr. President, now to the military construction bill. The President has asked us on repeated occasions to bring matters before the Senate and the Congress as a whole to deal with those disasters caused by the hurricanes. Those hurricanes came so fast, as we got one request, we got another request, we got another request, so we decided to put them all together and move them all.

I credit the wisdom of the distinguished chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman Bill Young, for the ingenuity in doing that because we might have been facing separate bills on all of those supplemental requests had we not put them all together. We requested the Military Construction Subcommittee in conference to allow us to add that coalition, that combination of those hurricane supplementals, to put them on that bill.

That military construction bill passed both Houses. And obviously that is the quickest way to get the money to Florida and those other States. That money, some $9.1 billion in particular for the hurricane areas, is of extreme importance.

I point out that in that bill is directed scoring that shows the provision we put in this bill to obtain the budget authority that we did not have available to our committees--we borrowed in effect from a program that has budget authorities extending out until 2012--we have a provision in this bill that says that program cannot be impacted by this offset from now until the year 2007. So there is ample time to deal with how we adjust, if we wish to, the impact of this money on the program that Senator Harkin authored. That offset is $2.8 billion against a program that is currently estimated to cost $8.9 billion, notwithstanding the fact that its original estimate was $2 billion. But it won't affect the program.

The Senator has 2 years before there will be any diminution at all. No one

would be hurt in any way. This is an accounting mechanism. We used budget authority and outlays. We had the outlays. We need the budget authority. So we borrowed, as we did 2 years ago, from that fund. It is an enormous fund, a noncontributory, mandatory program that builds and builds and builds.

I think the Senator has called attention sufficiently to this program. Many of us are going to examine that program in real depth. I know of no other program, even Medicare, that has contributions from the public at large, from people who are benefited by employees. It is not just taking of money directly from the taxpayers' funds, from the Treasury, and spending it without regard to any consideration at all as to cost.

Again, this MILCON bill must pass. I ask unanimous consent that the existing procedure for cloture on the FSC bill be put aside so that H.R. 4837 may be placed before the Senate for the purpose of considering it at this time.

Mr. President, how much do I have left of my hour?

I reserve the remainder of my time. I will be back.

Mr. President, the Senator from Pennsylvania is correct. We have heard no objection. As a matter of fact, we have a wrap-up procedure, is what we call it--and the Senator is familiar with that-- at the end of each legislative day. This Homeland Security bill was in that. We know that absolutely no one objected to the Homeland Security bill in the first instance and later the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, came back and objected. So this bill is held up apparently because the Senator from Iowa wanted to have some other thing in the way of getting on Military Construction.

I am happy to renew the request.

I know of no objection any Senator has raised to the Homeland Security bill. The Senator from Pennsylvania is absolutely correct about that.

I renew the request, and that is that we set aside the current cloture procedure and that the Homeland Security bill be laid before the Senate, H.R. 4567; that the conference report be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I thank the Chair.

The House passed the military construction appropriations bill as well as the homeland security bill. No one voted against the bills. The first one was 374-0 and the second was 368-0.

Military construction contains $2.8 billion for the drought and $11.6 billion for disasters which includes the hurricanes. This bill affects all our States with farms that are suffering from the drought and it helps states like Florida and Alabama that were in the path of the hurricanes. FEMA will likely run out of money tonight, Saturday, October 9.

On October 1 FEMA had $836 million which included a $500 million carryover from FY 2004 and a $336 million apportionment under the continuing resolution. That means they get 51 days worth of cash since the CR takes us through November 20. But FEMA tells me that they burn through this money at approximately $65 million to $79 million a day. The balance in the disaster, fund yesterday, Friday, October 8, was only $150 million. The fund runs dry tonight.

It is true they can re-apportion under the CR, which means they can transfer funds from other areas but it will have to be taken from places like our Federal air marshals, air cargo inspections, port security, and more.

On homeland, many believe we will be attacked before the election. There is a continuing resolution in affect until November 20 but getting this bill increases much of the effort we are making to protect the United States.

It also has new programs that cannot be started until we pass this bill. Some of the program I refer to are radiations detection, aviation security technology, border surveillance, additional detention and removal programs. Getting more screeners at airports is on hold. All first responder grant allocations would be put on hold.

The Coast Guard will not be able to re-engine the HH-65 helicopter for at least 6 months, causing the Coast Guard to continue to experience alarming rates of engine failures. At current funding levels, there are insufficient funds to support the Coast Guard's increased force presence in Iraq port security units, patrol boats, and security forces on oil rigs.

Cargo screening will remain only at current levels--we will forgo a tripling of cargo screening on passenger aircraft. Research and development of new technologies for cargo security will be delayed.

TSA will not hire replacement screeners to fill vacancies at airports, causing longer lines at airports, particularly around the holiday period. TSA will delay airport modifications to install explosive detection devices to screen for explosives in carry-on baggage as recommended by the 9/11 Commission.

The department will not be able to hire additional Federal air marshals, FAMs and, in fact, may have to lay off FAMs that they have on staff, up to 500.

This bill includes significant increases in the intelligence capabilities of the department. A continuing resolution will prevent that expansion from taking place leaving the nation at risk.

Under a continuing resolution the Transportation Security Administration has very little funding for rail and transit security. All of the additional funding available for inspectors, canine teams, research and other activities is in the fiscal year 2005 appropriation. None of the additional funding for letters of intent for airport security modifications will be available.

Seven hundred and ninety-two new Coast Guard personnel will not be hired to enforce maritime security plans.

It prevents interoperable communications and personal protective equipment from reaching rural and smaller communities.

Fire departments will remain critically understaffed without the implementation of the SAFER Act.

The biowatch program will not be expanded in major urban areas, affecting our ability to detect the release of biological agents in the air.

It stops the procurement of 250 additional radiation detection/ inspection systems.

It delays procurement of border surveillance systems to monitor and defend U.S. borders.

It delays Container Security Initiative, CSI needed to stay on schedule to add up 22 more ports to existing 25.

It delays establishment of fugitive operation teams and hinders immigration enforcement--limiting detention and arrest operations of criminal alien

fugitives and hindering our ability to keep jailed aliens from being released into our communities.

It delays staffing up for overseas operations to ensure no visas are granted to foreign visitors who pose a security risk.

It delays adding 750 beds to hold alien detainees, allowing 5,000 deportable aliens to stay in our communities.

It delays support to reduce the backlog in immigration prosecutions.

Delaying the bill delay this Nation's security. Delaying the bill delays help to those that are suffering from the after-affects of numerous hurricanes. Delaying the bill will delay much needed drought assistance.

Mr. President, I am here because the Military Construction appropriations bill, as well as Homeland Security appropriations bill, has passed the House. Both of them have passed the House. I know we are not supposed to talk about the vote over there, particularly about how many people voted. But I think we can say consistent with the rules that each one of these bills was passed unanimously with not one single opponent. Why? Because the Military Construction bill contains $2.8 billion to the drought program and $11.6 billion for the disasters, particularly those relating to the hurricanes in the Florida area.

This bill will affect all of the States that have farms that are suffering from drought. It certainly helps the Florida area and Alabama--particularly in the path of those hurricanes.

But the reason I have come to the floor now to talk to the Senate is I was reliably informed this afternoon that FEMA runs out of money tonight.

I want to say that again. I hope Senators will listen. FEMA runs out of money tonight. There will be no more payments made in Florida or Alabama. I am told people down there are living in tents. The temperature is rising. They are being given buckets of ice to try to keep cool. They have patients being moved from medical facilities. They are in temporary quarters.

This is probably the worst series of storms in the history of this country.

On October 1, FEMA had $836 million. That included a $500 million carryover from 2004, and they were allocated $336 million under the continuing resolution we passed that expires November 20.

As of tonight, that money is gone. This really is an emergency now.

We have been delayed for one reason or another as we tried to get these bills passed. There were riders offered on the bill in both Houses. We tried to work those out in conference. I know there are some people who are disturbed about some of the riders that weren't included. These were legislative riders that did not pertain to the bills themselves, and there are some that were accepted.

But we have to get this bill done and to the President as quickly as possible.

This covers everything you can think about in terms of the Homeland Security bill--Federal air marshals, air cargo inspections, port security.

As I said, we have a continuing resolution in effect until November 20. As far as the FEMA money, it is gone.

I think we have an absolute obligation to these people who are providing the security for this country to see to it that they get their money on time.

We were unable to get these bills done by the end of the fiscal year, which was September 30, because we had no budget resolution.

We have been working against all sorts of impediments in the appropriations process this year.

We have a number of things in this bill that are absolutely necessary.

We have funds for the Coast Guard, for instance. Many people don't realize the Coast Guard has a presence in Iraq. They have port security units and patrol boats. They have security forces near the oil rigs over there. They are part of our forces over there. They still also have this enormous problem in the United States. They need to increase money.

The continuing resolution continues all of these agencies at the level of money approved by Congress in 2003 for the 2004 period. This is the first quarter of 2005.

The money is for cargo screening. That level of demand has increased. We forego a tripling of cargo screening on passenger aircraft by virtue of the bill that was passed.

We have enormous demands now by the Transportation Security Agency to fill vacancies in airports. There will be longer lines at airports if we don't get this money out to them.

The Department also has the Federal air marshals. I am told that they may have to lay off up to 500 Federal air marshals because they are traveling under that continuing resolution. Their moneys are allocated on the basis of what we thought was necessary in the fall of 2003. This is money for 2005. It must start now.

Again, I don't understand why we can't vote tonight. The House took up these bills and passed them within 2 hours. Each one passed the House within 2 hours because they recognized the need for this money.

Now I am told we may not vote until Monday or Tuesday on these bills. I am sort of aggravated. These bills are necessary.

I would like to identify the people who are objecting to passage of these bills tonight. I hope they come to the floor and defend themselves.

I sat in the Chair and presided over the Senate this morning, and I heard the distinguished minority leader say we cannot leave until these bills pass. We cannot go into recess and go back for the election process until these bills are passed. That should be the bipartisan position of this Senate.

Forget these minute details about antagonism because some person's ego has been bruised because we have not done exactly what they want on these bills. We all have to be bigger than that.

It is time to pass these bills. These delays on this bill affect national security. There is no question that homeland security is the second line of defense now. Our first line of defense is protecting our perimeter. But we have national security as No. 1. We spent weeks on the Homeland Security bill. Now we are refusing to provide the money which we came to total agreement on which they need for next year. It is being delayed. I don't understand that at all.

I particularly don't understand why any Member in the Senate is opposing these bills when it was unanimously approved. Not one voice was raised against these bills in the other House. We represent the same constituents. On what basis does anyone want to oppose these bills, either for the hurricane, military construction, or Homeland Security? I am standing ready. Anyone who wants to debate them, I will be here all night. I want these bills passed. They have to pass. There is no reason why they should not pass.

I am pleased to explain any portion of these bills to any Member tonight, but I don't know why we can't come here and vote for these bills. Someone is objecting somewhere and I would like to find out who it is because I think the whole world--I hope someone is watching, anyway--will ask why. Why can't we do what the House did and approve the bills after such hard work we put in? As I said, it has been totally bipartisan. Not one word in the House from either party was raised against these bills.

I will be back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have received this letter from Tom Ridge, who is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I brought this to the Senate floor because, as I stated previously, I was informed that tonight the moneys for distribution in the hurricane area that FEMA supports will expire. We have to pass the MilCon bill and we have to pass the Homeland Security bill as rapidly as possible.

We do not have copies of the intelligence bill that was passed. All of us have had requests for it.

I ask unanimous consent that the intelligence reform bill, S. 2845, be printed as passed so we may distribute copies of that and so that the conference committee can have copies of that bill.

My friend from Hawaii was on the floor first. Does he wish to speak on this matter?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the Senator from Florida be recognized. He has kindly agreed to let me proceed because I am due at a conference committee meeting in 5 minutes.

I yield to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. President, this amendment realigns responsibility for intelligence appropriations from the Appropriations Committee to the Intelligence Committee. This includes all funding relating to intelligence, national, joint military programs, and tactical military funding and classified intelligence matters as in FBI and other Government agencies.

I think it would be a mistake to adopt this amendment. First, it ignores the history of the appropriations process and the lessons we have learned in both Houses of Congress. In 1865, the House created the Appropriations Committee. The Senate followed suit in 1867. Then from 1867 to 1885, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees were stripped of their control over appropriations as one authorization committee after another gained the authority to report appropriations.

In 1885, both Houses realized this ad hoc approach was detrimental, and by 1922 both the House and Senate had reinvested appropriations authority back into one committee in each House. History has proven that moving appropriations to authorization committees creates a decentralized appropriations process that leads to greater spending and less accountability. That would be even more so today under the Budget Act.

In 1910, Congressman James Tawney, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee from 1905 to 1911, said:

The division of jurisdiction and responsibility in the

matter of initiating appropriations has contributed more than

any single cause to the enormous increase in the

appropriations during recent years.

Congressman Tawney's conclusions were backed up by a 1987 study that found expenditures for rivers and harbors between 1877 and 1885 rose sharply after the authorizing committee gained the right to appropriate. A book published in 1989 by Charles Stewart III contains similar findings. Even after accounting for price changes, economics, population, and territorial growth, wars and major programmatic changes sponsored by the authorizing committee, Mr. Stewart found the greater decentralization of the appropriations between 1877 and 1885 led to greater spending.

Contrast those to the findings of a 1992 study conducted by James F. Kogan who found that deficits are rare and nonexistent when spending jurisdiction lies within the committee.

Let me go now to the 9/11 Commission recommendations. They are not only ill informed, but they are also unfounded. Not one line in the Commission's report stated that the Senate and House Appropriations Committees were not performing effective intelligence oversight--not one line. Consolidating appropriations and authorization for intelligence matters will undermine nearly 140 years of congressional tradition and ignore our years of experience in such matters.

I have heard some grumblings about how those of us who oppose provisions in this legislation are merely protecting turf. I am not interested in turf. I am interested in function as well as effective oversight. You cannot move the responsibilities for appropriations and authorizations around without having a real impact on function. And you certainly should not make recommendations that aim to do that without even discussing those broad, sweeping changes with the Members of Congress who are familiar with and part of the appropriations process.

My colleague from Hawaii has discussed this at length. I don't want to be redundant, but Dr. Hamre, whom he quoted, is not alone in his assessment that the budget issues are overemphasized when policy and appropriations are jointly considered. Listen to this. Even the 9/11 Commission acknowledged that risk on page 421 of their report, where they write:

We also recommend that the Intelligence Committee should

have a subcommittee specifically dedicated to oversight,

freed from the consuming responsibility of working on the

budget.

If budget issues pose such all-consuming risk to the entire oversight process, it is the view of this Senator that they should be used within a separate committee that would fully address them. This would encourage collaboration and coordination, the hallmarks of our Government system.

The legislative appropriations process works best where there is friction between the committees and bodies of Congress. That is what the Founding Fathers believed in, a system of checks and balances. It is our suggestion that the organizations of our Government are founded upon that concept, and this amendment doesn't reflect that philosophy.

The insights I offer are not an attempt to protect turf. They are recommendations I would have given to the 9/11 Commission had they talked to me or to my colleague from Hawaii. Given my 36 years in the Senate, 8 of which I have spent as chairman or ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, I think they are very important in this debate.

Mr. President, I will speak against this amendment. I have serious concerns about any effort that would move appropriations responsibilities from

the Appropriations Committee to the new Intelligence Committee.

I have spent over 30 years working on defense and intelligence matters. I have served as the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee for 6 years. Those experiences give me a unique perspective on the appropriations process, intelligence organizations, national security and defense. Based on that experience, I am very concerned about any effort that would combine appropriations and policy responsibilities and place them under the jurisdiction of a single committee.

Collapsing appropriations and policy functions and housing them in the new Intelligence Committee would be a mistake.

First, it ignores the history of the appropriations process and the lessons we have learned in both Houses of Congress.

In 1865, the House created the Appropriations Committee. The Senate followed suit in 1867. Then, from 1867 to 1885 the House and Senate Appropriations Committees were stripped of their control over appropriations as one authorization committee after another gained the authority to report appropriations. In 1885 both Houses realized that this ad hoc approach was detrimental, and by 1922, both the House and Senate had vested appropriations authority back in one committee.

History has proven that moving appropriations to authorization committees creates a decentralized appropriations process. And that leads to greater spending and less accountability.

In 1910, Congressman James Tawney, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee from 1905 to 1911, said the ``division of jurisdiction and responsibility in the matter of initiating appropriations has contributed more than any single cause to the enormous increase in appropriations during recent years.''

Congressman Tawney's conclusions were backed up by a 1987 study that found that expenditures for rivers and harbors and agriculture between 1877 and 1885 ``rose sharply after authorizing committees gained the right to appropriate.''

A book published in 1989 by Charles H. Stewart III contained similar findings. Even after accounting for price changes; economic, population, and territorial growth; wars; and major programmatic changes sponsored by the authorizing committees, Mr. Stewart found that greater decentralization of the appropriations process between 1877 and 1885 led to greater spending.

Contrast those findings with a 1992 study conducted by John F. Cogan that found deficits are rare or nonexistent when spending jurisdiction lies within the Appropriations Committee, and I think you will agree, Mr. President, that we are better off with a centralized appropriations process.

Of course, when you look at how the 9/11 Commission conducted its investigation, it's not surprising that their recommendations ignore this history. Not one of the 9/11 commissioners or 9/11 commission staff members interviewed Senator Inouye or me about intelligence oversight. Nor did they interview the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Appropriations Committee.

So, I do not find it surprising that their recommendations ignore decades of ``lessons learned'' by the House and the Senate. But, I do find it difficult to understand how the Commission could recommend a major realignment of Congressional organization and attempt to change the process for conducting Congressional business without ever speaking to any of the Members of Congress responsible for the appropriations process.

The 9/11 Commission's recommendations are not only ill-informed, they are also unfounded. Not one line in the Commission's report stated that the Senate and House Appropriations Committees were not performing effective intelligence oversight Not one line! And consolidating appropriations and authorization for intelligence matters would undermine nearly 140 years of Congressional tradition and would ignore our years of experience with such matters.

I have heard some grumblings about how those of us who oppose provisions in this legislation are merely protecting their ``turf.'' I'm not interested in ``turf.'' I am intensively interested in function as well as effective oversight. You can't move the responsibilities for appropriations and authorizations around without having a real impact on function. And you certainly shouldn't make recommendations that aim to do that without even discussing those broad and sweeping changes with the members of Congress who are familiar with and part of the appropriations process.

If the 9/11 Commission had asked me about these recommendations I would have told them that Congress has tried to place policy and appropriations functions under the jurisdiction of one committee before, with poor results. We have found that mixing policy legislation with appropriations legislation is inefficient and more importantly, not supportive of the individual processes. Those past experiences led to rules in the House and Senate that institutionalized the separation of policy and appropriations functions.

Every year, Congress needs to fulfill its appropriations responsibilities in a timely manner; if we don't, the government can't keep operating. But the appropriations timetable is completely at odds with the complex and controversial deliberations that surround most policy legislation.

History has shown that combining policy and appropriations functions leads us down one of two paths: either Congress rushes policy deliberations in order to meet fiscal year deadlines and risks adopting bad policy or we must delay the timely passage of appropriations bills in the interest of debating policy issues and we risk disrupting government operations.

Whichever path we follow we short-change one goal in order to fulfill the other.

The 9/11 Commission hopes that if we combine policy and budget oversight in one committee, policy deliberations will guide our efforts. But my years of experience tell me it will have the opposite effect. Budget decisions will rule the committee and policy oversight will take a back seat.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre expressed concern about the dominance of budget issues in intelligence oversight when he testified before the Appropriations Committee a few weeks ago. He said:

Frankly, the quality of congressional oversight is not

good. It is not as strong as it needs to be. I think we are

confusing it by this issue of consolidating authorizations

and appropriations. I have said to the Armed Service

Committees--I used to work there, as you know--that they have

made a huge mistake thinking that they are powerful only by

trying to do what you do, shape the dollars.

There are reasons you have authorization committees. They

are to set the broad trends and directions for the policy

goals and to oversee the functioning of the Government.

But they spend far too much time wanting to shape the way

you appropriate little lines in the budget, and I think

that is a mistake.

You play a crucial and indispensable role. They play a

crucial and indispensable role, but they are neglecting it,

in my view, by putting too much time and attention on budget

detail. I would like to see them spend far more time looking

at the large purposes, the large policy directions, and

overseeing the true functioning of these institutions. That

is what I think was intended by having separate authorization

and appropriations processes. They can be complementary, but

during the last 20 years, frankly, they have been in conflict

with each other. And I think that needs to change, and I will

be glad to amplify on that further at another time.

But Dr. Hamre is not alone in his assessment that budget issues are overemphasized when policy and appropriations are jointly considered. Even the 9/11 Commission acknowledged this risk. On page 421 of their report they write:

We also recommend that the intelligence Committee should

have a subcommittee specifically dedicated to oversight,

freed from the consuming responsibility of working on the

budget.

If budget issues pose such an all-consuming risk to the entire oversight process, it is the view of this Senator that they should be housed within a separate committee that can fully address them, not delegated to subcommittee. This would encourage collaboration and coordination--hallmarks of our system of government.

Those kinds of experiences suggest that the language included in this amendment is the wrong way to address the budget and policy issues facing our nation's intelligence community. Consolidating appropriations and authorization into one committee

means fewer members of Congress and staff members will be looking at these complex issues--how does that improve Congressional oversight? It seems to me we would have less oversight, not more.

The legislative and appropriations process works best when there is friction between committees and bodies of Congress. That is what the Founding Fathers believed in--a system of check and balances. Our Constitution and the organization of our government are founded on that concept, and this amendment does not reflect that philosophy.

The insights I am offering are not attempts to protect ``turf.'' They are the recommendations that I would have offered had the 9/11 Commission interviewed me. Given my 36 years in the Senate 8 of which have been spent as chairman or ranking member of the Appropriations Committee--I think they are an important part of this debate.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Reserving the right to object, can this Senator be part of that colloquy?

Will the Senator yield to me on that?

I have a chart of the Department of Homeland Security summary of appropriations, and it shows the total amount is $38,840,000,000. The two items that are not in that jurisdiction that would come out total $11 billion. The total amount the homeland security committee will have is $22,945,000,000.

Now, Mr. Ridge appeared before the Commerce Committee under the chairmanship of the Senator from Arizona only twice.

I am reliably informed the reason it went to the Commerce Committee in the first place was the Senator from Arizona wrote a memorandum for the Parliamentarian saying that is where it should be, in the Commerce Committee, because we have jurisdiction over all the means of transportation and all of the entities TSA deals with.

Now, the Senator's committee--I am a member of that committee--will not have jurisdiction over railroads, trains, buses, boats, all of the entities that TSA affects. TSA has moved into the facilities owned by those entities. They have not built their own buildings; they have moved into those occupied by the airlines, buses, wherever. The conflict we have to resolve is between TSA and entities that provide the transportation.

Now, if we are going to have a consolidation of jurisdiction, that is why we have done this, that is why the Senator from Arizona wrote the memorandum in the first place, because we have the jurisdiction over the means of transportation.

I asked the Senator from Maine a question. I have not received a response. I am not a part of this dialog. I will make my statement later. I really take offense at the attitude of the Senator from Arizona.

Let's keep the personalties out of it.

I do not shout as loud as the Senator from Arizona and then interrupt people.

I object. What was the request?

I still don't understand. Is the Senator now calling up the amendment on Commerce?

Mr. President, this is an important amendment for the Senate. I hope Members will listen because the Transportation Security Agency is the one that manages basically the entities at the airports, the bus stations, wherever they may be where people enter into forms of transportation.

All of those transportation means are under the jurisdiction of Commerce. I don't know about the rest of you, but I went to Nome one time and I found the Transportation Security Administration had moved into the Alaska Airlines terminal, owned by that airline, and said: Move out of the way. We have to put in these security devices. And they did that. They built a wall through that terminal and they proceeded to take it over.

I have had more complaints about the Transportation Security Administration than I have any other entity since I have been in the Senate because of the way they impact the traveling public.

I remind the Senate, there is a provision in the bill that authorized the Transportation Security Agency to transition to private enterprise when the time came that private enterprise could handle it. This is not a permanent Government entity. We sincerely believe that those involved in the transportation mechanisms should transition to the point where they, working with private enterprise, provide these functions. Right now these are temporary functions. We have provided Government employees to do it temporarily, not permanently. So this whole premise is that it should go over to the Governmental Affairs Committee--on which I am proud to serve and was once chairman--and they should oversee this entity, which we in Commerce want to see transition to become a part of the systems of transportation and not something maintained by Government forever.

This is not something that really ought to be done this way at all. I do not disagree with the Senator from Maine. There are a substantial number of entities that are under the jurisdiction of various committees that should come to the governmental affairs and homeland security committee, as it is now to be renamed. But in terms of that transition, those things do not impact the overall commerce of the United States the way this one does.

The Coast Guard, by the way--the Coast Guard's primary mission is not port security. It is to maintain the jurisdiction in the United States in peacetime over the waters that are essential to our commerce and in wartime to become part of the Department of Defense.

What sense does it make to split it up? By the way, a portion of the Coast Guard is already under Homeland Security. It is already there. We agreed to it in the bill that created the Homeland Security Department. This takes the rest of it, the part that deals with fishing, that deals with boat inspection, that deals with the various aspects of using the Coast Guard around the world as it did off Iraq when it had the job of handling interdicting shipping that violated the sanctions against Iraq importing certain goods. That was done by the Coast Guard. This isn't homeland security, either.

Its primary function up my way is to patrol the fisheries, to maintain the maritime border. That has nothing to do with the security of the United States. It has to do with the protection of the basic resources of our oceans.

If anyone has worked with the Coast Guard, they know they are part of the drug interdiction job. Maybe DEA ought to be transferred to homeland security. I am not sure. But it is certainly not the kind of thing we are talking about now.

The Coast Guard has missions beyond ports. It has waterways, coastal security, drug interdiction, migrant interdiction, defense readiness, maritime safety, search and rescue. Search and rescue is absolutely essential to our State, to have the Coast Guard deal with those souls who are at sea, in danger. They do a marvelous job. They do environmental protection. What does environmental protection have to do with homeland security? That is a different matter--oil spills, contamination of the water, ice protections, and whether we can have transit of the vessels that are capable of going through ice. We now have a considerable number of icebreakers up our way. That is what they deal with.

There is an enormous number of categories that have nothing to do with homeland security and those that deal with homeland security we already transferred to homeland security. The idea the Coast Guard is taking now, the rest of it--the amendment would say, take the rest of it and put it over there. I don't know if it is in this one, but that is the proposal, as I understand it.

Admiral Collins, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, when asked about the future asset acquisition of the Commerce Committee this last April, stated:

To enhanced mission performance, The Coast Guard must

optimize its unique authorities and capabilities,

accomplishing partnerships while gaining capacity it needs to

complete the full range of our missions. New assets will be

used to conduct fishery patrols, search and rescue cases, as

well as protecting the Nation against terrorist attacks.

We have no problem putting the terrorist activities in. They are already in Homeland Security. You don't need this process to go through to split that jurisdiction up again.

The problem right now is that Commerce Committee, having jurisdiction over all forms of transportation, would be faced with the problem of how to deal with this Transportation Security Agency. I think the committee under the chairmanship of the Senator from Arizona has a great record in dealing with this. As a matter of fact, they approved nine bills this year alone related to transportation security in this Congress and none of them dealt with security. One did--the Aviation Security Improvement Act was enhancement of security with regard to airlines themselves.

I think if one examines the record of this Commerce Committee, it has conducted its jurisdiction under the Senator from Arizona. I look forward to continuing that as chairman in the next Congress.

I want to give my friend from Hawaii time to speak on this.

With regard to the nominations on the TSA and Coast Guard, they have been done in record time in Commerce. As compared to the rest of the Congress, nominations before our committee are expedited, and necessarily so. The impact of this matter obviously is that the confirmations of the Coast Guard will be taken over to homeland security. Those Coast Guard people do a lot more than just port security.

I am getting redundant.

But the difficulty with this is the transportation infrastructure itself should not be broken up. We should aim for the goal that this problem which is handled by TSA will be taken over by private enterprise. It should be. We envisioned that at the time we passed the original bill.

We have jurisdiction, as I said, over aircraft, rail, and highways. There is no question when we look at it that putting those concepts that affect our livelihoods right now and dragging them down is the considerable impact of TSA on their operations--not only on this operation as passengers, but the whole spectrum of the relationship with TSA to the transportation entities, I think, needs to be considered.

The McCain amendment would transfer jurisdiction over there to the homeland security and governmental affairs agency.

We had a hearing this morning about the plight of the airline industry. There is no industry that has been affected as much by TSA as the airline industry. TSA is examining how to counter the threat posed by shoulder-launched missiles. The FAA has that jurisdiction.

We have jurisdiction in Commerce over the FAA. Why should we transfer to Governmental Affairs the jurisdiction over an entity that is dealing with this type of equipment? They also have jurisdiction ultimately over some of the aspects of the transportation mechanisms themselves-- design of airplanes, design of buses, design of trucks, cars; the whole thing. I believe all of that ought to stay where it is, with Commerce.

The FAA currently governs baggage weight and rules for lost and damaged

baggage. TSA only deals with baggage security. We are going to take baggage security and put a whole entity over there when the problem is the problem of the industry which has the responsibility legally for the baggage no matter who handles it. I think this is absolutely wrong.

Currently, the airline industry pays $14 billion in user fees, according to the air transportation testimony. Those fees have to be reduced. The only way to reduce them is to get TSA's function into the hands of private enterprise related to the entity they serve--not the whole transportation system but the system they are working with. TSA is designed almost as a ``one size fits all'' for everything. That should not be. We should have a security system that is related to the responsibility of those providing the transportation and let the users of that transportation pay for it and not the taxpayers. This is where in the long run we are going to go, and I believe it is the right thing to do.

I cannot believe we should have two committees dealing with the airline industry. Governmental Affairs has no competence in this area in terms of the impact of entities like TSA on the airline industry. We do. We assert it in the committee under the chairmanship of the Senator from Arizona. It has been a good relationship. I believe it should be continued.

I have talked a little bit about the Coast Guard. I don't think that is covered by this amendment. The current amendment covers only Commerce, as I understand it. Is that correct? I have not seen the amendment yet. Parliamentary inquiry: Does this amendment currently only apply to the Commerce Department? Is it under TSA and the Commerce Committee jurisdiction?

I thank the Senator.

Does the Senator from Hawaii wish to be recognized?

Reserving the right to object, I don't know what that does to the other order.

That is fine. I have no objection. Senator Lott precedes that?

Mr. President, there is not a quorum call in effect, is there?

I am informed Senator Lautenberg will not be returning to the floor to speak. Next will be Senator Lott, right?

Mr. President, I think the Senate should realize that when you are talking about the Transportation Security Agency, we are talking about 45,000 screeners in the current system. Passenger screening takes about $1.8 billion; baggage screening, $1.3 billion. Security and enforcement takes $703 million. The security part of TSA is very small compared to the manpower looking at passengers and baggage. That is their primary function now. And of this $2 billion, $70 million comes from aviation user fees, and $95 million comes from transfer from carryover for the fiscal year 2003.

This is a function, in terms of this part of the homeland security agency, that is directly related to the transportation mechanisms. We urged and have continued to urge that the aviation industry pay the vast portion of this now because the major portion of TSA affects the airports and airways. We believe, and I sincerely believe, that we should find a way to have airlines collecting these user fees, have them provide the kind of screening that is necessary for the passengers and for their baggage.

As a matter of fact, we have placed in this bill--this is the Homeland Security appropriations bill, of which I am a member of the conference, and they are meeting right now--a substantial amount of taxpayer money to continue this process of getting all of the baggage screening and all the passenger screening done. But the bulk of the money, two-thirds of the money each year is coming from the aviation industry itself, which is currently terribly hampered. They are hiring people still. In the small airports, it is very unique because they still have the people who are handling the passengers, but they have these people hired by TSA who are using a third or more of their buildings. That has to stop. That has to transition to a private enterprise.

If we do this, and we put it in Governmental Affairs, that is not going to happen. They don't have the pressure from the entities that are carrying these passengers. We do in Commerce, and we have tried our best so far to meet the process and to be fair to both the Governmental agencies that have the temporary job and the transportation agencies that are paying the bulk of the cost of that job.

But there has to be a transition. We cannot keep it up. In fact, very soon the airlines are going to be unable to pay those charges. They are going to have to be paid by the taxpayers. We heard this morning they are not even going to be able to make their contribution to the retirement funds. This must be changed.

I will use the remainder of my time to say I agree with Senator Lott. We had a conversation at noon today about the whole system. It hasn't been since 1977 that we reorganized the Senate. We should do that. We should recognize the changes in the economy, changes in our people, changes in the whole global concept. But we have not done that. This is attempting now--because Homeland Security agencies have come upon us-- by the way, it has been on us for a while; we didn't need the 9/11 Commission to tell us what to do. We created Homeland Security before they were created. They took it upon themselves to tell us how to do our own laundry. We can do this ourselves.

By January, we will have to see what the House has done. We have the problem of dealing with 100 people, but they have 435 in the House. We are going to have to change to meet the reorganization they are going to bring about. They have a reorganization group going. We should have a reorganization group. With this group, the two whips have done a marvelous job trying to meet the demands of the 9/11 Commission, which is piecemeal as far as the Senate is concerned.

We should have another reorganization. Whose job is that? That is the job of Rules and the Governmental Affairs Committees to reorganize and find a way to deal with the reorganization that is required for the Senate to meet current and future needs. This isn't the way to do it.

The Senator keeps mentioning that two-thirds somehow or another is in Commerce. That is not so. We have one-third of this budget. We have one-third of the burden from the financing of Homeland Security, which is in TSA. I have the figures.

I have table 3 from the Department of Homeland Security summary of appropriations for fiscal 2004 and 2005. This is prepared by the CRS. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is very clear. We are talking about one-third, not two-thirds.

The other part of this is the other agencies spread throughout this maze of jurisdiction we have. When we reorganized in 1997, someone used a mixing bowl, and the committees spilled out first. It wasn't a good, sound reorganization. We need a good, sound reorganization. This is not the way to do it.

Would the Senator like to yield there?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have 5 minutes and the Senator from Delaware have 5 minutes.

If the Senator will not yield to me, I will not yield to him. I want 5 minutes and the Senator from Delaware wants 5 minutes. Does the Senator object?

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I object. I only want 5 minutes, and I want to be able to respond to the Senator from Illinois. He would not yield to me. I see no reason why I should yield to him.

What is the time situation?

Mr. President, I cannot hear.

I yield myself time under the intelligence bill.

I have sent three of the pending amendments to the desk in an amended form. These changes have been coordinated with the managers of the bill and I believe they are acceptable to them.

The first amendment, No. 3840, revises the acquisition authority of the national intelligence director and that is at the desk. The second amendment, No. 3830, modifies a certain provision related to the Central Intelligence Agency and that amendment is at the desk. Amendment No. 3882 revises the provisions related to the inspector general of the National Intelligence Authority. It conforms these provisions to those in the Inspector General Act and avoids duplication of the inspector general efforts across the impacted agencies. That amendment is at the desk.

I appreciate the courtesy of the managers of the bill and their staffs, and their willingness to engage in dialog on these amendments with me and my staff.

We are still working to resolve differences over amendment No. 3827 regarding the information-sharing network to address some of the concerns identified by the White House and others. We hope to reach a resolution on that language this morning, but, as I said, I thank the managers of the bill for their help in resolving these issues. It has been a matter of great concern to those of us who have worked with the intelligence community for quite some time.

I now ask unanimous consent that amendments Nos. 3840, 3830, and 3882 be amended as noted in the revised amendments that I have sent to the desk; that the amendments be considered en bloc and adopted en bloc, and that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

How much time do I have remaining of the 10 minutes?

Mr. President, I have heard this talk about the inspectors and their conclusion that they have not found weapons of mass destruction. Seventeen times the United Nations asked Saddam Hussein to disclose where the weapons of mass destruction were. We know he used them on the Kurds. We know he used them in Iran. We know we have evidence he was trying to build additional weapons but the inspectors kept asking to return. They asked again and again to return so they could find out if there was evidence of where he had those weapons of mass destruction.

Now they are before the Armed Services Committee this morning and they are going to testify that they have found ``no evidence'' of the weapons of mass destruction. We had the same conclusion with regard to the Iraqi air force. We were told Saddam had destroyed a series of airplanes. Later we found them buried in the Iraqi desert--a whole series of airplanes--the whole airplane buried. It was capable of being dug up, brought out of the dirt and used.

Now, we have not found the weapons of mass destruction yet. This Senator believes he had them. We know he had them in the Kurd area. We know he used them on Iran. This idea that somehow or another the President or the Vice President have lied, I am tired of hearing this disrespect for the President and Vice President of the United States and I will be willing to debate any time what happened in Iraq.

I went to Kuwait time after time, and to Saudi Arabia, and talked to the pilots who were flying the continuous air patrol over Iraq. Since the gulf war, our pilots were up there every day, and every day they were shot at by ground-to-air weapons that Saddam was not supposed to have at all.

This idea that somehow or another the President and Vice President of the United States lied because they believed there were weapons of mass destruction there, I believe there are weapons of mass destruction there and I still believe there are weapons there somewhere. Where they have taken them, I do not know, but they have not found them. The inspectors kept finding enough reason to go back and go back. They went back 17 times.

To say the President lied, what about those inspectors who said, We have to go back; we have not found them yet but we are going to find some more? Did they lie?

I think there ought to be greater respect for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency of this country, and in this campaign. I have never heard such disrespect. I did not go out and campaign against President Clinton and say he lied, and yet we know he did. He admitted he lied about the matters that were before the grand jury. Now we did not go out and accuse the President of lying. We had a lot of discussions on the floor about that.

So if we want to compare Presidents and who lied and who did not, I am ready any time the Democrats want to do it, but I am tired of this disrespect. It is time we showed respect for the system. I do not remember in the past when a Senator asked another Senator to yield and if that Senator had time, it normally would happen. At the very least the Senator would say: Let me finish my statement now and I will yield at the end of my statement. That kind of senatorial courtesy has to come back to the Senate.

If the Senator wants me to yield, I will yield the remainder of my time.

The Senator has 10 minutes on his time on the 1 hour to which the Senator is entitled.

Mr. President, I am delighted to have an opportunity to debate with the Senator from Illinois because I listened to the comments he made before, comments I violently disagree with. For instance, in 1998, President Clinton went before the general officers of this Nation, officers from all of our units of the military, and he told them he believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He laid down a just challenge to Saddam Hussein to come forward and disclose them or he believed he might have to go into Iraq himself. That seems to be forgotten.

Apparently, the Senator from Illinois didn't hear the Vice President when he mentioned Mr. Zarqawi last night, a man who was in Iraq before even the problems of Afghanistan who was operating there. He is back there now. He had operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was part of the bad guys there. Now we know he is back in Iraq again. He is mentioned as being one of the senior contacts within the al-Qaida organization that was there before and came back again now. The Vice President has mentioned the contacts that existed in the al-Qaida world in Iraq.

I still believe he was right. There is no question about it. There was a portion of the terrorist organization in Iraq before, and they are back there now.

As far as the weapons of mass destruction, I believe at the time we had seen the briefings--and I am one of the eight in the Congress who received the same briefings the President of the United States got about Iraq. We got them in confidence. As a matter of fact, even the statement the Senator from Illinois made about Mr. Bremer, who is the President's representative, that is from a classified report that we should not be discussing on the floor. It ended up somehow being leaked, that one line from the report. But the report deals with the overall relationship of Mr. Bremer to the whole process.

The problem is this: When we look at the Bremer situation, what Bremer did--we were there. We talked to him. He did want more forces around Baghdad. He thought there should be more. The President relied upon our general officers. He told me personally and he told us as we went to Iraq and came back from Iraq, we are doing what our general officers request, as far as the troop strength is concerned.

The general officers disagreed with Bremer as to the location of those forces. There is no question about it. We probably should have had more. In my opinion, we should have been able to come through Iraq from the north, through Turkey, and come from the south from Kuwait, and had two forces moving through Iraq and squash those people over there.

Instead, because of developments in Turkey, we could not go through Turkey. We flew our troops down to Kuwait, we took their supples all the way around, and when the supplies reached them they then went in, and instead of having forces meet in Baghdad, particularly in Saddam Hussein's home part of Iraq, they then come back to Baghdad, and that left them spread out. My memory is that the insurrection started in the south because the forces had gone north and we couldn't spread them that thin.

People said: Send more troops. Send more troops. We heard that on the floor: Send more troops. The ability to maintain and supply those troops was a real difficult situation, particularly when all the support supplies were coming through Kuwait. We even started sending some supplies through Jordan.

But the problem really is what happened in terms of Saddam Hussein, in terms of the relationship to al-Qaida, and the relationship to weapons of mass destruction. I stood here on the floor of the Senate and called Saddam Hussein a Hitler. I did that at least 9 months before the war started. I still believe he was a Hitler. He invaded Kuwait, and we had to kick him out. He was rebuilding his military within that area that he still maintained control of in Iraq. We had control of the south and north part of his country. Yet look at it in terms of the no- fly zone we were trying to protect.

But in terms of the part he controlled he was rebuilding his military because of the money that came into his hands through the ``food-for- oil'' program.

You can stand here, no matter what you say, and say we haven't found weapons of mass destruction. That is true. We haven't found them. I still believe there are some out there, whether they are in adjoining nations or buried in the ground. Whatever happened to them, he had them.

To accuse the administration of misleading the public when they relied upon the intelligence analysts that we relied on--the same intelligence analysts President Clinton relied on when he made his 1998 speech. Certainly those of us who were here supported the resolution that asked the President to send troops into Iraq; we believed it. When you look at it, if we want to get into situations when Senator Kerry voted against the 1991 war resolution in spite of what Iraq did in invading Kuwait, he voted against us going into Kuwait to liberate Kuwait.

I think my friends on the other side of the aisle have been wrong for 30 years. As a matter of fact, those on the other side of the aisle mainly opposed the Reagan buildup in the 1980s. I was chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and I remember those votes. Fifty times here we voted on amendments that were offered to try to strike weapons systems from the defense bill that I managed to bring to the floor to rebuild the military capacity of the United States. All of those amendments came from the other side of the aisle.

When you look at it, when you look at the trouble, why did we have a shortage of intelligence? President Clinton started degrading human intelligence in the CIA. He denuded the intelligence system as far as human intelligence is concerned because he wanted to rely on the satellites in the air and the communications systems, electrical systems.

I cannot believe we are going to get into these one-sided statements. I would like to have a full debate. I am sort of at a loss. I don't have my records. The Senator from Illinois has his records, but I don't have them.

But I have a feeling that had we not denuded the CIA in the 1990s, we would have had better intelligence. But the information we had relied upon, the American public relied upon, and this Senate relied upon when we voted to give the President the right to go into Iraq.

To say the President was wrong because he relied on the same intelligence we relied upon I think is a faulty argument, and it should not happen on the floor of the Senate in a political season where we are trying to destroy the reputation which the President deserves for having the guts to do what Clinton didn't have the guts to do.

I call up amendment No. 3827, and I send to the desk a modified version of that amendment.

I think it is already before the Senate.

Mr. President, I again thank the managers of the bill, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and their staffs, for working with us on this amendment. That amendment has now been modified, and I think it meets the objections or the reservations that were set forth by the administration Statement of Position, the so-called SAP, that we received on this bill.

It has been modified to make certain that the President will have the authority to designate an entity. We all agree, we hope, that he will not delegate this matter to the national intelligence director. I think it is a function that is essential to carry out the purposes of this bill. Therefore, I am offering the modified amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that the amendment, as modified, be considered and adopted, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3839 be withdrawn from consideration. I am still sad about the vote that was against the position I supported with regard to disclosing the aggregated top line of intelligence. I hope before we are through with this bill that we will find some way to accommodate some of the reservations I have about that process, but in any event I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. President, I say to the two Senators, it is my intention now to support this bill. I congratulate them for listening to us. Sometimes I have raised my voice. One newspaper said I shouted at the distinguished Senator from Maine. That is just my trial lawyer voice, and I apologize for it.

I do thank the Senator for her courtesy and apologize if I have been mistaken in terms of the tone of my voice, but that is my voice. I cannot do much about it.

Reserving the right to object, I intended to speak for 1 minute before the time had expired for morning business. Will the Senator yield for just one brief comment?

Mr. President, this bill came to the floor on September 27. It was debated a few hours, the 28th and 29th similarly. On the 30th, it was debated about half a day. Yesterday, we started business on the bill sometime around noon. Today, we are voting cloture on the seventh calendar day, but probably less than 3 days of debate. I think this rush is unbecoming of the Senate.

I shall oppose cloture, and I want the record to show I do not think this subject, reform of the intelligence community, has ever taken such a short period of time. We are acting under pressure primarily from two men whose business was through when they filed their report. I am appalled that we are moving at this pace.

Madam President, I apologize for not being here earlier. I thank the managers of the bill, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, and their staffs for the work that has been done over the weekend, which we will be hearing about soon, trying to meet us halfway in terms of some of the objections we have raised to the bill.

We will soon vote on amendment No. 3903, which the Senator from Maine has just discussed, declassification responsibility. This is an enormous step to take mainly because of the absolute lobbying and pressure from two people from the 9/11 Commission. I have talked to other members on the Commission who were not so keen about declassification of the entire intelligence budget other than Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Kean.

Clearly, it is a massive step. From President Truman to President Bush, every President of the United States has said do not declassify the top line of our budget. We have voted in the Senate many times since I have been in the Senate as Members have tried to do this, and we have uniformly turned down such a proposal.

Now it is in a bill for the first time. We must take it out. It requires 51 votes to take out. In the past, it took 51 votes to pass. We are in a different position now than we were before. Very clearly, because of the scope of this bill, we are doing something even more expansive than amendments that came before the Senate before.

Again, I call the attention of the Senators who will vote to the scope of the definition of national intelligence under this bill. It is a sweeping definition.

I ask that page 6, beginning on line 19, be printed in the Record.

My point is this: Included in intelligence are the top secret plans of this country. They are the planning for future devices and concepts that deal with interception of information. They deal with the ability to identify individuals. They deal with so many classified areas that I may be violating some rules by mentioning the two I mentioned.

All the money we put in this bill, hide in the intelligence bill, to stop anyone from knowing about it, has to be disclosed under this direction, to include everything, any program, project, or activity of any one of these agencies.

I plead with Members to think about classification. This is not routine classification of who is an employee of the CIA. That is bad enough, come to think of it. These activities are so far reaching, and with so many agencies, including the defense agency that deals with research activities. It has projects it is working on, which are so far out that may prove to be viable. They are part of the intelligence budget. They are classified. They are down in the black portion of the bill and are kept classified because we do not want anyone to know what we are researching and what we are developing. It would be included in this.

No amendment we ever looked at before would have done that, but because of the definition of intelligence in this bill it becomes all inclusive and there is no alternative.

Sometimes I think maybe I am just not able to communicate totally what I am thinking about this bill. It is far reaching to the point of having the ability to destroy intelligence capability to plan for the future.

There is no question about the right to know everything--except the secrets of the country. Aren't we allowed to

have some secrets? Do we have to disclose a number that encompasses the financing of secret activities, some so classified they are not even top secret; they are code word? You have to be cleared for the word. You have to be totally cleared. And there are very few people cleared for these activities. I don't think there are many people in the Senate who are cleared for code word activities.

Should we tell them what we are spending for code word activities? We do not even tell them the word--but we will have to print in the Record now, disclose in the top line of the intelligence budget, all of those activities.

I will speak later about it. Again, I implore the managers of the bill to think twice about this precedent we would be setting, reversing the votes in the Senate--reversing because now it requires 51 votes to take it out. In the past, it was 51 votes to get it passed.

This has shifted the burden from the intelligence people who want to protect the Intelligence Committee to the people who do not understand it, do not wish to really understand it. I am not being accusatory of my two friends. They have worked hard and are trying to understand, but some of us have lived a lifetime in trying to understand it. This amendment has to pass.

If we want to disclose the budget to the extent that it is not classified in terms of top secret or above, that is another matter. We can disclose a portion of the budget that is in the secret category, but when we get to top secret and above--no. If we include that, count me out. I cannot believe we would do that. I hope the Senator will listen to us later.

I am delighted to yield.

The Senator is absolutely right.

The problem is, once we make available this top line they wish to disclose and then start through the budget on what you can find easily, pretty soon you come down to the portion of the budget that is in the classified sector, and then you start to pick it apart. You know what will happen. It will keep getting question after question after question.

But the people who risk their lives, who are foreign nationals, are paid from this budget. We are really going to put in there how much we are paying people around the world to spy for us? Are we naive enough to think we are not paying people? It would be in there. Unless the Senator disagrees with me, there is one little exception: unless someone decides otherwise. I am not sure what that means because it only refers to that one section. It is related to national intelligence.

Now, national intelligence is intelligence that is covered by section 5. It does not refer to counterintelligence or law enforcement activities conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It does not say it does not cover counterintelligence or activities of the CIA or the DIA, but it does for the FBI.

I think the problem is, the definitions of these programs are so specific now to this bill. But this one covers the disclosure of the total amount. That is what I object to.

Let me tell the Senator one thing before I quit. I remember one morning I woke up and the New York Times had a picture of the Predator on the front page, and it disclosed that it was capable of carrying the Hellfire missile. If there was anything that was totally classified at that time, that was it, and there it was out there on the front page. Do you know what. About a week later, we missed several people in Afghanistan on whom we were trying to use the Hellfire missile. They knew it was already there. They knew it was armed by that time. Before that, it had not been armed and before that no one had the capability to arm it. But we developed a way to arm it, and there it was on the front page of the New York Times.

Now, this concept of leakage of the intelligence community's activities starts from the top line. I do not understand why we should reverse the history of this Senate. The Senate has never voted to disclose the intelligence budget--never.

Will the Senator yield?

But you are using foreign intelligence. This is national intelligence. He talked about foreign intelligence.

Madam President, I believe this is another amendment that is sort of misunderstood. The powers of the national intelligence director under this bill are much broader than the CIA Director's. Under this bill he has the right to move money from any part of the intelligence community to another part without consent of the agency to whom we appropriated money and, really, without regard to the program activities or even the specifications Congress has put on that money.

Take, for instance, reserve funds. Reserve funds are there in the event of emergencies for the specific agency involved. He can go in to take the reserve funds from one agency and move them entirely to another agency without any consent of the agency or the consent of the committees that appropriated the money for that reserve contingency.

The Senator's amendment makes a lot of sense. Those of us who are cosponsors are very serious about our support.

I send a modification of my amendment to the desk.

I thank the Senators from Maine and Connecticut for working with us on this amendment. It does stretch out the timeframe and makes much more sense.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, could we have order?

Determining classification is the responsibility and duty of the chief executive of the United States, the President, who is also Commander in Chief. Presidents Truman through Bush has determined that the overall intelligence budget top-line figure is, and shall remain, classified, and I believe we should not overrule that judgment.

The foundation of an effective intelligence capability, is secrecy. Secrecy protects not only the information that we collect, but also the brave people that put themselves at risk to do the collection of it. We are an open and a free society that generally abhors secret dealings by our Government. But in the case of intelligence collection and analysis, secrecy, is absolutely necessary.

Some of my colleagues argue that the American people have a right to know how much of their money is being spent to defend their Nation's security through intelligence-gathering operations. I assert today that, through its elected officials, the public interests are being effectively served.

Some argue that disclosing the total budget amount will instill public confidence and enable the American people to know what portion of the Federal budget is dedicated to intelligence activities. This bill recommends that the overall intelligence budget should no longer remain classified. I believe that the total budget figure is of no use to anyone but to those who wish to do us harm.

For example, what do the numbers tell our adversaries or potential adversaries in the world? In any given year, perhaps, not a great deal. But while watching the changes in the budget over time, and using information gathered by their own intelligence activities, sophisticated analysts can indeed learn a great deal.

Trend analysis, as you know, is a technique that our own analysts use to make predictions and to reach conclusions. There are hostile foreign intelligence agencies all over the world that are focused solely on gathering every bit of information that they can about our own intelligence-gathering operations and our capabilities. Their ultimate goal is to exploit weaknesses and to deny access and to deceive our own intelligence collectors. Denial and deception is already a serious concern for the intelligence community, and providing our enemies or potential enemies with any insight as to what we spend on intelligence will only make it worse, not better.

No other nation, friend, or ally, reveals the amount that it spends on intelligence. It would set a terrible, dangerous precedent, because right after the aggregate budget was revealed, that number doesn't say much and so the calls would be quickly for more information.

This is a slippery slope. Reveal the first number and it will be just a matter of minutes before there will be a call to reveal more information.

I want to remind my colleagues that we voted on a similar measure in 1997--the amendment failed by a vote of 56-43. There have also been five votes in the House--all of which have failed. Let us not change our records now.

The President of the United States and every President since Harry Truman has requested that the Senate not declassify the amount our country spends on intelligence. I believe we should listen to what he tells us. I have amended my original amendment to request that only a study be done on this important issue. That the national intelligence director have the time to investigate this important topic and let

him, with the President, decide what the safety needs of our Nation are to be.

Based on the recommendations of our colleagues here in the past, I hope you will accept this change and support this amendment.

Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk.

Parliamentary inquiry.

If I give notice of reconsideration of that vote, what happens under the cloture vote as set for tomorrow?

I give notice of reconsideration.

Mr. President, I regret seriously I was unable to make my statement in full. I was not notified of this time limit when I left on Friday. I came back and found it. The statement of my amendment there was not a statement of my amendment. It was a statement in opposition to my amendment. I was unable to tell the Senate that the statement of policy of the President of the United States supports this amendment. I think the Senate should reconsider tomorrow and think again about this amendment.

Is there a time limit on me right now?

Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I have the floor. Is there a time limit?

Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, is that debatable?

I object.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3830.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

I still have the floor, do I not, Mr. President?

Amendment No. 3826, As Modified

Has the amendment been modified, Mr. President?

Mr. President, I will say for the record the Senator from Maine is correct. We have modified this as requested by the committee.

I call up amendment No. 3830.

Now what is the regular order, Mr. President?

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3830.

There is an objection to calling up the amendment?

I just want to call it up and set it aside and qualify it for a vote later.

Mr. President, I renew my request.

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

Mr. President, what is the pending amendment that was set aside?

Mr. President, am I interfering with a time agreement now by continuing on the floor?

Mr. President, I am constrained to say that I am disturbed at the process that has just been used. I was out of town. I left town saying I was willing to work. I come back and find a series of my amendments have a 2-minute time limit. I was not consulted on that at all. I think in view of the haste with which this bill is moving forward, it is very sad. It is going to change this Senator's vote on cloture tomorrow because I am tired of having this bill being pushed so hard.

It is being pushed by a group of people who were part of a commission that went out of existence. They went out and raised a million and a half dollars, and they are lobbying this Senate. They are lobbying hard, principally the two leaders. They are no longer leaders of that Commission, and they are demanding that we act. Are they registered lobbyists? Are they? What right have they to push this Senate so hard?

I think we should take some time and consider what we are doing. If we are not careful, we will destroy the intelligence system we are trying to reorganize. I am in favor of reorganizing it. I said that in the beginning. But this is going too fast, when I am prevented from even reading, perhaps just 1 minute to read a 3-minute statement, and nothing in front of the Senators on our side indicated the President of the United States was in favor of this amendment. I offered it because the statement came from the administration.

I think we should slow down. If we don't slow down, we are going to be around a long time because I remember Senator Allen who stretched out a cloture vote once for 3 weeks. I really believe there should be some senatorial courtesy involved when a Senator is trying to oppose a pressure group like this. It is not easy to do. I know that. But I am up to it, I tell you. I am up to it. And people better understand that.

I ask that that amendment be set aside for the purpose of further consideration tomorrow.

Mr. President, I have a series of requests for cosponsors of amendments that I have introduced. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I call up the four amendments at the desk. I ask unanimous consent that each of them be read and then set aside so we can go through calling up the four of them, and then I will make some comments about them. They are amendments Nos. 3826, 3827, 3829 and 3840.

Mr. President, I will address the amendment first in order, amendment No. 3826. This is offered to clarify the duties and responsibilities of the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. The bill currently states that the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center shall serve as the principal adviser to the President and the national intelligence director on joint operations related to counterterrorism.

This amendment strikes ``joint operations'' and inserts in lieu thereof ``strategic planning.'' The bill under consideration creates the National Counterterrorism Center to develop and unify strategy, to develop interagency terrorism plans, not to conduct joint operations.

I call attention to page 83, lines 3, 9, and 10, of the committee print.

In support of the bill under consideration, this amendment clarifies the role of the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center to support planning and not conduct operations.

It is the intent of this amendment to make it perfectly clear that the national counterterrorism director would have no control over the conduct of joint operations. Having the intelligence director to report directly to the President would be inappropriate. Furthermore, the Secretary of Defense is the principal adviser to the President on military operations. As currently drafted, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center shall serve as the principal adviser to the President on joint operations. This is very unclear. Does it include military operations? Our amendment eliminates that ambiguity by striking ``joint operation'' and inserting ``strategic planning,'' which would appear to be consistent with the amendment adopted by the committee in the markup to change the directorate of operations to directorate of planning within the National Counterterrorism Center. I would hope that the manager of the bill would give this amendment serious consideration because I think it clears up a defect in the bill as it is presently written.

Amendment No. 3829

Now I will address amendment No. 3829. This amendment would delay the implementation of the bill from 6 months to 1 year. I want to make it clear that this amendment would not delay the implementation of the office of the national intelligence director or the National Counterterrorism Center but gives the administration 6 more months to implement the many offices, councils, and changes in the intelligence community that the bill requires.

We are facing an election. We do not know what the outcome of the election is, but to put the burdens of this bill in the first 6 months on the administration, whether it is the existing one or a new one, is entirely inappropriate. The first 6 months of a new Congress and the new year of an administration go by very quickly, and I think there is just too much to do with regard to budget, presentation of State of the Union message, so many other things, to have this implementation done within 6 months.

I make this recommendation because many of the individuals I have spoken to in the intelligence community and those who appeared before our Appropriations Committee suggest that executing these changes should not be at an accelerated pace. Here are the important quotes from Dr. Kissinger.

What I say and what I have written should be read in

conjunction with a joint statement that is being issued today

by the following group of individuals: former Senator Boren,

former Senator Bradley, former Secretary of Defense Carlucci,

former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former Director of

the Central Intelligence Agency Robert Gates, former Under

Secretary of Defense John Hamre, former Senator Gary Hart,

myself, former Senator Sam Nunn, former Senator Warren

Rudman, and former Secretary of State George Shultz.

It is obviously a bipartisan group, and we are concerned

that the reforms of the magnitude that are being talked about

and with the impact that they will have on the conduct of

intelligence and on the national security machinery should

not be rushed through in the last weeks of the congressional

session in the middle of a Presidential election campaign.

The consequences of this reform will inevitably produce

months and maybe years of turmoil as the adjustments are made

in the operating procedures of the national security

apparatus and of the intelligence machinery. That is inherent

to reform. But we should not have to explain in retrospect

why it was so necessary to come to a conclusion in the middle

of a Presidential election campaign. Whatever decisions are

made this week, we will have to deal with the immediate

terrorist challenge by the apparatus that now exists, as it

has already been reformed in the light of the experience of

September 11. So urgency should not trump substance.

From Dr. John Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense:

Mr. Chairman, we are now very far along the road in this

debate. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the shape of this

debate has been driven more by political imperative than deep

analysis of the challenges we face in this area. We do need

intelligence reform, I believe. But I believe the debate to

date, and the proposals before the Congress, are too narrowly

constructed around one perceived failure of the intelligence

community, and that is the failure to coordinate the

activities of the components of the intelligence community.

Without this extra 6 months, I feel the administration would be hard- pressed to meet the strict requirements, recommendations, and guidelines this bill imposes. It does not require a delay of 6 months; it just gives 6 more months. If they can do it in 2 months, fine, but why put a 6-month deadline when the study that is involved has a 6- month deadline? My amendment allows the President to move fast if he believes it is prudent but does not mandate a rush to finish.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment which would only work to help the administration to execute this mission well.

amendment no. 3827

The amendment strikes line 20 on page 130 of the bill and all text that follows to line 2 on page 153 which relates to creation of a huge information sharing network. The current occupant of the Chair will be very interested in this amendment.

I understand the need for this office to be created, and my amendment will create such an office. But, it would strike the specific requirements and guidelines that the national intelligence director would have to follow to establish a network for intelligence information sharing. My amendment would allow the intelligence community, and more importantly the national intelligence director, to be using the information to determine what type of network they need.

During our Committee hearings, Dr. Henry Kissinger made the following analysis:

Different components of the government have different

missions and priorities that cause them to assign different

levels of importance to protecting intelligence information.

Good management requires that, when there are contradictions

between using intelligence and protecting it, decisions are

made by established procedure. Sharing should be optimized,

not managed in detail. To attempt to prescribe all the

circumstance in bureaucratic or legalistic language would

involve so much detail and so many exceptions as to defeat

its own purpose.

Also, sharing of this information will not be the ultimate panacea. ADM James Ellis, former Commander of U.S. Strategic Commander until a few months ago, made the following point:

We should be wary of homogenizing centralized processes

that, albeit unintentionally, may suppress or filter

differing views. Recent op-ed pieces have noted the

inevitability of surprise in our past and offered as well

that often a surprise is a result of deficient analysis, not

collection or even sharing of data.

Also, from our intelligence reform hearings, Judge Richard Posner, from the 7th Circuit, Court of Appeals stated the following:

The Commission thinks the reason the bits of information

that might have been assembled into a mosaic spelling 9/11

never came together in one place is that no one person was in

charge of intelligence. That is not the reason. The reason,

or rather, the reasons are, first, that the volume of

information is so vast that even with the continued rapid

advances in data processing it cannot be collected, stored,

retrieved and analyzed in a single database or even network

of linked databases. Second, legitimate security concerns

limit the degree to which confidential information can safely

be shared, especially given the ever-present threat of moles

like the infamous Aldrich Ames. And third, the different

intelligence services and the subunits of each service tend,

because information is power, to hoard it. Efforts to

centralize the intelligence function are likely to lengthen

the time it takes for intelligence and analyses to reach the

President, reduce diversity and competition in the gathering

and analysis of intelligence data, limit the number of

threats given serious consideration and deprive the president

of a range of alternative interpretations of ambiguous and

incomplete data--and intelligence data will usually be

ambiguous and incomplete.

I point out that the administration's statement, so-called SAP which came from the administration, says:

the administration supports the strong information-sharing

authorities granted to the NID in the bill. The

administration is concerned that the extensive authorities

and responsibilities granted the Office of Management and

Budget to implement the information-sharing network are both

outside of OMB's usual responsibilities and are inconsistent

with the goal of ensuring an NID with effective authority to

manage the intelligence community. These responsibilities

should be granted to the NID in such a way as to remain

consistent with section 892 of the Homeland Security Act of

2002.

The administration also believes that the detail in which

the legislation prescribes the network is excessive. The

network would be more likely to accomplish its beneficial

goal if the bill simply provided the authority necessary for

its establishment while leaving the details to be worked out

and altered as the circumstances require.

I am also concerned with the very ambitious schedule that the bill delineates. In 90 days, just 3 months, the Director of OMB would be required to submit to the President and the Congress a description of the Network, establish a director of services and conduct a review of relevant current Federal agency capabilities; it would seem to me that we are setting the administration up to fail with such an unreasonable time frame.

I am also concerned about the cost. The bill estimates this could cost at least $50 million dollars. Where would the funds for this program come from? Also, how would they influence existing programs to coordinate these activities? Currently there are not any funds designated for these activities. Would they be requested from a supplemental or would they be taken from the intelligence community's very tight budget?

Also, I was hoping that the chairman and the ranking member could provide a clearer picture about the protection of civil liberties. I understand that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Boards will be included in discussions--but I worry about the extent to which--and I am quoting from the bill now:

private sector data, including information from owners and

operators of critical infrastructure, is incorporated into

the Network; and that the private sector is both providing

and receiving information.

This is another czar. We already have an intelligence czar. Now this provision in this bill creates an information czar.

It ``requires that the national intelligence director is to set standards for information technology and communication.'' By the way, it does not say necessarily related to intelligence--across the entire executive branch, for every Cabinet Secretary and I presume for the

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

Mr. President, this is the final amendment I would call up now. Again, I apologize for the way it is brought forward. The time factors involved are very narrow, I know. I do want to say, parenthetically, again, one paper said I shouted at the chairman yesterday. I certainly hope I did not shout at the chairman of the committee. Having formerly been the chairman--and Senator Lieberman also has been the chairman--I know the vast diversity of this committee and the difficulty we have had bringing this bill to the floor. I think they have done an extremely fine job under the circumstances we have. I don't know why we are being pressured as we are, but the decision has been made to get this bill out, and so we share the leadership position to accomplish that goal.

But I am worried, as I told the managers personally, that some of the in-depth study others of us have given to this bill is not being listened to. The problem will be not in having the bill passed; the problem will be in having the bill implemented if some of these amendments are not adopted. The timeframes in particular worry me greatly, the timeframes within this process. This is worse than establishing a new department, really. This is a control mechanism over a system that abhors control. It is hard to control. If we do it wrong, we are going to bust this system. We are going to destroy the morale. As I said the other day, it takes a minimum of 5 years to get an agent in the field, and it will take another 5 years before that agent can actively recruit people and deal with the nationals and really help control the national assets we need for our security. The people we have in the field right now really started out around 1994 or 1995. They are out there. If we disturb their morale so they decide to pursue other courses, positions, or other goals, this Government is going to be left literally exposed. All of these people are extremely capable people. I have never encountered the intelligence quotient in any other area in our Government that I have run into in the intelligence field. They are high-strung people. They are people whose morale is absolutely essential.

I urge the Senate to consider the morale of the people in the system now and those who will be coming into the system as we moved forward. Do not set timeframes such that it is designed for failure. Give them time. The system is working now. I have said that time and again. I don't think most people know how much change has occurred in the intelligence community since 9/11. It is working. The fact that we haven't had another 9/11 shows that it is working. I hope we will be careful.

I want to talk about this one amendment.

I thank the Senator. We made progress in a lot of areas outside of Iraq. I am in contact now with people in the Philippines. We have problems. We have problems in Indonesia. We have problems throughout the area. We have problems with all of these drugs from Afghanistan. This is a complex world. When we visited with the station chiefs throughout the world recently, they all said the same thing. Ours is a very difficult problem. It is hard to figure out our priorities right now. They are going to have to wait until NID gives them their priorities. How long must they wait?

My amendment suggests an alternative to the inspector general of the National Intelligence Authority as proposed in this bill.

This is amendment No. 3882.

Under the committee bill, the inspector general would have the authority to provide policy direction on interagency relationships without consulting with the department heads of the affected agencies.

I see you shaking your head. You had better read the bill if you disagree. I don't like to see that from staff, anyway. If you are going to shake your head, move.

I think this is a situation where we have been through the creation of inspectors general on the Governmental Affairs Committee. People ought to look at what is being done under this bill. This is the only inspector general I know that would have the authority and direction to provide policy direction on interagency relationships without consulting with the department heads of the affected agencies.

Here is an inspector general of the intelligence community from NID. He has the authority to interrogate people in other agencies to find out interagency relationships of his agency with these other agencies without consulting the heads of the other agencies. Nothing indicates they are even going to consult the inspectors general of those agencies.

There are inspectors general of every agency covered by this bill. That would give the inspector general of the NIA unprecedented authority over appointed officials of other independent agencies and departments. I don't know why the inspector general of the NIA should have unprecedented powers that no other inspector general has.

I raised this question before and I was told that was not the case. When I raised the question, I was told on the floor earlier that the inspector general has the same authority as the inspectors general. I challenged that. And this amendment would bring that bill back into the situation where I was told it was, and that is the inspectors general have the same authority as any other inspector general. They would still have the authority to audit programs and operations of the national intelligence authority. They shall have the authority to investigate interagency relationships if they wanted to among the elements of the intelligence community both within and outside the national intelligence program, but the inspector general of the National Intelligence Authority will not direct the policy of other independent agencies or any other agency. As a matter of fact, IGs should not direct anything. They should make findings and report their findings to the head of the agency.

My amendment is based on existing law that has proven successful in ensuring that the authority of inspectors general of the intelligence community does not infringe upon independent inspectors general of other agencies.

I urge the Senate to take a look at this. To have anyone authorized to investigate interagency relationships? How are you going to get along with your colleagues in the other group? Inspectors general should look for performance or for honesty and integrity, to examine the operations and report. But to report on interagency relationships involving other departments and agencies that are not under his control and are under the control of other inspectors general, that is really going too far. I will say this categorically: If that provision is not changed, I will vote against this bill. I have lived with inspectors general now too long, and that goes too far. I will not vote for this bill unless it is altered.

Mr. President, I apologize, I do have to go. I want the Record to show my support for Senator Byrd's amendment No. 3845, which a few of us have endorsed. I hope we can negotiate some of that because that covers, as the distinguished senior Member of this body has said, the relationship that many of us have had with this process for a long time. I hope we will have a chance to work it out.

Shout doesn't count. Sometimes I am loud. I apologize.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, Senator Byrd and I have asked and urged all chairmen and ranking members of the appropriations subcommittees to start conferencing the substance of their bills with the House.

We need to resolve our differences now, before the recess next week, if possible. We have a short period of time when we come back. The continuing resolution will expire November 20.

I conferred with the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman Bill Young. He agrees that something needs to be done while we are gone. I don't know if it is possible, but I hope the Senate and House staff will do their best to work with the chairmen and ranking members of the subcommittees on their recommendations and make sure we have them available when we come back on November 16. There will be no time to do such preliminary conferencing when we get back.

At best, we will have 5 days to get something out of conference and resolve the issues and pass a conference report of some kind to deal with as many bills as we can handle. That is a tall order.

I thank my friend, Senator Byrd, ranking member, former chairman of our committee. We are working together with the objectives of trying to finish these bills this year. When the two chairmen retire from the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee, with us will go our staffs. If the next chairman of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee has to continue the work that we should accomplish this year, it is going to take months this time because the trained staff, the people who know the subject, will not be there. We move on to other subjects.

Congress must get these appropriations bills done this year.