Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do intend to yield to my distinguished friend from West Virginia anytime he wishes to start discussing his amendment.

The amendment pending before us to the amendment I have offered, which contains the 11 bills that were not enacted that the majority leader mentioned, the Byrd amendment, deals with additions to the homeland security package that is contained in these 11 bills. As I stated last evening, I find myself sort of in a position of a husband who has ordered a new car for his wife and tells her, when the bill comes, he is not going to pay the bill.

I sat through the hearings Senator Byrd held as chairman on homeland security. I know the amounts that are in his amendment are amounts of money that various persons from throughout our society and from community after community all over the country have asked for. It is money they want. There is no question they want this money. We had a plan to make it available. Actually, it should have been made available sometime early last year, but we never got do that because we didn't have a budget last year. And we were unable to move the appropriations bills last year because of the lack of a budget.

What I am seeking to do today, and started yesterday, is to ask the Senate to exercise a rare type of discipline and allow us to take these bills to conference. My amendment to this pending continuing resolution bill that is before us will allow us to take these bills to conference with the House. There are 11 bills that should have been passed before October 1 of last year. As I said yesterday, it does not do any good to try to point fingers to say why we didn't do that. The simple fact is, we did not pass them.

Now in this new Congress we have to pass bills that actually expired at the end of the last Congress. All of the work that was done on those bills in the House and the Senate was eliminated by the end of that last Congress.

We have initiated a process to catch up with those bills. There are bills that deal with the moneys to be expended by the agencies in the Federal Government between the time the President signs the bill and September 30. That is a very short period of time. It does not exceed 7\1/2\ months. It is probably 7 months. The money that is in my amendment will provide ample money for those departments for that period of time. It is less than they would have gotten on October 1 of last year, because since October 1 of last year they have been following the provisions of the continuing resolution Congress enacted, and they are using no more than the amount of money that was available to them in the fiscal year 2002 budget. The 2002 budget was contrived by the President really in the fall of 2001. We enacted it sometime in 2001.

We are dealing, in other words, with a process of funding our Government based upon decisions made in 2001, continuing down to the end of this fiscal year.

I note the distinguished Senator from West Virginia is here. I am pleased to yield to him whenever he wishes to speak.

Mr. President, there is money in this amendment I have offered, in one bill or another, dealing with each subject Senator Byrd wishes to cover by his amendment. I can say that the money in the Byrd amendment is going to be spent sometime by the Federal Government in dealing with these issues. The question is, when should we make it available?

The President of the United States has said, because of all the other pressures on our Federal Government, he wanted to limit spending under these bills to $750.5 billion. He has given us a new amendment--there will be a second one, too--and that adds $825 million to deal with the enormous fires that occurred in our country last year. As a consequence, we agreed before the end of last year to try to live within the President's limitations. We were unable to do so in the period after the election. Now that we have come back, of course, it is a new Congress and that agreement we made last year to limit it to the President's level was not still binding. But it is binding on me, because I went to see the President and he asked if I would try to do this and get these bills done so we can turn to the budget request, which he will submit to the Congress after the State of the Union Message. I told him I would.

I am in the position of asking the Senate to hold to the amount the President asked, the amount of these 11 bills. I didn't really decide every number in these bills. These bills came from 11 subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee, with staff members working from both the Republican and Democratic sides at my request to reduce the amount so the total did not exceed the President's request. That has been done. We have a letter now, Mr. President, which I will put into the Record. I will read some of it to the Senate:

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your

leadership--

I won't read the whole first paragraph. The second paragraph says this:

I am writing today to strongly oppose amendments to your

bill that would add extraneous spending above the levels

requested by the President. In particular, the ``Byrd

amendment'' purports to add $5 billion in additional

``homeland security'' spending that is unnecessary.

This letter goes on to say:

We are now more than a quarter of the way through fiscal

year 2003 and much of the funding contained in the ``Byrd

amendment'' could not even be obligated in the remaining

months of this year. For these reasons, I urge you to

oppose the Byrd amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at the end of my comments.

Mr. President, I am prepared to try to explain any provision that is in the 11 bills that are contained in the amendment I have offered, or I will call upon the chairmen of all those subcommittees whenever anything is questioned.

My hope is the Senate will understand the problem. The problem is, do we take care of these 11 bills in a very expeditious way, get them to conference between the House and Senate, working with the President and his people, and really fashion this into a satisfactory piece of legislation which the President will sign now. If we don't, we must wait for the House to pass these bills individually. That will take a considerable time for them to pass. We are putting this amendment on a resolution that has already been passed by the House and we will send it back to the House. If we have to wait for 11 bills to come back from the House and send them to conference one by one, it will be late March or late April before we get through this process. We will not be able to deal with the pressing needs of this economy, with the problems of taxation, the problems of homeland security itself, and all of the problems that really perplex us in terms of medical problems of our Nation, the health care delivery system. We have the chance now to really try to eliminate the problems caused by a failure to act last year, and act decisively and take these 11 bills, in one bill, to a conference and work it out with the House and the President, and come back with a final bill in a conference report and send it to the President and, hopefully, obtain his signature and have this put behind us.

I intend to oppose any amendment to this bill which adds money. I intend to try to get the concept to move expeditiously, if possible. We now have the majority leader's agreement that we will stay in session until we pass this bill. We can do it sooner or we can do it later. When we get to conference, we will have representation from both sides of this aisle. We will be dealing with the Appropriations Committee from the House and from the Senate and, by definition, that committee is made up of the most experienced people on both sides of the aisle. Every point of view is represented in that conference, and every amendment that could be offered here could be offered through one of the members on that

conference. We ought to be able to come back to the Senate very quickly with a final solution to this problem, and that is the problem of how do we eliminate this sword of Damocles that hangs over this new Congress--that is, the 11 bills that were not enacted.

I ask unanimous consent that a chart that my staff and the staffs of the individual subcommittees have prepared, which shows the major elements of Senator Byrd's amendment, item by item, the amount in Senator Byrd's amendment, and the amendment in my amendment for each of those items, be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

Mr. President, I confess that if we didn't have the limitations we face, the deficit we face, I would once again support Senator Byrd's funding in each of these items. Under the circumstances, we cannot. We must get a bill the President will sign as quickly as possible and get these bills behind us so we can come before the Senate with the individual 13 appropriations bills that represent the bills for fiscal year 2004.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

Executive Office of the President, Office of Homeland

Security,

Washington, DC, January 16, 2003.

Hon. Ted Stevens,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I would like to take this opportunity to

thank you for your leadership in bringing the FY 2003 Omnibus

Appropriations Bill to the Senate floor and for supporting

critical funding for out Nation's homeland security.

I am writing today to strongly oppose amendments to your

bill that would add extraneous spending above the levels

requested by the President. In particular, the ``Byrd

amendment'' purports to provide $5 billion in additional

``homeland security'' spending that is unnecessary.

The base omnibus bill contains, as the Administration

requested, an unprecedented 30% increase over 2002 (including

supplemental funding) in the fiscal commitment to defending

the homeland. The funds requested and provided are sufficient

to address homeland requirements and, in many cases, are the

most that can be absorbed responsibly in the remaining months

of this fiscal year.

In total, the budget for FY 2003 will provide $37.7 billion

in homeland security funding, nearly doubling the pre-9/11

levels. Investments made in previous supplemental

appropriations and the FY 2003 Budget will build capacity in

areas that will help protect our Nation against terrorist

attacks. Since 9/11, the Administration and Congress have

committed to providing: $9.6 billion to defend against

biological terrorism, more than doubling the level that the

Government spent prior; $3.3 billion to secure our borders

and ports and over $10 billion for aviation security

activities. The omnibus bill as proposed by Senator Stevens

supports all of these homeland security initiatives and

further funding is unnecessary.

We are now more than a quarter of the way through fiscal

year 2003 and much of the funding contained in the ``Byrd

Amendment'' could not even be obligated in the remaining

months of this year. For these reasons, I urge you to oppose

the Byrd amendment.

Thank you again for your support and we look forward to

working with you to ensure that our homeland is protected.

Sincerely,

Steve Abbot,

Admiral (ret.), USN,

Deputy Homeland Security Advisor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for 1 minute?

Yes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for the rollcall on Senator Byrd's amendment be changed to commence at 12:30, with the time added to be equally divided.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia. Again, I have to come back to where we are. We are trying to send to the House, in order that we might convene a conference between the House and Senate, the 11 bills we did not pass last year, governing 11 different appropriations bills. The President has to be taken into consideration because we are asking him to sign 11 bills with one signature. Rather than have 11 bills individually come over here from the House, handle them individually in committee, bring them to the floor and handle them individually, take them to conference and handle them individually, pass them by the Senate again individually, and send them one by one to the President, we are asking to play catchup, send them to conference, work it out with the President, within his limits, and he will sign the bills and we will put this problem behind us.

The Senator from West Virginia raises a series of issues about homeland security. This Senator does not dispute the fact that additional funds will be needed for homeland security. For instance, if we go back to the State, Justice, Commerce bill, the section of the amendment I have put before the Senate contains $11.3 billion for homeland security for State, Justice, Commerce functions only-- Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, Department of State. There is $8 billion for the Department of Justice, $222.7 million for the judiciary, $262.8 million for the Department of Commerce, and $280 million for the Department of State.

Adding another $1.2 billion, as the Senator from West Virginia directs under his amendment, would not be something that can be used by these departments in the 7-plus months that are left--plus maybe a week or two--to spend that money.

My position is, let's get this behind us. In every instance, there is money in

the bill that would deal with the issues at the President's level; but Senator Byrd wants to increase that money. For instance, for the DC emergency response plan, Senator Byrd wants to add $12 million for the District's unified communication center. We have $10 million for that purpose in this amendment. The President didn't request any money, so we have already added $10 million. Senator Byrd wants to add $12 million to that.

In the District of Columbia, Senator Byrd wants to add $13 million for the bioterrorism hospital preparedness account. We already included $10 million in this amendment, and there is $8 million already available from the supplemental passed late last year for the fiscal year 2003. So the District of Columbia has already $18 million for that function to which the Senator wants to add $13 million.

In the civil defense area--this is under the Energy and Water Subcommittee--the Senator from West Virginia wants an additional $100 million for security upgrades for the Army Corps of Engineers. That is for reviewing facilities such as dams, water treatment plants, et cetera. We already have $65 billion to be spent in less than 8 months. My friend wishes another $211 million for security upgrades for the Department of Energy's nuclear facilities. In this omnibus amendment before us, we have $1.2 billion for that purpose. Even that money will not be spent in the balance of fiscal 2003.

It doesn't do us any good to pass bills that contain surplus money that cannot be spent in this fiscal year. This omnibus bill is for funding the balance of fiscal year 2003.

For the Department of Homeland Security's national infrastructure simulation and analysis center in New Mexico, the Senator from West Virginia wants to add $25 million. The President asked for $20 million. We have increased that to $30 million--more money than requested for that function. We increased it 50 percent already. This agreement is not with the function, it is with the pace of spending. The money the Senator wants just cannot be spent in this period of time. I say that respectfully because we have already passed 4 months. At the end of this month, it is 4 months of the fiscal year that is gone. It takes about a month to allocate money, get it out to where people can use it, and it takes time to contract it and hire new people to spend it. It is not physically possible, administratively possible, to spend this additional money. The main thing is, if it is needed, we have a supplemental that is coming along. We will be looking at additions to these bills.

We will have money in the 2004 bill which will be available in the last 3 months of this calendar year, this coming October 1. I urge the Senate to look at each issue.

Again, I sat with my good friend when we had those hearings. There was not a person there who did not want more money. I do not remember one single person who did not want more money. As a matter of fact, as a father of six, I have had people around me who wanted money all my life. The question is: How much should be allocated, and how fast should they spend it?

Now, on this concept of taking the bill and saying, we want to add $5 billion to this omnibus amendment I have, we will take it back into the same fight we had last year, the same thing that delayed us last year, and it will delay us so we cannot even get to the battle for the 2004 appropriations bills.

Not to be disrespectful to my friend from West Virginia, but I urge the Senate to not approve this amendment that really does not solve the problem. The problem is, how do we catch up with the appropriations process? How do we face up to the fact that the last Congress did not pass 11 of the 13 bills?

I admit I have suggested a rather abrupt and arbitrary procedure, putting them all together in one package, but I did not do it alone. Each of the subcommittees reviewed every single line in these bills.

I put into the Record last night the summary of the reports that would have been prepared had we brought out 11 separate bills so that everybody can see where this money is intended to go.

Very clearly, it is designed to go to conference with the House. As we go to the conference with the House, I hope we can have a wide-open conference that deals with the issues, and it may be that some of the items that Senator Byrd wants will be brought to us by the House. I do not know, but I know every issue the Senator wants to cover goes into conference. We have rule 28, and those things will be in conference. They can be increased if the conference wishes to do so.

I know of no instance where anyone has come to this Senator and said the amount of money that is in this omnibus bill is not enough to finish their functions for fiscal year 2003. There are a lot of them who want more money, but there is not one of them who said, we cannot survive with that amount of money.

We have ample money for every function of homeland security that I know of in this bill, and we should not confuse the issue. The Senator's amendment does not address how much money is required for homeland security but whether we should go beyond the President's total request for homeland security.

As I mentioned in several instances, we have recommended more than the President requested, but we offset it with cuts from other areas. Unfortunately, the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia does not offset at all. It adds to the bill. There are no offsets. So we do not have a budget resolution. We ought to have agreed to that level right after the election, and had we had the chance to move before then, Senator Byrd would have had the job I have of coming down to that level.

Now the gavel has shifted, but the problem has not changed, and I am asking the Senate to do what I think Senator Byrd would have asked last November/December had we gotten to the point where we are now, actually considering the bills on the floor.

Again, I do not want to put all of this in the Record, but, again, I will put the summary in the Record in terms of the charts I have prepared. We have covered these functions. We have funded the functions for the amount that the subcommittees, working with the staff of both Republicans and Democrats, believe is sufficient to carry this through until October 1 of this year, fulfilling the obligation to fund the fiscal year 2003 functions of Government.

If we do not do this now, there is not one agency that is going to get any money until at least the end of March. It would be a miracle for any one of these bills to pass before the end of March.

My suggestion is, let's take it to conference now, and if anyone wants to come in and convince the conference that something is underfunded, do it. These are the collective recommendations of the staff, the chairmen, and ranking members of these subcommittees as to how they would live under this lid of $750.5 billion, as I agreed to do, staying within the President's level, get it to him, and let him sign the bills.

Don't misunderstand me. The President is not too happy with this omnibus package either because there are lots of items that are increased and others decreased in terms of his requests. It is not over until the pen moves, until the President signs the bill.

I think the only place we can get to the point where he will sign the bill is in conference, and I urge the Senate not to approve this amendment and not to approve the other amendments. Let's take this omnibus package to the conference and work with our counterparts in the House on a bipartisan basis and fashion a bill that the President will sign.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, in order to give Senator Byrd a chance to review the amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Mikulski be allowed to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes and that I retain the floor thereafter.

Mr. President, we have an understanding with Senator Byrd. He will have the floor to offer the second amendment, if he desires to do so. We await that decision.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment Senator Byrd will offer now be subject to a time agreement under which Senator Byrd has an hour and a half for his amendment and I have one half hour in rebuttal.

I add to that request that this amendment not be subject to second-degree amendment.

Mr. President, I have not yet seen a copy of the amendment. I need to have a copy in order that I may address it.

I have a summary of the major elements of this. This is a $3 billion package as opposed to the one we just voted upon that was $5.1 billion. I am compelled to make the same statement I made before, that unless this is offset, we would not be within the guidelines of the commitment I made; that is, to take a bill to conference which does not exceed the President's total request to the Congress for the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills.

I can hear and see that a great many of the items in this amendment are items for which we will appropriate these moneys sometime, but the Homeland Security department itself is not yet organized. The funds already contained in the Omnibus and prior year funding is sufficient to begin the first phase of the smallpox vaccination program. The border security systems, the security systems, are still in the process of being evaluated. We do have sufficient money in the bill, a substantial amount of money, as a matter of fact, in the bill to deal with those issues.

It is with a great deal of sadness that I must tell the Senator, I continue to oppose his efforts to increase the amount of money that would be available to be spent during the fiscal year 2003. I do so with great respect but with total confidence that each of these agencies has enough money to go forward. If they run into problems that are really serious, we can act expeditiously to meet them.

The goal we want to achieve now is to get the bill to conference and to get it to conference in a way that we can work out differences with the House over the total amount of money that is to be made available to the administration for these various items.

For instance, there is already $24.7 billion in this bill, the amendment I have offered, for homeland security efforts; $4.3 billion of that is for INS, $1.26 billion is for the FBI. We have $5.3 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, including an increase of $1.84 billion for that agency. There are funds for the airport security concepts. We have money for the port security concepts. Each of these items has been covered by the bill that is before us in my amendment.

I say to my friend, I cannot in good conscience support this, having opposed the same amounts of money in the larger amendment upon which we just voted.

I would hope the Senator would understand, again, what I am trying to do. I am trying to get the 11 bills to conference as a whole and to work with the House and try to come back with a bill the President will sign, if possible, this month. If it can get to the President this month, we will have this money working by February. If we don't do that and the House has to start moving single bills, the 11 bills that affect 2003, when they should be starting to move the 2004 bills, we will be more than a full year behind by the end of this year. That will be a collapse of the appropriations process. I hope we don't have to face that.

I urge the Senate to defeat amendments to add money to this Omnibus bill unless it is offset. If the offsets are valid, we will be pleased to consider such amendments.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I inform my friend that none of the persons who spoke on the previous, similar amendment by my colleague from West Virginia wish to speak on this amendment. They have called my attention to the fact that this amendment deals with the first five items in the last amendment.

What was in the first amendment for State and local assistance to combat terrorism, the $1.406 billion has been reduced to $1.05 billion; for border security, the $1.008 billion is reduced to $750 million; for airport security, the $720 million has been reduced to $500 million; for port security, the $585 million has been reduced to $500 million; for nuclear security and energy security, the $296 million is reduced to $200 million.

In other words, the Senator's amendment takes the first five items he had in the last amendment and reduces them by a reasonable amount in an attempt to reduce its impact in terms of the budget. He has reduced it, by quick calculation, by $1.015 billion in those five areas. He also has deleted another $985 million in other categories.

I commend the Senator for being willing to come down in his request. It still amounts to a concept of offering a portion of the last amendment. Instead of the amount that would have been requested--$5 billion--the Senator now says $3 billion.

Under the circumstances, I am constrained to again say I oppose the amendment. I would like to have a vote on it. I have no requests for time on this side. I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on Senator Byrd's amendment.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Two minutes to each side?

There seems to be some disagreement about it.

I yield for a question. I don't want to lose the floor.

If they want 2 minutes for each side, let's do it. I ask unanimous consent it be 2 minutes on each side.

May we have order, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Will the chair please use his gavel and get some attention and tell Senators to keep quiet.

Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Murray now be recognized to offer an amendment regarding Amtrak; I further ask unanimous consent that there be 90 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form, and that following the use or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to a vote in relationship to the amendment without further intervening action or debate; further, I ask that following the disposition of the above amendment Senator Harkin be recognized to offer an amendment regarding the Byrne grants and there be 60 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form to be used this evening; provided further that following the debate the amendment be temporarily set aside and Senator Schumer be recognized to offer an amendment relating to port security and there be 60 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form to be

used this evening; further, I ask consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the bill tomorrow morning at 9:30, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Harkin amendment, to be followed immediately by a vote in relation to the Schumer amendment, with no amendments in order to any of the above prior to the votes, with 5 minutes for debate equally divided before each vote.

It is our intention that we will accept that amendment by voice vote. It is my understanding that 90 minutes will probably not be used.

I am not authorized to say that.

The majority leader has agreed that is the case. There will be no more rollcall votes tonight.

That request was put forward by your side. We agreed to that.

Before each of the two votes--your vote and the vote on the amendment of the Senator from New York, and 5 minutes prior to votes on each amendment tomorrow morning.

There is no objection. I understand we probably will not use that 90 minutes.

I would be pleased to go out and see my normal condition of life and enjoy the snow this evening.

Does the Senator from Delaware expect to speak tonight?

Will the Senator yield on my time?

There is a tax fund for roads with the gasoline tax; there is a fund for airports with airplane tickets. How about a program that charges people on trains to pay for whatever you need for trains?

It is not my time now.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I am constrained to say at this late time of the night, that President Lincoln offered a bonus of $1 million and every odd section along the railroad right of way to anyone who completed the transcontinental railroad. Subsidies to railroads are 150 years old.

But the problem is that was not a taxpayer burden. I think we have to really examine this and find out what is the taxpayer burden for the future as far as Amtrak.

I yield the remainder of my time and I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. President, what is the next order of business?

Mr. President, does the Senator wish to have any further comments tonight? It would be my intention to yield back the time on our side because there is a 2\1/2\-minute comment period in the morning when we take up this amendment.

Does the Senator yield back the remainder of his time?

I yield back the remainder of our time.

Reserving the right to object, I have not seen the amendment yet.

It may have gone to the leader, but I didn't get it.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object again, wouldn't it be necessary to amend this amendment in more than one place in order to accommodate that change?

It is my understanding it would have to insert a figure ``1'' before the ``7'' in the third line.

As I understand it, that was a mistake in drafting the amendment. I have no objection.

Mr. President, the hour is late, but we have in the amendment that contains the 11 bills a total of $24.7 billion for homeland security. That is better than $3 billion a month to be spent for homeland security.

There is nothing that prevents the homeland security agencies from pursuing this task that the Senator's amendment would fund. What this does, however, is add another $150 million to the total of this bill and makes it subject to a veto by the President. We have no more room for amendments. We have just used up the balance of the offset that we had available.

This amendment, as worthy as it may seem, in my judgment is unnecessary because there is plenty of money in this bill. There is an overwhelming amount of money. I really stake my reputation on the fact that some of that money will carry over to the next fiscal year. It just cannot be spent as fast as people want to spend it.

The $20 billion we put up for New York in 2001 has not been spent yet. The $20 billion we gave to the President of the United States to pursue al-Qaida and to prepare our homeland security defenses has not totally been spent yet. Why should we continue adding amounts to this bill because people want to assure that their project is going to be built before the homeland security agency is even established?

I don't want to debate at length here. I do believe it is a matter of discipline. We do not have a budget resolution. If we had a budget resolution, this would be subject to a point of order. But each one of these amendments that is going to come at us now is going to add a little bit more.

This subject was covered in the Byrd amendment which we defeated. Senator Byrd wanted to add more money to the $24.7 billion. One of them was this port security project. Now we have this little amendment coming in, $150 million. It has been here too long. One hundred fifty million dollars is a lot of money, and to add it to this bill is going to make it subject to a veto. Tomorrow morning, I shall oppose this amendment and show that this amount was in the Byrd amendments--both of them--which have been defeated. This is part of it.

I predict, if this one is passed, we are going to see 50 small amendments and we will have put the $5 billion back in the bill. So I am not prepared to do that. Maybe the Senate is willing to do that. I told somebody else that it is hard for a person to eat a pound of cheese unless he takes it a half ounce at a time. That is what we are going to be looking at--50 amendments to put $5 billion back into this bill and make it subject to a veto. Now I am not going to permit that without a fight.

We have reserved the right to table, and I shall make a motion to table this at the appropriate time tomorrow because it is the same subject once again.

The money is there. We just don't need redundant money. We do not need redundant money for homeland security. It forces us to go into a concept of how big the deficit is and yet we won't spend the money.

Yes.

In the homeland security portions of the bill we have $24.7 billion, and it is subject to immense discretion as to how the money is spread. It is spread throughout the bill--$24.7 billion--for homeland security.

The Senator makes a valid request. The staff with whom I have to confer are gone now. We might pursue that. I will be pleased to report to him in the morning precisely if we can do that.

I recall the subject, however, because this system has not been deployed yet. If the Senator read his hometown paper the other day, they have accused me of taking this money out, that it was never in specifically. However, the money was in the bill to do it if the Homeland Security Department decided to do it. It may be possible for us to earmark a portion of that money to pursue the experiment that the Senator wishes. Whether we would earmark the money specifically for these specific reports, again, I don't know.

The Senator's amendment would, in fact, deal with pilot projects for the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the Port of Virginia, and there is a ``may'' in there.

That is the specific question I asked after I read the article. I was told there is money to pursue the development and testing of the system to which I believe you are referring.

Let us finish this tonight now, and I will report back to him before the vote tomorrow as to whether or not it is possible to achieve the Senator's result without adopting this amendment. I agree. We have a lot of ports on the coast of Alaska. We have 25 percent of the domestic oil coming out of those ports. So I understand port security. I

am willing to work with the Senator from New York on port security. It may be possible to earmark money to see to it that this pilot project is pursued.

If the Senator wishes to respond, OK. Otherwise, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time tonight. We have 2 \1/2\ minutes on each side tomorrow. I hope we can reach a conclusion that we can adopt the Senator's proposal.

I yield back the remainder of our time.

No. We have agreed to have an up-or-down vote on the amendment.

Madam President, because of the circumstances, I really don't have a prepared statement. I wish to outline for the Senate how we intend to proceed. We have been working for some time trying to obtain a process by which we could proceed to act on the 11 appropriations bills for the fiscal year 2003 which were not completed by the end of the last Congress.

I commend my good friend from West Virginia and his staff for assistance in working with us to work out this procedure. These bills that will soon be included in an omnibus amendment to

this continuing resolution are familiar to the Senate. We worked on them throughout the last year. And I wish to say that to the best of my knowledge the components of this bill, except for one portion, were worked on on a bipartisan basis by the staffs of the 11 subcommittees that handled these 11 bills. I can't say that there has been total agreement on the part of anybody as to what we have done, but we have proceeded to reduce the 11 bills that were involved to the amount of the President's request, which was $750.5 billion, plus an amount that is represented by a budget request for the fire items that are included in the bill of $825 million. In doing so, we come down considerably in many of these bills.

But I point out to the Senate that the Government has been operating under the CRs that have been passed since October 1. All of the agencies affected by these bills have been operating on the basis of the 2002 appropriations level--the enacted level of funds for those agencies. If we do not finish these bills now, they will continue to act under the 2002 level until obviously we do something to take us down to the end of this fiscal year.

I have taken the position that the sooner we can enact these 11 bills the better off all the agencies are, and the better off the Congress is because our job is to turn to the requirements of the law to deal with the fiscal year 2004 bills through the budget process and through the consideration of the 13 bills that we have in the Appropriations Committee through the individual subcommittees and get them done this year--God willing--according to the normal schedule and before September 30. We cannot do that if we labor over these bills intensively for a period of time.

I am pleased to say that everyone concerned has been very cooperative, and, above all, the members of the Appropriations Committee on both sides of the aisle have worked hard to get us where we are today.

The amendment that I will soon present contains not only that portion that I mentioned in terms of a series of bills but it contains the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations for fiscal year 2003. It provides budget authority for Agriculture, rural development, and the nutritional programs.

There is in this bill $670.4 million--more than the President's request--and more than $1.1 billion more than 2002.

I have a whole series of highlights on this bill. I don't want to take the time of the Senate to outline the individual ones. We will do that as we proceed on the bill. There are definitely needs for the programs for each of these items.

The second bill we have is the Commerce, State, Justice and related agencies appropriations bill. Again, this is the recommendation of the subcommittee as adjusted by the process I just outlined. It is approximately $2.5 billion above the 2002 enacted funding level.

These, of course, are a series of highlights. I may later ask to put them all in the Record as part of my opening statement. I want to review these outlines later. I do not make that request now.

We also have the District of Columbia appropriations bill. It makes appropriations for the District of Columbia. It is an item that is substantially higher than the President's request. It is a total of $512 million in discretionary budget authority for the District of Columbia.

We have the energy and water appropriations bill. It recommends $26.164 billion for 2003. It exceeds the President's request by $649 million, and it exceeds the 2002 level by $900 million.

We have the foreign operations bill among the 11 included in this amendment. This bill is $221 million below the President's request. It is also below the fiscal year 2002 level by $73.5 million.

The Department of the Interior bill provides $19.18 billion in total discretionary budget authority--an increase of $641 million over the enacted level of 2002. It is $36 million over the President's budget request for 2003.

The Labor-Health and Human Services bill deals with the President's request, which was $131.9 billion. This bill as recommended by my amendment will be $131.3 billion. The details will be in the items that I will put in the Record.

On the Department of Transportation and related agencies, we recommend $64.6 billion for 2003. This is $9.4 billion more than the President's request of $55.2 billion. I do not have a figure above the 2002 level. I will put it in the Record later.

We have the Treasury and general government appropriations bill. This provision is in the bill at $34.5 billion. The President's request was $34.2 billion, and the 2002 level was $32.8 billion. This is another area where it is above the President's request.

The last section is the section that deals with items that have been added to the 13 bills. One is to fund the election reform bill that was enacted in the last Congress. The maximum authorized level for that program for 12 months for fiscal 2003 was $2.35 billion. For the remainder of the bill, this amendment that I offer will fund election reform at $1.5 billion.

For drought relief, we have set a target of $3.1 billion. The provisions of the bill as presented by the Agriculture Committee and others will adjust the mandatory programs in order to provide relief for the drought that has occurred.

We also have a provision dealing with Medicare adjustments, dealing with physicians' payments and payments for rural hospitals. The total amount would be $1.6 billion. These items would be offset by a 1.6- percent across-the-board cut on the other 11 bills.

We have done our best to present to the Senate--I have, working with the members of the committee and their staffs--a bill to meet the requirements of the administration, to meet the requirements of the agencies, and to present a bill that can be taken to conference and worked out with the House in conference.

Madam President, I point out, the House has not passed any bills. The House has passed this continuing resolution, to give us a House-passed bill, to return this bill to the House for their consideration. We are hopeful that the House will enact its own version and send it to conference. As has been outlined already by the unanimous consent agreement that is in place, we will seek a conference with the House at the earliest possible time.

I urge Senators to consider the problem we face, and that is the problem of catching up with the bills we should have enacted last year. I point no fingers as to reasons we did not. The Senate Appropriations Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Byrd, did report out all the bills. We were prepared to act, but circumstances at that time made it impossible for us to pass those bills.

Under the circumstances now, we cannot afford the process of passing separate bills, facing vetoes or veto threats, and having bills go back and forth between the Houses. If we are going to catch up and start the process of dealing with the 2004 appropriations, as is our duty in this new Congress, we must put these requests of the past, for the remainder of this fiscal year, in place. We must pass this amendment or something similar to it as soon as is possible, as soon as the Congress can agree and the President will concur with our actions.

I will say, I have discussed this at length with the Office of Management and Budget. I cannot say they approve of what we are doing, but I can say they approve of the fact that we are doing something. So that is what I am asking the Senate to do tonight, to start the process of doing something on these accumulated items that must be faced by this Congress as quickly as possible.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record summaries from which I read partially.

Madam President, again, I thank my friend from West Virginia for his courtesy. I know that while I have been working on these other matters, my friend has had a very erudite statement prepared, and I am prepared to listen to it.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I believe under the unanimous consent request that now is the time for me to offer my amendment.

Amendment No. 1

Mr. President, there is an amendment at the desk.

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

The Senator from West Virginia has an amendment to offer. I thank him for his comments. We are in substantial agreement, except in the conclusion. We both feel that the Government of the United States should not operate under a continuing resolution. What it means is that our agencies are not moving forward in 2003 at the rate actually requested by the President in 2001 for the fiscal year 2002.

Times have changed. They have changed considerably. Each of these agencies are subject to new laws that were passed both in 2001 and 2002 with regard to the programs that they administer. They cannot do those new programs without new money.

As the Senator from West Virginia said, they are currently operating on autopilot. I am an old pilot and autopilot is a wonderful thing to have, but it doesn't know how to change course unless someone turns the dials. Autopilot cannot take you off or land you. It only continues on the course that it is on. It will fly right into a mountain if you don't change the course. There is a mountain ahead of us, which is the mountain of unfulfilled commitments in the Federal Government, which both the President and Congress have made and changes that were made since the President first conceived the budget of 2002.

I do believe that the Senator is right. I would have joined him last year in proceeding as we did with the bill as reported. But it is different now. We are ready to start a new Congress. We, hopefully, will have our organization resolution soon, and we will be working toward complying with the laws that we work under--the Budget Act--and the requirement that we pass 13 appropriations bills for 2004.

We cannot get there if we pass these bills separately. As I said before, we

will face the prospect of disagreement with the House and endless conferences on 11 bills, and possibilities of vetoes and motions to override, and all the time it will take. Mr. President, it will be June before we get down to the business of this Congress if we do not follow the recommendation to proceed that has been made now by me on behalf of the President and on behalf, I believe, of all the members of our committee.

We have differences on what should be in the bill, but the main thing is that we should proceed. I await the offering of the Senator's amendment. I know pretty well what is in it, and I regret that I cannot join him this year in supporting it.

Is the amendment now pending before the Senate, Mr. President?

I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.

Amendment No. 2

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, presented a chart showing the major elements of the $5 billion homeland security package. Eventually, this homeland security money, since it is money that people involved in that area want, we will address not only this year, in this 2003 bill, not only in the 2004 bill, but out into 2005. This Homeland Security Department has not even formed yet, as we know. There are several components in the existing Government that will be transferred into homeland security, and they have funding in this amendment I have offered.

For instance, Senator Byrd wants to add to this amendment I have offered $1.4 billion for State and local assistance to combat terrorism, but we already have spread throughout the 11 bills $2.2 billion to deal with the same concepts. We have money for first responder radio equipment. We have money for emergency planning and training.

Last year, I supported this money that Senator Byrd wants in his amendment for this bill--in a series of bills, as a matter of fact. The problem we face now is, should we continue to operate at the 2002 level until we can find an agreement with the President as to the amounts Senator Byrd wants to add to the President's request or should we move forward through the way we allocated money in the bill for the various elements of homeland security in the existing Departments? The money we put in the existing Departments will be transferred to Homeland Security as that Department is formed.

Senator Byrd wants to put up an additional $1.8 billion for border security. Again, in the period ahead we will spend money like that, but in these bills already is a total of $4.3 billion, and we are looking at a period of less than 8 months to spend that money.

I have presented the amendment that is before the Senate now because we want to find a way to work with the President to close the books on the 2003 appropriations. We cannot do that if we continue to battle with the administration and try to give them money beyond what they believe is necessary.

At the time we were looking at this last year, we thought the Homeland Security Department would have been created before September 30 of last year. We wanted to put up money so it would be there for the Homeland Security Department to be transferred to start spending in October. This money would be started to be spent in late February or March.

I am trying to make a point. Take airport security; Senator Byrd wants an additional $720 million. We have already appropriated substantial monies that are in the supplemental from last year for airport security. We have tried to fund the needs of the Transportation Security Administration. We already have an additional $374 million in these separate portions of the amendment I have offered.

I am trying to emphasize the fact that we do not need to give this Department of Homeland Security more money beyond what has been asked.

On nuclear and energy security, I do not disagree with the statements that have been made about the needs for additional money. In this amendment I have offered is $1.650 billion for that function. Senator Byrd wants to add another $296 million. I understand he is trying to fully fund the estimated needs of homeland security for the future, which is a laudable goal, but we are trying to stay within some sort of budget constraint.

As I said, let's finish the job of getting the books closed on how much the agencies have to spend in the remainder of fiscal year 2003.

On Federal law enforcement with the FBI, Senator Byrd wants to add $212 million to the $1.2 billion already in the bill. I am urging the Senate to listen in terms of the concepts we have worked out. Stop this battle with the President over how much is needed for the agency that has not even been established yet. The various components of that agency, the Homeland Security Department, will have enough money coming into this new Department to fully fund whatever they can do by the time they get organized as a Department.

I urge the Senate to oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia--not because he is not right at estimating the future needs of homeland security--because we believe we are right in saying, let's fund now the money that can be spent before the end of this fiscal year, be spent before September 30. I am confident we have sufficient moneys in this amendment that we have offered in the 11 separate sections which would normally be separate appropriations bills, enough money to deal with the problems of homeland security.

Beyond that, I remind the Senate the President still has some money left from the $20 billion we gave him after 9/11. If there are any defects here, he has more than $5 billion in that account and can allocate it if it is necessary to establish Homeland Security so long as it is working toward establishing the facilities and entities we need to prevent further repetition of the catastrophe of September 11.

I hope the Senate will listen. To adopt the Byrd amendment will be to prolong the conference. If it was in a bill that would go to the President, he would veto it. Then where are we? Maybe I am too pragmatic about this, but it is time to get this job done. The amendment I have offered will get the job done. There will still be some differences with the House. As a matter of fact, there will still be some differences with the administration because we have increased some items that they do not want to see increased and we have decreased some they do not want decreased. But overall, we are within the total limit and parameters of the requests of the President.

I hope tomorrow the Senate will be looking at this. There will be further debate tomorrow morning. The leader will, of course, state what the procedure will be. We expect a vote sometime around noon or soon thereafter on the Byrd amendment. I am hopeful that the Senate will work with us to try and understand my job now is to get this amendment to conference.

As I told the Senate Members, the House has not passed any of these bills. It passed some of them last year. We did not act on them. We passed some last year and they did not act on them. We are trying to restart the 2003 conference and there will be an overall conference on all 11 bills at one time if the Senate will give us the support to pass this bill and take it to conference.

There will be individual differences as far as amendments are concerned. As a matter of fact, there are some things in this amendment I personally would change, but they have been brought here by the work of the subcommittee chairmen and ranking Members of the individual areas covered by these bills. I think it is the best course to follow, to take this amendment to conference, to go to the House and say, let's get these 11 bills finished so the agencies will know for certain the money they have. Even the homeland security bill was not passed when we originally contemplated passing the appropriations to fund it.

I am confident we have done the best we can under the circumstance. Again, I do not criticize Senator Byrd. Eventually, we will spend more than $5 billion in addition to what we have in the amendment before the Senate. However, we do not need it now. I sat through all the hearings that have been mentioned, that Senator Byrd had on the needs for homeland security across the Nation. I remember going to small towns in my State when the mayor told me they needed a new fire truck. They needed a new fire truck? They have never had a fire truck. There is not anyone in the country that does not want some of this homeland security money. The question is, what is needed now to go on with the job and protect the country. I believe our amendment does it.

I send to the desk a statement prepared by the individual subcommittees that goes along with 11 components of this bill. Had we had the meetings of

the separate subcommittees and reported separate bills, we would have prepared 11 reports. Instead, I am submitting for the Record to be printed the overview and summary of each of the components so there will be no question in the future of what is intended by the provisions of the amendment I have offered if it is enacted. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we previously entered into a unanimous consent request concerning H.J. Res. 2. I have been asked and do offer an amendment to that. I ask unanimous consent the consent agreement for H.J. Res. 2 be modified to provide for a motion to instruct the conferees to be made by Senator Stabenow or her designee, and there be a 20-minute time limitation for debate, equally divided in the usual form, with no amendments in order to the motion.

It is my understanding this has been cleared by both sides. But it provides that the Senator may offer a motion to instruct the conferees, which she had a right to do. But that request, unfortunately, was not presented by those who were working up the consent agreement. I appreciate the Chair allowing me to modify it at the request of Senator Stabenow.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Parliamentary inquiry: Is the process concluded?

I object to proceeding on either measure.

I temporarily object, Mr. President.

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

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I congratulate our leaders for this understanding. We are standing by ready to commence work on the 11 bills that are the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills. We have had great bipartisan work on our committee with the staff and the Members. I believe the Democratic leader is absolutely correct; we are prepared to work with anyone in the Senate to try to work out any details that might have to be considered. We look forward to working with Senator Daschle in every way possible so we can move these bills as quickly as possible.

I speak as one who has just come back from my home in Alaska. We have the highest unemployment I have seen. Many of these bills contain money that would bring construction items and jobs to my State during this year. If we delay any further, we miss the construction season. These bills are vital

to restart our economic engine. I am pleased to have this report that we are able to move forward on this continuing resolution. I can pledge the four leaders of the Appropriations Committees--of the House and Senate--on a bipartisan basis have agreed to work together to get these bills finished as rapidly as possible with the help of the leaders. I thank the leaders.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for morning business be extended by 10 minutes and that I be permitted to speak.

Mr. President, I come with a sad heart today because on January 3, the City of Fairbanks, where I started my life in Alaska, and the State of Alaska lost a great citizen with the passing of Captain Jim Binkley at the age of 82.

Jim was born in our State in Wrangell, on May 16, 1920. His parents were gold rush pioneers, and his father was a riverboat pilot on the Stikine River in southeast Alaska.

In World War II, he was a veteran who served on riverboats in Alaska and after the war he attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In 1950, Jim and his wife Mary bought their first boat, the Godspeed, and began what would become Alaska Riverways, Incorporated. They ran a historic riverboat for tourists who came to Alaska.

Jim and Mary built and rebuilt many of their company's sternwheelers in the backyard of their family's home which was on Noyes Slough, which is a river that runs through Fairbanks, AK. It was a great experience to go with him on that boat. I have taken many people on Captain Jim's boat.

Alaska Riverways is Fairbanks' number one tourist attraction. Each summer, Alaska Riverways' three sternwheelers, the Discovery (I), the Discovery (II), and the Discovery (III), ferry thousands of tourists down the Chena and Tanana Rivers, following trails to the gold rush people and really letting people see what rural Alaska is like.

Along with being a successful riverboat captain, Jim served in the Alaska State House of Representatives for two terms from 1961 to 1964. In addition to that service in the Alaska legislature, Captain Jim served on numerous community boards and organizations. He received many statewide awards, including being named ``Alaskan of Year'' and the business leader of the year.

Jim was a proud father of three sons and daughter Marilee. I know all three sons: Johne, Jim Jr., and Skip. They are all riverboat captains and they have continued the great tradition of their father, as have several of his grandchildren.

Captain Jim was clearly a leader in the development of Alaska tourism and of our State in general. His vision and hard work forever changed Alaska's visitor industry, and for that we are very grateful.

I am pleased to say I have asked that a flag be flown over the Capitol today so we may send it to his family, along with a copy of this statement.

(At the request of Mr. Stevens, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on January 9, 2003, at 9:30 am on the future of the airline industry in SR-253.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on January 9, 2003, at 2:30 pm on phaseout of single hull tankers in SR-253.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, if that resolution is agreed to today, I would like to have a meeting of the Appropriations Committee tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.