Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate begin consideration of Calendar No. 367, S. 2349, the lobbying reform legislation. I further ask consent that following the reporting of the bill, I be recognized in order to offer a…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate begin consideration of Calendar No. 367, S. 2349, the lobbying reform legislation. I further ask consent that following the reporting of the bill, I be recognized in order to offer a substitute amendment, and following that action, the bill be open for debate only during today's session.
Mr. President, I call up the substitute amendment which is at the desk.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I am pleased to see that my colleague from the Rules Committee, Senator Dodd, is here. He is the ranking member on the Rules Committee. We have done a lot of work together over the years, going all the way back to our days on the Rules Committee in the House. It is always a pleasure to do business with him.
I am also pleased to see the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the Senate, Senator Collins, who has been doing outstanding work there, with a greatly expanded committee, with jurisdiction over almost everything that is moving these days. She is doing a wonderful job.
Again, I am pleased to see both of my colleagues here as we begin debate on this very important issue involving the rules of the Senate and lobbying reform legislation. I think one of the important things to note at the very beginning is that this legislation from both the Rules Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was reported as bipartisan legislation, and it is legislation that will absolutely ensure greater transparency and accountability in the legislative process.
There are those in Washington--me included--who have been concerned of late by how much partisanship there is in Washington and in the legislative process. I do think it has reached unprecedented levels. But I believe it is also possible for us to not have everything be that partisan. So that is why I think the way these two bills have been reported is so remarkable because the Rules Committee had a full debate and amendments were offered. Some were passed, some were rejected, some were accepted, and some were ruled out of order. When we got to final passage, Senators on both sides of the partisan aisle felt it was a fair process and there was not a single dissenting vote.
Also, the Governmental Affairs Committee--if I may refer to it that way in shorthand--reported it with only one ``no'' vote after having a full discussion and some amendments that were not easy to deal with. So I hope the spirit of bipartisanship can carry to the floor when we take up the amendments.
This afternoon's proceeding will be somewhat abbreviated because we have to take out some time for discussion about judicial nominees and votes, and we do have some further action with regard to the low-income energy assistance issue. However, when we get back to these bills tomorrow and are ready for amendments, I hope Senators will come over and we can get a time agreement and we will have a good discussion and votes. Perhaps even some amendments can be accepted, depending on what they are, and we can get this process completed before this week is over. I think that would be very good for the institution, and it needs to be done.
I do think this is an important effort. I have looked at what the Rules Committee did and what came out of the Rules Committee in the last week. This will be the third time I have been involved in a process of changing the rules or looking at what we might need to do after a difficult time in our history. That was true back in the seventies after the Watergate matter. We took up campaign reform and ethics reform and made some significant changes, some of them wise and some of them turned out to be not so advisable. We had to address the people's confidence in our institutions at that time.
Then again in the nineties we had some issues come up that caused problems and concerns following the House banking scandal. Again, we went through a process of looking at our ethics, looking at our rules, and looking at lobbying reform, and took action.
Here again we are looking at some changes in the rules and some improvements or some additional requirements with regard to lobbying reform. I think it is needed.
Some people say: Why do you have to keep changing? Are your rules, your ethics, are your lobbying requirements changing? Yes, they change with time. When we wrote the Telecommunications Act in 1996 and 1997, we thought phones were all going to be hard wired. We had no idea of all the technological advances that were going to occur. When we did immigration reform in 1997, I thought we did a good job. Obviously, we did a terribly inadequate job.
We need to take a look at what we have done in the past when it comes to laws, rules, ethics reforms, lobbying reform, and modernize it. For one thing, with all the modern capability and technology, you can have instantaneous disclosure; you can have fuller disclosure. It is easier now to file reports with the Secretary of the Senate or to put it on your own Internet to divulge and disclose to the American people and all who wish to look at those reports what you are doing in your role as a Senator and your service to the people.
I want to make it clear, I think this is an issue we should address. That is why when the leader called on me to have a hearing in the Rules Committee and to move forward, I moved forward on the issue aggressively because I thought there are rules changes that we need, we should do, could do, that would make common sense, and would be fair.
This is an issue where it is very easy to lose control emotionally or we get involved in a tremendous process of self-flagellation and condemnation. I don't want to do that, but there are some places where there are legitimate concerns or appearances of impropriety which we can improve.
Senator Dodd and I talked on the phone, we met, and we came up with some important points, and I think we have come up with a pretty good bill. We need to go forward, have a full discussion, take up serious amendments that will be offered, and get this job done. I look forward to working with Senator Collins and making this a bill with which both committees are comfortable.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my section-by-section analysis of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, let me go through the Rules Committee bill and talk about some of the more important aspects. I won't go into all the details because Members will have a chance to review what we reported last Tuesday, and now it will be in the Record. When I complete my comments, Senator Collins or Senator Dodd will be ready to speak. We will be able to make it very clear what we have done. Some of these things do need to be explained a little bit.
First of all, with regard to earmarks, we do know that there has been an explosion of so-called earmarks. This is where you put provisions, money, language in an authorization, appropriations, or a tax bill. I remember a few years ago it was maybe a few hundred. I remember the highway bill back in the eighties, I think, it had 157 earmarks, and the bill we passed last year had thousands--I don't even know how many but thousands.
I want to be the first to say I don't think that is totally inappropriate. I do think we need to have some better disclosure. I do think we need to think about how we do these earmarks, have some rules that make it clear who is doing what and for whom. So that is what we have tried to do with this legislation.
Some people will come to the floor--and I presume somebody might even offer an amendment--and say that earmarks are prohibited. I will fight that with every ounce of energy in my body. Some people might maintain that should be better left to the executive branch. Why? Why should some bureaucrat who lives in Maryland or Virginia--and I say that term lovingly--who works at HUD or the Department of Transportation or the Department of Defense--it doesn't matter what department--how do they know more about what is needed in terms of roads or housing or National Guard in my State of Mississippi or more than the Senator from Maine knows about what the needs are in her State? So I think it is ludicrous to maintain only the executive branch is pure.
By the way, do you think the executive branch does not have earmarks? The distinguished Presiding Officer noted an earmark for Pascagoula is not really an earmark. It is something clearly understandable and identifiable, and I am perfectly willing to identify it for the benefit of my constituents or anybody else who would like to take a look at it.
With regard to the executive branch, I have seen articles that point out some of the earmarks. For example, with the Department of Energy, the Office of Management and Budget always picks their projects they like, that the Corps of Engineers would do, but not others which might involve locks and dams or flood control projects. So it is OK for them to do it but not us.
What about what the Constitution says? Article I, section 9 of the Constitution, which deals specifically with spending, states:
No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law. . . .
So it is not up to the President alone. Congress has always had the final say on this issue of appropriations, and I am sure Senator Byrd would have something to say about this.
Again, there is a limit to what is reasonable, and I think we have kind of
lost a grip in that area. We do need to have some controls. It needs to be open and fair. It needs to be identified in the record.
I have become more and more concerned particularly about the practice where items can be added in conference that were not considered by committee or in either body, whether it is language in a tax bill or appropriations bill or a highway project in an authorization bill, and there is no way to really get at it. That is why in the Rules Committee--I worked with Senator Feinstein in particular, and Senator Hagel, and Senator Dodd--developed a procedure that will allow Members to remove items from conference reports that were never considered by either body.
Under the committee's bill, if a point of order regarding the item is sustained, the offending provision would be removed, but the entire conference report would not fail. It would then be sent back to the House, minus the offending provisions.
I emphasize again, think about what was happening. The Senate did not include a provision. The House did not include a provision. They go to conference. It is the end of a session, it is an omnibus appropriations bill, and, voila, all these things show up in a tax bill or an omnibus appropriations bill. If it comes back to the floor of the Senate on short notice, with maybe a couple of hours to review it, if you make a point of order and you succeed, the entire conference report is taken down and it has to start over again, not just go back to the House for final action. That is a scary situation.
I remember attending a meeting one time where some language was being discussed that had not been in either bill that meant billions of dollars. I remember going back and saying to my then-chief of staff, Dave Hoppe, that this is dangerous; we should not allow this sort of thing to happen. Under this provision, if you garner the supermajority 60 votes, it cannot be taken out. I actually preferred a simple majority. More and more around here everything takes a supermajority, not a simple majority. I thought 51 votes would have been sufficient. But in the committee, keeping the 60-vote test prevailed. I hope it is not abused.
The bill also requires that committee and conference reports identify the sponsor of all earmarks so the Senator from Kansas will have to fess up that he has a project in an authorization bill, a tax bill, or an appropriations bill. He will have to indicate the amount and what it is for. It will have to be disclosed in the bill that comes back.
Finally, to get greater transparency to the process, conference reports cannot be considered unless they are available within the Senate and on the Internet at least 24 hours before Senate consideration. There are those who thought it should be 48 hours. When we get to the end of a session, even 24 hours is a leap. We can always shorten that by unanimous consent. But to have some modicum, minimum amount of time to review these conference reports, to me, makes sense, and it is fair.
So I think what we have done with regard to the so-called earmarks-- and we define what an earmark is in the bill because my distinguished colleague from Mississippi questioned what an earmark is, and the language clearly did not apply to everything, excluding appropriations. We clarified that. I think this is good language.
I have already spoken to our counterparts in the House. They think this is progress. I think the idea that we are going to prohibit in some way earmarks would be going way too far.
The next issue that our committee dealt with is the issue of gifts. Under our language, no gifts will be allowed from registered lobbyists to Members or staff, or if it is from a foreign agent. The committee took the suggestion of some of the witnesses who testified before the committee and excluded meals from the definition of gifts. You can still have your meal, but you would have to disclose it.
The current rule is retained on the value of the meal, but Members would have to disclose that meal within 15 days on the Senator's Internet site. They would have to say if they had a meal and with whom they had a meal, or if you ordered in Dominos, you can mention that. The last time I mentioned another restaurant, my son said: Dad, I do sell for Dominos; could you put in a plug for Dominos? You have to disclose that on the Internet.
We can get into lowering the limit on gifts or meals or raise it? What are we doing here? Let's just go cold turkey. I don't want to have to be worrying about whether some cheap tie is worth $65 instead of $48. Let's say no gifts from lobbyists or registered agents. I don't know Senators who get gifts. I really don't know any. And it is preposterous, by the way, that you would be getting gifts from a registered lobbyist. So no gifts.
The bill also deals with third-party-funded travel. The committee rejected the idea of banning third-party-funded travel. I am sure there will be amendments offered in this area. We believe there is a useful educational value associated with most of these endeavors. However, in recognition that congressional travel can be abused, the committee adopted tough pre-clearance requirements for any such travel.
The committee bill requires that non-governmental third-party-funded travel must be pre-cleared and approved by the Senate Ethics Committee. It was alleged that this is no different from the current situation. No, now it is advisory. It is permissible. They can review it. They pretty much generally do review it and say this is OK. This would require pre-clearance and approval.
In order to qualify for Ethics Committee approval, the sponsor of the trip will have to certify to the Ethics Committee that the trip is not financed, directly or indirectly, by lobbyists. In addition, a detailed trip itinerary would have to be provided to the Ethics Committee, along with a written determination by the Senator that the trip is primarily educational, consistent with official duties, does not create an appearance of use of public office for private gain, and has a minimal or no recreational component before the committee could approve the trip. We are not saying they couldn't have a recreational component. If a Member plays a round of golf, the Member would have to pay for that.
Not later than 30 days after the trip is completed, a Senator would have to file with the Ethics Committee and Secretary of the Senate a description of the meetings and events attended during the trip and the names of any registered lobbyists who accompanied the Senator during the trip. Such information would also have to be posted on the Senator's Internet Web site.
Will it be a hassle? Sure. Is it something we can do and should do? Yes. We are going to have to do this.
With regard to flights on private planes, in an effort to broaden transparency, the committee bill requires that all official travel on private aircraft must be disclosed, along with the names of the people traveling on the aircraft and the purpose of the trips. The disclosure rules will also apply when a Member uses a private aircraft in a campaign for reelection.
We addressed the question of postemployment restrictions. The bill tightens postemployment restrictions for high-paid staff by conforming the lobbying ban on senior staff with the ban on former Member lobbying. Therefore, senior staff will not be allowed to lobby the Senate for 1 year, and the current rules will continue to apply to the lower paid staff. Previously, just to show you what the difference is, I believe it was really only applied to senior leadership staff. This was taken to all senior staff, and it would be only the 1-year limit. But the language, as the Senate Rules Committee passed it, would limit it to 1 year on all Members lobbying.
With regard to floor privileges, the committee addressed an issue about which some people have expressed concern: former Members lobbying on the Senate floor. I don't think this is a real problem, and I have never experienced it in my 16 years here. The committee believed that former Members who are registered lobbyists should not be seen to have an advantage in meeting with Members on the floor of the Senate; therefore, the committee bill bars former Members, ex-Secretaries of the Senate, ex-Sergeants at Arms of the Senate, and former Speakers who are registered lobbyists access to the Senate floor. Exceptions could apply for
ceremonial events and events designated by the leaders. Again, I emphasize that former Members would be allowed to come, unless they are registered lobbyists. If they are registered lobbyists, they would not be able to come to the floor, and it would apply to the former officers of the Senate and Speakers of the House.
(Mr. CHAMBLISS assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I would be happy to yield to the distinguished Senator from Kansas.
Mr. President, was this a gift?
Mr. President, recognizing the seriousness of the charges and the hurt feelings and the attitude of the Senator from Kansas, I ask unanimous consent that my disparaging remarks about his tie be expunged from the Record.
Mr. President, I hope this is not an indication of the tenor of the debate that is going to occur this week. I think that a little humor is fine, but I also think a little action is required in this area, and I promise to patch up my friend's feelings as soon as I get through here before the Senate.
Speaking of public disclosure of employment negotiations, the committee addressed a potential conflict of interest situation where a Member is negotiating for a private sector job while still acting in his official capacity. This was an amendment that I believe was offered by Senator Santorum in the Rules Committee, it was not in our committee chairman's mark, but the committee discussed it and agreed that this is an area which should be adopted. It requires public disclosure of any such negotiations. The rule would not apply if the Member's successor has already been elected. Once an election has occurred for a successor, even though you might be back in what we call a lameduck session, you would be able to have such negotiation, but you wouldn't have to fulfill the public disclosure statement. Obviously, as long as you are in this body, you shouldn't be having negotiations with somebody about employment when you are leaving. If you do, you may, of necessity--it may happen accidentally, but if you do, you ought to at least disclose it.
Lobbying by members of the Senator's family, has been in question and an issue in recent years. The committee adopted a rule that directly impacts family members who are registered lobbyists. The rule bars a Member's spouse or any immediate member of the family from lobbying the Member's staff, and we have a definition of what ``immediate family member'' is.
We also have a provision with regard to unlawfully using public office to influence hiring decisions. The committee voted to amend the standing rules to prohibit a Member from threatening to take or withhold any official act in an effort to influence a private sector hiring decision. The committee approved this amendment, knowing full well that in current law, 18 U.S.C. section 201, it makes it a felony punishable by as long as 15 years in jail for a Member to try to influence such a hiring decision by threatening to take or withhold an official act. But the committee believed that even though it might be covered by law, that the Rules should be very clear in this particular area. I questioned, and others commented on the fact that if you recommend a former staff member to an entity as a highly qualified, capable young man or woman, certainly you can continue to do that. It is where you infer or suggest that you are going to withhold or do something as punishment if certain hiring actions are not taken.
In conclusion, I believe the committee acted and produced a fair and balanced bill. I know some Members would like to ban all privately funded travel. Others will want to talk more about whether we are sufficiently policing ourselves.
I believe our Ethics Committee over the years has done a good job. I served several years on the Ethics Committee. Unfortunately, it was an extremely active time. During that period, we had the so-called Keating 5; we had a couple of Senators who had unintentionally, but still very importantly, leaked some information with regard to the Intelligence Committee. We had a very active period of time, but we faced up to it. And there have been other examples. I have no doubt that the current members of the Ethics Committee, which is evenly divided, are doing a good job. Part of their problem is us: our rules sometimes are not clear or they are ambiguous. They do need to be tightened up. We need to be more specific. And I am working with Chairman Voinovich to try to get some of those identified so that we can have some ethics rules changed.
Mr. President, I have a little throat problem here, so let me stop at this point and say that I hope we can go forward expeditiously and in a fair way this week and address this very important issue of rules changes and lobby reform. I think we can do it in a bipartisan way and have a bill ready to go to conference by the end of this week.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: We are still on the rules and lobby reform legislation?
Mr. President, I do feel a need to put some statement in the Record about the issue of public financing of campaigns that was raised by my distinguished colleague from the Rules Committee, Senator Dodd, earlier today. He talked about how he believes this is something we need to do, and he wanted to have some hearings in the Rules Committee on the public financing of campaigns issue, and I agreed that we would find a time to do that. It is always good to have a hearing and see how laws that are on the books are actually working or not working, so I will be glad to do that.
I thank Senator Dodd and other members of the Rules Committee for the fact that we held the line. There were two or three amendments that were considered or were offered dealing with campaign finance law, and Senator Dodd spoke against them. I ruled them out of order, and then we went on. So it was a cooperative effort, once again, that I am very proud of.
The day may come when we want to revisit campaign finance reform laws or the issue of public financing of campaigns, but this is not that day. I wish to make it clear that public financing of Senate and House races is totally a nonstarter as far as this Senator is concerned. Every year, the American people cast their vote on public financing with a resounding no. Nine out of ten Americans--90 percent--refuse to check off contributing to the Presidential election campaign fund. So what makes us think they would check off or contribute in some way through the Tax Code to our campaigns?
Our campaign financing laws may not be the best. One of the most difficult things about running for the Congress is you have to get out and raise a lot of money because it costs a lot to buy time on television or radio or billboards and all that goes into a campaign. So everybody complains about how much money it takes, but they expect you to get your message out there, and if you don't, you certainly won't get elected. But one thing I have always noticed is good candidates, men and women, all manage to raise enough money to get their message across.
I still have faith in political entrepreneurs and people contributing to the candidate of their choice. But for us now to go to some sort of a checkoff scheme for the public financing of congressional races, I don't believe the American people are ready to do that. First of all, how would you do it? How would you fund Independents and libertarians? In my own race, I have a libertarian opponent this year, and we have Independents who are running. I know the answer to that: the two parties would squeeze them out. They wouldn't have a credible chance, really. But that is just one of many problems.
In the 13 States that have checkoff schemes for public financing, and some of them were mentioned earlier today, participation has dropped from 20 percent to about 11 percent. That is nothing more than, in my opinion, welfare for politicians; one more thing that is expected to be controlled by, run by, funded by the Government, which is, after all, taxpayers' money. So I just want to say that I believe this is one of the all time worst ideas of the year.
I fought for 4 years against the McCain-Feingold legislation, but eventually, when we temporarily lost our majority over here and we had Democratic leadership, BCRA, campaign finance reform, McCain-Feingold, was passed.
My attitude was, look, we fought the good fight, we held it off for years, it finally passed, it is on the books, and it is the law. Let's at least see how it is going to work. It has only had one election cycle. I want to see how this system works.
I have joined with Senator McCain and Senator Feingold in a bipartisan way saying: Well, wait a minute, we just barely got this thing done, let's see how it really works. I think it is going to be better than I thought it would in some respects and worse in others. For instance, what we have seen is that soft money that used to go to the parties, which I believe is where it should have gone, has oozed over into other areas.
That is why the Rules Committee last year voted to do real campaign finance reform when we adopted the 527 reform bill. That bill has languished on the calendar ever since because for some reason we can't get clearance to call it up, I guess. I don't know whether our leadership is really opposed to calling it up or whether the Democratic leadership has resisted, but the fact is that we reported it out of the Rules Committee on a bipartisan vote and it is on the calendar, it is waiting. So I hope that at some point we could consider that 527 freestanding, or if we ever have a hearing on campaign finance reform, 527 will be an important part of it. If we really want to do something that would affect how our campaigns are conducted this fall and in 2008, this is the place where we ought to do it.
These 527s involve a huge amount of money, mostly from rich people. They wind up in our campaigns against Republicans or against Democrats, and almost always attacking, and with no real disclosure of where this big money comes from. We know a lot of it on the Democratic side comes from I guess
``moveon.org,'' or George Soros. We also know that on our side of the aisle, we have the Swift Boat Veterans that ran negative ads funded with 527 money against Senator Kerry when he was running for President.
That is just the beginning. Both parties are going to do this more and more, the amount of money is going to go up, it is the worst kind of sewer money, and it is going to embarrass both of us. We need to get a grip on this 527 area now because they are not reporting, they are not disclosing, and they are not subject to any limits on contributions. So I would hope that we would find a way to deal with this, and I can assure my colleagues that I am going to withhold on campaign finance reform, but if anybody offers a serious campaign finance reform amendment, I will second degree it with 527 because I believe we ought to be doing this anyway.
What we will require is that you have to register with the FEC. If you are involved with campaigns, why would you have to disclose what you are doing in a campaign? Now, is that a tragedy?
We had some language in the Rules Committee bill that is on the floor now that somebody said: Well, you know, if you require this group to disclose, that is an unfair punishment. Excuse me? To disclose and report your contributions or expenditures is punishment? I don't understand that. That is what I believe we ought to be doing here. The American people have a right to know how we raise our money, where we raise our money from, how much it is, and it needs to be reported early and regularly. Let them decide. If they don't like the way you raise your money, they can vote against you. That is the way to do it.
So these 527s are unregulated, not even registered with the FEC, and it also should be required that they be subject to hard money limits on what can be donated. So I believe the real danger is in this so-called 527 area.
The bill we reported provides exceptions for 527s whose annual receipts are less than $25,000, which consists solely of State or local candidates or officials, or whose activities exclusively relate to State or local elections and ballot initiatives.
There is justification for these exceptions when small amount of money are involved in trying to encourage people to vote on ballot initiatives and so forth. But these exceptions do not apply if a 527 organization transmits a public communication that promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes a Federal candidate in the year prior to the Federal election, or conducts any voter drive activities in connection with an election in which a Federal candidate appears on the ballot.
The bill would also require that at least 50 percent of the 527 organization's administrative overhead expenses would have to be paid for with hard money.
The time has come to put an end to this shift of power from political parties. By the way, what are they for? Political parties are legitimate arms to encourage people to run for office, to encourage people to get out and vote. They were getting soft money contributions which were not going directly to the candidates. We said, Oh, no, that is bad. Now it goes to these shadowy 527s that are setting the agenda in our election process.
I think this is a very dangerous area. I have told Senator Dodd, and I will keep my word, I do not intend to offer an amendment on this. I hope the leadership would take that legislation up freestanding, separate from this bill. But if we get into a whole movement into the campaign finance reform, instead of the rules of the Senate with regard to gifts and traveling and so forth, this would be one of the issues that would come up. I wanted to put that into the Record.
Hurricane Katrina
Mr. President, seeing no other Senator wishing to speak, I wish to switch over to another area. I urge my colleagues to begin to think about another issue that I think is very critical. This, once again, relates to my part of the country and my home State with regard to Hurricane Katrina.
I have a long experience in dealing with disasters--five hurricanes, two tornadoes with major consequences, two ice storms, and a flood. I have been dealing with disasters since 1969 when Hurricane Camille hit my home area. I thought it was the worst disaster I had ever seen or the country would ever see. Yet we see now that Hurricane Katrina dwarfed Hurricane Camille.
Going back to 1969, we had not quite come to the thinking we have now, where the Federal Government is going to do everything for us. People on the Mississippi gulf coast were on their backs. We had been devastated by that hurricane. We didn't know how we were going to deal with it. The President of the United States flew into Gulfport, MS, and said, We will not forget you. Then they called in the Office of Emergency Preparedness, an independent agency accountable only to the President of the United States and headed by a military officer. He came down, set up offices, and it worked. Dealing with Hurricane Camille and the cleanup and the aftermath was the best after a disaster I have ever seen. The people in that area were awed and amazed, and appreciated what happened in the cleanup after that hurricane.
Now, 40 years later it is worse, not better. What happened? Why, 40 years later, have we not learned the lessons from previous disasters and the cleanup after those hurricanes so we would do a quick, efficient, effective job after hurricanes? One of my very bright young staff members said it is because it has been 40 years of accumulated bureaucracy. I fear maybe he is right. But I think it is maybe something more than that. Over the years we have evolved in emergency preparedness for natural disasters and the recovery afterward. We have gone through a number of changes in names and a number of changes in locations. We have had some good heads of the emergency entity and some not so good heads.
I remember the head of the emergency preparedness organization under President Clinton was a gentleman named James Lee Witt from Arkansas. He was excellent. He did a wonderful job. My dealings with him after one of the hurricanes in the 1990s could not have been any better. So it does partially depend on who the leader is at these entities.
But I remember sitting in the leader's conference room when we were setting up this huge, new behemoth, the Department of Homeland Security. We were discussing how big was it going to be, what agencies and departments were we going to merge into that big, new department. I remember we had quite a lengthy discussion about the Coast Guard because they wanted to put the Coast Guard in Homeland Security and some of us did not like that. Senators Inouye and Stevens and others put some language in there about how the Coast Guard would work in that department, so eventually we went along with it. I am not sure it was a good idea, but obviously the Coast Guard has done a good job since the hurricane and generally does a good job.
Then it came up how we were going to put the emergency management agency in this new Department of Homeland Security--FEMA. I remember I raised questions. I said wait a minute, I am not sure we want to wrap this agency in this huge bureaucracy. I am afraid they will get pushed aside or underfunded or neglected. Preparation for terrorist attacks and homeland security is very different from preparation for a natural disaster and recovery after a disaster.
But I was told no, they are totally related. When you are working on preparation for terrorism, homeland security, it definitely relates to emergencies of a natural disaster and the aftermath.
I said OK. And we did it; we created this monstrous department now that is so big, and has been going through the throes of organization and management. I think they have done a pretty good job. I thought Tom Ridge was a good Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I have not had a personal problem with Secretary Chertoff. It is difficult to do what they have been doing. But I must say, we were wrong. We should not have put FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security.
What has happened is that some of the people with FEMA, who are experienced heads, said: You know, we are going to get overrun. This is not going to be good. So the more experienced, qualified hands--I think a lot of them left. I found after Hurricane Katrina
the agency was rife with bureaucracy. The chain of command--I don't know where it is. I guess it is nonexistent.
It is underfunded. There are inadequate funds, and it is undermanned. I think six of the nine regional positions of leadership are ``acting'' people; temporary.
I think we made a huge mistake when we moved FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security. I found repeatedly over the past 6 months they couldn't deal with debris removal. The degree of bureaucracy is mind boggling. Congress has to act, Treasury has to release the money, OMB has to say it is OK. The money goes to FEMA and then to the Corps of Engineers, and the Corps of Engineers gives it to the big contractor in Florida who gives it to the local contractors who give it to the small guy. By the time it gets to the guy who is actually moving the debris, he is getting $6 a cubic yard while the big contract is probably $21. It is a totally unworkable situation.
I found also when you talked to the leadership here in Washington, they may say the right thing and want to do the right thing, but it doesn't get to the FEMA person on the ground. They don't get the word. Or if they get the word, they ignore it. I don't know who they work for. I could cite so many horror stories you wouldn't believe it. It makes me cry to even think about it.
I have introduced legislation to do what I thought we should have done in the first place, and that is to have FEMA as a separate, independent agency, reportable only to one person, and that person is the disaster czar. It is the President of the United States.
For instance, I watched the talk shows on Sunday. There was some complaining that the head of FEMA was going around the head of the Homeland Security Department to talk directly to the President. Why, of course. Why not? Why would you have to report through layers and layers and layers, chain of command, to get to the big guy? It is ridiculous. The guy in charge of the disaster situation and recovery and cleanup and all that should be talking to the President of the United States. He should be directly involved--not in minutia, by the way, but in the grand picture. When you are dealing with disaster, somebody has to be in charge, giving orders.
I think I am going to be joined in this effort by other Senators from the region, including hopefully Senator Landrieu and Senator Vitter and my colleague from Mississippi. I know Senator Clinton of New York has similar legislation. I invite my colleagues to take a look at it. It is coming. I don't know whether it will come out of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but if it doesn't in a reasonable period of time, the first time we have an opportunity to offer this legislation, it will be offered as an amendment. I don't want to surprise people with it. I want you to think about it.
Believe me, the current bureaucracy has not worked. You don't want to get hit with this if you are from a coastal area, or an area prone to tornadoes or earthquakes or forest fires. You are going to need quick, decisive, unbureaucratic, adequately funded reactions where the chain of command is very short to make sure the job is actually done.
I will be back on the Mississippi gulf coast this coming weekend. I will see how we are doing. But I think it is not enough to just complain about what has happened. I am not trying to fix blame; I want to know how it is going to be better next week. I want to know how it is going to be better next year. My house will not be rebuilt in my hometown this year, but I am going to rebuild it. And the next time we have a hurricane, I hope we could get the Corps of Engineers to bulldoze the stranded houses that have effectively been destroyed in quicker than this time.
I wanted to put that on the record and encourage my colleagues to think about this. At some point you quit complaining and start taking action. You start dealing with the problems. Quite often, you know what I have found, the problem is not the bureaucracy or the department or the President or the Governor of some State--it is us. It is the way we write the laws--convoluted, unworkable laws that we put on the books. This is one case where we made a mistake. Let's fix it.
This legislation will put back an independent, freestanding agency, and that would be the right thing to do.
Mr. President, I believe we do have some votes. We will have, two or three votes, I believe the leader said, at approximately 5:30. I believe there will be some Senators who are coming over to speak on behalf of these judicial nominations between now and then.
For now I observe the absence of a quorum.