[Congressional Record: November 14, 2002 (Senate)]
[Page S11012-S11030]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr14no02-203]                         



 
                HOMELAND SECURITY ACT OF 2002--Continued

  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I now ask that we return to the regular 
order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). Regular order.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I have sought recognition to comment on 
the bill generally, and to discuss three amendments which I have filed.
  I believe it is vitally important that the Senate conclude action on 
homeland security at the earliest possible date. And I believe, 
regrettably, but importantly, that we should accept the

[[Page S11013]]

bill which was passed by the House of Representatives because if we do 
not, we will not have a bill this year.
  The House has passed a homeland security bill and has given notice 
that it intends to depart. This has left the Senate with the choice of 
take it or leave it. I believe that the national interest and the 
public welfare requires that we take it, even though I believe we would 
have a much better bill if it were to be amended in certain respects.
  I have filed three amendments which I think would vastly improve the 
House bill.
  If these amendments are offered and accepted, then there will have to 
be a conference. The prospects for having a conference, with the House 
of Representatives having departed, is remote, and the likelihood of 
passing this bill this year would be virtually nonexistent.
  It is with reluctance that I say these amendments will not be 
offered, but these are amendments which I intend to pursue next year. 
In coming to this conclusion not to offer these amendments, I have done 
so at the request of President Bush who is very anxious that this 
legislation be enacted and sent to his desk so that the country may 
proceed to reorganize the Government to provide for homeland security.
  Earlier today, I talked to President Bush, I talked to Vice President 
Cheney, and I talked to Governor Ridge about these three amendments. 
The President urged me not to offer these amendments so that this 
legislation could be passed. The President stated that he would be 
willing to sit down and discuss the concerns I have and the amendments 
I have proposed, with a view to possible action on them next year. He 
is obviously not committing to accept these amendments until he has had 
a chance to review them, but did say there would be full review by the 
President. The President said that. And the Vice President also said he 
would review the matters.
  I talked at length to Governor Ridge, to whom I have talked on many 
occasions. These are amendments which I have had an opportunity to 
discuss with the President in the past, in meetings in the White House. 
As soon as the homeland security bill was introduced, he brought in a 
number of Members who were interested. I have had a chance to discuss 
the amendments with him at several leadership meetings, and when he 
traveled to Pennsylvania recently to campaign, I had a chance to 
discuss the matter with him.
  One of the amendments I have filed, denominated amendment No. 4920, 
provides that the Secretary of Homeland Defense, subject to the 
disapproval of the President, would have the authority to direct the 
agencies to provide intelligence information, analysis of intelligence 
information, and such other intelligence-related information as the 
Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis determines necessary.
  This language is important because it would empower the Secretary of 
Homeland Defense to ``direct.'' That is very different from asking. My 
experience as chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the 104th 
Congress convinced me about the turf battles which go on among the 
various intelligence agencies. Those turf battles are endemic and 
epidemic.
  In chairing the Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Department of 
Justice Oversight, I have seen the same turf battles going on in the 
FBI and know of the turf battles which have gone on in other 
intelligence agencies.
  I believe that had all of the dots been put on a big screen prior to 
September 11 of 2001, 9/11 could have been prevented. We knew the FBI 
had an extensive report coming out of Phoenix about a suspicious 
individual taking flight training. The man had a big picture of Osama 
bin Laden in his apartment. That FBI memorandum was buried, and never 
reached appropriate personnel at headquarters.
  We know the Central Intelligence Agency had information on two al-
Qaida men in Kuala Lumpur. That information was not transmitted to the 
FBI or the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Those al-Qaida 
terrorists got into the United States and piloted one of the suicide 
bombers on 
9/11.
  We know the computer of Zacharias Moussaoui had a tremendous amount 
of useful information in his possession which was not obtained because 
the FBI did not use the proper standard applying for a search warrant 
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We know that a 
Pakistani al-Qaida member by the name of Murad had stated in 1995 that 
al-Qaida planned to have airplanes loaded with explosives fly into the 
CIA. We know the National Security Agency had a warning on September 
10, 2001, about something to happen the next day, and it was not 
translated until September 12. I believe there was a veritable 
blueprint, had all of these dots been on the same screen and put 
together.

  When FBI Director Mueller came to testify before the Judiciary 
Committee in early June of this year and was questioned about the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and I saw the entire picture, I 
stated at that hearing that I thought there was a veritable blueprint.
  I do not agree with CIA Director George Tenet that another 9/11 is 
imminent. The CIA Director testified to that at a public hearing before 
the Intelligence Committee a few weeks ago. Perhaps it is an effort to 
inoculate the CIA so that if there is an attack, somebody can say: 
Well, after all, we are not surprised.
  But I do not believe in the defeatist attitude that we have to 
sustain another attack. I believe our intelligence services are 
capable, if they are under one unified direction and they have one 
screen and put all of the dots on one board, that we have an excellent 
chance of preventing another September 11.
  While it is important to have antidotes for anthrax and to deal with 
smallpox and to deal with the problems of bacteriological warfare or 
chemical warfare, that if we are attacked, most of the damage will 
already have occurred. So a very sharp focus of our attention should be 
to prevent another 
9/11.
  To accomplish that, I believe the current bill is not the best of the 
bills. It does bring all of the analysis agencies under one umbrella, 
but it does not give the Secretary of Homeland Defense the authority to 
direct them. If the Secretary of Homeland Defense does not have the 
authority to direct the head of the CIA or to direct the head of the 
FBI or to direct the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency or to 
direct the head of the National Security Agency or the other 
intelligence agencies, then we are likely to have the same old turf 
battles which we have had up until now.
  That is why I believe this amendment, which I had wanted to offer and 
have discussed on this floor on many occasions, would vastly improve 
this bill.
  But we all know that the better is often the enemy of the good. I 
believe it is of sufficient importance to move this bill ahead now that 
I am prepared to wait until next year and to accept the offer the 
President has made--and the Vice President and Governor Ridge--to sit 
down and go over the concerns I have expressed and these amendments, if 
we can get administration support on these amendments.
  There has been enormous controversy on the issue of labor-management 
relations. This was the subject of extensive debate when this bill was 
on the floor from September 3 until October 4. This Senator engaged in 
extensive discussions with Senator Lieberman, the manager of the bill 
for the Democrats, and Senator Thompson, the manager of the bill for 
the Republicans, as to what the Nelson-Chafee-Breaux amendment meant. 
That amendment had incorporated the essence of what Representative 
Connie Morella had put in with two paragraphs, and the issue was 
whether or not those two paragraphs were in place of, or in addition 
to, the paragraphs of existing law.
  The paragraphs of existing law, under section 7103 of title 5, 
provide that there can be a national security waiver of collective 
bargaining, that the President can make a determination to deny 
collective bargaining coverage for national security reasons. When the 
colloquy was entered into with the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. 
Lieberman, he agreed that the two paragraphs of the Nelson amendment 
were in addition to and not in place of existing law, and these two 
additional paragraphs made it a little more difficult for the President 
to exercise the national security waiver; but still the national 
security waiver could have been exercised and there could have

[[Page S11014]]

been harmony with the employees had that change been made.
  Then, with respect to the provisions for personnel flexibility, the 
amendment I have submitted as No. 4921 would have taken the format for 
denying collective bargaining coverage with the national security 
determination and added the additional two paragraphs which, again, 
would have provided for harmony, meeting the concerns that had been 
expressed by governmental employees.
  It is my hope that we will yet have an opportunity next year, in 
consultation with the President, the Vice President, and Governor 
Ridge, to have consideration of this amendment and have the law changed 
next year.
  In addition, I have filed amendment No. 4936, which contains 
provisions for a Presidential override but has, as a compensating 
factor, provisions for the utilization of the Federal Services Impasse 
Panel, and that again would bring harmony with the concerns and 
objections that have been raised by Federal employees.
  So, in essence, what I am proposing to do is not to offer these 
amendments, Nos. 4920, 4921, and 4936; but I do believe they are 
important amendments, and I intend to press them in the 108th Congress. 
To repeat, I have discussed these issues directly with the President, 
who asked that I not put these amendments forward in the interest of 
expediting passage of this bill and avoiding a possibility of having a 
Senate bill different from the House bill, which would then require a 
conference and, most probably, preclude the enactment of legislation on 
homeland security this year.
  There will be a number of amendments offered. There are already 
amendments that are pending, and some of them, frankly, I agree with. 
But I believe that the better is the enemy of the good here, and it is 
very much in the national interest for national security that this 
Senate move ahead and pass a bill.
  I do not like the fact that the House enacts passage of a bill, sends 
it here, and then leaves town, which is just an example of legislative 
blackmail. But that is where we are. It is not an unusual occurrence. 
Although we had a full month to debate these issues and to vote on 
them, that never occurred, notwithstanding the fact that this Senator 
and others were on the floor. And I made these arguments about the 
necessity for a Secretary of Homeland Defense to have the authority to 
direct, and I made the arguments that when you added the two paragraphs 
of the so-called Morella amendment to the existing language, the 
President's national security waiver remained intact.
  At this point, that is all history. Now we are faced with the 
alternatives of either accepting the House bill and moving on and 
getting this Department established, so that we can make our maximum 
effort to protect the American people, or to offer amendments and try 
to get them passed and improve the bill, which will lead to the 
conclusion of no legislation this year. So, with great reluctance, I 
have acceded to the requests of the administration. I will not offer 
these amendments.
  I exhort and urge my colleagues not to change the bill, no matter how 
good their amendments may be, but to take this bill; and if there are 
matters that ought to be changed, let's work on them next year. Before 
we leave town--hopefully this week, but in any event not later than 
next week--let's put the legislation in a posture where it can be sent 
to the President, be signed and become law, to do our utmost to protect 
the American people and to secure our homeland from another terrorist 
attack.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Carnahan). The Senator from Tennessee is 
recognized.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania 
for his statesmanlike approach to this matter. He is absolutely right 
that the way we are proceeding is not a usual occurrence. It is also a 
fact, however, that these are not usual times. I agree with him that it 
is vitally important we move forward. We have had a month or so of 
discussion and debate on this bill. We have a small window of 
opportunity now to do what we all know we need to do, and that is to go 
ahead and pass a homeland security bill. The Senator's actions that he 
has just taken will help that along immeasurably, and I thank him for 
that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. ALLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak 
up to 15 minutes on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALLEN. Madam President, I rise today to thank my colleagues in 
the House and in the Senate, as well as the leaders in the White House, 
who have worked very well together to arrive at a reasonable plan to 
allow this President the opportunity to properly establish a Department 
of Homeland Security and meet this threat before the 107th Congress 
adjourns.
  I especially want to thank Senators Fred Thompson and Phil Gramm for 
their tireless work and their dedication, commitment and, as always, 
their very thoughtful leadership. Both of these gentlemen, Senator 
Thompson of Tennessee and Senator Gramm of Texas, are concluding their 
distinguished service in the Senate, and what a perfect way to do it, 
with such a strong finishing kick in their sterling record of 
leadership.
  I believe the Department of Homeland Security proposal that we are 
now considering--the same one passed by the House last evening--
preserves the essential functions outlined in the President's plan 
while also addressing several changes that will help ensure successful 
implementation.
  Specifically, the new provisions clarify the roles and 
responsibilities of the Department and help form a top-notch workforce 
within the civil service framework. They also enhance research and 
development opportunities and protect civil liberties.
  I am hopeful that my colleagues will come together and support this 
proposal as soon as possible. Let's get the job done. The job needs to 
get done without any further dilatory or political delays. Since 
September 11 of 2001, we have all seen the need to improve our homeland 
security. This matter has been debated for many months. As Senator 
Specter said--I will paraphrase him--as far as I am concerned, it has 
been fine-tuned to near perfection. It may not be 100 percent of what 
everybody wants, but 98 or 99 percent is pretty good work.
  Madam President, as you may know, I am the chairman of the Republican 
high-tech task force, and I am very pleased to see that this proposal 
highlights the vital role technology and innovation play in our 
Nation's war to protect the people of our homeland from a variety of 
permutations of terrorism and terrorist threats.
  This measure recognizes the importance of information technology and 
research and development in achieving the most effective homeland 
security.
  There has been a lot of talk and a lot of focus on flow charts that 
talk about which department is here and which box goes here and this 
subagency there. All those flow charts are very interesting and 
relatively important, but most important is the flow of information, 
the ability of various Federal agencies to analyze the volumes of 
information and bits and facts and details--analyze all those thousands 
or tens of thousands of bits of information, analyze it, flag it, then 
act on it and, in some cases, also share that information within that 
Federal agency and also other Federal agencies, as well as State and 
local law enforcement agencies that also have a need to know that 
information.
  New technologies are being developed every day that can help save 
lives and improve the ability of our Government to fight and respond to 
terrorist threats. It is incumbent upon us as elected leaders to ensure 
our team, in fighting terrorism, is equipped with the best available 
and the most advanced technology.
  I have consistently maintained the Federal Government should and, 
indeed, must procure, adopt, and use these innovative technologies in 
an efficient and flexible manner in addressing this country's defense 
and homeland security needs.
  I wish to briefly touch on a few of the important provisions I have 
worked on with representatives from the technology community and my 
colleagues in the Senate, such as Senators

[[Page S11015]]

Bennett, Warner, and Wyden, which, I am happy to say, are addressed in 
this legislation. Again, I thank Senator Thompson and Senator Gramm and 
their staffs for listening--listening to me and listening to my staff 
as well, and in particular I thank Frank Cavaliere--to these ideas in 
addressing these important provisions.
  Let me highlight a few of the more salient provisions.
  First, this proposal protects companies developing advanced 
technologies that help detect and prevent terrorism from assuming 
unlimited liabilities for claims arising from a terrorist strike. This 
provision helps ensure that effective antiterrorism technologies that 
meet stringent requirements are commercially available.
  The reality is that without these safeguards, the threat of unlimited 
liability prevents leading technology companies from providing their 
best products to protect American citizens, American businesses, and 
governmental agencies.
  The liability protections in this legislation are responsible to the 
Government, the industry, and also, very importantly, to the American 
taxpayer. I thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner, for all 
his assistance, experience, and constructive leadership in this 
important aspect of the bill.
  Second, along with Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, I am very pleased to 
see this legislation remove some of the legal barriers to information 
sharing between private industry and the Government. The threat to this 
country's critical information systems is extraordinary and this bill 
establishes procedures that encourage private industry to share 
infrastructure vulnerability information with the Government. The 
dialog between the Government and the private sector will ultimately 
help identify and correct weaknesses in our Nation's critical 
infrastructure while not compromising any of the provisions or 
protections provided under the Freedom of Information Act in other 
government agencies.

  Information-sharing protections are particularly important in the 
area of cyber-security and threats. Taking preemptive measures to 
disclose vulnerabilities with the Government will help both the private 
and public sectors develop strategies to combat the numerous and 
constantly evolving cyber attacks threatening our Nation's critical 
infrastructure.
  I encourage industry, law enforcement, and Federal officials to 
continue to work to build trust-based relationships and processes that 
will foster more information-sharing reporting.
  Removing legal obstacles--which is what this bill does, which is very 
good--removing legal barriers to information sharing is very important 
and essential, but so is building trust.
  A national forum on combating e-crime and cyber-terrorism was held at 
the Computer Sciences Corporation offices in Northern Virginia just 2 
weeks ago by the Information Technology Association of America and the 
U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia where they 
brought together law enforcement and private sector leaders from all 
around the country to address some of the remaining obstacles to 
improving cooperation. These are the types of efforts I encourage, and 
I am hopeful this legislation will continue to promote.
  Also included in the Thompson-Gramm amendment is the Federal 
Information Security Management Act, or FISMA, which will strengthen 
and protect the Federal Government's information and communications 
networks. FISMA establishes guidelines that are performance based. Let 
me repeat that. The guidelines are performance based so they can 
quickly adapt and respond to the fast-changing cyber-security threats. 
Strengthening the Government's information security is a vital 
component and piece of the homeland security puzzle. FISMA will foster 
accountability and make sure that every agency and department in our 
Federal Government prioritizes information security and promotes the 
use of commercially available technologies while avoiding technology-
specific or product-specific government-wide security standards.
  This is vitally important in making sure we get procurement that is 
good for the taxpayers and allowing all those who have great ideas to 
offer their programs, their systems, their products, and their efforts.
  I am also happy to see this compromise proposal establishes a 
national technology guard or NET Guard. This is a bill that Senator 
Wyden and I introduced earlier this year to help local communities 
respond and recover from attacks on their information systems and 
communications networks.
  After the September 11 attacks, I, along with other Senators, 
received volumes of information from numerous companies about their 
varied products, their systems, their programs, and their ideas 
regarding the defense of our homeland. As public servants, we want to 
be sure the Government has the necessary structure and process in place 
to test and apply new technologies to meet our homeland security needs.
  The new Department of Homeland Security will have a designated 
center--and this is part of this bill--to serve as a technology 
clearinghouse to encourage and to support private sector solutions that 
enhance our homeland security.
  Lastly, the Thompson-Gramm amendment makes the coordination of our 
Federal, State, and local officials charged with protecting our 
homeland a national priority. Over the last year, I have strongly 
advocated that any homeland security plan focus on interaction with 
local public safety officials as they are really on the front line of 
combating terrorist threats and attacks.
  Specifically, I have worked in the Senate to promote the development 
at the local level of a voice and data interoperable communications 
system for Federal, State, and local emergency responders. Last year, 
this Congress appropriated $20 million for the CapWIN project. CapWIN 
has started to award contracts for the development of an interoperable 
communications system for Federal, State, and local public safety 
organizations in the greater Washington, DC area. That is Northern 
Virginia, the Maryland suburbs, and the District.
  The CapWIN project is a real-life example of adapting technologies, 
specifically communications technologies, to address and overcome 
existing national security concerns, as well as homeland security 
concerns in this region.
  I again thank my colleagues for listening to me, and to the tech 
community for their persistence and their positive leadership on this 
historic legislation. I respectfully urge all of my colleagues to 
support this carefully crafted measure that will help the President, 
Federal, State, and local agencies, and the private sector utilize the 
best innovations of technology, to analyze and respond and, thereby, 
protect the security of our American homeland.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, this homeland security bill has been 
debated for 7 weeks. We have pretty well talked about the issue enough. 
I do believe we are on the verge of acting on it, so I wanted to come 
over this afternoon, given that we are going to have a vote on cloture 
tomorrow, to make a few comments.
  First, I do not think anybody set out with the goal of turning this 
into a partisan issue. We came very close to that happening. In the 
aftermath of the election, I think we have pulled back from that.
  I thank the President for that. In the aftermath of an election where 
the President triumphed--I do not think there is another fair word--
there might have been some who in those circumstances would have said: 
Let's take this over to next year and I will write it exactly like I 
want it. I think we could have all understood had the President taken 
that approach.
  In the aftermath of the election, he had the right to take that 
approach, but I would have to say I admire the President for the fact 
he did not take that approach. There are not many people, after 
validating an issue in an election, who are still willing to 
compromise, but that is what the President did.
  We now have a bill that will give the President the tools he needs. 
We have responded to legitimate concerns that have been raised. We have 
strengthened to some degree the ability of those people who are going 
to be affected by the second largest governmental reorganization in the 
history of our country to be heard, but on the other hand not

[[Page S11016]]

have the power to obstruct; to have input but not the ability to 
dictate. I think that represents a reasonable compromise.
  Senator Byrd raised probably the most significant issue in that the 
original proposal would have dramatically transferred power from the 
legislative branch to the executive branch by giving the President the 
ability to reorder priorities in appropriations. If the Constitution is 
clear on one subject, it is that Congress has the power of the purse. I 
believe we have reached a reasonable compromise in that area. I know 
Senator Byrd is not for this bill, but I believe a major concern he 
raised has been dealt with, and I think his input improved the bill.
  If I were writing the bill by myself, it would be different than the 
compromise we have reached, but to be honest it would not be much 
different. I say to people who are opposed to this bill to look at the 
alternative as we come down to the final moments before it is adopted. 
The alternative, it seems to me, is to wait for another bill until next 
year. For those who oppose the bill and for those who believe it gives 
the President too much power, I ask them to honestly ask the question: 
Do they believe waiting 3 more months in a new Congress, under new 
leadership, they will get a bill more to their liking than the bill 
that is before us? I believe an honest answer to that question is no.
  I also believe 3 months does make a difference. Finishing the work in 
this Congress is important. Getting on with this Department is the 
right thing to do. So whichever side my colleagues are on--whether they 
are on the side of Senator Thompson and the President and believe that 
this is a good bill that ought to be adopted now, or whether they 
oppose it because they believe it gives the President too much power--
it seems to me the right thing to do is to finish this job now, because 
if we wait until we come back in the next Congress, it will be February 
before we can get to it. The bill that will be adopted in February will 
be less to the liking of the President's opponents on this issue than 
the bill before us, and we will have squandered 3 months.

  This is an incredible issue that does not come along very often, 
where at this point in time, no matter where one stands on the issue, 
it seems to me a plausible, logical, reasonable, and I believe correct 
case can be made that we should go ahead and act.
  I am not expecting 100 Senators to vote for the bill, but I do hope 
people will allow us to go forward and adopt the bill. I do hope we get 
a strong vote. It does make a difference whether a bill passes 51 or 
65, especially when we are trying to do something that is going to be 
very difficult and the President is going to need all the help he can 
get.
  I thank Senator Thompson for his leadership and his in-depth 
knowledge on this issue which has been an indispensable ingredient for 
those of us who have tried to work on it.
  I thank Senator Lieberman. Earlier, when I was off doing something 
else, I understand Senator Lieberman said he intended to vote for 
cloture. I think that is an act of leadership, and I applaud him for 
it.
  I thank my dear colleague Zell Miller, who has worked with me on the 
substitute that Senator Thompson has offered on our behalf. I think 
Senator Miller's leadership has been indispensable on this bill. He has 
a way of getting down to the bottom line of what an issue is about and 
express it in terms that people can understand, and that has been a 
very important ingredient in getting us to this point.
  I am ready to move forward. It is my understanding we are going to 
vote on cloture tomorrow. I hope after that cloture vote we could move 
to a vote on final passage tomorrow. If that is not to be the case and 
we carry it over until early next week, then we carry it over into 
early next week. But I do believe it is important we pass this bill in 
this Congress.
  The House will finish its business this afternoon and will leave 
town. They have no intention of coming back. This is not really a take 
it or leave it kind of deal because this deal was negotiated over the 
weekend. We had broad input. We have some 53 Members who are committed 
to voting for this compromise. So it clearly has a majority, and I am 
hopeful that we will see that majority prevail.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, I thank Senator Gramm of Texas for his 
strong leadership on this issue. He is one of the most eloquent, 
logical, and persuasive Senators who has ever served in the Senate, I 
am sure of that. The Senate is going to miss his strong voice. He is 
fierce in battle and he is magnanimous in victory. I am proud he is my 
friend, and I thank him for his comments.
  It does look as if we are at a point where we can come together on a 
homeland security bill. I hope it is not done in a way that is a 
grudging concession for some, that they believe it is a bad bill but 
must on balance vote for it. I hope the employees who are going to be 
in this Homeland Security Department do not feel they are going to be 
taken advantage of or this bill in some way strips them of basic 
rights. Those sorts of things have been alluded to, but they are simply 
not accurate.
  This bill preserves the antidiscrimination provisions and protections 
of title V--for example, discrimination based on color, race, religion, 
sex, age, handicap, marital status, or political affiliation; those 
protections are preserved. Those were never at issue. Protection from 
political coercion, a basic right that is set forth in title V, is 
preserved. Fair competition for employment is preserved, protection 
from nepotism whistleblower protection is preserved. Those rights are 
not trampled upon in any way. Workers are not being deprived of those 
rights. Veterans preference provisions are preserved. Equal pay for 
equal work provisions are preserved.

  I hope we do not go down this road together, but still separate, in 
our feeling for the need for this bill because we feel in some way we 
can still draw lines between management and workers and play on any 
hostility or misunderstanding that might be out there. It is not based 
upon reality. It is based upon a recognition that our Government is 
simply not working very well in some areas, in some basic provisions. 
Many of our departments have troubles.
  Senator Durbin, with whom I will engage in a colloquy shortly 
concerning some technology provisions, is absolutely right when he 
talks about the problems our Government has with regard to getting our 
computers to talk to each other. This is simply another example of our 
Government not working very well. We have spent billions of dollars in 
the IRS trying to get the computers to talk to each other, to upgrade 
them and incorporate technology capabilities that private industry has 
employed for a long time. We had great difficulty in doing that. That 
is one small area of the problem. The other side of that problem coin 
has to do with personnel.
  When the IRS was in such bad shape, we gave them additional 
flexibility to pay people more, to go outside the personnel rules and 
pay people more and give them more flexibility as to who they could 
hire. That is the sort of thing you do to solve the problem. Do not 
just identify the problem; try to solve the problem.
  In department after department, agency after agency, we have looked 
at the problems our Government has as it grows, as the bureaucracy 
grows, and we get bogged down and cannot hire the people we need and we 
cannot fire the people we do not need. We get bogged down in endless 
disputes over minute matters such as smoking facilities and the color 
of the carpets in offices and things of that nature. We have given 
flexibilities to get around those things. That is what we are doing in 
this bill.
  It is not a heavy-handed cram down that violates people's rights. It 
is simply a response to the fact that this Nation is in a different era 
now. We recognize the difference we are in, the different threat this 
Nation faces, one that it has never faced before. We are not fearful of 
vast armies and tanks and battalions rushing across Europe anymore and 
threatening our friends and our troops in that part of the world. It is 
much more insidious and much more dangerous than that, where a handful 
of people with modern technology can destroy the lives of thousands of 
people. We are just in the baby steps phase of even beginning to deal 
with that.

[[Page S11017]]

  That is what the homeland security bill is about. It is taking the 
first baby step to organize ourselves to deal with that. We have a big 
battleship of a government and we are trying to turn it around a little 
bit. Oftentimes it is wasteful, inefficient. As Senator Durbin points 
out, the computers cannot talk to each other. We have all the things 
that make it difficult to face the high-tech threats we are facing. 
That is what homeland security is all about.
  We simply cannot exist in this environment in the world when, while 
we are the world's superpower, we are also the world's supertarget. We 
cannot exist the same way we have in times past, being willing to pay a 
few billion here and a few billion there because of waste and 
inefficiency in government, knowing things may not work--so be it--and 
we simply add another bureaucracy on top of that, have another 
election, and spend a few more billion dollars and absorb it because of 
our economic strength. We cannot do that anymore. We have to do things 
differently.

  It goes back to equipment, computers, technology, and personnel and 
the flexibility to use and interchange those things to meet the modern 
conditions we are facing. We cannot go along anymore with a system that 
takes 6 months to hire someone and 18 months to fire someone. That does 
not work. Where, if you want to transfer someone to the front and get 
your best people in certain crucial places you have endless appeal 
rights that take years to resolve. We cannot do that anymore. It is not 
a matter of trying to take advantage of someone, it is a matter of 
trying to protect this country. That is what this is all about.
  I hope this is not viewed as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that 
has not been compromised. Some have said this is not a compromise, this 
is an agreement--meaning, apparently, the President was not willing to 
bend; or our side was not willing to compromise in any way, but we did 
agree to disagree and we are going to vote for the bill. That is the 
way I interpret that. It should not be that way. I don't think that is 
a justifiable response to the situation.
  Going back to the beginning of this legislation, we must go back to 
Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman began this process. He should get 
great credit for that. He and a few others heightened our awareness to 
the need to take a different look. It was in the Governmental Affairs 
Committee, the committee that deals with Government organizations and 
reorganizations. Goodness knows, many Members have known the whole 
Government has needed a reorganization for many years. He said we 
should look at a reorganization with regard to the parts of Government 
regarding homeland security. We did not agree on exactly how to do 
that.
  We had several hearings. We had committee consideration. I offered 
several amendments as ranking member on the Governmental Affairs 
Committee. Some of the amendments simply were trying to incorporate 
current law into the Homeland Security Department and were voted down 
pretty much along partisan lines. We tried to negotiate the personnel 
flexibility issue at that point. We did not meet with any success at 
that point in trying to negotiate any of those things out. Senator 
Lieberman had the votes. He passed the bill. He is to be commended for 
that. We might not be here today if it was not for him.
  The fact is, there was disagreement and discussion and his side 
prevailed along party lines on just about every vote when we tried to 
get some authority for the President that other Presidents had. The 
answer was no. We tried to get personnel flexibility; some of the 
unions opposed that, but I think the people support it. The answer was 
no, all along the line. This has not been a totally one-sided 
proposition from our standpoint. I voted against the proposal in 
committee at that time. It was before a national strategy had been 
submitted by the President. I thought the President ought to have an 
opportunity, at a minimum, to analyze the nature of the problem and 
come forth with a comprehensive national strategy. That is what 
happened.
  This bill, today, not only is not what Senator Lieberman proposed, it 
is not what the President originally proposed, either. The President 
had more flexibility in his original proposal than is found in this 
amendment. The original bill did not have the various provisions in 
title V, nonwaivables. I do not think there was an intention to make 
them expendable at all, the various protections were not in the bill, 
but we wound up putting those in the bill. The President wanted 
appropriations transfer authority, up to 5 percent of appropriated 
funds. The President did not get that. That is not in this bill.
  When it came down, Senator Gramm and Senator Zell Miller, the two 
Senators who made the major proposal and response to the Lieberman 
bill, and whose work was so effective and we certainly would not be 
here today without their work, they suggested 2 percent, the President 
be given appropriations transfer authority up to 2 percent. We are 
going to have to create a new Department. We have to have some 
flexibility, some money to make these changes up to this amount. That 
is not in the bill either. An indemnification provision that was in 
Gramm-Miller, that is not in this bill either.

  So there are things that each side wanted that are not in this bill. 
It has been compromised and discussed all along the way. It is true 
that somewhere along the line someone has to prevail on certain key 
issues. It is true that the President stood pat, pretty much, on his 
national security authority and took the position from day 1, and 
maintained that position throughout, that he simply was not going to 
relinquish any authority that all other Presidents had since the time, 
really, of John F. Kennedy, when there was an Executive order that gave 
him that authority, and since the time of Jimmy Carter, that there has 
been a statute that gave them that authority. Democrat and Republican 
Presidents both exercised that authority. It passes down to George W. 
Bush, and the proposal on the other side was that there be new hurdles 
the President might have to go jump over before he could exercise that 
authority.
  It made no sense to us or to the President that in a time of war we 
would be giving the President additional hurdles and roadblocks in 
order to, on occasion, exercise his national security authority in 
certain areas. He maintained that provision. He prevailed on that 
position. That is the position that is in this bill, and rightfully so.
  The same thing is true with respect to personnel flexibility. I will 
discuss that perhaps in some detail. We have had a lot of discussion 
about this agreement or compromise, or whatever you would call it, that 
we introduced yesterday, but we really have not got ten into the 
details of what is in it to any great extent. If anyone wants to come 
down and speak on this bill, I will be glad to let them do so. But 
until that time, I will just go over a few of the provisions that are 
in this amendment that we filed.

  With regard to the issue of personnel flexibility, as we know, the 
bill to create a Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 
Federal agencies comprising 170,000 employees, 17 different unions, 77 
existing collective bargaining agreements, 7 payroll systems, 80 
different personnel management systems. It is a monumental job under 
any circumstances--a monumental job. Reorganizing an agency with all 
the vested interests and positions that involves is a big job. This is 
a monumental job. It is imperative that some sort of procedure is put 
in place to enable the Secretary to create one unified Department to 
prevent terrorist attacks and protect our homeland.
  We all agree that flexibility is needed. We have not been able to 
come to agreement, up until now, as to how much flexibility is 
required--flexibility meaning the guy who is going to run the agency, 
have to take the responsibility, have the accountability but be given 
the tools to get the job done with. That is a big job--the most 
important job, probably, in Government, outside the Presidency itself, 
in light of the world in which we live.
  The idea of providing agencies with some increased flexibility with 
regard to personnel management is not revolutionary. Almost half of all 
Federal executive branch employees already work in agencies with human 
resource management programs that operate, in

[[Page S11018]]

whole or in part, outside the framework of Federal employees laws that 
are in title V.
  I think we need to realize on the one hand that employees probably 
should not have an equal seat at the table with managers when it comes 
to running a Department; on the other hand, we need to emphasize in the 
law that some employee rights are basic they are basic and should not 
be subject to the whim of a manager.
  An employee is entitled to appeal rights. We can discuss whether it 
ought to take 5 years to get something resolved or whether we ought to 
have five different levels of appeal. I think that is ridiculous in the 
day and age we live in now. We can do better than that but still keep 
those appeal rights. The manager should not be the judge and jury and 
executioner but should have the right to manage and then some appeal 
rights if he oversteps his authority.
  This new bill sets up a consultation process for the creation of a 
human resources management system. It sets four steps management must 
take in order to create the new system. There is detailed language that 
provides for a preimplementation congressional notification, 
consultation, and mediation process the Department must go through, 
involving the management and employees of the Department, the Office of 
Personnel Management, Congress, Federal employee unions, and the 
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. So there is quite an 
elaborate process of consultation and even mediation where these views 
have an opportunity to be aired.
  It is not all one sided. Sometimes reasonable people can actually sit 
down and modify their views when they have a chance to talk. It is not 
as if all the employees are going to look at it the same way. If I were 
a good employee, the way most of the employees are, and I were offered 
the opportunity of my management, my Department, having some more 
flexibility so that I could move more toward the things I am interested 
in and good at, that had a chance of higher pay and more recognition 
and a more significant mission, such as homeland security, but in 
exchange I had to agree that if I did something that caused 
disciplinary action I would only have, let's say, three levels of 
appeal instead of five, I think I would take that deal. I think most 
employees would take that deal.

  In the first place, the overwhelming number of employees do not even 
get in that position because they are good employees. This is not 
something about which most employees are going to be concerned. I think 
it is going to be something most employees will embrace, if some of 
their leadership will be honest with them about what this is all about.
  We are not talking about lower pay. We are talking about potentially 
higher pay. We cannot get good technicians in the modern marketplace to 
work for the Government at the salaries we are paying now. We are going 
to have to do better.
  There is good news in this bill. It is not an onerous thing, looking 
for a way to fire a bunch of people. That would never work. Natural 
attrition is going to take a tremendous toll on Federal employees 
anyway. We are going to be looking for good people. But a manager 
simply has to have the right in any kind of organization, especially 
one this big, especially one this complex, especially one that has this 
troublesome track record that so many of our Departments and Agencies 
already have--a manager must have some flexibility. We cannot 
incorporate the mess we have created in so many areas of Government 
into homeland security.
  We have a golden opportunity to take the first steps toward doing 
something different, doing something right, something that can be a 
template, an example for other parts of government.
  Also in this amendment is a provision concerning reorganization 
authority. It is important for Congress to consider granting the 
Secretary the ability to make programmatic reorganizations within the 
Department. It will take many years for the Department to get up and 
running efficiently. There may be many instances, for example, in which 
the various functions within the Department can be consolidated in 
order to eliminate overlap and duplication.
  If you listen to GAO, and you ever read any of those reports--and you 
could fill this room to the ceiling with GAO reports talking about 
inefficiency, waste, fraud, abuse, overlap and duplication, year after 
year, Department after Department after Department. But in order to 
deal with this, a manager ought to have a right to do some 
consolidation.
  While waiting for Congress, both Houses, with its 88 committees and 
subcommittees of jurisdiction, to hold hearings, introduce legislation, 
consider their proposal in subcommittee and committee, debate on the 
issue, vote, and then hold a conference on the legislation, it is 
important the Secretary be able to implement these changes in a timely 
manner.
  Gramm-Miller was somewhat broader. The Secretary could go outside the 
agency, reporting to Congress. This does not allow going outside an 
agency. But it does not require a report to Congress. So there is an 
adjustment there. There is a compromise there. There is another 
indication that this is not a cram-down. This is the product of serious 
discussions back and forth, just as was Gramm-Miller. That whole 
process was a product of Senator Gramm and Senator Miller and others of 
us sitting down across tables and working out minute details.
  That work product, which is the basis of where we are today, was 
moved further toward the positions of some of our other colleagues in 
order to get something that people not only could grudgingly support 
but something they really thought was a good product and still got the 
job done.
  You can always compromise and get an agreement just about on anything 
if it is meaningless enough and inconsequential enough. That is not the 
only key--getting a deal. The key is to get a deal that will get the 
job done and people can feel good about.
  The bill before us today would enable the Secretary to initiate an 
internal reorganization that would reallocate functions among the 
offices of the Department so long as the Secretary submits a 
comprehensive reorganization plan to Congress.
  I think this language goes a long way toward giving the Secretary the 
flexibility needed to ensure the long-term viability of this new 
Department.
  Procurement flexibility is another important area. It is important 
throughout Government. It is especially important here. All of these 
problems need to be looked at with a magnifying glass. All these 
problems we see in these other areas--all of these, well, we need to do 
better here or there--become really magnified when you realize a 
handful of people with modern technology can murder tens of thousands 
or hundreds of thousands of people when you consider the vast ranging 
infrastructure that we have which is 90 to 95 percent in private hands. 
It is not something the Government can turn a switch and change 
overnight. When you consider that, all of these difficulties that we 
have had become greatly magnified.
  Procurement is another issue that, for many years, we have accepted 
that the Federal Government has paid a premium, both in dollars and in 
time spent for goods and services it buys solely because of the unique 
requirements it places on contractors.
  While the Federal procurement system has been streamlined and 
simplified over the last several years, much redtape and barriers still 
exist. This is due in part to trying to maintain the proper balance 
between an efficient procurement system and accountability when 
spending taxpayer dollars.
  Last year, Congress provided the Defense Department with the 
authority to quickly and efficiently purchase the most high-tech and 
sophisticated products and services in support of the warfighter. I am 
pleased that the present bill includes provisions giving the Department 
of Homeland Security similar authority in its efforts to defend against 
terrorism and provide flexibility to buy technologies or products that 
are cutting edge but that may not have made it through the commercial 
marketplace yet.
  Further, the bill also includes language that gives similar 
flexibilities to Federal agencies Governmentwide to support 
antiterrorism efforts and to defend against biological, chemical, 
radiological, or other technology attacks. Although these 
Governmentwide flexibilities are more limited than those

[[Page S11019]]

provided for in the new Department, all agencies of Government will be 
able to better avail themselves of the most sophisticated technologies 
in order to successfully fight against terrorism--one of the things 
Senator Durbin was talking about just a while ago.
  The bill before us today includes a provision that requires the 
Secretary to develop and submit to Congress a plan for consolidating 
and coallocating the more than 1,000 field offices that will fall under 
the new Department's jurisdiction. Previous versions of the legislation 
required the Secretary to come back to Congress to ask permission to 
change these field offices. The language in this bill is more 
proactive, requiring the Secretary to take the initiative to come up 
with a way to unify the Department's front line of defense.

  As to congressional oversight structure, we know what the situation 
is there. We have to have a sense of the Senate. Congress is beginning 
to acknowledge the obvious. As I mentioned before, the Department of 
Homeland Security will have 88 committees and subcommittees claiming 
jurisdiction over various aspects of this Department. It is bad enough 
for departments that must answer to two or three different committees. 
I can't imagine how much energy will have to be focused on reporting to 
Congress rather than to the Department. That oversight responsibility 
is important. It is just not the amount; it is the quality of it.
  There is a provision in this bill for a sense of Congress rather than 
an actual requirement for Congress to revise its committee structure. 
That at least is a step in the right direction and an acknowledgment 
that Congress really should address the question of revising its 
committee structure and doing something about the fact that there are 
88 committees and subcommittees that deal with this matter. That is not 
going to work. I think Congress would acknowledge that.
  Another issue that is important to highlight is the compromise 
proposal for securing our Nation's borders.
  There has been little dispute that the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service needs much improvement. On the one hand, there have been 
problems with INS enforcement functions and ensuring that those who may 
want to enter the United States to do us harm are not admitted. On the 
other hand, the INS has experienced big problems in backlogs in the 
processing of applications for visas and other immigration benefits for 
those qualified aliens who lawfully want to enter the country. So we 
have a law enforcement function and a services function.
  This bill both strengthens the INS functions and promotes a stronger 
border. It places all of the INS enforcement functions, including 
Border Patrol inspections, within the Border and Transportation 
Security Director. This will allow the Border Under Secretary to 
effectively coordinate immigration efforts at the border with Customs 
and the Transportation Security Administration allowing the Department 
to create a seamless border.
  In addition, it establishes a bureau of citizenship and immigration 
services which will report directly to the Deputy Secretary.
  The services part is not getting lost in the shuffle. It is important 
and will report directly to the Deputy Secretary.
  This bureau will focus on immigration service, including the 
processing of visas and naturalization applications and administering 
other immigration benefits. The separating and restructuring of the 
immigration enforcement and service functions within this new 
Department will help establish the framework for increased security at 
our borders, as well as improve services for lawful immigrants.
  I picked up the New York Times this morning, and I read a story that 
starts out as follows:

       ``The Immigration and Naturalization Service has begun an 
     internal review to determine how a man suspected of having 
     ties to the Islamic radical group Hezbullah was able to 
     become a naturalized United States citizen,'' several agency 
     officials said yesterday.

  There is story after story after story. We must--must--do better, and 
hopefully this will be a significant step in the right direction.
  During my tenure on the Governmental Affairs Committee, I spent a lot 
of time on legislation and oversight to protect the security of Federal 
computers and information systems. Senator Lieberman and I worked very 
closely together in this regard for some years. I am pleased that this 
bill includes the Federal Information Security Management Act which 
will require Federal agencies to utilize information security best 
practices to ensure the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of 
Federal information systems. This language builds on and makes 
permanent the foundation laid by the Government Information Security 
Reform Act, a relatively new law which Senator Lieberman and I 
sponsored, which requires every Federal agency to develop and implement 
security policies that include risk assessments, risk-based policies, 
security awareness training, and periodic reviews.

  Now, that sounds like a big mouthful that is hard to understand, but 
what it means is our computers are very vulnerable to cyber-attack. As 
a part of our infrastructure, it is very vulnerable. A lot of people 
think the next big attack, if we ever have one in this country, will be 
preceded by this kind of cyber-attack. We must do more and do better in 
that regard.
  At a time when uncertainty threatens confidence in our Nation's 
preparedness, the Federal Government must make information security a 
priority. The language in this bill is vitally important to accomplish 
this objective.
  Law enforcement authority for inspectors general may seem like a 
small item, but it is an important item, and it is a part of an even 
more important thing; that is, the homeland security bill itself. I am 
pleased this bill includes a provision, which again Senator Lieberman 
and I sponsored, to codify law enforcement authority for certain 
Presidentially appointed inspectors general.
  In the wake of September 11, the FBI is diverting resources and 
agents to fight against terrorism like we have never seen before. As a 
result, the Bureau will rely even more heavily on the work of 
inspectors general to investigate fraud and other crimes in the Federal 
Government. This provision will ensure that the IGs have the tools they 
will need to carry out these investigations.
  Now, this is not exactly the bill I would have drafted myself. I 
think almost anybody who speaks on behalf of it would say that. Some 
would say that is an earmark of a good bill. Some would say that is an 
earmark not of something that is being forced down folks' throats but 
is the earmark of something that has been compromised and worked out.
  The intelligence issue is an extremely important one. How do we 
handle the intelligence issue with regard to the Department of Homeland 
Security? It is a big issue. It is a big problem.
  Throughout this process, there have been a couple of different 
approaches to the creation of an intelligence directorate for the new 
Department. Some have sought to create a superintelligence agency that 
could direct other agencies that would be responsible for connecting 
the counterterrorism dots. It is a complicated problem.
  We talk about connecting the dots. If the dots had been connected and 
had been there on the board for one person to connect, we would have 
avoided 9/11. The problem with that is these dots were within a sea of 
dots. For every dot we now know was significant, there were scores of 
dots right around it that looked the same that we now know apparently 
were not significant. So it is a big problem, much bigger than just 
putting somebody in charge of dot connecting.
  Others, like myself, have argued for a structure much more modest 
that would be responsible for conducting threat and risk analysis and 
producing vulnerability assessments; in other words, look at our 
infrastructure. We have problems enough just assessing the 
vulnerability of our farflung infrastructure in this country, and then 
working with intelligence to figure out how best to protect it.
  The emphasis of this structure would be on a critical infrastructure. 
One of my chief concerns, which I have repeatedly expressed in the 
Governmental Affairs Committee and on this floor, is that we not act 
too broadly in regard to creating this intelligence directorate. It is 
imperative we do not lull

[[Page S11020]]

Members into believing we have taken comprehensive reform of our 
intelligence community when so much, in my opinion, remains to be done 
in that regard.

  But, for the most part, I am satisfied with the intelligence 
provisions in the compromise legislation that is before us. These 
provisions combine the directorates for information analysis and 
critical infrastructure, as requested by the President. It would be 
responsible for analyzing terrorism threat information, assessing the 
vulnerabilities of the American homeland, and producing risk 
assessments, something not being done anywhere else in the Federal 
Government.
  These assessments tell us of the likelihood that a target will be 
attacked and will help us best allocate our limited resources. I 
believe this is the proper emphasis for this directorate.
  Still, this bill goes further than I would prefer in the amount of 
information that is provided to the new Department. Specifically, the 
access-to-information provisions provided in this new directorate mean 
they will receive all information on terrorist threats, even if the 
provider of the information considers such information to be highly 
sensitive or not particularly useful or raw material. The only way to 
avoid this requirement is for the provider to convince the President 
the information should not be shared. If the President says this 
information is not to be shared, it will not be shared.
  So I would prefer the burden be on the recipient to show a need for 
this information rather than the burden being on the President to stop 
it, but it is not a major consideration.
  The fact of the matter is, we are going to try this out for a while 
to see what is best. We are not going to have it right in a lot of 
these areas, no matter which direction we take. But we will only learn 
how we can improve by getting started. That is why this bill right now 
is so important. We need to get started and see how it works.
  Even our Constitution, as the Framers of our Constitution knew, is 
not a perfect document in that it would be exactly the way we would 
want it for 200 years without any changes. We saw some ways we could 
improve it. And that will not be any different with this legislation.
  This provision will radically alter the current relationship between 
consumers and providers of intelligence information. I certainly agree 
with those who suggest the traditional means of sharing intelligence 
information with the community must be revamped. But I think it should 
be done next year as a part of a larger look at our intelligence 
community. I am concerned. The intelligence community is no different 
than the rest of our Government in that you live and you learn and you 
adjust. And we are undergoing a big adjustment now because of the 
change in the nature of the primary threats to this country, and the 
reprioritizing that is going on, and the fact that for well over a 
decade we saw a decline in emphasis of some of the things we know are 
very important now, such as human intelligence, such as signals, 
intelligence capabilities, and still have the same operation. There is 
much more out there for that same operation to collect and deal with. 
They are swamped with information, and there are big adjustments to 
make. I admire the men and women who are valiantly trying to deal with 
it, but they have not dealt with it well in some respects.
  We simply have to let the chips fall where they may after we have 
done a thorough analysis of what we are doing right and what we are 
doing wrong, and to what extent we need to reorganize, to what extent 
leadership has to be different. How do we get the good people we need? 
How do we keep them motivated? What should Congress do to give them 
political support?
  Congress is great about seeing the horse running out of the barn and 
down the road and pointing out that the horse is out of the barn. We 
need to see how we can do a little bit better in terms of helping to 
resolve the problem instead of criticizing the way we have done it, and 
causing our intelligence community to hunker down and have as their No. 
1 goal, which is the impression I get sometimes, not getting in 
trouble, not getting in trouble with us. I think that is a good goal, 
but it is not an exclusive goal. It is not even the most important 
goal.
  All that needs to be looked at. If we think, in creating this 
Homeland Security Department, and a little Intelligence component 
emphasizing our infrastructure, that we have really dealt with all of 
that, we are fooling ourselves. That is a job for a little further down 
the road.

  I notice the Senator from Illinois in the Chamber. I have a bit more, 
but if the Senator wanted to comment, I would be glad to relent.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. I also thank him for 
his dialog with me during the last hour or two concerning my pending 
second-degree amendment which, as we noted in the Record, relates to 
modernizing information technology in the Federal Government to protect 
our Nation against terrorism.
  I have discussed this with the Senator from Tennessee, and I know 
from some experience in this body that there are moments in time when 
you should try to find a good exit strategy which achieves as closely 
as possible your goals. I believe the Senator from Tennessee and I have 
agreed on such a strategy. I would certainly like to see my amendment 
adopted as part of the Department of Homeland Security legislation. It 
would be a valuable addition.
  The Senator from Tennessee and I have discussed it. He has supported 
my amendment in committee, and I believe he agrees with it at least in 
principle. However, we are faced with an extraordinary legislative 
responsibility to pass this bill literally in the closing hours of this 
session with very limited opportunities, if any, for amendment, or 
conference committee, resolving differences with the House.
  So what I have agreed to with the Senator from Tennessee is to take a 
different approach and to be prepared to withdraw the amendment with an 
understanding and a colloquy between us on the floor relative to the 
issue. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for agreeing to that.
  I believe there is a serious omission in this bill in that it does 
not address directly the issue of modernizing and coordinating 
information technology. The amendment which I have suggested, however, 
adds little more to the existing Federal statutory requirement of the 
Office of Management and Budget.
  In 1996, two colleagues I have served with, former Congressman Bill 
Clinger of Pennsylvania and former Senator Bill Cohen of Maine, passed 
the Clinger-Cohen Act related to information technology management 
reform--1966, 6 years ago. If you read this and what they said in the 
law and required of the Office of Management and Budget, you reach the 
inescapable conclusion that this agency already has been tasked with 
the responsibility of modernizing information technology in the Federal 
Government. The sad reality is that after the passage of this 
legislation in 1996, it appears that little has been done, certainly 
not nearly enough has been done to meet the challenge we currently face 
since September 11, 2001, in terms of modernizing our computers.
  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is required, 
under the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, to make plans for information 
technology acquisition. Note that I said 1996. The reason I believe 
this amendment is necessary is that many years have passed with 
relatively little progress on improving Federal information systems and 
their interoperability. I believe that we can't wait any longer. In the 
name of national security, in the name of homeland security, we must 
demand that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget take 
the steps that would have been required by my amendment and by the 
Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996.
  OMB must, in consultation with the Secretary of this new Department, 
develop a comprehensive enterprise architecture plan for information 
systems, including communications systems, to achieve interoperability 
between and among information systems of agencies with responsibility 
for homeland security, including the agencies inside the new Department 
and those that are outside of it but key to homeland security, such as 
the FBI and the CIA.

  OMB must develop time lines, realistic and enforceable time lines, 
that are met to implement this plan. And a

[[Page S11021]]

particular person must be designated to be responsible for this effort. 
There has to be someone in charge of this project beyond Mr. Daniels, 
who serves as head of the Office of Management and Budget. There needs 
to be a person who is well skilled and versed in information technology 
with the authority, the power, and the responsibility of dealing with 
this issue. This person has to carry out the duties of the Director of 
OMB.
  I also believe OMB must keep Congress informed on the development and 
implementation of this plan. My amendment would have required a yearly 
report.
  I am fortunate that the people of my home State of Illinois have 
renewed my contract a week or so ago and given me an opportunity to 
serve for another 6 years. It will give me an opportunity to stay on 
top of this issue. I will pursue this issue and others of law and order 
in this venue, while my colleague from Tennessee pursues them in 
another venue. But I believe that what we are doing here is to at least 
serve notice on OMB that under Clinger-Cohen of 1996, they have the 
power and the responsibility, and with this new Department, they have a 
new imperative to meet these guidelines, these schedules, these time 
lines, and to really make significant progress.
  We need to do more than just ask for a report. We need action. I will 
revisit this issue again in the next Congress, if significant progress 
is not made, but I trust that Mr. Daniels and members of the 
administration who share my concern about information technology will 
put their best efforts to work to make certain that it is met.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, as I understand it, my colleague from 
Illinois has withdrawn his amendment.


                      Amendment No. 4906 Withdrawn

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if I may at this point, pursuant to the 
agreement I had with the Senator from Tennessee, I ask unanimous 
consent to withdraw my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's withdrawal 
of his amendment. As he knows, I agree with what he is trying to do 
with this amendment. I was a cosponsor of it when he offered it in the 
Governmental Affairs Committee. I agreed to cosponsor his amendment in 
committee because the problem of interoperability of Government 
information systems is a real problem and one we have tried to address 
for years. I mentioned the IRS a while ago as being a very good example 
of that.
  Congress passed the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 in response to concerns 
about how the Federal Government was managing and acquiring information 
technology. Clinger-Cohen built on the information management 
requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Director of the Office 
of Management and Budget, under both of these laws, is charged with the 
responsibility of overseeing and evaluating agencywide information 
technology management and acquisition. It is certainly consistent with 
OMB's own implementing guidance to expect that the Director will 
develop, in consultation with the new Secretary of Homeland Security, a 
comprehensive enterprise architecture plan for information systems, 
including communications systems to achieve interoperability. I agree 
with Senator Durbin that OMB should develop and meet time lines to 
implement this plan.
  Senator Durbin's amendment would have required a particular person to 
be designated to be responsible for this effort. Certainly with all 
those people they have at OMB, I am sure they have someone with the 
expertise to be responsible for the success of this effort. I do know 
this is something that the folks at OMB are concerned about, and I have 
full faith that they will do the right thing about it.
  I thank Senator Durbin for his leadership on this important issue. I 
am confident the administration hears this and will be responsive on 
this issue.
  On a couple of other issues having to do with our amendment that is 
under consideration today, as we attempt to wrap up the homeland 
security bill, there are provisions here dealing with the Department of 
Energy National Laboratories on which I would like to comment for a 
moment.
  I strongly believe the new Department of Homeland Security, and 
particularly the Science and Technology Directorate, can benefit 
greatly from the cutting edge research and development being performed 
at our National Laboratories in this country--crown jewels of this 
Nation--much of which is directly related to homeland security.
  Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and I have worked hard to craft 
language that will allow the new Department of Homeland Security to 
take advantage of the expertise that is resonant at our National 
Laboratories in order to strengthen homeland security. I must say, 
however, I am disappointed that the compromise bill included language 
allowing the new Department to select a so-called ``headquarters 
laboratory'' from the National Laboratory system to serve as the focus 
for homeland security R&D.
  I believe all the National Laboratories have something to offer this 
new Department and that the DHS should be able to directly access 
whichever laboratory it believes can best serve a given need. There 
should be a level playing field in this regard.
  For example, if the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee--just 
to pick a laboratory at random--has developed a technology that would 
help to strengthen our homeland security, or is conducting research in 
an area of particular interest in the new Department, the Secretary 
should be able to go to this laboratory directly and take advantage of 
that. The Senate bills--the Gramm-Miller bill and Lieberman bill--set 
up a mechanism to allow this type of interaction.
  The compromise includes many of our principles in these bills but 
doesn't place the same emphasis on this level playing field. I will 
note that the language in the compromise is permissive; that is, it 
allows the new Department to select a headquarters laboratory but 
doesn't require it to do so. I encourage the new Secretary, whoever he 
or she may be, not to do so. I hope the new Department will look at all 
of the National Laboratories for assistance and fully utilize the 
tremendous capabilities they have to help strengthen our homeland 
security.
  On the issue of risk sharing and indemnification, which has been 
referred to earlier, I am disappointed the bill doesn't include 
language that would give the President the ability to exercise existing 
discretionary authority to indemnify contractors and subcontractors for 
Federal agencies' procurement of antiterrorism technologies and 
services. I had hoped this bill would clarify that the President, if he 
chooses, may use the indemnification authority of current law to 
provide companies supplying goods and services to the Government some 
certainty about the risk involved when developing cutting edge 
counterterrorism tools.
  The law now covers wartime products and services--certain products 
and services having to do with wartime, and they are defined in the law 
and in the bill. But there are other items, such as mail sorters, and 
things of that nature, that may not fit into the same category I think 
ought to be covered, too. Instead of the indemnification provisions 
included in the Gramm-Miller amendment, this bill includes some limited 
tort reform provisions to protect the manufacturers and sellers of 
antiterrorism technologies that satisfy certain requirements.
  Under the principles of federalism on which our country is based, 
tort laws are traditionally reserved to the authority of several 
States. I have never been one, just because I liked a certain policy, 
to federalize something that had been the province of the States for 
200 years, simply because I wanted to conform it to my idea of national 
policy. That is inconsistent with our position on federalism. There 
comes a point on balance where the need for the development and 
deployment of effective antiterrorism technologies throughout the 
Nation supports the creation of national or Federal standards, upon the 
determination by the Secretary, of the technology if it meets the 
statutory criteria.

  As time goes on, things change, certain things become national 
issues, certain things become matters of concern of even national 
security. We are

[[Page S11022]]

living in a different world, and I think we must respond to that. We 
make some progress toward doing that, without wholesale so-called 
reform that would totally federalize the areas that have been under the 
province of States since the creation of our Government.
  Corporate inversion is another area that is dealt with in this bill. 
I am disappointed that the bill includes language to prohibit the 
Secretary from entering into contracts with U.S. firms that have 
reincorporated outside the U.S. through a series of transactions, 
commonly referred to as inversion. It is a very popular idea to punish 
folks who go outside and incorporate. We would do a whole lot better if 
we concentrated on improving the tax that caused it to happen. It is 
going to be part of this bill, and I wish it was not.
  The Committee on Governmental Affairs, which has jurisdiction over 
Federal procurement policy, has not held a single hearing to consider 
this issue and its impact on the procurement process.
  There are consequences to what we do around here. I think we will 
discover there are some consequences to this--maybe unintended--and 
they will be addressed later. So be it. One result of the language 
would be--get this--to allow foreign companies that have always been 
foreign based to bid on Department of Homeland Security contracts, but 
it would preclude foreign companies headquartered in the U.S. before 
the Department was created from bidding on U.S. Department of Homeland 
Security contracts, even if the work would be performed in the U.S. by 
American workers.
  Maybe somebody will step up and tell me how that makes sense. It is 
in there, and it is not nearly as important an area as these other very 
beneficial sections of this bill.
  In the interest of full disclosure, as I go through these provisions, 
I have to state my honest beliefs about them. This provision is not one 
of our finer moments in the bill.
  In conclusion, I think we have come a long way since the Governmental 
Affairs Committee, under Senator Lieberman's leadership, first 
considered legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security back 
in June. I look forward to the Senate's final consideration in the next 
few hours, days, or whatever, of this compromise amendment that I have 
introduced on behalf of Senators Gramm, Miller, and myself. I do not 
believe we will necessarily get everything right the first time around. 
But it is important that we come to agreement as soon as possible. I 
think this bill does that and, for that, I am happy.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I come to the floor in support of 
Senator Lieberman's amendment to strike the provisions in the homeland 
security package that have nothing to do with homeland security.
  Mr. President, we are here for the most critical and compelling of 
public interests; namely, our homeland security. But I have to say that 
we make a mockery of our duties if, instead of focusing our attention, 
our time, as we end this session, on this absolutely essential issue, 
we let the Homeland Security Department bill become a vehicle for other 
matters, special interests, pet projects that Members in either House 
have, instead of focusing on the business at hand.
  Senator Lieberman has eloquently listed a number of these provisions 
that have been inserted into the homeland security bill in the other 
House. I know my colleague from Connecticut is here to talk about 
something taken out of the bill that has direct implications for 
homeland security, which makes the shell game going on even harder to 
understand.
  Among the many provisions that have no business being in this bill at 
this late hour of this session is one that offers special protection 
against litigation for pharmaceutical companies that manufacture 
childhood vaccines by using the homeland security bill to dismiss 
existing lawsuits. Now, I, along with Senators Dodd and DeWine, have 
legislation that we think is very important when it comes to 
pharmaceuticals and children.
  We believe that protecting our children against shortages in the 
universally recommended childhood vaccines for diseases such as 
measles, tetanus, and polio is absolutely critical. Our bill would 
provide stockpiles and advance notice so that the Centers for Disease 
Control can manage shortfalls without having to turn children away when 
they come for immunizations.
  There are very few public health achievements in the last century 
more significant than protecting children against vaccine-preventable 
diseases. Yet as we meet today, we are struggling with a vaccine 
shortage which clearly we need to deal with as soon as possible. It is 
a very important, sensitive issue.
  We have bipartisan consensus around what we should do. Yet we could 
not put it on the homeland security bill. We were not given an 
opportunity to try to deal with a real problem, namely, the shortage of 
vaccines. We were told it was an unsuitable vehicle. Yet we find that 
others have not shown the same degree of respect for our Nation's 
security and have added all kinds of unrelated provisions.
  I specifically want to focus on the vaccine liability provision. By 
excluding our vaccine supply proposal, they cannot even argue with a 
straight face that these provisions are needed to protect our children 
and protect their access to required vaccines.
  The few one-sided provisions that have been snuck into this bill not 
only fail to protect or advance homeland security, they even fail to 
adequately protect our children against preventable diseases. All they 
do is protect manufacturers of vaccines against lawsuits.
  What is really sad is that we in the HELP Committee had been working 
on a comprehensive approach to dealing with these vaccine issues. 
Senator Frist from Tennessee had such a bill that would include many of 
these provisions because he acknowledged, as a physician, that we not 
only needed to figure out what was appropriate to protect manufacturers 
from unnecessary liability, but, first and foremost, how to benefit 
children, consumers, and families.
  We have worked very closely over a number of months with the Senators 
and their staffs--Senator Frist, Senator Gregg, Senator Kennedy, as 
well as Senator DeWine and Senator Dodd--to try to figure out how we 
would deal with these vaccine issues. They have been very productive 
discussions. We fully expect we will reach a bipartisan resolution 
early in the next session.
  Unfortunately, we are now confronted with a homeland security bill 
that not only undermines our discussions but, once again, puts the 
health of our pharmaceutical companies in front of the health of our 
children. That is by no definition I am aware of homeland security. In 
fact, it is just the opposite. It is home insecurity. What are our 
families supposed to do? Many of us read the article in last week's New 
York Sunday Times magazine about the potential link between this very 
ingredient that the House has decided to protect against lawsuits, a 
compound known as thimerosal which is made of mercury that was put into 
a number of pharmaceutical preparations to preserve them, including 
into vaccines.
  My colleagues read the article. We do not know what the right 
conclusion is. We do not know whether this has any effect on the rather 
alarming increase in the number of children who are diagnosed with 
autism and the related problems associated with the autistic condition, 
but we know it is a problem. Now all of a sudden, we are taking one 
provision out of all of the hard work that Senator Frist and others 
have done to deal in a comprehensive way with our vaccine issues of 
shortage, liability, manufacturing standards, and everything else, 
plucking one thing the pharmaceutical companies wanted out and sticking 
it in homeland security. It is not surprising I guess after being here 
now for nearly 2 years. It is still stunning that in the midst of a 
debate about how to protect ourselves, by George, we are going to 
protect our pharmaceutical companies from what may or may not be fair 
questions about liability.

  Now we will never know because it was those parents of children who 
had developed autism who were bringing the lawsuits to get to the 
information to figure out what was going on with this compound. Now 
they will be foreclosed from pursuing their lawsuits.

[[Page S11023]]

They will be told: Sorry, whatever research and work you have done to 
come up with some answers--and these parents deserve these answers--
apply to the vaccine liability fund and we will take care of you, but 
we are not going to go any further; we are not going to try to find out 
what really is at the root of this increase in autism.
  It is a very sad commentary that this is where we have come with this 
debate. As I listened to my colleague from Connecticut, whose idea it 
was to have the Homeland Security Department, whose legislation he 
masterfully maneuvered through the Governmental Affairs Committee, 
against the opposition of the administration, list all of these 
extraneous untested provisions that have been stuck into this bill at 
the last minute is disheartening because there has been no one who has 
believed more strongly in homeland security and the need to get our 
Federal Government smarter and quicker and more flexible than Senator 
Lieberman.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Lieberman amendment to strike 
unrelated provisions. If what we are concerned about is homeland 
security, if what the administration and the President have been 
talking about during this past election season about protecting our 
homeland is absolutely what we are supposed to be doing, then let's do 
that job. Let's do the job that needs to be done on homeland security 
without undermining other important issues that should go through the 
legislative process to reach the kind of bipartisan resolution they 
deserve.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before my colleague from New York leaves the 
floor, I wish to join with her in this call for support of the striking 
amendment. I am going to try to offer a couple of amendments--I do not 
know what kind of success I am going to have--to put some provisions 
back into the homeland security legislation dealing with the 
professional firefighters, as well as some law enforcement officials.
  I have letters I will read into the Record shortly from the 
International Association of Firefighters and from Federal Law 
Enforcement Officers Associations urging in the strongest words 
possible that these amendments be included as part of the homeland 
security bill.
  The point my colleague from New York has made, the great irony she 
has pointed out is that we now have provisions in the bill that have 
nothing to do with homeland security. They are a backdoor effort to 
undermine legislation being developed in a bipartisan fashion. We had 
cooperation.
  We are now being told in this bill that we are going to undo efforts 
made dealing with children's safety and children's health and exclude 
the very provisions that are asked for by the first responders to 
homeland security threats--firefighters and law enforcement.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator from Connecticut yield for a question?
  Mr. DODD. I will be happy to yield.
  Mrs. CLINTON. I am well aware of the Senator's longtime support for 
firefighters and the work he has done throughout his career to make 
sure our firefighters have the resources they need.
  Isn't it ironic that we stand here debating a homeland security bill 
which has no money for first responders, and the only money that was in 
there they have now taken out? There is not a single penny that is 
going to the firefighters, the police officers, the emergency 
responders on the ground, and we are going to leave with a continuing 
resolution that also has no additional resources.
  Since September 11 of last year, with our firefighters and police 
officers having faced many more challenges, is it not the Senator's 
understanding they have not received additional resources?
  Mr. DODD. My colleague is absolutely correct. In fact, one of the 
things we find--I am sure the Presiding Officer has had the same 
experience--are simple things such as interconnectivity so that 
firefighters can talk to police departments. One of the problems we 
discovered in New York, the State that our distinguished colleague so 
ably represents, in the wake of 9/11 in New York City, was that the 
firefighters could not speak to each other--incompatibility of systems. 
They have been asking for some Federal help so police departments could 
talk to fire departments, could talk to emergency medical services and 
get some help in doing so. That was one of the provisions we wanted. 
That has been included in this bill.
  It is incredible that we are faced with provisions in this bill to 
protect--and I say this as someone who represents many of them--the 
pharmaceutical companies that have objected to the idea of having to 
face a potential liability as a result of efforts to protect children 
from dreadful health problems. Yet the bill excludes language that 
would do exactly what the Senator from New York has described, and that 
is to see to it we have additional new firefighters on the ground. We 
have asked for it.
  Reading from a letter from the International Association of Fire 
Fighters, they state:

       On behalf of the 250,000 professional fire fighters who are 
     members of the International Association of Fire Fighters, I 
     want to express our deep gratitude--

  And I apologize we are not going to be able to fulfill their sense of 
gratitude.

     for your leadership and effort in amending the homeland 
     security bill to provide for fire fighter staffing. Your fire 
     fighter staffing amendment expands upon the FIRE Act Grant 
     program . . .

  And then it goes on to say:

       As fire fighters in New York and Washington demonstrated on 
     September 11, fire fighters save lives and are the linchpin 
     to an effective terrorism response. Fire fighter staffing 
     must be part of the homeland security bill.

  It has been stricken. It is no longer a part of this bill at all. The 
Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association efforts are also not 
reflected in this bill now. They have been trying to get some help and 
support and that is not in here.
  I ask unanimous consent that the correspondence from the 
International Association of Fire Fighters, the International 
Association of Fire Chiefs, and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 
Association be printed in the Record so our colleagues can have the 
benefit of reading what these national and international organizations 
are calling for.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                                      International Association of


                                                Fire Fighters,

                                Washington, DC, November 14, 2002.
     Hon. Christopher Dodd,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Dodd: On behalf of the more than 250,000 
     professional fire fighters who are members of the 
     International Association of fire Fighters, I want to express 
     our deep gratitude for your leadership and effort in amending 
     the homeland security bill to provide for fire fighter 
     staffing.
       Your fire fighter staffing amendment expands upon the FIRE 
     Act Grant Program to allow for the hiring of thousands of new 
     additional career fire fighters. Currently, inadequate 
     staffing is the major crisis facing the fire service. Two-
     thirds of all fire departments currently do not have enough 
     fire fighters to meet industry standards for safe fire ground 
     operation. This exposes fire fighters to increased hazards 
     when they respond to emergencies. Your amendment addresses 
     this major firefighting hazard.
       As fire fighters in New York and Washington demonstrated on 
     September 11, fire fighters save lives and are the lynchpin 
     to an effective terrorism response. fire fighter staffing 
     must be part of the homeland security bill.
       Again, thank you for your time and leadership on this 
     important issue.
           Sincerely,
                                           Harold A. Schaitberger,
     General President.
                                  ____

                                      International Association of


                                                  Fire Chiefs,

                                   Fairfax, VA, November 14, 2002.
     Hon. Christopher J. Dodd,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Dodd: The International Association of Fire 
     Chiefs (IAFC) strongly supports your amendment to Department 
     of Homeland Security bill (HR 5005) which would create a 
     federal grant program to assist local governments in hiring 
     career fire service personnel.
       As you well know, our nation's first responders have been 
     historically short-handed on the front line in responding to 
     fire and life safety emergencies within our communities, as 
     well as to emergencies involving the nation's critical 
     infrastructure. Response to fires, medical emergencies, 
     specialized rescue, releases of hazardous materials, and now 
     threats and acts of terrorism have placed significant 
     stresses on our limited personnel. The need for additional 
     training,

[[Page S11024]]

     staffing and equipment has increased dramatically over the 
     last several years as the nation's first responders have 
     accepted these additional critical response roles.
       The federal government stepped forward in 2000, recognizing 
     that the fire service's expanded role needed support beyond 
     that which most communities were capable of providing. The 
     Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement (FIRE) Act 
     provided much needed funding to purchase basic equipment and 
     safety programs for communities unable to afford them.
       But, our most critical resource is people. National studies 
     have shown that a crew of four (4) on a responding apparatus 
     is the most efficient crew when attacking a structure fire. 
     The same studies showed that there was not only a higher 
     level of efficiency in carrying out the department's mission, 
     but a higher margin of safety for the public and emergency 
     response personnel. However, there are few communities 
     capable of providing that level of staffing. National 
     statistics show that sixty percent (60%) of fire departments 
     operate at emergency scenes with inadequate staffing. In 
     addition, many of our members also serve in our nation's 
     armed forces as reservists and national guardsmen and women. 
     When they are called to duty in defense of our country they 
     are no longer available to serve their communities in the 
     fire department. This places an additional strain on our 
     already limited human resources.
       The LAFC greatly appreciate your leadership on this issue.
           Very truly yours,
                                             Garry L. Briese, CAE,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____

                                           Federal Law Enforcement


                                         Officers Association,

                                Washington, DC, November 14, 2002.
     Hon. Christopher J. Dodd,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Dodd: On behalf of the 20,000 federal agents 
     who are members of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 
     Association (FLEOA), we respectfully request that SA 4839 be 
     attached to the pending legislation creating a Department of 
     Homeland Security. As you know, SA 4839 is an extension of S. 
     2770 introduced by you in May 2002 with bi-partisan support. 
     FLEOA believes this is an urgently needed solution to the 
     grievous problems existing in the federal agent pay 
     structure.
       FLEOA is a non-partisan professional association 
     representing federal agents from the agencies listed on the 
     left masthead. We are on the front line of fighting terrorism 
     and crime across the United States and abroad. The current 
     pay structure for federal law enforcement does not enable us 
     to recruit the best and brightest to our ranks and retain 
     senior agents in high cost of living areas. SA 4839 is the 
     first step to rectifying this tremendous problem. SA 4839 
     only amends the locality pay for federal agents that were 
     specified in Public Law 101-509. This proposal is supported 
     by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), National Association 
     of Police Organizations (NAPO), National Troopers Coalition 
     (NTC), International Brotherhood of Police Organization 
     (IBPO), and the Police Executives' Research Forum.
       Again, FLEOA respectfully requests that SA 4839 be attached 
     to the legislation creating the Department of Homeland 
     Security. We thank you for your leadership on this issue.
           Sincerely,
                                                Richard. J. Gallo.

  Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent that we temporarily lay aside the 
pending amendment so I may offer two amendments en bloc.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I would have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 4951 to Amendment No. 4902

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will send to the desk an amendment in the 
second degree. This does not strike any provisions of the underlying 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] proposes an 
     amendment No. 4951 to amendment No. 4902.

  Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

     (Purpose: To provide for workforce enhancement grants to fire 
                              departments)

       At the end insert the following:

     SEC.   . GRANTS FOR FIREFIGHTING PERSONNEL.

       Section 33 of the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act 
     of 1974 (15 U.S.C. 2229) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsections (c), (d), and (e) as 
     subsections (d), (e), and (f), respectively;
       (2) by inserting after subsection (b) the following:
       ``(c) Personnel Grants.--
       ``(1) Duration.--In awarding grants for hiring firefighting 
     personnel in accordance with subsection (b)(3)(A), the 
     Director shall award grants extending over a 3-year period.
       ``(2) Maximum amount.--The total amount of grants awarded 
     under this subsection shall not exceed $100,000 per 
     firefighter, indexed for inflation, over the 3-year grant 
     period.
       ``(3) Federal share.--
       ``(A) In general.--A grant under this subsection shall not 
     exceed 75 percent of the total salary and benefits cost for 
     additional firefighters hired.
       ``(B) Waiver.--The Director may waive the 25 percent non-
     Federal match under subparagraph (A) for a jurisdiction of 
     50,000 or fewer residents or in cases of extreme hardship.
       ``(4) Application.--An application for a grant under this 
     subsection, shall--
       ``(A) meet the requirements under subsection (b)(5);
       ``(B) include an explanation for the applicant's need for 
     Federal assistance; and
       ``(C) contain specific plans for obtaining necessary 
     support to retain the position following the conclusion of 
     Federal support.
       ``(5) Maintenance of effort.--Grants awarded under this 
     subsection shall only be used to pay the salaries and 
     benefits of additional firefighting personnel, and shall not 
     be used to supplant funding allocated for personnel from 
     State and local sources.''; and
       (3) in subsection (f) (as redesignated by paragraph (1)), 
     by adding at the end the following:
       ``(3) Supplemental appropriation.--In addition to the 
     authorization provided in paragraph (1), there are authorized 
     to be appropriated $1,000,000,000 for each of fiscal years 
     2003 and 2004 for the purpose of providing personnel grants 
     described in subsection (c). Such sums may be provided solely 
     for the purpose of hiring employees engaged in fire 
     protection (as defined in section 3 of the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act (29 U.S.C. 203)), and shall not be subject to 
     the provisions of paragraphs (10) or (11) of subsection 
     (b).''.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee.
  I wanted to offer two amendments in one slot. I thought creatively of 
having one amendment en bloc, but that was not acceptable, so I made a 
choice on the two amendments, both of which are very important. I will 
explain both of them. The one pending deals with the firefighters and 
the tremendous need that exists to expand the workforce of first 
responders. I don't care which State you go to, when you talk of 
responding to terrorism, those called upon first to respond are State 
police, local police, firefighters, emergency medical service 
providers.
  That point hardly needs to be made. Those who watched the scenes of 
9/11, know who were the first responders to the World Trade Center and 
the first responders to the Pentagon. It is ironic, as we consider this 
homeland security legislation, the provisions struck by the other body 
as they sent the bill over were the provisions for assistance to the 
local first responders in the case, God forbid, of a terrorist attack.
  I wanted to include an amendment to amend the Law Enforcement Pay 
Reform Act of 1990 to adjust the percentage differentials payable to 
Federal law enforcement officers in certain high-cost areas. The 
Presiding Officer is sensitive to this question, as we represent 
neighboring States. There, we are losing people from our Federal law 
enforcement agencies because of the pay differentials. It is impossible 
to meet the costs of living in certain areas of the country. I will 
make another effort before this bill is completed to see if we can 
consider that critically important amendment to the homeland security 
effort.
  For purposes of this debate, the only amendment that will be under 
consideration is the amendment dealing with firefighters. Both of these 
amendments fix glaring omissions in the pending substitute. The 
amendment I am offering on behalf of the firefighters provides Federal 
assistance to local fire departments to hire 75,000 new firefighters to 
address new homeland security needs.
  Senator John Warner, my friend and colleague from Virginia, and I 
recognized the problem of firefighter understaffing shortly after 
September 11 and we wrote legislation to help solve the problem. The 
amendment is based on the bill Senator Warner and I wrote. This 
amendment also builds on the

[[Page S11025]]

FIRE Act, which Senator DeWine and I authored in 2000. With the support 
of Senators Warner and Levin the FIRE Act became law, and has provided 
some $400 million to tens of thousands of firefighters around the 
country. Today's amendment is also nearly identical to an amendment 
authored by Senator Carnahan, which was accepted by the Governmental 
Affairs Committee earlier this year.
  One aspect of being prepared is to have the men and women on the 
ground who can put out the fires and respond to the injuries and the 
tragedies that may occur. Just as we call upon the National Guard to 
meet the increased needs of more manpower in the military, we must make 
a national commitment to hire additional firefighters necessary to 
protect the American people on the homefront. The legislation we 
proposed would put 75,000 new firefighters on America's streets over 7 
years.
  Since 1970, the number of firefighters as a percentage of the U.S. 
workforce has steadily declined. Today in the United States there is 
only one firefighter for every 280 citizens. We have fewer firefighters 
per capita than nurses and police officers, and we need to turn this 
around now more than ever. Understaffing is such a problem that 
according to the International Association of Fire Fighters, nearly two 
thirds of all fire departments cannot meet minimum safety standards. 
OSHA standards require that for every team of two firefighters in a 
burning structure, another team of two be stationed outside to assist 
men in the event of collapse. Sadly, too many men and women are lost 
because there is no second team outside the unstable buildings. We saw 
this in Worcester, Massachusetts a few years ago.

  I will not go down all of the provisions that emphasize the 
importance of having the additional personnel on the ground. I 
mentioned earlier we had a letter from the International Association of 
Fire Fighters, and that letter is printed in the Record, along with a 
letter from the International Association of Fire Chiefs. So this is a 
case where you have both labor and management making the same request 
as we consider this homeland security legislation.
  I do not want to belabor the point. I am struck by the fact we would 
drop provisions which have been almost universally supported in this 
Chamber even prior to 9/11, the need for additional personnel on the 
ground to provide assistance to local communities through grant 
applications. To give an idea of the pent-up need, when we originally 
authored the FIRE Act which was to provide grant moneys to local 
departments, the 33,000 around the country, paid, volunteer, or 
combination departments, there was $100 million put into the budget to 
provide grants to local communities. In excess of $3 billion in 
applications in the first year came to FEMA because of the pent-up need 
that exists across the country for additional equipment, and to provide 
additional personnel, additional training, so firefighters can respond.
  Most Americans today are aware, obviously, that the role of 
firefighters and EMS services are vastly different than even a few 
years ago. Today, firefighters are called upon to respond to situations 
where highly toxic chemical materials are involved. The degree of 
sophistication to be brought to the trade of firefighters is so much 
more complicated than before, as the demands have increased 
dramatically. When we speak of volunteer departments, for instance, we 
rely on the good will and the spirit of volunteerism. In many of our 
rural and local communities, people volunteer to serve. Yet today they 
are called upon to respond to very complicated and dangerous 
situations.
  There was an overwhelming degree of support when Senator Warner and 
Senator Levin took the bill that Senator DeWine, myself, and others 
fashioned and included as part of the Defense authorization bill. Then, 
of course, the appropriations were forthcoming and the demand was 
evident. After 9/11, the demand increased dramatically as a result of 
the new threats of terrorism.
  I am deeply troubled and saddened that we are talking about homeland 
security and yet there is nothing in this bill, nothing, that provides 
one red penny to hire first responders of terrorist attacks. How 
ludicrous is that? We are talking about a homeland security bill and we 
have nothing in here to go to local police, fire, and EMS services, and 
we will call this a homeland security bill. The great irony, as our 
colleague from New York pointed out, is there are provisions in this 
bill to protect the pharmaceutical industries from lawsuits where 
vaccines are developed for kids. How do you explain that to the 
American public? We sneak provisions in this bill to protect corporate 
America, yet we will not provide money to those who are called upon to 
respond, God forbid, if another terrorist attack occurs. How do you 
explain that to the American public?
  Under these procedures we are dealing with--and it gets confusing 
even for those who have been here a while with post cloture and other 
procedural roadblocks--I am probably not going to get a vote on this 
amendment dealing with the firefighters. I probably should not waste 
the time to bring it up, but people ought to know that while people go 
around and beat their chest about homeland security in this bill, you 
should not be deluded by the name. The name may sound pretty good, but 
underneath it are a lot of problems. There are things that are in this 
bill that have nothing to do with homeland security, and there are 
things that should be in here that are not. These firefighters need our 
help and support and backing.

  I regret I was not able to include the problem dealing with law 
enforcement, an amendment which has--I will not bother listing everyone 
here, I will include these names for the Record--a broad-based 
constituency here of some 30 Members of this Chamber who have supported 
this bill, S. 2770: Senator Baucus, Senator Biden, Senator Snowe, 
Senator DeWine, Senator Durbin, Senator Collins, Senator Corzine, 
Senator Schumer, Senator Murray, Senator Warner--the list goes on here, 
of our colleagues who have supported this law enforcement provision 
that I mentioned earlier about the great disparity in pay. We are 
losing these people.
  I am not allowed under the procedures to offer that amendment now. I 
will try to find a chance to do it in the next few days, at least to 
make an effort to have it as part of this bill. Again, I have a very 
strong letter from the law enforcement agents, asking for some 
assistance here.
  I don't know how you explain to people what we are doing in homeland 
security as law enforcement and firefighters here are basically going 
to be left out of this bill. I regret that is the case.
  I am faced now with this particular second-degree amendment, and we 
will see what happens over the next day or so and whether or not we can 
actually get a vote on it, but I wanted to take a few minutes to 
explain my concerns about it.
  Earlier this year, of course, we had adopted funding for the FIRE Act 
as a separate appropriation. It was not vetoed, but it was tantamount 
to a veto. It was what we call sequestered by the President. He took 
those moneys and basically said I am not going to sign this into law. 
So the grant money for communities in Rhode Island and New Jersey and 
Michigan--all across the country--who were looking for us to be a 
partner in getting better prepared to deal with the threats of 
terrorism, I am sorry to tell you, are not included in here. I don't 
know who you are including in homeland security, but you are not part 
of the deal. Apparently the pharmaceutical industry is, but we are not. 
We will try our best in the next few days to rectify this, but under 
the rules and procedures I don't think it is going to happen, I am sad 
to report. Maybe we can try in the next Congress.
  But I am saddened we are passing a homeland security bill and 
firefighters and law enforcement officials are not going to be a part 
of this effort, at least as far as these amendments are concerned.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from 
Connecticut for his eloquent remarks. I could not agree with him more.
  When we look at this bill, a bill that I fully want to support--I 
support setting up a Department of Homeland Security and the goals 
involved, and have

[[Page S11026]]

supported moving this forward. But as we look at the details of what 
has been given to us from the House, it is unbelievable. When we look 
at first responders, people in Michigan on the front lines on the 
ground--not only police and firefighters and EMS but our Border Patrol 
who are working double time and triple time, and those from local law 
enforcement who have been assigned--we have been trying to provide some 
reimbursement for their overtime and the costs to local units of 
government. It is amazing to me that in the name of homeland security 
we have a bill in front of us that does not include many things that 
are critical to our security in this country but that includes items, 
frankly, that are outrageous special interest items that are being 
stuck in the bill, hoping we will not notice.
  We all are concerned about homeland security and want to move forward 
together to put together the strongest safety and security for our 
citizens. I want to speak to one of those today that colleagues have 
already spoken to that is a provision, unfortunately, in this bill, 
that protects the financial security of the pharmaceutical industry, 
not the homeland security of the people of America. This provision I 
find absolutely outrageous and I intend to support the Lieberman 
amendment to withdraw this from the bill.
  The homeland security bill contains a provision that will expand the 
liability protections that currently exist for vaccines to include 
other components such as vaccine preservatives like thimerosal. This 
was included in the bill with no debate, no committees.
  How many times have we heard on this floor as we were debating so 
many bills--I remember on prescription drugs--we heard over and over 
again that we should not be adding important provisions that would 
lower the prices of prescription drugs because, colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle were saying, we had not gone through the regular 
legislative process. We had not had hearings. There had not been votes 
in committees.
  Yet now, in the 11th hour of the session of this Congress, we see a 
provision added that nobody has looked at other than a few people, I 
would argue, operating on behalf of one of literally the strongest 
special interests in this country today.
  There are six drug company lobbyists for every one Member of the 
Senate. They certainly have earned their pay on this bill.
  When we look at this particular provision and we look at the fact 
that we have an industry that has stopped a bill that we sent to the 
House, S. 812, that was a bipartisan bill to create more competition 
for the industry through generics, opening the border to Canada, giving 
States the ability to negotiate on behalf of the uninsured, a bill that 
would lower prescription prices today, immediately when passed--they 
are successful in killing that bill that passed last July in the 
Senate. Yet they are able to place a provision in the homeland security 
bill that will virtually exempt from liability a company that is making 
a product over which there is great concern as it relates to the safety 
of children.
  Thimerosal, which is manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company, is the 
subject of several class action lawsuits based on increasing research 
connecting this preservative, which contains mercury, to the rising 
incidence of autism in children. Just this weekend the New York Times 
ran a very comprehensive six-page story about the growing body of 
evidence connecting thimerosal with autism and other developmental 
disorders in children. While the research is far from conclusive, is 
this narrowly written special interest provision, unrelated to homeland 
security, the way to respond to concerns that relate to this issue and 
concerns about mercury as it relates to vaccines and additives and the 
whole question of autism in children and what contributes to it? Is 
this the way to do that?
  Don't children and their families merit the full protection under the 
law and due process to be able to sort through some very serious issues 
and to allow the courts to work their will, looking at the evidence? 
The provision in this homeland security bill, brought to us from the 
House of Representatives, would severely limit parents' ability to get 
justice for their children. How is that homeland security?
  The provisions include vaccine components in the National Vaccine 
Injury Compensation Program. It is a program in which awards are given 
and they are limited to funds available through a special trust fund so 
liability is limited. Instead, it is a no-fault system. That would now 
include vaccine components, which is a far broader definition than 
vaccines.
  In 1988, Congress enacted the National Vaccine Injury Compensation 
Program as a no-fault alternative to the tort system for resolving 
claims resulting from adverse reactions to mandated childhood vaccines. 
This Federal no-fault system is designed to compensate individuals or 
families of individuals who have been injured by childhood 
vaccinations, whether administered in the public or private sector. 
Damages are awarded out of a trust fund that is financed by excise 
taxes of 75 cents per dose imposed on each vaccine covered under the 
program.
  This bill seems to be protecting the financial interests of a 
company, Eli Lilly, rather than the taxpayers who will now see, through 
this fund, a greater subsidy, and families and children across this 
country.
  What I find particularly disturbing is we are looking at a company 
whose CEO is in the top five for compensation with $4.3 million in 
compensation last year and unexercised stock options valued at $46 
million in the year 2001. A 2001 study of the top 50 drugs marketed to 
seniors shows that Eli Lilly and Company posted $115 billion in 
revenue. I do not in any way object to successful business, although I 
guess in this case I would say given the inability of people to receive 
medicines, I find that kind of salary and others across the industry 
disturbing.
  But what I am particularly concerned about is that a company which is 
so successful, an industry that is the most successful in the country, 
and highly subsidized by taxpayers, would now be in a situation to 
protect themselves from liability, and to jeopardize families and 
children who are asking that their case be heard about potential 
threats of mercury placed into vaccines and the possible connections to 
autism.
  The protection in this bill is included for an industry that gets a 
higher return on its revenue than any other industry in this country, 
or in the world. If we are looking at protection, certainly we ought 
not to be adding another subsidy to an industry that is so heavily 
subsidized by all of us now--highly subsidized. And, yet, most people, 
many people in this country cannot afford the product they make.
  I support the Lieberman amendment to strike this provision. This 
provision does not belong in the homeland security bill. This provision 
should go through the process of hearings so both sides can be heard. 
We also have a court process going on that we need to respect and allow 
to continue.
  I am hopeful my colleagues will join with us to exempt this provision 
from the bill so we can in fact focus on homeland security, and not a 
very clear special interest provision put in by an industry that 
already receives many special provisions.
  An issue as serious as potential mercury poisoning of children 
certainly deserves serious deliberation and deserves the full 
legislative process.
  Let me say again that colleagues earlier this year on the Medicare 
prescription drug bill--on our generic bill as well as on many other 
bills--have come to the floor from the other side of the aisle 
expressing concern about issues that had not gone through committee. If 
this is a serious issue--and I believe it is a very serious issue--
doesn't it merit that same high standard? Subsidizing Eli Lilly and 
taking away the ability of families to recover from liability because 
of potential mercury poisoning of their children does not belong in 
this homeland security bill. I find it shameful that it was put in.
  I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join with us to 
remove this provision.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may I say to the distinguished Senator from 
Michigan, Senator Stabenow, that I have listened to what she has said. 
I am not surprised by what she has indicated that she has found in this 
reservation. I think it supports my viewpoint; namely, that we ought 
not vote

[[Page S11027]]

on cloture tomorrow on this bill--cloture at some point, undoubtedly. 
But I hope we don't vote for it tomorrow. This bill needs further 
scrutiny. It needs a microscope upon it. We need to study it. We need 
to know what is in this bill which has suddenly been foisted upon us 
within the last 48 hours--a new bill.
  There are those who maintain we have been on this subject matter for 
5, 6, or 8 weeks, or more. That is one thing. But we haven't been on 
this bill. This is a new bill. Senator Stabenow is talking about 
provisions that are in this bill that haven't seen the light of day 
before. These are new and disturbing. And yet we are being asked on 
tomorrow to apply cloture to shut off debate so there can only be 30 
hours remaining for debate on this bill.
  I hope Senators will listen to Senator Stabenow. I hope they will not 
vote for cloture tomorrow. We ought to do our duty. Our duty is to stay 
on this bill until the American people know what is in it, and so we 
Senators know what is in it. There are 484 pages in this bill which 
just came to light on yesterday. It is a new bill. There are some 
provisions in it that have been in other bills that have been discussed 
in the Senate earlier in the fall and in the summer. But there are many 
provisions in this bill that are absolutely new. We really do not know 
what else is in the bill. Things are being discovered as we go along. 
But who knows what else is in the bill?

  I compliment the distinguished Senator from Michigan, a Senator who 
is absolutely able and always dedicated, always serving her 
constituents and the people of this country, who has a fine mind, and 
who is a tremendous legislator. I have so much admiration for her. I 
sit with her on the Budget Committee. And what she has said with 
respect to this particular bill I think we should hear. We should 
listen to her. I hope Senators will not vote for cloture on tomorrow.
  Is there anything the distinguished Senator wishes to add?
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield to the Senator 
without losing my right to the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator for 
his kind words. Second, I simply say, as Senator Byrd has said so many 
times on the floor, we need to look at details. We need to know what is 
in this bill. It is a different bill that came back. I was deeply 
disturbed as I looked through it. I want to support homeland security. 
I support developing a department. We all share that. This is not a 
partisan issue. We want to have maximum safety, security and ability, 
communicate it effectively and efficiently, and create the kind of 
confidence people expect us to create in terms of the ability to 
respond and ideally prevent attacks. But my fear is that under the name 
of homeland security we are saying special interest provisions are put 
in this bill which are outrageous and should not have the light of day. 
I think it is our responsibility to shine the light of day on those 
provisions.
  I thank the Senator from West Virginia. I appreciate his good work.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator. She has 
performed a tremendous service. I congratulate her, and I again thank 
her.
  Mr. President, we hear this is a compromise bill. It is a compromise, 
all right. It is a compromise in many ways. It is a compromise of our 
civil liberties. It is a compromise of our separation of powers. It is 
a compromise of our checks and balances. It is a compromise of workers' 
rights. There are many compromises in this bill.
  To express it as a compromise is a term that is often used around 
here in the legislative halls. Legislation is the art of compromise. We 
often compromise on legislation. Compromise on legislation is a series 
of compromises among Republicans and Democrats, and among committees. 
But, in this sense, this is a far different animal we have here. By 
passing this legislation, we are all complicit in a giant hoax. This is 
the worst kind of game playing possible in trying to foist this 
Department onto the American people as a substitute for real action on 
homeland security.

  This Congress and this administration are both being irresponsible. 
Instead of providing the American people with real security, we are 
offering them a placebo, a sugar pill that will not protect them and 
will not make them safer, not by even the slightest measurement.
  There will be an uncertain sound of the trumpet. And when I refer to 
the ``uncertain sound of the trumpet,'' let me refer more specifically 
to the Book of 1st Corinthians, the 14th chapter. And I read from the 
8th verse:

       For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall 
     prepare himself to the battle?

  Mr. President, Congress is about to give an uncertain sound to the 
American people. Based on what we shall all too soon, I am afraid, pass 
as a homeland security bill, they are going to feel more secure. They 
will not be. They are going to feel that Congress has enacted 
legislation that will make their homes safer, make their schools safer, 
make their communities safer, make them safer on the jobs. This 
legislation will not make jobs or schools or homes or communities one 
whit safer, not one whit safer.
  The same people who will be employed in implementing the homeland 
security legislation to make the people safe are out there now, right 
this minute. They are on the northern border. They are on the southern 
border. They are in the ports of this country. They are in the 
hospitals. They are in the fire departments. They are in the law 
enforcement agencies. They are in the FBI. They are in Customs. They 
are already out there now. And tonight, at midnight, when you and I are 
in our beds and on our pillows, they will be out there.
  We are not waiting until this bill passes for them to be out there. 
They have been out there for weeks and months. They have been doing a 
good job with what they have had placed in their hands by way of 
resources that they could use.
  We saw the FBI arrest the persons in the cell in New York. The FBI 
was on the job. The FBI did not wait for this legislation to pass this 
Senate or the House and be sent down to the President and signed. The 
FBI was on the job.
  People are not going to be one whit safer with the passage of this 
bill. They are going to feel a lot safer because we are trying to make 
them believe they are going to be safer. We are trying to make the 
American people believe that with the passage of this bill--and the 
administration is complicit, absolutely complicit in this.
  The President himself has been out there all throughout the land, 
especially during the campaign, raising money for campaign purposes for 
electing their candidates, and all the while they have been with a nice 
backdrop of American Marines or soldiers or airmen, or whatever, but a 
patriotic backdrop, trying to make the American people believe that 
with the passage of this--if the Congress would only pass this homeland 
security bill, they, the people out there in the plains, in the 
mountains, in the valleys, on the prairies, will all be safer. They 
will not be 10 cents safer, Mr. President. They might be even less safe 
because in the next year, during which time these various and sundry 
agencies are going to be phased into this new Department of Homeland 
Security, during that time there is going to be chaos in a lot of these 
agencies. They will be moving phones, moving desks, moving chairs, 
trying to get accustomed to the new visions, the new objectives, and 
the people themselves are going to be less secure.

  So we are offering the American people a placebo, a sugar pill. It is 
a political pill. It will not make the people safer.
  We ought to be taking real action to protect lives now. Sadly, we are 
walking away from that responsibility. I only pray our irresponsibility 
does not result in lost lives.
  Now, this is not how the American people expect this Congress to 
operate. When we were Members of the House of Representatives, or 
earlier than that, perhaps, or at some point, we have sent out letters, 
we have sent out booklets, telling the young people in this country--we 
tell these young pages up here--how your laws are made.
  I remember years ago, when I was in the House of Representatives, 
sending out a little booklet to the people in my then-congressional 
district of how our laws are made. It is a joke.

[[Page S11028]]

  We tell our young people that, first of all, a bill is offered by a 
Member of the Senate or the House. That bill is referred to a 
committee. And at a certain date, at a certain time, the chairman of 
that committee will have his committee called together, and he will 
place the bill before the committee for its consideration. And the 
members on both sides of the tables in that particular committee which 
has jurisdiction over that particular legislation will debate it back 
and forth, and they will offer amendments in the committee. They will 
talk about the bill. They will have their staffs seated around them. 
They will have good discussions of this bill that has been introduced 
by the legislature. Then the bill will be amended, perhaps, or, 
perhaps, in any event, it will finally be reported by the committee to 
the Senate or to the House for action. There it will be placed on the 
calendar.
  Sometimes these beautifully written pieces on how our laws are made 
are illustrated by cartoons. We have all seen those cartoons. We then 
see that the bill is off to the Senate, and it is placed upon the 
calendar. And at some point in time, the majority leader or a Member, 
according to those cartoons, will call up the bill, and then will ensue 
a debate, a heated debate, Republicans on one side, Democrats on the 
other. And they will all work together. They will offer amendments 
again, and they will have a heated debate. They will answer questions. 
The witnesses, which first appeared in committees and testified on the 
bills, may then be seated in the galleries listening to the debate as 
it goes forward in the Senate and in the House.
  After a while, then, after they amend, after that bill is 
appropriately amended, it finally reaches a vote, and it is passed by 
that body.
  Then, according to the booklet on how our laws are made, that bill 
then goes to the other body. If it originated in the Senate, it goes to 
the House. If it originated in the House, after going through the 
workings of the committees, and so forth, and the debate on the floor, 
after its passage, it is sent over to the Senate. It goes through the 
same procedure then in the other body, where it is amended. And if 
there are differences in the House bill and the Senate bill, the bill 
is sent to a conference made up of Members of the two bodies, and the 
areas that are not in agreement will be worked on in the conference 
between the representatives of the two legislative bodies. Agreement 
will finally be reached as to every difference that was to be found 
between the two bodies. So all those differences will be resolved.
  Then the conference report will be brought back to the House and 
brought back to the Senate and brought up at the appropriate time by 
the managers of the legislation on whatever committee had jurisdiction 
over the legislation, and then conference reports are brought up. 
Conference reports are debated, and they are agreed upon in both 
Houses.
  Off goes the bill which is now an act. It goes by special messenger 
down to the President of the United States. It appears on his desk 
where he may sign it or he may veto it.
  So we all remember how those laws are made according to the script as 
prepared there in those handsome little booklets that we send out.
  That is how the American people expect this Congress to operate. That 
is the way we are supposed to operate. But the way this bill was 
brought in here, less than 48 hours ago, a brandnew bill. It had not 
been before any committee. It had undergone no hearings, not this bill. 
It is a bill on our desks that has 484 pages. There are 484 pages in 
this bill. It has not been before any committee. There have been no 
hearings on this bill. There have been no witnesses who were asked to 
appear to testify on behalf of the bill or in opposition to it. It did 
not undergo any such scrutiny. It was just placed on the Senate 
Calendar. It was offered as an amendment here. And so here it is before 
the Senate now. There it is.
  That is not the way in which our children are taught how we make our 
laws--not at all. The American people expect us to provide our best 
judgment and our best insight into such monumental decisions. This is a 
far, far cry from being our best. This is not our best. As a matter of 
fact, it is a mere shadow of our best. Yet we are being asked, as the 
elected representatives of the American people, those of us who are 
sent here by our respective States are being asked on tomorrow to 
invoke cloture on these 484 pages.
  If I had to go before the bar of judgment tomorrow and were asked by 
the eternal God what is in this bill, I could not answer God. If I were 
asked by the people of West Virginia, Senator Byrd, what is in that 
bill, I could not answer. I could not tell the people of West Virginia 
what is in this bill. There are a few things that I know are in it by 
virtue of the fact that I have had 48 hours, sleeping time included, in 
which to study this monstrosity, 484 pages.
  If there ever were a monstrosity, this is it. I hold it in my hand, a 
monstrosity. I don't know what is in it. I know a few things that are 
in it, and a few things that I know are in it that I don't think the 
American people would approve of if they knew what was in there. Even 
Senator Lieberman, who is chairman of the committee which has 
jurisdiction over this subject matter, even he saw new provisions in 
this legislation as he looked through it yesterday and today. As his 
staff looked through it, they saw provisions they had not seen before, 
that they had not discussed before, that had not been before their 
committee before.

  Yet we are being asked on tomorrow to invoke cloture on that which 
means we are not going to debate in the normal course of things. We are 
going to have 30 hours of debate. That is it, 30 hours. That is all, 30 
hours; 100 Senators, 30 hours of debate. And this is one of the most 
far-reaching pieces of legislation I have seen in my 50 years.
  I will have been in Congress 50 years come January 3. God help me to 
reach that date of January 3, 2003, the year of our Lord. In my 50 
years here, that is the most far-reaching, certainly one of the most 
far-reaching pieces of legislation that I have seen in my 50 years. I 
have been on this Hill longer than anybody else in this Capitol on 
either side of the aisle in either body. In both bodies, I am the only 
person, 50 years. I have been here longer than all of you, staff 
people, Members, Members' wives. Take it or leave it, Robert Byrd has 
been here longer than anybody else--the security personnel, any 
policemen, whatever you call it, pull them out here, nobody, nobody in 
the House. John Dingell, he is the dean of the House; I served with his 
father in the House.
  Never have I seen such a monstrous piece of legislation sent to this 
body. And we are being asked to vote on that 484 pages tomorrow. Our 
poor staffs were up most of the night studying it. They know some of 
the things that are in there, but they don't know all of them. It is a 
sham and it is a shame. We are all complicit in going along with it.
  I read in the paper that nobody will have the courage to vote against 
it. Well, Robert Byrd is going to vote against it because I don't know 
what I am voting for. That is one thing. And No. 2, it has not had the 
scrutiny that we tell our young people, that we tell these sweet pages 
here, boys and girls who come up here, we tell them our laws should 
have.
  Listen, my friends: I am an old meatcutter. I used to make sausage. 
Let me tell you, I never made sausage like this thing was made. You 
don't know what is in it. At least I knew what was in the sausage. I 
don't know what is in this bill. I am not going to vote for it when I 
don't know what is in it.
  I trust that people tomorrow will turn thumbs down on that motion to 
invoke cloture. It is our duty. We ought to demand that this piece of 
legislation stay around here a while so we can study it, so our staffs 
can study it, so we know what is in it, so we can have an opportunity 
to amend it where it needs amending.
  Several Senators have indicated, Senator Lieberman among them, that 
there are areas in here that ought to be amended.
  What the people of the United States really care about is their 
security. That is what we are talking about.
  We don't know when another tragic event is going to be visited upon 
this country. It can be this evening, it can be tomorrow, or whatever. 
But this legislation is not going to be worth a continental dime if it 
happens tonight, tomorrow, a month from tomorrow; it is not going to be 
worth a dime. There are people out there working now to secure this 
country and the people. They

[[Page S11029]]

are the same people who are already on the payroll. They are doing 
their duty right now to secure this country.
  This is a hoax. This is a hoax. To tell the American people they are 
going to be safer when we pass this is to hoax. We ought to tell the 
people the truth. They are not going to be any safer with that. That is 
not the truth. I was one of the first in the Senate to say we need a 
new Department of Homeland Security. I meant that. But I didn't mean 
this particular hoax that this administration is trying to pander off 
to the American people, telling them this is homeland security. That is 
not homeland security.
  Mr. President, the Attorney General and Director of Homeland Security 
have told Americans repeatedly there is an imminent risk of another 
terrorist attack. Just within the past day, or few hours, the FBI has 
put hospitals in the Washington area, Houston, San Francisco, and 
Chicago on notice of a possible terrorist threat. This bill does 
nothing--not a thing--to make our citizens more secure today or 
tomorrow. This bill does not even go into effect for up to 12 months. 
It will be 12 months before this goes into effect. The bill just moves 
around on an organizational chart. That is what it does--moves around 
on an organizational chart.
  Mr. President, do you really believe Osama bin Laden cares whether 
the associate commissioner for border enforcement will have his title 
changed to the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Border Security? 
Will that make any difference to Osama bin Laden? Do you think the al-
Qaida organization cares one whit whether that Assistant Secretary 
works for the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service or for the new Under Secretary for Border and Transportation 
Security? No. Osama bin Laden doesn't give a whit what his title is 
going to be. The al-Qaida doesn't care about that. They are tickled to 
sit back and watch us be fooled into complacency by virtue of our 
passing this piece of trash.
  That is not to say there are not some parts of the bill that are 
good. This whole thing is being rushed through, and we are all being 
pressured to pass it, vote for cloture. Let's get out of here. We have 
to go home, let's go. Let's get this thing out of the way. What Osama 
bin Laden would care about is whether there are more security guards, 
better detection equipment at our ports and airports. What Osama bin 
Laden would care about is whether we have enough border patrol agents 
to capture his terrorists as they try to enter this country. What Osama 
bin Laden would care about is whether we have sufficient security at 
our nuclear powerplants to deter his efforts to steal nuclear material 
or blow up a nuclear facility.
  The Senate Appropriations Committee, on which Senator Stevens and I 
sit, along with 27 other Senators, including the distinguished Senator 
who presides over the Chamber at this moment, the Senator from Rhode 
Island, Mr. Reed, tried to provide funds to programs to hire more FBI 
agents, to hire more border patrol agents, to equip and train our first 
responders, to improve security at our nuclear powerplants, to improve 
bomb detection at our airports. That committee of 29 Senators--
15 Democrats and 14 Republicans--voted to provide the funds for these 
homeland security needs. Those funds have been in bills that have been 
out there for 4 months. This administration, right down here at the 
other end of the avenue, has had its leaders over in the Republican-
controlled House sitting on those bills. The chairman in the 
Appropriations Committee in the House saw the need for these bills. He 
tried to get the leadership in the House to take the cuffs off his 
hands and wrists and let him go forward with these appropriations 
bills. The answer was no. So the money has been there. All that needed 
to be done, all we needed in order to release those funds--I can 
remember in one bill we had $2.5 billion in homeland security funds. 
All the President had to do was sign his name to the effect that this 
was an emergency. That money would have flowed; it would have been out 
there now--not next week, not next year, but now it would have been out 
there.

  Various people at the local level--the firemen, the policemen, people 
on the borders, border patrol, people in the ports, securing the ports, 
people at the airports that help the emergency personnel--all of these 
people would have had the advantage of that money flowing immediately 
for homeland security.
  But the President said no--no, he would not sign it. President Bush 
is the man I am talking about. He would not sign that as an emergency. 
These moneys have been reported by a unanimous Appropriations 
Committee. But this administration said no. So that is what happened. 
These are actions that would make America more secure today. Did the 
President help us to approve these funds? No. Instead, the President 
forced us--forced us--to reduce homeland security funding by $8.9 
billion, and he delayed another $5 billion.
  This is shameful; this is cynical; this is being irresponsible. It is 
unfair to the American people. And then to tell them Congress ought to 
pass that homeland security bill--that is passing the buck.
  Mr. President, I call attention to a column in the New York Times. 
This is entitled ``You Are A Suspect.'' It is by William Safire. I will 
read it:

       If the homeland security act is not amended before passage, 
     here is what will happen to you:

  Listen, Senators. This is what William Safire is saying in the New 
York Times of November 14, 2002. That is today. This is what the New 
York Times is saying to you, to me, to us:

       If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, 
     here is what will happen to you:
       Every purchase you make--

  Hear me now--

       Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine 
     subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every 
     Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every 
     academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, 
     every trip you book and every event you attend--all these 
     transactions and communications will go into what the Defense 
     Department describes as ``a virtual, centralized grand 
     database.''
       To this computerized dossier on your private life from 
     commercial sources, add every piece of information that 
     government has about you--passport application, driver's 
     license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce 
     records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your 
     lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera 
     surveillance--and you have the supersnoop's dream: a ``Total 
     Information Awareness' about every U.S. citizen.

  Every U.S. citizen, and that is you, that is you, that is you, that 
is you, that is you.

       This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what 
     will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if 
     John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks.
       Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at 
     the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose 
     to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. 
     He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to 
     Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit 
     proceeds to illegally support Contras in Nicaragua.
       A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts 
     of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an 
     appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had 
     given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, 
     ``The buck stops here,'' arguing that the White House staff, 
     and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions 
     that might prove embarrassing.
       This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a 
     plan even more scandalous than Iran-Contra. He heads the 
     ``Information Awareness Office'' in the otherwise excellent 
     Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the 
     Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now 
     realizing his 20-year dream: getting the ``data-mining'' 
     power to snoop on every public and private act of every 
     American.
       Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened 
     the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and 
     weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the 
     government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the 
     courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides 
     roughshod over such oversight.
       He is determined to break down the wall between commercial 
     snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced 
     admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as 
     bureaucratic ``stovepiping.'' And he has been given a $200 
     million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million 
     Americans.
       When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood 
     foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and 
     communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for 
     the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration 
     into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the 
     presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, 
     the buck ends with him and not with the president.

[[Page S11030]]

       This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. 
     In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by 
     Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the 
     extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not 
     grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act.
       Political awareness can overcome ``Total Information 
     Awareness,'' the combined force of commercial and government 
     snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft 
     tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), 
     but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers 
     as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate 
     should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear.
       The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads 
     ``Scientia Est Potentia''--``knowledge is power.'' Exactly: 
     the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power 
     over you. ``We're just as concerned as the next person with 
     protecting privacy,'' this brilliant mind blandly assured The 
     Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.

  If the American people, if the American public is to believe what 
they read in this week's newspapers, the Congress stands ready to pass 
legislation to create a new Department of Homeland Security. Not with 
my vote. Passage of such legislation would be the answer to the 
universal battle cry that this administration adopted shortly after the 
September 11 attacks: Reorganize the Federal Government.
  How is it that the Bush administration's No. 1 priority has evolved 
into a plan to create a giant, huge bureaucracy? How is it that the 
Congress bought into the belief that to take a plethora of Federal 
agencies and departments and shuffle them around would make us safer 
from future terrorist attacks?
  Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we 
play bureaucratic shuffle board after we have already spent about $20 
billion in Afghanistan to capture or to obliterate Osama bin Laden. He 
has surfaced on audio tapes boasting about how he is plotting 
additional terrorist attacks against the United States. Yet our only 
response is to reorganize the Federal Government. That is our only 
response, reorganize the Federal Government.
  Right here it is, 484 pages of it, reorganizing the Federal 
Government. Am I missing something here?
  Eleven of the thirteen appropriations bills have not yet been passed. 
Together they contain over $25.6 billion in funds to improve our 
homeland defense. That is money to hire additional border security 
personnel. That is money to purchase equipment at our seaports and 
airports to inspect packages for weapons of mass destruction. That is 
money for protection against cyber-attacks. That is money to protect 
our nuclear facilities, not a year from now but now. That is money to 
assist local police, local firefighters, local health care workers in 
case of additional terrorist attacks.
  Yet the administration is refusing to allocate this money, refusing 
to turn on the spigot and let it flow, let it roll.
  This is real money to improve America's safety, but instead of 
pushing for these resources, the administration's top and seemingly 
only priority is a bureaucratic reshuffling of agencies. So this 
administration will continue holding up the money needed to protect 
Americans--your children, your grandchildren, your wife, your in-laws, 
your friends--at home and it will be allowed to do so because it will 
have this flimsy 484 pages of legislation to cover its political 
backside.
  The design of this hulking bureaucracy has been the administration's 
focus for the past several months. That is where it wanted Congress to 
focus its attention. That is where the administration wanted the 
American people to focus, not on providing real homeland security but, 
rather, on playing bureaucratic shuffle board.
  We have witnessed a great show. We have been told that if only we 
pass this 484 pages of legislation--this political hoax that I hold in 
my hand, that many of us have not seen before yesterday--the American 
people have been told that if only we pass this legislation, all would 
be well.
  But like the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, with his terrifying 
smoke, flames and roar, the reality of this too-good-to-be-true 
proposal will eventually be unveiled.
  Mr. President, my concerns about this legislation and its several 
iterations are many. It gives the President too much unchecked 
authority. It gives the Secretary of the new Department too much 
unchecked authority. It makes massive changes in Government structure 
with little scrutiny, and it allows those changes to be made without 
the approval of the Congress.
  It threatens changes to worker protections that could have enormous 
and detrimental effects. It extends the cloak of secrecy that has been 
a hallmark of this White House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dayton). The Senator will suspend. 
Senators will kindly take their conversations off the floor.
  The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this legislation not only cuts the Congress 
out of the loop, it also includes provisions to keep the people and the 
press--and the press had better take notice--it includes provisions to 
keep the people and the press, the members of the fourth estate, in the 
dark.
  I don't think the media realize this about this bill. And the media 
has apparently swallowed the line that this is a compromise. It is more 
than that. It is a compromise of our personal liberties. It is a 
compromise of the privacy rights of our people. It is a compromise of 
the checks and balances. It is a compromise of the separation of 
powers. It is a compromise of the American people's right to know--the 
American people's right to know. It is a compromise of that.
  For those who do not understand what I am saying, they should get 
this bill, 484 pages of it. It is a new bill. It did not exist anywhere 
until yesterday.
  We have talked about how this whole idea of a Homeland Security 
Department, presented to us by this administration, we have talked 
about how it was hatched in secrecy in the bowels of the White House, 
how it was hatched in secrecy, cooked up by four different persons in 
the White House. I have named them earlier today: Mr. Card, Mr. 
Gonzales, Mr. Mitch Daniels, and Mr. Ridge. No disrespect to any of 
them--they are all fine people; they are all fine public servants--but 
they are not anything extraordinary, I would say that, insofar as 
people go. They hatched this thing. They hatched it in secrecy.
  We understand from the newspapers this was talked about among the 
people in the administration, down in the secrecy of the White House. 
It had been talked about. It had been developed. And then it sprang 
forth like Minerva from the forehead of Jove, fully clothed, fully 
armed. There it was.
  We could say the same thing about this bill that we are passing here. 
We have little right to complain about the White House and about the 
way in which it developed in secrecy this whole egg that was hatched 
and sprung upon us as the homeland security bill.



                          ____________________

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