[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 119 (Thursday, September 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9354-S9359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED 
                   AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002

  Ms. STABENOW. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume 
consideration of H.R. 2500, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2500) making appropriations for the 
     Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, 
     and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
     2002, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Dorgan amendment No. 1542, to increase funds for the trade 
     enforcement and trade compliance activities of the 
     International Trade Administration and to reduce funds for TV 
     Marti.
       Dorgan amendment No. 1543, to prohibit the sale of disaster 
     loans authorized under section 7(b) of the Small Business 
     Act.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I am awaiting the attendance of the Senator from New 
Hampshire who is in an important conference at the moment. Let me bring 
my colleagues up to speed. We have tried our best, working out certain 
amendments all yesterday and earlier this morning--those that would be 
accepted, those that would be included in the managers' amendment, and 
those that would still be pending. On both sides we are trying to 
assemble the determinant list of pending amendments. When we do, we 
will ask unanimous consent and see if we can facilitate the disposition 
of this bill today, and no later than tomorrow. We will see what best 
can be done.
  Pending that, let me say a word about the efforts of your 
subcommittee of Commerce, Justice, State in the field of 
counterterrorism. For example, in early May, your subcommittee, under 
the leadership of Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, chairman at that 
time, held 3 days of comprehensive hearings of which I now hold a 
transcript.
  On May 8, we had a hearing with Department of the Treasury Secretary 
Paul O'Neill; Department of Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; 
Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Secretary of Transportation Norman 
Mineta.
  That afternoon, we had a hearing with FEMA Director Joseph Allbaugh; 
National Security Administrator John A. Gordon; and Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission Chairman Richard A. Meserve.
  On May 9, at that hearing, we had Attorney General John Ashcroft; 
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson; Commerce 
Secretary, Don Evans; and in the afternoon, Secretary of Veterans 
Affairs, Anthony Principi; Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman; and 
Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton.
  On May 10, we had the joint task force civil support commander, Gen. 
Bruce Lawlor; the American Red Cross president and chief executive 
officer, Dr. Bernadine Healy; a panel of State and local 
representatives from fire, police, public health, and emergency 
management. And then in the afternoon, we closed the session with the 
Director of the CIA, George Tenet; the FBI Director, Judge Louis Freeh, 
and VADM Thomas Wilson.
  We were trying our best to lay the groundwork for better coordination 
of our effort on counterterrorism. I ask unanimous consent to have the 
statement by President Bush, dated May 8, printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                         President George W. Bush,
                                         White House, May 8, 2001.

                       Statement by the President


       domestic preparedness against weapons of mass destruction

       Protecting America's homeland and citizens from the threat 
     of weapons of mass destruction is one of our Nation's 
     important national security challenges. Today, more nations 
     possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons than ever 
     before. Still others seek to join them. Most troubling of 
     all, the list of these countries includes some of the world's 
     least-responsible states--states for whom terror and 
     blackmail are a way of life. Some non-state terrorist groups 
     have also demonstrated an interest in acquiring weapons of 
     mass destruction.
       Against this backdrop, it is clear that the threat of 
     chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons being used against 
     the United States--while not immediate--is very real. That is 
     why our Nation actively seeks to deny chemical, biological, 
     and nuclear weapons to those seeking to acquire them. That is 
     why, together with our allies, we seek to deter anyone who 
     would contemplate their use. And that is also why we must 
     ensure that our Nation is prepared to defend against the harm 
     they can inflict.
       Should our efforts to reduce the threat to our country from 
     weapons of mass destruction be less than fully successful, 
     prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to 
     deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being 
     used here on our soil.
       Today, numerous Federal departments and agencies have 
     programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of 
     a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon in 
     the United States. Many of these Federal programs offer 
     training, planning, and assistance to state and local 
     governments. But

[[Page S9355]]

     to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be 
     seamlessly integrated, harmonious, and comprehensive.
       Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee 
     the development of a coordinated national effort so that we 
     may do the very best possible job of protecting our people 
     from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the 
     Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to 
     create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will 
     be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of 
     the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that 
     deal with consequence management. Specifically it will 
     coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass 
     destruction consequence management within the Departments of 
     Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the 
     Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. 
     The Office of National Preparedness will work closely with 
     state and local governments to ensure their planning, 
     training, and equipment needs are addressed. FEMA will also 
     work closely with the Department of Justice, in its lead role 
     for crisis management, to ensure that all facets of our 
     response to the threat from weapons of mass destruction are 
     coordinated and cohesive. I will periodically chair a meeting 
     of the National Security Council to review these efforts.
       No governmental responsibility is more fundamental than 
     protecting the physical safety of our Nation and its 
     citizens. In today's world, this obligation includes 
     protection against the use of weapons of mass destruction. I 
     look forward to working closely with Congress so that 
     together we can meet this challenge.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. We noted in this statement that the President appointed 
Vice President Cheney to conduct hearings, devise a comprehensive 
study, and develop a position with respect to coordination, and he 
designated in the same instrument Joseph Allbaugh, the Director of 
FEMA, to create an Office of National Preparedness responsible for the 
implementation of the results.
  He asked that FEMA's Director coordinate all Federal programs dealing 
with weapons of mass destruction and consequence management within the 
Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, the EPA, 
and the other Federal agencies.
  It was our considered judgment that FEMA was not going to be the 
appropriate office to handle, certainly, the prevention of any kind of 
terrorism. Since terrorism is now not only admitted to be a crime, but 
more than that, an act of war--which this particular Senator believes 
it to be--you have to go with the Department of Justice.

  The President, of course, at a time of war, is really the director. 
But for the peacetime coordination--let's call it that--the 
subcommittee thought it best not to be implemented by a 
counterterrorism, or terrorism, czar--we know what drug czars have 
done; very little, in all candor.
  On the contrary, the subcommittee unanimously passed out within the 
Committee of Appropriations itself--and I read on page 10:

       The United States is in the beginning stages of developing 
     an organizational structure for leadership in the area of 
     terrorism preparedness. A National Coordinator for Security, 
     Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism was 
     established 4 years ago within the National Security Council. 
     Under Presidential Decision Directive 62, the National 
     Coordinator was tasked with coordinating interagency 
     terrorism policy issues and reviewing ongoing terrorism-
     related activities. While the designation of a National 
     Coordinator signaled the previous Administration's 
     recognition of the weight of the problem, it was not a 
     permanent solution. Responsibility for developing national 
     security policy belongs to the President. However, it is the 
     responsibility of the Congress to provide the means to 
     implement a systematic and synchronized policy that will 
     achieve sustainable Federal, State, and local cooperation on 
     domestic terrorism issues. Whomever is responsible for 
     managing this Nation's activities to combat terrorism must be 
     accountable to the American people.
       Despite increased attention to this problem over the last 5 
     years, there remains considerable confusion over jurisdiction 
     at all levels of government. In order to improve coordination 
     and centralize the policy-making structure for domestic 
     terrorism within the Department of Justice, the Committee 
     recommends the creation of a Deputy Attorney General for 
     Combating Domestic Terrorism (DAG-CT). The Committee 
     recommends $23,000,000 for this purpose. The DAG-CT shall 
     have as its principal duty the overall coordination and 
     implementation of policy aimed at preventing, preparing for, 
     and responding to terrorist attacks within the United States. 
     This person will be directly responsible to the Attorney 
     General. This office will be responsible for domestic 
     terrorism policy development and coordination and will speak 
     for the Department on and coordinate with all of the 
     appropriate agencies for terrorism-related matters.

  The subcommittee also committed, of course, at the full committee, 
the authorization for that Deputy Attorney General, section 604. I 
read:

       (b) Section 504 of title 28, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after ``General'' the following, ``and a Deputy 
     Attorney General for Combating Domestic Terrorism''.
       (c) There is established within the Department of Justice 
     the position of Deputy Attorney General for Combating 
     Domestic Terrorism, who shall be appointed by the President, 
     by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
       (d) Subject to the authority of the Attorney General, the 
     Deputy Attorney General for Combating Domestic Terrorism 
     shall serve as the principal advisor to the Attorney General 
     on, and, with the Deputy Director of the Federal Emergency 
     Management Agency, serve as one of two key government 
     officials responsible for domestic counterterrorism and 
     antiterrorism policy.

  We tried, providing this, to put it in step with the President's 
directive. Now, with the terrible events of the past two days, the 
White House, along with the leadership, has agreed on a $20 billion 
package relative to counterterrorism and any activity the 
administration deems necessary as a result of that terrorism.
  Of course, the subcommittee would be willing to conform now or in 
conference with what the President and the leadership desire. But there 
must be coordination and there must be a fixed responsibility if we are 
really going to handle this particular problem. I am confident the 
American people would agree with us that we have to have better 
coordination from the very get-go; namely, with respect to 
intelligence.
  I got into that intelligence game almost 50 years ago, in 1954 as a 
member of the Hoover Commission investigating intelligence activities. 
At that particular time we had good covert activity, fine agents buried 
within the Soviet Union and other places. There is not any question, if 
we can get into the Soviet Union, we can get into Osama bin Laden and 
Hamas, and Hezbollah, and any other of these terrorist groups.
  We used to read all these articles about how difficult intelligence 
work was. It is not an easy thing, where you just call to find 
something out. On the contrary, you work at it.
  Our friend Tom Clancy just momentarily said, of the 20,000 employees 
out there at the CIA, we only have about 800 in covert operations. And 
to quote General Schwarzkopf after Desert Storm--I will never forget a 
briefing we had at the Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee--
he said he could not depend on intelligence from the CIA, that it was 
mush.
  The reason he called it mush was he said it was so overanalyzed, the 
corners were cut, the edges were rounded, and everything else of that 
kind. I found out at that time they had 864 intelligence analyzers at 
the CIA. Cold, hard facts are analyzed, analyzed, and analyzed, and 
everyone wants to protect their backsides, so in analyzing, you are 
giving yourself a grade, you are not giving the cold, hard, 
intelligence fact. That is what General Schwarzkopf called it--mush. He 
said he had to depend on his pilots in Desert Storm.
  Obviously, the problem persists with a massive attack upon the United 
States in such a coordinated and deliberate fashion, and we have not an 
inkling. We know about Mogadishu; we know about the barracks in Saudi 
Arabia; we know about the Embassy in Kenya; we know about the Embassy 
in Tanzania; we know about the U.S.S. Cole, we know about the prior 
attack on the World Trade towers. The leader of all that continues to 
say he is really going to pull off an attack on the United States of 
America. And when it occurs, we say we wonder who did it.
  We are hard learners. We have to get going and get serious about this 
war we are in. In that light, I want to make sure counterterrorism is 
coordinated and we do everything possible to secure ourselves 
domestically.
  With respect to that, on Thursday morning at 9:30 we will have a 
meeting and a hearing before the Commerce, Science, and Transportation 
full Committee whereby we will hear from notably, I take it, the 
Secretary of Transportation, and Jane Garvey, the head of the Federal 
Aviation Administration. Also, perhaps we will hear from the FBI in a 
closed hearing ahead of time so that we will know exactly what is 
needed and what the threat is.

[[Page S9356]]

  Eliminating the curbside check-in option as part of new federal 
security standards announced yesterday doesn't fully address our 
security problems. After all, luggage checked curbside or at the desk 
both have to go through some type of scanner.
  Unless and until we federalize the security screeners and the 
scanners that you find at airports, unless we federalize like the 
European Governments, we are not going to get a better result than the 
present one. And that is folks who are privately hired by the airlines 
working for minimum wage, staying for an average of three months or so.
  My wife had two knee replacements. She has titanium knees. We know 
the metal detector is going to sound. I am trying to explain to the 
employees there and they do not understand. We need trained 
professionals working in airport security.
  Heightened security measures on airplanes are also needed. The 
airplane cabins need to be secure, so no one can get to the pilots. The 
door has to be made more stable and solid. There is no reason to open 
the door. Tell pilots to bring a box lunch. They can communicate, if 
there is an emergency, and if they identify it as an emergency. But if 
a terrorist starts taking over the crew, they can hear it. They have 
communications. They can land the plane and save, hopefully, some of 
the individuals.
  But terrorists ought to know up front that they are not going to turn 
a domestic flight into a weapon of mass destruction and just run it 
into a building. That has to stop immediately.
  I would like to be able to talk at length about what needs to be 
done. But that is enough. I think perhaps the last talk should be about 
better orchestration, coordination, and action quietly. That is really 
what is needed at this particular time.
  I ask colleagues if they have an amendment to please come to the 
floor immediately. Let's present it, debate it, and have a vote on it. 
Otherwise, we will make up that list of amendments. I will soon be 
joined by the Senator from New Hampshire.
  Credit should go to the Senator from New Hampshire who set up these 
hearings. In May, he had everyone in the administration come, as you 
can tell from this hearing record. It is the most comprehensive look-
see the Government has had with respect to terrorism this year.
  We think we have to fix some responsibility, and we have to 
appropriate for it.
  There is some $364 million for the various offices that you might see 
on page 48 of the Committee report where you have the total activities 
to combat terrorism: Management and Administration, $8 million; Center 
for Domestic Preparedness, Fort McClelland, AL, $30 million; for 
consortium members, $58 million; National Energetic Materials Research 
and Testing Center in New Mexico, $7 million; National Emergency 
Response and Rescue Training Center at Texas A&M, $7 million; National 
Center for Bio-Med Research and Training, Louisiana State University, 
$7 million; National Exercise, Test and Training Center at Nevada Test 
Site, another $7 million; Domestic Preparedness Equipment Grants, $175 
million; Dartmouth Institute for Security and Technology Studies, $18 
million; Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention 
of Terrorism, $18 million; Virtual Medical Campus, $2 million; Domestic 
Preparedness Exercise Grants and Exercise Support Funds, $20 million; 
TOPFF II, $4 million; Annual Exercise Program, $5 million; Improved 
Response Program, $3 million; other training, $35 million; technical 
assistance, $8 million; prepositioned equipment, $8 million; and Web 
Site Pilot, $2 million.

  It adds up to around $364 million.
  That really was a result of the Oklahoma bombing. We went in every 
direction possible. But that is our problem. We are still going in 
every direction. We are not coordinating. The responsibility is not 
fixed. Someone ought to be at that Cabinet table--the Attorney General 
with his assistants talking with the President, who, of course, has the 
prime responsibility.
  Let me say, so far so good. The country has responded admirably. I 
think our Government is up and well and doing good.
  There is a wonderful element of bipartisanship.
  During the August break, I was on a trip in Australia, and up around 
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China in the Pacific area. Everywhere 
I went, the Ambassador would get into the budget, and I would tell them 
how we were running a heck of a deficit. I told them there wasn't any 
surplus. Now everybody will admit to it. The law in Section 201 of the 
Social Security Act of 1935 says that if there's a surplus in the 
Social Security trust fund, then we must invest that in government 
notes. We take the money, but we don't give it to Social Security.
  Under Section 13-301 of the Budget Act, it says thou shall not use 
that money. Follow section 21 of the Greenspan report of 1983, which 
concurs. It says thou shall not use this money against the deficit, or 
in the general revenues to account for lowering the deficit. But we do. 
We have done it since President Johnson's time. Up to President 
Johnson's time, we never did. But President Johnson didn't do it. He 
had a surplus in 1968-1969 without the use of Social Security funds.
  In any event, I said to each one of these Ambassadors that our 
problem back in the States is that we need some national purpose. We 
are just running around with courthouse politics. It is a shameful 
thing. We can't do anything but argue about who is responsible for the 
deficit, or who is going to invade the trust fund, or stem cell 
research. The country is really asleep. The leadership is in all 
directions. What we really need is a national purpose. I think at least 
in the last 48 hours we now have a national purpose. We know who the 
enemy is. Let's characterize it: People who give up their life for a 
cause, we will call them the enemy. But they call them heroes.

  Let's depict this properly. It is the leadership. And I commend the 
President for saying we are not only going to hold those responsible, 
but the countries that harbor them. I think he is right on target.
  But that is the whole idea now. We are in this war together. We are 
working together. I think that has helped this particular bill along. 
We are going to try to get a finite list of amendments.
  Now, with my ranking member here, I yield to Senator Gregg.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I thank the chairman for yielding to me. 
I appreciate his courtesy in my arriving in the Chamber a little late 
for the beginning of this work, as a group of us were in a meeting on 
how we are going to handle this bill and move it along, I hope.
  I congratulate the chairman of the committee for this bill, which is 
a soothsayer bill really. Long before the events of the day before 
yesterday, which were so horrific and which reflected the threat of 
terrorism to our Nation, our committee aggressively pursued the issue 
of how to try to prepare for such an act.
  We have held innumerable hearings over the last 4 or 5 years. One of 
the lines that has flowed through all those hearings has been the fact 
that our intelligence community--our communities focused on domestic 
intelligence and our communities focused on international 
intelligence--had concluded that it was more than likely, it was a 
probability, that a terrorist event would occur in the United States 
and that it would be of significant proportions. And it has occurred.
  How have we tried to ready for this? Well, a lot of the response you 
saw in New York--which has been overwhelming and incredibly 
professional, and heroic beyond description, which has taken the lives 
of many firefighters and police officers and just citizens who went to 
help--a lot of that response was coordinated as a result of initiatives 
that came out of the hearing process, and the question of first 
responder, and how we get the people who are first there up to speed as 
to how to handle this type of event. So in that area at least there has 
been some solace.
  But the real issue remains, How do you deal with an enemy who, as the 
chairman just related, is willing to give their life to make their 
point and who has, as their source of support, religious fervor, in 
most instances--and I suspect this is going to be proved true

[[Page S9357]]

in this instance--a religious fervor which gives them a community of 
support and praise which causes them to be willing to proceed in the 
way that they did, which is to use their life to take other innocent 
lives?
  First, how do you identify those individuals because they function as 
a fairly small-knit group, and it is mostly familial. It involves 
families. It involves sects which are very insular and very hard to 
penetrate.
  But equally important, when you are trying to deal with that type of 
a personality and that type of a culture, which basically seeks 
martyrdom as its cause, as its purpose for life, and sees martyrdom as 
part of its process for getting to an afterlife in terms of their 
religious belief--how do you deal with that culture and group of 
individuals without creating more problems, without creating more 
people who are willing to take up the banner of hatred and willing to 
pursue and use their life in a way to aggravate the situation?
  I think we as a committee have concluded that the first thing you 
have to do is have a huge new commitment to intelligence. And we have 
made this point. We have dramatically expanded the overseas efforts of 
the FBI as an outreach of this effort. But it involves more than that.
  We have to set aside our natural inclination as a democracy to limit 
the type of people we deal with in the area of human intelligence. 
Unfortunately, the CIA in the 1990s was essentially limited and 
defanged, for all intents and purposes, in the area of human 
intelligence gathering because the directives and the policies did not 
allow us, as a nation, to direct our key intelligence community to 
basically go out and employ and use people who were individuals who 
could give us the information we needed. Because of our reticence as a 
democracy to use people who themselves may be violent and criminal, we 
found ourselves basically sightless when it came to individual 
intelligence.
  So we have to recognize that in a period of war, which is what I 
think everyone characterizes this as, and which it truly is, we are, as 
a nation, going to have to be willing to be more aggressive in the use 
of human intelligence, and we are going to have to allow our agencies 
in the international community to be more aggressive.
  Equally important, we, as a nation, because of our natural 
inclination and our very legitimate rules relative to search and 
seizure and invasion of privacy, have been very reticent to give our 
intelligence communities the technical capability necessary to address 
specifically encoding mechanisms.
  The sophistication of encoding mechanisms has become overwhelming. I 
asked Director Freeh at one hearing when he was Director of the FBI--
and I remember this rather vividly because I didn't expect this 
response at all--what was the most significant problem the FBI faced as 
they went forward. He pretty much said it was the encryption capability 
of the people who have an intention to hurt America, whether it 
happened to be the drug lords or whether it happened to be terrorist 
activity.
  It used to be that we had the capability to break most codes because 
of our sophistication. This has always been something in which we, as a 
nation, specialized. We have a number of agencies that are dedicated to 
it. But the quantum leap that has occurred in the past to encrypt 
information--just from telephone conversation to telephone 
conversation, to say nothing of data--has gotten to a point where even 
our most sophisticated capability runs into very serious limitations.

  So we need to have cooperation. This is what is key. We need to have 
the cooperation of the manufacturing community and the inventive 
community in the Western World and in Asia in the area of electronics. 
These are folks who have as much risk as we have as a nation, and they 
should understand, as a matter of citizenship, they have an obligation 
to allow us to have, under the scrutiny of the search and seizure 
clauses, which still require that you have an adequate probable cause 
and that you have court oversight--under that scrutiny, to have our 
people have the technical capability to get the keys to the basic 
encryption activity.
  This has not happened. This simply has not happened. The 
manufacturing sector in this area has refused to do this. And it has 
been for a myriad of reasons, most of them competitive. But the fact 
is, this is something on which we need international cooperation and on 
which we need to have movement in order to get the information that 
allows us to anticipate an event similar to what occurred in New York 
and Washington.
  The only way you can stop that type of a terrorist event is to have 
the information beforehand as to who is committing the act and their 
targets. And there are two key ways you do that. One is through people 
on the ground, on which we need to substantially increase the effort--
and this bill attempts to do that in many ways through the FBI--and the 
other way is through having the technical capability to intercept the 
communications activities and to track the various funding activities 
of the organizations. That requires the cooperation of the commercial 
world and the people who are active in the commercial world. That call 
must go forth, in my opinion.

  Another thing this bill does, which is extremely positive and which, 
again, regrettably anticipated the event, is to say that within our own 
Federal Government we are not doing a very good job of coordinating our 
exercise.
  There are 42 different agencies that are responsible for intelligence 
activity and for counterterrorism activity. They overlap in 
responsibility. In many instances, they compete in responsibility.
  Turf is the most significant inhibitor of effective Federal action 
between agencies. Although there is a sincere effort to avoid turf, and 
in my opinion, in working with a lot of these agencies, I have been 
incredibly impressed by a willingness of the various leaders of these 
agencies, both under the Clinton administration and under the Bush 
administration, to set aside this endemic problem of protection of 
one's prerogatives and allow parties to communicate across agency lines 
and to put aside the stovepipes. Even though there is that commitment, 
the systems do not allow it to occur in many instances.
  This bill, under the leadership of the chairman, includes language 
which has attempted to bring more focus and structure into the cross-
agency activities. One of the specific proposals in the bill, which may 
not be the last approach taken and probably won't be but is an attempt 
to move the issue down the field, is to set up a Deputy Attorney 
General whose purpose is to oversee counterterrorism activity and 
coordinate it across agencies and who is the repository of the 
authority to do that. There is no such person today in the Federal 
Government. Of these 42 agencies, everybody reports to their own agency 
head. Nobody reports across agency lines. There is virtually no one who 
can stand up and say, other than the President, ``get this done.''
  The purpose of the Deputy Attorney General is to accomplish that, at 
least within the law enforcement area and within much of the 
consequence manager's area, especially the crime area, although it is 
understood that this individual will work in concert with the head of 
FEMA, the purpose of which is to actually manage the disaster relief 
efforts that occur as a result of an event such as New York or where 
you have these huge efforts committed.
  That type of coordination is so critical. Would it have abated the 
New York and Washington situation? No, it wouldn't have. But can it, in 
anticipation of the next event, because this is not an isolated event. 
Regrettably, whether we like it or not, we are in a continuum of 
confrontation here.
  As I mentioned earlier, there is not one or two people but rather a 
culture that sees this as an expression of the way they deliver their 
message for life, or after life for that matter. Regrettably, we have 
to be ready for the potential of another event.
  I do believe this type of centralizing of decision, centralizing 
authority, centralizing the budget responsibility is absolutely 
critical to getting the Federal Government into an orderly set of 
activities or orderly set of approaches.
  Just take a single example. If you happen to be a police officer in 
Epping, NH, and you have a sense that you notice something that isn't 
right, you know it isn't necessarily criminal but you think there is 
something wrong, something that might just, because of your intuition 
as an officer or your

[[Page S9358]]

knowledge as an officer, might need to be reported, you can call your 
State police or you can call the FBI or you can call the U.S. attorney, 
but there really is no central clearinghouse for knowledge. There is no 
one-stop shopping. If you as a fire chief want to get ready in Epping, 
NH, for an event, you don't have a place to go for that one-stop 
shopping where you can find out how you train your people, where they 
go for training, what your support capabilities are going to be, who is 
going to support you. This should exist within the Federal Government. 
It does not. This is an attempt to try to get some of that into a form 
that will be effective and responsive to people.

  Of course, when you get to the end of the line--we have talked about 
all the technical things we can do as a government and all the 
important things we can do to try to restructure ourselves and commit 
the resources in order to improve our capacity to address this, but in 
the end it comes down to a commitment of our people, understanding that 
we are confronting a fundamental evil, an evil of proportions equal to 
any that we have confronted as a nation, and that we as a nation cannot 
allow those who are behind this evil to undermine our way of life and 
our commitment to democracy.
  We must make every effort, leave no stone unturned--regrettably, 
these people live under stones to a large degree--to find these people 
who are responsible and to bring them to justice. But we also must make 
every effort to recognize that in doing that, we cannot allow them to 
win by losing our basic rights and the commitment to openness as a 
society and a democracy. Then they would be successful, if we were to 
do that.
  So as we rededicate ourselves, as we all continue to see the image of 
those buildings collapsing and the horror that followed--and we all 
obviously want retribution and we are all angered by it--we have to 
react in the context of a democracy. We have to pursue this in the 
context of what has made us great, which is that we are a people who 
unite when we confront such a threat. We unite and we focus our 
energies on defeating that threat. But we don't allow that threat to 
win by undermining our basic rights and our openness as a society.
  In summary, I appreciate all the efforts of the chairman of the 
committee to bring forward a bill which, regrettably, understood that 
this type of event could occur and attempted to address it even before 
it did. Now I think it is important we pass this legislation. It does 
empower key agencies within the Government who have a responsibility to 
address the issue of counterterrorism not only with the dollars but 
with the policies they need in order to be more successful in their 
efforts.
  There is still a great deal to do. There is still a lot of changes we 
need to make, a lot of changes in the law we should make in order to 
empower these agencies to be even more effective. Certainly there is 
going to be a great deal more funds that have to be committed than what 
are in this bill in order to give these agencies--the FBI and the State 
Department--the resources they need to be strong and be successful in 
pursuing the people who committed this horrific act and in protecting 
Americans around the world and especially protecting our freedoms and 
liberties here in the United States.
  This bill is clearly a step in the right direction. I congratulate 
the chairman for bringing it forward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Conrad are printed in today's Record under 
Morning Business.)
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, we have two of the finest managers in the 
Senate working this bill--the Senator from South Carolina and the 
Senator from New Hampshire. We need to move this bill along. We need 
help from the membership of this Senate. Staff has worked hard to work 
down the amendments, and they have a fairly finite list now. But there 
is talk now that there are some issues still unresolved by Members of 
the Senate.
  We are going to have a recess, by virtue of a previous order, at 
12:30. I am going to recommend to Senator Daschle and Senator Hollings 
when we come back at 2:15--or whatever time it is--that we move beyond 
this point of people having disagreements with certain parts of this 
bill. If people are going to be in disagreement, let them come out here 
and tell us what is wrong with the bill.
  We need to move forward. This is a very important piece of 
legislation. It is our sixth appropriations bill. When we finish, we 
still have seven to go. We haven't had conferences on the ones we 
passed. This country is in a state of emergency. We need to do the work 
of the Congress, and the work of the Congress at this stage, nearing 
the end of the appropriations season, is to finish these bills by the 
end of the fiscal year. That is looking very dubious at this time. So 
we have to move forward.
  I repeat, the two managers are the best we have, or as good as we 
have; that is for certain. We have to move this bill along.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, the distinguished Senator--other than 
his reference to me--is on target. We have a bill that was passed not 
only unanimously out of subcommittee but the full committee. It has 
been before the Senate last week and this week. Everyone knows the 
provisions within the bill. I was just told by a colleague who had 
served previously in the House--he said the reading clerk reads each 
section as they go through each section, and you have to be there and 
propose your amendment. After that, the amendment is passed or defeated 
and they go to the next section. You cannot offer an amendment to one 
that has already been read and passed upon.
  We have to devise some other way. We are sitting around here in 
charge of the business of the Senate pleading. We should not be 
pleading. I do not want to be like Al Haig--``I'm in charge''--but I 
can make a motion for third reading and they can defeat the motion or 
we can have a live quorum and get everybody here and disrupt them. We 
are going to have to take disruptive action, or something, to get some 
kind of response. The leader is exactly right. The country is in a 
state of serious purpose now, and they do not want any dallying around 
and ``I have to have this amendment,'' ``I have to have that,'' and 
they want me to put it in. Let them propose it. I heard one amendment 
has $70 million all of a sudden. We do not have any moneys like that. 
We have our 302(b) allocation.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes.
  Mr. REID. I want to say this also. This bill was brought from the 
subcommittee and the full committee to the floor prior to this 
situation that took place in New York. If there were ever a vision two 
men had, it is this bill. This bill deals with terrorism. That is what 
is in this bill. If there were ever an appropriate time to pass this 
legislation, it is now. There is a provision in this legislation that 
sets up within the Justice Department somebody who will work on 
counterterrorism. This is very fine legislation, and it is very 
appropriate for the day and time in the history of this country. We 
have to move this bill forward.
  The Senator is absolutely right. The Senator from Louisiana, who was 
just here, and I served in the House, as the Senator from New Hampshire 
served in the House. When you have a section in a bill in the House and 
you are not there to offer your amendment, you are out of luck; it is 
tough luck. Here we wait around begging people to come to the floor and 
do the business of the Senate. That is not the way it should be.

[[Page S9359]]

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished leader.
  I immediately give credit to the ranking member, the Senator from New 
Hampshire, who as chairman had the vision that it was necessary we have 
some coordination and a full comprehensive review of the problem of 
terrorism and how to respond to it. It was under his leadership that we 
have these sections in the bill. Now we are ready to move. We are ready 
to go to third reading, and we are ready to pass it. The two leaders 
are here.
  I again suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida). The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have been meeting with the two managers of 
the bill. It appears we are very close to working something out. 
However, it does not appear we can offer a unanimous consent agreement 
at this time. Those Members who have some problems with this 
legislation, if we don't work something out between 12:30 and 2:15, 
they will have to come on the floor at 2:15 and personally object; 
otherwise, the managers of the bill will move to third reading.
  We have cooperated, and we appreciate very much those people who have 
interest in this bill working with us to this point, but we are down to 
the nitty-gritty where we need to get the bill done.
  This is such good legislation. I repeat what I said a short time ago. 
This bill has some very important items in it for antiterrorism. It has 
within the Department of Justice a coordinator for antiterrorism 
activities that was written long before the New York terror took place. 
This bill is so important to what took place that we need to finish 
this bill today.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the counsel of the assistant 
Democratic leader. I would note that there are a number of Senators who 
have amendments. We expect to protect those amendments. At no later 
than 2:30, I hope, we will have a complete list, and we will work 
towards that. My expectation is that we have heard already from 
everyone who has an amendment. We are pretty close to having a complete 
list.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we were scheduled to recess at 12:30. I ask 
unanimous consent we extend the time for speaking until 12:40, as the 
Senator from New York has a very important message to deliver to the 
Senate.
  Mr. GREGG. Will that be in morning business?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have heard the discussions about the 
bill on the floor, the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. As 
the chairman and ranking member know, I have offered two amendments, 
one of which is fairly controversial. My proposition would be that I 
withdraw that amendment. I will chat about it for 1 minute. I 
understand from discussions we have had that the chairman and ranking 
member would approve my second amendment by a voice vote, and I propose 
I be allowed to withdraw the amendment dealing with eliminating funding 
for TV Marti and using that money instead to enhance enforcement and 
compliance in international trade.
  I will ask consent to do that in a moment. Things have changed very 
substantially and now is not the time for this discussion. That doesn't 
mean I don't believe during this appropriations process this year, 
either in conference or in some other device, we ought not do what I 
propose in my amendment. I believe very strongly in my amendment that 
identified $10 to $11 million of tragic waste of the taxpayers money 
and identified an area that cries out in a desperate need: our trading 
partners like compliance of enforcement of our trade laws dealing with 
China, Japan, Europe, Mexico, and Canada.
  Although I ask consent to withdraw the TV Marti amendment if we have 
reached agreement on the other amendment, I want everyone to understand 
that this is not necessarily the end of that discussion this year. But 
I think it is probably better not to continue the discussion at this 
time.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I appreciate the Senator's understanding and 
willingness to withdraw the first amendment. I will see if we have an 
understanding.
  Mr. GREGG. My understanding is we reached agreement with the Senator.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Let's agree to the amendment now.
  Mr. GREGG. Have the yeas and nays been requested on either amendment?
  Mr. DORGAN. No.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Can we call that amendment up?


                           Amendment No. 1543

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The small business amendment is the pending 
question.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I urge the adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
(No. 1543) of the Senator from North Dakota.
  The amendment (No. 1543) was agreed to.


                     Amendment No. 1542, Withdrawn

  Mr. DORGAN. I ask consent to be allowed to withdraw the amendment I 
offered dealing with funding for TV Marti and trade compliance.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota 
very much.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me just say again that while I have 
withdrawn that particular amendment, I believe very strongly that we 
need to revisit this as we go along in this process. I think this is 
not the time to do that. I have talked to the Senator from South 
Carolina, who I know has some feelings about this as well. We will 
revisit this later in this process.
  Let me say how much I appreciate the work of the Senators from South 
Carolina and New Hampshire; they have done so much work on this bill.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator very much.

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