[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 24, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9096-S9099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HOMELAND SECURITY ACT OF 2002--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 5005) to establish the Department of Homeland 
     Security, and for other purposes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I thank the leader for his courtesy in 
orchestrating this so I can speak briefly. I hope to offer an 
amendment, and I

[[Page S9097]]

want to outline what the amendment is. I understand that the 
parliamentary situation, or the order of events, is that Senator Gramm 
has the first amendment and, until that is worked out, this amendment 
will not necessarily be in order.
  This amendment will address a very significant issue. It is a sense-
of-the-Senate amendment dealing with the question of how we are dealing 
with the national policy on the smallpox vaccination.
  As many people in America are probably aware, smallpox is probably 
one of the most virulent potential biological weapons that can be used 
anywhere in the world. It had, however, been significantly contracted 
in its availability. There were only two sites that actually possessed 
the actual smallpox germ; one was in Russia and the other was in the 
United States. Both of those were considered to be very secure. There 
is, however, concern that other individuals in the world may be trying 
to develop a smallpox strain, and if they are able to do that, the 
potential for devastating biological attack would be overwhelming.
  I think it is important that people understand, as a preface to this 
issue, that, if a smallpox epidemic--or even a single incident of 
smallpox--breaks out anywhere in the world, it is reasonable to assume 
today that it is breaking out because there is somebody who has 
possession over the smallpox strain and is willing to use it in an 
aggressive, violent way and is willing to use it in a terrorist act. In 
other words, there is no way today you could have a natural breakout of 
smallpox anywhere in the world.
  If, for instance, a single case of smallpox were found somewhere on 
the North American continent, one could immediately presume that 
terrorists had possession of the smallpox disease and were willing to 
spread it. That has a huge potential for loss of life.
  Smallpox is a disease that spreads extremely quickly and is hard to 
control. How do we address this? Essentially, because we thought we had 
beaten smallpox as a disease, we didn't have in place a large stockpile 
of vaccination as a nation, or even across the world. There is very 
little stockpile of vaccine. We did have some stockpile and it was 
quite old--approximately 15 to 30 years old. It was a small amount. But 
after determination, it is now thought that even that small amount can 
be subdivided and we can produce maybe as much as 70 million doses.
  We are in the process of developing, on the production side of the 
agenda in the U.S., with the pharmaceutical companies--and not only 
here but overseas--the capacity to bring online large amounts of dosage 
of smallpox vaccine. We expect that we will have enough dosage of 
smallpox vaccine within a relatively short time that, if we desire to 
do so, we could vaccinate every individual in our Nation.
  Why don't we immediately do that and make that our national policy? 
The reason the decision has not been made to go forward to vaccinate 
the entire country is that there is a downside to the smallpox vaccine 
as it is presently developed; that is, approximately 1 percent of the 
people vaccinated, we know, will be significantly harmed and possibly 
even die. If you vaccinate 260 million people, you are looking at a 
significant death toll--in the hundreds, at a minimum--as a result of 
that vaccination regime. We know who those people usually are. They are 
usually people suffering from certain types of allergies, and we know 
they are people who are aged, infirm, or who have other weaknesses in 
their immune systems.

  What has been the policy decision so far? The first policy decision, 
on which I greatly congratulate this Congress and the administration, 
was to put in place the regime so we could produce an adequate amount 
of vaccine. The second policy put forward as the concept of how we will 
address the smallpox breakout is that we will do a concentric circular 
event. In other words, we will surround the incident of smallpox with a 
vaccination of everybody in the area in an expanding circle. It is a 
pebble in a pool approach. If somebody threw a pebble in the small 
pond, it spreads outward. In the event of a smallpox outbreak, we are 
going to vaccinate everybody around the people infected, hopefully, 
containing the output. That is the plan as it is presently proposed. In 
addition, the plan is to vaccinate all first responders in the country.
  What is the problem with that plan? It is very unlikely that our 
public health capability would allow us to vaccinate enough people fast 
enough to make the concentric circle approach be absolutely secure. We 
would probably experience an expansive medical emergency that would 
lead to a fairly significant loss of life should a single case of 
smallpox break out in the United States.
  I am not saying it is not a reasonable approach, but it is an 
approach that probably has a significant likelihood that it will not be 
totally successful. We will have a significant success rate, but the 
success rate will be limited. Therefore, the loss of life will still be 
significant.
  What is America to do? Basically, I think we can place confidence in 
our public health community that the vaccines are being developed and 
brought online. In addition, I believe we should, as a national policy, 
be willing to say to any American, once we have the smallpox vaccine in 
place, that in order to vaccinate the population generally--and it will 
be in place certainly by next June, and maybe earlier--we should be 
able to say to any citizen who feels strongly that they want to be 
vaccinated that you may be vaccinated.
  In addition to the concentric circle approach, which I endorse, we 
should be able to say, if you are an American citizen, you have the 
right to go to your medical practitioner and ask them for a smallpox 
vaccination. If the physician determines you are not in an adverse 
category and that it is appropriate for you, thus, limiting the loss of 
life as a result of the 1 percent problem, then you ought to be able to 
get that vaccination.
  That is what this sense of the Senate says. It says that, once we 
have obtained the necessary dosage level, which has been federalized, 
in order to vaccinate our population generally, then any American 
citizen will have the right to go to their physician and obtain that 
vaccine and be vaccinated.
  It makes great sense to do this because, as a practical matter, it 
will first bring a calmness to the circumstance, which is important. 
Secondly, should there be an outbreak, it will obviously mean that a 
large percentage of America has been vaccinated already. Many people, I 
suspect, will take advantage of that option if it is out there.
  Thirdly, I think it is good public health policy. I also think it 
should be done at no charge. I believe we, as a government, have an 
obligation to protect our citizens as a primary responsibility and, 
therefore, the Federal Government should pick up the cost of the 
vaccine as it is distributed.
  So that is what this sense of the Senate says. It doesn't say that 
the concentric circle approach isn't good. It says, in addition to 
that, we should give all Americans, once we have obtained the vaccine 
capability that we know we are going to obtain, we should give them, in 
consultation with their physician, the opportunity to be vaccinated. I 
believe that is good health policy.
  Certainly, as we proceed down the road and debate this homeland 
security bill, I intend to take the opportunity to offer this sense-of-
the-Senate amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from Ohio 
is recognized.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, approximately 3 hours ago, the Senate 
passed the Lieberman-McCain amendment to create an independent national 
commission to investigate the events leading to and following the 
September 11 terrorist attacks. I voted in favor of that amendment. I 
come to the floor this afternoon to briefly explain why and explain 
what I hope that commission will do and what I hope it won't spend a 
lot of time doing.
  I believe that commission should focus on what the joint Senate-House 
Intelligence Committee's investigation focused on in looking at the 
September 11 tragedy.
  As a member of that committee, I have argued that we should be 
looking at not just what led up to September 11, not just finding out 
what the failures were, but also, and much more importantly, looking 
toward the future

[[Page S9098]]

and trying to determine what we can do to change, what we can do to 
improve our intelligence operation, our intelligence network.
  I believe that should be the same focus of the national commission. 
The national commission will inherit the work our joint committee has 
done. Shortly, we will be done with our work. The national commission 
will not only have our work, but it will have other information 
available to it. It will have the information that has been dug up by 
some very good reporters. It will have additional information, and so 
the foundation clearly will be laid.
  The commission will not have to spend a lot of time rehashing the 
errors that were made. What I hope the commission will spend most of 
its time on, though, is the future. I would like to talk a little bit 
about that future this afternoon and what I think we need to do.
  Knowing what failures have occurred in the past certainly is vital, 
but it is not enough. Knowing what we should do in the future is really 
what is important. The creation of this independent commission presents 
us with the opportunity to build on our current congressional 
intelligence investigation.
  One of the reasons I did vote in favor of this commission is that I 
believe our Senate and House intelligence investigation stopped too 
early. We had a deadline. I thought the deadline was a mistake. I still 
think it is a mistake. Because we have that deadline, we have not been 
able to focus on the big picture issues of where we need to go in this 
country.
  The language of the McCain-Lieberman amendment that was adopted this 
afternoon clearly provides the commission with the opportunity to get 
into these big picture issues.
  I quote from that amendment. The amendment specifies the commission 
may

       . . . identify, review, and evaluate the lessons learned 
     from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, regarding 
     the structure, coordination, management policies, and 
     procedures of the Federal Government.

  There is more to that. Those are words that I think are very 
important because those words, if this becomes law, will give this 
commission a great opportunity to look at these big picture issues 
about which I am talking.
  What am I talking about? Let me give some examples. I believe the 
commission should take a serious look at the role of the Director of 
Central Intelligence. I believe it is time to give the DCI the 
necessary authority and the ability to truly direct our overall 
intelligence operations. Quite simply, we need to empower the DCI to do 
the job.
  We all know the facts. Currently, the DCI, while he is in charge of 
our intelligence, only controls about 15 to 20 percent of the budget. 
This is an issue that has to be examined, and it has to be looked at, 
no matter how people come down on this issue. I know it is a 
contentious issue, and it may divide this Senate, it may divide the 
commission, but we need to look at it.
  We had the opportunity in our joint committee the other day to hear 
from Sandy Berger, Anthony Lake, and Brent Scowcroft on a panel. All 
three of them said with various degrees of language that we need to 
make a change in the DCI, we need to make the DCI more powerful, we 
need to enable him to get the job done. That is an issue at which we 
should look.

  Second, I believe we must seriously examine the long-term resource 
issues that confront us, not just now but over the long haul--over the 
next decade, maybe over the next two decades, or three decades. Are we 
providing the resources we need for our intelligence community? And are 
we providing them in the right way? Do they know they are going to have 
the necessary resources, as much as anybody can ever know year to year 
with Congress? But do they have some indication those resources are 
going to be there so they can get the job done? How much resources do 
they, in fact, need to protect us?
  Maybe a good way of looking at it is to say, if tomorrow we were 
struck again and we are all in shock again, what would be our reaction? 
What would we do to the budget then? Maybe we need to ask ourselves 
that question and go ahead and do it now.
  The next question I hope the commission looks at is: Do we have the 
human resources available within the agencies themselves? Are we going 
to get the necessary people because ultimately it comes down to people. 
We have good people. They are doing a good job. They are working 14, 
15, 16 hours a day, but there is only so much they can do. How many 
more people do we need? My guess is we need a lot more people based on 
what I have seen. In the counterterrorism center, for example, in the 
CIA, FBI, we need a lot more people.
  Do we have the right technology is another question the commission 
should look at, and do we have enough of it to get the job done in the 
new world in which we live? The technology the FBI has is not good. If 
any major business in this country had that technology, somebody would 
be fired; a lot of people would be fired. It is shameful. It is wrong. 
It is not fair to the employees, and it is not fair to the American 
people. We are, frankly, responsible for that. We are responsible for 
that failure. We have an obligation to change that. That is another 
issue at which this commission should look.
  The commission should ask us and the American people: What is our 
long-term commitment to intelligence?
  Finally, I think the commission needs to examine the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA statute, and determine what 
changes are necessary to make sure we are getting intelligence from 
this source to help prevent future attacks. We made improvements in 
FISA. The Patriot Act was an improvement. Quite frankly, Congress has 
been derelict in its duty over two decades to have good oversight over 
FISA. It has been a hidden court, as it was designed to be; a secret 
court, as it was designed to be. Yet we have not figured out some way 
through the Intelligence Committees to have good oversight to find out 
how the law we wrote as representatives of the American people is truly 
being interpreted.
  For the first time we have a court decision that has come out of the 
FISA court. It is not public, but we can at least look at it. It is the 
first one, to my knowledge, that has been published in 2 decades. I do 
not happen to agree with the decision, but we can look at it. It is 
being appealed. We will have an opportunity to see what the court of 
appeals says about that, but at least that part of the debate is out 
there.
  We must continue to look for ways to fulfill our oversight 
responsibility in the Congress. That is an issue that the commission 
should look at as well.
  These are a few of the issues I think the commission needs to look 
at. Let me say, however, it is not just the commission's 
responsibility. I voted for this amendment, not because I felt it would 
be solely the commission's responsibility to look at these issues; I 
believe the Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to look at 
these big-picture issues in the months and years ahead. I believe the 
House has the same obligation. I simply believed that with an 
additional commission issuing reports in 6 months, 12 months, 18 
months, that would be an added voice, an added set of eyes, more 
expertise, to look at some of these issues this country should be 
debating.
  Ultimately, we need a serious national debate about all of these 
issues and so many more, even those that are outside the realm of the 
intelligence community. In examining the intelligence component, if we 
have learned anything from September 11, it is that our security, our 
safety, and the safety of our loved ones, is intrinsically linked to 
the quality of that intelligence. So we must do all we can to improve 
the quality of that intelligence. The ability to share that information 
with the appropriate agencies is involved with our national security. 
As Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as Members 
of this Senate, we have an obligation to examine these issues. We must 
debate them. The proposed commission can certainly play a productive 
role in these debates and in these investigations. Therefore, I was 
pleased this afternoon to support its creation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that following the cloture vote on 
the Lieberman amendment tomorrow, if cloture is not invoked, the Senate 
remain on the homeland defense bill and

[[Page S9099]]

Senator Gramm of Texas be recognized to offer an amendment; that there 
be two hours of debate equally divided between Senators Gramm and 
Lieberman or their designees; that at the conclusion of that time the 
amendment continue to be debatable and Senator Daschle or his designee 
be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the amendment we have been waiting for for 
some time will be offered in the morning, or as soon as the vote is 
completed, as the unanimous consent request indicated.
  It appears the two managers have some amendments they can clear on 
this homeland security bill. That being the case, we will stay on the 
bill. When the amendments are cleared, we will go to a period for 
morning business until Senators have said all they wish to say, and 
then we will recess until tomorrow. We hope this is the beginning of 
the end of this bill. I think we have made progress to get to this 
point. As I have indicated, we have been trying to get this amendment 
now for about the second week, so finally we are there. This is a big 
amendment. We will determine how it is going to be disposed of sometime 
tomorrow.
  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. 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.

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