[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8107-H8111]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 2555, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

  Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take 
from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2555) making appropriations for 
the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2004, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment 
thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference 
asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Kentucky?
  There was no objection.


                 Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Sabo

  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Sabo moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the bill, H.R. 2555, be instructed to insist on inclusion 
     of the highest possible level of funding for each homeland 
     security, preparedness and disaster response program within 
     Titles II, III and IV and on inclusion of House General 
     Provision 521.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 7 of rule XXII, the gentleman 
from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) 
each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, as we meet today on the eve of September 11, I am one 
Member who remains very concerned about America's safety and the safety 
of the flying public. We can and must do more. My motion is just one 
important step in the right direction.
  This motion to instruct conferees is very straightforward. It is a 
motion to instruct the House conferees to insist on the highest 
possible level of funding for each homeland security, preparedness and 
disaster response program in the bill and to insist on the amendment 
adopted on the House floor by a vote of 278 to 146 to require the 
screening of cargo carried in the belly of passenger aircraft.
  As the conference on the fiscal year 2004 homeland security 
appropriations bill begins, we now have an opportunity to provide 
additional homeland security resources and help close known security 
gaps. We should do so. We should correct one of the most glaring gaps 
in our aviation security program, the fact that all passengers and 
their bags are screened for explosives and weapons, but cargo carried 
in the same place as passenger baggage is not screened at all. The 
Markey amendment adopted on the floor seeks to eliminate this air 
security gap. The House conferees should insist on it.
  Some have argued that the screening of cargo carried on passenger 
aircraft is impossible to do immediately and would result in a $3 
billion loss to the airline industry. This is an argument of a pre-9/11 
America. We now screen passengers and their baggage. We did not before. 
We now secure cockpits. We did not before. Where there is a will, there 
is a way. The Congress either does or does not have that will. I think 
that the American public would ``will'' us to have the cargo carried on 
the airplanes they fly in screened.
  I must point out, however, that the Markey amendment addressed only 
one of the homeland security gaps that exist today. There are many 
others. The higher levels in some of the funding differences between 
the House and Senate bills would help address other homeland security 
and preparedness shortfalls. The first affects the preparedness of our 
first responders. The House bill provides $3.5 billion for the Office 
for Domestic Preparedness, $625 million more than the Senate. If we 
were to accept the Senate level, our States and localities would lose 
$625 million in funding that helps to better equip and train our 
Nation's first responders.
  Only a few months ago, the Council on Foreign Relations released a 
report entitled, ``First Responders, Drastically Underfunded, 
Dangerously Unprepared.'' The report stated that billions of dollars 
are needed to properly equip first responders. I do not know if their 
estimate is right, but I do know that a great deal of additional 
funding is needed. Therefore, our conferees should insist on the 
highest funding level possible.
  The second has to do with our ability to identify and respond to 
medical emergencies. The House bill provides $50 million for the 
Metropolitan Medical Response System. The Senate bill provides no 
funding. Not to fund this system would widen the homeland security gap 
that we have been trying to close.
  The third deals with the porousness of our northern border, which is 
well known. The Air and Marine Interdiction office has told us of 
instances of smugglers and others being caught coming across our 
northern border.

                              {time}  1230

  Yet today we have no permanent air surveillance of our northern 
border.
  The Senate bill provides a total of $71 million to permanently 
monitor air activity along our northern border. The House bill provides 
no funding for this. I think we all see the need to fund this homeland 
security improvement.

[[Page H8108]]

  The Senate bill provides a total of $459 million for procurement and 
installation of airport explosive detection systems. The House bill 
provides $335 million. A number of our Nation's airports may not meet 
the December 31 deadline for electronic screening of all checked 
baggage due to the fact that TSA has been slow to fund needed 
modifications. We should provide all of the funding we can to allow TSA 
to act quickly.
  The Senate bill provides $74 more than the House for 570 new Border 
Patrol agents and additional inspectors. The House bill provides few 
staffing increases in this area. The PATRIOT Act called for tripling of 
the number of agents and inspectors on our northern border, and the 
Senate funding would result in us meeting that requirement for border 
agents.
  Lastly, the Senate bill provides $156 million more than the House 
bill for Disaster Relief. We have woefully underfunded the Disaster 
Relief program for this year and now it looks like FEMA only has enough 
funding to get them to the beginning of the fiscal year 2004.
  FEMA has been distributing only the funding that States and 
localities can immediately spend, so the backlog is growing. This 
further strains our citizens and communities that are already in 
distress.
  Because all of these important programs may help close some of 
today's homeland security gaps and better prepare our Nation, this 
motion to instruct directs the House conferees to agree to the highest 
funding levels possible for homeland security, preparedness, and 
disaster response programs and to insist on inclusion of the Markey 
amendment to screen air cargo on passenger aircraft.
  In summary, let me say that we should be doing all we can to close 
known security gaps today, not tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this motion to instruct 
conferees.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Duncan). Does the gentleman from 
Minnesota have additional speakers?
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, yes, I do. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking Democrat of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, it is appropriate that we appoint conferees 
and begin the conference on this, the day before September 11, as the 
gentleman from Minnesota has indicated. It is not appropriate, however, 
that we will be considering a conference bill in which the budget 
allocation of the House and Senate equals only $29.4 billion, a mere 
2.3 percent above today's funding. That does not even equal inflation.
  The House and the Senate bills are, in this case, a bit different. 
The House bill provides more funding for first responders. The Senate 
bill provides more funding to secure our northern border, as the 
gentleman has indicated, for airport security and for Disaster Relief. 
All of that is needed, plus more.
  The House bill also includes the amendment offered by the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) to require that cargo carried on 
passenger aircraft is screened. This is the right thing to do. Today no 
cargo is screened. According to a TSA public statement there is a 35 to 
65 percent likelihood that terrorists are planning to put a bomb in 
cargo on a passenger plane. But even if we were to do all of the things 
required and funded in the House and Senate bills, we will still leave 
many homeland security problems to deal with for another day.
  Neither the House nor the Senate bill provides any funding to improve 
security at the perimeters or backsides of our airports. The ability to 
easily penetrate those backsides of our airports has been demonstrated 
on numerous occasions, most recently in New York, where fishermen lost 
due to a storm came ashore on the back side of JFK Airport and no one 
spotted them.
  Neither the House nor the Senate bill provides sufficient funding to 
secure our ports by implementing the port security plans required under 
the Maritime Transportation Security Act in anything less than 20 
years. Neither the House nor the Senate bill provides funding to fully 
implement the Markey amendment. Neither the House nor the Senate bill 
provides funding for Customs to substantially increase the checking of 
cargo entering through our ports for weapons of mass destruction.
  The GAO has said that the current low inspection rate makes container 
shipments a prime target for terrorists. So I support the motion to 
instruct, because it is the only motion that we can offer under House 
rules which makes sense.
  I do not support the majority party budget system that has gotten us 
to this ridiculous situation under which it is apparently fine to move 
quickly on an $87 billion supplemental package for Iraq, but not fine 
to add a small percentage of this amount to better secure our homeland, 
our ports, our borders and our airports.
  What kind of security do we have, when an individual could recently 
ship himself in a container from New York to another location in this 
country and not be detected, even though you had a human being inside 
the cargo box? I mean, how secure are we when that can happen? We have 
a long way to go before we meet the promises that so many of us made 
after 9/11.
  The President told the country 2 days ago that 9/11 had taught him 
that we need to provide whatever is necessary for the security of the 
country. That being the case, I wish that he would accept some of the 
increases that we have asked for for more than a year-and-a-half on a 
bipartisan basis in this House. I wish that we did not have a President 
who was vetoing more than $1.5 billion of homeland security items that 
were passed in a bill that had 90 percent support of Republicans and 
Democrats alike in both the House and the other body. I wish we could 
get together on these items, which are clearly essential to the safety 
of our public and to the strength of this country at home.
  I would urge Members to support the motion to recommit. It is the 
very least that we can do under these circumstances to secure the home 
front while we are obliterating the budget surplus by what we spend 
abroad to do the same thing.
  Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin for their leadership on this issue.
  The issue that I am going to address today is one that goes to the 
heart of how serious we are in this country about protecting innocent 
Americans from a successful al Qaeda attack. On the second anniversary 
of September 11, we know that al Qaeda still maintains that planes are 
at the very top of their list of potentially successful attacks upon 
the physical and psychological well-being of our Nation.
  Twenty-two percent of all air cargo in the United States is actually 
placed on passenger planes; not on cargo planes, on passenger planes. 
For each of us, as we get on a plane they screen our shoes, they screen 
our computers, our cell phones, our carry-on bags. Our luggage, if it 
is checked, is screened before it is put into the belly of the plane. 
But the cargo which is placed on that very same plane is not screened.
  Now, we saw yesterday what happens, when a young man, Charles 
McKinley, successfully shipped himself from New York to Dallas without 
being detected except at the point at which he emerged from his box on 
the doorstep of his parents.
  This is a funny cartoon about a very deadly, serious subject. If you 
are wearing shoes and pants, you get searched at the airport. If you 
are wearing a dress and heels, you get searched at the airport. But if 
you are wearing a box, like Charles McKinley, neither you nor the box 
gets searched. That is a homeland security hole that will get filled by 
al Qaeda if we do not fill it ourselves.
  What the Transportation Security Administration and the Bush 
administration likes to call a ``known shipper'' program, I call an 
``unknown cargo'' program. The known shipper regulations are a 
bureaucratic paper exercise, not a serious security program. Charles 
McKinley's little escapade has exposed the known shipper program as a 
complete and total fraud. What Mr. McKinley has pointed out to our 
country is

[[Page H8109]]

that if an enemy wants to terrorize this country, they do not need to 
worry about hiding a box cutter; they just need to sit quietly inside a 
box.
  The Transportation Security Agency has announced yesterday that it is 
going to develop an individual passenger profile of every airline 
passenger based on the risk that they pose to committing a future act 
of terrorism. So in addition to taking off our shoes, having someone 
rifle through our luggage, having to pass through metal detectors, we 
will also be given a color code. Well, if you are shipping cargo, your 
color code is always the same, green. Go, put it on the passenger 
plane. Al Qaeda is, in fact, targeting these planes as a subject for 
the further terrorization of our country.
  Now, Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down in 1988 over Lockerbie, 
Scotland, by a bomb contained in unscreened baggage. Today the victims 
of Pan Am Flight 103 are still concerned about airline security, and 
have endorsed the Markey-Shays amendment to require screening or 
inspection of cargo loaded on to passenger planes. In addition, the 
Coalition of Airline Pilots of America, which pilots so many of these 
planes, has also endorsed the Markey-Shays amendment, the idea of 
screening all cargo placed on passenger planes.
  It is crazy for people to be sitting on planes with their screened 
shoes looking out the window at a cargo truck now loading cargo on the 
very same plane that has not been screened. We could have al Qaeda in a 
box just being shipped on these planes. They do not need a boarding 
pass to get on above, they can put their bombs on without a boarding 
pass underneath on the very same passenger plane. You could ship a 
terrorist through this loophole.
  So, while up above in the passenger cabin we now have screening for 
the passengers, we have air marshals, we have a double reinforced steel 
door to the pilot's cabin, we have armed pilots and passengers who will 
jump any al Qaeda from now on, meanwhile, down below, nothing which 
will stop them from putting this cargo on.
  Support this motion to instruct. The White House, the Senate, the 
cargo and airline industry must listen to the American people.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Turner), the ranking Democrat on the authorizing committee.
  Mr. TURNER of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman 
for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the week that we remember that attack on America 
that occurred on September 11, 2001. It is a time of mourning, a time 
of remembrance. We all remember the horror of the Twin Towers, the 
Pentagon, the crash in the open field in Pennsylvania. We remember the 
determination on the faces of firefighters and the workers who entered 
the fiery inferno in a valiant attempt to save the lives of people they 
did not know. We remember the resolve and the commitment that resounded 
throughout this Congress and this Nation in the aftermath of that 
dreadful day.
  Never again, we said, would we be caught unprepared. Never again 
would we send some of our bravest citizens, our police, our 
firefighters, our emergency workers into harm's way unable to 
communicate with one another. Never again would we allow large security 
gaps that could be exploited by those who seek to do us harm.
  Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of September 11, this Congress 
responded with unprecedented speed and unity. We authorized the 
President to use force against the al Qaeda network and their sponsors, 
the Taliban. We enacted legislation to overhaul airport security, 
fortify our borders, secure our seaports. We proposed formation of a 
new Department of Homeland Security. These actions were only the first 
steps in what we intended to be a sustained effort to secure America 
from the threat of terrorist attack.
  But, Mr. Speaker, 2 years after the attacks, security gaps remain; 
and it is our solemn duty to do all we can to move faster, to take 
stronger measures to deliver security to the American people. Two years 
after September 11, we still lack a unified terrorist watch list to 
help us thwart the attacks before they occur. Two years after September 
11, our forces on the border need reinforcement and the Coast Guard is 
stretched to its limits trying to carry out its mandate to secure our 
ports and coastlines. We must deploy stronger forces on our borders and 
protect our ports and coastline to close that security gap. Two years 
after September 11, the first responders, the valiant men and women who 
risk all to keep us safe, do not have the equipment and training that 
they need to meet the threats posed by chemical, biological, and 
radiological attacks. First responders do not have the equipment they 
need to communicate at a disaster site. Clearly, we must move faster; 
we must be stronger in our commitment to these frontline soldiers.
  Therefore, I fully support the motion offered by the ranking member 
of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  We have been told that we are safer today than we were before 
September 11 of 2001, but that is not the test that we must pass. The 
question before us is are we as safe as we must be to protect the 
American people. By this measure, we have much yet to do. The sums 
requested by this motion are essential to fulfilling our commitment to 
protecting the American people. This is the first responsibility of 
government, and nothing else matters if we fail.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  If there had been a simple regulation in place in December 1988, Pan 
Am 103 likely never would have happened, and that is passenger bag 
match, an issue that later, the Commission on Aviation Security and 
Terrorism appointed by President Bush on which I served and my good 
colleague at the time, John Paul Hammerschmidt from this body, 
recommended. But it was recommended earlier in hearings that I had 
chaired as Chair of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight 
that we have passenger bag match. Because when the aircraft arrived 
from Malta at Frankfurt, Germany, for the beginning of the Pan Am 103 
trip and a bag was transferred from the Malta aircraft to the 727 of 
Pan Am to go on to London, the bag went on, but the passenger did not. 
If we had the rule in place that if the passenger is not on, the bag 
comes off, that bomb would never had been on board that plane.
  Today, we have passenger bag match at American airports as a result 
of the Transportation Security Act that we passed in the aftermath of 
September 11. A much tougher bill, it did the things that our 
commission recommended in 1990.
  So today, we have a situation where the TSA screeners at the Nation's 
airports know what is in the carryon, they know what is on your body, 
and if you have replacement parts, they know what is in your body; but 
they do not know what is in the box that goes in the cargo hold on that 
airplane, and they need to know that. Known shipper cargo match is a 
good idea, but screening that box as well is a better idea, and that is 
what we need to know.
  In addition, I think unfortunately, while the committee and the 
chairman and the ranking member did all they could with the money 
available, the amounts provided in this bill for port security are 
grossly inadequate to meet the threat of international terrorism, which 
is moving to the new level of port security problems. The House-passed 
bill had $150 million for port security grants, the Senate had $100 
million for port security grants. The Coast Guard has told our 
committee, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, that it 
will cost ports and port operators $1.6 billion in the next 2 years to 
comply with the security standards this body already voted and put into 
law. In the last round of security grants, there was $150 million 
available and $1 billion worth of applications.
  One does not have to think too far back to the USS Cole with a small 
boat loaded with explosives ramming into the side of a U.S. naval war 
ship, blowing it to pieces, to imagine the same scenario in an offshore 
oil port in the Gulf of Mexico or in one of our busy ports on the east 
coast, the west coast, the Gulf Coast ports, or on one of the Great 
Lakes.
  Neither the House nor the Senate Homeland Security Appropriation Act

[[Page H8110]]

includes any funding for conducting foreign port security assessments 
for the Coast Guard. We learned a lesson in aviation that we have to 
have American security personnel overseas, foreign airports, looking 
into their security arrangements and making independent assessments, 
and coming back and reporting to the FAA, to the Department of 
Transportation, and to the Congress. And we have the authority to say, 
if you do not do the security right overseas, your airplanes do not 
land in this country. So we have a hammer on them, and we can make them 
comply.
  But in maritime, as a result of failure to have the funding for 
foreign port security assessments, those great maritime nations of 
Malta, Cyprus, Liberia, Panama, great Third World flag, third flag 
nations, are going to be the places that are going to conduct the 
security assessments and self-certify and say, everything is okay. It 
is not okay until we say so, until our Coast Guard is there with 
security personnel looking those ports over and assuring that they have 
put in place the measures that we require; and we have to do a better 
job on this side as well. Those Third World countries do little to 
enforce safety and security. We have to do it here, and we should do it 
in this bill.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Berry).
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I must say that I think the chairman and the 
ranking member of this committee have done as best they can with what 
they have to do with. I also must note that 2 years later we are still 
struggling with getting the job done, and I think it is now time for us 
to press forward with all due haste to see that these homeland security 
issues are dealt with as quickly and as effectively as possible.
  The House bill has $650 million more for the Office of Domestic 
Preparedness. The conferees should give first responders this higher 
amount. The Senate bill has $50 million for port security grants. That 
higher funding is critical. The President has asked for $87 billion to 
make Iraq secure. Certainly, America deserves no less. We are spending 
about half as much, about half that much to try to make the American 
people secure.
  The motion also instructs conferees to include a provision that 
requires all cargo on passenger planes to be screened. Obviously, this 
is something that needs to be done. But we do not want to be on this 
floor anytime in the future talking about what happened, what went 
wrong, what we should have done. Now is the time to deal with homeland 
security funded appropriately and get the job done for the American 
people that we know needs to be done and we know how to do it.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that I have the right to 
close, so I will reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the bill before us provides $29.4 billion for the new 
Department of Homeland Security. That is an increase of over $1 billion 
above the amounts proposed by the President, and it is $535 million 
above the current year's spending.
  This motion by the gentleman from Minnesota would result in more 
spending. We could spend all that we could beg, borrow, or steal in the 
name of homeland security, and it still would not be enough, according 
to some people. Throwing dollars at this problem of security will not 
necessarily add to our security. What we need is a sensible plan, 
spending sensible sums, for a comprehensive and complete system of 
protection of our people.

                              {time}  1300

  I think we have such a plan. And I am willing to accept the 
gentleman's motion and to do my best to meet its goals. But the motion 
gives me an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, on the eve of the day that 
changed America, 9-11, to reflect on that awful day, but also to 
reflect upon how far our Nation has come in protecting us from another 
such event.
  The presumption in the motion is that we are not spending enough 
money to protect our Nation's homeland. I think the question is, is the 
glass half empty or is it half full? I think it is half full. We are 
not there yet, but we have come so far. We have come so far in these 2 
years in protecting the country.
  Since September 11 the Congress has provided almost $76 billion for 
homeland security funding across the entire government. For the 22 
agencies that now make up the new Department of Homeland Security, the 
Congress has provided almost $44 billion through the current year, and 
then we add in the 2004 bill an additional $29.4 billion, which brings 
the total to the Department for fiscal years 2002 through 2004 to $73.3 
billion. Protecting our borders is the first line of defense against 
terrorism. We include in the bill $9 billion for border protection and 
related activities. That is an increase of $400 million over fiscal 
2003. Including $2 billion for U.S. Coast Guard homeland security 
activities.
  We make innovative technology and capital investments a priority, 
recognizing that our borders will only be secure when we use a 
combination of people and technology. But let us talk about the borders 
just a minute.
  We have added inspectors, special agents, border patrol agents to 
these borders, we have added 5,400 new personnel at those borders. That 
increases the coverage in our ports by 25 percent. In addition to that, 
we have added 4,100 Coast Guard personnel to protect the ports, to 
protect the waterways, to increase the intensity and numbers of 
inspections at ports of entry into the country; 4,100 new Coast Guard 
people on the job today that were not there before.
  We will continue, and hear me now, we will continue to inspect 100 
percent of all high-threat cargo and high-threat vessels coming into 
our waters. We cannot discuss in this open forum all that is being done 
in that respect. We would have to go into a classified briefing to do 
so, which we have done. I cannot talk about all of those things, but we 
are inspecting 100 percent of all high-threat cargo and high-threat 
vessels coming into our waters.
  We have heard a lot about port security. In this bill we add $100 
million, another down payment to secure the critical port facilities. 
We add that to the $388 million that is already appropriated for port 
security grants, a total funding level now of $488 million. Radiation 
detectors, other technology, $263 million for cargo screening and these 
technologies have been deployed at our busiest land and sea ports 
including Miami, Los Angeles, Newark. And we include in this bill 
another $129 million for these technologies, which brings that total to 
$392 million.
  It has been said that we need to search these container pieces coming 
to us offshore before they get here. And that is precisely what the 
administration proposed and the Congress agreed to. We provide $60 
million for a thing called the Customs Container Security Initiative, 
fully funding that effort since it began. We include $62 million in 
this bill bringing total funding for that project to $122 million. And 
with that money, we are now in the process, either in the process or 
already searching these container pieces at 20 of the mega-ports around 
the world that ship us 80 percent of our container freight, searching 
those targets, that high-threat cargo before it ever reaches American 
ports so that we do not have to do it here.
  We also place a very high priority on funding our State and local 
first responders. Homeland security, we have all said, is hometown 
security. And our hometowns are protected by our local firemen, local 
police, emergency personnel and the like. We have not shunned them and 
it is essential that they have the resources to address the needs of 
our hometowns. We will never forget the heroism on 9-11, of those 
wonderful first responders, so many of whom unfortunately gave their 
lives on 9-11. We include $4.4 billion in this bill for those people, 
law enforcement, fire fighters, emergency personnel. And since 
September 11, the Congress has provided nearly $21 billion for those 
State and local governments, for terrorism prevention and preparedness, 
most of which is going to our local first responders. Almost $21 
billion for your firemen, your first responders, your emergency 
technicians, your policemen, and more is on the way.
  Science and technology efforts are critical to improving security, 
increasing the efficiency of what we do and increasing the costs. We 
include in this

[[Page H8111]]

bill $900 million for science and technology, including $60 million to 
design, develop and test anti-missile devices for commercial aircraft, 
$60 million.

  Then, of course, transportation security for those who fly. Since 
September 11, we have provided a total of $10.3 billion for passenger 
safety through the Transportation Security Administration, including 
passenger, baggage, and cargo screening. An additional $5.172 billion 
is included in the fiscal 2004 bill. And since September 11, we have 
included $1.5 billion on explosive and trace detention systems, 
including the development, procurement, and installation. We include in 
this bill $335 million more to buy more of these systems, as well as 
$50 million for air cargo safety, and $40 million for research on next 
generation technologies.
  We come to this question that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Markey) has brought to our attention, and that is the safety or 
security of cargo on passenger planes. I think we all agree with his 
goal. It is our goal. It has been the goal of this subcommittee since 
we came into being, it seems like a long time ago, but it was only back 
in March that the subcommittee came into being. And, frankly, I am very 
proud of what our subcommittee has done. We have begun a staff. We had 
to find a place to meet. We had to hold hearings in Department where 
many of the principals were not yet sworn into office or confirmed, get 
the budget together, hold hearings, and then finally mark up a bill. 
And I am very proud to say that we were the first of the 13 
appropriations bills brought to the floor and passed through the body, 
and we are the first to go to conference with the Senate. That is quite 
a record.
  I am proud of the members of the subcommittee on both sides of the 
aisle, and I am especially proud of the staff on both sides of the 
aisle who have done a remarkable job of pulling all of this together.
  We included in this bill $50 million for air cargo screening. The 
Senate bill has 60. I think we can go higher and give the TSA the 
resources it needs for the development of an air cargo screening 
program for domestic and foreign cargo carriers and to develop a risk-
based screening system, to identify pieces of cargo that require closer 
scrutiny even while we work at post-haste speed to develop the 
machinery that does not now exist to absolutely search all pieces going 
on passenger or cargo planes. Funds are also provided to research and 
development, new technologies that would make this happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no problem with the motion to instruct. It is the 
goals that we share. We share the same goals that the motion elicits. I 
think we have developed a good bill. I am very proud of the efforts of 
the Nation since 9-11 to come to grips with a new terror, a new threat 
to our security. The President has led the effort on both fronts, that 
is to take the battle to the terrorists on their own turf rather than 
wait until they come for us here, but at the same time preparing the 
Nation itself to defend itself against a terrorist who might make it 
through.
  Do we have more to do? Absolutely. We have scratched the surface. But 
we have made a lot of progress and we will continue to make that 
progress.
  Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to close.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, we have one speaker for the balance of our 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Duncan). The gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Sabo) has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think the message here is simple: If Members 
think that our ports are safe enough, our borders are safe enough, our 
airlines are safe enough, then by all means, vote against this motion. 
But if you recognize that they are not, then you ought to vote for it.
  But I would have one cautionary note. I would say to my friends on 
the majority side of the aisle, please do not vote for this motion if 
you then intend to scuttle the Markey amendment in conference. If that 
were to happen, it would be tantamount to deceiving the public and 
trying to have it both ways.
  If you voted for this motion, stick to it in conference or else 
everything that we have tried to do today will be as phony as a $3 
bill.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion to 
instruct conferees on our Nation's first Homeland Security 
Appropriations bill. Everyone expected that the new Homeland Security 
Department would experience the standard growing pains associated with 
the establishment of any new government agency and that such pains 
would get worked out over time. However, the situation that prompted 
the creation of this agency is different, and homeland security does 
not have the luxury to ``get it right'' over time. We must start 
getting it right the first time with this first appropriations bill. 
Accordingly, we must supply the necessary federal resources today, not 
tomorrow, and not after another terrorist attack.
  While Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Obey did the very best they 
could given their inadequate allocation, many important homeland 
security initiatives and programs remain underfunded. Understandably, 
we have focused our homeland security efforts on passenger aviation. 
But we must quickly provide similar focus to securing other likely 
targets including air cargo, seaports, electronic business systems, and 
other critical infrastructure. Strengthening and making less vulnerable 
our electronic business transactions would help protect both 
California's utility power grid and its economy, the fifth largest 
economy in the world. Providing perimeter security and thorough cargo 
screening will help ensure the safety of passengers and employees at 
Los Angeles International Airport, the nation's second busiest airport. 
Screening cargo ships before they reach the mega seaport of Los 
Angeles-Long Beach will not only maintain the economic integrity of the 
nation's largest intermodal container port, but also protect the 
residents of the portside communities. Adequately funding these efforts 
would produce real and immediate benefits for my state and community.
  We must also sufficiently fund all functions of homeland security 
including border and customs efforts, disaster relief, and first 
responders. However, prioritizing and funding these various security 
initiatives as we have done with aviation security can only be 
accomplished with the necessary resources. It is critical, therefore, 
that we make our position crystal clear and instruct House conferees to 
insist on the highest possible level of funding for each homeland 
security, preparedness, and disaster response program.
  Mr. Speaker, if in these grave economic times, the administration 
believes we can afford to spend an additional $87 billion for the 
military and reconstruction effort in Iraq in our campaign to prevent 
terrorism, then it is morally bound to support our efforts in Congress 
to provide the necessary resources for our own security in America.
  I urge my colleagues to support the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

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