[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 26, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10110-S10112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first I want to commend the Senator from 
Georgia for his excellent statement and discussion on what we are doing 
on the border and what we are doing generally in the area of fighting 
terrorism. I simply wanted to bring the Senate up to speed, and to the 
extent people are observing the Senate operations, the country up to 
speed--the listeners, anyway, up to speed on what we are doing on the 
border.
  Last night we completed the conference between the House and the 
Senate on the Homeland Security bill, with Congressman Rogers chairing 
the committee for the House and myself chairing it for the Senate. This 
is a bipartisan bill. It is a bill that passed the Senate 100 to 
nothing. It is a continuum of a lot of effort that we have made as a 
Congress to try to upgrade and significantly improve and make much more 
robust our efforts in order to secure our borders.
  I think we all understand that the threat to America comes from many 
different directions. But as we prioritize threats, the No. 1 issue we 
have to worry about is someone coming into this country with a weapon 
of mass destruction.
  The No. 2 thing we need to worry about is who is coming into the 
country and what products are coming into the country. What do those 
people intend? Hopefully, they are coming in legally. And what are the 
purposes of the products coming in? Hopefully, the purpose of the 
products is general commerce. But it is, first, to protect yourself 
from weapons of mass destruction and, second, to make sure our borders 
are secure.
  In order to accomplish both of those goals, we need to put 
significant resources into those agencies and efforts which are 
responsible for addressing those two major issues. This bill, the 
Homeland Security bill, does exactly that. It puts significant new 
energy and dollars into detecting and being able to manage a potential 
weapon of mass destruction that will come into this country. Equally 
important, it

[[Page S10111]]

continues a 2-year effort that began in 2005 when we reorganized the 
flow of dollars within the Department of Homeland Security. It 
continues an effort to dramatically increase the boots on the ground 
and the physical and capital support efforts necessary to support the 
individuals who are protecting our borders and managing our borders.
  This chart reflects the dramatic increase, using a baseline of when 
President Clinton left office to today. In the area of border agents 
specifically, over 6,000 agents have been added, 4,000 just in the last 
2 years. That is a 40-percent increase in border agents in the last 2 
years.
  In addition, the bill we passed last night, while continuing the 
effort in the area of adding border agents, continues an aggressive 
effort to add detention beds. We understand, if you have agents on the 
ground who are hopefully catching people who are coming across our 
borders illegally, it does no good to catch those people unless you 
have some way to hold them. Up until this month, in fact, we had a 
policy known as catch and release because we simply did not have enough 
holding space for people who came into this country illegally.
  This bill continues the effort in the area of adding detention beds. 
Over the last 2 years, we will have added over 9,000 beds, almost 
10,000 beds. The practical effect of this is we are getting real 
results. Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security will 
no longer have a policy of catch and release. They will be able to hold 
the people they catch and detain them, which is exactly what should be 
happening. In addition, we have dramatically increased the number of 
Customs agents, we have increased the number of detention personnel, 
and we have significantly increased our commitment to fencing along the 
border.
  This bill, as it was worked out last night, has $1.2 billion in it 
for putting up either physical fencing, vehicle barriers, or what is 
known as a virtual fence, which is the Secure Border Initiative where 
in some parts of the southwest border, where a physical fence doesn't 
make any sense, there will be significant electronic monitoring of the 
border, which will allow us to see who is coming across the border. 
Once they come across the border, because we have added all these new 
border security personnel--the totals of which are here, 14,000 border 
security personnel, almost 15,000--we will be able to catch them if 
they are coming across illegally.
  In addition, we have dramatically increased our efforts to 
recapitalize and support the Coast Guard. I think everyone understands 
the Coast Guard is one of the premier agencies in our Government. Their 
efforts during Katrina were exemplary. They have the primary 
responsibility for making sure people coming toward the United States 
over the seas are coming here as part of reasonable commerce or simply 
as tourists and are not coming here to harm us. In order to accomplish 
that, they have dramatically increased the review of shipping as it 
comes toward the United States at the port of embarkation--whether that 
is in Asia or somewhere else--and they have increased their 
interdiction capabilities should there be a suspicious cargo on a ship 
headed toward the United States. To accomplish this, we have 
significantly increased the commitment to the Coast Guard in the area 
of purchasing more cutters, fast boats, arming their helicopters, and 
just generally upgrading their capacity to do their job well, as they 
do it well. Over $7.5 billion has been put into the Coast Guard as a 
result of this effort.
  The practical result of all this new funding, all these new agents, 
new commitment to detention beds, is that we are moving toward a secure 
border. In the very foreseeable future, short term rather than long 
term, we will be able to manage this border in a way that is 
appropriate, making sure people do not cross it illegally. We will also 
manage our ports, making sure they are secure. We have a way to go 
there, but we are making significant progress.
  At the same time, in this bill we have made a commitment to 
reorganize the Department in some areas where it has not been 
functioning all that well, specifically in FEMA. congratulate Senator 
Collins for her leadership. She orchestrated a bipartisan, bicameral 
effort to reach an agreement on how FEMA should be reorganized. The 
language of that reorganization is in this bill.

  In addition, we have put in this bill significant language in the 
area of chemical plant security. The Department of Homeland Security 
today does not have adequate authority to secure our chemical plants. 
It simply cannot do it because it doesn't have the legal authority 
necessary to force our chemical plants to undertake policies which will 
secure them. With this new language--again, this language was brokered 
by Senator Collins working with Congressman Barton and Congressman 
King--we have put in place a regime which will allow the Homeland 
Security agency to monitor and to require that high-risk chemical 
plants now have a decent security plan in place.
  There are other ideas out there for chemical security, some good 
ones. Senator Byrd has a significant number of good ideas in this area. 
Therefore, Senator Collins looked on this language, basically, more as 
a stop-gap language, to get things going, to make sure there was at 
least some initial authority for the Homeland Security Department, and 
thus this language sunsets in 3 years, so the Congress will have to 
reauthorize, and other thoughts and ideas in the area of chemical 
security can be pursued.
  This bill is a comprehensive, broad, and extraordinarily robust 
effort to tightening up and making a stronger commitment to securing 
our country and especially our borders and to make sure we have a 
Department of Homeland Security which has the resources it needs in 
order to accomplish that goal. There is a dramatic increase in the 
number of agents, dramatic increase in the number of detention beds, 
dramatic increase in the commitment to the Coast Guard, dramatic 
increase in the commitment to the monitoring and the capacity to handle 
a nuclear threat, and a dramatic increase to the issue of building a 
fence along the southwest border.
  We still have a have a long way to go. Nobody is going to argue about 
that. But in this debate, while we constantly hear this constant 
rumbling of negativism out there about border security--we aren't doing 
this, we aren't doing that--it should be acknowledged that significant 
progress is being made and a dramatic amount of resources is being 
focused on this effort by this administration and this Congress.
  In addition, as an aside, this bill had one item I would like to 
point out which I think is important, especially to people who live 
along the northern border. There is language in this bill which was 
worked out between myself and Congressman Rogers but primarily between 
Congresswoman Emerson and Senator Vitter. The purpose of this language 
will be to allow American citizens to cross into Canada and purchase 
drugs at a Canadian drugstore--Senator DeMint was also involved in 
this--purchase drugs at a Canadian pharmacy and bring them back to the 
United States without being subject to legal prosecution.
  There are a lot of people who believe they can go into Canada and buy 
American-made drugs which are being sold through Canada at a much 
higher discount than they can get those drugs in America. It may not be 
the case any longer because of what Wal-Mart is doing because Wal-Mart 
is putting in place a very robust, low-cost drug program. In any event, 
if Wal-Mart doesn't underprice Canada, people will be able now to go to 
Canada and purchase those drugs. I see Senator Dorgan here, and he has 
been a major player in this effort, also. They can purchase those drugs 
and not be subject to prosecution.
  This language took a long time to work out. It has the safeguards in 
it that I believe always were necessary before we could take this 
language and move it forward, and I am glad we were finally able to 
resolve this part of that puzzle. It is a bigger issue, but at least 
relative to people crossing the borders and purchasing drugs, which 
happens fairly regularly in New Hampshire and I know North Dakota and 
other places along the northern border, this is a step in the right 
direction. I congratulate all the people who have worked so hard to 
make this come to fruition.

[[Page S10112]]

  On balance, this is a truly excellent bill. We will be voting on it 
here, hopefully before the week is over. Absolutely I hope that is the 
case. It is very important we get these funds in place. As a result of 
that, we will continue this rather significant--I would call it 
dramatic--progress toward putting in place the capital, the resources, 
and the people necessary to secure our borders.
  But I would point out this caveat. No matter how many people we put 
on the border and no matter how much capital resources we put behind 
this--and we are going to do whatever it takes on those two counts--you 
still have the issue of human nature to deal with, which is, if a 
Mexican is making $5 a day and he can come to the United States and 
make $50 a day and he has a family to support, he is going to come to 
the United States. We have to figure out a comprehensive approach which 
will allow somebody to come to the United States, work a job that 
Americans are not willing to work or we don't have enough Americans to 
work, and be able to do that under a guest worker program that is 
responsible and allow employers the capacity to be able to verify that 
the individual is in this country legally. That is a critical element 
to securing our borders and making sure we do this right.

  So comprehensive reform should not be ignored. It has to be part of 
this whole package. But pending comprehensive reform, this bill, which 
we will vote on, the Homeland Security appropriations bill, is a 
significant, robust--actually, you could even call it dramatic--step 
forward in making sure our borders are secure.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining on our 
side of the aisle in morning business?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority has 9\1/2\ minutes.

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