[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13947-13970]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007--Continued

  Mr. SCHUMER. 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. GREGG. 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the quorum call be rescinded.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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that upon the 
arrival of the Senator from West Virginia, he be recognized to offer 
two amendments, and that upon the disposition of those two amendments, 
the Senator from Maine be recognized to offer an amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, 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. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I was just saying as I came in, I saw 
these young pages here--I have been around here quite a long time, but 
I haven't gotten used to these. Our country has put a man on the Moon 
and brought him back to Earth again, but it hasn't yet perfected a 
really good public address system. A Senator such as myself is not used 
to the public address system and has to learn how to use the ones we 
have.
  As I was saying, I said the person who really introduced court 
reporting in the Roman Senate was Cicero, which I will discuss at 
another time.


                           Amendment No. 4557

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, when the President sent his budget to the 
Congress in February, it was based on a false premise. The President's 
budget assumed that the Appropriations Committees would raise the 
aviation fees on airline passengers by $1.23 billion. The President and 
his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were aware that the 
Congress would not approve this tax increase on airline passengers 
because the administration tried a similar proposal last year, and the 
Congress responded with a bipartisan no. Thus, the President's budget 
is kind of a hollow one--h-o-l-l-o-w, hollow. It leaves a gaping $1.23 
billion hole in the homeland security budget.
  The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran, 
provided the subcommittee with some additional resources, but the fact 
remains that this bill is still $515 million below the President's 
request and $350 million lower than the bill that was passed by the 
House of Representatives last month.
  The amendment I am offering today attempts to rectify this 
discrepancy. My amendment provides an additional $350 million for 
border security infrastructure enhancements, and it is fully paid for.
  I am pleased that the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Gregg, is 
working with me on this amendment. As we continue to hire more Border 
Patrol agents and other immigration enforcement officials, we need to 
give them the tools they need to do their job, and we need to start 
paying for those tools now so they will be available as more and more 
Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officials are hired and 
trained.
  The Border Patrol needs new helicopters because the average age of 
its helicopters is nearly 40 years. The average age of our Customs 
primary fixed-wing aircraft is 30 years. All of our border enforcement 
officials, including the newly hired officials, need more vehicles, 
including all-terrain vehicles, high endurance vehicles, and even more 
buses to transport and remove illegal aliens.
  Customs and Border Protection has a requirement for 18 unmanned 
aerial vehicles, or UAVs. The Senate-passed immigration bill authorizes 
more UAVs. Yet the only one we had operating on our border crashed in 
the desert this past spring.
  The amendment I am offering provides real dollars for our aging 
border infrastructure. It provides $90 million for additional fencing, 
tactical border infrastructure, and facilities. It provides $105 
million for air and marine items, such as new helicopters, unmanned 
aerial vehicles, the standing up of all planned northern border air

[[Page 13948]]

wings, and the facilities to house and maintain these aircraft. It 
provides $55 million for replacement vehicles for our border and 
immigration personnel, and it also provides $15 million for the ongoing 
Information Technology Modernization Program at Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement.
  The President's budget requested $47 million in direct appropriations 
for the Business Transformation Program at U.S. Citizenship and 
Immigration Services. Because of the hollowness of the President's 
budget submission, these funds were not included in the bill reported 
out of committee. The program is a multiyear effort to modernize 
immigration benefits services.
  So this amendment will help to reduce the rate of fraud in the 
program and to ensure the security and the integrity of the immigration 
system. This amendment provides the $47 million requested by the 
President for this program.
  Finally, my amendment adds $38 million for fraud detection and 
national security activities at USCIS. This $38 million will add 100 
new positions to enable FDNS to conduct benefit fraud assessments of 
additional immigration benefits, including training efforts necessary 
to further enhance the background checking process. We must have the 
technology and trained personnel in place now if we are to ensure that 
only those individuals who are legally allowed to be in this country 
are obtaining benefits and other privileges.
  How is the amendment paid for? The amendment is fully paid for 
through increases in existing fees on non-U.S. citizens.
  Border security in this country must be more than just a political 
slogan in this campaign year. Do you know this is a campaign year? I 
do. I am running. Border security must be one of the Nation's top 
priorities. The people out there watching through those lenses will 
agree with that. Border security must be one of this Nation's top 
priorities.
  The United States is on track to hire over 6,500 new Border Patrol 
agents and immigration enforcement officers. But what happens once they 
are on the job? Do we send them to the border without weapons, without 
radios, without trucks and Jeeps? Without this amendment, without these 
resources, we will be telling our Border Patrol agents in essence to 
stem the tide of illegal immigration with little more than a polite 
smile--little more than a polite smile. Asking illegal immigrants to 
please turn around just won't cut it. Our Border Patrol must have the 
law enforcement resources to get the job done.
  If we are truly serious about securing our borders--and not just 
engaging in hollow rhetoric--then we will put real dollars on the 
border. I commend my chairman, Senator Gregg, for his support, and I 
urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Byrd], for himself, Mr. 
     Gregg, Ms. Murray, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. Bingaman, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 4557.

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

(Purpose: To provide additional resources for border infrastructure and 
                     program integrity initiatives)

       At the appropriate place in the bill insert the following:

                                TITLE VI

              BORDER SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE ENHANCEMENTS

       Sec. 601. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, 
     the Secretary of Homeland Security shall adjust fees charged 
     by the Department against any non-United States citizen by 
     notice in the Federal Register no later than January 1, 2007, 
     to achieve not less than $350,000,000 in additional receipts 
     by September 30, 2007: Provided, That the Secretary may 
     adjust only those fees authorized under the Immigration and 
     Nationality Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and 
     Immigrant Responsibility Act: Provided further, That this 
     adjustment shall be in addition to fees authorized under 8 
     United States Code 1356.
       (b) Amounts collected under subsection (a) shall be 
     deposited in the accounts as provided by 8 United States Code 
     1356: Provided, That of the total amount collected pursuant 
     to subsection (a) the Secretary shall transfer the following 
     amounts:
       (1) $25,000,000 to Customs and Border Protection ``Salaries 
     and Expenses'' for vehicle replacement;
       (2) $105,000,000 to Customs and Border Protection ``Air and 
     Marine Interdiction, Operations, Maintenance, and 
     Procurement'' for air asset replacement and air operations 
     facilities upgrades;
       (3) $90,000,000 to Customs and Border Protection 
     ``Construction'';
       (4) $30,000,000 to Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
     ``Salaries and Expenses'' for vehicle replacement; and,
       (5) $15,000,000 to Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
     ``Automation Modernization''.
       (c) Of the total amount collected pursuant to subsection 
     (a) $85,000,000 shall be made available to United States 
     Citizenship and Immigration Services: Provided, That of the 
     additional amount available, $47,000,000 shall be for 
     Business Transformation and $38,000,000 shall be for Fraud 
     Detection and National Security initiatives.
       (d) Amounts deposited under paragraph (b) shall remain 
     available until expended for the activities and services 
     described in paragraphs (b) and (c).

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to commend the Senator from West 
Virginia for this amendment. Everything that he is proposing to fund in 
this amendment is needed and is critical. There is no question but that 
the agencies to which he is giving these additional dollars for the 
purposes of refurbishing both air and vehicle fleets are in dire need 
of these dollars, as he cited in his statement. The aircraft owned by 
Customs is 30 years beyond its useful life. Helicopters are averaging 
20 years beyond their useful life. The vehicles in which these folks go 
out to protect our borders often break down and many times they can't 
fulfill their missions because the vehicles are not up to the capacity 
that is needed.
  So this is a good amendment. It is a needed amendment. I support it. 
Senator Byrd has found an offset which is a reasonable offset. It 
increases the fees for non-Americans who seek to use the Immigration 
Service and the Customs Service--mostly the Immigration Service, I 
believe. This will not raise blue slip issues. So I am in support of 
this amendment and urge its adoption.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4557 be 
agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 4557) was agreed to.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my chairman for his support. I ask 
unanimous consent that further consideration of the amendment be 
waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4559

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the President of the United States, in his 
January State of the Union Address, told America: ``The enemy has not 
lost the desire or the capability to attack us.'' He was right. I am 
sure the President is correct about that. But some of the speech 
writers and policy writers for the administration seem to be living in 
alternative worlds.
  After the administration's decision to allow Dubai Ports World to 
operate terminals in six major U.S. ports, the administration asserted 
that it has a robust, layered security system for our ports. Yet the 
White House has proposed for the second straight year now to eliminate 
the Port Security Grant Program.
  How serious is the administration about port security when it decides 
to allow Dubai Ports World to control six major U.S. ports? How serious 
is the administration when it underfunds port security? How serious are 
they about port security when Customs and Border Protection inspects 
only 5 percent of the 11 million containers that come into the country 
each year? How serious is the administration about port security when 
the Coast Guard inspects only one-third of the foreign ports that trade 
with our country? How serious is the administration when the Coast 
Guard Deepwater budget for replacing its ships, planes, and helicopters 
will not be completed until 2026? How old will I be then, in 2026?

[[Page 13949]]

Well, it really doesn't matter. That is 20 years away.
  How serious are they when it takes over 11 months to make grant funds 
available to ports for needed security measures?
  My amendment would provide $648 million to fill critical gaps in our 
paper-thin--paper-thin--do you see how thin this paper is--our paper-
thin port security programs. The amendment would provide resources for 
more container inspection equipment and personnel, more port 
inspections, more Coast Guard ships, more Coast Guard planes that are 
essential to securing our borders, and more port security grants.
  Currently, only 5 percent of all of the cargo containers entering the 
United States are physically inspected by opening the containers. Now, 
this is paper-thin security. My amendment would fund 60 more cargo 
container imaging machines at our seaports and rail border crossings 
that can view inside a container. It will also fund the hiring of 354 
additional Customs and Border Protection officers to inspect these 
containers and address anomalies in cargo containers that may be 
triggered by the radiation portal monitors deployed at the ports.
  Currently, the Coast Guard has only 82 inspectors to conduct facility 
investment compliance at domestic ports and 34 inspectors to review 
security plans at foreign ports. Of the 144 countries that conduct 
maritime trade with our country, the Coast Guard has assessed security 
at only 51. At the current rate of inspections, Coast Guard inspectors 
will visit countries that trade with the United States only once every 
4 years. Now, this is paper-thin security.
  Under my amendment, the Coast Guard would complete the assessment of 
all 144 countries every 2 years. My amendment would also provide the 
Coast Guard with funding to conduct random spot checks of all domestic 
port facilities and assess the vulnerability of our most strategic 
ports here at home.
  Domestically, the Coast Guard inspects the 3,064 U.S. facilities that 
are subject to the Maritime Transportation Security Act regulations 
just once per year. The Coast Guard has no funding to conduct random 
spot checks of these facilities. My amendment includes funding for 
approximately 80 new positions to establish a robust spot check program 
at each Coast Guard sector office, an important element in any 
enforcement regime, wouldn't you think so?
  The Coast Guard has completed vulnerability assessments at 55 
militarily and economically strategic ports. Currently, no funding is 
available to update these assessments which were completed 2 years ago. 
But my amendment would allow the Coast Guard to reassess the 
vulnerability of approximately 10 ports.
  The condition of Coast Guard ships and planes is declining rapidly. 
These assets spend more and more time out of service. For example, 
total patrol boat hours in 2004 were 25 percent lower than in 1998. 
Current Coast Guard maritime patrol airplanes can only provide half of 
the hours required to meet operational commitments. At the same time, 
funding constraints require maintenance on these aging assets to be 
deferred more and more every year.
  My amendment provides $184 million for the Coast Guard to buy new 
patrol boats, maintain existing cutters, buy new maritime patrol 
aircraft, and arm its helicopters for homeland defense in U.S. ports 
and harbors.
  Coast Guard Patrol boats are operating in theater less today than 
they were in 1998. Total boat hours were only 75,000 in 2004, compared 
to the 1998 baseline of approximately 100,000 hours. The decline in 
operational hours has been the result of aging assets and the loss of 8 
patrol boats deployed to the Middle East for Operation Iraqi Freedom. 
Under the Coast Guard's Deepwater modernization plan, this gap won't be 
closed until 2012 at the earliest. Funding in my amendment would enable 
the Coast Guard to purchase 2 additional patrol boats for a total of 5 
in fiscal year 2007. This will provide the Coast Guard with 6,000 
desperately needed Deepwater patrol boat hours in drug and migrant 
transit zones.
  Finally, my amendment includes $190 million for port security grants, 
which would bring fiscal year 2007 funding to $400 million. The Coast 
Guard estimates that $5.4 billion is needed through 2012 for security 
at our ports. To date, only 15 percent of that amount has been funded 
despite the fact that United States ports handle over 95 percent of 
U.S. overseas trade. Last year, Homeland Security was able to fund only 
24 percent of the projects requested. This is paper-thin security.
  I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the American Association 
of Port Authorities supporting the amendment be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1)
  Mr. BYRD. The White House knew, when it sent the budget to the 
Congress, that the funding relied on a tax hike on air travelers--a tax 
hike the Congress had already rejected. The Appropriations committees 
lack jurisdiction to increase the aviation passenger tax, and, of 
course could not do so in this bill. As a result, despite Chairman 
Gregg's best efforts, the bill that is before the Senate does not 
provide the necessary resources for port security. My amendment 
addresses that shortfall.
  Just 2 months ago, the Senate approved my $648 million port security 
amendment to the supplemental. Regrettably, the President threatened to 
veto the supplemental unless what he characterized as low-priority 
spending was dropped from the bill. In conference, port security 
funding was stricken from the supplemental. I hope that the Senate will 
approve this port security amendment again and that this time, it 
survives in conference.
  The amendment is within the allocation available to the subcommittee 
for fiscal year 2006.
  The American people expect more than just a paper-thin security plan 
for our ports. I thank Chairman Gregg for his support.
  I thank my illustrious chairman, Senator Gregg, for his support, and 
I urge the adoption of my amendment.

                               Exhibit 1

                                              American Association


                                          of Port Authorities,

                                    Alexandria, VA, July 10, 2006.
     To: All Members of the United States Senate.
     From: Kurt Nagle, President and CEO, American Association of 
         Port Authorities.
     Subj: Support Port Security Amendment on the Senate Floor.

       As a member of the United States Senate, I am writing to 
     urge you to support an amendment to the Department of 
     Homeland Security's (DHS) FY '07 appropriations bill being 
     offered tomorrow by Senator Byrd to increase funding for port 
     security. This amendment represents a critical opportunity to 
     make port security a higher priority for this nation. The 
     American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) represents 
     the leading public ports in the U.S., handling most of the 
     maritime cargo imported or exported from this country. We 
     strongly endorse this amendment to provide an additional $635 
     million to enhance port security by providing: an increase in 
     port security grants, additional port security inspectors at 
     foreign and domestic ports, additional cargo container 
     inspection equipment, and improved maritime security through 
     expedited purchase of Coast Guard planes and boats.
       Earlier this year, Congress and this nation focused its 
     attention on the P&O Ports/Dubai Ports World transaction, 
     which resulted in a nationwide debate on port security and 
     calls for more security funding for this critical 
     transportation asset. In response, the Senate and the House 
     began working on legislation to strengthen maritime security. 
     The Senate Greenlane Maritime Security Act (S. 2459--Collins/
     Murray) and the House SAFE Ports Act (H.R. 4954--Lungren/
     Harman) both call for significantly more funding for port 
     security. The Senate-based emergency supplemental followed 
     the recommendations in these bills, but much of the port 
     security funding was eliminated due to concerns over the 
     total spending level for the bill.
       Senator Byrd's amendment is aimed at once again adopting 
     the funding levels in the House and Senate bills and making 
     port security a high priority for this country. AAPA is 
     especially interested in properly funding the Port Security 
     Grant program. The Byrd amendment would bring the funding 
     level up to $400 million for the year. This would help pay 
     for the very costly new regulations DHS has proposed 
     following the Dubai Ports controversy to require all maritime 
     workers and facilities to comply with new Transportation 
     Worker Identification Credential or TWIC requirements. DHS 
     estimates that 40 percent of the $1 billion cost of

[[Page 13950]]

     this regulation will fall on port facilities. By supporting 
     this amendment, Congress will provide federal funds critical 
     to help co-fund this new mandate.
       With 99% of our international cargo by volume flowing 
     through ports, we urge you to show the nation that port 
     security is a priority in Congress by voting ``yes'' on this 
     port security amendment tomorrow.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise again to express my appreciation to 
the Senator from West Virginia. He has brought forward an amendment 
which addresses critical needs in port security and Coast Guard 
retooling. He has paid for it. My druthers were to take the 2006 
authorization allocation which we had and allow it to lapse and go to 
deficit reduction. That was my initial plan. But I have been here long 
enough to know that if you leave that type of money on the table, 
somebody else will end up spending it.
  It is truly a critical need in the area of homeland security that we 
address the issues which the Senator from West Virginia has put into 
his package. The Coast Guard is especially important. An example: The 
Senator from West Virginia noted that he is going to fund the adding of 
armament to Coast Guard helicopters. Presently there are about 90 Coast 
Guard helicopters. Four or five are armed. The four or five that are 
armed have a 100-percent interception rate. In other words, when a 
smuggler is headed toward our shores, either with people or with 
contraband, if the helicopter that tracks them has armament on it, 
there is 100 percent interception rate. Those helicopters which do not 
have armament do not have anywhere near that interception rate.
  There was an interesting article just a day or so ago in the Miami 
paper, I believe, about how smugglers are coming in and that the Coast 
Guard fast boat tried to catch up with the smugglers. They were in a 
cigarette boat. The cigarette boat turned and was on a course to ram 
the intercept boats, and the intercept boats called in the armed 
helicopter and that stopped the confrontation. The smugglers were 
arrested.
  So it is critical that we do this type of upgrading to the Coast 
Guard. In this bill, we had upgraded 36 helicopters. This will upgrade 
another 30. We are getting pretty close to the entire Coast Guard fleet 
or as much as is needed to have that type of armament on it.
  In addition, the fast boats are critical, the observation aircraft 
are critical, and then the whole major thrust toward port security is 
equally important.
  It is a paid-for amendment. It is one that addresses needs that are 
there, that are obvious. They need to be addressed and were not 
addressed because of the tight resource situation. But, as usual, the 
Senator from West Virginia has been creative, and his proposal is not 
only reasonable but is an improvement of the bill. I am happy to 
support it.
  I know the Senator from North Dakota wants to speak on it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask that my amendment be called up and the 
clerk state it for the consideration of the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Byrd], for himself, Mr. 
     Gregg, Mr. Kohl, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Menendez, Mrs. Murray, and 
     Mr. Rockefeller, proposes an amendment numbered 4559.

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

(Purpose: To provide additional funding for port security enhancements 
                          in fiscal year 2006)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

 TITLE VII--SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR PORT SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS

       The following sums are appropriated, out of any money in 
     the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to enhance port 
     security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and 
     for other purposes, namely:

                     CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

                         SALARIES AND EXPENSES

       For an additional amount for ``Salaries and Expenses'', 
     $251,000,000, to remain available until expended.

                       UNITED STATES COAST GUARD

                           OPERATING EXPENSES

       For an additional amount for ``Operating Expenses'', 
     $23,000,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, 
     That funding is available to accelerate foreign port security 
     assessments, conduct domestic port vulnerability assessments, 
     and perform unscheduled security audits of facilities 
     regulated by chapter 701 of title 46, United States Code, 
     commonly known as the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 
     2002.

                       UNITED STATES COAST GUARD

              ACQUISITION, CONSTRUCTION, AND IMPROVEMENTS

       For an additional amount for ``Acquisition, Construction, 
     and Improvements'' for acquisition, construction, renovation, 
     and improvement of vessels, aircraft, and equipment, 
     $184,000,000 for the Integrated Deepwater Systems program, to 
     remain available until expended: Provided, That funding is 
     available to acquire maritime patrol aircraft and parent 
     craft patrol boats, to provide armed helicopter capability, 
     and to sustain the medium endurance cutter fleet.

                    OFFICE FOR DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS

                        STATE AND LOCAL PROGRAMS

       For an additional amount for ``State and Local Programs'', 
     $190,000,000 to remain available until September 30, 2007: 
     Provided, That the entire amount shall be for port security 
     grants pursuant to the purposes of subsection (a) through (h) 
     of section 70107 of title 46, United States Code, which shall 
     be awarded based on risk notwithstanding subsection (a), for 
     eligible costs as defined in paragraphs (2), (3), and (4) of 
     subsection (b).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I come from a 
landlocked State. We don't have a seaport in North Dakota. But I have 
taken the time to review some of the activities of seaports and learned 
a bit about seaports and related that to the issue of security in this 
new age of terrorism.
  I come today to support the amendment offered by my colleague from 
West Virginia. He has been relentless over some long period of time, 
being very concerned about seaport security. Let me also commend 
Senator Gregg as well for his work on the underlying legislation and 
also for his support of the amendment of Senator Byrd.
  I recall going to a seaport and being shown containers that come in, 
I believe between 5.5 and 6 million containers, stacked on ships that 
arrive at the shores of the United States. Then they are put on wheels 
and they are trucked around the country. I asked the question, How many 
of these containers are inspected? The answer at that point was around 
3 percent. I believe now it is something just over 5 percent.
  They were showing me, at this particular seaport, a container they 
had opened. It turned out to be a refrigerated container with frozen 
broccoli from Poland, and it had in it giant bags of frozen broccoli 
from Poland. I said, ``What is in the middle of the container? I see 
you opened the back end and ripped open some bags, and there is frozen 
broccoli in this container. Is there anything in the middle of these 
bags?''
  ``That we don't know. We haven't unloaded it. We don't unload most of 
these. We don't inspect most of these.''
  Then they showed me the technology that exists by which they could 
inspect, effectively x-raying these containers. So there are ways to 
enhance greater inspection of these containers at seaports.
  Even though my State doesn't have a seaport, we in the Senate debate 
and provide funding now of about $10 billion a year for the 
antiballistic missile system so we can create a catcher's mitt in case 
some rogue nation or some terrorist group would fire an 
intercontinental ballistic missile at us that is tipped with a nuclear 
bomb. The likelihood of that is very unlikely. It is one of the least 
likely things on the threat meter against our country, that a rogue 
nation or terrorist group would acquire a nuclear weapon, put it on top 
of an intercontinental ballistic missile, and have the means to launch 
it at our country, but we spent about $10 billion

[[Page 13951]]

to try to find a way to provide a catcher's mitt and intercept a 
bullet, with a bullet traveling at 18,000 miles an hour.
  A much more likely scenario to threaten this country will be a ship 
pulling up to the dock of a major American city at 3 miles an hour with 
a load of containers on board, one of which may contain a weapon of 
mass destruction. That has been my concern.
  I think we have done a lot of work to try to extend the envelope and 
extend the line of protection, going actually to other countries. That 
is included, in addition, in this amendment--to have inspectors 
overseas at the point of departure for some of these container ships 
and so on. But there is so much more we must do if we really are going 
to assure ourselves we are not going to allow, coming in at 2 or 3 
miles an hour, some large ship carrying containers, one of which--out 
of some 6 million--one of which could threaten to blow up a major 
American city. That is the reason for being concerned about port 
security. It has the purpose of going the extra mile and making the 
extra investment to make sure that we can feel as if we have done 
everything possible to provide security at America's seaports.
  Let me again thank my colleague from West Virginia. As I said, he has 
been relentless. He has been on the Senate floor many times. I have 
tried to come and be supportive when he has offered these amendments 
because I feel so strongly about it. And let me again compliment 
Senator Gregg, the chairman of the subcommittee, for his work and also 
for accepting this amendment
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I speak on behalf of an amendment being 
offered by Senator Byrd which would enhance funding for border security 
infrastructure. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this important 
legislation, and I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his hard 
work on this important bill.
  The amendment would provide an additional $350 million for critical 
border security needs. The amendment would allocate $105 million for 
customs and border protection to purchase new Border Patrol replacement 
helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and additional unmanned aerial 
vehicles. And $25 million is added to the bill to purchase 
approximately 540 additional replacement vehicles for the Border 
Patrol.
  The amendment would also provide an additional $90 million for 
tactical infrastructure. This funding can be used to construct vehicle 
barrier, fencing, and facility upgrades. This funding will be of great 
assistance to the state of New Mexico, where such upgrades are needed 
to secure our border. The underlying bill allocates about $57 million 
for tactical infrastructure in Arizona and about $30 million for San 
Diego. However, the El Paso Sector, which includes the entire State of 
New Mexico, is only provided about $7.5 million. The additional $90 
million under this amendment will help ensure that New Mexico receives 
the resources that it needs.
  The amendment would also prove $30 million for ICE to purchase 800 
vehicles, including buses and vans, used to transport undocumented 
immigrants. And USCIS is allocated $38 million to enhance fraud 
detection systems.
  These additional resources are greatly needed and I urge my 
colleagues to support this important measure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. There is some irony 
in that, although neither the Senator from West Virginia nor the 
Senator from North Dakota has a port, unless Harpers Ferry is 
considered a port, they would be putting forward this concept. It is a 
good concept.
  I ask unanimous consent the amendment be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 4559) was agreed to.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move 
to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 4560

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk reads as follows:

       The Senator from Maine [Ms. Collins], for herself and Mr. 
     Lieberman, Mr. Lott, and Mr. Carper, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4560.

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is printed in today's Record under Text of amendments.)
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, our amendment would strengthen the 
capability, stature, and effectiveness of the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency. The language in the amendment is largely drawn from 
S. 3595, the United States Emergency Management Authority Act, which we 
introduced in this Chamber 2 weeks ago. We believe this is the 
appropriate time and the right vehicle for improving our Nation's 
emergency management system. The wounds of Hurricane Katrina are still 
fresh. A new hurricane season is upon us, and the recent news on the 
law enforcement and military front reminds us that the terrorist threat 
to America continues. Bitter lessons have been learned from the 
experience in responding to Hurricane Katrina, but they have not yet 
been applied. The time for action is now.
  The amendment reflects the Senate Committee on Homeland Security's 8-
month investigation into the failed preparations for response to 
Hurricane Katrina.
  As the Presiding Officer is well aware, the committee conducted an 
extensive and exhaustive investigation. We held some 23 hearings at 
which nearly 90 witnesses testified. We formally interviewed 325 
individuals, and we reviewed some 838,000 pages of documents. We 
distilled all of this into a comprehensive report with many 
recommendations for improving the response at all levels of government.
  Some of these recommendations have to do with how the Federal 
Government should be organized to effectively respond to future 
disasters, whether they are manmade or whether they are natural ones 
such as Katrina. These recommendations have been distilled in part in 
USEMA legislation that forms the basis for this amendment.
  I note that this is the first step in implementing the committee's 
comprehensive recommendations. We will be introducing a subsequent bill 
to implement other findings and recommendations. Most significant will 
be a package of reforms to the Stafford Act, but that is not what we 
are proposing today. The amendment before us today has four key 
features. It seeks to restructure, reform, and strengthen the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, which we would rename as the United 
States Emergency Management Authority.
  The four key features are as follows: First, it would give this new 
authority statutory protection against administrative actions that 
could diminish its capabilities and effectiveness, such as department-
wide reorganization that could strip essential functions away from the 
new agency.
  Second, it would ensure that the administrator has direct access to 
the President and serve as his principal adviser on emergency 
management issues.
  Third, it would reunite preparedness functions with response 
capabilities. After all, preparedness and response are really two sides 
of the same coin. I believe it was a mistake when the Department 
decided to strip FEMA of its preparedness functions.
  It would reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibility and 
restore a full range of work relationships with State and local 
government, the essential partners in emergency response.
  Fourth, the amendment would strengthen the new authority's regional 
focus.
  I know that as a former mayor the Presiding Officer has a special 
appreciation for just how important it is for the Federal Government to 
work closely with State and local governments. That is an issue that he 
has brought up throughout this investigation.

[[Page 13952]]

  We would create Federal strike teams that have representatives from 
all the agencies that are involved on the Federal side of the response. 
They would be located in regional offices to foster cooperation, 
coordination, and joint training with State and local emergency 
managers and with first responders.
  A crisis, whether it is due to a hurricane, an ice storm, or a 
terrorist attack is the last time that people should be exchanging 
business cards. We should make sure the Federal, State, and local 
governments are training together, planning together, exercising 
together; that they know one another; that they know the culture, the 
capabilities, and the essentials.
  The overarching objective of the amendment is to strengthen FEMA 
which, as I pledged, we would propose to rename as the United States 
Emergency Management Authority. The new name signals a fresh start for 
FEMA with new authority, including some authority that it has never had 
before over critical infrastructure, for example. It signifies new 
capabilities and new responsibilities to all-hazards emergency 
preparedness and response. And, surely, those of us who investigated 
for some months the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, as well as 
anyone who followed the issue peripherally, can have no doubt that FEMA 
urgently needs to be restructured and reformed to be more effective.
  Part of this help entails giving the new people a special legal 
status within DHS. Our amendment's prohibition against further 
departmental reorganization of this agency and mission alterations 
affecting the authority will give USEMA exactly the same kind of 
protection that has already been extended to the Coast Guard and to the 
Secret Service.
  This is something completely new. We paralleled the kind of 
protection, the distinct legal status that is given to the Coast Guard 
and to the Secret Service. I know the Coast Guard was the stellar 
performer in the response to Katrina. The Coast Guard, by all accounts, 
did an exceptional job in its preparedness and response, yet as part of 
the Department of Homeland Security.
  I think those who think the answer is to sever FEMA or the new agency 
from the Department should take a hard look at the Coast Guard's 
experience. But in looking at the Coast Guard, I think we can also 
learn that it benefited from having this legal protection, and we would 
extend that to the newly constituted FEMA.
  This protection will help achieve congressional intent that DHS be 
the focus for comprehensive, all-hazards Federal preparation and 
response to disasters.
  When the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21st 
Century memorandum recommended just 5 years ago a new approach to 
homeland security and that America establish a single department to 
plan, coordinate, and integrate homeland security operations, it called 
FEMA the necessary core of that new department. To that end, USEMA, 
like FEMA, needs to be a part of the DHS structure. That analysis has 
been confirmed by experience.
  Admiral Allen of the Coast Guard explained at one of our hearings 
that having FEMA and the Coast Guard in the same department leads to 
certain synergies that do not otherwise occur, and that led in 
particular to a 350-percent increase in joint training exercises. That 
is the kind of integration that we need more of.
  More generally, keeping key capabilities within a single DHS umbrella 
permits faster communication and response than a more formal and 
bureaucratic procedure required for interdepartmental requests from a 
setting within DHS. However, FEMA needs to have far better lines of 
communication.
  I know the Presiding Officer was as shocked as I was to hear the 
former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, talk about circumventing the chain 
of command within the Department and his failure to order critical 
commodities, to order the buses, to communicate just how dire the 
situation was in Louisiana.
  We want to make sure that we improve those lines of communication, 
both within the Department and between the Department and the White 
House and other agencies. That means giving the administrator more 
status.
  We would upgrade the administrator so he is the equivalent of a 
Deputy Secretary. That gives him more clout and more stature in 
dealing, for example, with the Department of Defense and other 
departments that play important roles in responding to a disaster.
  We designate the administrator of USEMA the principal adviser to the 
President on matters of emergency management. And we adopt a system 
that for the Pentagon has worked well in outlining the reporting 
responsibilities. We parallel the relationship between the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President. So there is both a 
reporting relationship to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and yet 
the new administrator would be the principal adviser to the President 
on emergency management.
  In addition--I think this also responds to a key weakness that our 
intensive investigation revealed--the administrator would be authorized 
to give recommendations directly to Congress. The administration would 
have to make sure he informs the Secretary of what he is going to say, 
but there is a direct link, a direct line of communication.
  I know the Presiding Officer recalls that Michael Brown claims he was 
stifled in reporting to Congress. We don't know for a fact whether that 
is an accurate statement. But we put in reforms to ensure that the 
administrator has the ability to communicate his recommendations, his 
needs, his findings directly to Congress.
  Our amendment, as I indicated, specifically rejects the notion that 
FEMA should be cut off of DHS and made a freestanding agency. The DHS 
needs FEMA's capability. What would happen if FEMA, a weak FEMA, were 
cast alone is that DHS would have to recreate many of the capabilities 
that FEMA has at great cost, at great duplication of effort. What we 
would end up having is one agency that deals with natural disasters and 
another agency within DHS that deals solely with disasters resulting 
from terrorist attacks. That makes no sense whatsoever.
  Many of the challenges in the aftermath of a catastrophe, whether it 
is manmade or natural, are exactly the same--sheltering people, getting 
them food and water, an evacuation plan.
  It also makes no sense from the perspective of State and local 
governments. We don't want them to just deal with one agency if they 
are planning for a natural disaster and another agency if they are 
planning for a terrorist attack since many of the challenges are 
identical. Just think, if the levees had been blown up by terrorists 
rather than breached by Hurricane Katrina, many of the challenges would 
have been exactly the same. There just would have been a stronger law 
enforcement component.
  It is a mistake, in that the Coast Guard's stellar performance proves 
it is a mistake, to think the location of FEMA is the cause of the 
problems. Even if that duplication were cost free, a virtual 
impossibility, the Secretary of the Department estimates it would cost 
billions of dollars to duplicate the necessary capabilities within DHS 
if FEMA were separated. Even if that were possibly cost free, it would 
be destructive. Divided preparation and response systems would force 
State and local officials to have to engage one to prepare for natural 
disasters and another for terror attacks.
  As one of our committee's expert witnesses, Professor Donald Kettl of 
the University of Pennsylvania, said: Separating response to terrorism 
from response to natural disasters, separating preparedness from 
response, separating FEMA from DHS, would inevitably bring problems.
  I agree with the professor. This is consistently what we hear from 
those who are on the front lines, from those who know what it takes to 
respond to a catastrophe.
  In that regard, I note that there is extraordinarily strong support 
from first responder groups for the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-Carper 
amendment. It has been endorsed by the National

[[Page 13953]]

Troopers Coalition, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Grand 
Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of 
Police Organizations, the National Sheriffs Association, the 
International Association of Fire Fighters, the International 
Association of Fire Chiefs, the Congressional Fire Services Institute, 
Advocates for EMS, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, 
the International Association of EMT's and Paramedics.
  This is quite a list of those who truly are on the front lines when 
it comes to responding to a disaster. I am very proud to have their 
support for our amendment. They recognize we have worked very hard and 
consulted fully with them to come up with the right approach.
  I also note the amendment we are offering has been endorsed by the 
Homeland Security and Defense Business Council. This is a council that 
provides advice to the Secretary. It is made up of very distinguished 
members of the private sector. They, too, have endorsed it.
  I ask unanimous consent these letters from first responder groups and 
from the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council be printed in 
the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I also note planning and response 
capabilities are already too weak in many States, as evidenced by the 
recent DHS reviews. We don't want to splinter those efforts further by 
needlessly multiplying their Federal points of contact. For many 
reasons, therefore, preserving those close working ties with other 
agencies within the Department, the new FEMA must stay within DHS.
  Allow me to briefly summarize a few more of the provisions of the 
bill before yielding to my colleague from Connecticut. First, as I 
mentioned, it establishes a strong position for the administrator of 
the new USEMA. This administrator would be nominated by the President, 
confirmed by the Senate, and have the standing of a Deputy Secretary. 
Day by day, the administrator would report to the DHS Secretary, but 
the bill explicitly provides that direct line of communication to the 
President as well as the authority to make recommendations to Congress 
on which I have already elaborated.
  The amendment provides for two directors. There was an issue on which 
we worked very closely with DHS. The language we have incorporates the 
feedback we got from the Department. Both of these individuals--which, 
again, would be high-level individuals within the Department--would be 
nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and would provide 
the administrator and the Department with highly qualified 
professionals in preparedness and mitigation and in response and 
recovery.
  Our amendment would give the administrator responsibility for 
managing preparedness grant programs. The Presiding Officer knows, as 
the former mayor, that i you control some of the money that goes out to 
State and local governments, if you are helping to allocate that 
funding, you will have a good relationship with State and local 
governments. Inevitably, the authority follows the money. This is going 
to ensure we have far better coordination. This is an important 
restoration of authority to this agency. It was a mistake, in my view, 
that authority was taken away from FEMA. That will help ensure better 
oversight and coordination of preparedness at all levels of government.
  I have talked about how important I think these regional structures 
are for the new agency. It will ensure that Federal officials are 
familiar with the people, the vulnerabilities, the capabilities, and 
the resources of the regions they protect, and they won't be 
introducing themselves to strangers on unfamiliar ground when disaster 
strikes.
  I could not help but be struck during our hearings by the fact that 
so many individuals from FEMA were sent from region 1e--the region that 
the Senator from Connecticut and I represent, New England--down to New 
Orleans. I like to believe we New Englanders can handle anything, but 
the fact is, the response would be far more effective if we had people 
who are in the area who worked every day with the emergency management 
officials in the area, who understood the weaknesses and the strengths 
of particular States rather than sending someone from the Northeast 
down to the hurricane region or vice versa in times of an ice storm or 
some other disaster.
  Further recognizing the importance of multilevel governmental 
coordination, the bill creates a national advisory council on emergency 
preparedness and response that would be made up of State and local 
officials, emergency management professionals from the public, private, 
and NGO sectors to advise the administrator of USEMA. This is 
important. We know the critical role nonprofits and the Red Cross play. 
They, too, should be involved in the training, the planning, the 
exercising. We learned from our investigation that, too, was flawed. 
This will help ensure the agency's thinking does not proceed in a 
stovepipe, but is fortified with comments and expertise from a wide 
range of vitally concerned partners.
  Our amendment addresses the glaring and urgent needs highlighted in 
our investigation of Hurricane Katrina. As I mentioned, I am very 
pleased we have the support of so many experts. Nothing could speak 
more eloquently of the need for reform or be more encouraging than to 
receive the words of support from those who do put their lives on the 
line every day to protect the American people. We also have the support 
of the administration for this proposal.
  Amending the Homeland Security appropriations bill by adding the 
provisions of our USEMA bill will go far to ensuring in a timely way 
that we will have a far more effective structure to protect our fellow 
citizens' lives and livelihoods from disaster.
  I am very pleased this is a bipartisan effort. I recognize the work 
of the Senator from Connecticut who has led, with me, the investigation 
of the committee and the drafting of this legislation. We are also 
grateful for the input of Senator Lott who knows better than any of 
us--except his fellow Senators from Mississippi and Louisiana--the 
devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I am grateful for his input, as well 
as the input from Senator Carper who also has worked very hard on this 
issue.
  Finally, I recognize all of the participation of the Presiding 
Officer, Senator Coleman. There was no more loyal committee member who 
came to virtually every single hearing, participated actively, and 
contributed greatly to our investigation. I thank him for his work, as 
well

                               Exhibit 1

                                                    July 11, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins,
     Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Joseph Lieberman,
     Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman: On 
     behalf of the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council 
     (the Council), I am writing to support S. 3595, the U.S. 
     Emergency Management Authority Act. On behalf of the private 
     sector, the Council is pleased to endorse this measure to 
     reinvent, protect, and strengthen FEMA. The new FEMA, 
     reconstituted as the U.S. Emergency Management Authority, 
     would ensure that the nation will be better prepared to 
     address, either, natural or man-made disasters.
       The Council is a non-partisan, non-profit 501 C6 
     organization that comprises the major companies that serve 
     the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Our focus is to 
     align private sector resources to support the mission of the 
     Department on behalf of the nation's interests. The Council 
     is pleased to see language that elevates the importance of 
     FEMA within DHS and reunites preparedness functions with 
     response capabilities.
       The Council supports provisions of S. 3595 that would:
        Give the new U.S. Emergency Management Authority statutory 
     protection against actions that could diminish its 
     capabilities and effectiveness;
        Ensure that the Administrator of US-EMA has direct access 
     to the President and serves as Principal Emergency Management 
     Advisor, at all times;

[[Page 13954]]

       Reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities 
     to reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibilities 
     and restore the full range of working relationships with 
     state and local government; and
       Strengthen the Authority's regional focus with federal 
     strike teams for a faster and more coordinated response and 
     to provide better familiarity with the states in which the 
     strike teams will operate.
       Thank you for your continued commitment to improving 
     emergency management and response and for engaging the 
     private sector to leverage industry best practices. Should 
     you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to 
     contact me anytime.
           Sincerely,
                                                Michael M. Meldon,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____



                                  National Troopers Coalition,

                                                    July 11, 2006.
     Hon. Susan M. Collins,
     Chair, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, 
         Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Collins: On behalf of the 40,000 state 
     troopers and highway patrol men and women represented by the 
     National Troopers Coalition (NTC), we are writing to commend 
     you for your legislative efforts to ensure that law 
     enforcement is directly involved in the continuing efforts to 
     prevent and respond to acts of terrorism.
       As an organization, NTC joins with our colleagues in other 
     national law enforcement organizations in support S. 3595, 
     the United States Emergency Management Authority Act of 2006. 
     We are convinced that retaining the Federal Emergency 
     Management Agency within the Department of Homeland Security 
     will provide better coordination among all agencies serving 
     as first responders to both natural disasters and terrorist 
     attacks, Recent history has demonstrated the importance of 
     the law enforcement community responding promptly, along with 
     others, to both terrorism and natural disasters for the 
     safety and well-being of our citizens.
       The NTC thanks you for your leadership on this issuc and 
     your continued efforts to ensure the public that we will have 
     the authority and resources to meet our public safety 
     responsibilities under any and all circumstances.
           Sincerely,
     Casey Perry.
                                  ____

                                      International Association of


                                                  Fire Chiefs,

                                       Fairfax, VA, July 13, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins,
     Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and 
         Governmental Affairs, Dirksen Senate Office Building, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Collins: On behalf of the nearly 13,000 chief 
     fire and emergency officers of the International Association 
     of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), I would like to endorse your amendment 
     to establish a U.S. Emergency Management Authority (USEMA). 
     We believe that this amendment will resolve many of the 
     problems with the nation's emergency management system by 
     improving the structure and granting greater autonomy to the 
     federal preparedness and response activities within the 
     Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
       We believe that your approach is the best way to reform the 
     nation's emergency preparedness and response system, because 
     it keeps these activities within DHS. The IAFC is concerned 
     that the removal of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
     (FEMA) from DHS will splinter the federal government's 
     emergency preparedness and response efforts, which will force 
     local jurisdictions to cope with competing directives from 
     both an independent FEMA and the other DHS agencies. In 
     addition, it is important that the FEMA stay within DHS and 
     continue developing relationships with the U.S. Coast Guard 
     and the other DHS components to better leverage their 
     collective assets.
       We believe that the U.S. Emergency Management Agency 
     established by your amendment would ensure more autonomy for 
     the federal emergency preparedness and response activities. 
     The USEMA Administrator would report directly to the 
     Secretary of Homeland Security and the directors of 
     Preparedness and Response and Recovery divisions would be 
     Senate-confirmed. Your amendment also would insulate the 
     USEMA from reorganization and diversion of assets, functions, 
     or missions. The IAFC believes that USEMA's independence 
     could be further guaranteed by ensuring that the USEMA 
     Administrator would report directly to the President during a 
     Stafford Act--defined ``emergency'' or ``major disaster'' to 
     ensure that all federal assets are available without delay. 
     We greatly appreciate the provisions in this amendment that 
     ensure that the U.S. Fire Administrator remains at a level 
     equivalent to an Assistant Secretary in the department.
       We thank you for your continued leadership on behalf of 
     America's fire service. Please feel to contact Ken LaSala, 
     Director of Government Relations, at (703) 273-9815 x347, if 
     we can be of assistance.
           Sincerely,
                                             Garry L. Briese, CAE,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____

                                                       Grand Lodge


                                   Fraternal Order of Police,

                                    Washington, DC, July 10, 2006.
     Hon. Susan M. Collins,
     Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
         Affairs,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman,
     Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security and 
         Governmental Affairs,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman, I am writing 
     on behalf of the members of the Fraternal Order of Police to 
     advise you of our strong opposition to any legislation or 
     amendment that would remove the Federal Emergency Management 
     Agency (FEMA) from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
     (DHS).
       Since the terrorist attacks on the United States in 
     September 2001, our nation has worked diligently to defend 
     itself from future attacks and, in so doing, have also 
     dedicated significant resources to respond to large scale 
     critical incidents, both natural and man-made. Yet the 
     primary mission of the Department of Homeland Security must 
     always be the prevention of future attacks against the United 
     States, and this mission is best entrusted to law enforcement 
     at the local, State, and Federal levels.
       However, our nation will face natural disasters which 
     cannot be prevented, and, for these, we must be prepared to 
     respond. Law enforcement is a critical component of this 
     response and law. enforcement at every level of government 
     seeks to increase the speed and effectiveness of delivering 
     emergency services to those in need. Clearly, the mass 
     devastation brought to the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina 
     showed that greater coordination and communication is needed 
     to respond to incidents of such magnitude. This goal cannot 
     and will not be achieved if FEMA is removed from DHS. Indeed, 
     the F.O.P. believes that such a move would reduce our 
     nation's overall level of preparedness.
       The F.O.P. also strongly supports greater participation of 
     law enforcement in planning emergency response at every level 
     of government. We will continue our review of various 
     legislative proposals addressing the need for emergency 
     management reform at the Federal level. I thank you both in 
     advance for your consideration of the positions we have laid 
     out to date and look forward to working with you to improve 
     our nation's ability to prevent terrorist attacks and prepare 
     for future critical incidents. If I can provide any further 
     information on this issue, please do not hesitate to contact 
     me or Executive Director Jim Pasco in my Washington office.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Chuck Canterbury,
     National President.
                                  ____



                              Major Cities Chiefs Association,

                                       Columbia, MD, July 6, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins,
     Chairwoman, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
         Affairs,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Madame Chairwoman: On behalf of the Major City Chiefs 
     Association, I am writing to commend you on developing 
     legislation that will strengthen the Department of Homeland 
     Security (DHS). S. 3595, the United States Emergency 
     Management Authority Act, is a step in the right direction; 
     making DHS more efficient with limited disruption and 
     reorganization.
       Prevention is the best investment in response capability. 
     Like the President, we believe that the best way to respond 
     to a terrorist attack, be it biological, chemical, 
     radiological, nuclear or conventional explosive is to prevent 
     it from happening in the first place. Intelligence, 
     investigation, and preparedness are all law enforcement 
     functions that will help prevent terrorists from striking 
     again.
       As you know, we feel strongly that preparedness and 
     prevention are too dissimilar from response and recovery for 
     these functions to operate under the same common chain of 
     command. That is why we welcome the creation of a separate 
     and distinct Office of the Prevention of Terrorism reporting 
     directly to the Secretary. This structure will not permit the 
     dilution of the prevention mission under layers of 
     bureaucracy. We are also pleased that the bill does not break 
     apart the Preparedness Directorate keeping it on equal 
     footing with response and recovery. We strongly support the 
     Preparedness Directorate and its vital role at DHS.
       We look forward to working with you and supporting your 
     efforts to ensure that DHS has a clear prevention mission. If 
     we can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to 
     call on Tom Frazier.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Harold Hurtt,
                                                        President.

[[Page 13955]]

     
                                  ____
                                           National Association of


                                   Police Organizations, Inc.,

                                    Washington, DC, July 11, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins,
     Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Joseph Lieberman,
     Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairwoman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman: On 
     behalf of the National Association of Police Organizations 
     (NAPO) representing more than 238,000 law enforcement 
     officers throughout the United States, I would like to thank 
     you for introducing S. 3595, the ``United States Emergency 
     Management Authorization Act of 2006,'' and advise you of our 
     support, particularly in regards to Section 517 of the 
     legislation. If enacted, this bill will establish within the 
     Department of Homeland Security (DHS) an Office for the 
     Prevention of Terrorism.
       The ``United States Emergency Management Authorization Act 
     of 2006'' will create an Office that would be responsible for 
     coordinating anti-terrorism policy and operations between DHS 
     and state and local law enforcement. The Director of the 
     Office for the Prevention of Terrorism would have the 
     important task of developing better intelligence sharing 
     methods between DHS and state and local law enforcement 
     agencies. This new Office would also ensure that vital 
     homeland security grants are adequately focused on terrorism.
       This legislation recognizes the importance of standardized 
     coordination and communication between the country's local, 
     state, and federal law enforcement in preventing acts of 
     terrorism within the United States. Section 517 of the 
     ``United States Emergency Management Authorization Act of 
     2006'' will help ensure that state and local law enforcement 
     are properly supported, trained and informed in order to 
     prevent terrorism before it occurs.
       NAPO thanks you for your continued support of law 
     enforcement and I look forward to working with you to get 
     this important legislation passed. If you have any questions, 
     please feel free to contact me, or NAPO's Legislative 
     Assistant, Andrea Mournighan, at (202) 842-4420.
           Sincerely,
                                               William J. Johnson,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____



                                            Advocates for EMS,

                                                    July 11, 2006.
     Sen. Susan Collins,
     Chair, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs 
         Committee, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Senator Collins: Advocates for EMS, a not-for-profit 
     organization founded to educate elected and appointed 
     officials and the public on important issues affecting EMS 
     providers, writes in support of S. 3595, the United States 
     Emergency Management Authority Act of 2006. The measure 
     establishes the U.S. Emergency Management Authority (USEMA) 
     and creates a more autonomous agency within DHS, similar to 
     the U.S. Coast Guard. S. 3595 also retains the Federal 
     Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) within the Department of 
     Homeland Security (DHS).
       Advocates believes that moving FEMA out of DHS would only 
     continue the instability that FEMA has experienced since its 
     move to DHS. While FEMA responsibilities include natural 
     disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods; it should 
     also have an integrated response plan for other emerging 
     threats. Removing FEMA from DHS would only add additional 
     hurdles for EMS providers in terms of their ability to work 
     with the federal government in response to a natural or man-
     made event.
       Creating a U.S. Emergency Management Authority (USEMA) and 
     the autonomy provided by the legislation is a step forward in 
     making FEMA efficient and effective in providing emergency 
     medical services responders the leadership and resources they 
     need. In addition, Advocates also supports the establishment 
     of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and its responsibilities 
     the legislation provides. The CMO plays a key role in 
     coordinating medical response within DHS and other federal 
     agencies.
       Advocates thanks you for your continued leadership on this 
     issue and looks forward to working with you in the future on 
     first responder issues.
           Sincerely,
     Advocates for EMS.
                                  ____

                                         International Association


                                             of Fire Fighters,

                                    Washington, DC, July 11, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins,
     Hon. Joe Lieberman,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Collins and Lieberman: On behalf of the 
     nation's more than 270,000 professional fire fighters and 
     emergency medical personnel, I applaud you for your efforts 
     to reform the nation's emergency preparedness and response 
     system. We strongly support the enactment of legislation to 
     reform FEMA within the Department of Homeland Security and 
     appreciate your continued leadership in moving this effort 
     forward.
       Congress must enact comprehensive reforms to ensure that 
     FEMA will be able to provide an effective response to 
     disasters. These reforms, such as reuniting disaster 
     preparedness and response functions within FEMA and utilizing 
     an all-hazards approach to emergency preparedness, can and 
     should be made within the Department of Homeland Security.
       We believe that proposals to return FEMA to its status as 
     an independent agency would hinder efforts to reform our 
     nation's emergency response system. Removing FEMA from DHS 
     would create competing agencies, sowing confusion among 
     emergency responders. Furthermore, such an approach would 
     undermine an all-hazards approach, leading to a perception 
     that DHS deals with terrorism, while FEMA is in charge of 
     natural disasters.
       When Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, 
     it did so with the understanding that emergency preparedness 
     and response are at the core of our nation's homeland 
     security. Your amendment to the Homeland Security 
     Appropriations Act helps to fulfill this mandate by ensuring 
     that FEMA remain an integral part of the Department of 
     Homeland Security.
       Thank you for your leadership on this vital issue. We 
     greatly appreciate your continued support for the nation's 
     front-line emergency responders and look forward to working 
     with you in the coming weeks to improve the way our nation 
     responds to disasters.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Barry Kasinitz,
     Director, Governmental Relations.
                                  ____

                                                Congressional Fire


                                           Services Institute,

                                    Washington, DC, July 10, 2006.
     Hon. Susan Collins, Chair,
     Hon. Joe Lieberman, Ranking Member,
     Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
         Affairs,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Collins and Lieberman: The response to 
     Hurricane Katrina revealed a number of things regarding our 
     nation's level of readiness for major disasters. On the one 
     hand, it showed the courage and dedication of local first 
     responders--our firefighters, law enforcement, and rescue 
     personnel--who made many sacrifices of their own in order to 
     respond valiantly to the greatest natural disaster in our 
     nation's history. On the other hand, it exposed the 
     limitations of our national response capabilities, 
     exacerbated by failures in leadership at all levels of 
     government.
       While there is no doubt fundamental changes need to be made 
     to our national response structure, we are greatly concerned 
     by recent efforts in the Congress to remove FEMA from the 
     Department of Homeland Security. The separation would 
     diminish the resources of both FEMA and DHS, and create a 
     duplication of critical components resulting in a 
     bureaucratic nightmare for first responders and local 
     governments.
       In 2002, we were one of nine organizations that signed on 
     to a white paper outlining our position on the creation of 
     the Department of Homeland Security. The first recommendation 
     was that FEMA ``be at the core of the Department of Homeland 
     Security.'' Our organization has not altered its position. 
     FEMA can succeed but it will require strong leadership, 
     proper resources, and better execution of the roles and 
     responsibilities by FEMA and its partners. Your legislation, 
     S. 3595, takes into account our recommendation. We commend 
     you for addressing this issue and appreciate your support.
       Thank you for your leadership on this issue. We certainly 
     look forward to continuing our work with your committee to 
     address the needs and challenges of our nation's first 
     responders.
           Sincerely,
                                                  William M. Webb,
                                               Executive Director.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Chairman Collins, 
for an excellent introductory statement and to say, once again, how 
much I am honored and pleased to work with her as the ranking Democrat 
on our homeland security committee, and how pleased I am to join with 
her today and with Senators Carper and Lott to introduce this amendment 
to make FEMA into an agency capable of responding swiftly and 
effectively to the most serious disasters, whether a hurricane the size 
and scope of Katrina, a natural disaster the likes of which we see more 
routinely, or a terrorist attack which, of course, our enemies hope 
will be even more devastating than the attacks of September 11 and for 
which we must be perpetually on the defensive and prepared.
  This amendment would literally reinvent FEMA to give our Federal 
emergency preparedness and response experts the authority, the 
capabilities,

[[Page 13956]]

the resources, and the integration with State and local officials 
needed to avoid the confused, uncoordinated, and ultimately ineffective 
response that the Nation and the world witnessed last August when 
Katrina made landfall. It would strengthen emergency preparedness and 
response within the Homeland Security Department which this Congress 
created a short time ago to prevent, prepare for, and ultimately 
respond to all kinds of disasters.
  In doing so, this amendment would create a truly national system of 
emergency management that will be able to draw on the Nation's vast 
resources for a cohesive and complete local, State, and Federal 
response.
  Mr. President, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee spent 7 months in 2005 and 2006 investigating the botched 
Government response to that catastrophic hurricane. We found all levels 
of our Government were ill-equipped to deal with the massive human 
suffering all along the gulf coast that followed that terrible storm's 
landfall, suffering that shocked, angered, and embarrassed the American 
people who expect more support from their Government for fellow 
Americans in need.
  These failings were caused by negligence in some cases, by a lack of 
resources in other cases, by a lack of capabilities in some cases, but 
most of all by a lack of leadership and preparation that comes with 
leadership from the very top to the very bottom.
  We cannot legislate leadership, although as Senator Collins said, we 
can at least require the kind of experience in the people who will lead 
America's emergency management effort that would make it more likely 
they would be leaders, and we can legislate changes in Government 
structures to make them more sensible and better suited to protect 
people in times of disaster.
  The homeland security committee's report had merit because we told 
the story of what happened and didn't happen, of the clear warnings 
that such a hurricane would one day strike the gulf coast, and the 
clear predictions that we were not ready. In telling the story, right 
through the weekend before landfall and then the days following the 
disaster itself, I believe the committee, on a truly bipartisan basis, 
made a contribution. Because sometimes just telling the truth and 
putting it before those in positions of responsibility is one of the 
great curatives, one of the great sources of reform. But the committee 
went beyond just telling the story and offered a number of 
recommendations about what was needed to improve our preparations, 
response, and recovery.
  Chairman Collins and I will soon introduce broader legislation to 
encompass all of our committee report's recommendations. These include 
changes to the Stafford Act to address the different kinds of 
assistance that are needed in response to catastrophic events rather 
than ``ordinary'' disasters; provisions to ensure that communications 
systems can work--and that first responders can talk to each other--
even in devastating disasters; requirements for the national planning 
for disasters and catastrophes that FEMA was never able to fully 
accomplish; and steps to ensure that USEMA has the kind of robust and 
capable workforce it needs to success. All of these are crucial pieces 
of the effort to remake our nations emergency response and recovery 
capabilities.
  But we begin today with the foundation, the most important 
recommendation we made, which is to rejoin the functions of disaster 
response with disaster preparedness within a new agency, a reinvented 
FEMA, which we will call USEMA, the U.S. Emergency Management 
Authority. It would be at the very core of the Department of Homeland 
Security, just as FEMA was originally intended to be when we proposed 
the new department in 2002 based on the recommendations of the Hart-
Rudman Commission the previous year.
  How could one have a Department of Homeland Security, which is aimed 
at preparing for and responding to disasters, including terrorist 
attacks, without the Federal agency that is primarily responsible for 
emergency management? It makes no sense. Our investigation of what went 
wrong during Hurricane Katrina made it clear that part of the problem 
was caused by separate and uncoordinated Federal preparedness and 
response functions within the Department of Homeland Security.
  In the years before Katrina, FEMA, the agency charged with 
coordinating our Nation's response to terrorist attacks and natural 
disasters, too often was out of the loop when critical decisions about 
how to prepare were being made. It had no say in how to spend billions 
of dollars in preparedness grants. Training exercises were designed and 
held without serious input by FEMA. Relationships with State and local 
officials on the front lines were not fully developed and sometimes 
were nonexistent. So FEMA's ability to respond was crippled because it 
was not working hand in glove with those making preparations for 
responding to disaster.
  Our amendment, first and foremost, therefore, will ensure that our 
preparedness efforts are inseparable from the capabilities needed to 
respond. As Chairman Collins has said, preparation and response are two 
sides of the same coin. And the coin, which is the coin of America's 
emergency management in times of disaster, is stronger if those two 
sides are together.
  USEMA will provide the resources and it will have the ability and the 
responsibility to plan and train with State and local emergency 
management officials, just as it will have the responsibility to 
coordinate with them at the time of a disaster.
  Where FEMA has often struggled to cope with normal hurricanes, the 
mission of the new Authority will be to partner with State and local 
governments, other Federal agencies, the private sector, and 
nongovernmental organizations to build a national system of emergency 
management that can respond effectively to catastrophic incident.
  Where FEMA has been slow to respond and too often reactive, the new 
Authority will be charged with developing a Federal response capability 
that can and will act rapidly and proactively when necessary to deliver 
assistance essential to saving lives in a disaster.
  Where FEMA has not been fully integrated with DHS, the Department of 
Homeland Security, the new Authority will be charged with coordinating 
with key agencies in the Department also involved in emergency 
management, also on the front lines at a time of disaster, such as the 
Coast Guard.
  Our amendment would also give the new Authority special status within 
the Department--the same status the Coast Guard and the Secret Service 
now have. With that status, changes to the agency's functions and its 
assets could only be made by congressional statute, not by executive 
action. That is a way of protecting the strength we intend to give this 
new authority.
  We would also insist in this legislation that the administrator and 
other key agency officials have the necessary experience and 
qualifications for the job. In other words, USEMA will not be plagued 
by unqualified appointees, as FEMA has been in the past.
  Chairman Collins and I also envision a new agency with robust 
regional offices which would focus on coordination of preparedness and 
response with local and State agencies. Let's take the focus away from 
Washington and place it where it belongs, where the real work of 
preparedness is done, on the front lines, in the States and in the 
municipalities. This will guarantee that Federal officials are familiar 
with regional and local threats and know their counterparts at the 
State and local levels. Different parts of the country face different 
natural disaster prospects. Unfortunately, most every part of the 
country is vulnerable today to terrorist attack. This regional approach 
will help ensure that officials are not exchanging business cards on 
the day the disaster strikes, that the local, State, and Federal 
officials are not meeting on the day or the day before the disaster or 
the day after the disaster.

[[Page 13957]]

  I know some of my colleagues in the Senate believe FEMA should be 
removed from the Department of Homeland Security and given independent 
status. Bu Senator Collins and I, after our extensive investigation, 
have concluded that is not the solution to the problems we saw in 
response to Hurricane Katrina, but instead would compound the problems. 
It would be a serious mistake to separate FEMA out of the Department. 
Even when it was independent, FEMA never developed the capacity to 
respond to a catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina. So returning it to 
independent status, as if those were the golden days of yore, is not 
based on fact, and it will in no way solve the problems we saw in 
response to Katrina and that we face today. In fact, it will make 
solutions and, I would say, preparations and responses to disaster far 
more difficult.
  Removing the agency from the Department would only create additional 
problems, duplications, and disconnectedness. The Department of 
Homeland Security, containing other emergency response agencies, such 
as the Coast Guard, and other components, would begin to rebuild the 
functions of FEMA in the Department, even though it was independent. 
FEMA--independent, out of the Department--would duplicate activities 
and functions that are in the Department resulting in a waste of money, 
bureaucratic inefficiencies and a lack of coordination that would not 
only put us at risk of repeating the inadequate response we saw to 
Hurricane Katrina last year but of making it even worse.
  To cope with a catastrophe, the Government's chief preparations and 
response agency must have access to the vast resources of the 
Department of Homeland Security, and it needs to work seamlessly with 
other agencies that have critical roles to play during a catastrophe. 
Those working relationships are going to be much easier and more real 
if officials know one another and if agencies have a history with each 
other and, of course, if everyone ultimately serves the same Secretary 
of Homeland Security.
  The grievous conditions of gulf coast communities in the week after 
Katrina's landfall embarrassed us before the world and, quite 
appropriately, angered us because we know that America can do better. 
But the gulf coast and the force of Katrina are not isolated examples. 
Other American communities and regions are similarly vulnerable today--
whether to a natural disaster or terrorist attack. We also know 
significant flaws in the Nation's readiness remain. Another response 
like the one we saw during Katrina is simply not an option.
  Our proposal is not about rearranging bureaucratic boxes. We have 
studied past failings and carefully considered how to improve our 
performance, the Federal Government performance, the next time. We have 
been driven by that singular goal. We have not had any thoughts in mind 
of protecting the status quo or favoring one bureaucratic entity over 
another. We have tried to come up with a recommendation that will put 
America's Government in the best position to protect America's people 
the next time disaster strikes. We are driven by the imperative to save 
people's lives, like the lives lost during Hurricane Katrina.
  The changes embodied in this amendment, I am convinced, promise a 
strong response, if enacted, the next time disaster strikes. So I ask 
my colleagues for their support of this amendment.
  I thank Senator Collins for her leadership and express once again my 
pleasure at the opportunity to work with her and in this instance to be 
joined by Senator Lott and Senator Carper in a truly bipartisan 
national-interest homeland security amendment.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment 
raised by Senator Akaka on behalf of Senator Clinton, and in opposition 
to the amendment offered by Senator Collins.
  Mr. President, colleagues, what we are seeing today with the 
underlying amendment is a refusal to admit that a mistake was made when 
FEMA was incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security when it 
was created in 2002 after September 11.
  Rather than correct the mistake, extract FEMA from DHS, and restore 
it to its former state as an independent agency reporting directly to 
the President, the Collins amendment makes an effort to change the way 
FEMA operates within the Department. I support Senator Clinton's 
second-degree amendment to restore FEMA to an independent, Cabinet-
level agency, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Over the last 200 years, we have moved from an ad hoc approach to 
disaster response to a coordinated, orderly approach, authorized by the 
Stafford Act, over which my Committee, the Environment and Public Works 
Committee, holds jurisdiction.
  On September 11, the Nation was struck by a terrorist attack. The 
effectiveness of FEMA helped reduce the impact of those events.
  In what I believe is an example of extremely poor judgment that 
failed to take into account FEMA's role in responding to natural 
disasters, FEMA was moved into the Department of Homeland Security.
  FEMA has shown itself to be ineffective, in my opinion, largely due 
to the bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA's 
lack of independence. At the time of the creation of DHS, I said:

       I cannot understand why, after years of frustration and 
     failure, we would jeopardize the Federal government's 
     effective response to natural disasters by dissolving FEMA 
     into this monolithic Homeland Security Department. I fear 
     that FEMA will no longer be able to adequately respond to 
     hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes, begging the 
     question, who will? (November 20, 2002)

  Today, unfortunately, we know the answer--no one.
  With Hurricane Katrina, I believe that we witnessed the degradation 
of our national response system as a result of that change. We all 
watched the results of that free-fall on live television. As I watched 
the coverage of that event, I could only think of the unnecessary human 
suffering that was occurring, in part as a result of the bad decision 
made by Congress to include FEMA in DHS.
  Today we have a chance to correct our mistake.
  It is the very structure of the Department that makes it impossible 
for FEMA to be effective. In a disaster, regardless of cause, decisions 
need to be made quickly and resources need to be brought to bear 
immediately. FEMA reporting directly to the President is the only way 
to make this happen. During Katrina, we saw the result of having our 
emergency response agency buried in the bureaucracy of DHS--executive 
decisionmakers were isolated from the realities of the situation, 
preventing the quick, effective action that we saw after September 11. 
The only way to correct that problem is to get FEMA out of DHS and into 
a Cabinet-level status, reporting directly to the President.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Clinton amendment and reject the 
Collins amendment.
  I ask unanimous consent that my entire statement from 2002 be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Floor Statement of Senator Jim Jeffords, Homeland Security, November 
                               20, 2002.

       Mark Twain once said, ``Always do right--this will gratify 
     some people and astonish the rest.'' I rise today to explain 
     why I believe voting against this bill is the right thing to 
     do.
       Of the many reasons to vote against the bill, I will focus 
     on three--the bill's treatment of the Federal Emergency 
     Management Agency, the bill's treatment of the Freedom of 
     Information Act, and the process used to create this new 
     Department.
       With the passage of this Homeland Security legislation, we 
     will destroy the Federal Emergency Management Agency, losing 
     year's of progress toward a well-coordinated Federal response 
     to disasters.
       As it now exists, FEMA is a lean, flexible agency receiving 
     bipartisan praise as one of the most effective agencies in 
     government. But it hasn't always been that way.
       Throughout the 1980s, FEMA's focus on Cold War's nuclear 
     threat left the Agency ill-prepared to respond to natural 
     disasters. The Congressional chorus of critics decried the 
     Agency's misguided focus and reached a crescendo after 
     bungled responses to Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane 
     Andrew in 1992.

[[Page 13958]]

       One of FEMA's leading Congressional critics, then-
     Representative Tom Ridge said in 1988, ``I was convinced that 
     somewhere along the way, the Federal Emergency Management 
     Agency had lost its sense of mission.''
       Over the last decade, refocusing the agency's mission and 
     priorities on natural disasters has left the agency well-
     equipped to respond to all types of disasters. FEMA's stellar 
     response to September 11th proved this.
       I cannot understand why, after years of frustration and 
     failure, we would jeopardize the Federal government's 
     effective response to natural disasters by dissolving FEMA 
     into this monolithic Homeland Security Department.
       I fear that FEMA will no longer be able to adequately 
     respond to hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes, 
     begging the question, who will?
       Mr. President, also of great concern to me are the new 
     Freedom of Information Act exemptions contained in the latest 
     substitute.
       Unfortunately, the current Homeland Security proposal 
     chokes the public's access to information under the Freedom 
     of Information Act. I ask, are we headed toward an Orwellian 
     society with an all-knowing, secretive big brother reigning 
     over an unknowing public?
       The bill defines information so broadly that almost 
     anything disclosed by a company to the Department of Homeland 
     Security could be considered secret and kept from the public.
       Although I believe current law contains an adequate 
     national security exemption, in the spirit of compromise, I 
     supported the carefully crafted bi-partisan Senate language 
     contained in both the Lieberman substitute and the Gramm-
     Miller substitute. The current bill ignores this compromise.
       Mr. President, the process by which we received this 
     substitute seems eerily similar to the way the White House 
     sprung its original proposal on the Congress some time ago.
       Late last week we received a bill that had magically grown 
     from an original 35 pages to an unwieldy 484 pages. There was 
     no compromise in arriving at the current substitute, only a 
     mandate to pass the substitute or be branded as weak on 
     homeland security or worse yet, unpatriotic.
       Still more troubling, the current bill places little 
     emphasis on correcting what went wrong prior to September 
     11th or addressing future threats. Correcting intelligence 
     failures should be our prime concern. Instead this bill 
     recklessly reshuffles the bureaucratic deck.
       Furthermore, as my colleague Senator Corzine stated earlier 
     this week, this bill does not address other vitally important 
     issues such as security at facilities that store or use 
     dangerous chemicals. Without provisions to address yet 
     another gaping hole in our Nation's security, why are we not 
     being more deliberate in our approach?
       In closing Mr. President, I feel that it is irresponsible 
     to divert precious limited resources from our fight against 
     terrorism to create a dysfunctional new bureaucracy that will 
     only serve to give the American public a false sense of 
     security.
       I will vote against this bill because it does nothing to 
     address the massive intelligence failure that led up to the 
     September 11th attacks. It dismantles the highly effective 
     Federal Emergency Management Agency and creates dangerous new 
     exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act that threaten 
     the fundamental democratic principle of a well-informed 
     citizenry.
       Thank you.

  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                    Amendment No. 4555, as Modified

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf 
of Senator Salazar.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is 
set aside. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg], for Mr. 
     Salazar, proposes an amendment numbered 4555, as modified.

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

 (Purpose: To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to prepare a 
    report on activities to ensure that the agriculture quarantine 
inspection monitoring program of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
    Service is operating effectively and to ensure that States are 
                      receiving adequate guidance)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:
       Sec. __. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a 
     report to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and 
     the House of Representatives, not later than February 8, 
     2007.
       (1) identifies activities being carried out by the 
     Department of Homeland Security to improve--
       (A) the targeting of agricultural inspections;
       (B) the ability of United States Customs and Border 
     Protection to adjust to new agricultural threats; and
       (C) the in-service training for interception of prohibited 
     plant and animal products and agricultural pests under the 
     agriculture quarantine inspection monitoring program of the 
     Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; and
       (2) describes the manner in which the Secretary of Homeland 
     Security will coordinate with the Secretary of Agriculture 
     and State and local governments in carrying out the 
     activities described in paragraph (1).

  Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 4555), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. GREGG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4556

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask that amendment No. 4556 be 
called up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment will 
be set aside. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself, 
     Mr. Kyl, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Talent, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Salazar, 
     Mrs. Hutchison, and Mr. Bingaman, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4556.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows

   (Purpose: To amend chapter 27 of title 18, United States Code, to 
 prohibit the unauthorized construction, financing, or, with reckless 
   disregard, permitting the construction or use on one's land, of a 
tunnel or subterranean passageway between the United States and another 
country and to direct the United States Sentencing Commission to modify 
       the sentencing guidelines to account for such prohibition)

       On page 127, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following:
       Sec. 540. (a) Construction of Border Tunnel or Passage.--
     Chapter 27 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:

     ``Sec. 554. Border tunnels and passages

       ``(a) Any person who knowingly constructs or finances the 
     construction of a tunnel or subterranean passage that crosses 
     the international border between the United States and 
     another country, other than a lawfully authorized tunnel or 
     passage known to the Secretary of Homeland Security and 
     subject to inspection by the Bureau of Immigration and 
     Customs Enforcement, shall be fined under this title and 
     imprisoned for not more than 20 years.
       ``(b) Any person who knows or recklessly disregards the 
     construction or use of a tunnel or passage described in 
     subsection (a) on land that the person owns or controls shall 
     be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 10 
     years.
       ``(c) Any person who uses a tunnel or passage described in 
     subsection (a) to unlawfully smuggle an alien, goods (in 
     violation of section 545), controlled substances, weapons of 
     mass destruction (including biological weapons), or a member 
     of a terrorist organization (as defined in section 
     2339B(g)(6)) shall be subject to a maximum term of 
     imprisonment that is twice the maximum term of imprisonment 
     that would have otherwise been applicable had the unlawful 
     activity not made use of such a tunnel or passage.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections for chapter 
     27 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:

``Sec. 554. Border tunnels and passages.''.
       (c) Criminal Forfeiture.--Section 982(a)(6) of title 18, 
     United States Code, is amended by inserting ``554,'' before 
     ``1425,''.
       (d) Directive to the United States Sentencing Commission.--
       (1) In general.--Pursuant to its authority under section 
     994 of title 28, United States Code, and in accordance with 
     this subsection, the United States Sentencing Commission 
     shall promulgate or amend sentencing guidelines to provide 
     for increased

[[Page 13959]]

     penalties for persons convicted of offenses described in 
     section 554 of title 18, United States Code, as added by 
     subsection (a).
       (2) Requirements.--In carrying out this subsection, the 
     United States Sentencing Commission shall--
       (A) ensure that the sentencing guidelines, policy 
     statements, and official commentary reflect the serious 
     nature of the offenses described in section 554 of title 18, 
     United States Code, and the need for aggressive and 
     appropriate law enforcement action to prevent such offenses;
       (B) provide adequate base offense levels for offenses under 
     such section;
       (C) account for any aggravating or mitigating circumstances 
     that might justify exceptions, including--
       (i) the use of a tunnel or passage described in subsection 
     (a) of such section to facilitate other felonies; and
       (ii) the circumstances for which the sentencing guidelines 
     currently provide applicable sentencing enhancements;
       (D) ensure reasonable consistency with other relevant 
     directives, other sentencing guidelines, and statutes;
       (E) make any necessary and conforming changes to the 
     sentencing guidelines and policy statements; and
       (F) ensure that the sentencing guidelines adequately meet 
     the purposes of sentencing set forth in section 3553(a)(2) of 
     title 18, United States Code.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, this amendment criminalizes the 
unauthorized construction, financing, or reckless disregard which 
permits construction of a border tunnel that is a tunnel between 
American land and another country's land; namely, Canada or Mexico or 
any subterranean passageway along international borders.
  This amendment is cosponsored by Senators Kyl, Boxer, Talent, 
Cantwell, Salazar, Hutchison, and Bingaman. This amendment was part of 
the immigration bill. It was unanimously added to the immigration bill 
by the Judiciary Committee. I have tried to hotline this amendment. It 
was cleared on the Democratic side, and it was cleared on the 
Republican side with the exception of one Senator. I believe it is an 
important amendment. That is why I am offering it today as an amendment 
to this bill.
  Believe it or not, today the act of constructing, financing, or using 
a tunnel between borders is not a Federal crime. This amendment changes 
that. In addition to criminalizing the unauthorized construction, 
financing, or use of a border tunnel on one's land, this amendment also 
doubles the criminal penalties for individuals caught using a tunnel to 
unlawfully smuggle aliens, goods, drugs, weapons of mass destruction, 
or terrorists. The amendment also allows for assets involved in the 
offense or any property traceable to the offense to be subject to 
forfeiture.
  Finally, the amendment directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to 
promulgate or amend Federal sentencing guidelines to provide for 
criminal penalties for persons convicted pursuant to the language of 
the amendment and to take into account the gravity of this crime when 
considering base offense levels.
  One might ask: Why is this important? I will answer that. Since 
September 11, 43 tunnels and subterranean passageways into the United 
States have been discovered--26 tunnels along the California-Mexican 
border, 16 tunnels along the Arizona-Mexican border, and 1 tunnel along 
the Washington-Canadian border. The risk to national security that is 
raised by the use of these tunnels is one this body is already aware 
of. In fact, the Senate Appropriations Committee included report 
language on this topic, which reads:

       Policy on tunnels along the border: The Committee is 
     concerned with the Department's lack of a clear policy 
     regarding which agency is responsible for securing, closing, 
     and ultimately filling tunnels which are discovered crossing 
     under our land borders. It appears decisions regarding the 
     handling of tunnels are made on an ad hoc basis, depending on 
     which agency discovers the tunnel and has the resources to 
     fill it. With nearly four dozen known tunnels along our 
     borders, it is imperative a policy regarding tunnels be 
     developed.

  And it goes on. It asks that this policy be developed not later than 
February 8.
  This report language in the appropriations bill is a good first step, 
but it is just that. The cosponsors of this amendment and I believe 
that we send a further message that border tunnels are a problem and 
they must be dealt with. As I mentioned, 43 border tunnels have been 
discovered in the United States. These tunnels range in complexity from 
simple gopher holes a few feet long at the border to massive drug-
cartel-built megatunnels costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
construct.
  I recently visited a border tunnel on the Mexican-San Diego border. 
Let me tell you what I found. I found a tunnel that was extraordinarily 
sophisticated. It was six football fields long. It went under other 
buildings. It went under the border. The American side was a large 
warehouse, brand new, huge warehouse, half a long square block, kept 
empty, small rooms inside the warehouse. Inside one room, which I will 
show you in a minute, was a hatch. Down the hatch was a tunnel, a 
concrete floor, ventilation, a pump to drain it, and electricity, as we 
can see. This was the tunnel interior.
  This is a picture of the interior. We can see the concrete. At one 
end of the tunnel was 2,000 pounds of marijuana, and at the other end 
was 300 pounds of marijuana.
  This was the hatch in a room, and it looked very benign. You simply 
lifted up two floor tiles, and under those floor tiles, you descended 
about 10 feet and there was this huge apparatus which clearly had been 
functioning for a substantial period of time. I found it just amazing.
  The building, interestingly enough, was sold about a year ago to an 
individual who never leased it out. I have always wondered: Why 
wouldn't you lease out a warehouse? That question still has not been 
answered to my satisfaction.
  I also learned there is no law against it. There is no law that says 
you have to do due diligence on your property if it is on the border to 
see that somebody doesn't come along and dig a tunnel such as this and 
smuggle aliens, smuggle drugs, possibly smuggle terrorists, possibly 
smuggle weapons. This is a way to do it. Therefore, I believe this 
amendment belongs in this bill.
  My hope, given the importance of criminalizing this action, is that 
this amendment will be included in the managers' amendment. We will 
still be delighted if that is the case. I am not sure that is possible. 
I believe to allow another period of time to go by with no law that 
says it is illegal to build a border tunnel unless you are authorized 
to do so, and has some sanctions to it, is really long overdue. It 
would be terrible if we found out one day that a group of 15 or 16 
terrorists came in from Mexico or came in from Canada to the State of 
Washington through a border tunnel and we had done nothing about it.
  This amendment also says that the owner of property along the border 
must be reasonably aware, must do their due diligence to see that their 
property is maintained and a border tunnel is prevented.
  I am hopeful this amendment will be accepted and, if not, I will 
certainly ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I think the Senator's amendment is a good 
amendment and I would like to accept it. There is an objection on our 
side to our accepting it at this time with which the Senator is 
familiar. I am hopeful we can resolve that objection.
  Rather than going to the yeas and nays, let's see if we can resolve 
the objection.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Would the Senator like me to hold on the yeas and 
nays?
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would appreciate it if the Senator from 
California would. I certainly assure the Senator that at some point, if 
we have to vote on it, we will vote on it. Right now there appears to 
be an objection going forward.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Gregg. I know Senator 
Kyl is going to come to the floor and speak on the amendment as well. I 
do not see him at this time.
  Mr. GREGG. The Senator has made an excellent point. It doesn't 
surprise me there is no criminality or law involved that restricts the 
ability to dig a tunnel from one country to another. It is pretty 
obvious that something should be done in this area. So I think the 
Senator has touched on a very important point. hopefully we will work

[[Page 13960]]

it out, and we will work it out before this bill is off the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator for those comments.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and ask that the amendment be set 
aside.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, 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. LOTT. 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. LOTT. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the pending 
amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment by Senator Feinstein, No. 4556.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment 
be set aside and we return to debate on amendment No. 4560 by Senator 
Collins.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator asking that it be the pending 
question or just to debate it?
  Mr. LOTT. I am asking that the pending amendment be set aside to 
return to debate on amendment No. 4560.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4560

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I come to the floor to join in the support 
of amendment No. 4560 to the Department of Homeland Security 
appropriations bill. I thank Senator Collins for her leadership in this 
area and for her willingness to work on a solution that I think will be 
good for the Federal Emergency Management Administration, as it is now 
known, in the Department of Homeland Security, and result in a better 
effort by the successor to FEMA in the future.
  Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the support of my colleagues 
in the Senate as we have gone through the aftermath of Katrina and we 
have come to the floor three or four times asking for help in a variety 
of areas to help us with the recovery, to get funds for the different 
Federal agencies, to get funds even to the Federal Emergency Management 
Administration to help us recover. A lot of progress has been made. I 
want to acknowledge that.
  In 3 years or 5 years, we are going to look back and say that the aid 
we received from the Federal Government was absolutely indispensable 
and allowed us to get through this very difficult process.
  In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, there were wonderful 
stories that could be told about the actions of the Coast Guard 
specifically, let me point out, and by other military installations, 
faith-based groups, volunteer groups, charitable organizations, by 
corporate America that sent aid, supplies, money, people. The utilities 
worked laboriously to get power back on and telephones operative. It 
was a monumental undertaking.
  For those who want to be critical of the recovery effort--and I am 
one of those--you have to first acknowledge that this was a devastating 
disaster of Biblical proportions, more than any of us could have 
comprehended, more than any of us who lived in the line of fire from 
Hurricane Katrina understood even in the immediate aftermath, including 
me.
  I was there in the immediate aftermath. We lost our house. We are 
like everybody else along the coastline of Mississippi and Louisiana. 
It is a very difficult experience. But our people have been resilient, 
they have been determined, and we are making progress.
  We did get through the preparations for the hurricane, saving lives 
immediately after, getting basics to people who needed them--just basic 
water and ice. We have gotten almost all of the debris removed, except 
in some of the swamp and water canals and channels that still has to be 
removed. We are seeing rebuilding start. Just yesterday, the Department 
of Housing and Urban Development released $3 billion for the home 
grants through CDBG so that people who lost their home, had no 
insurance, and had a mortgage and probably lost their job and their 
car, their truck, or their dog will have some way to get up to $150,000 
to get their homes repaired or rebuilt. So we have made a lot of 
progress.
  I think it is time that we look even more to the future: How are we 
going to get through the rebuilding period? We are working with 
elevations, heights that FEMA is requiring; we are dealing with small 
business loans, all that goes on with the rebuilding effort.
  But I am worried about the next disaster. There were some very 
disappointing results at FEMA. And I want to hasten to say that FEMA, 
which became a dirty, four-letter word, has a lot of good people in it 
and has done a lot of really good things, but it could have been and it 
should have been better. And what troubles me so much, as a Congressman 
and Senator and even before that as a staff member--I have dealt with 
the recovery effort after five hurricanes, two major tornadoes, two 
major ice storms, and a flood. I have dealt with disasters. I have 
dealt with the emergency arm of the Federal Government, going back to 
1969 after Hurricane Camille, when the disaster effort and recovery was 
carried out by the Office of Emergency Preparedness, OEP. Its offices 
are right across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, run 
by a general, a retired Army general, and reportable only to the 
President of the United States.
  They did a marvelous job after Hurricane Camille. The chain of 
command was short. In those days, the Corps of Engineers brought in the 
heavy equipment, the trucks, the bulldozers, the front-end loaders, the 
Bobcats. They cleaned up the debris. Now you have to go through 
Treasury, a check goes to FEMA, FEMA goes to the Corps, the Corps of 
Engineers goes to the contractor--out of State probably--and the 
contractor goes to subcontractors, to sub-subcontractors and, 
meanwhile, a lot of money is frittered away as everybody takes their 
bite, on down the line.
  Of course, one of the most difficult things was getting the trailers, 
the temporary housing to people in the area. The logistics of getting 
trailers is not a big problem, but getting them to the people turned 
out to be a huge problem. The insanity of how it was managed was 
inexplicable. I won't go through how difficult it was.
  We are still dealing with that. We still have some people who are 
living in tents because FEMA said: We won't deliver you a trailer if 
you are in a flood zone. If that is all the property you have--you 
could bring a trailer into a flood zone, and if you had to, you could 
hitch it up and pull it out. But people are still living in very 
difficult circumstances.
  I believe we made a mistake when we were creating this huge, new, 
mammoth Department of Homeland Security where we put all of these 
different entities, agencies, and bureaus into that agency that wound 
up having 150,000 or more people in it.
  I remember when we were discussing creating this Department of 
Homeland Security in an office right down the hall. Senator Stevens and 
Senator Collins and some of us raised questions about how the Coast 
Guard was going to be handled, and we wound up carving out a special 
arrangement for the Coast Guard. I won't get into the details of it at 
this moment. But I raised questions about FEMA, too: Are we sure we 
want to put our emergency management organization into this big, 
mammoth department and maybe become overrun by homeland security and 
terrorism? And the answer was: Oh, absolutely. They need to coordinate 
manmade disasters, natural disasters, disaster preparation, disaster 
recovery; it needs to be seamless and they all need to be operating 
under the same authority.
  Well, I relented. I think it was a mistake. I think the emergency 
management organization has a unique responsibility in preparation for 
disasters. Yes, they can be manmade as well as natural disasters, but 
also in the recovery. But I think the chain of command was out of 
control. The number of officials who were meeting in a room, they would 
fill up the room and identify all the problems: Oh, we have a flood 
main

[[Page 13961]]

broken here. We have schools where the wall is falling in. We have 
debris in the road. They would get through with the meeting, everybody 
would leave, and somebody would say: Did anybody get any assignments? 
Did they agree to do anything? No.
  The people that did do something, though, were in the Coast Guard. 
They helped move people out before the hurricane, rescued people during 
and after the hurricane, and generally did a magnificent job. Do you 
know why? Because they had this carved-out, unique position, even 
though they were in the Department of Homeland Security. They didn't 
have to go through the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security 
to do what was necessary.
  Another example was the Seabees at Gulfport, MS. When they went to 
these meetings with all of these muckety-mucks, all of these different 
agency heads, to hear the problems and do nothing about it, the Seabees 
would make lists of things they could do and they went out and did it. 
They went out and stopped the leaky water main. They went and removed 
the debris so you could get into a neighborhood. They went to the 
school and they took action to tear down or repair or fix a wall so it 
would at least be safe for their children. You know what. They just did 
it.
  By the way, they could have gotten in trouble because if FEMA hadn't 
agreed to reimbursement, they would have had to eat the cost of what 
they did, and some captain in the Seabees could have been in real 
jeopardy. But, thank goodness, they worked through it. They got 
reimbursed and did well.
  So I think that is part of the problem. I asked the Seabees: Why were 
you able to do that?
  They said: Well, the chain of command was so long and laborious, we 
decided we would find the things we could do and we would just go out 
and do it.
  FEMA, I think, meanwhile, had been sort of pushed back into the back 
40 part of Homeland Security. They had been underfunded, undermanned, 
and had not been really getting the involvement and the attention they 
needed. Plus, I was shocked one time when I heard the Secretary of 
Homeland Security complaining that the head of FEMA was going around 
him directly to the President. Yes, he should have. You shouldn't have 
the emergency management and recovery people having to check with the 
Assistant Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Secretary, the Chief of 
Staff, the OMB, to get to the President. This is an emergency. It is a 
disaster, for heaven's sake. So I don't think it worked well.
  I don't blame a lot of the good men and women at FEMA; I blame us. We 
did it. We created a system that didn't work.
  So I introduced legislation to move FEMA, like its predecessors, back 
into a role as an independent agency with specific authorities for 
natural disasters, reporting only to the President. I was joined in 
sponsoring that legislation by the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, 
who knows something about how the predecessor to FEMA worked under its 
Administrator at the time, James Lee Witt, who also had a little 
experience with disasters, although the ones he dealt with on 9/11, as 
the Senator from New York knows, were manmade. Others joined in 
cosponsoring that legislation.
  I still believe that is the best way to go. I think it should be 
independent.
  In the House, you have two separate approaches. You have the 
independent approach and you have the approach that would keep it 
locked in Homeland Security. But it seemed to me that there was a third 
way. There is always a third way, if you will just look for it. I think 
that is one of the things we have lost in this institution. We get 
locked into the Republican position, the Democratic position, or some 
other division, and then we won't talk to each other.
  So Senator Collins, to her credit, on her own initiative, said: Can I 
come talk to you about the proposal that Senator Lieberman and I have, 
which was to keep it in the Department of Homeland Security, with some 
changes, and some recommendations I thought would have been positive 
but still was not the solution I thought we needed. But she came and 
took the time to explain it to me. It had some attractive features to 
it. She gave it more authority.
  But then I thought about it for a while and I went back to her and I 
said: Let's find this third way. I think maybe the thing to do is to 
carve FEMA out into a position like the Coast Guard but within the 
Department of Homeland Security but with an independent authority, the 
ability to report directly to the President of the United States. Yes, 
they could be involved in coordinating and in the preparation for 
disasters of all kinds, but set them up basically independent within 
the Department of Homeland Security.
  I think it will work. An example is the Coast Guard. So much of the 
language that we have in this amendment came from the Coast Guard 
language. I know Senator Collins has taken the time to explain the 
details of what is proposed here, and I am painting a broader picture 
of what is involved. But we were able to come to an agreement. Her 
staff was cooperative. My staff, which has had a lot of experience with 
this sort of thing, worked with them, and we came to an agreement. By 
the way, I then went to Senator Clinton and said: I think we can get 
something done if we do this, rather than just having a big fight. Do 
you want a big fight or do you want a result? The new hurricane season 
is upon us.
  Now, the media made it sound like on June 8, or whatever the date was 
that hurricane season begins, we would get hit immediately. Well, those 
of us who are hurricane pros know that hurricanes generally don't hit 
in June and July, but they will come in August and September, and this 
time it may not be Mississippi or Florida; it may be Maine. But it will 
come somewhere. I don't want to be sitting around here complaining 
about what it was like because FEMA did not have the authority they 
needed, didn't have the money, didn't have the power they needed 6 
months or a year from now. So we needed to get something done.
  Senator Clinton understood what I was trying to do. It is part of the 
way I think we need to do things around here. It is part of being 
honorable with each other. She had been a cosponsor. I thought I should 
explain what I was working on doing. So we came to the agreement that 
has been produced with this amendment. I think it makes good sense. I 
think the House will find some wisdom in it, and the most important 
thing is we will get something done.
  It is so difficult to move something through the Senate anymore. Do 
you think we could really move a whole new, freestanding bill through 
the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, get it to the 
floor of the Senate, all kinds of amendments--and let me tell you, I 
would be one of the ones waiting here with lots of amendments. I have 
lots of other things stuck in my craw about the hurricanes that I am 
worried about for the future--or could we go with an amendment, which 
seems appropriate to me, to the Department of Homeland Security 
appropriations bill, get it to the House, get their input, and get a 
result. Even then, it won't be perfect, but I believe it will be 
better. This is something we should do.
  I will be coming back, until the last day I serve in this 
institution--whenever that may be--to talk to my colleagues about 
lessons we learned and things we can do that will hopefully help our 
people be more secure; that will help people who will be hit with other 
kinds of disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes, crickets, or 
whatever, but we will do it better because of what we learned from 
Hurricane Katrina.
  So I am delighted to be here to support this amendment. In a perfect 
world I might do it differently, or I might still insist that it can be 
a separate entity. The amendment even proposes that it be renamed the 
Emergency Management Administration, I believe--EMA. It is something we 
can say, and it is not a four-letter word. I think while that is not 
going to cure a

[[Page 13962]]

single problem, it is part of creating a new atmosphere and a different 
mindset, hopefully.
  I think the Administrator of FEMA that we have in place now, Mr. 
Paulson, is a good man. I think he is going to move toward trying to 
get professional disaster-experienced people in FEMA throughout this 
country, and I certainly hope he will.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and then support 
this appropriations bill. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for 
his comments, for his support, and for his enormous contribution to the 
amendment that is before us today. He, more than any other Member of 
this body, has personal experience with the devastation that Hurricane 
Katrina caused, and he has been, along with Senator Cochran and the two 
Louisiana Senators, a fierce advocate for reforming the system to make 
sure that never again does government at all levels so fundamentally 
fail in its obligation to our citizens.
  I very much appreciated the opportunity to work with Senator Lott to 
strengthen the language in our bill to make sure that the exact same 
safeguards and protections that the Coast Guard enjoys would now apply 
to the new FEMA organization: USEMA. I think that was an excellent 
suggestion. We used the same language, and we will protect the new 
agency from being reorganized by the Secretary, from having its mission 
altered, from having it split up or dispersed or its budget cut through 
administrative fiat. Those kinds of changes should come to Congress, 
and we have put those protections in place.
  As Senator Lott recommended, we have upgraded the status of the whole 
agency. The head of the new agency will be the equivalent of a Deputy 
Secretary and will have the clout and the stature that is needed to 
deal with other agencies. We have done enormous reforms. This version 
of an emergency management agency will have authorities that the 
current FEMA has never had. In addition, we restored the preparedness 
and the grant-making functions, and I think we have come up with a very 
good product.
  So I want to thank my colleague and friend from Mississippi for his 
considerable contributions to this amendment, and I am very grateful 
that he was willing to sit down and find--as he put it--a third way 
and, indeed, I believe, a far better solution. So I thank him for his 
support.
  Mr. President, 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are working toward getting an agreement. 
For the edification of Members, if we can work that out, we will have 
two votes in approximately an hour, but that is not necessarily going 
to happen.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be laid aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4563

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I call up amendment 4563 on behalf of 
Senator Clinton, myself, and others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Akaka], for himself and Mrs. 
     Clinton, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Jeffords, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Lautenberg, 
     and Ms. Mikulski, proposes an amendment numbered 4563.

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in the Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to propose an amendment for 
myself and my good friend from New York to restore the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency--FEMA--to its proper place as an 
independent agency.
  Before I speak on our amendment, I would like to thank the chairman 
and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee for their hard work on this issue. We disagree on this one 
point, but I appreciate all they have done over the past year to ensure 
that the failures of Hurricane Katrina are never repeated.
  As my colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee know, the placement of FEMA in the Department of Homeland 
Security--DHS--is a subject that has troubled me since the concept of 
the Department was first debated in 2002. As a senior member of this 
committee, I can tell you that the structure of Federal agencies 
matters. Combining too many disparate functions some of which have 
nothing to do with homeland security into one agency can be unworkable, 
which is a primary reason why I voted against the creation of DHS.
  Some say reinstating FEMA's independence now is brash and premature. 
Respectfully, I could not disagree more. To me, it was premature to 
place FEMA within DHS, a huge, terrorism-focused agency, where FEMA's 
traditional mission of responding to disasters would be neglected. The 
FEMA of yesterday has been downgraded, dismantled, and demoralized 
which I believe contributed to the muddled response to Hurricane 
Katrina.
  DHS failed as a department during Hurricane Katrina and failed to 
give FEMA the opportunity to succeed. During the Committee's Katrina 
hearings, we heard numerous examples of information and initiative 
getting lost in DHS during the Hurricane Katrina response. Witnesses 
described sending information updates and requests out to the 
Department, never knowing where those messages went or if requested 
action had been taken. DHS was a black hole where information and 
accountability were lost.
  Since FEMA was folded into the Department, FEMA has been deprived of 
funding and resources. FEMA has been forced to transfer significant 
resources to other parts of the Department. In 2003 and 2004, $169 
million of FEMA's funding was transferred to DHS, in part because of 
lost programs, but also because of a so-called management tax to help 
pay for shared services within the Department.
  Congress and the American public never knew about these funding 
shortfalls because FEMA was buried within DHS. Former FEMA Director 
Michael Brown testified that instead of taking FEMA's budget proposal 
to the President, he was required to clear the budget through another 
Undersecretary at DHS, then the Secretary, and then the President.
  With a loss of funding and programs, came a loss of staff. FEMA's 
staff has been reduced by 500 positions since 2003. And within the 
existing positions at FEMA, there has been a 15 to 20 percent vacancy 
rate over the past few years.
  FEMA needs to be an independent, Cabinet-level agency to avoid having 
its budget and staff siphoned off for other activities within the 
Department. Restoring the FEMA Director to the President's Cabinet will 
better serve America. Restoring FEMA's place at the table will ensure 
transparency and accountability while allowing the Director to present 
funding needs directly to the President. In 1996, recognizing the 
importance of emergency response, President Clinton elevated the FEMA 
Director position to the Cabinet level. Former FEMA Director James Lee 
Witt said being a member of the President's Cabinet allowed him to task 
other Federal agencies more effectively during disasters and provided 
an established and direct line of communication to the President.
  There are those who argue that FEMA needs to remain in DHS so that

[[Page 13963]]

the Department's other personnel and assets can be accessed more 
readily. This is a hollow argument because under the Stafford Act, FEMA 
has the authority to utilize resources across the Federal Government 
during a disaster. The Stafford Act allows FEMA to task Health and 
Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the Department of 
Defense, and many other Federal agencies during disasters. Should all 
those entities be incorporated into DHS as well? There is no reason the 
same mission assignment procedure cannot be applied to DHS assets as 
well.
  Separating FEMA from DHS not only will improve FEMA's ability to 
manage preparedness and response, but it also will allow DHS to focus 
on its mission to prevent a terrorist attack. DHS cannot be all things 
to all people.
  The dedicated public servants of FEMA agree. The American Federation 
of Government Employees--AFGE--which represents 1,200 FEMA employees, 
strongly endorses an independent FEMA. AFGE's June 13, 2006, letter to 
Congress states:

       (T)he merger of FEMA into DHS may have sounded good in 
     theory, but in reality it has proven to be impractical and 
     counterproductive. When Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S., 
     the DHS structure simply imposed an extra layer of 
     bureaucracy on top of FEMA, and wound up impeding, not 
     assisting, the response.

  Former FEMA Director Witt also believes FEMA does not belong in DHS. 
In a recent editorial, he stated:

       Though most agree FEMA must be mended, we don't have the 
     luxury of gambling with another experimental restructuring of 
     the department. And why gamble when a simple reversion to its 
     pre-2001 incarnation would fix the problem? . . . As it 
     stands under today's DHS structure, annual hazards such as 
     hurricanes, floods, and tornados are allowed a 25 percent 
     focus, even though they have a 100 percent probability of 
     occurring at some point. An independent FEMA would again give 
     all disasters 100 percent of its attention.

  I agree with Mr. Witt. Fortunately, since DHS was created, there has 
not been another terrorist attack in the U.S. although there have been 
over 100 Presidentially-declared natural disasters. I support ensuring 
the U.S. is prepared for a terrorist attack, but we should not forget 
that natural disasters are guaranteed to occur every single year.
  Mr. President, we have tried the superagency approach, and now it is 
time to get back to basics. I ask my colleagues to think about what is 
practical when they cast their vote on our amendment. Our constituents 
should feel confident that FEMA and its resources will be there in 
their time of need.
  I urge support for our amendment. I yield back my remaining time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from 
Hawaii, who has been a strong voice on behalf of our Nation's security 
and joins with me in putting before the Senate one of the most 
important issues we face: How will we manage our emergency preparedness 
and response?
  I have the greatest respect and regard for my colleagues, Senator 
Collins and Senator Lieberman. They have done an extraordinary job in 
leading a committee that has had so much responsibility over the last 
months for the well-being and the homeland security of our Nation. I 
respectfully disagree with the solution they are putting forth, but I 
know it comes after not only many hearings but incredible thought and 
extraordinary attention to the details about how best to rescue the 
situation in which we find ourselves.
  We had a functioning, effective Federal Emergency Management Agency 
5\1/2\ years ago. By all accounts, on all sides of the political 
spectrum, we had a crown jewel, an agency where performance was highly 
regarded not only in our own country but literally around the world. 
Unfortunately, that agency became a victim of the governing philosophy 
of the current administration.
  We have seen, in stark terms, the failures of the existing Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, so-called FEMA. We saw it in the 
disastrous failures in the days and weeks, continuing until this day, 
along our gulf coast when people lost everything--their homes, their 
neighborhoods, their churches, even their loved ones. Our Nation lost 
something precious as well: we lost faith in our Federal Government and 
in the response capabilities of the organization that until 5\1/2\ 
years ago we could count on.
  When we created the Department of Homeland Security after September 
11, I warned, along with others, that moving FEMA into that large 
bureaucracy was a mistake. I said that on the basis of what I thought 
was the mission of the Department of Homeland Security, which was, 
first and foremost, to deal with the potential for terrorism and to 
deter and prevent terrorist attacks like the horrific attacks of 
September 11.
  The decision was made to move FEMA into the Department of Homeland 
Security, and my worst fears came true. It became a stepchild. It 
became a holding pen for political cronies. It was no longer viewed as 
the crown jewel of the Federal Government but as a stepchild that did 
not really deserve the attention and the resources of this 
administration. Our worst fears about what would happen to FEMA in the 
Department of Homeland Security came true when we saw the images on 
television coming out of New Orleans and up and down the gulf coast.
  I applaud Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman for the 
extraordinarily thorough investigation they did. We got even more 
sickening detail of e-mails from FEMA officials at the time the 
disaster struck, what their concerns were--which were hardly focused on 
saving the people who were suffering. We have seen thousands of people 
displaced. We see 10,000 mobile homes sitting empty at the Hope, AR, 
Municipal Airport, and on and on. We have a GAO report that says there 
may have been up to $1 billion--yes, that is billion with a ``b''--$1 
billion in Federal assistance that has been misspent.
  It is not only the facts about Katrina that bring me to urge we 
restore FEMA to an independent status, give it back Cabinet-level 
access, make it independent of the behemoth that the bureaucracy of the 
Department of Homeland Security has become, but it is also my worry 
about the future.
  Hurricane Katrina was a foreseen disaster. We watched it on the 
Weather Channel. We saw it coming across the gulf. It was not a sneak 
attack by suicide bombers in airplanes, it was a huge storm. I worry, 
as incompetent as FEMA has become, how would they handle the 
unforeseen?
  It is tragic to me that we have come to this position, and I think 
the new leadership at FEMA is laboring mightily to try to turn the 
situation around. But I worry it will be impossible, if FEMA stays 
within the Department of Homeland Security. If it stays within the 
Department and is renamed and reconfigured, I do not think that 
eliminates the primary problem, which is that it is stuck in a 
department with a focus and mission that cannot help but be to try to 
prevent and deter terrorist attacks. Believe me, I am all for that. We 
are about to come up on the fifth anniversary year of the attacks of 9/
11.
  Although I really respect what Senators Collins and Lieberman are 
trying to do, I think they are trying to fit a square peg into a round 
hole. They are stuck with the Department of Homeland Security, and so 
they are trying to figure out a way to shoehorn it in, to detour around 
the dysfunctional organization and leadership that the Department has. 
And I do not think that will work.
  The amendment Senator Akaka and I and others have offered would do 
three things: first, reinstitute FEMA as an independent Cabinet-level 
agency; second, require the Director and Deputy Director to have the 
appropriate emergency service qualifications; and third, require the 
FEMA Director to report directly to the President of the United States.
  During Katrina, who was in charge? Was it our President? Was it the 
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security? Was it the FEMA 
Director? I do not know who it was. And one of the problems is that no 
one was. If we just sort of move the deck chairs on the Titanic, I do 
not think that solves the problem.

[[Page 13964]]

  FEMA's response capabilities have been degraded since Katrina even, 
because people are not there. They are not able to have the same sense 
of morale and commitment. When you look at all the reports that have 
been done--one from the White House, one from the Senate, one from the 
House, as well as the various reports from the Government 
Accountability Office--you can see all of the things that went wrong. 
Unfortunately, these reports have not been coordinated, and it is very 
difficult to figure out how we are going to get ourselves back on the 
right track with a functioning world-class FEMA, and I just do not 
believe the answer is for it to operate as a subagency within the 
Department.
  Now, I know there are those who are rightly concerned that if we take 
FEMA back to an independent status, then we will have duplicative 
efforts, we will not have coordination. I think the amendment tries to 
specifically say this does not detract in any way from the Department 
of Homeland Security's mission to secure the homeland. But I believe 
having it back in an independent status, with full accountability to 
the President, statutory authority under the Stafford Act to carry out 
all of the necessary mitigation, response, and recovery actions, is the 
way to go. If under our amendment we make FEMA report directly to the 
President, then the FEMA Director will have more authority under 
Stafford Act designation than if he is a sub-Cabinet official within 
DHS.
  My bottom line is we should get FEMA back to a functioning, effective 
agency again, and there is a difference of opinion about how best to do 
that. Obviously, we are back in hurricane season. We do not want to do 
anything, either within a reorganization or an independent status, that 
would further disable FEMA from responding. But if we reempower FEMA, 
restore its independence, and staff it with qualified people, we will 
be back on the right track.
  We have a regional structure for FEMA, and it is not clear from the 
proposal from the committee how that will work, who appoints those 
regional directors, who has to be in charge. I do not want people 
exchanging business cards at the site of a disaster, which is what has 
been happening. I believe we have to build on the strong track record 
FEMA had during the 1990s.
  I know the committee has said this would be comparable to the Coast 
Guard, but I think that is a slightly different role and mission. The 
Coast Guard is a military, multimissioned maritime service. It is one 
of our Nation's five armed services. Its mission is to ``protect the 
public, the environment, and U.S. economic interests--in the nation's 
ports and waterways, along the coast, on international waters, or in 
any maritime region as required to support national security.''
  They did a superb job with respect to Katrina and Rita. But FEMA has 
a different role. It is supposed to be managing dollars of considerable 
numbers in advance of catastrophic events, coordinating Federal 
agencies, carrying out the President's statutory authority for 
emergency response. It is supposed to be the go-to entity for full 
management.
  I believe we have a better chance of getting back the FEMA we should 
have, that the people should be able to count on, that can work with 
State and local governments, that can help to mitigate disasters, by 
returning it to independence.
  So, Mr. President, I ask our colleagues to support the amendment to 
restore FEMA to an effective, independent, Cabinet-level agency once 
again and send a message to the country that FEMA is back--it is back, 
it is ready for business, and people can have trust in it once again.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, in deciding how to vote on this issue, I 
would encourage our colleagues to consult the experts, the first 
responder organizations that overwhelmingly support the Collins-
Lieberman-Lott-Carper approach and do not support the amendment that 
has been proposed by my colleagues from New York and Hawaii.
  For example, the International Association of Fire Fighters, which 
represents 270,000 professional firefighters and emergency medical 
personnel, has endorsed the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-Carper amendment and 
says this about the alternative approach we have just heard described:

       We believe that proposals to return FEMA to its status as 
     an independent agency would hinder efforts to reform our 
     nation's emergency response system. Removing FEMA from DHS 
     would create competing agencies, sowing confusion among 
     emergency responders. Furthermore, such an approach would 
     undermine an all-hazards approach, leading to the perception 
     that DHS deals with terrorism while FEMA is in charge of 
     natural disasters.

  That is what the International Association of Fire Fighters says.
  Other groups, such as the Major Cities Chiefs Association, say 
something very similar; the National Troopers Coalition, the National 
Association of Police Organizations, Advocates for EMS--the list goes 
on and on and on. The fact is, those who put their lives on the line, 
who are on the front lines of emergency response, say it would be a 
colossal mistake to take FEMA out of DHS, to sever that connection.
  Does the Senator from New Hampshire wish for me to yield the floor?
  Mr. GREGG. If the Senator would yield so we could enter into a 
unanimous consent agreement. I believe we have reached an agreement 
where we can proceed to lock in the vote on the Senator's amendment and 
the amendment offered by Senator Akaka and Senator Clinton.
  Mr. President, the request is as follows: I ask unanimous consent 
that at the conclusion of the Senator's remarks, Senator Lautenberg be 
recognized for 15 minutes, and that at the conclusion of his remarks, 
we would go to a vote on Senator Collins' amendment, with no second 
degrees being in order--and there would be 2 minutes equally divided 
prior to that vote--and that at the conclusion of the vote on Senator 
Collins' amendment, we would go to a vote on the amendment offered by 
Senator Akaka and Senator Clinton, with 2 minutes equally divided prior 
to that vote----
  Mrs. MURRAY. With no second degrees.
  Mr. GREGG. With no second degrees and no points of order against 
either amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. That would mean--how long will the Senator probably be 
speaking?
  Ms. COLLINS. Fifteen minutes.
  Mr. GREGG. So that would mean the votes would begin at around 6:15, 
one would presume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, those who are on the front lines--our 
police associations, our firefighters associations, the emergency 
medical personnel organizations--have all endorsed the approach we have 
suggested. This approach would strengthen FEMA but leave it within the 
Department of Homeland Security so we can establish a comprehensive 
all-hazards approach to emergency management.
  We do not want to take FEMA out of the Department in the way 
particularly that Senator Clinton's and Senator Akaka's amendment would 
entail. I refer my colleagues to page 7 of their amendment, section 
612, ``Transfer Of Functions.'' This provision says the functions FEMA 
has as of the date of enactment should be transferred to the new 
agency. Well, let me tell you what that means. That means that 
preparedness would still be separate from response despite the fact 
that the experts agree that one of the reasons for FEMA's weak 
performance was the separation of preparedness from response--two sides 
of the same coin that should be together in one agency. Yet the 
Clinton-Akaka amendment keeps preparedness within the Department of 
Homeland Security and only has the response functions going to the new 
independent agency that they would propose.
  Our bill consolidates the grant-making for preparedness--that is 
billions of dollars of preparedness grants--we

[[Page 13965]]

would put in the new FEMA. Infrastructure protection, the national 
communications system, the chief medical officer, the cybersecurity 
office all would be in this new agency which we call the U.S. Emergency 
Management Authority. So we are not simply leaving FEMA within the 
Department of Homeland Security; we are strengthening, reforming, and 
upgrading FEMA so it can be effective.
  I must say, I am at a loss why the proponents of the alternative 
approach want to take a FEMA that everyone deems is inadequate and has 
poorly performed, take this shell of an agency that has been stripped 
of many of its essential functions and cast it adrift by making it an 
independent agency. That approach makes absolutely no sense at all.
  If the problem were FEMA's location, then why did the Coast Guard do 
such a stellar job in performing in response to Hurricane Katrina? By 
all accounts, the Coast Guard's preparedness and its response were 
superb. It pre-positioned its assets, it responded quickly, and it 
rescued some 35,000 people.
  If the problem, in fact, were the location of the agency, then how 
did the Coast Guard manage to do such a good job? It is part of the 
Department of Homeland Security. Obviously, that is not the issue.
  What we have done in our proposal is give the new emergency 
management agency the same kinds of protections that the Coast Guard 
has within DHS. No longer could the agency's mission be altered or its 
assets stripped away or could it be reorganized. You would have to come 
to Congress to do that. The issue is how can we best create a strong 
emergency management agency. That is the question that our proposal 
answers. It stresses giving FEMA back the authorities that were 
stripped away. It emphasizes giving it new authority so that it can be 
a strong, all-hazards agency. It elevates the stature of the 
appointees. It requires them to have relevant experience for those 
positions. It gives it the tools to do the job effectively. It protects 
it from reorganization. It makes the head of the new agency the 
principal adviser to the President on emergency management, but it 
allows it to have all the advantages of being part of the Department of 
Homeland Security, the advantage of a close relationship with the Coast 
Guard, a close relationship with the law enforcement agencies that are 
within DHS.
  Taking the weakened version of FEMA and casting it adrift and 
thinking that somehow that is going to solve the problem flies in the 
face of the 23 hearings that we held to get to this solution, the 
838,000 pages of evidence, the 325 people we interviewed, and the 
expertise of the first responder community. It would be a terrible 
mistake.
  The Hart-Rudman commission 5 years ago said FEMA is the essential 
core of DHS, and they are right. If FEMA were pulled out of DHS, DHS 
would be forced to create a very similar, costly, duplicative agency in 
order to handle a response to terrorist attacks. It makes no sense to 
have one agency that deals with natural disasters and another agency 
within DHS that deals with the response to terrorist attacks. If the 
levees in New Orleans had been bombed rather than breached, the same 
challenges of evacuation, sheltering, and caring for individuals would 
have been present. It makes no sense and will be extremely costly--to 
the tune of billions of dollars, according to Secretary Chertoff--for 
us to have to recreate within DHS essential capabilities that DHS will 
need if FEMA is taken out of the Department.
  I am reminded during this debate of a saying by H.L. Mencken that for 
every problem there is a solution that is neat, plausible, and wrong. 
Taking FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security is wrong. At 
first blush it may look like the easy solution. But after looking at 
this issue for more than 8 months, it is not the solution. I hope our 
colleagues will listen to the true experts, our first responders and 
their organizations warning that this would be a disaster, that it 
would force them and State and local emergency managers to have to deal 
with two agencies, two sets of regulations, depending on whether or not 
this was the result of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. That 
is contrary to the all-hazards approach that the experts have 
encouraged us to take.
  The Homeland Security Council, a very prestigious group of private 
sector businesses and experts, conducted its own 6-month review of what 
went wrong with the preparedness and response to Hurricane Katrina. It, 
too, concluded that DHS preparedness assets and FEMA need to be more 
closely aligned, not split apart into two separate agencies.
  I am going to reserve the remainder of my time. It is my 
understanding Senator Lautenberg will be speaking on this issue.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, since Senator Lautenberg has not arrived, 
I am going to continue to expound on why the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-
Carper amendment should be agreed to and the Clinton-Akaka amendment 
should be rejected.
  As I look at this issue, I realize that people look back at FEMA with 
rose-colored glasses. There is this myth of the golden age of FEMA. 
Indeed, FEMA in the past has had some talented leaders which proves my 
point that this really is about leadership more than anything. Clearly, 
Michael Brown was an abysmal failure as FEMA's leader. There is 
unanimity on that as well. But the fact is, when FEMA was an 
independent agency, it also experienced severe problems dealing with 
major disasters.
  If you look at the GAO and other reports, and, indeed, the hearing 
records before the committee I now chair back after Hurricane Andrew in 
1992, you could take out the word ``Andrew'' and substitute 
``Katrina,'' and you would get exactly the same indictment. In the 
hearing after Hurricane Andrew, my colleague, Senator Akaka, noted the 
difficulties that FEMA has had with response to catastrophic disasters. 
It is those catastrophic disasters, the fact is, that FEMA has never 
been able to handle, both when it was independent and when it was in 
DHS.
  Our committee's bipartisan recommendation seeks to correct that 
problem by creating an agency with the capabilities for the first time 
to manage catastrophic disasters.
  The Government Accountability Office found that FEMA's response to 
Hurricane Andrew in 1992 ``raised serious doubts about whether FEMA is 
capable of responding to catastrophic disasters.'' This is when FEMA 
was an independent agency. In particular, the GAO said that ``the 
Federal strategy for response lacked provisions to assess damage, the 
needs of victims, to provide food, shelter, and other essential 
services when the needs of victims outstrip State and local 
resources.''
  You could apply exactly the same words to what happened after 
Katrina. What we need is to build an agency that does have the capacity 
to respond to not just small- and medium-sized disasters but to true 
catastrophes. That is what our bill would do. We would have a stronger 
agency, better led, better organized, with new authorities and powers 
that FEMA has never had. We would give it the resources to be 
effective.
  Another important part of our amendment that, again, the Clinton-
Akaka amendment completely lacks is the creation of regional strike 
teams that would be located in regions of the country and have 
representatives of all the Federal agencies that are involved in 
responding to a disaster. These strike teams would plan, train, and 
exercise with their State and local counterparts and with private 
sector groups that are involved in responding to a disaster such as the 
Red Cross and the Salvation Army. That is the kind of approach we need 
to be effective. We should have people in the region who already know 
the local officials, the vulnerabilities, the weaknesses, the

[[Page 13966]]

strengths, the capabilities of the State and local systems, and can 
make sure that there are effective plans in place. We don't have that 
now.
  When Katrina struck, people were sent from region 1 in New England 
down to New Orleans and Mississippi to help out. They didn't know the 
people. They didn't know the geography. They didn't know the culture. 
They didn't have that much experience in dealing with hurricanes. That 
doesn't make any sense at all. We should have regionally based teams 
that can work with their partners at the State and local level and in 
the private sector. I am talking about working not just with the 
nonprofits such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army but also with the 
private sector, such as the local utility companies. That is an 
important partner as well. Instead, what we found with Katrina were 
problems in credentialing utility workers and other private sector 
workers so they couldn't, in some cases, gain access to the disaster 
area.
  We have given a lot of thought to how to do this right. This wasn't 
cobbled together overnight. It avoids the simplistic solution, which is 
no solution at all, of just saying: Let's take this weak, dysfunctional 
agency, this discredited agency, cut it loose from DHS, and somehow all 
will be well.
  All will not be well. In fact, it would be a disaster to have FEMA, 
with its very limited current authorities, cast off as a separate 
agency.
  Thad Allen said it well when he pointed out that since FEMA and the 
Coast Guard have been part of the same Department, there has been a 
350-percent increase in joint training. That is what we want. We don't 
want a bureaucratic structure. We want people to plan, train, and 
exercise together. If they are in different agencies, that is not going 
to happen. FEMA is not going to have the advantage of working closely 
with those relevant agencies within the Department.
  Another problem of the Clinton-Akaka amendment is that it would leave 
the preparedness functions in the Department of Homeland Security. I 
suspect I know why they did that. They did that because they realize 
the Department of Homeland Security has to have those preparedness 
functions. It needs to be able to prepare to respond to a terrorist 
attack. So they kept that function there.
  But how does it make sense for FEMA to be only a response agency? 
That is what led us to the failed response to Katrina. Preparedness had 
been stripped off from FEMA. So this makes no sense at all.
  Another criticism has been that FEMA lacks right now the authority to 
award preparedness grants. Yet the Clinton-Akaka amendment keeps that 
problem. It would keep the preparedness grants that go to State and 
local governments in the Department of Homeland Security, and yet would 
have this agency, FEMA, which is supposed to be working with State and 
local governments, with no authority over the funding for preparedness. 
That doesn't make any sense either.
  I hope this body will recognize that the Homeland Security Committee 
has done a great deal of work. I hope they will listen to these first 
responder groups who say: Keep FEMA within DHS, but make it work. That 
is exactly what our amendment would do.
  I see that the Senator from Connecticut has come to the floor. I 
would like to yield to him, if that is acceptable with the manager of 
the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, as I understand the time agreement, the 
Senator from Maine had no limitation on her time, but at the conclusion 
of her remarks, the Senator from New Jersey was to be recognized for 15 
minutes. If her remarks are completed, the time will begin to run 
against the Senator from New Jersey. It will take a new unanimous 
consent request, I suspect, to yield to the Senator from Connecticut.
  How much time does the Senator from Connecticut wish?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would just say amen to everything Senator Collins 
has said, but I will speak for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GREGG. If there is no objection, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from Connecticut be recognized for 5 minutes, then the Senator 
from New Jersey be recognized for 15 minutes, and then the vote occur 
20 minutes from now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to quite literally 
say amen to everything Senator Collins has said on behalf of our 
amendment and in respectful opposition to the amendment that Senator 
Clinton has proposed.
  We had a disaster, a catastrophe last year in Hurricane Katrina that 
was natural, and then we had a manmade disaster which was the 
shockingly inadequate response of the Federal, State, and local 
governments to that catastrophe that was called Katrina. So our 
committee spent months investigating, told the story, and considered 
what we could do to make sure nothing like the Federal Government's 
inadequate, incompetent reaction and response ever occurred again.
  We considered the responsibility that some have raised of taking 
FEMA, or a replacement agency such as we are proposing, out of the 
Department and making it independent again. But it made no sense to us. 
If you have a Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to be 
our major Department to prepare for and respond to disasters, natural 
and manmade, then why would we want to take the emergency management 
agency, which is all about responding to disasters, natural and 
terrorist, out of that Department? It would be, as I said at one of our 
hearings, like taking the U.S. Army out of the Department of Defense 
because you were not happy with the management of the U.S. Army, so you 
take it out. Or you had memories that there used to be a Chief of the 
Army who was good in a different time way back when it was independent, 
and you make it independent. It makes no sense. It is inefficient. I am 
afraid it would compromise the ability of our Government to prepare for 
and respond to another disaster.
  In some ways, this is a comparison between James Lee Witt and Michael 
Brown. I will be real specific about it. I am happy to say in public 
that James Lee Witt did a great job, and Michael Brown did not, 
particularly in Katrina. That shouldn't lead us to think that going 
back to the time when FEMA was independent and James Lee Witt was the 
Director would solve all of our problems.
  FEMA, under James Lee Witt, as good as he was--and he was very good--
never faced a catastrophe such as Katrina. We heard testimony to this 
effect from people in the Department, from inspectors general, from 
outside authorities that FEMA never, no matter how good James Lee Witt 
was, could have independently given an adequate response to a 
catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina or, God forbid, a catastrophe 
such as a significant terrorist attack. That is why we kept FEMA, our 
new USEMA, in the Department of Homeland Security.
  We have strengthened it considerably. Senator Lott, who was an 
initial cosponsor of the amendment to take FEMA out of the Department 
of Homeland Security, is now with us on keeping it in the Department 
because we made some significant changes. We gave the U.S. Emergency 
Management Agency that we would create, USEMA, the special legal status 
that only the Coast Guard and Secret Service have within the Department 
of Homeland Security. That means it cannot be changed except by 
statute. No executive action can change its status.
  We also made clear that during a time of crisis, though the head of 
the U.S. Emergency Management Authority normally reports to the 
Secretary of Homeland Security, that person reports directly to the 
President of the United States.
  I happen to have joined with Senator Specter, my friend and colleague 
from Pennsylvania, in introducing the original legislation to create 
the Department of Homeland Security. We did it a month or two after 9/
11 because we

[[Page 13967]]

felt we had entered a new age. We had been attacked here at home, 
innocent citizens were killed by terrorists, and we needed a whole new 
structure to prepare to defend the American people against similar 
attacks in the future--our enemies are still obviously out there--and 
to respond to those attacks.
  We built our proposal on the work of an independent commission headed 
by our former colleagues Warren Rudman and Gary Hart. They said loudly 
and clearly that FEMA must be the heart of this new Department if it is 
to adequately protect the American people from disaster or terrorism.
  It would be a profound mistake to take it out. That is why I urge my 
colleagues to support the amendment that Senator Collins and I are 
offering with Senator Carper and Senator Lott, and to oppose the 
amendment of Senator Clinton.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I saw Senator Lautenberg come into the Chamber. I do 
not see him now, so I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Jersey is recognized for 13 minutes 25 seconds.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I listened with interest to the 
Senator from Maine, the chairperson of the committee on which we both 
serve. I am trying to figure out why a name change might be part of the 
plan to try to make FEMA a more efficient agency. I think we are 
chasing our tail around the tree because I don't see how we can do it 
under the present structure.
  I want to start at the beginning. I don't plan to take all the time 
that is available. I would like to go back a little bit.
  When we look at the structure of DHS, the Department of Homeland 
Security, we see the complications that exist even today with its 
general functioning: Are the screeners doing an effective job? Do we 
have too many? They were once publicly owned groups across the country, 
and they were doing a poor job. Then we brought them into the 
Government and their performance improved substantially. Now there is 
talk about whether we ought to put them back into private hands.
  I think about the task of Secretary Chertoff--and Secretary Chertoff 
is someone I know very well and for whom I have a great deal of 
respect--when we look at the assignment--22 Departments, 180,000 
people, budgets that are insufficient to start with, and then the 
squabbling, the arm wrestling that has to take place within the 
Department to try and get FEMA enough money. It just doesn't make sense 
to have this Department of Government surrounded by the rest of the 
structure that is so complicated within DHS.
  There was a time when FEMA was called upon to act as a result of 
natural disasters, and they did it very well. James Lee Witt was the 
head of FEMA. In 1993, we had what was the equivalent of a 100-year 
flood in Mississippi, and FEMA acted professionally and efficiently and 
got the job done. Then we had the Northridge earthquake which was one 
of the worst disasters we have seen. Once again, FEMA stood up to the 
task and did it efficiently and responded very promptly to get that 
done.
  I, for one, believe, as does the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, 
that FEMA ought to be removed, ought to be independent, and to give it 
a chance to fight for its own budget, to make its own case, to be able 
to have direct contact with the President's office.
  When we think about it, we worry an awful lot about a terrorist 
attack on our soil, and we should, and we should fight to protect our 
citizens from the consequences of that kind of an event. But, also, 
when we look at what happened with natural disasters and the 
significant--just look at Katrina and see what has happened there. 
There is a whole sector in our country that has yet to recover.
  We are going to be at the first anniversary of Katrina in less than 2 
months, and there are still people living in unacceptable conditions, 
still the restoration has not taken place--the theft, the waste, the 
fraud that has taken place there, and we look and we say: What has 
happened here? Why isn't it better? It isn't better because the 
structure doesn't permit it to get better with any degree of ease. In 
my view, FEMA has to be a separate department, as it once was, to be 
able to function as it once did under a different kind of leadership.
  Who can forget the consequences of the first strike of the storm when 
the President of the United States was busy in California. He didn't 
visit the scene until a couple of days had passed, and he did that from 
30,000 feet in the air and called it a devastating sight and gave 
congratulations to Mr. Brown: Brownie, heck of a job.
  Did the President not know what he was saying or did he make a 
mistake? The fact is, there was so much confusion with the 
communications links that it was almost impossible to decipher what was 
going to happen, who was responsible, who was out to dinner when they 
were crying for help in the various communities, until someone reached 
over the top, went past the organizational structure, and got to the 
President's office. Then things began to happen. And they didn't happen 
very efficiently, nor did they happen thoroughly.
  I think if we separated FEMA from the Department of Homeland 
Security, it would give our new director--who holds high hope, I think, 
for all of us; he is a competent person. He has experience before he 
came to FEMA. He has a very positive background for this kind of job. 
He is new on the job, and I think it would give him a much stronger 
hand in the annual battle over the agency's budget and appropriations. 
Obviously, then, it would free FEMA of several layers of bureaucracy at 
DHS and make it easier for the agency to do its job.
  We talk so often around here about the bureaucracy and how tough it 
is to work your way through it. But here we have this critical agency, 
the agency that has more direct responsibility for our national 
security within our boundaries, on our land, than any other agency, and 
we keep it as a part of a total mechanical structure that says: OK, 
make sure you get A, B, C, and D. I think that is the wrong approach to 
having FEMA do the job we want it to do.
  It is obvious that FEMA was weak and ineffective and showed a great 
deal of incompetence. What we want to do is streamline the agency as 
much as we can, and this is an opportunity to do just that. We are not 
going to rely on picking friends--cronies, if I can use the term, 
political campaign workers--to do this job and expect to have it 
succeed. That is not the way you take a position like this and have it 
be able to do its job, the job of jumping in there in the middle of a 
natural disaster of people searching for relatives, searching for a way 
out. What do you do to replace a reasonable living condition for them? 
It is a very tough job.
  I think FEMA's subservient position inside DHS has contributed to low 
morale and the loss of qualified professional staff, and it is 
difficult attracting experienced personnel back to the agency. The 
agency has lost so much of its former excellent reputation that people 
are not anxious to go to an agency like that.
  So I think the way we have to do it is the way Senator Clinton and I 
and others are supportive of, which is the separation of FEMA from the 
Department. Separate FEMA. Let it stand on its own two feet. Let it 
strive for its own budget. Let it hire its personnel under its own 
structure and give it the responsibilities that it deserves and the 
resources that it needs.
  So I hope at this point that people will vote against the amendment 
Senator Collins has presented and support the Clinton amendment that 
calls for FEMA to be separated from DHS, stand alone, and let it make 
its case.

[[Page 13968]]

  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the 
approach offered by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman, and 
Senator Lott, Senator Carper, and myself, and reject the approach 
offered by Senator Clinton and Senator Akaka.
  Senator Clinton said earlier that we are rearranging the deck chairs 
on the Titanic but, in fact, that is what her amendment does. It takes 
the weak FEMA that we have now and moves it outside of the Department 
with no new personnel, no new function, no new authorities, no new 
funding, no infrastructure protection responsibilities, no new 
communications assets, no new medical assets, no new cyber-security 
assets.
  That is exactly contrary to the approach that we have taken. We have 
built a new FEMA within the Department with strong authorities--
authorities that FEMA has never had--to allow it to respond effectively 
to a disaster, regardless of its size. We create a new regional 
structure that will improve the management and the relationship with 
State and local governments. That is why the first responder groups are 
all supporting the Collins-Lieberman amendment, and I hope my 
colleagues will, too.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield back the time in opposition, and I 
ask for the yeas and nays on the Collins amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to 
be a sufficient second. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Santorum).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 87, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 192 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brownback
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Akaka
     Boxer
     Bunning
     Clinton
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kerry
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Pryor
     Schumer

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Ensign
     Santorum
       
  The amendment (No. 4560) was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 4563

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 2 minutes equally divided on the 
Clinton amendment.
  The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, the recently passed amendment did try to 
improve upon the status quo, and I commend Senators Collins and 
Lieberman for attempting to do so. But the answer is we need to restore 
the independence of FEMA. We need to give back to it Cabinet-level 
status with a direct line to the President. My amendment will allow us 
to do that. I urge you to vote for this amendment even if you voted for 
the last amendment because it improves the status quo vote which gets 
us back to the kind of independent FEMA that can actually respond to 
disasters and mitigate and help us prepare for them.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the Clinton-Akaka amendment does nothing 
to strengthen FEMA. It takes a weak FEMA and casts it adrift as an 
independent agency. It is not the answer. My colleagues, you have just 
voted for the right reform. I urge opposition to the Clinton amendment, 
as do all the first responder groups.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Santorum).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 32, nays 66, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 193 Leg.]

                                YEAS--32

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Boxer
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lincoln
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow

                                NAYS--66

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Enzi
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kyl
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Ensign
     Santorum
       
  The amendment (No. 4563) was rejected.
  Mr. GREGG. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is the Feinstein 
amendment the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Feinstein amendment is the pending 
question.


                Amendment No. 4577 to Amendment No. 4556

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cornyn] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4577 to amendment No. 4556.

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

        (Purpose: To provide for immigration injunction reform)

       At the end of the amendment, add the following:

     SEC. 541. IMMIGRATION INJUNCTION REFORM.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the 
     ``Fairness in Immigration Litigation Act of 2006''.
       (b) Appropriate Remedies for Immigration Legislation.--
       (1) Requirements for an order granting prospective relief 
     against the government.--

[[Page 13969]]

       (A) In general.--If a court determines that prospective 
     relief should be ordered against the Government in any civil 
     action pertaining to the administration or enforcement of the 
     immigration laws of the United States, the court shall--
       (i) limit the relief to the minimum necessary to correct 
     the violation of law;
       (ii) adopt the least intrusive means to correct the 
     violation of law;
       (iii) minimize, to the greatest extent practicable, the 
     adverse impact on national security, border security, 
     immigration administration and enforcement, and public 
     safety, and
       (iv) provide for the expiration of the relief on a specific 
     date, which is not later than the earliest date necessary for 
     the Government to remedy the violation.
       (B) Written explanation.--The requirements described in 
     subparagraph (A) shall be discussed and explained in writing 
     in the order granting prospective relief and must be 
     sufficiently detailed to allow review by another court.
       (C) Expiration of preliminary injunctive relief.--
     Preliminary injunctive relief shall automatically expire on 
     the date that is 90 days after the date on which such relief 
     is entered, unless the court--
       (i) makes the findings required under subparagraph (A) for 
     the entry of permanent prospective relief; and
       (ii) makes the order final before expiration of such 90-day 
     period.
       (D) Requirements for order denying motion.--This paragraph 
     shall apply to any order denying the Government's motion to 
     vacate, modify, dissolve or otherwise terminate an order 
     granting prospective relief in any civil action pertaining to 
     the administration or enforcement of the immigration laws of 
     the United States.
       (2) Procedure for motion affecting order granting 
     prospective relief against the government.--
       (A) In general.--A court shall promptly rule on the 
     Government's motion to vacate, modify, dissolve or otherwise 
     terminate an order granting prospective relief in any civil 
     action pertaining to the administration or enforcement of the 
     immigration laws of the United States.
       (B) Automatic stays.--
       (i) In general.--The Government's motion to vacate, modify, 
     dissolve, or otherwise terminate an order granting 
     prospective relief made in any civil action pertaining to the 
     administration or enforcement of the immigration laws of the 
     United States shall automatically, and without further order 
     of the court, stay the order granting prospective relief on 
     the date that is 15 days after the date on which such motion 
     is filed unless the court previously has granted or denied 
     the Government's motion.
       (ii) Duration of automatic stay.--An automatic stay under 
     clause (i) shall continue until the court enters an order 
     granting or denying the Government's motion.
       (iii) Postponement.--The court, for good cause, may 
     postpone an automatic stay under clause (i) for not longer 
     than 15 days.
       (iv) Orders blocking automatic stays.--Any order staying, 
     suspending, delaying, or otherwise barring the effective date 
     of the automatic stay described in clause (i), other than an 
     order to postpone the effective date of the automatic stay 
     for not longer than 15 days under clause (iii), shall be--

       (I) treated as an order refusing to vacate, modify, 
     dissolve or otherwise terminate an injunction; and
       (II) immediately appealable under section 1292(a)(1) of 
     title 28, United States Code.

       (3) Settlements.--
       (A) Consent decrees.--In any civil action pertaining to the 
     administration or enforcement of the immigration laws of the 
     United States, the court may not enter, approve, or continue 
     a consent decree that does not comply with paragraph (1).
       (B) Private settlement agreements.--Nothing in this 
     subsection shall preclude parties from entering into a 
     private settlement agreement that does not comply with 
     paragraph (1) if the terms of that agreement are not subject 
     to court enforcement other than reinstatement of the civil 
     proceedings that the agreement settled.
       (4) Expedited proceedings.--It shall be the duty of every 
     court to advance on the docket and to expedite the 
     disposition of any civil action or motion considered under 
     this subsection.
       (5) Definitions.--In this subsection:
       (A) Consent decree.--The term ``consent decree''--
       (i) means any relief entered by the court that is based in 
     whole or in part on the consent or acquiescence of the 
     parties; and
       (ii) does not include private settlements.
       (B) Good cause.--The term ``good cause'' does not include 
     discovery or congestion of the court's calendar.
       (C) Government.--The term ``Government'' means the United 
     States, any Federal department or agency, or any Federal 
     agent or official acting within the scope of official duties.
       (D) Permanent relief.--The term ``permanent relief'' means 
     relief issued in connection with a final decision of a court.
       (E) Private settlement agreement.--The term ``private 
     settlement agreement'' means an agreement entered into among 
     the parties that is not subject to judicial enforcement other 
     than the reinstatement of the civil action that the agreement 
     settled.
       (F) Prospective relief.--The term ``prospective relief'' 
     means temporary, preliminary, or permanent relief other than 
     compensatory monetary damages.
       (c) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--This section shall apply with respect to 
     all orders granting prospective relief in any civil action 
     pertaining to the administration or enforcement of the 
     immigration laws of the United States, whether such relief 
     was ordered before, on, or after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act.
       (2) Pending motions.--Every motion to vacate, modify, 
     dissolve or otherwise terminate an order granting prospective 
     relief in any such action, which motion is pending on the 
     date of the enactment of this Act, shall be treated as if it 
     had been filed on such date of enactment.
       (3) Automatic stay for pending motions.--
       (A) In general.--An automatic stay with respect to the 
     prospective relief that is the subject of a motion described 
     in paragraph (2) shall take effect without further order of 
     the court on the date which is 10 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act if the motion--
       (i) was pending for 45 days as of the date of the enactment 
     of this Act; and
       (ii) is still pending on the date which is 10 days after 
     such date of enactment.
       (B) Duration of automatic stay.--An automatic stay that 
     takes effect under subparagraph (A) shall continue until the 
     court enters an order granting or denying the Government's 
     motion under subsection (b)(2). There shall be no further 
     postponement of the automatic stay with respect to any such 
     pending motion under subsection (b)(2)(B). Any order, 
     staying, suspending, delaying or otherwise barring the 
     effective date of this automatic stay with respect to pending 
     motions described in paragraph (2) shall be an order blocking 
     an automatic stay subject to immediate appeal under 
     subsection (b)(2)(B)(iv).

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this amendment is designed to end a 
decades-old, obsolete Federal court injunction designed to impede the 
Department of Homeland Security's use of expedited removal and 
enforcement of our immigration laws.
  In 1988, a Federal court in Los Angeles issued a permanent, 
nationwide injunction that requires immigration authorities to afford 
detained Salvadorans a host of substantive and proposal rights--rights 
afforded to literally no other immigrant group.
  Largely as a result of this 1988 Orantes injunction, Salvadorans have 
now become the single largest component of what is known as OTMs or 
``other than Mexican'' immigrants.
  Both the border tunnel amendment that Senator Feinstein has offered 
and my immigration injunction second-degree amendment deal with illegal 
immigration and are designed to deal with criminal activity. They go 
together well because they both close border vulnerabilities that are 
being exploited by gangs and smugglers.
  The injunction amendment passed as an amendment in committee, and 
there has been little opposition. It is currently in the compromise 
bill endorsed by a majority of Senate Democrats.
  The amendment requires courts to narrowly tailor injunctive relief 
orders against the Government in immigration cases and to take into 
account national security, border security, public safety, and 
immigration enforcement concerns.
  Decades-old, obsolete Federal court injunctions continue to impede 
the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to enforce our 
immigration laws.
  For example, if you look at June of 2005 through February of 2006, 
you can see why this specific injunction, which impedes the use of 
expedited removal when it comes to immigrants from El Salvador, is such 
a problem and why this amendment is necessary.
  For example, in June of 2005 there were some 4,181 Brazilians subject 
to apprehension. At the same time, there were roughly the same number 
of El Salvadorans: 4,011. But because of the improvements in expedited 
removal and immigration law enforcement inso far as it relates to 
Brazilians--not subject to the Orantes injunction that impedes the use 
of this important procedure--we saw the number of Brazilians drop from 
4,181 in June of 2005 to 72 in February of 2006.
  During the same time period, because of the impediment created by the 
Orantes injunction, which prohibited the use of expedited removal when 
it came to Salvadorans who illegally immigrated into the United States, 
we

[[Page 13970]]

saw, in June of 2005, 4,011 Salvadorans; and in February of 2006, that 
number has virtually not changed at all, to 3,906.
  So, clearly, the impediment created by this Orantes injunction, that 
would be overturned and remedied by this amendment, creates an 
impediment for the Department of Homeland Security when it comes to 
enforcing our immigration laws.
  This amendment, it is important to note, would not eliminate 
injunctive relief but would require that any injunction granted be 
narrowly tailored and to not unnecessarily impede on enforcement of our 
immigration laws.
  Specifically, it would provide that injunctions must be narrowly 
tailored to precisely address the actual harm identified. It would 
require that injunctions do not extend forever and must end on a date 
certain. It provides that an injunction is suspended unless a court 
acts within 30 days of the date when the Government moves to vacate an 
injunction. And for any injunction in which the Government has already 
filed a motion to vacate--and which remains pending 10 days after 
enactment of this bill--that injunction is automatically stayed on that 
10th day.
  Mr. President, I conclude by saying, in my conversations with the 
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, he regards this 
amendment as important to providing the Department of Homeland Security 
the tools it needs in order to enforce our immigration laws and to make 
sure the use of expedited removal, which is so important in terms of 
the deterrence that it provides, be uniform across populations that 
would be affected.
  So, as he told me, if this amendment passes, he would be able to end 
catch-and-release, which is a de facto policy of this Government, 
within a matter of months.
  I would think this is an issue we can all support, and I ask my 
colleagues to support this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4579

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask it 
be reported.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is 
set aside, and the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg], for himself and 
     Mr. Byrd, proposes an amendment numbered 4579.

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

       On page 118, strike line 7 through page 119, line 2 and 
     insert in lieu thereof the following:
       Sec. 524. Using funds made available in this Act:
       (a) Within 60 days of enactment of this Act, the Secretary 
     of the Department of Homeland Security shall revise DHS MD 
     [Management Directive] 11056 to provide for the following:
       (1) that when a lawful request is made to publicly release 
     a document containing information designated as SSI, the 
     document shall be reviewed in a timely manner to determine 
     whether any information contained in the document meets the 
     criteria for continued SSI protection under applicable law 
     and regulation and shall further provide that all portions 
     that no longer require SSI designation be released, subject 
     to applicable law, including sections 552 and 552a of title 
     5, United States Code;
       (2) that sensitive security information that is four years 
     old shall be subject to release upon request unless:
       (A) the Secretary or his designee makes a written 
     determination that identifies a rational basis why the 
     information must remain SSI;
       (B) the information is covered by a current sensitive 
     security information application guide approved by the 
     Secretary or his designee in writing; or
       (C) such information is otherwise exempt from disclosure 
     under applicable law.
       Any determination made by the Secretary under clause 
     (a)(2)(A) shall be provided to the party making a request to 
     release such information and to the Committees on 
     Appropriations of the Senate and House of Representatives as 
     part of the annual reporting requirement pursuant to section 
     537 of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations 
     Act, 2006 (Pub. L. 109-90; 119 Stat. 2088);
       (3) common and extensive examples of the individual 
     categories of SSI information cited under 49 CFR 1520(b) (1) 
     through (16) in order to minimize and standardize judgment by 
     covered persons in the application of SSI marking; and
       (b) Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of 
     this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall report to 
     the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House 
     of Representatives on the progress that the Department has 
     made in implementing the remaining requirements of section 
     537 of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations 
     Act, 2006 (Pub. L. 109-90; 119 Stat. 2088), including 
     information on the current procedures regarding access to 
     sensitive security information (SSI) by civil litigants and 
     the security risks and benefits of any proposed changes to 
     these procedures.

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment 
be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 4579) was agreed to.

                          ____________________