[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6302-6303]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    IMPROVING AMERICA'S SECURITY ACT

  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, over 5 years ago, on September 11, 
terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 people in the single deadliest attack 
on American soil in our history.
  What all Americans witnessed and what too many families experienced 
personally and tragically was the dawn of a new era. We knew it then. 
National Guard patrolled Federal buildings and airports. The military 
patrolled the skies over New York and Washington, DC. The United States 
had been attacked by a new kind of enemy in a new and more dangerous 
world. We faced tough questions as a nation: How do we defeat this 
enemy? How do we fight terror abroad and protect America at home?
  What was clear that day and remains so today is that the threat posed 
to us by terrorism requires a great mobilization of American might, 
muscle, resources, and ingenuity.
  Armed with this mandate, many of us fought alongside those who lost 
loved ones on September 11 to compel an unwilling Bush administration 
to create the 9/11 Commission. The determination and steadfastness 
demonstrated by the families hardest hit by the September 11 tragedy 
made the 9/11 Commission a reality. We applauded when the bipartisan 
Commission concluded its investigation and released its thorough report 
detailing recommendations to protect this Nation from another attack, 
confident that the Congress and the administration would in short order 
implement their recommendations.
  Shamefully, for some in our Federal Government, the sense of urgency 
and resolve faded in the months and years that followed. Some of the 
Commission's most commonsense recommendations went ignored. Even in the 
face of dangerous incompetence in our emergency preparedness and 
response to Hurricane Katrina, we received tough rhetoric instead of 
much needed reform. Five years after the 9/11 attacks and 2\1/2\ years 
after the 9/11 Commission released its initial report, much of the work 
of properly securing our homeland has gone undone. That is why this 
legislation to implement many of the remaining recommendations of the 
9/11 Commission is long overdue.
  I have long supported the Commission's recommendation that ``homeland 
security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks 
and vulnerabilities.'' With our homeland security resources limited, we 
need to be smart about how we distribute funding to guard against 
terrorism. Sadly, all too often, funding decisions have been made based 
on politics in Washington instead of the reality in our cities and 
neighborhoods. It is why I introduced the Homeland Security Block Grant 
Act as well as the Domestic Defense Fund Act, both of which would 
provide direct and threat-based homeland security funding to our 
communities and first responders to help them improve our homeland 
defense. But even funds supposedly distributed based on risk have been 
administered incompetently.
  Last spring, the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, announced its 
2006 homeland security grants. Cities and States across the country 
facing high terrorist threats suffered considerable funding cuts, a 
decision which can be largely attributed to a series of highly 
questionable risk assessments. New York City and Washington, DC, both 
already the targets of attacks, were slated for drastic reductions. 
Funding under the Urban Area Security Initiative, UASI, alone was 
slashed in New York City by more than 40 percent and in Washington, DC 
by 43 percent.
  We clearly need to get smarter about how we assess risk. It would 
surprise most people to learn that until now, the process of assessing 
risk has been done on an ad hoc basis within DHS, with several 
different offices tasked with contributing to the analysis. This 
seemingly haphazard process has led to constantly changing grant 
guidance and formulas, wide fluctuations in yearly grant awards, and a 
failure to develop a long-term strategy for risk assessment. What we 
need is a full-time staff of methodologists whose sole responsibility 
it is to assess risk. That is why I offered an amendment to bill that 
would create a Risk Assessment Center within DHS.
  While the funding proposal contained within Improving America's 
Security Act moves us closer toward a threat-based funding model, it 
still falls shorts of what the 9/11 Commission recommended. 
Specifically, the State minimum funding requirements contained within 
the bill are still too high and there is still too much reliance on 
population-based formulas that bear little relation to risk. My hope is 
that during conference committee negotiations to reconcile the House 
and Senate bills, efforts will be made to ensure that our limited 
homeland security funds are directed toward mitigating our most 
significant vulnerabilities and that political formulas are abandoned.
  As we discuss the importance of homeland security and how critical it 
is to provide adequate funding for our first responders, we cannot 
leave the 43,000 transportation security officers, TSOs, in this 
country out of the conversation. Every day, TSOs are on the national 
security frontlines, keeping our airports safe and protecting countless 
citizens as they travel. Despite the significant training, experience, 
and patience required to execute these duties, TSOs have lacked the 
basic workers rights and protections for over 5 years, including 
whistleblower protections and the right to collectively bargain. As a 
result, the officers we task with protecting our airplanes from another 
terrorist attack now have the highest injury rate of any Federal 
agency, a high attrition rate of almost 30 percent, and, according to a 
recent report, the lowest morale of any agency in the Federal 
Government.
  It is why I supported Senator McCaskill's amendment that would 
guarantee to TSOs collective bargaining and other basic labor rights 
that other Federal law enforcement officers already enjoy. This 
amendment would promote our Nation's security by providing a stable 
workplace structure for the resolution of disputes and the reduction of 
turnover, as well as allow TSOs to expose threats to aviation security 
without fear of retaliation. The amendment also includes provisions 
that make explicit that TSOs would not enjoy the right to strike, the 
right to bargain for higher pay, or the right to reveal classified 
information, and that the TSOs must follow all orders during an 
emergency. This was a smart and carefully tailored amendment that 
correctly recognizes that we will not be able to effectively safeguard 
our Nation's security if we do not stand with and support its security 
workers.

[[Page 6303]]

  It is also past time to secure our ports and transportation systems. 
Unscanned cargo containers that pass through our ports pose a 
substantial risk to our homeland security, threatening not only the 
gateways to our national economy but also the larger American public. 
We learned the painful lesson on September 11 that those intent on 
destroying our American way of life are keenly focused on exposing our 
vulnerabilities. Because our ports serve as the gateway to our country 
and its economy, they remain attractive targets susceptible to 
terrorist attack.
  In 2005, more than 84 million tons of cargo with a value greater than 
$132 billion passed through the Port of New York and New Jersey alone. 
The sheer scope of commerce at our ports means the threat carries grave 
consequences--and will take a great deal of hard work and our smartest 
strategies to meet. And while we took important steps toward addressing 
these concerns last year with the passage of the SAFE Ports Act, we 
still need to act with more urgency. It is why I supported efforts to 
expedite the implementation of new scanning requirements during 
consideration of the Improving America's Security Act.
  I am encouraged that the bill does take steps to secure our rail and 
mass transit systems. Given the lessons of London, Madrid, and Mumbai, 
it is unbelievable that not more has been done to secure our mass 
transit. Passenger rail systems--primarily subway systems--here in the 
United States carry about 5 times as many passengers each day as do 
airlines. Instead of forcing an impossible decision, between protecting 
one form of transportation over another, we should invest in the 
resources and tools necessary to secure our entire transportation 
infrastructure--before terrorists strike our rail systems here at home.
  Importantly, the bill provides grants through TSA to Amtrak, freight 
railraods, and others to upgrade security across the entire freight and 
intercity passenger railroad system. Additionally, the bill provides 
funding through the Department of Transportation, DOT, to upgrade and 
to fortify Amtrak railroad tunnels in New York, Washington, and 
Baltimore.
  Furthermore, the legislation requires the Federal Motor Carrier 
Safety Administration, FMCSA, to provide recommendations to both motor 
carriers and States on how to coordinate hazardous materials routing. 
The bill also requires DHS to develop a program to encourage equipping 
trucks that carry hazardous materials with communications and tracking 
technology. These steps are in addition to those in the bill that 
bolster aviation security standards. Importantly, the bill requires the 
Transportation Security Administration, TSA, to develop and implement a 
system, within 3 years of the date of enactment, to provide for the 
screening of all cargo being carried on passenger aircraft, a security 
measure that is long overdue.
  The bill also takes several important steps to address our emergency 
communications systems before we face another crisis. Chaotic, real-
world disasters, whether manmade or natural, do not obey borders. They 
require close coordination of Federal, State and local agencies, 
firefighters, police officers and EMTs, and others. Yet often these 
different entities use different communications devices, frequencies, 
even languages. On September 11, police officers could not effectively 
talk to firefighters at Ground Zero; at the Pentagon, first responders 
from Virginia and Washington, DC faced the same problem. After Katrina, 
we had responders exchanging business cards at the site of the disaster 
along the gulf.
  That is why the 9/11 Commission recognized our crucial need to have 
interoperable communications, so that all of our first responders can 
communicate with each other at the scene of an emergency. It is why I 
introduced legislation last year that would give our first responders 
an interoperable emergency communications system coordinated under 
Federal leadership. I am pleased that the bill provides funds to 
improve interoperable emergency communications and gives the National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration, NTIA, greater 
direction regarding how to distribute these funds.
  This bill also contains a provision offered by Senator Stevens and me 
which will provide immediate and critical funding to help upgrade and 
improve our Nation's 9-1-1 call centers. This funding will help ensure 
that 9-1-1 call centers can be an effective part of an emergency 
response plan and will make certain they have the technological 
upgrades to handle and process all the emergency calls that come into 
them so that our first responders know where to go and what situation 
they are walking into.
  Nearly 5 years ago, America suffered a brutal terrorist attack that 
stole nearly 3,000 lives and changed America forever. What was required 
here in Washington was leadership. Leadership to inspire Americans to 
meet the threat head on. Leadership to mobilize our resources and 
respond effectively. Leadership to keep our country safe in a new and 
more dangerous world.
  Sadly, the Bush administration failed to match the urgency and 
resolve of the American people in this great struggle to secure our 
homeland. Today, with passage of this important legislation, we will 
demonstrate the leadership that we have been sorely missing for too 
long in the fight to safeguard our Nation and its citizens.

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