Debate and amendments to the homeland security appropriations bill are expected to continue through the week.

Mr. President, the Senate has before it the Fiscal Year 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. I commend Subcommittee Chairman Gregg and his staff for their work on this important legislation. I also commend the thousands of men and women who are on the front lines of America’s homeland security. They serve the nation every hour of every day.

I welcome Chairman Gregg to his new duties as Chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. Chairman Gregg brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this task.

The Chairman targets limited resources on future threats, not simply the threats posed by the attacks of September 11. For the most part, the Chairman has attempted to allocate resources to those threats that present the greatest risks to the American people. In doing so, he has, with my support, included a number of improvements to the President’s budget, particularly, with regard to border security, air cargo security, funds for States to implement the driver’s license provisions of the REAL ID Act, as well as funding to protect the all-hazards Emergency Management Performance Grant program.

The Committee bill builds on the bipartisan border security initiative that I offered, along with Senator Craig, to the 2005 Emergency Supplemental. Between the Emergency Supplemental enacted in May, and this bill, Congress will have increased the number of border patrol agents by 1,500; provided funds to train and house those agents; increased the number of immigration investigators, agents, and detention officers by 817; and increased the number of detention beds by 4,190. I commend Chairman Gregg for this action.

In addition, the bill contains an important protection for the privacy rights of Americans. I thank Chairman Gregg for his support of language that I recommended concerning Secure Flight, the Department's proposed new airline passenger profiling system. The language would prohibit the use of commercial databases for confirming the identity of airline passengers. Such commercial data bases are unreliable and potentially invade people’s privacy.

The bill before the Senate provides $30.8 billion for discretionary programs, an increase of 4.6 percent. This is a very lean bill. The Committee was put in a difficult position as a result of the Administration’s proposal to have the Appropriations Committee increase the fees paid by airline passengers, a proposal that would have raised $1.68 billion. The Appropriations Committee does not have jurisdiction over airline fees and, therefore, could not approve the proposal. As a result, the Committee was forced to reduce spending below the President’s request by
$389 million.

The low Subcommittee allocation and the fee proposal resulted in cuts in firefighter grants, first responder grants, rail and mass transit security grants, Coast Guard operations, and in the number of Transportation Security Administration screeners. These cuts are very unfortunate. It is regrettable that the Administration’s apparent lack of understanding of the legislative process will have such a direct impact on programs that are important elements of our homeland security strategy.

As the Senate considers this bill, I hope that Senators will look favorably on amendments to restore the cuts in firefighter grants, first responder grants, and mass transit and rail security grants. The tragic events in London last week remind us all of the imminent threat of terrorist attacks here at home.

Last Thursday, when asked if additional funding was needed to secure mass transit systems, Secretary Chertoff said, “I would not make a policy decision driven by a single event.” With all due respect to the Secretary, the alarm bells have been ringing for years. There have been 16 bombings worldwide linked to the al Qaeda. The United States Senate should not be reducing our commitment to firefighters, and first responders, or to securing our mass transit and rail systems.

I am pleased that the Chairman has included my recommendation to direct the Department to expedite its grant-making process. All too often, funds that were approved by Congress last October will not be given to Federal, State, and local agencies until this September – nearly a full year later. Americans are not made safer by having funding for border security, port security, rail security, and for hiring firefighters sit in the U. S. Treasury. On June 13th, I wrote a letter to Secretary Chertoff, calling on him to focus on this problem as part of his review of agency operations. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be made a part of the record.

Unfortunately, the Secretary has not seen fit to respond to my letter. I hope the Secretary’s delay in responding is not indicative of the Administration’s intent to continue leaving homeland security dollars gathering dust in the Treasury in Washington, D. C. I am particularly appalled that the $150 million that Congress approved last October for mass transit and rail security is still sitting in the Treasury. The Department did not even announce until April how rail and transit systems could apply for the funds, wasting a full six months that rail and transit systems could have used to prepare for, or prevent, a future attack.

Time and time again, the Administration has talked a good game on homeland security, but it has not followed through with a sustained commitment of resources and ideas. I fear that the Administration believes that it fulfilled its commitment to securing the homeland by creating the Department of Homeland Security. Well, Mr. President, America is not made safer by simply reorganizing boxes on an organizational chart.

Repeatedly, the energy, the initiative, the resources, and the leadership for homeland security efforts have come from the Congress.

In December of 2004, Congress authorized the hiring of 2,000 new Border Patrol agents per year for five years, the hiring of an additional 800 immigration investigators per year for five years to enforce our immigrations laws, and the funding of 8,000 new detention beds for the holding of illegal aliens. But, despite statements by Secretary of State Rice and former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Loy that al Qaeda is a threat on our porous borders, there was virtually nothing in the President’s budget to provide these additional resources for border security. The bill that is before the Senate today commits real resources to securing our borders.

With regard to transit and rail security, when terrorists blew up trains last year in Madrid, Spain, the Administration had no plan for securing transit and rail systems. The horrific bombings last week in London have raised the same questions that we raised last year. Could it happen here?
Are we prepared? According to the Rand Corporation, between 1998 and 2003, there were approximately 181 terrorist attacks on rail targets worldwide. According to the Congressional Research Service, passenger rail systems in the United States carry about five times as many passengers each day as do airlines. Since 2001, I have offered seven different amendments to fund rail and transit security, and all of them were opposed by the Administration and defeated.

Despite opposition from the Administration, it was the Congress that created the rail and transit security grant program that was first funded in FY 2005, and that is funded in this bill today. I call on the Administration to explain to the American people why the $150 million that Congress approved last year has not been given to rail and transit agencies to invest in more cameras, locks, canine teams, and training; and I ask the Senate to approve additional funding for such grants for FY 2006. The $100 million included in the bill is $50 million below last year and is $1.6 billion below the levels authorized for 2006 in bills that passed the Senate last year.

While this Administration has been focusing on the last attack, which was carried out by hijackers, very little attention has been given to other vulnerabilities in aviation security. While the Transportation Security Administration examines 100 percent of checked baggage, most of the cargo that is stored on the same passenger aircraft and on cargo planes, is not inspected. The threat of a bomb on an aircraft is not new. In 1988, 259 passengers aboard a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, perished when a terrorist-placed bomb exploded while the aircraft was 31,000 feet in the sky. Three-and-a-half years ago, Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, tried to blow up an aircraft in flight over the ocean with explosives that he carried onto the aircraft.

Yet, for three straight fiscal years, it has been Congress that committed resources to address this problem. Since Fiscal Year 2004, Congress has added $85 million above the President’s request to hire air cargo inspectors and to advance research of innovative technologies to detect explosives in air cargo. What has the Administration done with that funding? It has let $106 million sit in the Treasury. Six months after this fiscal year began, less than twelve percent of the funding appropriated for air cargo has been spent. To make matters worse, the President’s budget request for air cargo research and development (R&D) in Fiscal Year 2006 was slashed in half. The bill that is before the Senate continues the commitment to increasing the inspection of air cargo, and I commend Chairman Gregg for that decision.

When it comes to securing the Nation’s chemical plants, the Administration has been stuck in quicksand. We know that the threat is real. The FBI has warned us about it. We know that an attack at a chemical plant could cost millions of lives. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that 123 chemical facilities, if attacked, could threaten the lives of over one million people.

For years, the Administration has dragged its feet on securing our chemical facilities. And, for years, many in the Senate have pressed the Administration to do more, to show leadership.

In response to my request, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report concluding that, of the 15,000 chemical facilities in the country, only 1,100 have complied with voluntary security standards. It has been more than two years since the GAO urged the EPA and DHS to develop a comprehensive strategy for the protection of our chemical plants.

Last month, the Administration finally changed direction on the need to provide security standards to the chemical industry. However, the Administration has not proposed a specific plan or identified resources to implement such standards. This bill includes two important directives related to the protection of our chemical facilities. First, it requires the Department to provide the Committee with estimates of the resources needed to implement mandatory security requirements for the Nation’s chemical sector. Second, it directs the Department to begin vulnerability assessments of the Nation’s highest risk chemical facilities. I look forward to the Administration following through with a specific plan.

This bill includes $200 million for port security grants, $50 million above the amounts provided in Fiscal Year 2005. Once again, the Administration’s request was woefully inadequate, and it is the Congress that has taken the lead. With the $200 million included in this bill, Congress will have funded $843 million for port security grants since 9/11. And, how much has the Administration requested over that time? A measly $46 million. To make matters worse, the Fiscal Year 2006 request by the White House included a proposal to have ports compete against other non-aviation modes of transportation by lumping them together in a limited pot of funding.

More than nine million cargo containers enter U. S. ports annually, yet, only eighteen percent are inspected. All it takes is a dirty bomb stuffed in one of those nine million containers to cripple our economy. The $150 million that Congress approved last October is still sitting in the Treasury. Why the Administration continues to ignore the threat facing our seaports is simply mind-boggling. We cannot afford to wait for the next attack.

For each of the threats that I have discussed today, the bill that is before the Senate continues congressional initiatives to secure our homeland. I commend Chairman Cochran, the first chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, for his leadership in 2003 and 2004. And, I commend our new Subcommittee Chairman, Senator Judd Gregg, for giving clear direction to the Department in the bill that is before the Senate. With the resources that have been made available to the Committee, Chairman Gregg has produced a good bill. Regrettably, as a result of the President’s proposal to increase airline passenger fees, which the Appropriations Committee lacks the authority to approve, this bill does not have all of the resources it needs to meet known vulnerabilities.

It is essential that the Department of Homeland Security be responsive, not bureaucratic. While the threat we face is massive and clear, our response to dealing with it is tepid and unfocused. It will take a commitment of energy, imagination, and, yes, more funding, to better secure our homeland.

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