Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Yes, I yield, if I may have an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. I hope that all Senators within the sound of my voice will vote no on cloture today. Here is a 484-page bill that we have not seen until the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, the day before yesterday. And the Senators are being asked to invoke cloture on this measure when we do not know everything about it. What is in it? We are entitled to have some time to study this bill. We owe it to our constituents.

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BYRD. Is the Senator talking about a conference report when he says it is a nondebatable motion? Is he talking about a conference report?

Mr. BYRD. Is that a conference report?

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. I hope we are not going to work on Sunday. That is a religious holiday for this Senator. We do observe religious holidays around here. Furthermore, I think the distinguished Democratic whip's mention of reason and logic and common sense should be applied to the homeland security legislation as well. I hope all Senators within the sound of my voice here in this Chamber and listening on the TV--

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. But I am very disturbed by the fact that here we have before the Senate a measure which is in many ways a measure that has not been seen, studied, except for the few hours of yesterday and today we and our staffs have been able to allot to it. This is something new, and we are going to be asked to vote on cloture on this vehicle, this piece of legislation. We are going to be asked to vote on cloture by no later than tomorrow on this matter, and we don't know what is in it. I don't know what is in it. I have had my staff on it since yesterday when it first made its appearance in my office in the form of several separate pages which I hold in my hand, various and sundry pieces of it, almost 500 pages. Here we are going to be asked to vote on cloture on this measure tomorrow. I hope we don't invoke cloture. I hope Senators will not vote to invoke cloture on this matter tomorrow. The Senate is entitled to have more time in studying this measure before we vote on it. The American people are entitled to know more about what is in this bill as it comes to us now from the House, what is in the bill before we vote on cloture. I think people are entitled to that. I say to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, again, he is performing an extremely important service to the Senate, to his people, and to the people of the United States. I was in my office when I heard him talking. I heard him talking about the vaccines. I heard him talking about other areas of the bill which are new to him, some of which he had not seen. He indicated they are new to him. Why should we vote? I ask this question. The distinguished Senator may not wish to answer it right now, but it is a question. I am within my rights to ask the Senator a question, if he is willing to listen to my question. Perhaps this is a rhetorical question. But why should Senators invoke cloture? Why should Senators vote to invoke cloture on a measure when they don't know what is in it? Many of them did not know what was in H.R. 5005 before the August recess, and many of the Senators, I assume, did not know a great deal about what was in that bill even after we debated it for a considerable length of time. The distinguished Senator from Connecticut has put most of the summer and a great deal of the spring of this year into his bill. He and his committee have worked hard. Mr. Thompson and others have worked hard on this homeland security bill. I will take my own time on the floor later today to say these things, but I will just say this: We are being importuned by this administration, by this President, to vote quickly on this bill creating a department of homeland security. I think it is irresponsible of the administration to insist upon the Senate's acting on this legislation in such a great hurry. One might say, well, they have had all summer. But we have not had all summer. We have something new here that was just brought into the Senate yesterday, and we are being importuned to vote for this legislation before we go out of session, presumably maybe at the end of next week, maybe not. But I think it is most irresponsible for the administration to put this kind of pressure on the Senate, especially when the administration has turned its back on appropriations bills that have been reported from my committee, the committee chaired by me and the ranking member, Mr. Ted Stevens, former chairman of the Appropriations Committee and soon to be chairman again. I think the administration has had before it these various and sundry appropriations bills, many of which contain homeland security appropriations. Yet this administration has put the pressure on the other body, the Republican-controlled House, not to pass those appropriations bills. There was homeland security. There was real homeland security. If the administration would just have taken the bonds or the chains or the handcuffs off the House and let it act on those appropriations bills, there is homeland security. If we really want to do something for the people, do it fast for them--and I will go into this in greater length later today--there was the chance. Instead of putting the pressure on that, instead of pushing hard to get the appropriations bills through and get them down to the President so he could sign them, the administration has instead put great pressure on the Senate now to pass this homeland security bill. Yet we don't know what is in the bill. We haven't had much time. My question is--the Senator may not want to answer it--does he not think that the Senate ought to take more time before invoking cloture? I respect the fact that sooner or later cloture will be invoked. But it wouldn't hurt--I will say this on my own--for this bill to go over until next year when we could have more time to look at the 485 pages-- I may be missing one or two--so that we could take our time and know what we are voting on. They will say: Something may happen. The terrorists may strike. We need to get this done. Let me say to my dear friend the Senator and other Senators and to the Chair: Passing this bill won't make one whit of difference if a terrorist attack occurs tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month. Passing this bill will not make one whit of difference. The people who are to protect us under this bill, if we ever get the bill passed and get it implemented, this new department up and running, the people who will be ensuring the safety of the American people under this bill are out there right now: Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Bureau, the policemen, firemen, the emergency health personnel, the border security personnel, the security at the ports. These people are out there now. They are out there every day. This bill, only for political reasons, is going to amount to a hill of beans. That will be all it will be worth. They can say, well, they passed the bill. But it won't make the people of this country a bit more secure. As a matter of fact, they will be lulled into a feeling of security when they will be very insecure with this bill--as much so, or more, perhaps, than if we didn't pass it. I am one of those who, first, may I say to my friend--if he will allow one further comment and then my question--I am one of those who first advocated a Department of Homeland Security; I am one of the first to advocate it. But I have had the bitter experience of trying to get the Director of Homeland Security up before the Appropriations Committee, and Mr. Stevens, the ranking member, joined me in inviting Mr. Ridge up before the committee, but the President said no. He put his foot down and said, no, he is on my staff; he doesn't have to come. We had no alternative but to go ahead with the seven department heads and various and sundry mayors and Governors throughout this country, and police organizations, health organizations, firemen organizations, and so on. We came up with a good bill. But in that bill, we also included language that would have required the Director of Homeland Security to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. So we said, OK, it won't be done by invitation; you will come because you are going to have to be confirmed by the Senate, and then you will come. So the administration saw that coming down like a Mack truck. They saw it coming down the track. It passed the Senate with 71 votes--at least 71, as I recall. There wasn't a finger raised against that provision, not an amendment offered to strike that provision; and the administration saw that bearing down on them like a Mack truck, so they rushed to get ahead of the wave, which they are pretty good at doing. Out of the bowels of the White House, they hatched this idea of homeland security, and here it was--not here it is. This is something new. It came up here. This Department of Homeland Security had been hatched by Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and by Andrew Card, and by Tom Ridge, and Mr. Gonzalez, the White House counsel. Those four eminent public officials hatched up this great, grand idea and unveiled it. The President called us down for the unveiling. I remember, he said he had to go to St. Louis to make a speech, but before he went, he said he had this package. He didn't explain what was in the package. He referred to it as ``this package.'' He wanted to see this package passed quickly and he was going to have to go to St. Louis and make a speech. I seldom go down to the White House. I am not invited much anymore, but I am not crying about that. I don't want to go down there, as a matter of fact. I went down when I was majority leader and minority leader and majority whip so much that I got tired of going. Others may have the pleasure. But on this occasion I went. The President said here we have this package, and he said he wanted to thank the Members of Congress for their input. I scratched my head. What input is he talking about? The Members of Congress haven't had any input. He said, ``I have to hurry and go to speak.'' He called on the Speaker for a few words. He called on the distinguished Republican leader here, and he called upon the distinguished Democratic leader, and he called upon the distinguished Democratic leader in the House, and then he was finished. He didn't call on me. I was just invited to come as an ornament, I suppose, one that is not often seen by people at the White House. In any event, the President started off to make that speech in St. Louis. I said, ``Wait a minute, Mr. President. I heard you say something about this package, how you want this passed. I don't know what is in this package.'' Then he said to somebody down the line that may have been a Member of the House, may have been a Democratic leader there--I don't recall--maybe I do, but I don't need to say. Anyhow, when reference was made to this ``thing,'' that we need to pass this thing in time for the first anniversary of September 11, I said, ``I heard something said about this `thing,' that we need to pass it in time for the first anniversary. I don't know what this `thing' is.'' I kind of dismissed it in my feeble way, in that manner, saying I didn't know what they are talking about, this thing, this package. Nobody explained this ``package'' to me down there. Nobody explained what this thing was down there. So I came back up to the Hill, knowing little more than I knew when I went down. I say all that to say this: Here, today, we don't even have the ``package'' they had that day. We don't even have the ``thing'' they were talking about that day. Here is a brand new animal that has been brought in here--480-odd pages--and they are saying we have to pass it. The Senator and I and others are going to be asked to vote for cloture on this ``thing''--the new thing. My question is, does not the Senator feel it would be time well spent if this Senate did not invoke cloture tomorrow, or maybe the day after, or next week, but would it not be time well spent if the Senate took the necessary hours to carefully study what is in this new package that has been dropped on our desks not more than 6 hours ago? Is that a fair question?

Mr. BYRD. Also, the Senator has made some valuable contributions today by pointing out already some of the differences that he sees in the new language. So it seems to me--I will answer my own question-- that we need to take more time than just tomorrow in invoking cloture on this bill. We owe it to ourselves and to the people. We are creating a brand spanking new, big, massive Department. In this package, we are going to make a massive transfer of power to the executive branch. I plead to Senators that they not vote for cloture on this tomorrow. At least give us another week. I thank the distinguished Senator for his patience, which is a customary characteristic of his. I value him, and I am going to listen with great interest to what he continues to have to say about this measure.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. My question is this: The distinguished Senator is pointing out some very glaring differences between the bill--I call it a bill. Is this the hydra-headed monster that has come over from the House in the last 24 hours or so? And is this the item before the Senate today? And is this the vehicle to which the distinguished Senator from Connecticut is addressing his remarks? That would be my first question.

Mr. BYRD. So what we have before the Senate--Mr. President, will the Senator yield further?

Mr. BYRD. What we have before the Senate is a massive piece of legislation with 480-odd pages, that has been virtually dropped into our laps within the last 36 hours, allowing for yesterday and thus far today. This is a virtually new bill, as I see it; is it not? It is something that was--I read about it in the newspapers--something to the effect this is a compromise that was passed by the House and sent to the Senate. It is now under discussion in the Senate. The distinguished Senator from Connecticut is performing, as I see it, a great service in addressing his remarks to this monstrosity. That is my word for it. It is a monstrosity. It is almost 500 pages, and it is just suddenly dropped into our laps. This is not the bill which came out of the committee chaired by the Senator from Connecticut, is it?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield for a further question?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in speaking of the vaccines, as you know, in this town, and in this Chamber, there is often a great deal said about pork, about pork, and particularly with reference to appropriations bills. This seems, to me, to be some pork--some pork--in this bill for the pharmaceutical companies. That is what it sounds like. I believe the distinguished Senator from Illinois will later have something to say about this, possibly have an amendment in regard to it. That was kind of what I understood from a conversation earlier today. It sounds to me as if this is something brand new to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut. What I am leading up to is this question: Here we have a bill we are being asked to pass virtually sight unseen. We have had yesterday and thus far today to study this new vehicle that has come to us from the House, passed by the House, I believe. And this vehicle itself did not come before the committee that is so ably chaired by the distinguished Senator from Connecticut. This is a new piece of legislation, virtually sight unseen in many ways. There are many parts of it, of course, that, as the distinguished Senator from Connecticut has indicated, were probably lifted out of the measure which he and the other members of his committee, both Republicans and Democrats, reported from that committee some several months ago, that bill we referred to back in those days as the Lieberman substitute.

Mr. BYRD. Yes, I remember them fondly also.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may I say to the distinguished Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, that I have listened to what she has said. I am not surprised by what she has indicated that she has found in this reservation. I think it supports my viewpoint; namely, that we ought not vote on cloture tomorrow on this bill--cloture at some point, undoubtedly. But I hope we don't vote for it tomorrow. This bill needs further scrutiny. It needs a microscope upon it. We need to study it. We need to know what is in this bill which has suddenly been foisted upon us within the last 48 hours--a new bill. There are those who maintain we have been on this subject matter for 5, 6, or 8 weeks, or more. That is one thing. But we haven't been on this bill. This is a new bill. Senator Stabenow is talking about provisions that are in this bill that haven't seen the light of day before. These are new and disturbing. And yet we are being asked on tomorrow to apply cloture to shut off debate so there can only be 30 hours remaining for debate on this bill. I hope Senators will listen to Senator Stabenow. I hope they will not vote for cloture tomorrow. We ought to do our duty. Our duty is to stay on this bill until the American people know what is in it, and so we Senators know what is in it. There are 484 pages in this bill which just came to light on yesterday. It is a new bill. There are some provisions in it that have been in other bills that have been discussed in the Senate earlier in the fall and in the summer. But there are many provisions in this bill that are absolutely new. We really do not know what else is in the bill. Things are being discovered as we go along. But who knows what else is in the bill? I compliment the distinguished Senator from Michigan, a Senator who is absolutely able and always dedicated, always serving her constituents and the people of this country, who has a fine mind, and who is a tremendous legislator. I have so much admiration for her. I sit with her on the Budget Committee. And what she has said with respect to this particular bill I think we should hear. We should listen to her. I hope Senators will not vote for cloture on tomorrow. Is there anything the distinguished Senator wishes to add? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield to the Senator without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator. She has performed a tremendous service. I congratulate her, and I again thank her. Mr. President, we hear this is a compromise bill. It is a compromise, all right. It is a compromise in many ways. It is a compromise of our civil liberties. It is a compromise of our separation of powers. It is a compromise of our checks and balances. It is a compromise of workers' rights. There are many compromises in this bill. To express it as a compromise is a term that is often used around here in the legislative halls. Legislation is the art of compromise. We often compromise on legislation. Compromise on legislation is a series of compromises among Republicans and Democrats, and among committees. But, in this sense, this is a far different animal we have here. By passing this legislation, we are all complicit in a giant hoax. This is the worst kind of game playing possible in trying to foist this Department onto the American people as a substitute for real action on homeland security. This Congress and this administration are both being irresponsible. Instead of providing the American people with real security, we are offering them a placebo, a sugar pill that will not protect them and will not make them safer, not by even the slightest measurement. There will be an uncertain sound of the trumpet. And when I refer to the ``uncertain sound of the trumpet,'' let me refer more specifically to the Book of 1st Corinthians, the 14th chapter. And I read from the 8th verse: For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? Mr. President, Congress is about to give an uncertain sound to the American people. Based on what we shall all too soon, I am afraid, pass as a homeland security bill, they are going to feel more secure. They will not be. They are going to feel that Congress has enacted legislation that will make their homes safer, make their schools safer, make their communities safer, make them safer on the jobs. This legislation will not make jobs or schools or homes or communities one whit safer, not one whit safer. The same people who will be employed in implementing the homeland security legislation to make the people safe are out there now, right this minute. They are on the northern border. They are on the southern border. They are in the ports of this country. They are in the hospitals. They are in the fire departments. They are in the law enforcement agencies. They are in the FBI. They are in Customs. They are already out there now. And tonight, at midnight, when you and I are in our beds and on our pillows, they will be out there. We are not waiting until this bill passes for them to be out there. They have been out there for weeks and months. They have been doing a good job with what they have had placed in their hands by way of resources that they could use. We saw the FBI arrest the persons in the cell in New York. The FBI was on the job. The FBI did not wait for this legislation to pass this Senate or the House and be sent down to the President and signed. The FBI was on the job. People are not going to be one whit safer with the passage of this bill. They are going to feel a lot safer because we are trying to make them believe they are going to be safer. We are trying to make the American people believe that with the passage of this bill--and the administration is complicit, absolutely complicit in this. The President himself has been out there all throughout the land, especially during the campaign, raising money for campaign purposes for electing their candidates, and all the while they have been with a nice backdrop of American Marines or soldiers or airmen, or whatever, but a patriotic backdrop, trying to make the American people believe that with the passage of this--if the Congress would only pass this homeland security bill, they, the people out there in the plains, in the mountains, in the valleys, on the prairies, will all be safer. They will not be 10 cents safer, Mr. President. They might be even less safe because in the next year, during which time these various and sundry agencies are going to be phased into this new Department of Homeland Security, during that time there is going to be chaos in a lot of these agencies. They will be moving phones, moving desks, moving chairs, trying to get accustomed to the new visions, the new objectives, and the people themselves are going to be less secure. So we are offering the American people a placebo, a sugar pill. It is a political pill. It will not make the people safer. We ought to be taking real action to protect lives now. Sadly, we are walking away from that responsibility. I only pray our irresponsibility does not result in lost lives. Now, this is not how the American people expect this Congress to operate. When we were Members of the House of Representatives, or earlier than that, perhaps, or at some point, we have sent out letters, we have sent out booklets, telling the young people in this country--we tell these young pages up here--how your laws are made. I remember years ago, when I was in the House of Representatives, sending out a little booklet to the people in my then-congressional district of how our laws are made. It is a joke. We tell our young people that, first of all, a bill is offered by a Member of the Senate or the House. That bill is referred to a committee. And at a certain date, at a certain time, the chairman of that committee will have his committee called together, and he will place the bill before the committee for its consideration. And the members on both sides of the tables in that particular committee which has jurisdiction over that particular legislation will debate it back and forth, and they will offer amendments in the committee. They will talk about the bill. They will have their staffs seated around them. They will have good discussions of this bill that has been introduced by the legislature. Then the bill will be amended, perhaps, or, perhaps, in any event, it will finally be reported by the committee to the Senate or to the House for action. There it will be placed on the calendar. Sometimes these beautifully written pieces on how our laws are made are illustrated by cartoons. We have all seen those cartoons. We then see that the bill is off to the Senate, and it is placed upon the calendar. And at some point in time, the majority leader or a Member, according to those cartoons, will call up the bill, and then will ensue a debate, a heated debate, Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other. And they will all work together. They will offer amendments again, and they will have a heated debate. They will answer questions. The witnesses, which first appeared in committees and testified on the bills, may then be seated in the galleries listening to the debate as it goes forward in the Senate and in the House. After a while, then, after they amend, after that bill is appropriately amended, it finally reaches a vote, and it is passed by that body. Then, according to the booklet on how our laws are made, that bill then goes to the other body. If it originated in the Senate, it goes to the House. If it originated in the House, after going through the workings of the committees, and so forth, and the debate on the floor, after its passage, it is sent over to the Senate. It goes through the same procedure then in the other body, where it is amended. And if there are differences in the House bill and the Senate bill, the bill is sent to a conference made up of Members of the two bodies, and the areas that are not in agreement will be worked on in the conference between the representatives of the two legislative bodies. Agreement will finally be reached as to every difference that was to be found between the two bodies. So all those differences will be resolved. Then the conference report will be brought back to the House and brought back to the Senate and brought up at the appropriate time by the managers of the legislation on whatever committee had jurisdiction over the legislation, and then conference reports are brought up. Conference reports are debated, and they are agreed upon in both Houses. Off goes the bill which is now an act. It goes by special messenger down to the President of the United States. It appears on his desk where he may sign it or he may veto it. So we all remember how those laws are made according to the script as prepared there in those handsome little booklets that we send out. That is how the American people expect this Congress to operate. That is the way we are supposed to operate. But the way this bill was brought in here, less than 48 hours ago, a brandnew bill. It had not been before any committee. It had undergone no hearings, not this bill. It is a bill on our desks that has 484 pages. There are 484 pages in this bill. It has not been before any committee. There have been no hearings on this bill. There have been no witnesses who were asked to appear to testify on behalf of the bill or in opposition to it. It did not undergo any such scrutiny. It was just placed on the Senate Calendar. It was offered as an amendment here. And so here it is before the Senate now. There it is. That is not the way in which our children are taught how we make our laws--not at all. The American people expect us to provide our best judgment and our best insight into such monumental decisions. This is a far, far cry from being our best. This is not our best. As a matter of fact, it is a mere shadow of our best. Yet we are being asked, as the elected representatives of the American people, those of us who are sent here by our respective States are being asked on tomorrow to invoke cloture on these 484 pages. If I had to go before the bar of judgment tomorrow and were asked by the eternal God what is in this bill, I could not answer God. If I were asked by the people of West Virginia, Senator Byrd, what is in that bill, I could not answer. I could not tell the people of West Virginia what is in this bill. There are a few things that I know are in it by virtue of the fact that I have had 48 hours, sleeping time included, in which to study this monstrosity, 484 pages. If there ever were a monstrosity, this is it. I hold it in my hand, a monstrosity. I don't know what is in it. I know a few things that are in it, and a few things that I know are in it that I don't think the American people would approve of if they knew what was in there. Even Senator Lieberman, who is chairman of the committee which has jurisdiction over this subject matter, even he saw new provisions in this legislation as he looked through it yesterday and today. As his staff looked through it, they saw provisions they had not seen before, that they had not discussed before, that had not been before their committee before. Yet we are being asked on tomorrow to invoke cloture on that which means we are not going to debate in the normal course of things. We are going to have 30 hours of debate. That is it, 30 hours. That is all, 30 hours; 100 Senators, 30 hours of debate. And this is one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation I have seen in my 50 years. I will have been in Congress 50 years come January 3. God help me to reach that date of January 3, 2003, the year of our Lord. In my 50 years here, that is the most far-reaching, certainly one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation that I have seen in my 50 years. I have been on this Hill longer than anybody else in this Capitol on either side of the aisle in either body. In both bodies, I am the only person, 50 years. I have been here longer than all of you, staff people, Members, Members' wives. Take it or leave it, Robert Byrd has been here longer than anybody else--the security personnel, any policemen, whatever you call it, pull them out here, nobody, nobody in the House. John Dingell, he is the dean of the House; I served with his father in the House. Never have I seen such a monstrous piece of legislation sent to this body. And we are being asked to vote on that 484 pages tomorrow. Our poor staffs were up most of the night studying it. They know some of the things that are in there, but they don't know all of them. It is a sham and it is a shame. We are all complicit in going along with it. I read in the paper that nobody will have the courage to vote against it. Well, Robert Byrd is going to vote against it because I don't know what I am voting for. That is one thing. And No. 2, it has not had the scrutiny that we tell our young people, that we tell these sweet pages here, boys and girls who come up here, we tell them our laws should have. Listen, my friends: I am an old meatcutter. I used to make sausage. Let me tell you, I never made sausage like this thing was made. You don't know what is in it. At least I knew what was in the sausage. I don't know what is in this bill. I am not going to vote for it when I don't know what is in it. I trust that people tomorrow will turn thumbs down on that motion to invoke cloture. It is our duty. We ought to demand that this piece of legislation stay around here a while so we can study it, so our staffs can study it, so we know what is in it, so we can have an opportunity to amend it where it needs amending. Several Senators have indicated, Senator Lieberman among them, that there are areas in here that ought to be amended. What the people of the United States really care about is their security. That is what we are talking about. We don't know when another tragic event is going to be visited upon this country. It can be this evening, it can be tomorrow, or whatever. But this legislation is not going to be worth a continental dime if it happens tonight, tomorrow, a month from tomorrow; it is not going to be worth a dime. There are people out there working now to secure this country and the people. They are the same people who are already on the payroll. They are doing their duty right now to secure this country. This is a hoax. This is a hoax. To tell the American people they are going to be safer when we pass this is to hoax. We ought to tell the people the truth. They are not going to be any safer with that. That is not the truth. I was one of the first in the Senate to say we need a new Department of Homeland Security. I meant that. But I didn't mean this particular hoax that this administration is trying to pander off to the American people, telling them this is homeland security. That is not homeland security. Mr. President, the Attorney General and Director of Homeland Security have told Americans repeatedly there is an imminent risk of another terrorist attack. Just within the past day, or few hours, the FBI has put hospitals in the Washington area, Houston, San Francisco, and Chicago on notice of a possible terrorist threat. This bill does nothing--not a thing--to make our citizens more secure today or tomorrow. This bill does not even go into effect for up to 12 months. It will be 12 months before this goes into effect. The bill just moves around on an organizational chart. That is what it does--moves around on an organizational chart. Mr. President, do you really believe Osama bin Laden cares whether the associate commissioner for border enforcement will have his title changed to the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Border Security? Will that make any difference to Osama bin Laden? Do you think the al- Qaida organization cares one whit whether that Assistant Secretary works for the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service or for the new Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security? No. Osama bin Laden doesn't give a whit what his title is going to be. The al-Qaida doesn't care about that. They are tickled to sit back and watch us be fooled into complacency by virtue of our passing this piece of trash. That is not to say there are not some parts of the bill that are good. This whole thing is being rushed through, and we are all being pressured to pass it, vote for cloture. Let's get out of here. We have to go home, let's go. Let's get this thing out of the way. What Osama bin Laden would care about is whether there are more security guards, better detection equipment at our ports and airports. What Osama bin Laden would care about is whether we have enough border patrol agents to capture his terrorists as they try to enter this country. What Osama bin Laden would care about is whether we have sufficient security at our nuclear powerplants to deter his efforts to steal nuclear material or blow up a nuclear facility. The Senate Appropriations Committee, on which Senator Stevens and I sit, along with 27 other Senators, including the distinguished Senator who presides over the Chamber at this moment, the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, tried to provide funds to programs to hire more FBI agents, to hire more border patrol agents, to equip and train our first responders, to improve security at our nuclear powerplants, to improve bomb detection at our airports. That committee of 29 Senators-- 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans--voted to provide the funds for these homeland security needs. Those funds have been in bills that have been out there for 4 months. This administration, right down here at the other end of the avenue, has had its leaders over in the Republican- controlled House sitting on those bills. The chairman in the Appropriations Committee in the House saw the need for these bills. He tried to get the leadership in the House to take the cuffs off his hands and wrists and let him go forward with these appropriations bills. The answer was no. So the money has been there. All that needed to be done, all we needed in order to release those funds--I can remember in one bill we had $2.5 billion in homeland security funds. All the President had to do was sign his name to the effect that this was an emergency. That money would have flowed; it would have been out there now--not next week, not next year, but now it would have been out there. Various people at the local level--the firemen, the policemen, people on the borders, border patrol, people in the ports, securing the ports, people at the airports that help the emergency personnel--all of these people would have had the advantage of that money flowing immediately for homeland security. But the President said no--no, he would not sign it. President Bush is the man I am talking about. He would not sign that as an emergency. These moneys have been reported by a unanimous Appropriations Committee. But this administration said no. So that is what happened. These are actions that would make America more secure today. Did the President help us to approve these funds? No. Instead, the President forced us--forced us--to reduce homeland security funding by $8.9 billion, and he delayed another $5 billion. This is shameful; this is cynical; this is being irresponsible. It is unfair to the American people. And then to tell them Congress ought to pass that homeland security bill--that is passing the buck. Mr. President, I call attention to a column in the New York Times. This is entitled ``You Are A Suspect.'' It is by William Safire. I will read it: If the homeland security act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Listen, Senators. This is what William Safire is saying in the New York Times of November 14, 2002. That is today. This is what the New York Times is saying to you, to me, to us: If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make-- Hear me now-- Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend--all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as ``a virtual, centralized grand database.'' To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you--passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance--and you have the supersnoop's dream: a ``Total Information Awareness' about every U.S. citizen. Every U.S. citizen, and that is you, that is you, that is you, that is you, that is you. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks. Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support Contras in Nicaragua. A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, ``The buck stops here,'' arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing. This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-Contra. He heads the ``Information Awareness Office'' in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the ``data-mining'' power to snoop on every public and private act of every American. Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight. He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic ``stovepiping.'' And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans. When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president. This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act. Political awareness can overcome ``Total Information Awareness,'' the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear. The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads ``Scientia Est Potentia''--``knowledge is power.'' Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. ``We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy,'' this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before. If the American people, if the American public is to believe what they read in this week's newspapers, the Congress stands ready to pass legislation to create a new Department of Homeland Security. Not with my vote. Passage of such legislation would be the answer to the universal battle cry that this administration adopted shortly after the September 11 attacks: Reorganize the Federal Government. How is it that the Bush administration's No. 1 priority has evolved into a plan to create a giant, huge bureaucracy? How is it that the Congress bought into the belief that to take a plethora of Federal agencies and departments and shuffle them around would make us safer from future terrorist attacks? Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffle board after we have already spent about $20 billion in Afghanistan to capture or to obliterate Osama bin Laden. He has surfaced on audio tapes boasting about how he is plotting additional terrorist attacks against the United States. Yet our only response is to reorganize the Federal Government. That is our only response, reorganize the Federal Government. Right here it is, 484 pages of it, reorganizing the Federal Government. Am I missing something here? Eleven of the thirteen appropriations bills have not yet been passed. Together they contain over $25.6 billion in funds to improve our homeland defense. That is money to hire additional border security personnel. That is money to purchase equipment at our seaports and airports to inspect packages for weapons of mass destruction. That is money for protection against cyber-attacks. That is money to protect our nuclear facilities, not a year from now but now. That is money to assist local police, local firefighters, local health care workers in case of additional terrorist attacks. Yet the administration is refusing to allocate this money, refusing to turn on the spigot and let it flow, let it roll. This is real money to improve America's safety, but instead of pushing for these resources, the administration's top and seemingly only priority is a bureaucratic reshuffling of agencies. So this administration will continue holding up the money needed to protect Americans--your children, your grandchildren, your wife, your in-laws, your friends--at home and it will be allowed to do so because it will have this flimsy 484 pages of legislation to cover its political backside. The design of this hulking bureaucracy has been the administration's focus for the past several months. That is where it wanted Congress to focus its attention. That is where the administration wanted the American people to focus, not on providing real homeland security but, rather, on playing bureaucratic shuffle board. We have witnessed a great show. We have been told that if only we pass this 484 pages of legislation--this political hoax that I hold in my hand, that many of us have not seen before yesterday--the American people have been told that if only we pass this legislation, all would be well. But like the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, with his terrifying smoke, flames and roar, the reality of this too-good-to-be-true proposal will eventually be unveiled. Mr. President, my concerns about this legislation and its several iterations are many. It gives the President too much unchecked authority. It gives the Secretary of the new Department too much unchecked authority. It makes massive changes in Government structure with little scrutiny, and it allows those changes to be made without the approval of the Congress. It threatens changes to worker protections that could have enormous and detrimental effects. It extends the cloak of secrecy that has been a hallmark of this White House.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this legislation not only cuts the Congress out of the loop, it also includes provisions to keep the people and the press--and the press had better take notice--it includes provisions to keep the people and the press, the members of the fourth estate, in the dark. I don't think the media realize this about this bill. And the media has apparently swallowed the line that this is a compromise. It is more than that. It is a compromise of our personal liberties. It is a compromise of the privacy rights of our people. It is a compromise of the checks and balances. It is a compromise of the separation of powers. It is a compromise of the American people's right to know--the American people's right to know. It is a compromise of that. For those who do not understand what I am saying, they should get this bill, 484 pages of it. It is a new bill. It did not exist anywhere until yesterday. We have talked about how this whole idea of a Homeland Security Department, presented to us by this administration, we have talked about how it was hatched in secrecy in the bowels of the White House, how it was hatched in secrecy, cooked up by four different persons in the White House. I have named them earlier today: Mr. Card, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Mitch Daniels, and Mr. Ridge. No disrespect to any of them--they are all fine people; they are all fine public servants--but they are not anything extraordinary, I would say that, insofar as people go. They hatched this thing. They hatched it in secrecy. We understand from the newspapers this was talked about among the people in the administration, down in the secrecy of the White House. It had been talked about. It had been developed. And then it sprang forth like Minerva from the forehead of Jove, fully clothed, fully armed. There it was. We could say the same thing about this bill that we are passing here. We have little right to complain about the White House and about the way in which it developed in secrecy this whole egg that was hatched and sprung upon us as the homeland security bill.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I will probably vote against it, anyhow, because we are being pressured into voting for something that has not had a committee hearing, not a single hearing, 484 pages. There has not been a single hearing on this bill. There have been no witnesses called to testify in support of this bill. There have been no witnesses who have had an opportunity to stand before a committee and oppose this bill. That is no way to legislate. Yet we are going to pass one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation that we have passed in my 50 years in Congress. It will provide for a massive shift of power. To whom? To the President of the United States. If he were a Democrat, I would oppose this just as vociferously, just as strongly, just as bitterly as I oppose this piece of legislation right here. I don't oppose it because we have a Republican President. I am going to oppose it because it gives away the powers of the people. It provides for a massive shift of power to the executive branch. It upsets that delicate balance of power the Framers provided to the American people over 200 years ago. The popularity of a President is a fleeting thing, a fleeting thing. Our duty to our Nation is not. One serious problem with the legislation before the Senate is the expanded authority it gives to the executive branch to conduct its actions in secret. Here is where I hope the press, the fourth estate, will pay close attention. I have great respect for a free press. I have not always been happy with what the free press has written about me, but in my 50 years, I think overall the press has been very fair to me. I have no complaints. Some of the things the press has said that I didn't like I deserved. I am for a free press. One serious problem with the legislation currently before the Senate is the expanded authority that this legislation gives to the executive branch to conduct its actions in secret, protected from the oversight, protected from the scrutiny of the Congress, the media, and the American people. An example of this expanded secrecy that has been added in this new bill can be found in the exemptions that it provides from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This is section 871 of the new substitute that we have just been given, the substitute that fell like manna from heaven. But this didn't come from heaven, I can assure you. It fell into our laps about 48 hours ago without any warning, and we are asked to invoke cloture on this thing tomorrow. Let me say that again. An example of this expanded secrecy that has been added in this new bill can be found in the exemptions it provides from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Section 871 of this new substitute we have just been given provides the Secretary of Homeland Security blanket authority--get that, blanket authority--to exempt all advisory committees in the Department from existing public disclosure rules. That is pretty serious. This provision was not included in Senator Lieberman's substitute, but it has been slipped into this new bill which was made available to us, as I said, late Tuesday night of this week. I am told it was 5 in the morning. It appeared on the web site of the House Rules Committee, I believe, the night before, Tuesday night. It was made available to us just within these last 48 hours with the hope that Senators will not have enough time to scrutinize this dramatic change to an existing statute. The statute I am talking about here, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, applies to the ad hoc committees that are often used in the executive branch to formulate policy. This statute, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which has been on the books for 30 years now, requires the advice provided by these advisory committees is objective and accessible to the public. The purpose of making this information available to the public is to allow the Congress, the media, and groups outside of Government to know how the executive branch is making important policy decisions. The role of this oversight and scrutiny from the public and a free press is central to upholding the principles of our government, of our constitutional system. It ensures that the people--the people--will be the ultimate judges of the wisdom of the policies of the Federal Government. I understand this new Homeland Security Department will be wrestling with many issues of national security that should not be subjected to public disclosure rules. Sometimes these advisory committees will be dealing with classified intelligence information or with sensitive security policy, and making this information available to the public might compromise national security and the fight against terrorism. I understand that. But that is exactly why existing law allows the President of the United States, be he a Democrat or a Republican, to waive these public disclosure rules for any advisory committee for national security reasons. The President can do that on a case-by-case basis in the current law. So the President has this authority today. He will have it tomorrow. And he will be able to use it to protect any advisory committee in the Homeland Security Department from having to disclose information when national security information is involved. But he will be accountable for that. He will be responsible for that. So why do we see an expansion of this authority given to the Secretary in this bill? Why do we see an expansion of this authority given to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in this bill? Advisory committees can already be exempted from public disclosure rules for national security reasons by the President on a case-by-case basis. So why does this bill, then, allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to exempt any committee, regardless of whether national security is pertinent? Why is it in there? Why do we see this new blanket authority in this bill? I will tell you why. It is because this administration wants to shield itself from any scrutiny of the public. This administration has made it very clear that it does not want anyone meddling in executive branch decisions--not the Congress, not the media, not the American public. Since the first day this administration took office, all we have seen is a concerted effort to prevent outside criticism of its policies and conduct. The White House has refused to share information or cooperate with the Congress at every turn--maybe not at every turn, but at all too many turns. The Vice President has refused to release documents concerning a secret energy working group, even after court orders demanding that he do so. We have read in the newspapers that the Attorney General is trying to expand the powers of the Justice Department to operate in secret, appealing another court decision that rejected his new secrecy rule. Even Tom Ridge, the President's top man in the war on terrorism, refused to testify before Congress about the steps that the administration was taking to protect the American people. With the President's support, top officials in this administration have stonewalled Congress--stonewalled the Congress. Tom Ridge stonewalled the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. Senate. I know; I am the chairman of that committee. Invitation after invitation was extended by my colleague, Senator Stevens, and myself for him to appear before the Appropriations Committee to testify. The answer was no. With the President's support, top officials in the administration have stonewalled Congress, stonewalled the media, and they have stonewalled the American public. Now they are hoping to expand their ability to operate in secret, to allow even less public scrutiny. There it is. It is in the bill. The provisions in the bill allow the Secretary to use ad hoc advisory committees to craft policy in secret, without making specific findings that such secrecy is necessary in any particular instance. This unnecessary new blanket authority will give the President carte blanche to expand the culture of secrecy that now permeates this White House. This substitute language that we have just been given also provides the same blanket exemption from disclosure rules for the Justice Department's new Office of Science and Technology. This new exemption will allow John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, to conduct even more of his duties in secret, even after the courts and the press have recently rebuked the Justice Department for secrecy abuses. This Senate is being asked to authorize the Attorney General to cloak even more of the Justice Department's activities in secrecy. I am worried that exempting this new Science and Technology Office will allow the Justice Department to provide special treatment for corporate campaign contributors who are pushing new technologies. Let me say that again. I am worried that exempting this new Science and Technology Office will allow the Justice Department to provide special treatment for corporate campaign contributors who are pushing new technologies. These exemptions are unnecessary and they are a danger to our people's liberty. I believe that I have a duty to the people I represent to do what I can to improve this legislation. So I hope to offer an amendment to strike these exemptions from the bill. I will do whatever I can do to improve the legislation and keep the people and the press from being locked out of the process. The people have a right to know. I am not among those who are willing to let this Senate be beaten into rubber stamping the language sent to us by the House. It is our job as legislators to see that the Senate protects the interests of the people who sent us here and who will foot the bill for this behemoth department. The public disclosure exemptions in this bill are a license for abuse. I do not believe that they are worthy of the Senate's approval. So I am doing everything I can to see that this Senate does not roll over at the command of any President--whether he is a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent--when there are dangerous provisions remaining in this bill that ought not be put into law. These issues are too fundamental to let slide with the vain hope that we will get a chance to revisit them next year. Don't forget, it is easier to pass a law than it is to repeal that law. We only need a majority in each body to pass a law and have the President sign it. Once that law is on the books, in order to repeal it, a President can veto the repeal. And, then, if only one-third plus one in either body uphold that President's veto, that is the end of it. There won't be any repeal. The Senate must act, and act responsibly, and we ought not to be in all that hurry to pass this legislation. Having been up until almost 2 o'clock this morning, I am tired. I want to speak a little longer. I won't be able to speak tomorrow. The Senate is going to vote on cloture in the morning. And as I wet my finger and hold it to the wind, I sense that the pressure is going to be on tomorrow to invoke cloture on this bill. Here it is, 484 pages. It has only seen the light of 2 days-- yesterday and today. It has not been before a committee; there has not been a single hearing on this bill; not a single witness has appeared before any committee in support of this 484-page bill. I doubt that any Senator in this body knows everything there is to know about this bill. I do believe that the great majority of Senators know very little about this bill, and what little most Senators know about this bill comes about as a result of some of the provisions in the bill that have been lifted out of the legislation that was reported out of Senator Lieberman's committee when the bill was reported earlier this year. Mr. President, the pressure is on. We are going to be asked to vote for cloture tomorrow. I will be surprised if the Senate does not vote for cloture. But I appeal to Senators on both sides of the aisle not to vote for cloture. Nathan Hale regretted that he had but one life to lose for his country. I hope Senators will take the same view about their responsibilities to the people. They have a responsibility to stay until they know what is in this bill, and not to invoke cloture on it until they know what is in it, until their staffs know what is in it, and until they, Senators, have had an opportunity to offer amendments to make corrections in the bill. I daresay many Senators will find provisions in this bill they have not seen in any bill before, that are new to this bill, that are new to the Senate, and that they, those Senators, dislike. They have a duty to their constituents. I do not have to tell other Senators what their duties are to their constituents. They have the same duties to their constituents that I have to my constituents. But I have a duty to my constituents not to roll over and play dead, not to roll over and appear to be oblivious to what is in the bill, just pass it and go home and say: We have passed a bill creating the Department of Homeland Security. Whoopee. This will make us all safer. This will not make us one whit, not one tiny whit safer. That bill, if it passed tomorrow, would not be implemented for another year. It will take another 12 months before it is implemented. The same people who will be out there protecting the homes of the American people a year from today, if they are out there a year from today, will be out there tomorrow. They are out there tonight. They are out there on the borders--the northern border, the southern border--the Atlantic coastline, the Pacific coastline, the gulf coastline, the ports of this country, the ports of entry. They are out there tonight protecting the airports. They are protecting the ports of entry all over this country. They are protecting the nuclear facilities, the nuclear plants. They are standing at their stations in the law enforcement agencies. They are standing at their stations in the fire departments. They are standing at their stations in the health departments. They are out there now. They are out there tonight. When I go home to sleep tonight and pray the Lord my soul to keep, they will be out there. I will be asleep; they will be there. This bill is not what is putting them there. They are already there, and they are being put there by the taxpayers' money that flows through the Appropriations Committee in this Senate. So they are there. Do not think for a moment that this country has to have this bill creating this massive bureaucracy in which there will be at least 28 agencies that will be crammed into a new Department--170,000 people employed. May I say to the people sitting back here on the benches--I am talking to these staff people right back here--pay attention here-- 170,000 people employed in this new agency. They are not employed by virtue of these 484 pages in this bill. The Senate apparently is on a path to rush to consider this legislation, and we can all say: Whoopee, let's go home now. We have created a Department of Homeland Security. Everybody is safer now. But don't you believe it. The Senate's legislative counsel did not finish drafting this behemoth bill until the wee hours of yesterday morning, and now Senators are being pressured to pass it without question and without comment. What a shabby way to treat the security and safety of the American people, those people who are looking right at us through those electronic lenses. As I have said all along, this new Department likely will take many years to become effective. We should not simply put a new name on a hodgepodge of agencies and claim that the Nation is, ipso facto, instantly safer. What a sham. What a sham. A lot of Senators who vote for this are going to come to realize that when it is too late to change their votes. What a sham. Yet this legislation is being bull- rushed through Congress and is being hailed as the great homeland security panacea. This new bill is 484 pages long. Here it is. I have not weighed it, but it weighs as heavy as 484 pages. Yet we will not be one whit closer to homeland security if it passes. If the House and Senate wanted to provide true protections, we would be working to complete action on the appropriations bills instead of playing this gargantuan shell game. If the President wanted to do more than score political points in a rehashed retread of a stump speech, he would loose the bonds, he would cut the handcuffs from the House leadership and urge them to pass appropriations bills which contain critical homeland security funds that could provide real protection for our people, and provide it quickly. Those dollars could make a difference today. Those dollars and the protections they would fund could save people's lives. We need not wait for a new Department to set up yet another huge bureaucracy. Instead, the House leadership is stuck in concrete. The appropriations bills may never see the light of day. There are 11 of them--11 of them--that have been reported from the Senate Appropriations Committee. They may never see the light of day, and the security of American people continues to be at risk. How many tape recordings of Osama bin Laden do we need to hear before we start to take immediate action to protect ourselves in a meaningful way, not in a sham, sham legislative procedure that will produce another massive bill, massive shift of power, in a massive new bureaucracy? How many more threats do we need to hear? How many more threats need to be made? Just in recent times, in recent hours the newspapers are reporting that U.S. intelligence officials believe that terrorist groups may be planning a new wave of attacks on Western targets. According to these reports, our intelligence agencies have detected a significant spike in intelligence chatter during the last 10 days that strongly indicate new assaults are being planned. What more warning do we need? Do we have to wait until the chatter turns into screams of terror? Do we really believe this new Department of Homeland Security will provide the immediate protections that are so desperately needed? We are not only fooling ourselves, we are also jeopardizing the lives of the American people. The new Department of Homeland Security will provide no immediate security--none. The legislation gives the President another year in which to put the pieces of this Department together. That is a year without any significant improvements to our Nation's protections. Maybe we should rename this the Department of Homeland Security Delay. The appropriations bills, on the other hand, that are languishing in the other body controlled by the President's party would provide real security right now. All we have to do is just enact them. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported appropriations bills for fiscal year 2003 that contained a total of $25.6 billion for homeland defense funding. That is a lot of money, $25.6 billion for homeland defense. That is real money for the real defense of our homeland that could be available now, under our committee-reported bill, if the House Republican leadership on the other side of the Capitol could get White House permission to complete action on those appropriations bills. It could be done now. The House is getting ready to leave town. They do not have to leave town. They could stay in town. We ought to pass those appropriations bills. That is money available now to protect lives and prevent future attacks. But under this constant stream of continuing resolutions, many homeland defense investments cannot take place. The Commerce Justice State appropriations bill, the Treasury appropriations bill, the Agriculture appropriations bill, the VA/HUD appropriations bill, the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, these are fancy names that probably do not mean that much to anyone listening, but to the security and safety of the American people, these bills mean a whole lot more than a new letterhead on the same old Government stationery, which will come about as a result of the passage of this 484-page bill. Instead, we are being told to create this new bureaucracy and put funding for homeland security on autopilot with a constant stream of continuing resolutions. It is an irresponsible path and one I hope Congress has the wisdom to avoid. The Senate's VA/HUD and Commerce Justice State appropriations bills provide more than $3.5 billion for police officers, for firefighters, and for other first responders. That is $3.5 billion that could be made available next week. All that has to be done is for the House to get the signal from the executive branch which controls the Republican leadership in the House. All that is needed is for the White House to unloose the shackles that are on the House leadership and say, pass that appropriations bill. We restored over $1 billion of cuts the President proposed for State and local law enforcement programs. That is real safety, without any delay. What is the administration's response? The administration says we are spending too much money on the security of the American people. Mr. President, you cannot place a price tag on homeland security. You cannot protect lives on the cheap. The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill provides $3.8 billion to protect against biological and chemical weapons. We know that terrorists have them. We are fools if we do not invest in defenses against these weapons. The funds in these appropriations bills help to provide real savings now, without delay. You do not have to wait on passing a 484-page bill which cannot be implemented for another 12 months. What is the President's response? Hold the line on the appropriations, he says. Hold the line. He has stopped the House Republican leadership from allowing these investments in homeland security to move forward. Mr. President--I am talking to the President at the other end of the avenue--you cannot place a price tag on homeland security. You cannot protect lives on the cheap. The Senate Agriculture appropriations bill includes more than $150 million for the Food and Drug Administration to ensure our food supply is protected from terrorism and to accelerate the development and approval of medicines and tests to protect Americans from bioterrorism agents. This is a real saving. There is no delay here. Just pass the appropriations bill. We stand ready. But the administration has the handcuffs on the House leadership. Apparently the administration thinks a safe food supply and vaccines to counter anthrax are too expensive. I say once again, a price tag cannot be placed on homeland security. You cannot protect lives on the cheap. Take the Senate Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. It funds new FBI agents. The Treasury appropriations bill funds critical border security initiatives. These bills represent billions of dollars for homeland security. They help to provide real safety without delay, but regrettably the White House says no deal. According to this administration, the price is too high. In my 50 years in Congress, if the Lord lets me live a few more days, this is the most cynical and potentially most devastating political game any administration has ever played. I am talking about administrations under Republican Presidents and under Democratic Presidents. While funding battles are not uncommon and while many Congresses and administrations have not agreed on all the priorities, there has never been such a dispute that threatens the security of the American people. This administration would rather protect its political backside than the lives of this Nation's citizens. It is a calculated, cynical, manipulative, and irresponsible approach that I pray does not result in lost lives. It disgusts me that the President has worked with the House Republican leadership to delay these appropriations bills. That is exactly what has happened. You mark my word. After the new year, when there is a new administration that takes over and this body goes under Republican control, as the other body will be under Republican control, you watch how fast those appropriations bill will pass. They will then pass, and this administration will be able to say; see now how things work under this new administration, how fast we get things done. I think that is the game we will see. In fact, at the administration's urging, the House of Representatives has not considered a regular appropriations bill in 16 weeks. That is 4 months. And the White House machinations have not stopped at the regular appropriations bills. At the direction of the administration, $8.9 billion for homeland security investments were squeezed out of supplemental appropriations bills approved unanimously by the Senate Appropriations Committee, made up of 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans. If the President were serious about homeland security, we would do far more than simply pass a feel-good bill of 484 pages that creates a new department. We would pass these appropriations bills. We would train our first responders. We would provide them with equipment to carry out their mission of protecting the American people. We would put more agents on the borders. We would close the security loopholes in our ports. We would buy vaccines and increase our capacity to handle an attack using a biological weapon. We would invest in immediate homeland security initiatives and not rely on a campaign slogan to protect us 6 months or 1 year or even 5 years from now. I hope we will not try to sell the American people this bill of goods on homeland security. It is nothing but snake oil. A new department would be welcome, but it will not be enough. We need to do much more and we need to do it quickly. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported appropriations bills for fiscal year 2003 that contained a total of $25.6 billion for non-DOD homeland defense funding, an increase of $5 billion over the levels approved last year. That is real money for the defense of our homeland that could be available now, under our committee-reported bills for fiscal year 2003, if the White House would but take off the shackles from the House Appropriations Committee and let it work, let it complete action on the bills in the regular manner. This authorizing bill we are debating right now provides nothing immediately for homeland defense. It has a 12-month transition period built into it. It sounds good. It will make a good headline. But it does nothing immediately to increase the security of our country. The appropriations bills, on the other hand, would do something immediately. Right now, all we have to do is enact. That is real money for real protection. Under the continuing resolution we are operating under now, the significant increases for homeland defense funding that we approved in our committee bills cannot take place. Let me give some examples of what will not be funded under the continuing resolution. Under the continuing resolution, only $651 million will be available for the Office of Domestic Preparedness to train and equip State and local law enforcement personnel to handle biological and chemical weapons, this compared to $2 billion that would be available in the Senate Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. Crucial bioterrorism research will be postponed. The Senate Labor-HHS appropriations bill provided nearly $1.5 billion for bioterrorism activities at the National Institutes of Health. This would fund research and infrastructure improvements necessary to develop countermeasures against smallpox, anthrax, and other deadly pathogens. Bioterrorism funding for NIH under a long-term continuing resolution would be limited to approximately $107 million. The fiscal year 2003 Senate bill contains a large increase for hospital preparedness funding. Why worry about local hospitals? Again, just today news accounts detail a warning from the FBI to hospitals in Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, DC, that they may be targets of a terrorist threat perhaps from anthrax. That is getting close to home, Washington, DC. The $593 million worth of grants in the Senate appropriations bill are necessary to make sure hospitals have the proper equipment, the staff, and the training to handle a bioterrorism attack. A long-term continuing resolution, however, would provide only $129 million in fiscal year 2003 for this activity. In total, a long-term continuing resolution for the Labor-HHS bill would provide only $1.8 billion for bioterrorism preparedness in fiscal year 2003. This is $2 billion less than the committee-reported appropriations bill. What a difference. Under the continuing resolution, only $540 million would be available to local fire departments, from FEMA, for training and equipping firemen for weapons of mass destruction. For fiscal year 2003, the Senate committee VA-HUD appropriations bill provided a total of $900 million for the fire grant program. On September 11, 2001, in New York City, we learned that fire and police could not communicate by radio, undermining the response to those vicious terrorist attacks. This is a nationwide problem. We found that out as we conducted testimony on our appropriations bills earlier this year in hearings conducted by the Senate Appropriations Committee. We included $180 million in the committee bill for grants for interoperable communications equipment for firefighters, none of which would be available under the continuing resolution. Under the continuing resolution, $180 million that the committee approved for grants to upgrade State and local emergency operation centers would not be funded and $75 million for grants to upgrade FEMA's 28 research and rescue teams would not be funded. The Coast Guard is also one of the largest agencies to be included in the new Department of Homeland Security. The Coast Guard just signed the largest procurement contract in the history of the entire Department of Transportation, the so-called deep water capability replacement project. It is a comprehensive effort to modernize the Coast Guard's aging fleet of ships, planes, and helicopters so that the agency can better execute its homeland security and other missions. Under the continuing resolution--that is what we will be operating under--the Coast Guard will have to start delaying the procurement of long-range aircraft as soon as December. In fact, due to the absence of adequate funding, the Coast Guard will have to start paying contract penalties totaling $500,000 per month. So at the same time as the Coast Guard is being merged into the new homeland security agency, the inadequate funding provided under the continuing resolution will mean the Coast Guard will delay the procurement of critical homeland security aircraft while simultaneously wasting half a million of the taxpayers' dollars every month on contract penalties. The Senate committee Treasury-general government bill added $18 million to the Customs Service for container security administration. This funding allows for inspection of shipping containers before they reach U.S. ports. Currently, only 2 percent of the containers that come into this country are inspected. Yet this funding will not be available under the continuing resolution. The Senate committee energy and water bill includes $64 million to provide for the security guards at critical Corps of Engineer infrastructure sites. Under a long-term continuing resolution, this funding would not be available. Pass the appropriations bill. There is the money. It is available. This Congress faces a choice. Despite its myriad problems, we will likely pass this legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security. The President will make his speeches to try to convince the American people to feel good. My, we can feel good about this new Department we will have created. What the President will not tell the American people is that the shiny new Department will not be effective until far into the future. What he will not tell the American people is that in the interim, they--the American people--may be less safe rather than more safe because of the chaos and confusion inherent in massive Government reorganizations. What he will not tell the American people is that he continues--he, the President--to block investments that would help to protect the American people from terrorist attacks today. If we truly want to protect our constituents, if we truly want to make a difference in our constituents' lives, we will provide the funds that are so critically needed. We will support the FBI. We will support the police officers. The funds will support our firefighters in our hometown. We will strengthen our border patrols and our port security. We will take steps to fight terrorism today. We will not wait until the station is ready at the new Department of Homeland Security. The price of continued delay is simply too great to fathom. Mr. President: The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. So, Mr. President, tonight I am writing the record. I will not have that opportunity tomorrow because on tomorrow the Senate will vote to invoke cloture. I urge Senators not to do that, not to vote to invoke cloture tomorrow. Senators should give themselves more time, give their staffs more time to study these 484 pages in this new bill, this bill that has not seen a committee witness, this bill that has not been in a committee room, this bill that was unknown to the Members of this Senate 48 hours ago--a massive bill providing for a massive shift of power to the President of the United States. And once that power is shifted, Senators, remember, it is going to be very difficult to retrieve that power. Yet the legislative branch is just about to do that. The executive branch never hesitates to stand up in defense of its prerogatives. The judicial branch never hesitates to stand up in defense of its prerogatives. But the same cannot be said of the legislative branch. Nearly always in the legislative branch, half of the branch is made up of supporters of the administration. If it were a monarchy, these would be supporters of the king. If it were in the days of the Revolution, they would be Tories. Half the legislative branch stands up in the defense of the king, in the defense of the executive branch. Only half, if that many, stand up in defense of the legislative branch. Yet we all in this legislative branch, whether we are members of the party that controls the administration or not, we stand before that desk up there and we lift our hand to Almighty God and we put a hand upon the Holy Bible and we swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Are we doing that? Are we supporting and defending this Constitution which provides for a balance of powers, a separation of powers, three departments equally balanced? Is that what we are supporting? That is what we swore to support. That is what we swore we would support. But not all of us are going to vote that way. There are half of us in the two bodies, roughly speaking, who are always ready to run to the executive branch and uphold the executive branch against our own nest, against the legislative branch. I hope it will not be that way tomorrow. I hope that Senators will say whoa, whoa, whoa, just hold on here; let's just wait a little bit. Let's don't vote for cloture today. Let's have a few more days to debate this legislation, see what's in it, offer amendments to it, clean it up, protect the American people, their liberties and their rights. I call upon Senators to do that. I have watched the Senate floor today. I have heard the assertion made that the Senate has been considering the pending homeland security bill for 7 weeks now. Let's be clear about that. The Senate just received this homeland security bill, not 7 weeks ago but just the night before yesterday. We have had access to it for 36 to 48 hours, perhaps. The Senate did spend 7 weeks debating another homeland security bill, but that bill is no longer before the Senate. That bill is no longer before the Senate. All of those weeks of debate and amendments have been thrown out the window. In its place we are now debating a new bill, crafted in secret, crafted behind the shades and curtains of darkness; a new bill which many of us have not had the time to read because we just received it. I haven't had time to read it. I have only read parts of it. I haven't had time to read this bill. We were not involved in drafting this bill. I had nothing to do with the drafting of that bill. It did not go through the committee process. There were no hearings, no markups. It was drafted, not unlike the President's plan, behind closed doors and hidden away from the eyes of the American public. So I must say I am a little distressed when I hear Senators saying that the Congress should pass this bill quickly because we have exhausted debate on it. I grow even more distressed when I read in this morning's papers that a number of controversial provisions had been quietly inserted into this new bill in the hopes that no one would notice them before the bill passed. Congress Daily reported this morning that provisions have been inserted into this bill to eliminate or reduce a manufacturer's product liability. Sure enough, title VIII of the new bill would authorize the new Homeland Security Secretary to provide manufacturers with liability protections for a broad range of items, from drugs to life preservers, in case such equipment malfunctions or does not work. According to the Democratic staff of the Governmental Affairs Committee, even if manufacturers sold equipment, technology, or drugs that they knew would not work as intended, the manufacturer could not be held liable for punitive damages unless he knowingly participated in the terrorist act giving rise to the injuries. Do Senators know that? Do Senators know that this bill does just that? Exactly. Do Senators know that? Congress Daily reports that limited liability protections already in place for vaccines would be expanded in this bill to include vaccine components such as the preservative Thimerosal, manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company. These drugs, I am informed, are already the subject of class action lawsuits by parents who claim the product's high mercury levels have caused their children's autism. I have heard other Senators expressing dismay about these provisions that have been slipped into this bill. I have heard other Senators expressing puzzlement, dismay, consternation, surprise--to find such provisions, to find this bill as it is. And yet we are being asked to invoke cloture tomorrow, invoke cloture so that we limit ourselves in future debate to 30 hours, a total of 30 hours on this bill. The American people out there don't know this. The American people are being told that this is a great bill, this is a good bill, we are about to create a Department of Homeland Security and you will all be safer, ladies and gentlemen, out there in the hills and the prairies and the valleys and the mountains. You will all be safer. The American people are being hoodwinked. We are complicitous in going along with the idea--going along with this sham. We are all guilty of going along with this. Yet we are going to invoke cloture on ourselves. We are going to invoke the gag rule. We hear that this Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world--greatest deliberative body in the world, the Senate of the United States. Yet we have been on this bill now parts of 2 days--just parts--and tomorrow morning we are going to put the gag rule on. We are going to invoke cloture so that we will deprive ourselves of the opportunity and we will deprive ourselves willingly of the opportunity to expose the weaknesses of this bill--to expose to the people who send us here, the judges of our political fortunes. We are going to say no to the people who send us here when we put this gag rule into effect and say to ourselves that we are not going to be interested in debating this longer than 30 hours, if that much time is used. We are saying to the American people who send us here we are putting the gag rule on you. We are putting the blindfolder on you. How many of us would like to go to the American people in the next campaign for reelection and tell them that we believe in blindfolding them, and we don't believe they should know what is in this bill. It has some good provisions, I am sure, but we are willing to shut ourselves off here. This is a bad bill--bad because there are some provisions in it that are bad--not all but some provisions in it are bad. Some provisions we don't even know about. We intend to vote on it--pig in a poke, blindfold ourselves, gag ourselves. We are willing to do that. Are we willing to draw our moneys, our salaries? The American people pay us to represent them, to protect them, to protect their liberties, to protect their Constitution. If the American people knew that there were certain provisions in here of which some Senators were just becoming aware, the American people would say to all of us: Hold up. Take a look at that bill. Don't you vote for that homeland security bill until you fully know what you are doing. They would say: Hold up here. Don't you come back to me asking for my vote again if you are going to vote to hoodwink the American people by shutting off debate so you can get out of there, so you can go home. We ought to be right here. Here is where we ought to be until we know what is in this bill. We ought not pass this bill now. We ought to pass the appropriations bills that provide real homeland security for the American people. So these drugs, as I say, are already the subject of class action lawsuits by parents who claim the products with high mercury levels have caused their children's autism. Is this what the President's homeland security proposal is really all about--exempting multibillion- dollar pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits when the products they sell to the American public do not function properly or, even worse, injure or kill somebody--multibillion-dollar companies from lawsuits when the technological products they sell to the American people do not function properly? What is this? Is this a payoff for those companies for their contributions in the past election? Yet another provision in the bill would require liability claims against smallpox vaccine manufacturers to go through the Federal tort system. Let me say that again. Yet another provision in the bill would require liability claims against smallpox vaccine manufacturers to go through the Federal tort system. The Federal Government would pay the damages. And punitive damages would be banned. The new bill also would limit liabilities for airport screening companies and high-tech firms that develop equipment for domestic security. It would aid the airline industry by extending aviation war- risk insurance for a year, and giving airports another year to install baggage screening equipment. I wonder how many Senators know that provision is in this bill. According to the New York Times, the bill would reverse an earlier measure and allow American companies that have moved offshore in order to evade taxes to contract with the Homeland Security Department. How about that? How many Senators know that? Let me say that again. The bill would reverse an earlier measure and allow American companies that have moved offshore in order to evade taxes to contract with the Homeland Security Department. These kinds of provisions underscore just how ridiculous this homeland security debate has become. Anyone who opposes this legislation will be labeled unpatriotic. You can count on that. The sting of that political attack is enough to allow gobs of complete and utter junk to be shoved in this bill and shoved through the Congress with lightning speed. The fear of being subjected to utterly vile campaign political attacks is allowing a slew of dangerous provisions-- provisions that would never ever get through on their own--to be pushed along with hardly a glance. Just hold your nose, pinch it, and vote for cloture and vote for this bill. Go home feeling good. Oh, we passed some feel-good legislation. Whoopee, great, hot diggedy dog. We passed a piece of feel-good legislation. The American people should be afraid. The American people should be very afraid not only of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein but of the monumental cynicism driven by this White House, and regrettably unopposed by this body. Mr. President, I apologize to the Senate, to the staff, to the pages, all who work in this body--they work hard; they work long hours--for detaining you from going home early and getting an early supper. We call it supper down in West Virginia. Call it dinner, if you wish. We have kept you waiting, and I apologize for my part. Who else has done it? I am the one rascal here who has kept you waiting. I apologize for that. Had we not been faced with a cloture vote tomorrow, I could have waited until tomorrow and said these things. But when else am I supposed to say it? If cloture is invoked tomorrow, I will have no opportunity to say it. Then we only have 30 hours--all of us, 100 Senators have 30 hours--and I suppose that is an hour each at most. There is a record standing. There is a record that stands with him who holds the waters in his hands; there is a record that stands. That record will be written, and it will be there for the next thousand years for all who want to read it. I believe the American people expect us to oppose this way of legislating. It is not as our children are being told the way to make laws. Mr. President, I end my remarks, as I began them earlier today, by reading from 1st Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 8 and verse 9: For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air. Mr. President, that is the way I began my remarks. If we pass this bill, we are going to be the trumpet that gives forth an uncertain sound. The American people are going to be told, and they are going to believe, that they are made more safe, but we will have sent forth an uncertain sound. The people will not be made more safe by this piece of legislation.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator is welcome. I appreciate what he has said. I hope the Senator's assurances--I know they are sincerely given--will prove to be direct and true. I must say I have great concerns about this legislation as it is written as to the verbiage that we find in this new package that is on our desks today. It made its appearance yesterday. I hope the distinguished Senator from Alaska is accurate and that he is correct, and that the assurances which he has been given and which he is giving will prove to be the case. I have a great deal of confidence in my friend from Alaska. I have implicit confidence in him. I have never had that confidence shaken. But that confidence I have in him does not extend beyond him, I have to say truthfully, to the people in this administration. But I do trust my friend and I know he will try to his level best to see to it that the administration deals fairly and squarely with us in the appropriations process. With that, I again thank him.

Mr. BYRD. Yes, I yield.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator. I have never seen anything in the demeanor of the distinguished Senator from Alaska, anything in his words, anything in his daily activities, the record he has made here, that would create any doubt, as far as I am concerned, in him and his intention to carry this out. I have to say I don't have the same kind of confidence in the people at the other end of the avenue. I think we are making a huge mistake in passing this bill at this time. I think the appropriations the distinguished Senator from Alaska and I have worked together in making possible, along with the other members of our committee--I think those appropriations, which have not been signed into law by the President, some of which have not passed the other body, and most of which have been held in check by the other body at the behest of the administration--those would have given to the American people far more security than would this bill. But as to the Senator, my trust in him--as I said it before and I will say it again-- is implicit. I have no doubt he intends to do the best he can to see this appropriations process goes along as the Framers and as our predecessors have intended.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. If we can't do this, I will suggest the absence of a quorum.