Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I did not want to interrupt the distinguished Senator. I will be happy to wait until he finishes his statement, but whenever he is ready to be interrupted, I would like to get his attention.

Mr. BYRD. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, for the information of my colleagues, I have no intention of speaking at great length. I hope that other Senators will come to the floor and engage me--not necessarily engage me, but Senators will come to the floor and speak on the amendment either for or against. I would like to see other Senators who, I am sure, are as concerned about the pell-mell rush to ram the homeland security legislation through both Houses and put it on the President's desk before much time is to be had for debate and for a clear elucidation of the pros and cons with respect to my amendment. And there are other amendments by other Senators waiting. I also have some other amendments. I do invite other Senators on both sides of the aisle to come to the floor and participate with reference, hopefully, to my amendment. Yesterday, the administration and the congressional Republican leadership again chastised the Senate for not acting quickly enough to pass the President's homeland security measure. Said the very able Senate minority leader: I fear the Senate Democrats are fiddling while Rome has the potential to burn. ``It's being talked to death,'' added White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer. We are said to have been debating this bill for 3 weeks now, 10 days of debate--3 weeks. Ten days of debate is not too long, something like 3 weeks. It takes 3 weeks to hatch an egg. I believe the distinguished Senator from Tennessee would agree with me; we are both from the hill country. He is from the hill country of Tennessee, and I am from the hill country of West Virginia. It does not make any difference how much heat you apply to that egg, it still takes at least 3 weeks for that egg to hatch out. If I am wrong in that, I would like my colleague from Tennessee to tell me. We are talking about something that was hatched by four men, are we not, in the dark subterranean caverns of the White House? I think a bill of this importance should be debated long enough that the Senate will know and the people will know what we are talking about, what we are about to pass. This is no small piece of legislation. It is not legislation of little moment. It is very important legislation. In my speaking on this measure thus far, I have met with a great deal of apathy. I do not believe much attention is being paid to this bill. I had urged that we not act too fast to have this bill on the President's desk before the August recess or by the time the August recess began, and then there was the idea that we ought to pass it by September 11, the first anniversary of that tragic event which occurred in New York City. And I said, no, we need to take longer. I hoped that Senators would read the bill and that Senators' aides would read the bill and that the people over at the Congressional Reference Service, the legislative people over in the Library of Congress, would have an opportunity to read this bill before we voted on it. We have been debating this now for a few days. We look ahead to the appropriations bills that must be passed before the end of the fiscal year, the proposed adjournment date of October 6, and the November mid- term elections. It seems to be a long time for deliberation on one bill, but merely having a bill on the floor or on the calendar and actually debating it are two different things. To have the bill before the Senate and to be actually debating it are two different things. I have my eye further ahead, years ahead, to future Congresses and future generations of Americans. I am trying to look ahead. To my way of thinking, the attention which this bill has received on this floor seems exceedingly brief. We are in the midst of an enormous undertaking. We are talking about enacting a massive reorganization of the Federal bureaucracy, a radical overhaul of our border security and immigration system, and a powerful new intelligence structure that may forever change the way Americans think about their own freedoms. It is a mighty huge responsibility that we are taking on, and we are endeavoring to do it all in one fell swoop: do it now, do it here. We have heard that advertisement on television: Do it now, do it here. I understand the pressures to move quickly today. We live in an age of instant coffee, instant replays, and instant messages. I suppose the drive for instant legislation is a natural outgrowth. But I prefer the taste of slow brewed coffee. And I like to study the fine print in legislation I am being asked to support. I would like to know, for instance, just exactly how many Federal workers will be employed at this new Department. I saw a recent article in The Washington Post that mentioned that the new Transportation Security Administration was slated to employ 28,000 Federal screeners when it was first created by Congress just last November. But, its Inspector General has determined that the agency will actually need 63,000 screeners--37,000 employees more than was originally anticipated. Wow. In less than a year, the size of that new agency has more than doubled. I would like to know, since the Transportation Security Administration is supposed to be moved into the new Homeland Security Department, are these 63,000 screeners part of the 170,000 employees that we keep hearing will make up the new Department? I would like to know if any of them are from West Virginia, for example. I would think that other Senators would want to know if these Federal employees will be from their States. After all, we are being asked to trim back their worker protections. As for that matter, I would like to know just how many of the total number of affected Federal workers are from my State. Exactly how many are from each State? I think every Senator has a legitimate interest in knowing the answer to that and many other questions. Since we have seen the Transportation Security Agency employment figures rise so rapidly, I would be interested in learning if we can bank on that figure of 170,000 employees in the new Department or if that is just a rough ``guesstimate.'' While we are at it, I would like to know just exactly why these particular 28 Federal agencies and offices were selected, out of the more than 100 that have homeland security functions, to be part of this grand new Department. The administration crafted its homeland security plan in secret, so the Congress has little knowledge of why the President chose these 28 agencies and offices to be transferred. Why these offices? Why these agencies? Why not other agencies? The Lieberman bill, like the House-passed bill, proposes to transfer to the Department the same 28 agencies and offices outlined in the President's plan. But the Governmental Affairs Committee has not developed any sort of criteria for why these agencies were chosen to be moved, other than the fact that they were identified in the President's proposal. Certainly, the Congress needs a better reason than that for transferring 28 agencies and offices and 170,000 employees. I considered the possibility that the answer to my question might lie in the definition of ``homeland security'' but then I do not believe I found in the Lieberman substitute bill a definition of homeland security. It may be there, but I am not sure. I have been studying this Lieberman bill and the House bill. The Lieberman bill is an improvement over the House bill. It is leap years ahead of the House bill, but I cannot remember having found a definition of homeland security in the Lieberman bill. Thinking, by the way, that such a definition was a pretty important thing to have in a piece of landmark legislation intended to address one of our Nation's most pressing challenges, I included a definition in my amendment. I would be interested to know why some of the Assistant Secretaries called for in this bill have no defined functions. Under Title I, the Lieberman bill creates five assistant secretary positions within the new Department, all of whom would have to be confirmed by the Senate, but grants the President the authority to define the functions and responsibilities of these assistant secretary positions when the President submits his appointees to the Senate for confirmation. Once confirmed by the Senate, the Lieberman plan authorizes the Homeland Security Secretary to assign those functions that the Secretary deems appropriate. The Congress should understand how the President plans to utilize these assistant secretaries before it creates their positions. What's more, it should define those responsibilities and functions in statute. Under the Lieberman plan, the President can broadly define the role of an assistant secretary, outside of the law, and, after the appointee has been confirmed by the Senate, the Secretary can alter that role, without regard to the intent of the Congress. I would like to inquire for workers in the chemical industry and the trucking industry just exactly who is going to determine how they are supposed to deal with hazardous materials. Will the Transportation Department still make rules for trucking hazardous cargo or will all that now fall under the purview of the new Department? Are chemical plants to be subject to the powers at Homeland Security or the Environmental Protection Agency or will all of these regulatory matters be sorted out in arm-wrestling matches? I do not believe that we have taken enough care in this bill to clearly define what we are authorizing the executive to do, and that is exactly how the President would have it. The administration wants us to be careless in our legislation so it can be reckless in its implementation. The administration does not want to be constrained by a specific plan, whether crafted in the White House or in the Congress, because the administration does not want to be pinned down on the details of its policies or the specifics of its actions. A favorite piece of reading material for this administration apparently is ``Gulliver's Travels,'' where we read about the Lilliputians. That is a great piece of literature; I have liked it over the years. But we have heard various Secretaries in this administration and other high officials in this administration indicate that they are very fretful, they are very irritated by the fact they are being asked to abide by certain rules. These have been longstanding rules. So the administration does not want to be tied down by any rules. We have heard them tell the story of the Lilliputians a number of times. So they do not want to be pinned down. This administration does not want to be pinned down by any rules, not pinned down on the details of its policies or the specifics of its actions. President Bush has pressured Congress to act quickly on his proposal, insisting that because homeland security has become his top priority for the Federal Government, Congress must immediately provide him the resources and flexibility that he is demanding. The House of Representatives passed legislation approving most of the proposal only 38 days after he submitted it to Congress. The House of Representatives passed the legislation in 2 days. Why, it would take longer than that in some communities in this Congress, some cities in this country. It would take longer than that to get a sewage permit. It would take longer than 2 days to get a sewage permit in some parts of the country. And perhaps for good reason. They passed a piece of legislation such as this with its far-reaching ramifications in 2 days in the other body. I cannot see how either House of Congress can properly consider the merits of a new Department of Government and the transfer of 28 Federal agencies in 1 month's time, especially when the stakes are so high. But here we are with a bill before us; the clock is ticking. I know Chairman Lieberman and his committee have spent many hours on this bill. They have far more expertise on the subject matter than I have. I am not a member of that committee. I am not a member of any committee that has jurisdiction over this subject matter per se. Senator Stevens and I were very concerned about some of the language in the House bill, certainly, in his administration proposal, about what would happen to the legislative process, how the constitutional process, the power of the purse, was being changed by the proposed legislation. So Senator Stevens and I wrote to Senator Lieberman and to Senator Thompson and asked that change be made in their legislation before they reported it to protect the legislative process as we have known it for over two centuries. They worked hard. Senator Lieberman and Senator Thompson worked very hard to craft the best bill they could craft under the circumstances. They have made a number of important improvements to the bill passed by the House. I thank the committee again, as I have thanked the committee before on several occasions, and its staff, for their efforts. But the stakes are so high and I believe we would be better off if we took further opportunities to look at the details, to study the details, to talk about ways to fill in the details. Let us remember with this legislation the Senate will be shaping not only the mission and the structure of the new Department but also the relationship that Congress will have with the Department during its lengthy transition period and throughout the process of making and implementing homeland security policy. This legislation is going to be around quite a long time, in all likelihood, and the protections that I am interested in having in this legislation are protections for the rainy day, as well as for the day of sunshine, protections for our vital processes. These are the details that will be with us a long time. Whether it is a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, I should think we would all want to see what is best for the country, what is best for our children and grandchildren. If we are going to pass something, let it be well thought out, knowing, as I do know, that this legislation is going to be around for a long time. We have heard that the war on terrorism is going to be a long time in its duration. I don't doubt that. We have spent nearly $20 billion in Afghanistan thus far, and we don't know whether Bin Laden is alive or dead. So this will be around for a long time. This President and his administration, hurrying today to just have us turn this matter over to them, may not be around. Who knows. This President may be here 2 more years after this year or he may be here 6 more years or he may be here 8 more years. Who knows. Only God knows. There may be a Democratic President, a Democratic administration, there may be a Democratic House at some point. So I think we should not act with our blinders on and act only for partisan reasons because at the moment there is a Republican administration in the White House. We must not hurry this through just to get a bill through, to meet a certain date. As Senator Lieberman and I and others have said, we need to do it right. That is what I assume is the responsibility of every Senator, to do what he can to improve this bill, if it can be improved. I have never seen a bill that came to the Senate floor that couldn't be improved. Every appropriations bill that was reported to the Senate floor by my Appropriations Committee, of which I am the chairman, is always subject to amendments, and many amendments are offered and acted upon favorably. So we have room for improvement. I do not come here as an adversary of Senator Lieberman. I do not think my amendment is adversarial to his bill. I think that, even though his bill is a great improvement over the House bill, there is room for further improvement. That is not saying anything I think anyone would be offended by on his committee. I have heard of no such offense. That is our job here, to do the best we can to come out at the end of the day with the finest product, the best product this Senate is capable of. We are talking about homeland security, the security of the people in this country. We must recognize that there is real work to be done by the Senate to make sure that all of the agencies are moved into the Department and that it is all done in a responsible way. I understand the eagerness to pass a strong bill in order to make a strong statement. We all want to assure the public that we are acting decisively to secure the public's safety. No one wants to be portrayed as standing in the way of greater security on American soil. President Bush would have us believe he can simply create this Department out of thin air, as if by magic. It wasn't too long ago that this President and the Director of Homeland Security, Mr. Ridge, were saying: We don't need another Department. Why have another Department? Why have another Department? Well, that is a long story. We went about, up the hill and down the hill, on the business of having the Director of Homeland Security, Mr. Ridge, come up before the Senate Appropriations Committee and testify on the budget. And of course the administration put its foot down hard. They didn't want that done. So we have sought that in that Appropriations Committee, Mr. Stevens and I--we have on one occasion put language into an appropriations bill requiring the Director of Homeland Security to be confirmed by the Senate. When the administration saw that Mack truck coming down the road-- that bill was brought to the Senate, and it passed by a majority, a great majority; 71 Senators voted for it. Not one Senator objected to that language. Not one Senator offered an amendment to strike that language. So the administration saw that Mack truck coming and, lo and behold, the administration decided: Oh, we have to get in front of that wave. And then they came up with this marvelous piece of brainwork. It came from just four men in the bowels of the White House. They came up with this marvelous piece of magic. And now they want it passed in a hurry to create this Department of Homeland Security--which, not too long ago, as I say, the President did not seem to want, to create a Homeland Security Department, nor did Mr. Ridge. Well, a little wave of his magic wand, a few magic words to the press, and poof, the President pulls a new Department out of his hat. That is the old vaudeville stunt, a new rabbit out of the hat. Don't watch my right hand, watch my left hand. Watch what my left hand is doing. Don't pay any attention to my right hand. All of a sudden, he pulls a rabbit out of the hat. The President pulls a new department out of his hat. But after the President's sleight of hand is over and the smoke clears from the stage, the task of replacing political magic with real management will begin. I have often urged my colleagues to look to history as a guide to the future. There is much to be learned from the successes and the failures of our forefathers and we would do well to take the countenance of the past. I realize that everybody shares my love of history or see the past's connection with today and I am disappointed. But I am disconcerted when we fail to learn from our own experiences. Last October, nearly half the Senate was thrown into disarray as the Hart Building was closed due to anthrax contamination. I was shut out of my office. My staff were shut out of my office in the Hart Building. Many Senators were shut out of their offices, barred from our mainframes, our fax machines, our files. Our staffs were relocated, with new phones, new computers, new fax machines. Staff members couldn't reach each other, let alone our constituents. We scrambled to find ways to ensure a continuation of constituent services. We saw how difficult it was to set up new quarters and make our offices functional again. But this bill before us is our anthrax experience many times over. And this time, the work that will be interrupted may be work that would prevent the loss of thousands more lives in another terrorist attack. I think it is worth the time to ensure that this agency is formed in the right way, from the ground up. We should take the time to work out the kinks before launching it. Like so many government reorganizations before it, this legislation lumps together a number of disparate agencies and slaps a new sign across them. It does nothing to fill in the details of a very sketchy plan. It does nothing to resolve the inevitable problems that lie ahead. It is an opportunity to get off the hook easily. Pass something; claim the credit for passing the legislation in the upcoming election. That is probably part of the idea--claim credit for that. Go out to the American people and say: The Senate acted. We worked out a new plan. But it does nothing to resolve the inevitable problems that lie ahead. But I, for one, think we owe more to the American people than that. I think we owe more to them than that. If the aim here is only to speed implementation of homeland security matters, let us do something to ensure that this administration and the Congress are not allowed to let development of the Department languish. Most agree that we should act now to set the wheels in motion for a new Department, but we should not kid ourselves about what we are doing with this legislation. The President and the Secretary of Homeland Security--if we pass the House bill--certainly will have the whole kit and caboodle. Congress will just walk off to the sideline. And, to a certain extent, the same is true with the bill that has been adopted by the committee chaired so ably by Mr. Lieberman. The President and the Secretary of Homeland Security will have to transfer 28 agencies--some say 22, some say 30--create 6 new directorates, and coordinate information and resources from countless Federal, State, and local agencies and private corporations. The administration expects Congress to hand over a blank check. They may do that in some States. Maybe the President is accustomed to having it that way in Texas. I do not know. I suppose there have been Governors in West Virginia who believed they might be entitled to a blank check on something. But we are not talking about something at the State level. This is the Federal level, and it is the Federal Constitution to which we have to pay very close attention. The Administration expects Congress to hand over a blank check to craft this Department without additional guidance during implementation. This expectation is not only unrealistic, it is irresponsible. If the Senate adopts the President's proposal without making further efforts to improve it, we will have copped out! If this Senate is not willing to put in the time and attention that this new Department undoubtedly requires, I have to wonder whether we are really serious about investing responsibly in a long-term federal response to homeland security threats at all. I hope this is not all just for show! Is that what it is? Is it all for show? Just rush the bill through so that we can say to the voters: Oh, the Senate has passed the homeland security bill. I hope it is not all for show. The Senate must take a responsible approach toward enacting the President's proposal. If the Department of Homeland Security is worth doing, it is worth doing right, and both Houses of Congress must act deliberately to see that this Department gets up and running properly and expeditiously. To ensure that all of these agencies and Federal workers are being moved to the right places for the right reasons, we will have to set the stage for our work after this bill is enacted. If we give the President blanket authority to transfer and reorganize these agencies without further action by Congress, the Department's transition will certainly suffer under a clumsy, trial-and-error approach that has been the death knell for so many other important government efforts before it. It will take a lot of work to get this Department where it needs to be, and Congress should not buy in to the empty promises of a one-time fix for all of the federal government's homeland security functions. We must sign up for the long haul now. Any good carpenter knows that he will save himself a lot of headaches if he takes the time to measure twice and cut once. But in the midst of this enormous building project we have undertaken to construct a new department of government, no one is bothering to make even a rough measure of the actions we are taking. Even if we wanted to do so, we would have nothing to measure against, because the President has not given us any workable blueprints laying out the architectural details of the Homeland Security Department. The President just shouts at us to keep building, because he wants a home for his secret war as soon as possible. And by including all of these hurried agency transfers in his proposal, President Bush is trying to move in the furniture into this new home before he has even finished putting a roof over the Department. Given his success in pushing through his proposal, this may truly be the house that George built, and, if we don't hold our own feet to the flames, Congress will spend years making repairs to this hastily designed and poorly built structure. If his commitment to protecting homeland security is not strong enough to endure congressional involvement and public scrutiny, then our security is in serious jeopardy. And if the President's policies are not sound enough to survive the constitutional process, then we would probably be more secure without them. Securing the safety of the American people in their own homeland will be the most important challenge of our time, and it will require responsible leadership both from the White House and from the Congress. Such leadership does not consist of hollow political solutions and public relations campaigns. When the lives of our citizens are on the line, we have a duty to rise above public approval polls and make the hard decisions about how best to protect the country's long-term interests. The President is asking us to establish the Department of Homeland Security without making these decisions, and without any clear evidence from the White House that he is willing to make the hard decisions under the processes required by the Constitution. Congress must require of the President and of itself more than a single, open-ended plan for a new department with broad authority and a vague mission. Congress cannot allow the President to conceal his failure to produce a comprehensive homeland security strategy behind the smoke and mirrors of ``managerial flexibility.'' If we are serious about formulating a real response to these new threats, we must press ahead to fill in all the details. The amendment that I will be offering provides a process by which the Congress remains involved in implementation of the Department. With the Byrd amendment, the Lieberman bill would immediately create the superstructure for a new Homeland Security Department, including the executive positions and directorates outlined in Title I of the Lieberman substitute but require additional legislation to transfer the agencies, functions, and employees to the new Department. The amendment that I shall offer would establish a process that would allow the Congress to act within the same implementation time frame--13 months--outlined by the House-passed bill and the Lieberman substitute. Beginning on February 3, 2003, the Homeland Security Secretary would submit recommendations for legislation to the Congress, which would be referred to the Governmental Affairs Committee in the Senate and the Government Reform Committee in the House, to transfer agencies, functions, and employees to the Directorate of Border and Transportation Protection; 120 days later, the Homeland Security Secretary would submit recommendations for legislation to transfer functions and agencies into the Directorate of Intelligence and Directorate of Critical Infrastructure Protection; 120 days later, the Homeland Security Secretary will submit recommendations for legislation to transfer agencies and functions to the Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response and the Directorate of Science and Technology. The Byrd amendment gives Congress additional opportunities to work through the details about worker protections, civil liberties, privacy, secrecy, and about which agencies and functions should be transferred to the new Department. Additionally, the Byrd amendment would give Congress the opportunity to gauge and modify how the new Department is being implemented, while it drafts legislation to transfer additional functions and agencies. The Byrd amendment would provide Congress with additional means to head off problems that traditionally plague and delay massive reorganizations. I have defined as well as I could in this time my amendment. I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator for what he has said. I appreciate so much his good work on the Appropriations Committee when he was a member of the committee. And our loss is the Senate Finance Committee's--I believe--the Senate Finance Committee's gain. I thank the Senator. I am flattered by his remarks. But he and I both know that he agreed with the Constitution on the power of the purse more so than with Senator Byrd. I thank him. That was part of his statement, but it was part of the Constitution that we both revere and respect, not only to that matter but certainly to that matter. And the Senator has ably addressed himself to that. I thank him.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a moment?

Mr. BYRD. A very careful speech. It is thoughtful and I like that about him. I think there was one item; the Senator, I believe, asked the rhetorical question, Do we want to wait until next year? Let me just say right here that the people who are providing security for our country, and are on the job for all of us, are on the job right now. They are out there when we are sleeping, and they are good people. They are very dedicated people. They are at the ports of entry; they are at the airports; they are at the river ports; they are on the 75,000 miles of northern and southern borders in this country. They are on the job. I believe they arranged for the arrest of six persons in New York just a few days ago. We did not have a new Department of Homeland Security. Those people are on the job right now. They are doing the work. So I think we have time to think this thing through and try to do the job right. Again, I compliment the distinguished Senator. There are other Senators who wish to speak. Senator Gramm from Texas is here. May I just say I know that Senators Boxer, Cantwell, Dorgan, Jeffords, Schumer, and others want to speak on this amendment--not necessarily tonight but maybe in the morning. I thank the distinguished Senator again.

Mr. BYRD. He is an excellent lawyer. I think he has made from his point of view, certainly, an excellent statement in support of a bill that he does not like. He does not like this bill. He did not vote for this bill when it was in the committee. That is what I call a good lawyer. Here he is on the floor making an impassioned speech.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I will yield the floor shortly. May I just say two things. One, I respect deeply the right of the Senator from Connecticut to disagree. I respect very deeply his own deep feeling of conscience that his approach is the better. I respect that. I salute him for it. But to say that the amendment I am offering does not build on the work that he and his committee have done is borne of misperception, misunderstanding possibly, of my amendment. It builds precisely on that rock. It uses the same superstructure. It was not my idea that we have five directorates in title I. It was not my idea that there be six under secretaries or seven, that there be five assistant secretaries. These were not my ideas. I took the product that the distinguished Senator from Connecticut brought out from his committee, and I have attempted to build upon that good work, build upon that rock and improve it. I shall yield the floor on that and say thank you to my friend and let someone else have the floor. I will shake hands with him so everybody will know that we are not really angry with one another. We may use all these fighting words. We get out our oratorical knives and we flash them. And they glint in the Sun. I am ready to sit down. I am not mad. I am not angry with the Senator at all.

Mr. BYRD. I see other Senators wish to speak. I compliment the distinguished Senator on his statement. I say again, he is an excellent lawyer, I believe. Yes, he is.

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield before he yields the floor?

Mr. BYRD. Well, I appreciate what the distinguished Senator says. We have only to look at some of the--let's take the agency that was created, the Transportation Security Administration, to find how quickly the train left the track, how much in error, how many mistakes were made, how that agency went awry. It should teach us that under the proposals of the distinguished Senator from Connecticut there is liable to be much of that happen throughout this whole Government when we are talking about 170,000 employees and 28 agencies. I don't know if anybody in the legislative branch is aware of what the 28 agencies would be, what is the full number of the 28 agencies. The Senator may be absolutely correct in that, but I think that under any legislation that is passed, it is going to take many a prayer to have it come out right at the end of 13 months. I have read recently that it is going to be impossible to meet the deadline of December 31 with respect to some of the protections that are going to be provided to the traveling public in the air. They have already said, well, that can't be met. So I think at the end of the day we are going to find, under the proposal of the Senator from Connecticut, as well as under mine, if you want to make it that way, we are going to be subject to finding that we have heard that we did not provide enough time, that things are going wrong. And then when we increase the magnitude of what we have already seen go awry with reorganization proposals and find that here was 170,000 employees, I think there is going to be a lot of extending deadlines in the end. But I am very sorry the Senator continues to believe that my amendment is taking the heart out of his proposal. Now here is a chart. May I suggest to the Senator that all kinds of charts can be written, and all kinds of charts can be displayed. Here, if anyone can read, with 20/20 vision, and getting up close, the number of agencies that are affected by this homeland security proposal of the administration--this is the existing bureaucratic structure we are talking about dealing with. This is the existing bureaucratic structure for all homeland security agencies. Here it is. Well, my goodness, just to read the names of those would take even the Senator, who has good eyesight, several minutes--several minutes, I mean, 15 minutes at least, from the top down. Look at this. Look at this chart. And all I am saying to the Senator is that we leave in his hands, in the hands of his good committee, the oversight of the creation of this Department, all of the directorates which his committee has proposed. That is all I am saying. Let's leave it in the Senator's hands, not turn it over to the people in the executive department. I want the people to have security, real security. That is why I want to trust his committee. Does the Senator have anything further?

Mr. BYRD. Would the Senator from Connecticut show the Senator from West Virginia and the Senate where my amendment takes those very agencies out?

Mr. BYRD. How do we know those agencies are among the 28 agencies that are going to be brought into the Department?

Mr. BYRD. I know. These charts here, all this work the distinguished chairman is talking about, all these items, these agencies that he has on these charts, these are not the people underneath that are created by title I, are they?

Mr. BYRD. He doesn't do it in title I, does he?

Mr. BYRD. Yes. Let me ask the Senator a question. In what titles of the bill does the Senator deal with this on the chart?

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator. I thank the Senator for doing that.

Robert Byrd

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