Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time does the Senator from New York wish?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 5 additional minutes to the Senator.

Mr. BYRD. I certainly want to be considerate with this Senator, this very senior Member of the body. And I am glad that he is a Member at this time. Let's say 20 minutes at this point. My time is limited, but let's start with that and see how we come out.

Mr. BYRD. I ask the Senator, could you make it 20? Could we try for 20 to start with? Mr. HOLLINGS: I will try to start with 20.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time does the distinguished Senator from South Carolina wish to have?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield one additional minute.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman, Senator Lieberman, for his generosity. What about the Secret Service, should it be in or out? What about the Coast Guard? Why is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms left out? While the 170,000 men and women targeted to move into this new Department try to figure out where the desks and telephones will be, the Nation's homeland defense system may be far less effective, not more. We in the Congress must insist on more information about the fine details, such as what this plan means for the separation of powers, why one agency was selected while others were left out. We must take time to determine if this approach is the best approach or if it is little more than cherry-picking the best agencies while leaving others behind. There will be those who charge that by moving to slow this legislation, I and others are endangering the lives of Americans and that we are thinking about our pet projects in our own States. What a sorry, empty claim to make. This Congress, at the urging of the Senate Appropriations Committee which I chair, has added $15 billion for homeland security over the course of the past 8 months. That funding has helped us to take immediate steps to make Americans safer from attack and to better prepare our response efforts should another attack occur. That funding paid for more than 2,200 agents and inspectors to guard our long, porous borders with Canada and Mexico. The foreign student visa program, which has been identified as one of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's chief loopholes, is undergoing a tighter tracking system because of funding that Congress included in its first homeland security funding package within 3 days after the tragedy occurred in New York City. Across this country, local police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical teams are receiving new training and equipment to handle threats that before last fall they hardly considered possible. Federal law enforcement also benefited from the work of this Congress. Because of the funding initiated by the Appropriations Committee, the FBI started to hire hundreds of new agents. More than 300 additional protective personnel were hired to protect the Nation's nuclear weapons complex. Air marshals have been hired to protect our planes. Seven hundred and fifty food inspectors were hired to ensure the safety of the meals served at America's kitchen tables. We have paid for smallpox vaccines and health department training. We are tightening security at our seaports and purchasing new bomb-detecting equipment at our airports. We are taking steps to protect American lives now, today, and not just waiting for a bureaucratic shuffle to protect us. Congress, the elected representatives of the people, have done this. Congress also acted to provide additional emergency funding to strengthen terrorism prevention and to give much-needed aid to first responders at the local level. But President Bush has refused to spend some of these critical funds because he and OMB Director Mitch Daniels want to make a point about budget discipline. If the President is really serious about preventing terror, as he says he is, he should not play politics with this important funding, which by the signature of his name could have been released to the people at the local levels, throughout the land, for the protection of the people and the protection of the infrastructure of our country. Members of Congress and the President would like to be able to tell the public that they honored the victims of September 11 by creating a new Department for Homeland Security on the anniversary of the tragedy. That is understandable for politicians. But as Senator Thompson pointed out, we want the right product. We want to take the time and do the job right. In a few days, Americans will pause to remember the moment when the airplanes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field. We will remember the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, the firefighters, the police officers, the ambulance drivers. We will remember all of those who lost their lives in those tragic moments. But as we craft this legacy to their lives, we owe them more than a press release. We owe them our best judgment. We owe them rational, responsible action. We owe them a legacy that may truly save other lives, the lives of the people and the families of those who died, the progeny of those fathers whose lives were wiped out in the batting of an eye. Based on what we know about the legislative proposals before us, there can be no assurance that such a legacy will ever result. I am concerned that the monument that will result from this effort may be one of weakened protections for America's civil servants, one that may allow the security that is our goal to buckle under the weight of an administration's untold agenda. What will this legislation do to the people's rights, to the first amendment, to the second amendment, the third or fourth? Do we know what this bill does to the fundamental protections embodied in the Constitution? I am concerned about what we do not know about what has been kept from us by an administration adept at dealing in the shadows. I am concerned that this bill goes too far to protect the privacy of the White House and not far enough to protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens outside the White House. We are being pressed to pass this legislation to protect American lives, but we must not allow ourselves to be blinded to the new threats it may present to our laws and our constitutional system if we pass the legislation for which the administration has asked. Each of us has an obligation not just to put a new banner over a collection of agencies but to ensure that those agencies work together to protect the American people. Reorganizations of any size have a tendency to drift, to veer off course. A reorganization of the magnitude envisioned is likely to careen out of our control if we do not take the necessary steps to keep it on track. We cannot throw up our arms in celebration at the moment a bill is signed into law and walk away wrapped in the folds of glory. If that is all we do, we will surely drop the reins. This Senate must do everything within its power now to ensure that the promise embodied in this proposed reorganization is kept. We must focus beyond the mere creation of a new Department and grapple with the details of its implementation. We should insist on a clear understanding of the mission of the new Department. We should know the criteria that are used to determine which agencies will be part of it. We should insist that the constitutional rights of the people are protected. We should insist on assurances that this administration will not use this reorganization as a cover to dismantle worker protections. We should insist that the important non-homeland-security work of the transferred agencies is not sacrificed as those agencies assume new missions. Senators know of my great respect and fondness for history of the ancient Romans. Montesquieu first pointed the way, and having read a great deal of Montesquieu's work, I came to the conclusion that Montesquieu must have been right because he loved the history of the ancient Romans. As a matter of fact, he wrote a history of the ancient Romans. So I decided I would do some of that reading, too. I close with a quotation. Gaius Petronius Arbiter, a Roman poet and advisor to Nero, is reported to have said: We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. What a quotation from a Roman 2,000 years ago, and more. Before we rush ahead with so many questions unanswered, let us ensure that the product of our work is not just an illusion but substance. If it is a monument we are building, let it be one that will endure. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Well, let me put it this way. As far as I am concerned, we can vote now. As far as I am concerned, we can vote by voice. I intend to vote to proceed to take up this measure, but Senators have been told we would vote. I will stop editorializing on my own remarks and read what I have prepared and sit down.

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have need for a few more minutes. May I call upon the mercy of the distinguished Senator who chairs this committee, if he has time, if he would let this poor Senator from the hills of West Virginia have a few more minutes?

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I begin my closing remarks where I should begin, by thanking Senator Lieberman and Senator Thompson for the leadership they have demonstrated in holding hearings, in holding the markups, in exploring the questions that were asked, in attempting to find solutions to questions and concerns and problems that occurred to them through others and sometimes not through others. I thank these two Senators who represent, I believe, the finest. I have been a Member of the body now 44 years next January 3, the Lord willing. The fine old woman who raised me taught me to say that: I will do thus and so or so and so, the Lord willing. Of course, that comes from the Book of James, the 4th chapter, and the 14th and 15th verses: Don't say that you will go to a city tomorrow and that you will purchase thus and so and that you will do thus and so, but say, the Lord willing, you will go and do thus and so. And I thank these Senators. I am glad that the Good Lord has permitted me to live in this age when we can have Senators who acquire the high qualities of the two Senators who are about to manage the legislation that will create a Homeland Security Department. I favor the creation of a Homeland Security Department. And I think that the Senate within the next few minutes should vote unanimously to proceed to take up this legislation. That is the way it should be done. Let's take it up, and then let the Senate work its will. I thank the two leaders for their cooperation in helping to bring this about and in providing a time and an opportunity when we can mull over and talk about and decide these great questions that confront us. I would have resisted going to the bill had the motion been made prior to the August recess. I would have resisted with all of my heart and all of my strength. But I do not resist going to the bill now. With the Senate in recess, we have had a month in which to read the House bill, which largely reflects the administration's position, to read also the legislation that has been reported from Senator Lieberman's and Senator Thompson's committee. And I have taken occasion to do just that. Now, when we proceed to take up the House bill, it will be done, and then, at some point, presumably early on, Senator Lieberman will offer his substitute. He will offer the committee of the committee which he chairs. And the Senate will then have both bills before it. The underlying measure will be the House bill. And then there will be the substitute, which will be a clean bill reported by Senator Lieberman's committee. So the Senate will have before it both bills. Senators may proceed to amend the underlying bill. They may proceed to amend Senator Lieberman's bill, the substitute. We will have both bills before us. I call to the attention of Senators that once we pass this bill, whatever the bill is that the Senate passes--I am not saying I am going to vote for it; I may--but whenever the Senate passes legislation dealing with the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, then that is the last time the Senate will visit the matter until the legislation comes back from the committee of conference. And that legislation will be in the form of a conference report, which cannot be amended. Senators will have to take that measure, then, up or down. So this is it. This is our chance, and our only chance, to fully discuss and amend the legislation. And I hope Senators will approach the matter in that vein, realizing that the product that emanates from this Senate, after whatever time we take to debate and vote on it, will be the final product the Senate itself will have had an opportunity to mold and to amend. That is it. We are going to have to live with that. I have been greatly concerned about the legislation, as I have read it, that the House has passed, and with particular reference to title VIII of that bill, which I will not go into now. But I have been greatly concerned. I am concerned that the Constitution and its principles and the rights and privileges that flow from that great document--which has no equal in the world as far as governmental, organic documents are concerned, no equal---- I am concerned that those rights and prerogatives that flow from that document will have been impinged upon. I am greatly concerned about the constitutionality, in whole or in part, of some of the things that we are about to do--if we do them--that are particularly contained in the House bill. Now, we may pass legislation that is unconstitutional, and if it is never tried out in courts, it may be out there and there may not come an occasion where there is a case or controversy which goes to court. But I say that we have a responsibility. I used to hear Sam Ervin, that eminent jurist and great late Senator from North Carolina, say that we in the Senate have a duty to determine in our own minds the constitutionality of measures that we pass. That is why I joined with Senators on both sides of the aisle in bringing the line-item veto and pushing that matter to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Of course, we didn't have standing, as the Court determined, but we did proceed; but those who did have standing were pursuing it. Thank God, somebody pursued it, and I say thank God to the Supreme Court of the United States for throwing out that bad legislation. I said it was bad and the Court agreed. Here we are today with legislation that can certainly be dangerous in many ways. I have talked about some of those things, and I will have a further opportunity. But before I proceed with my final prepared remarks, let me thank Senator Thompson and Senator Lieberman. I thank Senator Thompson for his closing remarks today, and I also thank Senator Lieberman. These are gentlemen and I respect them as gentlemen. They have high and noble principles. That cannot be said of all men, of course. We are here today because nearly 11 months ago, 19 men commandeered 4 aircraft. Their goal we know all too well. They crashed one aircraft into the Pentagon. One hurtled into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Another tore into the south tower a few minutes later. The men and women aboard the final plane, after learning of the fate of the others, decided to resist the hijackers. They knew that, in all likelihood, they were about to die. But they entered into the embrace of death willingly after having decided to do what they could do to prevent the untimely and abrupt death of other men and women. I have no doubt, as we were taken out of this Capitol that day, ushered out by the policemen here, that that last plane was coming to hit this Capitol or the White House--one or the other. I just know in my own mind that it was headed here. But those men and women on that plane died for us. Their plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. If not for the heroic efforts of those men and women, we would have scores of additional names to remember as victims of the worse terrorist attack in the history of our country. We are here today debating because of those 19 hijackers. We are here because of the rescue workers who moved so quickly, so selflessly, so valiantly to save lives, only to lose their own while carrying out their duty. We are here because of those thousands of men and women who, on September 11, 1 year ago, were sitting at the desks, walking through the halls, doing their jobs, only to have such brutality bring to an end their precious lives, and so abruptly. They never had time to say good-bye to their loved ones. We are here, Senators, because we can never forget that day and because we never want this Nation to have to go through and experience the horrors of that day again. In many ways, the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security will serve as a legacy to those more than 3,000 men and women who had lost their lives on that clear fall day 1 year ago. We must not rush to create a department in the memory of those who lost their lives on September 11. If that Homeland Security Department does not better prevent another attack, what becomes of the sacrifice of those lives almost 1 year ago? If in the rush to create a new department we make Americans more vulnerable to attack while the transition is going forward rather than less, what kind of a legacy does that leave? What tribute does this Congress and this President pay to the victims of September 11 if we only tangle the lines of homeland security rather than straighten them and strengthen them? I believe that much is to be said in gratitude to Senator Lieberman and Senator Thompson and their committee for their efforts to straighten the lines. I honor and respect and pay tribute to these Senators and to the product which they have given this Senate and which we will soon be discussing. But having been in various and sundry legislative branches at the State and local levels and at the Federal level, I know there is no committee, including the one I chair, that can be perfect. As an experienced legislator, I look at this product in that fashion. It is a good product. It is a much better product than that which the House has sent us after 2 days of floor debate. But I think the full Senate can do better. I believe that if we act in haste to pass this legislation, then we pay no tribute, we honor, no memory. The legislation creates a new Department of Homeland Security. It is originally based on the plan of four men--not exactly the committee of five which wrote the Declaration of Independence. It is quite a different group. I don't say that disparagingly of the four fine men who came up with this idea in the bowels of the White House. But the legislation to create a new Department is based on the plan that originally was hatched in the subterranean caverns of the White House-- four men, fine men, sitting in the depths of the White House, trying to counter mounting political pressures. These four men have done nothing more, really, than shuffle boxes on a piece of paper. The administration calls this the largest reorganization of Government since World War II. I say it is the largest reorganization of Government since our constitutional Framers sat at the Convention in 1787. They reorganized the Government under the Articles of Confederation. Under that Government, under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress was the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. So those men reorganized the Government and gave to the various States, to vote on in their ratifying conventions, this product that was signed by those men in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. That was the first reorganization. That was the greatest reorganization because no longer do we operate under the Articles of Confederation but we operate under the Constitution of the United States. So now we have come to another reorganization proposal, the one we have been discussing. Terrorists have the advantage of knowing when they will strike, where they will strike, and how they will strike. Law-abiding men and women do not know when the terrorists will attack, where they will attack, or how they will attack. If the truth be told, there is no department that this Congress can conceive that alone can save Americans from terrorist attacks. Moving a few squares on a flowchart will not, on its own, save lives. I remain suspicious about a complex, extensive reorganization plan originally authored only by a group of four men in absolute secret, a plan which we are told was not revealed until the day the President revealed it, at which time several of the Department heads, whose Departments would be affected by the plan, had not been contacted and not been consulted. That is what I understand from reading the press. So I remain suspicious about a complex, extensive reorganization plan authored only by a group of four men in absolute secret. I believe such a plan is likely--likely--to be politically motivated somewhere along the line. There is an old fiddle tune I used to play, ``Somewhere Along the Line.'' I hope that is not true. I hope the motivations were pure, but should we not all be a little suspicious of this process? Congress should be especially careful, given the way this plan was formulated. We ought to consider our actions thoroughly and realize that the steps we take in the next few weeks will have ramifications for decades to come. In the past few weeks, as the House select committee has held its hearings and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee has drafted its plan, the focus has not been on how to best save lives. Rather, the focus, in part at least, has been on the ``bureaucratic turf wars'' that have developed. Should Secret Service be in, or should Secret Service be out?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. September 11 is now one of the darkest days in American history because of the almost 3,000 innocent lives that were taken and because of the way in which the American people were jarred from the dream that we would experience a time of extended peace after our victory in the cold war. The attacks made against us on September 11 were not just vicious in their inhumanity and in the lives that were taken in tragic consequences, but also in the assault made by the terrorists on our very way of life, on our values. We are a nation whose founders stated right in the original American document, the Declaration of Independence, that every citizen has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that right is the endowment of our Creator. Yet we were attacked on September 11 by a group that claimed to be acting in the name of God. Yet they took planes into buildings full of thousands of people without regard to the lives of those people, killing them only because they were Americans, acting in the name of God to kill almost 3,000 children of God--diverse and varied in age and demographics, as the American people are. It is in that sense that I view September 11 as an attack on our way of life. It is why we have pulled together after that as united people to resist, to strike back at those who struck at us first, through our courageous and skillful military achieving a great victory in Afghanistan. We must continue, since Afghanistan was only the first battle in the war against terrorism, to search out and capture or destroy all the enemy that remains in this unprecedented war, unprecedented in so many ways because we cannot see the enemy on a battlefield, they are not on ships at sea, but they are out there living in the shadows, preparing to strike us again. What this proposal is about, stated in the most direct way, is to diminish, hopefully eliminate, the vulnerabilities of which the terrorists took advantage to strike at us on September 11, so that they will never again be able to do that. I am not one who views another September 11-type attack as inevitable. We are the strongest nation in the history of the world, militarily and economically. We are united by our shared values. We are a patriotic and innovative people, and if we marshal these strengths, we can make another September 11-type attack impossible, and that is the aim of the legislation our committee puts before the Senate today. The urgent purpose of all three versions of homeland security that are in the discussion now--and I am speaking of the proposal by President Bush, the proposal passed by the House, and the one endorsed by the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Senate--is to meet the urgent post-September 11 security challenge we face, which is unprecedented, by consolidating the disparate Federal agencies and offices that deal with homeland security into a single Cabinet department under a strong, accountable Secretary. In one sense, one might say the problem with the Federal Government's organization today with regard to homeland security is that a lot of people are involved in homeland security but nobody is in charge. The mission of this new Department that all three proposals would create is to spearhead the Federal Government's defense of the American people against terrorism on our home soil, working particularly with States, counties, cities, towns, and Native American tribes across the country and working with the private sector to improve their preparedness and response capabilities. As the 1-year anniversary of September 11 approaches, the reconstruction of the Pentagon is almost complete, the field in Pennsylvania, to the casual eye, looks almost like any other field, and plans for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site are already being actively discussed. But the reality is that the vulnerabilities the terrorists exploited on September 11 in America's homeland defense structure still exist. We are still at risk, and that is why we must urgently proceed to discuss, debate, and then adopt legislation creating a Department of Homeland Security. The dark day of September 11 and the future it foretold are seared in our minds and our hearts. We must never stop feeling anger and outrage about what our enemies did to us. We must never stop mourning the 3,000 lives we lost. We must never stop honoring the legacy they left. We must never stop supporting the families whose loved ones were the first casualties of the war on terrorism. And we must never stop treasuring the freedoms and the opportunities that make this Nation truly the light it is to so many people around the world. The single most important action we can take now as individuals and as a nation, in addition to continuing the military phase of the offensive war against terrorism, is to channel our sorrow, our outrage, our unity, our anxiety, and our pride into building better defenses at home. This legislation is not a single-magic-bullet answer to our homeland security challenges--much more work needs to be done--but I am convinced it is a strong and necessary first step. It will provide the structure that can deliver the defense the American people deserve. I thank President Bush for embracing the creation of a Department of Homeland Security and for the diligence with which he and his staff have worked through the details with members of our committee, with Members of the Senate, and with Members of the House. Amendments always highlight differences, but the reality is that President Bush and the majority of members of the Governmental Affairs Committee who reported out the legislation are in agreement on more than 90 percent of what this legislation provides. We stand broadly on common ground, even as we debate some of the remaining differences between us. I also want to thank my colleagues in this Chamber for their contributions and cooperation across party lines for the building of this proposal. We have come a long way, and we must get to the end in this session. I particularly want to thank my ranking member, Senator Thompson, for his characteristic constructive and thoughtful contributions to this proposal, even when we have been in dissent. The least we can do for the American people and for Senator Fred Thompson is to pass this legislation while he is still a Senator, before he retires. The President and Congress and the American people have made real progress since September 11. A successful military campaign in Afghanistan, creating the Office of Homeland Security, passing the USA Patriot Act, creating a Transportation Security Administration, beginning to reform the FBI--those are just a few of the significant steps we have taken forward together. Federal employees are working very hard at their assigned tasks and working increasingly in cooperation with our State and local colleagues to keep the American people safe. We have to speak frankly about this as we begin the consideration of this legislation. Our progress will hit a wall--in effect it has--if we do not reform the Federal Government's homeland security capabilities because the gains we have made in keeping America safe since September 11 have been, and will continue to be, in some sense despite the system, not because of it. The system, the organization, is dispersed and in some ways it is dysfunctional. It needs to become coherent and consolidated, coordinated, to rise to the complex challenge of defeating 21st century terrorism in our homeland. The 18 hearings we on the Governmental Affairs Committee have held since September 11 on this matter, and countless other hearings by so many other committees, have made the scope and depth of this disorganization and dysfunction clear. To sum it up in the words of Stephen Flynn, senior fellow of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, who testified before us on October 21 of last year: We have built our defense and intelligence communities to fight an away game. Now we must build them to fight at home and to win. Across our Government, we are dividing our strengths when we desperately need to be multiplying them. As the President acknowledged on June 6, the Office of Homeland Security, though ably headed by Gov. Tom Ridge, did not have the structural power to get the job done we need done. Indeed, the release on July 16 of the President's national strategy for homeland security, underlay the importance of creating a Department that can orchestrate the huge task ahead. The status quo is simply unacceptable and we must rise to the occasion by organizing for the occasion. We must move from disorganization toward organization. When we pass this legislation, the American people, for the first time, must be able to look to a single Federal agency that will take the lead in the homeland fight against terrorism and to hold that agency accountable for accomplishing what is Government's first responsibility, and that is to provide, as the Constitution says, for the common defense. And now that means the defense of the American people at home. The Department we will create will be led by a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Secretary. It would be comprised of six directorates that, taken together, would accomplish its missions and goals. Let me briefly describe them now. First is intelligence. I put that first intentionally because we cannot prevent attacks, nor can we adequately prepare to protect ourselves or respond if we cannot first detect the danger. This legislation would establish a strong intelligence division to receive all terrorism-related intelligence from Federal, State, and local authorities; from human intelligence and signal intelligence; from closed and open sources; from the FBI and the CIA, including foreign intelligence analysis from the Director of Central Intelligence's Counterterrorism Center. Then it would have the authority to fuse that all in a single place. This would be the one place--which does not exist in our Government now--where all the proverbial dots could be connected as they were not because of existing barriers to sharing information prior to September 11. Indeed, the new Department will not just receive and analyze intelligence collected from other agencies; it will contain agencies within itself that collect intelligence and will share it and send it up to this directorate of intelligence. I am speaking of the Customs Service, of Immigration, of the Coast Guard, of the Transportation Security Agency, all examples. All of that will be fed into the same stream. I want to stress that stream will include information from State and local law enforcers who we acknowledge now are the first responders, as we saw on September 11. If this directorate of intelligence is working well, State and local law enforcers can become first preventers. They are hundreds of thousands of eyes out across America who can share information, who can help us detect patterns and work with law enforcement to prevent any future attacks against America. This precise capability exists nowhere in Government and would be designed to complement the Director of Central Intelligence's Counterterrorism Center and the capabilities of other intelligence and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. This directorate would not collect intelligence; it would receive it and analyze it. It would mean all information related to terrorist threats on American soil would, for the first time in our history, come together in this one place. Perhaps it could be called a hear-all-evil and see-all-evil office. That is precisely what we need to prevent the recurrence of the disastrous disconnects that left the puzzle pieces of the September 11 plot laying scattered throughout our Government, when they should have been together in one box so they could have been assembled. That is what this division of intelligence would do. The second, critical infrastructure: We can expect terrorists to try to hurt us by destroying or disrupting our infrastructure. What do we mean by that? Well, our water and agricultural delivery systems, our energy grids, our information technology networks, our transportation systems, our ports and airports, and more. Eighty-five percent of our infrastructure is actually owned and operated by the private sector. That is the nervous system, the respiratory system, the circulatory system of our society. Infrastructure, however, is not the only target. Indeed, attacks by weapons of mass destruction have up until now been designed largely to destroy people, not to damage our infrastructure. In fact, of course, the attacks on September 11 were not against infrastructure in the way in which that term has normally been meant. They were against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But infrastructure is a big, vulnerable, and complex target. Today, responsibility for working with the private sector to safeguard it is spread thin throughout the Federal bureaucracy. This directorate would mesh critical infrastructure protection programs now residing in five different Federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the General Services Administration. Third is a border and transportation protection directorate. Every potential source of danger that is not already inside our country must come in through our ports or airports or over our borders. Once danger gets inside, it is much harder to root out. So to effectively interdict, interrupt, and intercept terrorists and the weapons of toxic materials or mass destruction they seek to smuggle in, this directorate would bring together our Customs Service, the border quarantine inspectors of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture, the recently created Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. The Coast Guard will also be transferred to the new Department reporting directly to the Director of Homeland Security and will work closely with all other authorities on our waterways, in our ports, and at our borders. Fourth is science and technology. Now terrorists will try to turn chemistry, biology, and technology against us in untraditional and inhumane ways. So we are challenged to marshal our superior technological talents to preempt them and protect our people. This science and technology directorate is intended to leverage America's advantage on this front, creating a lean entity to manage and coordinate innovative homeland security research and development and to spearhead rapid technology transaction and deployment. It would be armed with an array of mechanisms to catalyze and harness the enormous scientific and technological potential residing within our Government, within our private sector, and within our university communities. One of the key features of this directorate will be a homeland security version of the Defense Advanced Research Protects Agency, DARPA, which has sparked the development of Revolutionary Warfighting Tools for our military throughout the cold war and now into the post- cold-war world, the very tools and systems and weapons that enabled our courageous and skillful fighting forces to terrify and defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan so brilliantly and to disrupt the al-Qaida network. Of course, DARPA has also spun off from its technologies to create some of the most remarkable commercial and civilian technologies that characterize our age, including the Internet. It is our hope and prayer that this new Department, which we would like to call SARPA, the Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, will do the same for our homeland security and for our economy. Fifth, emergency preparedness and response: After September 11, we all have an obligation to think about and to prepare ourselves for the unthinkable, including attacks with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons at home. This directorate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency at its core will combine and integrate the strengths of a number of Federal agencies and offices responsible for dispensing critical vaccines and medicines for training local and State officials in emergency readiness, and for reacting to and helping the American people recover from the attacks that we hope and pray and will work to deter, but we must be ready to respond. Six is immigration. America's positive fundamental heritage of immigration, central to our character as a country of opportunity and responsibility and community, must be honored. But at the same time, after September 11 we have to look with new clarity and intensity at illegal immigration as well as how to better screen those who come to this country legally and may stay beyond the time allowed. Our proposal brings the troubled Immigration and Naturalization Service into the Department of Homeland Security and places those functions in a separate division within it. Then, to undo internal conflicts in the agency and give each set of functions the concerted attention it deserves, we propose to split the directorate into two distinct but closely linked bureaus as called for in the bipartisan INS restructuring plan of our colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Brownback. This is a long overdue major reorganization of a very troubled agency. We also require the Secretary to establish a border security working group comprised of himself, working with the Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security and the Under Secretary for Immigration Affairs. Our goal is to make passage more efficient and orderly for most people and goods crossing the border while at the same time raising our capacity to identify and stop dangerous people and things from entering America. Those are the six core directorates which we see as six spokes of the wheel. Where they meet at the axis is where our security at home comes together. There are a few important pieces of this legislation I want to describe additionally. As we need to keep reiterating, this is not solely a Federal responsibility or a Federal fight in the war against terrorism, it is a national responsibility and a national fight, with the front lines being drawn in our cities and towns all across America. One need only look at the long list of fallen heroes of September 11 to understand that. That is why we in Washington must do a far better job of creating and sustaining potent partnerships with States and localities which will be facilitated, I am confident, through the new Department. We are creating an Office of State and Local Government Coordination. This office is designed to assess and advocate for the resources needed by State and local governments all across the country. In fact, there is separate legislation, quite appropriate, recommending the creation of a homeland security block grant. The initial amount proposed is $3.5 billion for fiscal year 2003. I know from having spoken to the Presiding Officer, speaking to the local responders and first preventers, they are already spending significant funds to carry out the wider range of homeland security responsibilities they have. This is a national problem, and they are playing a large role in responding. We have to give them the resources, the funds, to make that possible. In fact, to meet the pressing need for well-trained firefighters in our communities, our legislation includes an amendment offered by Senators Carnahan and Collins that points Federal assistance to local communities nationwide, patterned on the very successful COPS program adopted during the Clinton administration. This program for firefighters would enable the hiring of as many as 10,000 additional firefighters per year. The Office of State and Local Government Coordination would also be strengthened with the help of an amendment offered by Senators Carper and Collins providing a number of new mechanisms, including the creation of liaison positions in each State in the country, a liaison with the new Department of Homeland Security to ensure close and constant coordination between the Federal Government and the first responders, first preventers, who are our principal partners in this solemn task. Recognizing the need to ensure that fundamental American freedoms are not curbed as we build a more secure society, our legislation also creates positions of civil rights officer and privacy officer, as well as a designated officer under the inspector general within the new Department. Those positions will provide the Secretary valuable guidance to help craft effective policies and practices that don't compromise individual rights, and ensure there is an effective avenue for receiving complaints and investigating them. Outside of this Department, within the White House, the amendment would create another entity, a National Office for Combating Terrorism. Here I want to give substantial credit to the Senator from Florida, Mr. Graham, who has worked very hard with Members of both parties, in this Chamber and the other body, to fashion this proposal. We cannot fail to recognize that the fight against terrorism is, by definition, larger than what will be done by this new Department of Homeland Security. It will involve our military and intelligence communities separately, our diplomatic services, our law enforcement agencies, our international economic agencies, and many others. It seems to me and the committee that it is therefore still necessary to have a policy architect in the White House who can design and build the overriding antiterrorism strategy for and with the President, and to coordinate the implementation of that strategy that will necessarily go beyond the Department of Homeland Security. The director of this office will work, of course, with the Homeland Security Secretary to develop the national strategy for combating terrorism and the homeland security response. With budget certification authority, the director of this White House office will be able to make sure all the budgets that make up our antiterrorism national strategy fit together smoothly. And because of the critical nature of this job, according to our legislation, the director would be confirmed by the Senate, making him or her accountable to the Congress and to the people of the United States. That is an overview of our legislation as will be contained in the amendment I look forward to putting before the Senate this evening, after, hopefully, we have adopted the motion to proceed. I am proud that on the guts, on the fundamentals, of this proposal we in the Senate are near unified on this attempt to form, in a very modern context, what our Founders described as ``a more perfect Union.'' Winston Churchill once said: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. I think only a big pessimist would see the difficulty in the opportunity this Department would create to secure our people and our homeland. We have crafted here a fundamentally optimistic and I think realistic answer to the homeland security challenges we face--seeing opportunity, not difficulty. As we go forward with amendments and discussion and votes on the remaining differences, I hope and believe that optimism will prevail and constructive action will result. Together, united across party lines, as it has been over and over again throughout history, our great country, which today faces a challenge that is unprecedented, will give the response we are called on to give--which is equally unprecedented. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may I say I thank the distinguished Senator, the manager of the bill. I have only the very highest degree of respect for him, and I have only the highest degree of respect for the committee, and for his counterpart--if I may use that word--a very respected Senator, the Senator from Tennessee. I have great respect, and anything I say during this debate will be only with the desire in mind to contribute something that will reflect well upon this Senate in the days and years to come. I have every belief that the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Tennessee approach the matter in the same spirit. I thank the Senators for yielding.

Mr. BYRD. May I say, I hope we will not confine our closing arguments to a half hour. As far as I am concerned, when we get to that point, perhaps we can wait until the last hour to close the arguments, or the last hour and a half, and Senator Thompson would proceed, and then the Senator from West Virginia, and then the distinguished manager of the bill, and that we not limit ourselves--the three of us--to the totality of 30 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. May I ask the distinguished Senator, with great respect, does he have any suggestion as to how we will handle the time on quorum calls?

Mr. BYRD. Is the amendment that the distinguished Senator will offer as a substitute the amendment I have seen? Is that the amendment?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, let me beg the Senator's forgiveness. Before he begins, I want to ask this earlier rather than later. May I ask a question with respect to the amendment?

Mr. BYRD. I hope it would not be. Once I begin, I don't plan to have any quorum calls. Yet, of course, at times it becomes necessary. When I do ask for a quorum call, I will expect that to be taken out of my time. I would not want to divide the time equally on quorum calls, I say with great respect.

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

Mr. BYRD. I ask if I could go preceding the Senator and if the distinguished minority member, Mr. Thompson, could speak just prior to me. That would be my suggestion. However, if Senator Thompson wants to do this differently, I will accept that.

Mr. BYRD. Very well. I have one further question. In closing the debate, does the Senator have any particular way he wishes to proceed? I believe he would want to close the debate. If I might make a suggestion.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I have an hour under the cloture motion?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the work of the Senate would be impossible were it not for the talents and tireless efforts of our staffs. These are the men and women who serve behind the scenes, with few expectations of reward save for the opportunity to make a difference. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge a member of my staff who has worked for me on behalf of the people of West Virginia for 25 years. Mary Jane Small joined my staff on August 1, 1977. I was Majority Leader at the time. She came to my office with 6 years of Capitol Hill experience, having worked for Congressman Ed Jones of Tennessee and then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski from Mary Jane's own home town of Baltimore, MD. Over the years, Mary Jane Small has worked in my legislative department, providing a much-valued link between my Washington office and the people of West Virginia. There have been a lot of changes in how Senators correspond with constituents since the time Mary Jane started working for me. Back in 1977, no one had heard of e-mail. We did not have fax machines. Mary Jane joined my staff before we had computers. She was with me in the days when we produced letters the old-fashioned way--on typewriters--which must seem archaic to the younger generation of Capitol Hill staff. But despite the lack of telecommunications and high-tech gadgetry, our staffs produced quantity and quality. I am proud to count Mary Jane as one of those staff members who has been with me through so much change. And though times are different, she still shines with the enthusiasm and drive that she had when she first joined my staff. The work of Senators will be recorded in history. Our names, our speeches, our legislative accomplishments will have been printed in newspaper articles and in the Congressional Record. But most of the men and women who have toiled on our staffs will never get any public notice of their devoted service to their fellow citizens. Twenty-five years of Senate service is certainly deserving of recognition. I thank Mary Jane for her dedication to the people of the State of West Virginia and for the work she has done for our country. And I look forward to the next 25 years with her.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, will the majority leader repeat his request?