Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am grateful indeed for these encomiums being said by my colleagues. I deeply appreciate what the distinguished majority leader has just said. I appreciate his friendship on this day and the friendship of so many of my colleagues. I shall always treasure the words he has spoken on this day. Oh, to be 70 again. The Lord has blessed me. I see his blessing in each of us. He has blessed me extraordinarily. Plato thanked the gods for his being a man. He also thanked the gods for his being a Greek. And he thanked the gods for having permitted him to live in the age of Sophocles. Well, I thank God on this day for what he has given to me. And I don't deserve it. I don't deserve the things God has given to me. But for God, but for Him and his gracious mercy, I could have been in a penitentiary today; I could have been dead today many times over. It was a mother's wish that I be given to the wonderful couple who raised me. That mother died on the night of Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. I was just a week short of being a year old. To go on, I thank God for a wife of more than 65 years. I am trying to think of a great Greek. The name starts with an A. He was a great orator. It was not Aristides. It was a very common name in ancient history, but when he in a speech could not think of the right word, he paused until the right word came to his mind. He paused. He was not like today's speakers, many of whom when they cannot think of a right word they say: You know, you know, you know. That is a mind that is not in sync with the tongue--you know, you know, you know. Not this man, a great--Alcibiades. No. Anyhow, I thank God for having spared my life on many occasions and for giving me the opportunity to serve in this body. I say to the distinguished Senator in the Chair, who has been here only a few days and who will be with us but a few days more, I could go home today, and I could write a letter to the Disbursing Office and say I am retiring tomorrow. I doubt that I would know the difference in my check that I get every month, twice a month. I doubt that I would know the difference between that check after I had gone home and sat down with my wife of 65 years, who is probably worrying, and in some manner of thinking that is where I ought to be, but I would get practically the same amount of money I would receive as a Senator. So I am not here today for my payroll, and I probably could earn much more money not being Senator or go on some board or be a lobbyist, if I ever deign to be one. I could probably get a lot more money. I do have grandchildren, and my wife and I have great-grandchildren. I probably ought to try to leave them as much money as I can leave them. But that has never been my desire. Wealth has never been a goal of mine. My only goal is to serve this country, and I have been here 50 years come this January 3. Having studied the history of the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the people of the British Isles, and our own colonial forebears, my roots of love and admiration and respect for this country's Constitution, this country's history, colonial history, our forebears is so deep with me. That is why I am here. I want to say that in the vote last evening, of which we had nine votes--who saw the same thing as I saw at the end--I saw on TV this morning that four of those nine were the oldest in seniority Members of the Senate: Byrd, Kennedy, Hollings, and Inouye, the four oldest and senior. Paul Sarbanes, our dear friend from Maryland among the nine, but these are the four senior Democrats, and they voted as I did. Do you think we collaborated about that? Does the Chair think--I am not asking for an answer; the Chair cannot respond--but does the Chair for a moment think that these nine Senators talked ahead of the vote and said: Will you vote this way? I am going to vote this way. I hope you will vote this way. How are you going to vote? Never a word. I never knew who those Senators were going to be and did not know who they were until after the vote. I say that to say this: I serve here because I want to serve here and because the people of West Virginia want me to serve. They do not all agree with me. I do not seek to curry favor at home or here. But I do what I think best, and I like that Constitution. I want to compliment, I want to express my deep appreciation to those other eight Senators on this side of the aisle, one of them an Independent, Jim Jeffords of Vermont. These men gave up something when they did that. They are going to meet that vote down the road probably one day when they run for reelection. Did it deter them? No, not for a moment. Nor did they do it because I asked them to do it. I would not have had the temerity to ask them to do it. I would have no business asking them to do that. I spoke my mind, they spoke theirs, and they voted their way. Some of the Senators came to me afterward and while the vote was going on and said: Senator, I have been with you down to this point, but I am going to vote for this bill. They were kind enough--they did not have to do that. They did not have to come to me and tell me they were going to vote that way. I had them come right here to me and say: Senator, I am going to leave you on this one. I have been with you thus far, but looking at the overall picture, I am going to vote the other way. It was nice of them to do that. I thought it showed a tremendous respect for my viewpoint, and they did it on their own. They did not owe me anything. They did not need to tell me how they were going to vote. But how good of them to come to me and say: I am going to vote the other way. Does the Senator from North Dakota wish to speak again? I will be happy to yield. I have said about everything I want to say. I am going to yield the floor now, but I just want to pay homage to these other eight Senators. I am sure it was more difficult for any one of them to vote against the homeland security bill than it was for me because I cut this out in the beginning. I saw where it was going. I was determined not to be for this kind of thing because it was shifting power from the legislative branch to the executive branch. I am not for that. I was not at the beginning when I first said we ought to have a Department of Homeland Security. That was the course I took. If it meant standing alone, that was all right. I did not mind being the only vote against it. But I never did it with any thought that my speeches would change anybody's mind. That was not it. Why did I speak that way, knowing that this was almost a foregone conclusion? Not because I was trying to convince any of my colleagues or believing that my speeches would. I spoke for my grandchildren, for my grandchildren's grandchildren, and for future Senators who will be in this body. The record that was made will be a record until the crack of doom, be it 1,000 years, 10,000 years, or a million. If this Republic still exists, those words will be there. That is not my words so much that count, but these were words in support of the Constitution of the United States and of the institution of the Senate. That was my total feeling. I was well rewarded, exceedingly well rewarded, with the supporting votes of eight other Senators, and the supporting thoughts and words of Senators on this side even beyond that. So I was well paid. I pay homage to these Senators who stood on their feet and reached this conclusion themselves. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I deeply thank my colleague from North Dakota for bringing this matter to the attention of the Senate. I thank my friend from Virginia for what he has just said. With respect to my birthday, I shall have more to say about that later. But let me say, at this moment, I have listened to the distinguished Senator from Virginia extol the virtues of Senators who are leaving. The Senator from Virginia is a gentleman. I have always felt that of him. Being from the State of Virginia, he certainly exemplifies that title: A gentleman. I have always thought that about most men from Virginia. Let me say, with reference to something that the distinguished Senator from Virginia said a moment ago--he spoke, I believe, about his daughter. He spoke glowingly about his daughter. That struck a note in my memory. It was on July 11, 1804, that a duel took place at Weehawken, NJ--a most fateful duel at a time in our history when many fateful duels were fought. On this occasion, Alexander Hamilton, who was only 30 years of age at the time of the Philadelphia Convention--the Constitutional Convention, in which he, Alexander Hamilton, took part--he was only 30 at that time. Madison was 36. Franklin was 81. Jonathan Dayton, whose relative, whose kinsman, sits from time to time in that chair before the Senate-- the kinsman of whom I am thinking is named Mark Dayton, a Senator from the State of Minnesota--that kinsman of Mark Dayton was named Jonathan Dayton. He was the youngest man at the Convention, 26 years of age. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina was 28 or 29. But Dayton was the youngest man at the Convention. Hamilton was 30. Hamilton sat at that Convention. Hamilton went on to fight this terrible duel, and he was mortally wounded in that duel on July 11, one week following July 4. In that day and time there were no anaesthetics; the marvels of medicine had not come along as we know them. Of course, Harvey, that great Englishman, had discovered the circulation of the blood. He had discovered how the blood circulates through the veins and arteries. That was his theory. But now back to this awful night of July 11. There with his seven children about his bed and his weeping wife, the little children weeping throughout that awful night of pain when the blood from the wound gathered in his stomach. There he lay. The next day, that great man Hamilton died, on July 12. The man who was the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, was the man who won that duel--Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States. I have often referred to him as the great enigma, Aaron Burr. I remember he said when he left the Senate, when he walked out of the door of the Old Senate Chamber, down the hall here, for the last time, he said to his fellow Senators: This house is a sanctuary, a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty. And it is here, it is here, here if anywhere, in this exalted refuge will resistance be made to the storms of political frenzy and the silent arts of corruption. And if the Constitution be destined ever to be at the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the usurper, it will be witnessed on this floor--meaning the death of the Constitution--if it be destined ever to succumb to the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the usurper, may God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor. Now, why do I refer to Aaron Burr at this moment? Aaron Burr had a daughter. And the Virginia Senator's words about his daughter brought this to my mind. Aaron Burr had a daughter. Aaron Burr went on to go over to West Virginia to connive with an Irishman over there who lived in the area of Parkersburg. The Irishman's name was Blennerhassett. There is an island over there named Blennerhassett Island. And Aaron Burr talked with Blennerhassett, this wealthy Irishman, about setting up an empire in the Southwest. In any event, Aaron Burr was arrested and brought to trial. And Thomas Jefferson, his mortal enemy, had a great deal to do with that trial. But that is a bit here and a bit there. What I am remembering especially about Aaron Burr is he had a daughter. Here was this man who had killed Alexander Hamilton. He was a murderer. He intended to kill; no doubt in anybody's mind, he meant to kill Hamilton. Hamilton did not intend to shoot to kill in that duel. Hamilton intended, it is widely believed, to fire into the air, not to kill Burr. But Burr intended to kill, and Burr did kill Alexander Hamilton. We look at that dark side of Aaron Burr, this enigmatic brilliant man, Vice President of the United States, that dark side of this mysterious man. But there was a good side to this man. He fairly worshipped this daughter, Theodosia. And she loved her father very deeply. And upon this particular occasion, she left Georgia in a boat or a ship, and there was Aaron Burr, expecting her to arrive, looking forward to her arrival, loving this daughter as he did. She never arrived. The ship encountered a storm and was never heard of again. And so died Theodosia, the daughter of Aaron Burr. And Aaron Burr, after that dreadful happening, this man who had killed Alexander Hamilton, one of the great founders of this country, Aaron Burr for years would go down to the seashore and stand for hours looking out upon the sad and solemn sea, seemingly to be looking for that ship that never came in, the ship that was carrying his daughter. He stood and looked out on the sea. When Aaron Burr came to his last days on this Earth, he, while lying in his bed, positioned himself so that he could see there on the wall in front of him a picture of that daughter, Theodosia. When the streams of early sunlight first entered into his room, there was Theodosia in front of Aaron Burr, that loving father. When the shades of night had fallen and night, with her sabled robes, had closed the light of day for the last moment, he could see in the dim light the picture of that daughter, Theodosia. Well, that was a side of Aaron Burr that not many people know about. A good many years ago, I went to the Library of Congress and went to the rare books section and sought out this bit of material because I was researching the life of Aaron Burr. I had intended to put such a chapter into my ``History of the Senate, 1789-1989.'' I intended to put a chapter on Aaron Burr, the great enigma, in that book. There were two chapters I wrote that I never put into the book. That was one. The other was about two great West Virginia Senators, Senator John Kenna--it is a very interesting story about John Kenna and what he had to do with the location of the Capitol in Charleston. I will not tell that today. The other great Senator from West Virginia I wrote about was Henry Hatfield, a Republican. So I wrote about one Democrat and one Republican. In writing those chapters, I went into the rare books section of the Library of Congress, and among those tomes I fished out this story, and many more, about Aaron Burr. It was there that I discovered that this man with such an evil, mean spirit, with the lust to kill Alexander Hamilton, because he hated Hamilton--he challenged this man whom he hated to a duel, and Hamilton, being a man of honor, charged Burr with having said things concerning the honor and patriotism of Burr. In those days, they fought duels about honor. How many men in this Chamber would die today for honor? Well, in those days they did. The thing I want to say again is, here was this man, this evil spirit. I can envision his lying awake at night thinking of how he would like to kill Alexander Hamilton--and he did kill him. But there was another side to Burr--a very tender, loving side. He loved his daughter Theodosia. So the Senator from Virginia, when he spoke of his daughter--I have two daughters also, but when he spoke of his daughter, it reminded me of Aaron Burr, that great enigma, and how he, too, had a daughter he loved and treasured.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, before the distinguished Democratic whip speaks, I feel I must say this, and I must say it now, right at this point. Here is a true son of Athens. This is a true son of Sophocles, and Socrates and Plato and, yes, one more. I had it on my tongue just a moment ago. Not Alcibiades, but a man whose name I was trying to think of earlier. It came to me while the Senator was speaking. I am sorry because this really is ruined by what I wanted to say. That great Greek who left Athens and who went to the--what was that other part of Greece that had the emphasis always on----

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. BYRD. Yes, went to Sparta. He went to Sparta. But anyhow, I just wanted to make reference to that and how this man who has been here--we have worked together so long, and now he said these things. I keep being bothered in what I am saying. I am trying to come up with the name. It will come to me.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, earlier this year, I wrote to a number of constitutional scholars advising them that I was concerned about reports that our Nation was coming closer to war with Iraq. I asked a number of esteemed academics their opinion as to whether they believed that the Bush administration had the authority, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, to introduce U.S. Armed Forces into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. All of the scholars I consulted responded by stating that, under current circumstances, the President did not have such authority. Several of the professors I consulted, namely Peter Raven-Hansen of George Washington University Law School, and Philip Trimble, Professor Emeritus of the UCLA School of Law, were kind enough to call and discuss their views on this subject with my office. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for taking the time to provide me with their thoughts on this matter. While those professors contacted me by phone, others provided written responses. I have previously submitted for the Record the responses of professors Michael Glennon of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, Jane Stromseth of Georgetown University Law Center, Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, and William Van Alstyne of the Duke University School of Law. Now, I would like to submit four additional responses I received on this same subject from professors Jules Lobel of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Thomas M. Franck of the New York University School of Law, Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School, and Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. I found their analyses of this important issue to be exceptionally learned and informative. For this reason, I ask unanimous consent that their responses be printed in the Record.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I know that there is another Senator here, the Senator from North Dakota, who wishes to get recognition. I was told the Senator from Maine wished to get recognition, Senator Collins. She is not here? I will not detain my colleague from North Dakota long. And I did not say I would, but I certainly meant to--I think of gentlemen as being very special people, and I intended, as a gentleman, to yield to the lady from Maine first.

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, before the distinguished Senator proceeds, if he would allow me to interrupt him for a comment.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. He was opposed. When the Senator from New Mexico is opposed, I pay even more attention to him. Anyhow, after each meeting, our friends would walk away with plans for spreading the good word in favor of our plan, charged up with a pep talk by Phil Gramm. He also has a talent, a great talent, for negotiating. Even when he wins a negotiation and you have lost everything, he can make you feel like you prevailed and he lost everything. Suddenly, on the way home you will pinch yourself and say, wait a minute, that is not quite the way it was. So this is Phil Gramm, a biting, partisan bulldog one minute, and a gentle, cuddly puppy the next. At times, it is difficult to decide if you should jump back in fright or reach out and pet him. He is one of those rare Members of Congress who has had a powerful impact not only upon this institution but on our country and its policies. Just last year, the National Review pointed out that no Member of Congress--not Jack Kemp, not Newt Gingrich, not Bob Dole-- played a more decisive role in launching the Reagan agenda. Phil Gramm is perhaps this country's most consistent and strongest promoter of smaller taxes and smaller government. The legislation he has authored, sponsored and promoted, from Gramm-Latta to Gramm-Rudman, to the Bush tax cuts, give the lie to Emerson's observation that a ``foolish consistency is the hobgoblin'' of little minds. It is also the hobgoblin of big minds. Phil Gramm definitely has a big mind. I have learned so much from him. I certainly learned a lot about his ``mamma.'' Among other things, I learned she receives Social Security, that she carries a gun, and she knows how to use it. That is what Phil says. I certainly learned more than I ever wanted to know about Dicky Flatt, the hard-working print shop owner in Mexia, TX, and how the Government keeps taking away his money to spend on someone else. I learned do not mess with Phil Gramm. He has an intellect second to none. He has a tenaciousness and he has a razor tongue second to none. But throughout it all, let me assure my colleagues that my disagreements have never lessened my respect and my admiration for the man and Senator. He was always straightforward and fair and always sincerely dedicated to the cause he was espousing or supporting, and that no doubt was because his positions on the most important issues facing our Nation were always deeply thought out and heartfelt convictions; not simply political calculations. That is why I came to respect his integrity, his wisdom, and his courage. In his book, ``Profiles in Courage,'' Senator John F. Kennedy wrote: Surely in the United States of America, where brother once fought brother, we did not judge a man's bravery under fire by examining the banner under which he fought. Senator Gramm and I have fought under different banners, but we have always fought under and for the same flag. Whatever he did, whatever he said, whatever he promoted, it came from his deep, undeviating love of the United States of America. While he is always ready to tell you what is wrong with our country, he will never hesitate to tell you what is right with it. We will miss him. There he is. I did not realize that while I was talking about the man, he was sitting here listening, but I can say to the Senate that on more than one occasion, Senator Phil Gramm has come to my office on difficult matters, in which I may have had some interest, as in mountaintop mining or the highway bill, whatever it was, and in many instances he has proposed a compromise which enabled us to get over a mountain, get over a hump, and get on with the business. I appreciate the contributions he has made to legislation in this body. I do not know of any Senator who has been a more knowledgeable and able legislator. The Senator has exemplified reverence for the Constitution, respect for the Senate, and an unbounded love for his country. While he will no longer be my colleague, Phil Gramm will always be my friend. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. The Senator gets his time from whom?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Brownback, wishes some time.

Mr. BYRD. I promised to yield 5 minutes of my time to Mr. Jeffords, after which I would yield for whatever time the Senator from Kansas desires, after which, then, I will speak.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if I may just respond: First of all, I thank the distinguished Senator, who is the majority whip in this body. I deeply appreciate what he has said. I appreciate very much what he has said. May I say, in turn, that the American people don't owe me anything. But I will say this, that the American people are listening. And with respect to the resolution dealing with a war with Iraq, the American people were listening. The American people heard what we said. As a result of speeches--I made two or three speeches in that instance--as a result of those two or three speeches that I made, my office received 21,000 telephone calls, and my office received over 50,000 e-mails. That is an indication that there is somebody out there listening, somebody cares, somebody is paying attention. That is gratifying to me. So somebody heard. And I don't pay all that much attention to the polls. I don't think they ask the right questions. What are the right questions? I don't know what the right questions are. But those polls reflect responses to questions. And whether they are the right questions or the questions that ought to be asked, I cannot say. But I can say the American people do listen. And somebody has to fulfill the duty Woodrow Wilson was speaking about when he said the informing function of the legislative branch is as important, if not more so, than the legislative function. I thank the Senator. I am well paid. When Plato was about to pass away from this earthly sphere, he said: I thank the Gods that I was born a man. He said: I thank the Gods that I was born a Greek. And he said: I am grateful to the Gods for the fact that I live--I live in the same era in which Sophocles lived. So, I am thankful to God, and to my angel mother and my father, and to the people of West Virginia, for the fact that I have had this great privilege to work in this body, now, for 44 years and I have been able to contribute. God gives me my faculties almost as they were 50 years ago, except for my feet. I was always told the first place will be your feet; your feet and legs will give way. I am finding that to be pretty true. But I thank heaven that I was able to be here, to say what I have been able to say about the resolution dealing with Iraq and the homeland security legislation. I think we have performed a service. I said what I thought. I am on no man's payroll. I am on the people's payroll. And I wear no man's collar but my own. That may be kind of a small collar. But, anyhow, I do what I think. I could leave here any moment and get just as big a check as I get as being a Senator because I have paid in the system, now, 50 years this coming January 3. I am doing what I want to do. I don't have to do this. I probably ought to be home with my wife. We will be married, in another 6 months, 66 years, if the Good Lord lets me live. But I do think the Senator from Nevada, has made a tremendous contribution himself. He has listened to what we had to say, to what Paul Sarbanes and I and the distinguished Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords, and others have said. We have warned about this measure. We have not been in agreement with the administration in connection with this homeland security agency. We think we have legislated too fast. We think we have been in too big a hurry. We think we have paid too much attention to the polls, and that we ought to have taken more time in this body. It is said to be the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. It hasn't been very deliberative in this case. But I am glad that, although the intent was to pass this bill in a hurry--I was told down at White House, I say to the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes--I went down there at the invitation of the President. I am not invited very often down there. But on this occasion the President invited me down. He said: I have got to go to St. Louis. I can only be here a few minutes. So we had a picture taken. All the cameras came in and took pictures. Then he sat down and said: I have this package here. I thank the congressional leaders for their input into this package. I scratched my head. What input is he talking about? I knew the congressional leaders had not had one ounce of input into it--not one. This thing was patched together down in the bowels of the White House by four eminent public servants--not quite perhaps up to the caliber of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Who else was on that committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence? Robert Livingston. And who else? There was John Adams, and one more: Roger Sherman. So they weren't quite up to that caliber. But this bill was the egg that was hatched down at the White House. I can just picture them walking around there with their shadows on the walls of the subterranean caverns, walking around with lanterns or candles. And they hatched this great idea down there all of a sudden to get ahead of this Mack truck that was coming down upon them fast in the appropriations bills which provided that the Director of Homeland Security would have to be confirmed by the Senate. The purpose of that was, as Senator Stevens and I intended, Mr. Director, when the Senate confirms you, you will come before the Senate Appropriations Committee. So much for that. The thing that is being missed probably most in this deliberation is the fact that the Appropriations Committee and the Senate and the Congress have appropriated moneys for homeland security that will make the country far more safe than will this piece of legislation. It is going to take a year or 2 years for this legislation to be implemented and to get this thing going. In the meantime, the people who are now out there on the borders, who are protecting the nuclear facilities of the country, the food lines, and the clean water are the same people who will be here a year or two from now when this agency is supposed to be full blown. But the President has a year in which to send up his plan as to how this organization is to be implemented. Imagine that--a year. He has a year. In the meantime, I am afraid that the people who are out there now at midday and midnight working to secure the safety of the American people will be distracted. They are going to be worrying about where their offices are going to be; What is going to be the label over my office? Where will my typewriter be? Where is the telephone going to be? What is going to be the vision and the objective of this new agency? These people are going to be distracted. I am afraid that is what gives the terrorist a good opportunity to work havoc in some way. I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada for his kind words. I also thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont who summed up in a few words, in 5 minutes, what I could say in 30 minutes, the very good reasons that we should oppose this bill. I admire him for that. I admire him for his courage, his pluck, and for his good sense. He has made my speech for me. I can just sit down. I thank the Senator from Vermont. I thank the distinguished Senator from Kansas for his unlimited patience and for his consideration and always for his good humor. I yield while he speaks.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we have come to the end of a long, long road. For nearly 5 months, this Chamber has engaged in discussions about homeland security. But for nearly as long a time as that, this Congress has not engaged in seeing to it that there is actual funding to make our people any safer from the threat of another horrific terrorist attack. It has been over 4 months--over 4 months--since the House of Representatives has seen fit to pass a single regular appropriations bill. Now, God created all of creation. He created the universe. He created the Earth. He created man in 7 days, in the Book of Genesis. The greatest scientific treatise that has ever been written can be found in that first chapter of Genesis. Go to it. Those of you who are scientists, look over that one, the first chapter of Genesis. Do you have any problem with the chronological order in which the creation was made possible, as set forth in that chapter? No. The scientists won't have any objection to that chronological order, not any. I have four physicists in my own family, and they agree with that, that chronological order. So 6 days, and God rested on the Sabbath. How long has it taken for us to pass a regular appropriations bill? The last regular appropriations bill came out of the House 4 months ago. It has been over 4 months since the House of Representatives has seen fit to pass a single regular appropriations bill. Now, God would not have gotten very far in the creation of this universe, would He, if it had taken Him that long at that pace? We have talked a lot about homeland security. We have plenty of talk. We just open our mouths, and it just rolls out--rolls out. So talk is cheap. But we have done very little. We have not given the cities and municipalities, the police, the firemen, the hospital workers, the first responders who are on the front line, we have not given these people one red cent--I will say, one copper cent--not one, to help them keep us safer from the madmen within our midst--in 4 months. Now, get that. Nothing was said about that during the campaign. The President went all over this country--from the Pacific to the Atlantic, to the Canadian border, to the Gulf of Mexico--talking about this great bill here, this magnificent product of human genius in the bowels of the White House. Not one word was said about these appropriations that have been passed by the Senate and the House that have been on the President's desk--$5.1 billion, in one instance, made available to the President for homeland security. All that was needed was the President to flourish the pen, attach his signature, and designate that money as an emergency. The Congress has already done it. He said no. So homeland security has gone wanting. That money has been there-- $2.5 billion for homeland security. That is two and a half dollars for every minute since Jesus Christ was born, two and a half dollars for every minute. So it has been a little over a year and 2 months now since America was jolted from its tranquility by the noise, the smoke, the flames of two exploding commercial airlines as they smashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. Yet in these intervening months--except for the initial help that we provided to New York and to Washington to aid in closing the hemorrhaging wounds of economic disruption and human devastation caused by the terrorist attacks--not enough has changed here at home. It is true that we have chased bin Laden across the landscape of Afghanistan. We have spent over $20 billion chasing him around in Afghanistan. And now we don't actually know where he has been chased to. We have chased bin Laden across the landscape of Afghanistan and probably cleansed that nation of the training camps for terrorists, for now. We have made some progress, I am sure, in some disruption of the al- Qaida network worldwide, but no one in this Chamber, and no one in this city, can look the American people in the eye and say to them: ``Today you are much safer here at home than you were 14 months ago.'' I can't do it. This Government continues to send out first one alert and then another. Practically the whole litany of top people in this administration has been out there at one time or another saying: Something may happen here tomorrow. Something may happen here within the next week. So the Nation has been put on alert after alert. So I ask the question: Are you better off than you were a year ago? Because of reckless disregard for the reality of the threat to our domestic security, this administration and many in this Congress have taken part in an irresponsible exercise in political chicanery. The White House has pressured its Republican colleagues in the Congress--and some of the Democrats as well--to reject billions of dollars in money which could have added to the tangible safety of the American people. This White House has stopped--stopped--this year's normal funding process in its tracks. I have never seen such action before. This White House has stopped this year's normal funding process in its tracks. This year--since 1976, when the beginning of the fiscal year was changed from July 1 to October 1--only two appropriations bills have passed the Congress and been sent to the White House--only two. That is the most dismal record since 1976; the most dismal record, only two bills. What a lousy record. But this Senate Appropriations Committee reported out all 13 appropriations bills to the Senate no later than July--the best record in years. And yet only two bills have been signed by the President. Why? Because this administration, down there in the White House--we all know who is in the White House--has told the Republican leadership in the other body: Don't let any more appropriations bills pass. This White House has stopped this year's normal funding process in its tracks and even turned back funds for homeland security in emergency spending bills that could have shored up existing mechanisms to prevent or respond to another devastating blow by fanatics who hate the United States. They do not hate the United States because of its freedoms. The President says they hate us because of our freedoms. I do not believe that. I think they hate us because of our arrogance. They have done this plain disservice to the people. They have done this plain disservice to the people in order to gain some perceived political advantage in a congressional election year, and in order to be able to say that they were holding down spending. So they kept 11 of the appropriations bills from coming down to the White House. But you watch this administration after the turn of the new year. You will never see such fast operating on appropriations bills as we will see then. We have done our work on these bills. But for the most part they have not been sent to the White House because the administration said: We don't want them. The administration told the Republican leadership in the other body: We don't want them. Hold them up. But once this new leadership takes over in January, you watch how quickly they will say: Now send those bills on down. We want to show the American people how fast we can appropriate money, how fast we can move appropriations bills--when all the while the ``we'' they are thinking about is the ``we'' that has held up those appropriations bills and not let them come to the White House. In order to avoid criticism of the too meager dollars for homeland security, this White House suddenly did an about-face and embraced the concept of a Department of Homeland Security. Don't send us your appropriations for homeland security. Send that bill up there because that is a great political hat trick. Send us the bill on homeland security. Make the people think they are going to have more security in their schools and their homes and their businesses and on their farms. So the people are being offered a bureaucratic behemoth complete with fancy top-heavy directorates, officious new titles, and noble sounding missions instead of real tools to help protect them from death and destruction. How utterly irresponsible. How utterly callous. How cavalier. With this debate about homeland security, politics in Washington has reached the apogee of utter cynicism and the perigee of candor. No one is telling our people the plain, unvarnished truth. It is simply this: This Department is a bureaucratic behemoth cooked up by political advisors to the President to satisfy several inside Washington agendas. One, it is intended to protect the President from criticism and fault should another attack occur. Two, it is intended to eliminate large numbers of dedicated, trained, experienced, loyal, patriotic Federal workers so that lucrative contracts for their services may be awarded to favored private entities. Watch. Watch and see. Three, it would be used to channel Federal research moneys and grants to big corporate contributors without the usual Federal procurement standards that ensure fair competition and best value for the tax dollar. Four, it will foster easier spying and information gathering on ordinary citizens which may be used in ways which could have nothing whatsoever to do with homeland security. And now with this new bill, with the blue ribbon that will be tied around it, the fancy trimmings that will be around that bill when it goes down to the White House and then to be invited--how wonderful, how glorious that will be, to be invited. I haven't been down there in so long. It is called the Rose Garden--into that Rose Garden, just to be there in the presence of the chief executive, the Commander in Chief, when he signs this bill into law, this new bill which showed up only last week on the doorstep of the Senate, how wonderful that will be, how utterly wonderful that will be. Insult has been added to injury by provisions that further exploit the already shamefully exploited issue of homeland security with pork for certain States and certain businesses. My, my, my, how low we have sunk. Senators seem to be unaware or unconcerned about the transfer of power that will take place under this bill. Some of the Senators who have walked down to that table and who have voted aye on this bill and who voted no on amendments that have been offered to improve it, they will have room, they will have time to remember. They will have time to remember how they were stampeded into voting without asking questions. The most glaring example can be found in title XV of the bill which requires the President to submit a reorganization plan to the Congress which would outline how he plans to transfer to the new Department 28 agencies and offices authorized by the Congress. The authority granted to the President under this title is very broad. The President can reorganize, streamline, or consolidate the 28 agencies and offices being transferred. The President can determine which functions of the agencies being transferred will be moved to the new Department and which will be left behind. The President can determine how the functions transferred to the new Department will be delegated among the officers within the new Department. The President can set any effective date he wants for transferring these agencies within a 12-month transition period. The President can change his plan at any time before the plan takes effect. The only requirement placed on the President is that heavy charter, that great burdensome charge; namely, that he inform the Congress of his plans before those plans take effect. My, what a heavy burden. The Congress does not have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of the President's plan. We have no mechanism by which to object to the President's plan. The Congress is locked out by our own doing, forced to watch from the sidelines as the administration implements this new Department. What a great Senate this is, in this hour of God. The Senate, I have to say, has let the people down. The Senate has grown timid. It has lost its nerve. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Congress would cut itself out of the loop like that. Congress is authorizing the President to reorganize, consolidate, or streamline any one of the 28 agencies and offices being moved to the new Department and to delegate functions among the officers however he wishes. And the only requirement placed on the President, as I say, is that he humble himself enough just to let the Congress know what he plans to do. After we pass this bill, the Congress will have abdicated its role in the implementation of the new Department. We might as well just dive under the bed and say: Here goes nothing. I find this to be unacceptable and unwise. Other Senators should agree. Last September I offered an amendment that would have allowed the Congress to stay involved and to help provide for a more orderly, efficient, effective transition of agencies to this new Department. The Congress would have had a mechanism in place to guard against abuses of this authority that we are granting to the President, if my amendment had been adopted. The distinguished Senator from Minnesota, presently sitting in the chair, voted for my amendment. But the Senate rejected my amendment-- incidentally, the Senator who sits in the chair had, I will say, a kinsman who signed the Constitution of the United States. How many signers were there? Thirty-nine. He was one of the signers; his name was Jonathan Dayton. How old was he? He was the youngest member of the convention, the youngest, younger than Charles Pinckney. I believe Charles Pinckney was the next youngest. Dayton was the youngest, 24 years old, I believe, 25 or 26--24, I believe--choosing instead to trust the administration to handle the implementation of the new Department without congressional input. That decision, in my view, was a disservice to our States and the people who sent us here to look out for them. With passage of the new House bill, we have in effect washed our hands of any further ability to affect decisions regarding the way the Department is organized or the functions that it will perform. The Nation will have this unfortunate creature, this behemoth bureaucratic bag of tricks, this huge Department of Homeland Security, and it will hulk across the landscape of this city, touting its noble mission, shining up its new seal, and eagerly gobbling up tax dollars for all manner of things, some of which will have very little to do with protecting or saving the lives of the American people. Maybe in 5 years or so it will sort out its mission and shift around its desks enough to actually make some real contribution to the safety of our people. I sincerely hope so. But if the latest tape from bin Laden is to be believed, we won't have time for all of that. If the latest threat assessment from the FBI can be believed, we will experience something catastrophic before that new Department even finishes firing all of the Federal workers it wants to get rid of. What does it take to wake us up? What does it take to make the gamesmanship cease? When will we stop the political mud wrestling and begin to wrestle with the most potentially destructive force ever to challenge this Nation? Let us hope that when the gavel bangs to close down this session of Congress, it will awaken us to all of the dreadful consequences of continued posturing and inaction. I know that this administration, with its newfound majorities in both Houses of Congress, will quickly pass the remaining 2003 bills, which will provide at least some modicum of real security for our people as soon as Congress reconvenes in January of the new year. They will want to claim that they can get things done. Although I deplore the motivation and the gamesmanship behind such tactics, I wish them well and pledge my help. It is long past time for us to finally do our best to prevent another deadly strike by those who hate us and wish us ill. Terrorism is no plaything. Political service is no game. Political office is no place for warring children. The oath of office which we take is no empty pledge to be subjugated to the tactics of election year chicanery perpetrated on a good and trusting people. Yesterday, a Federal appeals court upheld broad, new powers given to the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people suspected of terrorism. The ruling of the special appeals court, which was created by Congress to oversee secret Government actions involving national security, will make it easier for the Justice Department to spy on U.S. citizens by circumventing traditional constitutional protections. This court decision gives the executive branch a green light to run roughshod over the civil liberties of innocent Americans in the name of national security. The Justice Department argued that the expanded authority it is claiming is nothing more than what Congress authorized in last year's USA Patriot Act, in which Congress tore down the protective walls that had previously separated foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement activities. A three-judge appeals panel agreed with the Justice Department, concluding that the new antiterrorism law did have the effect of weakening procedures that safeguard our civil liberties. The Justice Department now wields dangerous, new power to conduct secret surveillance on American citizens for potential criminal prosecutions. This expanded power is a license for abuse, and Senators should be concerned about the consequences for our constitutional system. But any of us who wants to point his finger at the administration for overreaching its authority should also place that blame squarely on himself or herself, because it was the actions of this Senate that set the wheels in motion. As the Washington Post points out in an editorial entitled ``Chipping Away at Liberty'' from this morning's paper: The fault for the problem . . . lies not with the court, but with Congress, for the carelessness and haste with which it passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and for its unwillingness to push back against Bush administration excesses. The editorial goes on to explain that this new authority grants the Government one more sphere in which it gets to unilaterally choose the rules under which it will pursue the war on terrorism. . . .Which parts of this system need to be reigned in is a profoundly difficult question, one that Congress seems depressingly uninterested in asking. This is a war, the administration has said, without a foreseeable end, so the legal regime that handles these cases may become a permanent feature of American justice. Such a regime should be enacted deliberately, after careful inquiry by legislators-- an inquiry that has so far scarcely begun. Mr. President, this Senate passed the USA Patriot Act in October of 2001 by a vote of 98 to 1. I voted for it. Ninety-eight Senators, including myself, this Senator from West Virginia, voted for the bill. Perhaps many of us now realize that we may indeed have acted too hastily to hand over this unchecked power to the executive branch. During the debate on that bill, one Senator stood up and pleaded with us to take the time to consider the legislation more carefully before we unleashed such a dangerous and uncontrolled threat to our civil liberties. Senator Feingold stood alone in the path of that Mack truck that was barreling through the Senate, warning that many of us would come to regret our decision to stand out of the way and cheer on the rumbling big rig. I believe that Senator Feingold was right to caution the Senate during that debate. I believe we did pass the Patriot Act too hastily. As the media continue to uncover more stories about the lengths to which this administration will go to shroud its actions in secrecy, I hope other Senators will also come to the conclusion that these issues deserve more attention from this Congress. During this debate on homeland security, I have tried to convince the Senate to slow down and look closely at this legislation before giving the executive branch such a broad grant of virtually unchecked authority. I have tried to draw attention to some of the problems in this bill in the short time that we have had to examine it. I have tried to persuade Senators not to give into the political pressures that have loomed over our consideration of this bill before and after this year's election. So I hope that Senators will heed the warnings and vote against this bill, although I do not really believe that will happen. I have seen the handwriting on the wall, and I know that this bill has the votes to pass. But I hope that those Senators who worry that we are acting too hastily will have the courage to vote against the bill. There will be a lot of work to be done in the next Congress to clean up the mess we will make by enacting this homeland security legislation. Congress will have already cut itself out of the loop with regard to the implementation of this new Department. It will be incumbent upon individual Members of the Senate to attempt to shed light on the administration's actions whenever possible. It will be the responsibility of individual Members to fight to defend the constitutional powers of Congress and the constitutional protections of our personal privacy and civil liberties. There will be a lot left to do in the name of homeland security during the next Congress. I hope each Senator will remember that when he or she votes on this bill, and I hope the Senators do not treat this vote as something to put behind them. When Senators cast their votes on final passage of this homeland security legislation, I hope that they will understand and think about what that vote will mean a year from now when their voters ask them: Where were you when the Senate approved this bill? I urge those Senators who are troubled by this legislation, as I am, to vote with me against the bill. I know where I will be when the Senate votes to hand over this power, and my people will know that I did what I could to put the brakes on this process. I hope that other Senators will also send a message to the people they represent about where they stand by voting against the final passage of the homeland security bill. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BYRD. I reserve that time. Farewell To Senator Fred Thompson Mr. President, with the closing of the 107th Congress, the Senate will be saying farewell to a very talented and successful and effective colleague, a Senator who in a relatively short period of time has made important contributions to this Chamber and to our country. Senator Fred Thompson has accomplished so much that it is difficult to realize he has only been here since 1995. As a Senator, he has served on the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the National Security Working Group. In 1997, he became chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs where he conducted a number of important and controversial investigations. As a national lawmaker, Senator Fred Thompson has played an important role in developing this Nation's trade policies, including pushing for an export control policy to protect our country's national security and proposing legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He has been an active and important advocate for campaign finance reform. He has authored legislation to protect Government computers from outside infiltration. He has been a major force for regulatory reform. As chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he helped lead the fight to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in Government, and along with Senator Frist, Senator Thompson secured funding to establish a School of Government at the University of Tennessee named in honor of University of Tennessee graduate and one of my favorite Senators of all time, Senator Howard Baker. He is one of my favorite Senators of all time. He is a statesman. He is not just a politician. He is a statesman. If it had not been for Howard Baker, for his statesmanship, the Senate would never have approved the Panama Canal treaties. It would never have done it. It required a two-thirds vote, and all the polls showed the Senate was swimming upstream. The majority of the people were against those treaties. But Howard Baker stepped to the plate, at a political sacrifice to himself, and stood for those treaties. I was majority leader of the Senate at that time. Howard Baker was the minority leader. I could not have gotten those treaties approved but for the strong support of Howard Baker. It was kind of the same way for Howard Baker as his father-in-law, Everett Dirksen. If Everett Dirksen had not stepped to the plate, the Senate would never have passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was Everett Dirksen who joined with Mike Mansfield and that legislation was passed. I should point out that Senator Thompson has not always been successful in his efforts. At times, his has been a lonely voice and a lonely vote against popular measures that went against his sense of federalism and his concern that the National Government was encroaching upon the rights of the States. Even when I opposed him on some of these issues, I admired the strength of his convictions. I will miss him and his courage, and so will the people of Tennessee. In 1996, the people of Tennessee cast more votes for him than for any previous candidate for any office in the history of the State. Now how about that? That is pretty remarkable. In addition to his many legislative accomplishments, perhaps the reason Senator Thompson seems to have been with us for a longer period of time than is reflected by his actual years as Senator is that he is so associated in the public mind with politics. In 1973, when I was the majority whip in the Senate, Fred Thompson served as minority counsel on the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, known as the Watergate Committee. He was a very effective staff person. I can remember his work. Many people have also seen him on the silver screen portraying a CIA chief, an FBI Director, a White House Chief of Staff. I am not about to ask which of these roles best prepared him for his real-life role as a Senator. This has truly been a remarkable career for the son of a used car salesman who worked his way through law school while raising a family. I applaud Fred Thompson, and I congratulate him. We will miss Senator Thompson. I have watched him during this short time when he has been in the Senate. I have admired him. I admire his bearing, his manner of talking, moving about the Senate and doing his work. He is not a show horse here in the Senate, but he has been a workhorse. I do not know of any enemies he has made in this Senate on either side of the aisle. We will miss him. I understand he will be resuming an acting career. I can only say that the Senate's loss is Hollywood's gain. All of us look forward to seeing him as he resumes his earlier career as a fine actor. I do not watch TV much, and I have not been to a movie in the 50 years I have been in Congress. I have not been to a movie, not one. I have watched some good movies on television. Alistair Cooke, for example, used to have good movies. If I know Fred Thompson is going to play, I will make a point to go and see him. Retirement Of Senator Phil Gramm Mr. President, seldom in all my years in the Senate have I encountered a Senator for whom my feelings and attitudes have covered such a wide spectrum as they have for Senator Phil Gramm. They have ranged from intense opposition, as they did in our battles over the Gramm-Rudman legislation, to close cooperation as we worked together during his 6 years on the Appropriations Committee. Always prepared, always thoughtful, he was always ready to speak on any subject at the drop of a hat. Phil Gramm was always ready to talk and, oh, was he ready to talk. I quickly learned he can talk about anything, everything, and do so intelligently, and always with a good humor, in the best of good humor. It was during our years together on the Appropriations Committee that I learned of his respect for the Senate and its role in our democratic Republic. He once referred to his work in the Senate as doing the Lord's work. He has often referred to it as doing the Lord's work. I liked that. I wish I had said that first. He has also demonstrated an understanding that fundamental power of Congress is the power of the purse. For that, I applaud Senator Gramm, and I thank him. In addition to our work together on the Appropriations Committee, we have worked together on important national legislation, including the highway reauthorization bill, TEA-21. I saw that he has a remarkable talent for grassroots organizing. I watched him here today as he moved around the Chamber. I knew what he was doing. He was talking with some of these Democratic Senators. I knew what he was talking with them about. Someone said: That Senator, you see Senator Gramm, that Democratic Senator will vote against the amendment by Mr. Daschle and Mr. Lieberman. I knew what he was doing, but I respected that. During a difficult struggle on that highway bill, TEA-21, Phil and I met with representatives from a number of organizations interested in highway construction. I believe my friend from New Mexico was in on some of those meetings.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I do not intend to speak more than 15 minutes, if that much. And my colleague has indicated he will speak about the same amount of time. So I would say to Senators we ought to be voting within 30 minutes. Last July, almost 4 months ago, the Senate Appropriations Committee completed action on all 13 of our appropriations bills, each on a bipartisan unanimous vote. These bills restored essential funding for programs that the administration proposed to cut. We provided $1.1 billion more than the President requested for veterans medical care. We restored the $8.6 billion cut proposed by the President in highway funding. The President proposed only a 1-percent increase for education programs. He would turn the No Child Left Behind bill into another unfunded mandate. Our bill would have provided a 6-percent increase for education, including key funding to reduce class size. We included sufficient funding to keep Amtrak operating. We restored over $1 billion of cuts that the President proposed for State and local law enforcement programs. We fully funded the President's proposed increases for homeland security programs, but we provided the funds through existing programs that our nation's fire and police organizations support. We provided a significant increase for the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to investigate corporate fraud. We provided $400 million for election reform. Sadly, the President believes that these increases represent wasteful and unnecessary spending. He worked with the House Republican leadership to shut the appropriations process down. The House has not passed a regular appropriations bill in nearly 17 weeks. By contrast, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported all thirteen bills by July 25th, the earliest date that this was accomplished since 1988. However, without the House-passed bills, our process stalled. The Senate Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, believes in making responsible choices. It believes in governing. The President, sadly, appears to believe more in rhetoric and political posturing. This year, only two of the thirteen appropriations bills have been signed into law. The House has voted for and the President has supported a fifth continuing resolution that would extend appropriations for the domestic side of the government until January 11. This is the worst performance of the Congress in attending to one of its most basic responsibilities, the funding of the government, since 1976 when the beginning of the fiscal year was moved to October 1. Why did the President precipitate this unprecedented failure? Despite the fact that Congress approved the President's 13 percent, $45 billion, increase for defense programs and his 25 percent, $5 billion, increase for homeland defense programs, the President believes that the 3.5 percent increase for domestic programs that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved, was excessive. The President proposed to virtually freeze domestic programs that were not for homeland defense. The Senate Appropriations Committee provided $13 billion more for domestic programs, barely enough to cover inflation. The President has forced the entire domestic side of the government to operate on automatic pilot at fiscal year 2002 levels for over one quarter of the fiscal year. In a bit of pre-election posturing, the President's Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said on October 20th, ``For the first time in probably a decade, Congress has left town before an election without going on a spending spree using taxpayers' money. There's a new sheriff in town, and he's dedicated to fiscal discipline. And Congress for the first time in a decade has listened to the new sheriff.'' That new sheriff is shooting the country in the foot with his Administration's shortsighted political games. But, were the items that the Senate Appropriations Committee funded with the $13 billion increase a spending spree? No. With great fanfare, the President signed numerous authorization bills this year that authorize increase spending on important programs. Last January, he signed the No Child Left Behind Act in order to invest additional resources in important education programs for our children. Last May, he signed a border security bill to strengthen glaring weaknesses in our border security. Last July, he signed the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act authored by Senators Kennedy and Frist in order to provide critical resources to State and local governments to improve the capacity of hospitals, clinics and emergency medical personnel to respond to biological or chemical attacks. Last July, he signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to combat corporate fraud. In October, he signed the election reform bill in order to help State governments overhaul the nation's electoral system. Yet, when it came time to actually fund these important initiatives, the President worked to postpone action on the FY 2003 spending bills. He worked with the House Republican leadership to force the funding of the entire domestic side of our government onto a continuing resolution. Instead of making careful choices, the President has forced the government to operate on automatic pilot, leaving the legislation that he signed with such fanfare, to operate without the increased resources authorized by those laws. The Senate is now considering a fifth continuing resolution to extend funding for the eleven bills that fund domestic agencies through January 11, 2003. This puts the entire domestic side of the government, including homeland security programs, on automatic pilot at the levels approved for FY 2002. You must watch what this President does, not what he says. What he has done, is to force the government to operate on automatic pilot. What he has said bears very little resemblance to what he has done. The U.S. Senate is reputed to be the world's greatest deliberative body. In ``Democracy in America,'' French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville described this body as an institution ``composed of eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note, whose arguments would do honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of Europe.'' That was the Senate of 1831--an institution that prided itself on its deliberate, careful, judicious debates; an institution that possessed, as once the Senate of ancient Rome possessed, a great firmness, anchored by oratory that was as brilliant as the immense gold eagle atop the dais of the old Senate Chamber. But the Senate that de Tocqueville watched in 1831, I am sad to say, is a far, far cry from the institution that the American people have observed over the past few months. Instead, the American people have seen a body more concerned about politics than substance; more concerned about party than about the people; more concerned about the state of the midterm elections than the state of the union. President Bush came to Washington in 2001 and promised to change the tone in Washington. Instead, the President has sent an unambiguous message to Congress on virtually every major policy issue. His message--my way, or the highway. No room for debate. No room for deliberation. The nation needs to pursue energy independence, but the President has said my way or the highway. Our elderly need a prescription drug benefit, the President has said my way or the highway. The Director of Homeland Security says our nation is facing an imminent risk of a terrorist attack, but when it comes to homeland security legislation, the President said my way or the highway. Similarly, the Congress has been manacled by the President and the House Republican leadership in its efforts to fund the operations of government. On September 17, I came to the floor and I warned Members that the White House was leading an effort to stall the appropriations process. At that time, the House had not taken up an appropriations bill for eight weeks. I complained that the Administration seemed to believe that the federal government is nothing more than a ``Monopoly'' board, with the President living on Park Place, while the rest of the country relegated to Mediterranean Avenue. In those remarks, I noted that Lawrence Lindsay, the President's principal economic advisor, had estimated that the costs of the war in Iraq would be $100 to $200 billion but that spending at that level would have no impact on the economy. I stressed my concern that the White House is willing to put the entire domestic side of the government on automatic pilot in a long-term continuing resolution over their insistence that the $13 billion difference between the House topline for discretionary spending and the Senate topline is, in their view, excessive spending. I noted that the House Republican leadership, at the bidding of the White House, is willing to force all of the domestic agencies to operate at current rates over their objection to the Senate's wanting to provide a 3-percent increase for domestic health, education, environmental, law enforcement and other programs, barely enough to cover inflation. On September 24, I came to the Senate floor and I warned Members about the dire consequences of forcing veterans health care programs, education programs, transportation programs to operate at last year's spending levels. On October 2, I returned to the floor and I asked the White House why they had turned a deaf ear to the needs of the American people; and why the fundamental duties of the President and the Congress to make careful and responsible choices about how to spend the taxpayers' hard- earned dollars had been put on automatic pilot. For months, the President called on Congress to send him the Defense Appropriations bill. The Congress fully cooperated with the President in this regard. Congress sent the President the Defense and Military Construction bills at levels $800 million above the original House bills. There is no doubt that the Congress and the President can work together. When the President asked for the necessary Defense funding, the Congress cooperated. But it's a far different story when it comes to the domestic programs of the United States Government. The rest of the appropriations bills remain on hold, stuck in the mud of election-year politics. The President has sent the message that he will be satisfied to put the entire domestic side of the government on automatic pilot. He has already signed four continuing resolutions that fund the government at the levels in last year's laws. Many members of Congress, myself included, are proud to wear the label of ``defense hawk.'' But, in this new age of terrorism, being a defense hawk must also mean being a ``hawk'' on domestic defense. It must mean defending and funding domestic initiatives that will make Americans safer and more secure in their own backyards just as vociferously as defending and funding the production of military aircraft, and missiles, and tanks. The White House stall on the remaining appropriations bills means that one front of our two-front war on terrorism will be provided with funds to do battle, but the other front will be shortchanged. If we fail to pass the rest of our appropriations bills, all of our efforts here, on American soil, to make more secure our states, cities and neighborhoods, will be getting short shrift. Many on the other side of the aisle have claimed that this fiscal train wreck is the result of the Senate's not passing a budget resolution. That may make for good campaign rhetoric, but every Senator knows that a budget resolution is not necessary to pass appropriations bills. Congress was able to pass appropriations bills for nearly 200 years without a budget resolution. The Budget Act specifically provides authority for the House to move forward on the appropriations bills in the absence of a budget resolution. Sadly, the House Republilcan leadership, at the prodding of our ``my-way-or-the-highway President'', chose instead to shut the appropriations process down. The President insisted on a topline of $749 billion for the thirteen discretionary bills and has not budged. He seems satisfied to put the government on automatic pilot. No choices. No judgment. No opportunity for the Congress to reflect the needs of the American people in its consideration of the thirteen bills. No, let's just put the government on automatic pilot. Government by formula, rather than government by choice. According to news reports, the President considers himself to be an education President. He speaks before Veterans groups. He speaks about combating the war on terrorism by strengthening the FBI's investigative capabilities and shoring up security at the Nation's airports, ports, and borders. But talk is cheap. The necessary funding for these priority programs is not. Where is the White House cooperation when it comes to priority domestic funding, especially those relating to homeland security and the plight of our veterans and the state of our education programs? Remember, watch what he does, not what he says. Mr. President, as the days and weeks slip by and the domestic programs of the Federal Government limp along on autopilot under the provisions of the continuing resolutions, the four-million veterans who rely on the Veterans Administration for their health care are having to worry about whether that care will be available to them. Maybe they are not sleeping too well. While the weeks slip away, the 11,420 FBI agents who are supposed to be combating the war on terrorism are having to wonder whether they have the necessary resources to fight that war. Maybe we all ought not to sleep too well. While the weeks slip away, the government's effort to root out corporate fraud is being put on hold. Watch what they do, not what they say. While the weeks slip away, the President appears to be satisfied to forget his No Child Left Behind promise and turn the commitment to educating America's children into another unfunded mandate, another unfulfilled promise. The President is quick to champion homeland security, but his budget priorities reflect a different agenda. The administration's adamant refusal to move off of the dime in these appropriations discussions could jeopardize homeland security, no matter when or how any new Department of Homeland Security is created. Recently, former Senators Rudman and Hart released a report that concluded that the American transportation, water, food, power, communications, and banking systems remain easy targets for terrorist attacks. According to the report, ``A year after 9/11, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greter casualties and widespread disruption to our lives and economy.'' The report highlighted the vulnerabilities created by: the minuscule fraction of trains, ships, trucks and containers that are searched for weapons of mass destruction; poor radio communications and equipment and training for police, fire and emergency medical personnel; inadequate coordination and focus on threats to food safety; lack of lab capacity to test for biological or chemical contaminants; and insufficient sharing of intelligence information with State and local governments on potential terrorist threats. Not only has President Bush failed to lead the nation in addressing this vulnerability, he has, in fact, actively opposed efforts to provide the resources necessary to address these significant weaknesses. When it comes to homeland defense, the President talks a good game, but puts no points on the board for our needs. Under pressure from the White House, since September 11, 2001, critical funding to address the specific concerns identified in the Rudman/Hart report have been squeezed out of spending bills considered by the Congress. The Congress has succeeded in approving $15 billion for homeland defense programs in December of 2001 and July of 2002, $5.3 billion above the President's request. However, on several occasions in November, December and July, the President threatened to veto legislation that would have provided nearly $24 billion more for critical homeland security programs, including $15 billion from the stimulus bill and $8.9 billion from Fiscal Year 2002 bills reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee. In August of 2002, the President chose to terminate $2.5 billion of funding that Congress approved for homeland security programs in the Fiscal Year 2002 supplemental. He turned his back to funds that would have helped to save lives. In October of 2002, the White House took credit for forcing the entire domestic side of the government to operate by automatic pilot under a continuing resolution of last year's funding levels. That means that agencies like the FBI, the Customs Service, the new Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, FEMA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, agencies that are critical participants in securing our homeland, have no new resources to address known homeland security vulnerabilities. This postponed over $5 billion of increases approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee for homeland security programs. When the President called on Congress to send him the Defense bills, Congress responded. But, how about the other eleven bills? We hear no call from the President to send him the remaining bills. The silence is palpable. Under the long term continuing resolution, the veterans health care system will be funded at a level that is $2.4 billion short of the level proposed in the Senate passed FY2003 VA-HUD bill. There are currently over 280,000 veterans on waiting lists for VA medical care. Under a long-term continuing resolution, the waiting lists will more than double. VA will schedule 2.5 million fewer outpatient clinic appointments for veterans, and 235,000 fewer veterans will be treated in VA hospitals. Thousands of FEMA fire grants, grants to resolve the interoperable emergency communications equipment problem, grants to upgrade emergency operations centers, grants to upgrade search and rescue teams, grants for emergency responder training and grants to improve state and local planning would be funded under the Senate's appropriations bills. But the Administration insists on operating the domestic programs of the Federal Government under the autopilot provisions of the continuing resolution which are mindless, formulaic, and without any trace of human judgment. Has the President asked the Congress to send him the VA/HUD Appropriations bill that funds these critical veterans and homeland defense programs? No. Many of the requirements of the Transportation Security Act require large expenditures in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2003. Local airports are required to purchase explosive detection equipment to keep bombs from being placed on our airliners. To do that, they need help. Our highway program is facing a $4.1 billion cut in spending that could reduce jobs by over 160,000. Could our economy use those jobs? Amtrak could go bankrupt, throwing 23,000 people out of work and eliminating train service to 1.7 million citizens per month. Merry Christmas Amtrak workers from the White House. The Senate Transportation bill addresses these concerns. Has the President asked Congress to send him the Transportation bill to fund these programs? No. Federal funds also are needed to hire new federal screeners and to make our nation's seaports more secure. But this cannot be accomplished under a continuing resolution. The INS is at a critical juncture in developing a comprehensive Entry/Exit system to protect our nation's borders. The Senate bill provides $362 million for this initiative. But the Administration's inflexibility means that this program is frozen under the provisions of a continuing resolution just like our progress on protecting our borders--frozen! The President signed an authorization bill to help root out corporate fraud, but the continuing resolution would deprive the Securities and Exchange Commission of $300 million contained in the Senate bill to investigate corporate fraud. Let the fraud flourish for just a little while longer. Has the President asked the Congress to send him the Commerce/Justice/State bill that funds those programs? No. The Customs Service is scheduled to hire more than 620 agents and inspectors to serve at the nation's high-risk land and sea points of entry. The Senate provides the funding for the Customs Service. But, again, the Administration seems to be satisfied with government by autopilot. A continuing resolution does not fund new agents for our border. Has the President asked the Congress to send him the Treasury/ General Government bill to fund that border security program? No. Without additional funding for security at our nuclear facilities, the Department of Energy will have to lay off 240 security guards at nuclear facilities in Tennessee and Texas. These 240 guards are the first line of defense between our enemies and a significant portion of our nation's nuclear material. Has the President asked us to send him the Energy and Water bill? No. By forcing the government to operate on autopilot, the Administration wants the nation to fight terrorism with a wink and a nod. Last month, Congress passed landmark election reform legislation. $3.8 billion is authorized for grants to state and local governments to improve our election systems. Yet, there is no funding for this initiative under a continuing resolution. Has the President asked the Congress to send him legislation to actually fund these new election reform grants? No. Last year, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act with bipartisan support. But, this law becomes nothing but an unfunded mandate on our local governments if the federal funding is not there for states to implement the new act. It takes money to reduce class size, to provide teacher training, to invest in new technology and to develop meaningful assessment tools. The No Child Left Behind Act requires States to ensure that all teachers teaching in core academic subjects are ``highly qualified'' by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. But, the President's budget included no new money for teacher training. The Senate bill would increase funding for Teacher Quality State Grants by $250 million, for a total of $3.1 billion. The President's budget would increase funds for education by just $367 million--less than a 1% increase. That level gets an ``F'' in my grade book. The bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, would increase education funds by $3.2 billion, or 6.5%. Has the President asked Congress to send him the Labor/HHS/Education bill? No. Here in the Senate, Senator Stevens and I sat down and worked out a topline for discretionary spending that reflected our views of the level of spending that would be required to produce thirteen bipartisan, fiscally responsible bills. We then followed through and the Senate Appropriations Committee produced all thirteen bills by the end of July consistent with that allocation. All thirteen annual appropriations bills cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee with fifteen Democratic members and fourteen Republican members voting aye. There is nothing partisan about these Appropriations bills. I worked with my Republican colleagues, led by that very able Senior Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, to make sure that these bills represented a consensus of our members, both Democratic and Republican. There are no gimmicks. The bills have been available for all Members to see for over sixteen weeks. Yet, the lack of action in the House has shut down progress in the Senate as well. Senators should know that frustration with the lack of progress on the FY 2003 appropriations bills is bipartisan and bicameral. In a recent, widely distributed memorandum to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young said, ``A long-term continuing resolution that funds government operations at FY 2002 levels would have disastrous impacts on the war on terror, homeland security, and other important government responsibilities. It would also be fiscally irresponsible.'' All it would have taken to move the FY 2003 bills was some degree of cooperation between the House and Senate leadership, but the White House thwarted any chance of a compromise being reached. That's right. The White House--the Bush White House--the one that promised to change the tone in Washington, thwarted any chance of a compromise being reached. They did not want the work to be done. The White House spinners wanted to spin and weave their tangled web. We ought to be more concerned about how our actions will affect the course of the country than we are about how our actions or inactions will affect the direction of our polls. We ought to be more concerned about the price the people will pay for our actions or inactions than we are about the price our parties will pay at the voting booth. We ought to be more concerned about raising public awareness than we are about raising campaign funding. We ought to be more concerned about doing our jobs than we are about keeping our jobs. Now, because of the White House's unwillingness to put what is best for the American people ahead of what is best for our political parties, the Congress is forced to pass a continuing resolution to fund the operations of government until the 108th Congress. The Congress will forsake one of its most important functions--to ensure funding for the operations of the federal government--because is could not reason with this partisan, partisan White House. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember a time when compromises were crafted by individuals who had differing views on an issue. But with this President, it is my way or the highway. The Senate must not blindly follow, in the name of party unity or under the yoke of political pressure, a short-sighted path that ultimately undermines our Constitutional processes. He could not stay off of the campaign trail long enough to negotiate and help us pass these bills. Why isn't the Administration up here working in a bipartisan and flexible fashion with the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to facilitate the processing of the appropriations bills that fund domestic programs so that the necessary funding can be provided to the veterans, the FBI, the education programs, the homeland security programs at the Federal, State, and local levels? Why the giant stall, the big freeze, the cold shoulder? This Administration is setting quite a track record. Unfortunately for the American people, it is not a record on which to look back with pride. It is a record that rejects reasonableness in favor of stubbornness. It is a record that rejects progress in favor of partisanship. It is a record that puts politics ahead of the American people. I, for one, can not forget what is important to America. I recognize, as do many members of this body, the critical nature of these appropriations bills to the future progress and security of this nation. I recognize the importance of these appropriations bills to the farmers, to the teachers and their students, and to the veterans. I recognize the importance of these bills to future breakthroughs in medical research and cancer treatments. I recognize the importance of these bills to our nation's energy independence and to our transportation network. I can only pray that the Creator will see fit to protect us from the plots of twisted souls who lurk in the shadows, and I can only hope that in January, either our shame or our fear or both will compel us to act. I have very strong feelings of gratitude for my colleague, Senator Stevens, the ranking member, who has worked so closely with me. And I am especially appreciative for all of the cooperation and bipartisanship that has been shown by the members of this committee. We have a committee of 29 members--15 Democrats, 14 Republicans. On all of these measures, we have reported the bills on a bipartisan basis without any partisan differences within the committee. So I have many reasons to thank the ranking member, Mr. Ted Stevens, former chairman of the committee. I want to take this opportunity to thank him, and to also thank the other members of the committee. I also want to thank staff on both sides of the committee. We have excellent staff that works with the Members. And I can only express my very deepest appreciation to the staff and to the membership. I urge the Members of the Senate to vote as they see fit on this continuing resolution. I shall support it, although I am not entirely pleased that we have been forced to engage in this exercise in passing continuing resolutions. But be that as it may, we do have to fund the operations of the Government. So I shall vote for the continuing resolution. The House has not taken up an appropriations bill for 8 weeks. When I came to the floor on September 17 and warned Members that the White House was leading an effort to stall the appropriations process, that process has been stalled. We sent two appropriations bills to the President. That is it. Eleven appropriations bill out of the 13 have not be sent to the President's desk. This is because the House Republican leadership has put the brakes on and has simply refused to let the Appropriations Committee in the House move the bills forward. The leadership on the House side has simply refused to have that body act on the appropriations bills that had been reported by the Appropriations Committee in the House. That is most unfortunate. I yield the floor in the event that my distinguished counterpart, Mr. Stevens, wishes to say whatever he wishes. He may have the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I also want to take this opportunity to thank Chairman Bill Young, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. I enjoy working with Chairman Young. He has always been very cooperative and very gracious. He is a very courteous Member of that body, and is always very kind and considerate of me as I have labored to act as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate upon more than one occasion. I also thank Dave Obey, the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee. Dave Obey brings a great deal of experience and knowledge and is a very articulate and forceful member of the House Appropriations Committee. I enjoy working with Dave Obey, as I enjoy working with Bill Young. It has been a pleasure to work with the other members of the House Appropriations Committee on both sides--Republicans and Democrats. They have always been very nice to me. This year I will relinquish my responsibilities as chairman and will begin work with my former chairman, Mr. Stevens, and the other members of the committee as we go forward into the new year. I believe we will have difficult times ahead. But I have always been able to work with Senator Stevens. He has always been very nice to me, and very considerate, as has been his staff. While I hesitate to feel that we must probably look forward to a more difficult year in the future than we have in the past, I can only say that I hope Senator Stevens and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle in that committee enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving, a lovely Christmas, and a Happy New Year. And may God look down upon us and help us in our struggles, as we will continue to do our best, with limited resources, in the forthcoming year. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we have come to the end of a long, long road. For nearly 5 months, this Chamber has engaged in discussions about homeland security. But for nearly as long a time as that, this Congress has not engaged in seeing to it that there is actual funding to make our people any safer from the threat of another horrific terrorist attack. It has been over 4 months--over 4 months--since the House of Representatives has seen fit to pass a single regular appropriations bill. Now, God created all of creation. He created the universe. He created the Earth. He created man in 7 days, in the Book of Genesis. The greatest scientific treatise that has ever been written can be found in that first chapter of Genesis. Go to it. Those of you who are scientists, look over that one, the first chapter of Genesis. Do you have any problem with the chronological order in which the creation was made possible, as set forth in that chapter? No. The scientists won't have any objection to that chronological order, not any. I have four physicists in my own family, and they agree with that, that chronological order. So 6 days, and God rested on the Sabbath. How long has it taken for us to pass a regular appropriations bill? The last regular appropriations bill came out of the House 4 months ago. It has been over 4 months since the House of Representatives has seen fit to pass a single regular appropriations bill. Now, God would not have gotten very far in the creation of this universe, would He, if it had taken Him that long at that pace? We have talked a lot about homeland security. We have plenty of talk. We just open our mouths, and it just rolls out--rolls out. So talk is cheap. But we have done very little. We have not given the cities and municipalities, the police, the firemen, the hospital workers, the first responders who are on the front line, we have not given these people one red cent--I will say, one copper cent--not one, to help them keep us safer from the madmen within our midst--in 4 months. Now, get that. Nothing was said about that during the campaign. The President went all over this country--from the Pacific to the Atlantic, to the Canadian border, to the Gulf of Mexico--talking about this great bill here, this magnificent product of human genius in the bowels of the White House. Not one word was said about these appropriations that have been passed by the Senate and the House that have been on the President's desk--$5.1 billion, in one instance, made available to the President for homeland security. All that was needed was the President to flourish the pen, attach his signature, and designate that money as an emergency. The Congress has already done it. He said no. So homeland security has gone wanting. That money has been there-- $2.5 billion for homeland security. That is two and a half dollars for every minute since Jesus Christ was born, two and a half dollars for every minute. So it has been a little over a year and 2 months now since America was jolted from its tranquility by the noise, the smoke, the flames of two exploding commercial airlines as they smashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. Yet in these intervening months--except for the initial help that we provided to New York and to Washington to aid in closing the hemorrhaging wounds of economic disruption and human devastation caused by the terrorist attacks--not enough has changed here at home. It is true that we have chased bin Laden across the landscape of Afghanistan. We have spent over $20 billion chasing him around in Afghanistan. And now we don't actually know where he has been chased to. We have chased bin Laden across the landscape of Afghanistan and probably cleansed that nation of the training camps for terrorists, for now. We have made some progress, I am sure, in some disruption of the al- Qaida network worldwide, but no one in this Chamber, and no one in this city, can look the American people in the eye and say to them: ``Today you are much safer here at home than you were 14 months ago.'' I can't do it. This Government continues to send out first one alert and then another. Practically the whole litany of top people in this administration has been out there at one time or another saying: Something may happen here tomorrow. Something may happen here within the next week. So the Nation has been put on alert after alert. So I ask the question: Are you better off than you were a year ago? Because of reckless disregard for the reality of the threat to our domestic security, this administration and many in this Congress have taken part in an irresponsible exercise in political chicanery. The White House has pressured its Republican colleagues in the Congress--and some of the Democrats as well--to reject billions of dollars in money which could have added to the tangible safety of the American people. This White House has stopped--stopped--this year's normal funding process in its tracks. I have never seen such action before. This White House has stopped this year's normal funding process in its tracks. This year--since 1976, when the beginning of the fiscal year was changed from July 1 to October 1--only two appropriations bills have passed the Congress and been sent to the White House--only two. That is the most dismal record since 1976; the most dismal record, only two bills. What a lousy record. But this Senate Appropriations Committee reported out all 13 appropriations bills to the Senate no later than July--the best record in years. And yet only two bills have been signed by the President. Why? Because this administration, down there in the White House--we all know who is in the White House--has told the Republican leadership in the other body: Don't let any more appropriations bills pass. This White House has stopped this year's normal funding process in its tracks and even turned back funds for homeland security in emergency spending bills that could have shored up existing mechanisms to prevent or respond to another devastating blow by fanatics who hate the United States. They do not hate the United States because of its freedoms. The President says they hate us because of our freedoms. I do not believe that. I think they hate us because of our arrogance. They have done this plain disservice to the people. They have done this plain disservice to the people in order to gain some perceived political advantage in a congressional election year, and in order to be able to say that they were holding down spending. So they kept 11 of the appropriations bills from coming down to the White House. But you watch this administration after the turn of the new year. You will never see such fast operating on appropriations bills as we will see then. We have done our work on these bills. But for the most part they have not been sent to the White House because the administration said: We don't want them. The administration told the Republican leadership in the other body: We don't want them. Hold them up. But once this new leadership takes over in January, you watch how quickly they will say: Now send those bills on down. We want to show the American people how fast we can appropriate money, how fast we can move appropriations bills--when all the while the ``we'' they are thinking about is the ``we'' that has held up those appropriations bills and not let them come to the White House. In order to avoid criticism of the too meager dollars for homeland security, this White House suddenly did an about-face and embraced the concept of a Department of Homeland Security. Don't send us your appropriations for homeland security. Send that bill up there because that is a great political hat trick. Send us the bill on homeland security. Make the people think they are going to have more security in their schools and their homes and their businesses and on their farms. So the people are being offered a bureaucratic behemoth complete with fancy top-heavy directorates, officious new titles, and noble sounding missions instead of real tools to help protect them from death and destruction. How utterly irresponsible. How utterly callous. How cavalier. With this debate about homeland security, politics in Washington has reached the apogee of utter cynicism and the perigee of candor. No one is telling our people the plain, unvarnished truth. It is simply this: This Department is a bureaucratic behemoth cooked up by political advisors to the President to satisfy several inside Washington agendas. One, it is intended to protect the President from criticism and fault should another attack occur. Two, it is intended to eliminate large numbers of dedicated, trained, experienced, loyal, patriotic Federal workers so that lucrative contracts for their services may be awarded to favored private entities. Watch. Watch and see. Three, it would be used to channel Federal research moneys and grants to big corporate contributors without the usual Federal procurement standards that ensure fair competition and best value for the tax dollar. Four, it will foster easier spying and information gathering on ordinary citizens which may be used in ways which could have nothing whatsoever to do with homeland security. And now with this new bill, with the blue ribbon that will be tied around it, the fancy trimmings that will be around that bill when it goes down to the White House and then to be invited--how wonderful, how glorious that will be, to be invited. I haven't been down there in so long. It is called the Rose Garden--into that Rose Garden, just to be there in the presence of the chief executive, the Commander in Chief, when he signs this bill into law, this new bill which showed up only last week on the doorstep of the Senate, how wonderful that will be, how utterly wonderful that will be. Insult has been added to injury by provisions that further exploit the already shamefully exploited issue of homeland security with pork for certain States and certain businesses. My, my, my, how low we have sunk. Senators seem to be unaware or unconcerned about the transfer of power that will take place under this bill. Some of the Senators who have walked down to that table and who have voted aye on this bill and who voted no on amendments that have been offered to improve it, they will have room, they will have time to remember. They will have time to remember how they were stampeded into voting without asking questions. The most glaring example can be found in title XV of the bill which requires the President to submit a reorganization plan to the Congress which would outline how he plans to transfer to the new Department 28 agencies and offices authorized by the Congress. The authority granted to the President under this title is very broad. The President can reorganize, streamline, or consolidate the 28 agencies and offices being transferred. The President can determine which functions of the agencies being transferred will be moved to the new Department and which will be left behind. The President can determine how the functions transferred to the new Department will be delegated among the officers within the new Department. The President can set any effective date he wants for transferring these agencies within a 12-month transition period. The President can change his plan at any time before the plan takes effect. The only requirement placed on the President is that heavy charter, that great burdensome charge; namely, that he inform the Congress of his plans before those plans take effect. My, what a heavy burden. The Congress does not have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of the President's plan. We have no mechanism by which to object to the President's plan. The Congress is locked out by our own doing, forced to watch from the sidelines as the administration implements this new Department. What a great Senate this is, in this hour of God. The Senate, I have to say, has let the people down. The Senate has grown timid. It has lost its nerve. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Congress would cut itself out of the loop like that. Congress is authorizing the President to reorganize, consolidate, or streamline any one of the 28 agencies and offices being moved to the new Department and to delegate functions among the officers however he wishes. And the only requirement placed on the President, as I say, is that he humble himself enough just to let the Congress know what he plans to do. After we pass this bill, the Congress will have abdicated its role in the implementation of the new Department. We might as well just dive under the bed and say: Here goes nothing. I find this to be unacceptable and unwise. Other Senators should agree. Last September I offered an amendment that would have allowed the Congress to stay involved and to help provide for a more orderly, efficient, effective transition of agencies to this new Department. The Congress would have had a mechanism in place to guard against abuses of this authority that we are granting to the President, if my amendment had been adopted. The distinguished Senator from Minnesota, presently sitting in the chair, voted for my amendment. But the Senate rejected my amendment-- incidentally, the Senator who sits in the chair had, I will say, a kinsman who signed the Constitution of the United States. How many signers were there? Thirty-nine. He was one of the signers; his name was Jonathan Dayton. How old was he? He was the youngest member of the convention, the youngest, younger than Charles Pinckney. I believe Charles Pinckney was the next youngest. Dayton was the youngest, 24 years old, I believe, 25 or 26--24, I believe--choosing instead to trust the administration to handle the implementation of the new Department without congressional input. That decision, in my view, was a disservice to our States and the people who sent us here to look out for them. With passage of the new House bill, we have in effect washed our hands of any further ability to affect decisions regarding the way the Department is organized or the functions that it will perform. The Nation will have this unfortunate creature, this behemoth bureaucratic bag of tricks, this huge Department of Homeland Security, and it will hulk across the landscape of this city, touting its noble mission, shining up its new seal, and eagerly gobbling up tax dollars for all manner of things, some of which will have very little to do with protecting or saving the lives of the American people. Maybe in 5 years or so it will sort out its mission and shift around its desks enough to actually make some real contribution to the safety of our people. I sincerely hope so. But if the latest tape from bin Laden is to be believed, we won't have time for all of that. If the latest threat assessment from the FBI can be believed, we will experience something catastrophic before that new Department even finishes firing all of the Federal workers it wants to get rid of. What does it take to wake us up? What does it take to make the gamesmanship cease? When will we stop the political mud wrestling and begin to wrestle with the most potentially destructive force ever to challenge this Nation? Let us hope that when the gavel bangs to close down this session of Congress, it will awaken us to all of the dreadful consequences of continued posturing and inaction. I know that this administration, with its newfound majorities in both Houses of Congress, will quickly pass the remaining 2003 bills, which will provide at least some modicum of real security for our people as soon as Congress reconvenes in January of the new year. They will want to claim that they can get things done. Although I deplore the motivation and the gamesmanship behind such tactics, I wish them well and pledge my help. It is long past time for us to finally do our best to prevent another deadly strike by those who hate us and wish us ill. Terrorism is no plaything. Political service is no game. Political office is no place for warring children. The oath of office which we take is no empty pledge to be subjugated to the tactics of election year chicanery perpetrated on a good and trusting people. Yesterday, a Federal appeals court upheld broad, new powers given to the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people suspected of terrorism. The ruling of the special appeals court, which was created by Congress to oversee secret Government actions involving national security, will make it easier for the Justice Department to spy on U.S. citizens by circumventing traditional constitutional protections. This court decision gives the executive branch a green light to run roughshod over the civil liberties of innocent Americans in the name of national security. The Justice Department argued that the expanded authority it is claiming is nothing more than what Congress authorized in last year's USA Patriot Act, in which Congress tore down the protective walls that had previously separated foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement activities. A three-judge appeals panel agreed with the Justice Department, concluding that the new antiterrorism law did have the effect of weakening procedures that safeguard our civil liberties. The Justice Department now wields dangerous, new power to conduct secret surveillance on American citizens for potential criminal prosecutions. This expanded power is a license for abuse, and Senators should be concerned about the consequences for our constitutional system. But any of us who wants to point his finger at the administration for overreaching its authority should also place that blame squarely on himself or herself, because it was the actions of this Senate that set the wheels in motion. As the Washington Post points out in an editorial entitled ``Chipping Away at Liberty'' from this morning's paper: The fault for the problem . . . lies not with the court, but with Congress, for the carelessness and haste with which it passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and for its unwillingness to push back against Bush administration excesses. The editorial goes on to explain that this new authority grants the Government one more sphere in which it gets to unilaterally choose the rules under which it will pursue the war on terrorism. . . .Which parts of this system need to be reigned in is a profoundly difficult question, one that Congress seems depressingly uninterested in asking. This is a war, the administration has said, without a foreseeable end, so the legal regime that handles these cases may become a permanent feature of American justice. Such a regime should be enacted deliberately, after careful inquiry by legislators-- an inquiry that has so far scarcely begun. Mr. President, this Senate passed the USA Patriot Act in October of 2001 by a vote of 98 to 1. I voted for it. Ninety-eight Senators, including myself, this Senator from West Virginia, voted for the bill. Perhaps many of us now realize that we may indeed have acted too hastily to hand over this unchecked power to the executive branch. During the debate on that bill, one Senator stood up and pleaded with us to take the time to consider the legislation more carefully before we unleashed such a dangerous and uncontrolled threat to our civil liberties. Senator Feingold stood alone in the path of that Mack truck that was barreling through the Senate, warning that many of us would come to regret our decision to stand out of the way and cheer on the rumbling big rig. I believe that Senator Feingold was right to caution the Senate during that debate. I believe we did pass the Patriot Act too hastily. As the media continue to uncover more stories about the lengths to which this administration will go to shroud its actions in secrecy, I hope other Senators will also come to the conclusion that these issues deserve more attention from this Congress. During this debate on homeland security, I have tried to convince the Senate to slow down and look closely at this legislation before giving the executive branch such a broad grant of virtually unchecked authority. I have tried to draw attention to some of the problems in this bill in the short time that we have had to examine it. I have tried to persuade Senators not to give into the political pressures that have loomed over our consideration of this bill before and after this year's election. So I hope that Senators will heed the warnings and vote against this bill, although I do not really believe that will happen. I have seen the handwriting on the wall, and I know that this bill has the votes to pass. But I hope that those Senators who worry that we are acting too hastily will have the courage to vote against the bill. There will be a lot of work to be done in the next Congress to clean up the mess we will make by enacting this homeland security legislation. Congress will have already cut itself out of the loop with regard to the implementation of this new Department. It will be incumbent upon individual Members of the Senate to attempt to shed light on the administration's actions whenever possible. It will be the responsibility of individual Members to fight to defend the constitutional powers of Congress and the constitutional protections of our personal privacy and civil liberties. There will be a lot left to do in the name of homeland security during the next Congress. I hope each Senator will remember that when he or she votes on this bill, and I hope the Senators do not treat this vote as something to put behind them. When Senators cast their votes on final passage of this homeland security legislation, I hope that they will understand and think about what that vote will mean a year from now when their voters ask them: Where were you when the Senate approved this bill? I urge those Senators who are troubled by this legislation, as I am, to vote with me against the bill. I know where I will be when the Senate votes to hand over this power, and my people will know that I did what I could to put the brakes on this process. I hope that other Senators will also send a message to the people they represent about where they stand by voting against the final passage of the homeland security bill. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BYRD. I reserve that time. Farewell To Senator Fred Thompson Mr. President, with the closing of the 107th Congress, the Senate will be saying farewell to a very talented and successful and effective colleague, a Senator who in a relatively short period of time has made important contributions to this Chamber and to our country. Senator Fred Thompson has accomplished so much that it is difficult to realize he has only been here since 1995. As a Senator, he has served on the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the National Security Working Group. In 1997, he became chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs where he conducted a number of important and controversial investigations. As a national lawmaker, Senator Fred Thompson has played an important role in developing this Nation's trade policies, including pushing for an export control policy to protect our country's national security and proposing legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He has been an active and important advocate for campaign finance reform. He has authored legislation to protect Government computers from outside infiltration. He has been a major force for regulatory reform. As chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he helped lead the fight to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in Government, and along with Senator Frist, Senator Thompson secured funding to establish a School of Government at the University of Tennessee named in honor of University of Tennessee graduate and one of my favorite Senators of all time, Senator Howard Baker. He is one of my favorite Senators of all time. He is a statesman. He is not just a politician. He is a statesman. If it had not been for Howard Baker, for his statesmanship, the Senate would never have approved the Panama Canal treaties. It would never have done it. It required a two-thirds vote, and all the polls showed the Senate was swimming upstream. The majority of the people were against those treaties. But Howard Baker stepped to the plate, at a political sacrifice to himself, and stood for those treaties. I was majority leader of the Senate at that time. Howard Baker was the minority leader. I could not have gotten those treaties approved but for the strong support of Howard Baker. It was kind of the same way for Howard Baker as his father-in-law, Everett Dirksen. If Everett Dirksen had not stepped to the plate, the Senate would never have passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was Everett Dirksen who joined with Mike Mansfield and that legislation was passed. I should point out that Senator Thompson has not always been successful in his efforts. At times, his has been a lonely voice and a lonely vote against popular measures that went against his sense of federalism and his concern that the National Government was encroaching upon the rights of the States. Even when I opposed him on some of these issues, I admired the strength of his convictions. I will miss him and his courage, and so will the people of Tennessee. In 1996, the people of Tennessee cast more votes for him than for any previous candidate for any office in the history of the State. Now how about that? That is pretty remarkable. In addition to his many legislative accomplishments, perhaps the reason Senator Thompson seems to have been with us for a longer period of time than is reflected by his actual years as Senator is that he is so associated in the public mind with politics. In 1973, when I was the majority whip in the Senate, Fred Thompson served as minority counsel on the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, known as the Watergate Committee. He was a very effective staff person. I can remember his work. Many people have also seen him on the silver screen portraying a CIA chief, an FBI Director, a White House Chief of Staff. I am not about to ask which of these roles best prepared him for his real-life role as a Senator. This has truly been a remarkable career for the son of a used car salesman who worked his way through law school while raising a family. I applaud Fred Thompson, and I congratulate him. We will miss Senator Thompson. I have watched him during this short time when he has been in the Senate. I have admired him. I admire his bearing, his manner of talking, moving about the Senate and doing his work. He is not a show horse here in the Senate, but he has been a workhorse. I do not know of any enemies he has made in this Senate on either side of the aisle. We will miss him. I understand he will be resuming an acting career. I can only say that the Senate's loss is Hollywood's gain. All of us look forward to seeing him as he resumes his earlier career as a fine actor. I do not watch TV much, and I have not been to a movie in the 50 years I have been in Congress. I have not been to a movie, not one. I have watched some good movies on television. Alistair Cooke, for example, used to have good movies. If I know Fred Thompson is going to play, I will make a point to go and see him. Retirement Of Senator Phil Gramm Mr. President, seldom in all my years in the Senate have I encountered a Senator for whom my feelings and attitudes have covered such a wide spectrum as they have for Senator Phil Gramm. They have ranged from intense opposition, as they did in our battles over the Gramm-Rudman legislation, to close cooperation as we worked together during his 6 years on the Appropriations Committee. Always prepared, always thoughtful, he was always ready to speak on any subject at the drop of a hat. Phil Gramm was always ready to talk and, oh, was he ready to talk. I quickly learned he can talk about anything, everything, and do so intelligently, and always with a good humor, in the best of good humor. It was during our years together on the Appropriations Committee that I learned of his respect for the Senate and its role in our democratic Republic. He once referred to his work in the Senate as doing the Lord's work. He has often referred to it as doing the Lord's work. I liked that. I wish I had said that first. He has also demonstrated an understanding that fundamental power of Congress is the power of the purse. For that, I applaud Senator Gramm, and I thank him. In addition to our work together on the Appropriations Committee, we have worked together on important national legislation, including the highway reauthorization bill, TEA-21. I saw that he has a remarkable talent for grassroots organizing. I watched him here today as he moved around the Chamber. I knew what he was doing. He was talking with some of these Democratic Senators. I knew what he was talking with them about. Someone said: That Senator, you see Senator Gramm, that Democratic Senator will vote against the amendment by Mr. Daschle and Mr. Lieberman. I knew what he was doing, but I respected that. During a difficult struggle on that highway bill, TEA-21, Phil and I met with representatives from a number of organizations interested in highway construction. I believe my friend from New Mexico was in on some of those meetings.

Mr. BYRD. The Senator gets his time from whom?

Mr. BYRD. I promised to yield 5 minutes of my time to Mr. Jeffords, after which I would yield for whatever time the Senator from Kansas desires, after which, then, I will speak.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if I may just respond: First of all, I thank the distinguished Senator, who is the majority whip in this body. I deeply appreciate what he has said. I appreciate very much what he has said. May I say, in turn, that the American people don't owe me anything. But I will say this, that the American people are listening. And with respect to the resolution dealing with a war with Iraq, the American people were listening. The American people heard what we said. As a result of speeches--I made two or three speeches in that instance--as a result of those two or three speeches that I made, my office received 21,000 telephone calls, and my office received over 50,000 e-mails. That is an indication that there is somebody out there listening, somebody cares, somebody is paying attention. That is gratifying to me. So somebody heard. And I don't pay all that much attention to the polls. I don't think they ask the right questions. What are the right questions? I don't know what the right questions are. But those polls reflect responses to questions. And whether they are the right questions or the questions that ought to be asked, I cannot say. But I can say the American people do listen. And somebody has to fulfill the duty Woodrow Wilson was speaking about when he said the informing function of the legislative branch is as important, if not more so, than the legislative function. I thank the Senator. I am well paid. When Plato was about to pass away from this earthly sphere, he said: I thank the Gods that I was born a man. He said: I thank the Gods that I was born a Greek. And he said: I am grateful to the Gods for the fact that I live--I live in the same era in which Sophocles lived. So, I am thankful to God, and to my angel mother and my father, and to the people of West Virginia, for the fact that I have had this great privilege to work in this body, now, for 44 years and I have been able to contribute. God gives me my faculties almost as they were 50 years ago, except for my feet. I was always told the first place will be your feet; your feet and legs will give way. I am finding that to be pretty true. But I thank heaven that I was able to be here, to say what I have been able to say about the resolution dealing with Iraq and the homeland security legislation. I think we have performed a service. I said what I thought. I am on no man's payroll. I am on the people's payroll. And I wear no man's collar but my own. That may be kind of a small collar. But, anyhow, I do what I think. I could leave here any moment and get just as big a check as I get as being a Senator because I have paid in the system, now, 50 years this coming January 3. I am doing what I want to do. I don't have to do this. I probably ought to be home with my wife. We will be married, in another 6 months, 66 years, if the Good Lord lets me live. But I do think the Senator from Nevada, has made a tremendous contribution himself. He has listened to what we had to say, to what Paul Sarbanes and I and the distinguished Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords, and others have said. We have warned about this measure. We have not been in agreement with the administration in connection with this homeland security agency. We think we have legislated too fast. We think we have been in too big a hurry. We think we have paid too much attention to the polls, and that we ought to have taken more time in this body. It is said to be the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. It hasn't been very deliberative in this case. But I am glad that, although the intent was to pass this bill in a hurry--I was told down at White House, I say to the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes--I went down there at the invitation of the President. I am not invited very often down there. But on this occasion the President invited me down. He said: I have got to go to St. Louis. I can only be here a few minutes. So we had a picture taken. All the cameras came in and took pictures. Then he sat down and said: I have this package here. I thank the congressional leaders for their input into this package. I scratched my head. What input is he talking about? I knew the congressional leaders had not had one ounce of input into it--not one. This thing was patched together down in the bowels of the White House by four eminent public servants--not quite perhaps up to the caliber of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Who else was on that committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence? Robert Livingston. And who else? There was John Adams, and one more: Roger Sherman. So they weren't quite up to that caliber. But this bill was the egg that was hatched down at the White House. I can just picture them walking around there with their shadows on the walls of the subterranean caverns, walking around with lanterns or candles. And they hatched this great idea down there all of a sudden to get ahead of this Mack truck that was coming down upon them fast in the appropriations bills which provided that the Director of Homeland Security would have to be confirmed by the Senate. The purpose of that was, as Senator Stevens and I intended, Mr. Director, when the Senate confirms you, you will come before the Senate Appropriations Committee. So much for that. The thing that is being missed probably most in this deliberation is the fact that the Appropriations Committee and the Senate and the Congress have appropriated moneys for homeland security that will make the country far more safe than will this piece of legislation. It is going to take a year or 2 years for this legislation to be implemented and to get this thing going. In the meantime, the people who are now out there on the borders, who are protecting the nuclear facilities of the country, the food lines, and the clean water are the same people who will be here a year or two from now when this agency is supposed to be full blown. But the President has a year in which to send up his plan as to how this organization is to be implemented. Imagine that--a year. He has a year. In the meantime, I am afraid that the people who are out there now at midday and midnight working to secure the safety of the American people will be distracted. They are going to be worrying about where their offices are going to be; What is going to be the label over my office? Where will my typewriter be? Where is the telephone going to be? What is going to be the vision and the objective of this new agency? These people are going to be distracted. I am afraid that is what gives the terrorist a good opportunity to work havoc in some way. I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada for his kind words. I also thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont who summed up in a few words, in 5 minutes, what I could say in 30 minutes, the very good reasons that we should oppose this bill. I admire him for that. I admire him for his courage, his pluck, and for his good sense. He has made my speech for me. I can just sit down. I thank the Senator from Vermont. I thank the distinguished Senator from Kansas for his unlimited patience and for his consideration and always for his good humor. I yield while he speaks.