Susan Collins

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his support. He has worked very hard on these issues. I appreciate his comments. Mr. President, I yield to my partner and colleague from Connecticut, the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, Senator Lieberman, for 15 minutes.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am going to reserve my 6 minutes for right before the vote for some concluding comments. I probably will not use all 6 minutes. I have no objection to turning now to the debate on the Wyden amendment. Amendment No. 2944

Ms. COLLINS. And I believe there is a parallel time agreement for further debate on the Wyden amendment; am I correct?

Ms. COLLINS. And I believe the time of the opponents has expired, the time that was controlled by Senator Voinovich; am I correct?

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, to clarify our situation, if I may, if the Presiding Officer would tell me if I am correct that there is still an amount of time remaining to the proponents of the Collins-Lieberman- McCain amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, would the Presiding Officer review the time agreement that we are about to embark on for consideration of the Collins-Lieberman-McCain amendment?

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, shortly we will vote on the Wyden- Grassley amendment. First, we will vote on the Collins-Lieberman-McCain amendment which is the second-degree amendment. I applaud the initiative of Senators Wyden and Grassley. When this amendment first came up, I spoke in favor of it. I believe we do need to end the practice of secret holds. I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the Wyden- Grassley amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, we are faced with a choice. We have the opportunity to pass significant legislation to strengthen our lobbying disclosure laws to ban practices that raise questions about undue influence of special interests and to strengthen the enforcement of those laws. Even without the Office of Public Integrity, I believe we have produced a good bill. But I believe that our legislation will be incomplete if we do not act to strengthen the enforcement process. I believe, after much study, that the best way to do this is to create an Office of Public Integrity. That is not in any way to indicate a lack of appreciation for the hard work of the fine members of our Senate Ethics Committee under the leadership of two individuals with great integrity. I understand that it is a thankless job to serve on the Ethics Committee, and contrary to the comment that was made earlier in the debate, I believe that this office, by conducting the investigative portion, by assisting the Ethics Committee in investigating allegations, would actually be of great assistance to the Ethics Committee. The chairman of the Ethics Committee has expressed, time and again, his frustration that the public does not know of the work the Ethics Committee does. It doesn't realize how seriously the investigations and allegations are treated; that it doesn't appreciate how difficult it is to pursue allegations against Members with whom one serves. I suggest that this amendment offers great assistance to the Ethics Committee. If there is an Office of Public Integrity which is conducting independent investigations and reporting its findings to the Ethics Committee, I think that enhances the public's understanding of the process, the public's acceptance of the process, and the credibility of the investigations. We are dealing with a reality that public confidence in Congress is very low. It is perilously low. It makes it difficult for us to pass legislation because the public believes that oftentimes our decisions are not in the public interest but, rather, beholden to some private interest. That saddens me because I know the people I serve with are individuals of great integrity, and the vast majority of elected officials in Washington and elsewhere are in public service for all the right reasons. But that perception is a reality we need to deal with. The best way to deal with it, in my judgment, is to pass strong, comprehensive legislation which will help repair the frayed bonds between the public and those who serve the public. The Office of Public Integrity is an integral part of achieving that goal. There is a lot of opposition to this amendment. I don't delude myself to the contrary. I have learned organizational change in Washington is the hardest kind of change to accomplish. I learned that when Senator Lieberman and I led the legislation restructuring and reforming our intelligence community, the most sweeping reforms in 50 years. I have learned trying to change the organization of Congress or the way Congress works makes that reorganization of our intelligence community look easy. I recognize this is an uphill fight, but I believe it is the right thing to do. I hope our colleagues, before casting their vote today, will take the time to read the actual language of the amendment and to think about what we need to do to repair the breach between those who are elected and the people we serve, to promote and strengthen public confidence in the political process. I believe if our colleagues do that and if they care about restoring public confidence in Congress, they will support the amendment we have offered. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Ms. COLLINS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. COLLINS. Let me say a few final words about the amendment Senators McCain, Lieberman, and I have proposed to create an office of public integrity. We are about to vote on that amendment, and then we will proceed to vote on Senator Wyden's amendment. I believe our proposal has struck the right balance. I draw this conclusion, in part, because my colleagues who are opposed to the amendment are arguing two conflicting extremes, and both obviously cannot be right. On the one hand, some of my colleagues are disparaging the Office of Public Integrity by calling it an independent counsel, by implying that it would be a too powerful, out-of-control entity that would conduct unfair investigations and put Members in peril. On the other hand, we have also heard colleagues during this debate say that the Office of Public Integrity would not have enough power because it can be overruled by the Ethics Committee. These two conflicting and inconsistent positions suggest that, in fact, we have struck the right balance. We have respected the role and the authority of the Ethics Committee, but we have strengthened the credibility of the investigative part of an inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing. At the end of the day, the debate and vote on our proposal comes down to a simple question. That is, what are we going to do to strengthen public confidence in the integrity of this institution? Regardless of how fine a job the Ethics Committee has done--and it has performed well--the fact remains that public confidence in Congress is near an all-time low. I believe the legislation that we have brought forth to strengthen our lobbying disclosure laws, to prohibit practices that raise conflicts of interest and, with our amendment, to strengthen the enforcement mechanism is critical to strengthening the bond between the people we serve and those of us privileged to be elected to public office. I urge my colleagues to support the modest proposal for a well balanced Office of Public Integrity. I yield the floor.

Ms. COLLINS. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Arizona, who is a key supporter of the amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. I also ask for the yeas and nays on the Wyden-Grassley amendment.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I do not anticipate taking the full 15 minutes, but I did want to alert my colleagues to an amendment that I believe will be coming up this afternoon, or perhaps even later this morning. In any event, later today Senators McCain, Lieberman, and I will be offering an amendment to the ethics bill before us to create an Office of Public Integrity. The American people view the way that we enforce ethics requirements on each other and on our staff as an inherently conflicted process. We set our own rules, we are our own advisers, we are our own investigators, we are our own prosecutors, we are our own judges, and we are our own juries. Even though we have some of our finest Members serving on the Ethics Committee, they cannot escape the perception that the process is plagued by conflict of interest. We do have extraordinary capable, ethical individuals serving on the Ethics Committee in the Senate. We are very fortunate to have a committee that works in harmony and that takes its job very seriously. I believe we can preserve the important role of the Ethics Committee--and it is a vital role because the Constitution requires each House of Congress to discipline its own Members, if necessary, and we are going to preserve that absolutely critical role--but that we can make an improvement in the process by creating a congressional office, the Office of Public Integrity. I emphasize this is part of the legislative branch. We are not talking, as some have, about creating an outside commission of judges and former Members of Congress and ethics experts. We are talking about recognizing that the Constitution clearly places responsibility within the legislative branch for taking actions, if necessary, against its own Members who violate the House or Senate rules. But we believe that process would be enhanced if we create an office of public integrity. It would be headed by a director who would be appointed by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate. That office would conduct investigations of possible ethics violations independent of any direct supervision by the Senate. So we would be assured that the public would perceive the process--the investigation--as more credible than now occurs when the Ethics Committee is investigating allegations against their colleagues. I wish to point out, however, this is not the Shays-Meehan bill in the House, whatever the merits of that approach. This is a different approach from that taken by the Senator from Illinois, Senator Obama, and it is even different from the proposal Senator Lieberman and I advanced in the Homeland Security markup. We have refined it still further. We narrowed the authority of the Office of Public Integrity, and I think we struck exactly the right balance between the duties of this office and the duties of the Ethics Committee. This office would conduct impartial, independent, thorough investigations and report its findings to the Ethics Committee which then would retain authority to rule on the cases and allegations and decide what action, if any, is taken. This would enhance the public confidence that this investigation would be an independent one. It is very difficult for us to investigate ourselves. There are friendships, there are inherent conflicts of interest. The Ethics Committee does a terrific job in the Senate. It has wonderful members serving on it, individuals of the highest integrity. But the public perception is always going to be that this is an inherently conflicted process because we are investigating ourselves. We are playing every role in the process. What we are trying to do is create an office that would conduct the investigation. I know many of our colleagues are not comfortable with this concept. Some of them have compared it to the old special prosecutor laws. But that is not what we are doing. We are very carefully setting up a system of checks and balances with the Ethics Committee retaining all of the final authority to decide how to proceed, to decide whether subpoenas should be employed, to decide whether an investigation should go forward in the first place, and to decide the ultimate disposition of the case. The investigation would be done by this independent office. I point out to my colleagues one of the advantages of having an independent Office of Public Integrity conduct the investigation. The public now is often skeptical of the findings and actions taken by the Ethics Committee. If the Office of Public Integrity comes to the Ethics Committee and says these allegations have been thoroughly investigated, we, an independent entity, have investigated these allegations and we find there is no truth to them, that finding is much more likely to be accepted by the public if the investigation is done by this independent office. It would have complete credibility. That would be a great advantage. It would remove the cloud of doubt and suspicion that often hangs over Members of Congress unfairly when allegations are made against them. The reason the public often has those doubts is they know we are investigating ourselves. They know our colleagues are investigating allegations against their colleagues. If we insert this Office of Public Integrity into the process, public confidence in the thoroughness, independence, and credibility of the investigations would be enhanced. It would in no way diminish the authority of the Ethics Committee to take the action, make the final judgments, and indeed judgments all along the way, on this case. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``NSA III: Wartime Executive Powers and the FISA Court'' on Tuesday, March 28, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Witness List Panel I: The Honorable Harold A. Baker, Judge, U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Urbana, IL; The Honorable Stanley S. Brotman, Judge, U.S. District Court of New Jersey, Camden, NJ; The Honorable John F. Keenan, Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York New York City, NY; The Honorable Allan Kornblum, Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Gainesville, FL. Panel II: Morton H. Halperin, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, Executive Director, Open Society Policy Center, Washington, DC; David S. Kris, Senior Vice President, Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY.

Mr. COLLINS

Mr. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Aviation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, March 28, 2006, at 10 a.m., on FAA Budget.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations be authorized to meet on Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 9:30 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Neutralizing The Nuclear And Radiological Threat: Securing the Global Supply Chain (Part One).''

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 28, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. in open session to receive testimony on Air Force and Navy tactical aviation programs in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007 and the future years Defense program.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment, which is cosponsored by my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman--we would like to add as additional cosponsors Senators DeWine, Snowe, Kennedy, and Menendez.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3066, which is at the desk.

Ms. COLLINS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the Collins-Lieberman amendment would provide $986 million to help prevent terrorist attacks and to enable us to respond more effectively if one does occur. It enjoys the support of a wide range of first responder groups, representing our police and our firefighters. Our amendment has two components. First, it restores funding to the fiscal year 2006 levels for key grant programs that assist first responders, as well as State and local governments. These are such programs as the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, emergency management performance grants, the FIRE Act, and SAFER programs. As this chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service indicates, the aggregate difference between the fiscal year 2006 appropriated amount and the proposed budget request for this year is $395 million. Our amendment ensures that none of the programs listed on this chart would be funded at any less than the level that was appropriated for fiscal year 2006. Last year, for example, Congress appropriated $550 million for the State Homeland Security Grant Program, a key source of assistance to State and local governments and first responders. This level, I point out, was only half of the fiscal year 2005 enacted level. Communities use these funds for first responder preparation activities such as emergency planning, risk assessments, mutual aid agreements, equipment, training, and exercises. It is important to realize that the biggest single expenditure of these funds is the purchase of interoperable communications equipment. Therefore, a vote for our amendment is a vote to increase funding for interoperable communications equipment for first responders. Under the Collins-Lieberman amendment, we would also provide an additional $150 million for the State Homeland Security Grant Program to create a better national response system that will operate more smoothly at the Federal, State, and local level. Our committee's investigation into the preparedness for and response to Hurricane Katrina clearly demonstrated inadequate response and deficiencies in our ability to respond effectively to the catastrophic events. This is not the time to reduce the Federal Government's commitment to national preparedness. The budget also shortchanges first responders in other programs, such as the FIRE Act and the SAFER grants. We would take care of that as well as the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, one of the programs that focuses on preventing terrorist attacks. Another important aspect of the Collins-Lieberman amendment deals with port security grants. Unfortunately, the administration's budget does not dedicate a separate funding stream for port security. Instead, it folds port security in with all other transportation and critical infrastructure, thus providing no assurance at all that any money will be provided to strengthen the security of our ports. The estimates are, from the ports administrators, that we need to have $400 million for port security grant funding. Because of budget constraints we don't go that far, but we do include dedicated funding, $300 million in port security grant funding. We have proposed an increase to move the funding level to meeting the identified needs and to help us improve the security of our ports. There are so many needs, but we have worked very hard to keep the cost of our amendment down. It is fully offset. I hope our colleagues will support this proposal. It also provides funding for a number of other critical infrastructure needs, such as our Nation's rail and transit systems. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and send a message to our first responders that they are a top priority. The additional funding provided by the Collins-Lieberman amendment is an investment we simply must make to strengthen our ability to prevent, detect, and if necessary respond to attacks on our homeland. I urge support for the amendment, and I yield the remainder of my time.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life of Robert Maxcy of Waldoboro, ME, who passed away this weekend at the age of 76. Bob served 56 years in the Waldoboro Fire Department, including the last 42 years as its chief, and I would like to recognize his lifelong devotion to public safety. Chief Bob Maxcy was born on November 17, 1929, in Thomaston, ME, the son of the late Earl and Ruth Maxcy. At age 14 he began his service as a firefighter at the Thomaston Junior Fire Department. This was the beginning of his outstanding career in service to both Maine and the Nation. Upon his graduation from Thomaston High School, Chief Maxcy served honorably with the U.S. Air Force from 1947 to 1950. During his service, Chief Maxcy attained the rank of gunnery sergeant. When he returned to Maine in 1950, Chief Maxcy became a firefighter with the Waldoboro Fire Department. In that same year, he married his loving and devoted wife, Muriel. By 1964, Chief Maxcy had established himself as a leader in the department and was appointed chief of the Waldoboro Fire Department, a position in which he served for 42 years. Beyond his dedication to his department, Chief Maxcy also was a leader in the community and the State, as evidenced through his participation in the Waldoboro Firemen's Association, Knox County Firemen's Association, Maine State Federation of Firefighters, and the Lincoln County Fire Chiefs. Chief Maxcy was truly an honorable Maine man. In addition to his success as a community leader and firefighter, he will be remembered for his love of his family, the outdoors, and the Red Sox. Chief Maxcy is survived by five children, Deborah, Marcia, Marc, Dee, and Daryl; his brother, Harlan; his sister, Marilyn; his grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Chief Bob Maxcy will be greatly missed. I offer my sincere condolences and prayers to Chief Maxcy's family.

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the need to more widely invest in education is widely recognized by our Nation's employers. We have seen recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences warning that our country is losing its edge in math and science education. We have seen employer groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers call for greater investment. We have the opportunity to answer those calls by approving this amendment. Prior to my election to the Senate, I worked at a college in Maine, and I saw firsthand how vital these Federal programs were. I hope we will adopt the amendment. It will make a difference to our families, our States, and our Nation.