Susan Collins

Ms. COLLINS

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, Senator Coleman has offered an amendment that would strike the language in our bill that merges the Homeland Security Council into the National Security Council. I note that the administration yesterday in its Statement of Administration Policy, in which it endorsed passage of our legislation, expressed considerable concern about the provisions that would reorganize the President's internal policy staff by merging the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. The administration feels strongly that Congress should not legislate and make permanent the internal organization of the President's own executive offices or otherwise limit the flexibility needed to respond quickly to threats or attacks. In looking further at this issue, I agree with the concerns raised by the administration. Senator Coleman's amendment striking the merger of those two councils within the Executive Office of the President is acceptable to me. That is what his amendment would accomplish. I believe the amendment has been cleared on both sides and I urge its passage.

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

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Coleman, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. COLLINS. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this proposal amends the Cohen-Clinger Act to explicitly require Federal agencies to emphasize information security from the earliest possible stages of a new system's IT capital planning and investment decisionmaking process. The Office of Management and Budget has instructed agencies through its budget guidance that information security must be a vital part of the capital planning and investment control process. Amending the Cohen-Clinger Act to codify this guidance will ensure that the law reflects a certain threat environment in cyberspace and requires that information security be an integral part of the Federal acquisition process for the long term. Security should be reinforced as we migrate toward a more interoperable environment. I believe this amendment is helpful. It is my understanding that it has been cleared on both sides.

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

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Cornyn, I send an amendment to the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

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

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Wyden. He is always so good to work with on so many issues, and we have enjoyed working on this one as well. I want to recognize that Senator Lott was also very involved in the negotiations and working with Senator Lieberman and me to modify this amendment in a way to preserve the goal of the amendment, and yet to address some concerns we had about creating a new board, unnecessary bureaucracy, or some duplication. As I indicated when Senator Wyden first offered his amendment, I believe he is addressing a very real problem, and that is improving the way we classify and declassify documents. I know the members of the Intelligence Committee have been very frustrated with the process that they went through in developing a lengthy report, only to have so much of it redacted and to have no good way of appealing those redactions, no good way of challenging what many members of that committee, on both sides of the aisle, viewed as excessive secrecy or excessive classification. I have been concerned that the original amendment intruded unnecessarily into the President's constitutional prerogative and duplicated some of the provisions in our bill. I believe the changes we have worked out so cooperatively go a very long way toward addressing the concerns we had while advancing the goal. Rather than creating a new board to review the classification policy, Senator Wyden's amendment would now ensure that Congress has an opportunity to make comments regarding the Presidential review of classification policies already established under the Collins-Lieberman bill, and even more importantly to the Senator who has said we need an independent place for Congress to go to bring appeals regarding classification decisions, the revised amendment has agreed to build upon a board that already exists, the Public Interest Declassification Board. The amendment would change the name of that board to the Independent National Security Classification Board. This board was established in 2001, but it is still being put into place. Under the Wyden amendment, it will have specific authority to hear appeals of classification decisions from specified congressional committees. The board would then make a recommendation to the President, which the President could either accept or reject. If the President rejects the board's decision, then the President, as the Senator indicated, would have to send a written justification of that decision to Congress. This framework helped to address some of the concerns we had about the original amendment. I will note that this is not the administration's favorite amendment, even in the revised form, but I believe we have struck a fair balance and I am prepared to recommend that we accept the amendment once we get it. I understand it is going to be here momentarily. There were a few technical glitches.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I want to give my colleagues an update on an amendment that was offered yesterday. It is an amendment that was offered by Senator Wyden on behalf of himself, Senator Snowe, Senator Graham, and Senator Lott. I believe we have reached an agreement on a compromise to that amendment, which deals with declassification. Actually, I recall the Presiding Officer, Senator Cornyn, is also a cosponsor of the amendment. We have been able to work out an alternative to the amendment. We are just waiting for language to come from legislative counsel. It is my hope, and I believe the hope of Senator Lieberman, that we will be able to dispose of that amendment this afternoon.

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

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Arizona for his amendment. It would implement five important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that would improve our national preparedness. This amendment would support efforts underway to ensure that Federal, State, and local entities all use what is known as the incident command system. I know that our first responders in Maine are leaders in the Nation in using and training with this system. They have told me how critical it is for effective response to terrorist attacks for there to be a working command structure in place. This can only be accomplished with training and organization before an attack or other such emergency. Senator McCain's amendment would enable the first responders protecting our Nation's Capital to save lives regardless of which side of the Potomac they happened to be on. It does that by establishing an interstate mutual aid compact in the Washington, DC area. It would encourage coordination and communication in urban areas. It would encourage private sector preparedness and help private industry to be better prepared for an attack as well. It would ensure that a nonregulatory, voluntary program be established to promote preparedness within the private sector, using a consistent methodology to address preparedness. Finally, it encourages the Department of Homeland Security to take a hard look at critical infrastructure, which the Department is already doing, and report to Congress about its findings. I urge my colleagues to accept the amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona, the Senator from Montana, and the Senator from Mississippi for working on this issue. I very much appreciate that. I urge adoption of the amendment by a voice vote.

Ms. COLLINS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Iraq and al-Qaida

Ms. COLLINS. I move to table the amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, in deciding to keep the NSA and the NGA within the Department of Defense, we were mindful of the fact that these agencies are combat support agencies. We do not want to sever the link between these agencies and the Secretary of Defense. We have already given the NID strong power in terms of budget, in terms of appointing the heads of these agencies, with concurrence from the Secretary of Defense. I urge opposition to the amendment.

Ms. COLLINS. I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, do you want to go first?

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I would like to split the 1 minute on the opponents' side, 30 seconds for myself and 30 seconds for the Senator from Connecticut.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, under the previous order we are now going to proceed to a vote on Senator Specter's amendment, No. 3761. That is the amendment that would set the 10-year term for the national intelligence director. I move to table the amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. COLLINS. Prior to the second vote.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided between the two votes.