Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Campbell and myself, I send two amendments to the desk and ask they be agreed to en bloc. They are a Campbell amendment for Senators Feingold, Grassley, and Harkin regarding shipments of day-old poultry, and a Dorgan for Kohl amendment regarding information on foreign animal disease. I send the amendments to the desk.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Campbell and I have been talking about the list we have presented that makes certain amendments in order and available to be offered. It is a very small list. In fact, with the exception of being able to approve a number of items on this list, I believe there are only two Senators remaining who have yet to come to the floor and offer amendments on which they are protected on the list. We ask them to do that. It is now 10 minutes before 7 in the evening. Those Senators would have had notice all day that we have been working on this bill. And, frankly, the Senate has been in a quorum call much of the day. Senator Campbell and I encourage those Senators who still have amendments they may wish to offer to either come and offer them or perhaps call us and notify us that they will not be offering those amendments, at which point we could go to third reading. My understanding from leadership is that we will not be going to a final vote tonight. Perhaps this will require a rollcall vote. It is not certain at this moment. But, in any event, to get to third reading, we need to clear these amendments. I believe there are only two Senators for whom we are waiting. If they intend to offer the amendments, we hope they are on their way to the floor or that their staffs will find them and get them to the floor of the Senate so they can do that. If they are deciding not to offer those amendments, please notify us. We want to go to third reading.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if, in fact, there is a way to get to third reading, and then do a voice vote on final passage, of course we would prefer to do that as well. My expectation is we will have a recorded vote on the conference report when it comes back from the conference, but I do not know that that has yet been cleared. My understanding was that a voice vote had not been cleared some while ago. In any event, if we can finish the amendments and get to third reading, it will have represented, in my judgment, significant progress. This is a fairly sizeable appropriations bill. The ability to do this bill today on the floor of the Senate would, I think, signal to the American people that this is a new seriousness of purpose in the Senate. We want to obviously do our business, and do it the right way, but we want to express to the American people that we are willing to work together and get things done. This country suffers from a pretty serious crisis as a result of the terrorist acts. We want to demonstrate to the American people that we can go back to work and we can get this work done in an expeditious way. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared by myself and our side. Also, I understand it has been cleared by the Republican side. I ask the amendment be agreed to.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the Senator's bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in this legislation we have doubled the amount of funding to $10 million that the Customs Service would have to combat the issue of forced child labor practices. All of us understand what is happening with respect to child labor around the world. It is not fair competition. It is not fair for people to use child labor and ship their products to our marketplace in the United States and call it fair trade. We have had testimony at hearings in the Senate in years past of young children, 8, 10, 12 years old, working in carpet factories in some parts of the world, in which those who run the carpet factories have actually taken gunpowder and burned the fingers of these young children. They burn the fingertips of the children in order to create burn scars so that the children who use needles to work on these carpets and rugs will not injure themselves. It won't hurt because now they are scarred and burned from these deliberate burns caused by their employers. Is that something we want to allow to happen in this world? I don't think so. Do we want to buy from people making products by employing 10- and 12-year-old kids whose fingers they have burned so they can sew rugs and ship them to America to be bought in Pittsburgh, Fargo, Minneapolis, and other cities? No. It is not the right thing. So we double the amount of money to deal with child labor. We need to investigate child labor and prohibit the import of goods from other countries into this country when those goods are made by forced child labor. We add $25 million in this piece of legislation for a new northern border initiative to hire additional Customs Special Agents, inspectors, and canine enforcement teams to enforce our trade laws and to protect our borders. In light of the tragic events a week ago yesterday, this is merely a down payment, I am sure, on a much larger requirement for the Customs Service with respect to security on all of our borders. But I fully expect many of these needs will be addressed by the emergency appropriation we enacted last week. We are very concerned about the security of America's borders. We know there are known terrorists around the world who try to move through our borders and become part of terrorist cells in our country. We also know that, for example, on New Year's Eve in the year 1999, as we entered the new millennium, at one of our border points on the northern border in the State of Washington a terrorist was apprehended who apparently was intending to hijack planes in Los Angeles. Part of the plot was, as I understand it, to take down significant structures on the west coast. That was foiled by Customs who apprehended this terrorist. That terrorist picked the wrong border to come across, or at least the wrong border point. All terrorists and others who want to bring contraband across our border know that in many locations in this country across the northern border, the only thing that precludes them from moving across the border after 10 o'clock at night, when the border station closes, is an orange rubber cone sitting in the middle of the road. At 10 o'clock they put out the cone, and the next morning they take it in, and they are open for business. The way you get in when there is an orange cone is to simply move the cone. That is the problem at many northern border ports. The ports of entry don't have adequate security, and we must have a northern border initiative to make sure we do something about that. This bill also funds the Internal Revenue Service. We had a rather disturbing report a while ago by the Inspector General for Tax Administration at the Internal Revenue Service. What it said was this: The Inspector General put together four tax questions and sent people out across the country to ask those questions in taxpayer assistance areas of the IRS. Here is what they found. These are not massively difficult tax questions. The Inspector General sent Federal employees out posing as regular folks to ask questions of the IRS. They found that 73 percent of the time they either got the wrong answer, an incomplete answer, or no answer. In a number of cases, they were treated very rudely. In other cases, they were left to wait and were not waited on. I read that Inspector General report. It was done last spring. I was so furious. I read it at night at home. I was furious when I finished. If you can't have an agency that gives taxpayer assistance to taxpayers asking for help and get the right answer from the agency that is administering the program, how can you expect American taxpayers to comply? It is wrong. So I put a million dollars in this appropriations bill and I called the IRS Commissioner, someone for whom I have great respect. I think he has the capability to turn this agency around. He has been there now for a bit. He has plans that I think can make a big difference in this agency. I said I am going to have the Inspector General do this 12 times beginning in January next year and issue 12 reports. If they are embarrassing--and they are to me, and I hope to you--I want to see an improvement. If we have 12 reports of people going to the IRS offices asking for help and we don't see improvement over the year, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the folks who are running this agency and trying to make this happen. Again, I have great respect for Commissioner Rossotti. He comes from a business background, and I know he will do a good job. He made the point to me of why this happened and he has taken action to change this. He asked that I defer this monthly investigation to January rather than start it in October. I said that is fine. But we are going to have 12 reports to the Congress, and I am going to read every one of them. If I see reports that say 73 percent of the time people ask for help from the Internal Revenue Service they get wrong answers, there is going to be hell to pay because we are spending a lot of money to make sure the American people get the service they deserve. The name of this agency has three words: Internal Revenue Service. If we don't put ``service'' back in the Internal Revenue Service, how long will we expect the American people to voluntarily comply with this tax system? It is a tiny issue, but it is one about which I feel very strongly. We need to make this work for people. When each of these reports is issued, I will come to the floor and share them with my colleagues. I hope they share--as I am sure they do--my concern about an agency that gets it wrong 73 percent of the time when they are being asked for taxpayer assistance. We add $5 million for a new program for grants for drug testing and treatment and intervention to State and local authorities and Indian tribes for criminal justice populations. One of the things we know about these issues of incarceration and recidivism, and so on, is that people who go into our prisons and jails with a drug problem and who don't get treatment are going to come out with a drug problem, and they are likely to commit crimes to buy the drugs to continue taking these drugs. The fact is, we have to be smart about this and start making sure that people who are drug addicted as they go into jails and prisons are required to get drug treatment. It doesn't make any sense to throw them in jail and put them back on the street with a drug addiction. You are just begging for more crime. And they will comply. That hurts this country, and we can do much better. We add $100 million above the President's request of $130 million for the continued modernization of the Customs Service's new processing system called the Automated Commercial Environment. That is an important system. The current system is melting down on us. We have so much trade back and forth across our borders, the system simply can't handle it. We are trying to fund this system called ACE. We are doing it in a way that I believe will be very helpful to facilitating trade across our borders. While I am talking about Customs, let me make another point about which I feel strongly. The Customs Service doesn't have a Customs Commissioner. Think of that. We have this heinous terrorist act committed against our country, mass murders, unspeakable horrors in our country. When we deal with these counter terrorism acts and put together a program of counter terrorism, one critical element is our U.S. Customs Service. They are on the border, and we have to secure our borders to try to prevent terrorists from coming into the country. We have to have a Customs Service working with all the law enforcement agencies to do this. The Customs Service previously ran, and is now contributing to the Sky Marshal Program. That is up and operating in a skeleton way. The Customs Service is an integral part of counter terrorism. We do not have a Commissioner at the Customs Service. We have a nominee, but there are two holds on the nominee. One has been dropped. In the Senate, there is still, as I understand it, a hold on the nominee. We have a person whom I think is perfectly qualified to run the Customs Service. This is an agency without a head, and we have someone in the Senate who is holding the nomination and will not allow us to confirm him. The result is an agency without an agency head at a time when we clearly need the direction and leadership that agency head can give at this point. As I understand it, the hold that exists--I will not use the name of my colleague, but it has been in the papers. One of our colleagues has put a hold on the President's nominee to head Customs because our colleague objects to his reluctance to commit to the use of a new security detection technology. There is a debate about technology. There was another hold that was released, I believe, last week over a textile issue. Look, this is not the time to be holding up the President's nominees. It is not the time to hold up a nominee who is so critical as the head of the U.S. Customs Service. Let's get this nomination before the Senate and confirm this nominee so this person can be down at the White House and with the administration bringing the Customs Service fully into this circle of agencies that are going to be critical in combating terrorism. We ought to do that today. In fact, I say to my colleagues, if those who have been involved--at least the one that has been concerned about this and has a hold--I wish that hold can be eliminated so that we can bring this nomination before the Senate. I want to confirm this person. I would like to do it today. It is not my decision to bring it before the Senate, but I hope the committee chair and ranking member will talk to the Senator who is holding up the Customs Service nominee and let's get that done. The President has selected a good person. If we have some disagreements with him, go ahead and disagree with him down the road on some specific technology issues, but this agency needs a head right now. I hope we can do that, if not today perhaps tomorrow. Let me mention a couple of other items we have included in this appropriations bill. We direct the General Services Administration to initiate a pilot project to place automated external defibrillators, devices called AEDs, in Federal buildings and provide training for their use to more effectively save lives. Most of us know what the automated external defibrillators are now. They are now no bigger than the size of a laptop computer. They save many lives and can be operated by someone with almost no training. If we have these in public buildings, and if someone has a heart attack and their heart stops, we can save a large number of lives having these devices available. That has clearly been demonstrated. We are going to have a pilot project with the General Services Administration to do that. We fully fund the request for the Office of National Drug Control Policy Youth Antidrug Media Campaign. We add $20 million to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program. That has a total of $226 million. We add $10 million to the Drug-Free Communities Act, which is a total of $50.6 million. We fund the courthouse projects that were requested by the President, and we provide funds for an additional six courthouses to continue addressing the significant backlog in courthouse funding in this country. The projects we have funded fully adhere to the priority list that was developed by OMB, GSA, and the Administrative Offices of the Court. In other words, we have not pulled projects out because someone wanted them. We actually followed the priority list, which we should do. We maintain current law requiring the provision of contraceptive coverage in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. We make permanent the ongoing project allowing Federal agencies to provide child care services for its lower paid employees, and we provide a 4.6- percent pay raise for Federal civilian employees to maintain pay parity between Federal, civilian, and military employees. Mr. President, I mentioned that in the Treasury Department bill we placed a priority on the Treasury Department's law enforcement needs, as well as support for State and local law enforcement needs. We provide $33 million for the third and final year of a Secret Service staff hiring plan to address the overtime and personnel retention problems. They were spending a massive amount of time in overtime compensation because they simply did not have the personnel they needed. We are in the third and final year of the money to restore that. We increase the administration's request for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to enforce existing gun laws. There are no cuts or deviations in this area from the President's budget request. We simply have complied with the President's budget request. We emphasize in the bill the need for the ATF's Gang Resistance Education and Training Program, called GREAT, by including $3 million in addition. The GREAT Program, is a wonderful program. I went to a school in Anacostia one day with some ATF folks. They showed me, at the end of the program, what the kids had been through. They had a graduation ceremony for these kids. It is a great program. We have to get to these kids with information, and we can make a big difference. We increase by $5 million the integrated violence reduction strategy to allow ATF to investigate more comprehensively the National Instant Check System so we make sure felons do not purchase guns. There are a lot of gun debates in this country, but no one in this country wants a gun dealer to sell a gun to a convicted felon. So our effort is to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. Title II of this legislation is the Postal Service title. We provide $143.7 million for the U.S. Postal Service, as requested by the administration. We, once again, include language saying to them: Don't you dare talk about going to 5-day mail delivery service. Through rain, snow, sleet, and so on, we deliver the mail 6 days, including Saturday. Speaking as someone who comes from a rural State, I want that to continue, and we insist it continue. We told the Postal Service in this legislation that they must continue 6-day mail delivery. The Executive Office of the President is in this legislation in an account called Funds Appropriated to the President. It funds, obviously, the operation of the White House, salaries, and so on. But it also funds the Office of the National Security Council, Office of Management and Budget, Office of National Drug Control Policy, as I mentioned earlier, and certain other programs. We have simply met the request of the President for funding these areas. We have independent agencies, such as the Federal Election Commission, the General Services Administration, the National Archives, Federal Labor Relations Authority, the Merit Systems Protection Board, Office of Government Ethics, the Office of Special Counsel, Office of Personnel Management--all of these are in this legislation. This describes in broad terms what we are trying to do. As I close--and my colleague from Colorado, Senator Campbell, is here--let me say how much I have enjoyed working with him. I know people view Congress sometimes as an area where there is a great deal of debate, and that is certainly true. I do not think debate is bad for the country. I think it is good. When you get the best of what everyone has to offer, the American people are best served. There are more instances than not where we come together and work with somebody for whom we have great respect, and that is certainly the case with Senator Campbell and myself. He chaired this subcommittee, and I was happy to work with him and felt the experience was a great experience. I am now chairing the subcommittee and feel exactly the same way. It is a great experience to be working with my colleague from Colorado, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. I will make two final points. One, to go back to this issue of terrorism, this country predictably is very concerned at this moment about terrorism. We have been through a frightening ordeal, and we are not yet through it. We must, as the President has indicated, work together; we must achieve national unity. Part of that national unity is to resolve that we will track down and punish those who committed these acts of mass murder against so many American citizens. We must do that thoughtfully, not recklessly. It is very important the way we go about this. Part of it is also to try to make certain we prevent future terrorist acts. Yesterday, the Attorney General indicated there might be some evidence there were other airplanes that were targeted. He indicated there might be some terrorists who are still not apprehended, and they are searching for them. Even as we, in the middle of this nightmare we have gone through, try to make certain the American people understand everything humanly possible is being done to prevent another terrorist attack, even as we do that, as the President said, we must go back to work. So part of that work is to pass an appropriations bill today. This bill is also central to the question of counter terrorism and combating terrorism because it includes the counter terrorism account in Treasury, U.S. Customs, the Secret Service, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network which is involved with the FBI in tracking all of the money back and forth. So we have so many things in this legislation that directly relate to this need we have as a nation to move aggressively. For that reason, my fervent hope is we will not spend a great deal of time with a lot of amendments on this bill, and I ask my colleagues to join me in trying to reach an agreement to pass this legislation today. Let me describe what I was hoping to do. I have great heartburn about what has been happening with respect to Cuba. The Treasury Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control--OFAC--have been levying fines against people who travel to Cuba because it was against the law. I will give an example: A retired lady to whom I talked by phone is a bicyclist, and she answered an ad in a cycling magazine with a Canadian company, a travel company, doing a cycling tour. So she joined something like 10 or 12 cyclists through this Canadian travel company, and they went to Cuba, and they bicycled. This is a retired American woman. They bicycled in Cuba. Then 18 months later she got a letter from OFAC and the Treasury Department levying a $7,650 fine against her for riding a bike with a Canadian travel group in Cuba. Another fellow I talked to received a $19,020 fine for a weekend visit to Cuba. When he was in the Cayman Islands with some friends, the friends invited him to go to Cuba for the weekend, and he did. OFAC has begun a new enforcement action against Americans who travel in Cuba. I fully intended to offer an amendment to this bill to stop that. OFAC ought to be about tracking terrorists, not tracking down retired ladies who ride bicycles in Cuba. However, I am not going to offer that amendment because I do not want slow passage of this bill. And the fact is the House has already included an amendment on this issue in its version of the bill that we will consider in conference. I am going to try my darndest to make sure--and I hope my colleague from Colorado will join me--that we accept the House provision which would suspend the enforcement of the ban on travel to Cuba so that we do not have $7,000 to $19,000 fines being levied against American citizens who have traveled there, some of whom have told me personally that they had no idea this was against the law. My point is this: I was fully intending to come to the floor to offer that amendment. I know it would be controversial. I know four or five of my colleagues who would want to stand up and oppose that amendment. I think it is not wise to hold this bill up and offer that amendment in the Senate. Therefore, I will not offer the amendment. I have two other amendments that have similar circumstances that are controversial. I fully intended to offer them, and I have that right, obviously, as do all Senators. I have the right of recognition because I am managing this bill, but I am not going to offer those amendments because at this moment it is not productive for us to divert our attention and to wander off into other extraneous debates. This bill contains much needed funds for our agencies to prosecute the aggressive search for terrorists, to protect the American people. It is very important we pass this legislation as quickly as we can do so. I ask my colleagues if they would do as I have done. If they have an amendment to this bill, if they can, if they will, work with us and let us see if we can find a way to accept it if it is not too controversial. If it is a very controversial amendment, please hold it and let us pass this legislation and come back to their issue on another bill at some point. There will be other opportunities, but I think now is the wrong time for us to spend 3 or 4 or 5 days on legislation such as this where we have such critical resources in this bill that need to be devoted to the search for terrorists and to the aggressive campaign we must wage to combat terrorism. I am going to visit with my colleague from Colorado following our statements and visit with the leaders and see if we can send a message to the country that the President says we should go back to work, all America should go back to work. The Senate is going back to work, and the best message we can send to the President and the country is to say we went back to work today on an appropriations bill and there was a new sense of unity, a new purpose, and a new understanding that the center of what this appropriations bill is about is investing in the ability to provide security for the American people. If we can do that, what a wonderful message it will send to the American people and give them some confidence about what we are doing and what we can do, not just in this bill, but it will also portend good news for what we can do on the economy and a whole range of other issues. The American people need some confidence. What better way to give them some confidence than to bring this bill to the floor and say it is a new time and we have a new attitude in the Senate? And I take the first step by saying the amendments I was going to offer, that are very important to me, I will not offer because I do not think we ought to do that at this point. Let us pass this legislation, if we can, and work together to get this completed today. As I indicated, my colleague from Colorado has been working on this legislation this morning and previously, and let me again say how much I appreciate working with him. Following his statement, I ask-- actually, while he is speaking--that those who wish to offer amendments or work with us on amendments to which we could perhaps agree, if they would understand the urgency. We have the Defense authorization bill that will probably come to the floor following this. It may even come late this afternoon. That is a pretty important bill. The Defense authorization bill is also critical to this Nation's security in this difficult time. If our colleagues will cooperate with us and allow us to get this bill through the Senate today, it will be a terrific signal to the American people that times have changed and things have changed in the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I will be joined in the Chamber in a few minutes by my colleague, Senator Campbell from Colorado, who is working on other parts of this legislation. This legislation is the product of the work of the subcommittee on appropriations dealing with Treasury, Postal and general government accounts. In the last 2 days, President Bush has indicated it is time for America to go back to work. And we must do that in the Senate. This appropriations bill contains funding for counterterrorism, for activities to allow us to track down terrorist activity. For example, in the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department we have the financial crimes enforcement network. We have a counterterrorism fund in the Treasury Department. We fund the Secret Service. We fund the Customs Service. We have a substantial amount of resources in this piece of legislation to deal with the issue of counterterrorism in tracking down those who committed the heinous acts of terror against our country last week. Although we go back to work in the Senate now, the shadow of the acts of terrorists committed against our country last week remains. We go to work now with a new purpose, a new resolve: to heal, to respond, and then to prevent these kinds of acts of mass murder committed by madmen, to prevent them from ever happening again in our country or in the world. Madam President, before I talk about the specific bill, I wish to make some comments generally about these days. I made some comments last week, and I want to repeat some of them about where we are, what all of this means, and what we, as a country, must do. There are unique moments in history, too often born of tragedy, when Americans stand together with a relentless and fierce determination to try to combat the forces of evil and to reaffirm that our freedom is secure. This is one of those moments in the life of America. A week ago yesterday cowards struck innocent men, women, and children in New York City, in Washington, DC, on airplanes, including on one airplane that went down in Pennsylvania. Their target was not just those airplanes and those buildings. Their target was all of America. It was an act of war committed by madmen directed against our country. It deserves, and will get, a fierce, strong, and on-target response. We should have no illusions about that. The campaign to rid the world of terrorism will be long and difficult; and our actions must be bold and strong, but not reckless. Now, even as we prepare to respond to terrorism, our country mourns the death of so many innocent Americans. Shakespeare once wrote: ``Grief hath changed me since you saw me last.'' The terrorist attacks last week in our country have changed all of us. We now carry a heavy burden of grief. We also carry the responsibility to ensure that our response is swift, severe, and just. But we also have an opportunity today to hold high the torch of freedom, and to say to the world: We are heartbroken about our loss, but America's spirit will not bend. When I left the Capitol Building late in the evening of September 11, and drove past the Pentagon, there were clouds of black and gray smoke billowing from the fire caused by the terrorists. And even today, over a week later, F-16 and F-15 Air Force fighter planes fly routine patrols over the skies of our country's Capital. When I arrived home from the Capitol the night of the terrorist attacks, as I walked in the front door, my 14-year-old son, at about 11 o'clock in the evening, heard the door close, got out of bed, and came to me, and said: Dad what happened? And who did this? I told my son: This was an act of evil by deranged madmen. The President and Congress will tell America that we will search for, find, and punish those responsible for these acts of terrorism. That is our pledge to us, to our children, and to the world: We will not give in to terrorism. We are all Americans; and we will respond with an iron resolve, anchored now by a new unity. That unity, and the basic goodness of the American people, became apparent to all of us in the hours immediately following the attacks, when people were reported to have waited in lines for 4 and 5 hours to give blood. So many heroes stepped forward and risked their lives to help others who were the victims of these terrorist attacks. And amidst the carnage and the destruction grew a stronger bond among the American people. It is an understanding that we live in America but, more importantly, America lives in us. So now we begin to wage war on terrorism. And we ask all other countries in the world to join us. Those countries that believe in freedom must join us in our campaign to make the world safe from these acts of mass murder. Terrorist training camps in foreign lands cannot be allowed to exist. Countries that harbor terrorists must, as the President said, pay a price for harboring those terrorists. We must dedicate ourselves, as a nation, to those tasks. Last week it was commercial airliners, full of passengers and jet fuel, used as a bomb. In the future it could be a small vial of deadly biological agents or chemical agents that could kill a million people, or it could be a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb placed in the trunk of a rusty car parked at a dock in a major city. If ever we must understand our responsibility for world leadership to try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to reduce the threat of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and to combat terrorism, it must be now. That leadership is our responsibility. That mantle is on our shoulders. Over a century ago, on the bloodstained ground of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said: ``* * * we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. * * *'' Today, in this time, and in this place, we should consecrate those words from nearly 140 years ago and let them again inspire our Nation's resolve that those who died did not die in vain. Our response to the deadly crimes that took them from us will be dedicated to destroying the ability of terrorists to wage this kind of war, and giving those who live a new birth of freedom from the fear and the impact of terrorist acts. To those who lost their lives, those who loved them--their relatives and friends--we say: Our country grieves with you. Our country reaches out to you. And you are not alone. Last week, a couple days following the attack on the Pentagon, I joined some colleagues to go to the Pentagon. When I came back from the Pentagon, I mentioned in this Senate Chamber an act by a young Marine that was so inspiring. A young Marine, as we were looking at the damage to the Pentagon, was hanging by a crane, in a bucket with a steel cable; and I was wondering what he was doing because they had hoisted this young Marine up to this open gash in the Pentagon where the airplane had exploded. The fire had consumed the building; and the building had collapsed. The cable and the metal basket, and a young man standing in the basket, was dangling from the crane up by the 4th floor. He was trying to get in a position to reach in. He reached in this cavernous hole that had been caused in the Pentagon, and he pulled out a flag--a brilliant red and gold U.S. Marine flag. The crane then lowered the basket to the ground, and this young Marine got out and proudly carried that flag and walked to where we were standing. As he walked past us, he stopped and said: I am going to give this flag to the Marine Corps Commandant. I saw it in an office. It was untouched, unburned. It was not something I could understand, that a flag such as this could have survived that fire. But he said to us, as he held this flag: I am going to give this to the Marine Corps Commandant. He said: They couldn't destroy this flag; and they can't destroy our country. And I thought, in many ways he says it for all of us. I have no idea how that flag survived. But that flag, and that young Marine, I think, said it for all of us: our determination, our resolve, and our endurance. The road ahead is going to be difficult. The road ahead requires us to do a couple of things. And those items are going to be contained, in some measure, in this legislation. The road ahead requires us to deal with this issue of terrorism in a new way, a new aggressive way. It requires us also now to turn to deal with the economy because the economy was weak going into these terrorist attacks; and there is great fear in this country that the economy could grow much, much weaker. We need to take effective action to give this country a chance to restore its economy and economic opportunity. Those are the two challenges we have, and both are significant challenges. This morning I met with the President of one of the major airlines. He told me something most Americans and I have known from reading the newspapers in the last day or so. The airlines are flying a schedule that is much less than the one they had been flying before the acts of terrorism. It is also the case that many passengers are canceling reservations and deciding not to take trips they were previously going to take. The result is a dramatic drop off in the number of people who are flying on commercial airplanes. This country and its economy cannot survive and grow without a commercial air service network. We must take steps to make certain that we rehabilitate the commercial air service network, the major airlines, and all airlines, the smaller regional carriers and the independent airlines as well, that serve our country. You cannot have a great economy and an economy that grows unless you have commercial aviation, commercial aviation that works and that connects all parts of this country. It connects to everything. Last week, we saw the airplanes grounded. We saw auto workers laid off in Michigan. Why? Because the new way to manufacture is just-in-time inventory. If you are doing just-in-time inventory, you rely on the parts arriving just in time. If you shut down transportation systems, and the parts don't come, those who were relying on those parts for their jobs are laid off. It is all interconnected. The system we have in this country to transport people and freight by air is a critically important element of our economy. We must deal with that. How does that connect to terrorism? The American people in many circumstances are very leery about getting back into an airplane unless they feel they are safe. We must move quickly to assure the safety of the American people while they are flying. How do we do that? No. 1, we will move very quickly to include the use of sky marshals in commercial airplanes. Those sky marshals are already being employed. I expect that will dramatically increase. No. 2, security at American airports must increase in a very substantial way. We will have a discussion about having the Federal Government take responsibility for the airport security apparatus. We must close those gaps that have existed, that we have known for a long while have existed in airport security. There are a series of other recommendations as well. The Senate Commerce Committee will be holding hearings tomorrow on a range of these issues. Dealing with the security of American airports and the security of commercial aviation is critically important, as well as dealing with the economy generally. They are very much related. The economy was soft prior to the acts of terrorism last week, and all indications, from the newspapers this morning and all of this week, are there will be more and more layoffs. We must act decisively and we must act quickly to forestall the further softening of the economy and give people confidence that the economy can be restored and can be vibrant and can grow once again. There isn't anything much more important than the Congress and the President joining together to do that, to give the American people the confidence this economy can have a strong and vibrant future. I studied and taught economics in college. One of the things most people forget about economics is, No. 1, there is naturally a business cycle. It has a contraction and expansion side. No one has been able to repeal the business cycle, nor will they. No. 2, even though we were going through a contraction side of the business cycle, there is some belief among people in Washington and elsewhere--in some cases a belief among economists--that the economy is made up of an engine room of the ship of state in which there are massive amounts of dials and gauges and levers. If you can just turn them all right and adjust them all right--the quantity of money, tax cuts, spending, all of these things, interest rates, adjust them just right--the ship of state will move forward. It is not that at all. It just is not that at all. This economy moves forward when people are confident about the future. When people are confident about the future, they make decisions that express that confidence. They will buy a home. They will buy a car. They will take a trip. They will do a whole series of things that express confidence that have in their impact the opportunity to create an expanded economy. Exactly the opposite happens when people are not confident. If people are not confident about the future, the economy tends to contract because they defer decisions. They don't take the trip. They decide not to buy the home. They don't buy the car. They don't make the decisions as consumers that they might otherwise make because they are not confident about the future. This economy has always and will always rest on a mattress of confidence. Do the American people have confidence about the future or don't they? If they do, this economy will grow and expand. If they don't, it will contract. It is that simple. This is not like making some sort of economic stew where we have a recipe and we put in certain doses of this, that, or the other thing. It is about instilling confidence in the American people that this economy can and will grow and expand. There are a series of things we can do to offer that confidence. The President and the Congress can work together on a series of public policies that can employ that confidence building in a way that is very constructive. It is critical that we begin that immediately. Let me turn briefly to this appropriations bill which has elements that deal with both the counter terrorism issue and also the issue of how to instill confidence with respect to the economy. This is an appropriations bill dealing with the Treasury Department. But it is much more than that. About one-half of all Federal law enforcement is in this bill. It deals with the Office of Management and Budget, the White House, the Secret Service, U.S. Customs, GSA, and a whole range of Federal agencies. I will talk a bit about what this bill does and why it is brought to the floor in the manner we have brought it to the floor. First, let me again say that central to this bill is the funding of a range of issues that are important to the current discussion we are having about counter terrorism. The counter terrorism fund within the Treasury Department is critical. We have increased that fund in this appropriations bill, as well as the funding for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which has the capability and the expertise to track terrorists. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Center is the same. It has the important capability of tracking the finances and the banking transactions these terrorists use. The U.S. Customs Service is a very large agency that has the responsibility of protecting our borders. That is obviously critical to the counter terrorism efforts. If we are not able to have some basic control over our borders, we don't have the capability of keeping terrorists out. We all understand the role of the Secret Service in protecting the President and vital public officials in our country, the many other duties they perform. So this legislation is important legislation. It is timely. We have brought it to the Senate today hoping we could, in this new spirit of unity, move this legislation as quickly as possible. The subcommittee has worked on this bill. We brought it to the full Appropriations Committee. That committee has marked this bill up, and this bill now is a recommendation of the full Appropriations Committee of the Senate. I am pleased to offer it today. This bill contains a total of $32.3 billion in new budget authority. Of that amount, $15.6 billion is for mandatory accounts. The committee recommendation is within the 302(b) allocations which come from the budget we passed. It strikes a balance between our priorities, the administration's initiatives, and the agencies requirements. My colleague, Senator Campbell, who will be in the Chamber in a bit, is now working on a range of these things to try to get them cleared; assisted by his staff, Pat Raymond and Lula Edwards, in putting this bill in the condition we now have it, as well as my staff, Chip Walgren, Nicole Rutberg, and Matthew King, who is detailed to us from U.S. Customs. It is a collaborative bipartisan piece of legislation which reflects both congressional and administration priorities. The bill consists primarily of salaries and expense accounts for a good many agencies. The majority of the increases in this legislation are for agencies to allow them to maintain current levels. The initiatives I will highlight are just a few initiatives that are very important. (Mr. BAYH assumed the chair.)

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send a substitute amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Mr. Campbell, which is the text of the Senate committee-reported bill. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to, that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, that the amendment be considered as original text for the purpose of further amendment, and that no points of order be considered waived by virtue of this agreement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk offered by Senator Johnson.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of our colleagues, Senator McConnell, today offered an amendment. I believe that amendment dealing with the issuance of war bonds is now pending. Another of our colleagues has a proposal in the form of an amendment dealing with what are called unity bonds. That is Senator Johnson from South Dakota. He asked that this be introduced on his behalf, and as manager I will do so. I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the McConnell amendment.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I think both of my colleagues, Senator McConnell and Senator Johnson, have offered constructive ideas. They come at it in a slightly different way, but their amendments are very similar. It is my hope that perhaps they can get together and bring their amendments together, and together offer it today as well. I don't know whether we will finish this bill today. My hope is that we can find a way to actually finish this legislation today. I don't know that we have any requirement for a recorded vote on our side. I don't know whether they have a requirement on the Republican side. But my hope is that perhaps if we can finish this bill today, we can have a vote and perhaps seek a rollcall vote on the conference when the conference report comes back. But that is up to the members of both caucuses. We will not make that request at this moment. I hope that perhaps other people will consider that. We have a number of amendments that have been discussed. We are now in the process of trying to determine what the list of amendments will be, and we hope to have that at some point. I would like to believe that we can, if we work hard, deal with the amendments we know of on our side and the other side, and try to complete this bill pretty much this evening. Mr. President, I will wait for a bit. I have a managers' amendment, a managers' package that I will send to the desk in a few minutes. It has been cleared by my colleague from Colorado. I know he is working on some other business relating to this bill off the Senate Chamber. Let me, for a moment, while I am waiting for my colleague to come, and before I offer the managers' package, speak as in morning business, if I might, for 5 minutes. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me talk, just for a moment, about the agenda in the Senate. Part of that agenda is, of course, what we are doing in this Senate Chamber today; that is, as President Bush is indicating to the American people, we are getting back to work. It is what we want to have happen in this country. What happened last week was an unspeakable horror visited upon us by terrorists. It took so many thousands of lives of innocent Americans. We grieve for them. But the President said: We must go back to work. And so we must, in the Senate as well. Our work largely remains the appropriations bills that we must complete. We are required to complete them by October 1. It is almost certain we will not be able to do that with all the appropriations bills, but we need to work hard to make that happen. Today we bring one appropriations bill to the floor of the Senate; and that is the Treasury, Post Office, general government bill. It is a very important piece of legislation because, as I indicated, it contains money for counterterrorism, it contains money for about one- half of the Federal law enforcement system, including the Customs Service, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Secret Service, and so many other vital functions. I think if we could pass this legislation today, or no later than Friday morning--but perhaps this afternoon--it would send a wonderful signal to the American people that when the President said, let's all get back to work, the Senate took that seriously, and we have gotten back to work, and we have moved a piece of legislation today that represents one very important subcommittee on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I know my colleague, the chairman of the full committee, Senator Byrd, and the ranking member, Senator Stevens, have worked very hard. I am so proud to serve with them on the Appropriations Committee. They work very hard to try to get these appropriations bills moving and get them through the Senate. If we can get this piece of legislation done today, I think it will be a great signal to send to the American people. Part of the agenda, and the immediate part for us, is to pass appropriations bills. But there are, it seems to me, three significant issues that the Senate and the Congress and the American people must grapple with in a very serious way, with perhaps more determination than we have had for a long while as a nation. One is the issue of terrorism. We now know that terror visits this land in a fashion that we have never before thought possible. The result is that we must not only recover from the acts of terrorism that occurred last week, we must work very hard to prevent those kinds of acts of terrorism from being committed in the future. We know there are cells of terrorists that operate in this country. We know there are training camps for terrorists in other countries. We know there are people who very much would like to strike right at the heart of this country. So we must wage a war against terrorism, as President Bush has indicated. We must do so thoughtfully, not recklessly. We must do so in a vigilant way, every day, in every way, to try to be sure, as an American people, that we retain our freedoms but, at the same time, we try to reduce the risk of terrorist acts. It is going to cost some money to do so. If we are, for example, going to put sky marshals on commercial airplanes flying in the country, that takes manpower, it takes money, it takes resources, yet we do not have much of a choice. If we are going to beef up security at airports so that people who are flying on commercial airplanes in this country have a feeling of safety and that we have substantially tightened security, that is going to require some money, but we do not have much choice. If we are going to give the opportunity to our intelligence community, and the FBI, the CIA, and the law enforcement community--if we are going to give them the tools they need to try to take down these terrorist cells, and to try to track down the terrorists who committed these acts, and to track down terrorists who might commit future acts and prevent those acts from occurring, it is going to require some money and some resources. I think all of us in Congress have to be willing to do that. I know there are some recommendations that will be controversial with respect to this war that we wage on terrorism. The Attorney General made a recommendation the other day that I know will be controversial, and yet I do not think we have much choice in this matter. He talked about the circumstance that now exists when you get a wiretap order from the Federal court that allows you to wiretap only with respect to one telephone instrument the conversations of a suspected terrorist. It seems to me, as the Attorney General has suggested, that if you have someone who is a suspected terrorist, and you have been able to make that case to a Federal court and are able to get a Federal court order, it ought not just apply to one telephone, it ought to apply to the phone calls made by that suspected terrorist from whatever telephone that suspected terrorist uses. That is an example of the kind of policy changes we are going to have to consider, some of which will be controversial, but we do not have much choice if we are going to protect this country. I do not want America to have to give up a lot of civil liberties in order to meet these protections that we now need, but we also need to understand that we need, as Americans, to be vigilant--all of us. It is not just about law enforcement, it is about all of us being vigilant and understanding that if we see something that is unusual, if we see something that we think should offer us concern, that it be reported. So this war on terrorism is a very serious--a deadly serious--war that will be waged by all of us to try to prevent future terrorist acts in this country. Even as we focus on that issue--terrorism, counterterrorism, rooting out the terrorists, finding out who did what was done last week with such madness in our country, and punishing them, and trying to prevent future acts--even as we do that, we have a couple of other things that are of paramount importance; and that is, we need to provide some additional vibrancy and restore life to this country's economy. Even before the deadly acts last week, our economy was softening, and that softening of the American economy was causing significant problems. What happened last week has caused significant shock to the American economy. As a result of that shock, many of us worry a great deal that the confidence in this country's economy will suffer, the American people will lose confidence, and that we will see a further spiraling of economic difficulties. So it is very important for all of us--the President and the Congress, Republicans and Democrats--to work to see if we can begin to pump some life into this economy. That means that almost certainly we will have to consider some kind of economic stimulus program, some kind of fiscal policy that matches what the Federal Reserve will do in monetary policy that provides some life and some buoyancy to an economy that has been in trouble. The most important thing we can do is offer hope to the American people that in the long term the American economy is one to invest in; this is an economy of hope, optimism, and economic growth in the long term. We go through periods of upturns and downturns. There are inevitable contractions and expansions in the American economy. That will never change. But we were going through a contraction at about the same time we were hit with these disasters last week, and that spells real trouble. All of us need to catch this economy very quickly and try to provide some new life and vibrancy to it. I think the President will find willing hands in Congress, wanting to help him lift the kinds of policies necessary to boost this economy. Some are talking, I know, about, for example, tax cuts, a capital gains tax cut. Frankly, I do not think we ought to be talking about a tax cut that will persuade people to sell stock at the moment. If you substantially create more demand for selling stock at a time that the stock market is moving downward, you are creating exactly the wrong influences. So a capital gains reduction is not, in my judgment, the right medicine; at least it is the wrong medicine for this illness. I think, for example, investment tax credits might be something that could provide some stimulus. There are a whole series of things you could put in a menu that you could conceive would provide stimulus to this economy. But I think we have to have that discussion. And we have to work with President Bush and the Congress to put something together that says to the American people: We understand this economy has some difficulty. We are going to move quickly and decisively to respond to it, to give you hope that this country's economy will have a bright future and this country's economy will continue to grow. In addition to all of that, what happened in this country ought to remind all of us that there is, in fact, an urgency to write an energy policy for America. Without energy, this country doesn't work. Without energy, we don't have an economy. Without energy, America's lights are off. America's machines are shut down. The American economic engine doesn't run. We are a country that consumes an enormous amount of energy with a set of energy policies that are very vulnerable to terrorists. We are far too dependent on foreign sources of energy, and we have a system of energy for our country that is far too vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks. We need a new domestic energy policy, one that says, yes, we are going to produce more, more oil and more natural gas, not necessarily from the most fragile lands in the world. We don't need to do that. Yes, we are going to produce more. We are going to produce more coal, and we will do that using clean coal technology. We don't have to sacrifice our environment even as we use more coal. Importantly, we are also going to begin to conserve. Conservation is a very important ingredient in an energy policy that works. We also need to begin to focus more of our resources and more of our determination to find renewable and limitless sources of energy. It makes good sense for us to take the energy from the wind. The new technology wind turbines are remarkable. Why not use that energy from the wind that is limitless and renewable? It makes good sense to take a drop of alcohol from a kernel of corn. You extend America's energy supply with that alcohol, and you still have the protein feedstock left from the corn. It makes good sense to do things in a different way. Yes, we need to produce more, more oil, more natural gas, and more coal. Yes, we need to do that while we pay attention to this country's environment. We can and must do that. But also we need conservation. We need more efficiency of appliances, and we need renewable and limitless sources of energy developed in a very significant way. I say that because when we talk about these three elements of public policy that require an urgency on the part of Congress, dealing with counterterrorism, trying to provide lift to an economy that is in trouble, and writing an energy bill that makes us less vulnerable to terrorist attacks and the shutoff of the supply of oil from the Middle East, all of these represent an urgency that Congress must tackle. We must do this in a way that makes sense. This can't be business as usual. It can't be, ``The President believes this and we believe that. Let's have a fight for 5 or 6 months.'' It must be taking from the President and from Members of Congress the best of what all have to offer and from that developing a public policy that will strengthen our country, strengthen our country in the area of fighting terrorism, in trying to give our economy the lift it needs at this point and in making us less dependent on a source of energy that is vulnerable. All of these represent an agenda that is critical to our country. Could I talk about other things? Yes, there are plenty of other things yet to do. We know we need the kinds of things we were debating before the terrorist act last week. We were debating campaign finance reform, a Patients' Bill of Rights, the cost of prescription drugs. All of those things are important. None of them have lost their importance in the scheme of trying to do the people's business in the Congress. But there is an urgency to several of the elements of public policy that we must pay attention to first: terrorism, the economy, and energy. I, for one, pledge to this President and my fellow Members of the Senate that we must come together in a way that we have never before done--at least in recent years--to grab these policy issues and try to find the best that everyone in the Chamber has to offer and work with the President to make the changes necessary to strengthen America. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the pending amendment is the Johnson amendment; is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Johnson amendment be set aside.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the Senator's bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if my colleague from Montana will yield for a question, I heard the statement by my colleague from Montana, and I couldn't agree more. It is critically important at this point in time to have this Congress confirm the President's nominee for the head of Customs. The Customs Commissioner job has been open for some long while. The President, in my judgment, submitted the name of someone who is a well-qualified person who will do a good job. It is hung up. There is a hold on it over some other issue. It doesn't make any sense. The Customs Service at this point is right at the center with a range of other agencies having to deal with this terrorist threat. A significant amount of our law enforcement is embedded in the Customs Service. We need good leadership. The Senator from Montana says the Acting Commissioner is a good guy. I agree with that. I have great confidence in him. But there is nothing quite like having someone there who has been confirmed by the Congress to say: Here is the direction we are going to take with this agency. It is important this week that we implore our colleagues who are holding nominees up--especially in critical areas--for the sake of this country, to get out of the way and to get the President's appointees, especially for an agency such as this, in place. Mr. Bonner is a well-qualified man who will do a great job. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the statement by the Senator from Montana.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, at midday today I attended the prayer service at the National Cathedral which President Bush called. It was attended by President Bush and four former Presidents, and many Americans, of course. And I think millions of Americans watched on television. It was a remarkable, moving, and emotional prayer service. As I sat in the prayer service, I thought about something that happened yesterday as I toured the damage to the Pentagon with my colleagues, Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, and others. Yesterday, we were touring the Pentagon where, of course, many Americans died as a result of an airplane, loaded with jet fuel and commercial passengers, which was flown by a terrorist into the Pentagon and caused a fire and collapse and so much damage. Yesterday, as we were being briefed at the Pentagon about the damage that was caused and the loss of life, my colleague, Senator Reid, will remember that there was a crane near the building. The crane had a long steel cable attached to it. On the end of the steel cable was one of these little baskets. There was a man standing in the basket in uniform. The crane hauled this basket up to the fourth floor of this gaping wound in the middle of the Pentagon building. This man, who is a soldier, reached around from this basket deep into the hole of the Pentagon building, and from outside of this hole he pulled out a red and gold flag. He put it into this basket, again, dangling from a crane. They brought him back to the ground. It turned out he had pulled out of this gaping hole in this burned-out structure at the Pentagon a U.S. Marine flag that had for some reason not burned. It appeared to be the only thing that could not have possibly burned in that entire area. This young Marine, who grabbed this U.S. Marine Corps flag--this beautiful gold and red flag--marched over to where we were, and he stopped and said he was taking this flag to the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant. He said he saw the flag as he looked through the wreckage up on the fourth floor in an office, and miraculously this flag had not burned. He wanted to get to it, so he got somebody to take him up in a crane in a basket, and he retrieved this flag. As he held this flag proudly, on his way to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, he said to us: They couldn't destroy this flag, and they can't destroy this country. And I thought, wow, what a thing to say. This morning I woke up and looked at the Washington Post, and there is a full color picture of this young Marine holding that U.S. Marine flag as he came away from that building. It was just before he came over to greet us on his way to the Marine Corps Commandant. It was but one act--a symbolic act, in many ways--of a young soldier who used that flag that he saw, that had survived the fire and survived the carnage--the one flag that was left standing--to make a point that those who committed these heinous acts, those madmen who perpetrated these acts of evil that murdered so many innocent men, women, and children in this country, could not destroy that flag and cannot destroy this country. As I said the other day, all of us are heartbroken in America today. We express that in many ways. Prayer services across the country, recommended by our President, have reflected a common understanding-- the ability to grieve together and the ability to come together. It was important to do that. It is important to do that. But there is something else that is important for us to understand. The terrorists did something they could never have possibly imagined: They created in this country a togetherness that has not been here for some long while. People want to show the flag these days. My 12-year-old daughter yesterday said: Dad, let's put out the flag. People all over this country are putting an American flag out in full view. And people around this country are doing things that we know represent the inherent goodness of people. Within hours of the terrible tragedy at the World Trade Center-- within hours of those evil acts--we had scores of people lining up to give blood in this country. I saw the interview of one person who was in a 5-hour line, and she was asked: Why are you in line 5 hours waiting to give blood? And she said: Because it's the only thing I can do, and I want to do something today. The terrorists could not have possibly imagined what their acts would do to bring Americans together. This country has a common purpose. Yes, it has a great deal of grief and, yes, our heart is broken, but our spirit is not broken. The common purpose in this country is to grieve together, to pray together, and then understand that we want to--and we must--find those who planned and committed these acts, and those who harbored them, and punish them and at the same time take the kind of precautions we know we must take to prevent this from happening again. It is a free country. We are proud of that freedom and liberty. And it is also understood by everyone that we have the risk of acts of terrorism committed in free countries precisely because of that freedom. Perhaps we can never make certain that we will not ever see a terrorist act again. Perhaps we can never do that. We can certainly exert all the energy and all the genius available to all of us in this country to take the steps we think can try to prevent these acts again. But notwithstanding the challenges and the tragedies, and notwithstanding the common grief that was born of these evil acts, this country will remain a free country. We will remain a country of which all of us are enormously proud. There is a spirit about America: A spirit to prevail, a spirit to build, a spirit to come together. It is reflected by a lot of things, a couple of which I just mentioned. And that spirit is, in my judgment, not dimming; that spirit is growing. In the coming weeks and days, I think manifested today on the floor of the Senate, that spirit will nurture all of America. Today, on the floor of the Senate, we passed a piece of legislation, without a dissenting vote, that said we want to help people in need. We provided the resources to say to the people who were victims of this: You are not alone. Your families are not alone. Your loved ones are not alone. Your cities are not alone. And then we passed, without a dissenting vote, an authorization to the President, who asked for an authorization from Congress, to be able to take appropriate action against those who committed these evil acts. Without a dissenting vote, the Congress said to the President: Yes, we are with you. That is quite a remarkable thing to have done. And it reflects a spirit not just here in the Senate; it reflects a spirit, in my judgment, borne in the breast of every American today, proud to be an American, and determined to make sure we are able to retain and nurture this way of life, to defeat terrorism wherever it exists, and to nurture freedom and liberty. Mr. President, I yield the floor.