Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that calls for a small Federal commitment that would make a huge impact on the daily lives of all Americans. This legislation, the Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act, authorizes $1 billion per year over the next 6 years, which can make a major dent in the amount of time we sit in traffic everyday. In February, the Senate approved a six-year highway reauthorization bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2004, SAFETEA, which authorized $318 billion through 2009 for the Federal highway and transit program. I voted against the bill for many reasons, but the main reason I could not support the legislation is that the bill did not meet the funding levels identified by the U.S. Department of Transportation's needs assessment. The USDOT identified a $375 billion Federal commitment as necessary to maintain the current condition and level of congestion on our highways. Just maintain, not improve. Additionally, SAFETEA did not contain any specific programs to target congestion relief. SAFETEA targets funding to construction to add highway capacity. Although adding capacity to our highway and transit system is very important, we will never build our way out of congestion. We must also look at ways to operate and manage the current system and use resources more efficiently. We must focus on managing the demand on our road network, especially in larger urban areas, through innovative approaches and use of new technology. A combination of operational improvements, including freeway ramp metering, traffic signal coordination, traveler information and incident management can accomplish major improvements in daily travel with a small price tag. Now it looks as though a 6-year highway bill reauthorization will not be completed this year and the 109th Congress will have to start the process from scratch. This is a golden opportunity for the Senate to review the SAFETEA bill and support positive changes to target more funds to congestion relief. Mr. President, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, TTI, at Texas A&M University, which conducts an annual Urban Mobility Report to study the state of America's urban transportation networks, gridlock cost Americans $63 billion in 2002 in wasted fuel and lost time. This is a significant loss that burdens families, individuals, and businesses. More than 2 in 5 adults report that congestion is a problem in their community. This number is even higher in major cities. Such concern is not surprising, considering that the average resident of many cities in my state experience some of the worst congestion. Every year a typical resident of Miami and Orlando will lose over 51 hours stuck in traffic. Lost time and wasted fuel will cost each of these Floridians over $900. In 1982, only 11 hours were lost. This is not only a Florida problem. Nor is it only a problem here in Washington DC, or in New York City or Chicago. Even in small urban areas, delay during peak traveling hours grew 200 percent in the past 20 years. Across the country, residents of smaller cities like Pensacola, Charleston, and Colorado Springs could save hundreds of dollars by making our current road system more efficient. The Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act of 2004 would establish a Federal incident management program to provide funding to states for regional projects to mitigate the effects of traffic congestion on our roads. Incident management programs would save taxpayers money by allowing our roadways to operate at a more optimal level. When a stalled vehicle or traffic accident blocks a lane of traffic, our roads are not operating efficiently. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that every blocked lane creates an average of four minutes of traffic delay. Furthermore, up to one-third of traffic accidents are secondary to earlier incidents. What this means is that incidents that are not cleared quickly run a higher risk of causing more accidents and increasing delay even further. Results find that 55 percent of congestion in urban areas and 100 percent of congestion in rural areas are caused by incidents such as traffic accidents and stalled vehicles. Incident management programs vary across the country, but include the cooperative effort of multiple agencies, such as city and county governments, regional planning councils, local police and firefighters, HAZMAT teams and emergency medical services to detect and verify incidents, manage the scene, and clear the obstruction in a safe manner. In many cases the incident management patrols are the first to arrive on the scene of an accident, and they coordinate Emergency Medical Services, tow trucks, law enforcement and other service providers. Additionally, they are able to funnel information to a central traffic command, which can provide important real-time information to the traveling public. Some incident management programs offer needed assistance to travelers by providing services such as a free gallon of gas, changing a flat tire, a cell phone call, water for an overheated radiator, and charging a dead battery. In Florida, one way that we have addressed incident management is through a program called Road Rangers. Road Ranger trucks continuously rove the expressways looking for stranded motorists, debris, traffic accidents or other incidents. In 2002, this program utilized 83 vehicles and performed 279,525 service assists. This bill would authorize $1 billion per year through 2010, from the Highway Trust Fund to create and improve programs like Road Rangers. The funds would be distributed to the states based on their amount of urbanized areas with greater than 300,000 people. The state would then be required to allocate the funds to those targeted urban areas. There are roughly 100 urbanized areas with a population of 300,000 or higher in 42 states. Urban areas would be required to develop an incident management plan before receiving direct funding for their program. This way, all of the stakeholders in a region will have an opportunity to participate in the design and operation of the incident management program. The only way it can work is with regional cooperation. The Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act of 2004 would fund initiatives like the current pilot program in Orlando to provide radio and telecommunications equipment to enhance coordination between Florida Highway Patrol and Road Rangers. It will also provide needed funding for incident management training. In 2001, 59 percent of all police casualties occurred during a response to a traffic incident. Funding under this bill would give first responders the tools and training necessary to reduce that risk. I am proud to introduce this bill today because incident management works. According to the TTI, incident management has already reduced delay on our roads by 170 million hours. Had we employed these programs to all of our congested highways, American would have spent 239 million less hours on the road. To put this into perspective, it would take the construction of over 200 miles of a six-lane highway to achieve the same level of time savings. Not only are these programs effective, they save far more than they cost. In States like Minnesota, annual savings from incident management was estimated at $1.4 million, while program operations amounted to only $600,000. In Denver, their Courtesy Patrol program has been estimated to save 10.5 to 16.9 times more than it cost. Although adding capacity to our highway and transit network is important, it is very expensive and takes many years to complete. This approach provides a real solution, which will make a huge impact on congestion in a short amount of time. Finally, the Rush Hour congestion Relief Act is supported by our nation's local governments, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and transit providers, who are on the front lines of the daily congestion battle. The act has been endorsed by the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, National Association of Regional Councils, Association for Commuter Transportation, and the Surface Transportation Policy Project. I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort to ensure safe and open roads. I ask unanimous consent, that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that calls for a small Federal commitment that would make a huge impact on the daily lives of all Americans. This legislation, the Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act, authorizes $1 billion per year over the next 6 years, which can make a major dent in the amount of time we sit in traffic everyday. In February, the Senate approved a six-year highway reauthorization bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2004, SAFETEA, which authorized $318 billion through 2009 for the Federal highway and transit program. I voted against the bill for many reasons, but the main reason I could not support the legislation is that the bill did not meet the funding levels identified by the U.S. Department of Transportation's needs assessment. The USDOT identified a $375 billion Federal commitment as necessary to maintain the current condition and level of congestion on our highways. Just maintain, not improve. Additionally, SAFETEA did not contain any specific programs to target congestion relief. SAFETEA targets funding to construction to add highway capacity. Although adding capacity to our highway and transit system is very important, we will never build our way out of congestion. We must also look at ways to operate and manage the current system and use resources more efficiently. We must focus on managing the demand on our road network, especially in larger urban areas, through innovative approaches and use of new technology. A combination of operational improvements, including freeway ramp metering, traffic signal coordination, traveler information and incident management can accomplish major improvements in daily travel with a small price tag. Now it looks as though a 6-year highway bill reauthorization will not be completed this year and the 109th Congress will have to start the process from scratch. This is a golden opportunity for the Senate to review the SAFETEA bill and support positive changes to target more funds to congestion relief. Mr. President, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, TTI, at Texas A&M University, which conducts an annual Urban Mobility Report to study the state of America's urban transportation networks, gridlock cost Americans $63 billion in 2002 in wasted fuel and lost time. This is a significant loss that burdens families, individuals, and businesses. More than 2 in 5 adults report that congestion is a problem in their community. This number is even higher in major cities. Such concern is not surprising, considering that the average resident of many cities in my state experience some of the worst congestion. Every year a typical resident of Miami and Orlando will lose over 51 hours stuck in traffic. Lost time and wasted fuel will cost each of these Floridians over $900. In 1982, only 11 hours were lost. This is not only a Florida problem. Nor is it only a problem here in Washington DC, or in New York City or Chicago. Even in small urban areas, delay during peak traveling hours grew 200 percent in the past 20 years. Across the country, residents of smaller cities like Pensacola, Charleston, and Colorado Springs could save hundreds of dollars by making our current road system more efficient. The Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act of 2004 would establish a Federal incident management program to provide funding to states for regional projects to mitigate the effects of traffic congestion on our roads. Incident management programs would save taxpayers money by allowing our roadways to operate at a more optimal level. When a stalled vehicle or traffic accident blocks a lane of traffic, our roads are not operating efficiently. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that every blocked lane creates an average of four minutes of traffic delay. Furthermore, up to one-third of traffic accidents are secondary to earlier incidents. What this means is that incidents that are not cleared quickly run a higher risk of causing more accidents and increasing delay even further. Results find that 55 percent of congestion in urban areas and 100 percent of congestion in rural areas are caused by incidents such as traffic accidents and stalled vehicles. Incident management programs vary across the country, but include the cooperative effort of multiple agencies, such as city and county governments, regional planning councils, local police and firefighters, HAZMAT teams and emergency medical services to detect and verify incidents, manage the scene, and clear the obstruction in a safe manner. In many cases the incident management patrols are the first to arrive on the scene of an accident, and they coordinate Emergency Medical Services, tow trucks, law enforcement and other service providers. Additionally, they are able to funnel information to a central traffic command, which can provide important real-time information to the traveling public. Some incident management programs offer needed assistance to travelers by providing services such as a free gallon of gas, changing a flat tire, a cell phone call, water for an overheated radiator, and charging a dead battery. In Florida, one way that we have addressed incident management is through a program called Road Rangers. Road Ranger trucks continuously rove the expressways looking for stranded motorists, debris, traffic accidents or other incidents. In 2002, this program utilized 83 vehicles and performed 279,525 service assists. This bill would authorize $1 billion per year through 2010, from the Highway Trust Fund to create and improve programs like Road Rangers. The funds would be distributed to the states based on their amount of urbanized areas with greater than 300,000 people. The state would then be required to allocate the funds to those targeted urban areas. There are roughly 100 urbanized areas with a population of 300,000 or higher in 42 states. Urban areas would be required to develop an incident management plan before receiving direct funding for their program. This way, all of the stakeholders in a region will have an opportunity to participate in the design and operation of the incident management program. The only way it can work is with regional cooperation. The Rush Hour Congestion Relief Act of 2004 would fund initiatives like the current pilot program in Orlando to provide radio and telecommunications equipment to enhance coordination between Florida Highway Patrol and Road Rangers. It will also provide needed funding for incident management training. In 2001, 59 percent of all police casualties occurred during a response to a traffic incident. Funding under this bill would give first responders the tools and training necessary to reduce that risk. I am proud to introduce this bill today because incident management works. According to the TTI, incident management has already reduced delay on our roads by 170 million hours. Had we employed these programs to all of our congested highways, American would have spent 239 million less hours on the road. To put this into perspective, it would take the construction of over 200 miles of a six-lane highway to achieve the same level of time savings. Not only are these programs effective, they save far more than they cost. In States like Minnesota, annual savings from incident management was estimated at $1.4 million, while program operations amounted to only $600,000. In Denver, their Courtesy Patrol program has been estimated to save 10.5 to 16.9 times more than it cost. Although adding capacity to our highway and transit network is important, it is very expensive and takes many years to complete. This approach provides a real solution, which will make a huge impact on congestion in a short amount of time. Finally, the Rush Hour congestion Relief Act is supported by our nation's local governments, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and transit providers, who are on the front lines of the daily congestion battle. The act has been endorsed by the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, National Association of Regional Councils, Association for Commuter Transportation, and the Surface Transportation Policy Project. I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort to ensure safe and open roads. I ask unanimous consent, that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr GRAHAM of Florida

Mr GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, today I bring attention to the impressive work that art therapists do with our Nation's veterans and the significant accomplishments they have made in this field. Art therapists provide effective treatment and health maintenance intervention for veterans, focusing on all of their life challenges, such as mental, physical, and cognitive impairments. Intense emotion and memory, often difficult to convey in words, often are more easily expressed in images with the guidance of a trained clinician. Art therapists are master's level mental health practitioners trained in psychology, psychotherapy, and the interface with the arts modality. The American Art Therapy Association establishes national academic standards of education and clinical practice. After September 11, art therapists assisted both survivors and the bereaved, drawing out their traumatic experiences and dealing pictorially with the horror as they moved through the various stages of grief. Similarly, art therapy is used with veterans who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Research has demonstrated that traumatic memory is not stored in a fashion that can be expressed only through words. Instead, it is retained as visual, auditory, olfactory, and other sense mechanisms. Images may return as flashbacks or nightmares that the veteran is unable to integrate as memory. As a result, these impressions remain a toxic force, causing intense fear and leading the veteran to try to shut off all memory and emotion and possibly leading to depression, the inability to properly function day to day, and estrangement from family. The traumatic experiences that a veteran is unable to discuss or confront, however, can instead surface through artwork. The process of creating the artwork and externalizing intense issues help the veteran to regain control, integrate horrors into manageable memory, and allow feelings to be experienced again. For example, a former Marine who served in Vietnam and struggled for years with feelings of inadequacy and fear in crowds benefitted considerably from art therapy. He has said that it enabled him to address problems he otherwise did not have access to, thereby helping him to ``mourn the pain. . . overcome . . . and feel comfortable within'' himself. Another serviceman drew out his dreams as a way of placing combat experiences into the past and therefore to function more effectively in the present. Such life-enhancing and cost-efficient intervention is not only viable as a treatment option, but may be preventive by forestalling full-blown PTSD. Given the number of veterans gradually returning from the current war in Iraq, art therapy has the potential to assist them as a form of rehabilitation. The American Art Therapy Association is currently investigating possible sites and funding sources for conducting outcome studies on the efficacy of art therapy with veterans. I would also like to mention with pride that more than 100 registered art therapists live and work in my home State of Florida. These therapists practice all across the State, from my hometown of Miami all the way up to the Panhandle. I am so pleased that almost every veteran--or anyone else--residing in Florida has access to the benefits art therapy can offer. As ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I support the use of art therapy programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care facilities, and I recognize the contribution of art therapists to the effective reintegration, enhanced coping, and quality of life for our veterans. During this crucial time in the history of our Nation, I encourage my colleagues in Congress to do the same.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I am honored to have served 10 years on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, including the opportunity to serve 18 months as its chairman. Today, I will make some comments on the general context of congressional reform in support of reform of the intelligence agencies, including some specific remarks relative to the amendment that is on the floor at this time. While some of us in Congress had recognized the problems within the Intelligence Community over the years--and we have been working on specific reforms--the tragedy of September 11, 2001, revealed systemic weaknesses that require sweeping changes. In the last few weeks, I have spoken about these issues in floor statements. We have now finished work on an excellent piece of legislation that will establish a strong national intelligence director and lay the groundwork for serious reform of our national intelligence community. It is my hope the House of Representatives will soon follow our lead, so that we may proceed to conference and turn this legislation into law. Now it is time to turn to one final, critical component of reform: Us. We in the Congress must be candid and admit that one of the targets of reform must be the current committee structure by which Congress has organized itself to provide oversight to the intelligence community. Our oversight has been proven to be haphazard at best. The 9/11 Commission report states: Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and the most important. So long as oversight is governed by current congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get the security that they want and need. The United States needs a strong, stable, capable congressional committee structure to give America's national intelligence agencies oversight, support, and leadership. The 9/11 Commission goes on: The future challenges of America's intelligence agencies are daunting. They include the need to develop leading-edge technologies that give our policymakers and our warfighters a decisive edge in any conflict where the interests of the United States are vital. Not only does good intelligence win wars, but the best intelligence enables us to prevent them from happening altogether. Under the terms of existing rules and resolutions, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees lack the power, influence, and sustained capability to meet this challenge. . . . The other reforms we have suggested--for a National counterterrorism Center and a National Intelligence Director--will not work if congressional oversight does not change, too. Unity of effort in executive management can be lost if it is fractured by divided congressional oversight. To those remarks, I say amen. I am pleased that many of our colleagues have joined the chorus and cried amen as well. We now have many amendments before us that can accomplish the necessary changes to our Senate committee structure. I thank Senators Reid and McConnell, along with their staffs, for the work they have invested in this issue. The Reid-McConnell working group has come forward with a number of wise recommendations. I want to endorse a few of those recommendations in greater detail, while explaining my reasons for opposing the amendment that is now before us. I also want to make some recommendations that go beyond the resolution, but which I suggest would give the new structure enhanced oversight and direction on the intelligence community. The first recommendation I strongly support is the abolition of term limits for members of the Intelligence Committees. The terms of Intelligence Committee members should be made permanent so that the accumulated experience and expertise of the committee members can be retained. When a Member joins almost any other committee in the House or the Senate, he or she typically brings some base of knowledge to the task, such as a lawyer serving on the Judiciary Committee, or a military veteran serving on Armed Services, or someone with a financial services background joining the Banking Committee. It is a rare Member who has firsthand experience with the intelligence community. The complexity of the issues, the technologies involved in collection analysis, means that it is a very steep learning curve when someone joins the Intelligence Committee. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that it can take as much as half of the current 8-year term before the Member feels confident in their knowledge of the intelligence community and can begin to make wise, informed judgments. That tutorial exhausts half of the time of Members currently serving. The justification for those term limits dates back to the creation of the Intelligence Committees in the 1970s, following Senator Frank Church's investigation of abuses by the CIA. It was feared that members of the Intelligence Committee would become captives of those they were overseeing, given the general lack of public scrutiny of the workings of the committee. However, in order to ensure that committee members have the expertise necessary to exercise effective oversight, we must give them adequate time to build up the experience they need. We must hope that their constituents will pay enough attention to their oversight of the intelligence agencies to ensure that the committee members remain independent. I expect this will be the case, given the increasing awareness of the importance of intelligence to our national security. There is another step that I believe should be taken, and that is an increased emphasis on training of Members who will join or who currently belong to the Intelligence Committee. This is, as our President has said, hard work, serving on the Intelligence Committees. The background, organizational history, financial matters affecting the community, as well as the emerging threats the community is responsible for understanding and assisting in our defense, are difficult. Members of the committee should devote greater time to their personal and collective training so they can better discharge these responsibilities. The second recommendation I would like to endorse is the distribution of the Intelligence Committee's responsibilities through the use of subcommittees, especially here a subcommittee on oversight that could examine adverse actions within the intelligence community which often require a detailed after-incident report. One of my principal concerns about the Intelligence Committee during my decade of service was the inordinate amount of time that was spent looking through the rearview mirror at the problems that had already come to fruition, including several significant cases of counterespionage, which left an inadequate amount of time to look through the front windshield at the threats that were coming at us. I believe the establishment of a subcommittee which had the specific responsibility for oversight, including these after-incident events, would contribute substantially to the committee's capability to look to the future. Another suggestion within the committee structure, since we will now be reorganizing the intelligence agencies around mission-based intelligence centers, should be the basis for establishing other subcommittees with oversight responsibilities within the Intelligence Committee itself. As an example, in the legislation we just passed, two intelligence centers are established by statute: one counterterrorism, the other counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, the Intelligence Committee should have subcommittees with specific responsibility to oversee the action of these two critical centers to assure that the threats are being properly identified, the resources are available to respond to those threats, that the centers are accomplishing their objective, and as other centers are created by action of the national intelligence director, they, too, deserve a special focus of a subcommittee within the Intelligence Committee. Next, I believe it is crucial that the appropriations for the intelligence community be detached from the budget of the Department of Defense so that intelligence funding can respond to intelligence needs and not simply fluctuate with the defense budget. The reality is that while the intelligence budget is inside the defense budget, that has resulted in, over time, a percentage relationship. And so as happened in the 1990s, when the overall size of the defense budget contracts because the Cold War was over and there was a feeling that we did not need to spend the resources we had when we were face to face with the Soviet Union, the consequence was we were also constricting the size of the intelligence budget at exactly the time the intelligence community needed to be expanding. We spent 40 years looking at the Soviet Union. We knew a lot about it. We had people who understood the language and the cultures of our adversary. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world did not suddenly declare peace. Rather, a new set of threats emerged from a different part of the world, largely the Middle East and central Asia, and we were grossly deficient, particularly in our human intelligence capability, to understand and react to those new threats. By divorcing the intelligence budget from the defense budget, we will have a greater opportunity to look specifically at the needs of both of those two important parts of our national security system, but to do so independently on their own merits. I am familiar with the proposal Senator McCain and others have put forward to give the Intelligence Committee both authorizing and appropriation authority. I respectfully disagree. Having two committees that pay attention to intelligence matters can be very helpful. I will admit that at one time, I was intrigued with the idea of permanently merging the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in the way the old Joint Atomic Energy Committee was merged and in a way for the last Congress the two committees merged for purposes of the 9/11 inquiry. I have now disabused myself of that suggestion. I believe it is important that, particularly with intelligence where there are so few Americans who have the background to make proper judgments and so many of those do not have the information upon which to make precise judgment, and where there are few eyes outside of the Congress, the press, interest groups, citizens groups, and others who can effectively monitor the intelligence community, it is particularly important that we have a sufficient number of eyes within the Congress that are focused on intelligence issues. During the runup to the invasion of Iraq, for instance, there were four congressional committees that had some form of oversight over the administration's push for war. Only one of those four--and I see on the floor now the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who, with his colleague Senator Rockefeller, was largely responsible for this--it was only the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which asked the tough questions which submitted the findings which have accelerated the pace of reform within the intelligence community. If there are four congressional committees with some oversight over intelligence funding--the two authorizing committees and the two appropriating subcommittees--there is less chance that all relevant congressional committees will be negligent in their oversight of administration action. I suggest two reforms which would enhance the establishment of a separate subcommittee of appropriations for intelligence. One of those is to increase the authority of the Intelligence Committee over the authorization process. As Senator Inouye mentioned in his remarks, there is currently law that says funds cannot be appropriated to the intelligence community which have not been authorized. The problem has been that there are sources of authorization other than the intelligence community. So if the Intelligence Committee, which is now invested with the particular responsibility, decides what it believes to be the appropriate priorities, those priorities could be disrupted by authorizations which come from other sources and which, in turn, validate appropriations. The second point I suggest is that the chair and vice chair of the Intelligence Committees serve on the appropriations subcommittee. There is precedent for this. As an example, in reverse order, the current chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee serves on the Armed Services Committee. The rationale is that Armed Services represents such a significant part of the total appropriations that it is desirable to have the person most responsible for those appropriations be a member of the Armed Services Committee. I would recommend that the same type of interlocking relationship should exist between the leadership of the Intelligence Committee and the new intelligence appropriations subcommittee. Finally, I recommend that the Intelligence Committee expand the use of advisory panels, such as the technical task force which has served the Senate Intelligence Committee extremely well over the last 5 years. I would like to recognize my colleague, Senator Shelby, who was very instrumental in the initial establishment of that technical committee. This advisory panel has reduced the tendency toward group think, which has afflicted the intelligence agencies themselves, as we witnessed so clearly in the report of Senator Roberts and the Intelligence Committee on the runup to the Iraq war. One possibility would be to have an advisory panel for each of the subcommittees, locking the Intelligence Committee into the pattern that mirrors and supports mission-based intelligence centers. There has been a term in the military referred to as incestuous amplification, which is a condition of warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lockstep agreement, reinforcing set beliefs, creating a situation ripe for miscalculation. Current events have offered powerful evidence that the intelligence community has been engaged in incestuous amplification. It is therefore especially important that the oversight committees of the Congress avoid that temptation. While I regret to say it, in many ways the Congress deserves the comments which have been made by the 9/11 Commission, but I believe the action we are considering today will go a long way toward assuring that the Congress will be a full partner in reforming the intelligence community of the United States, and the intelligence community in turn can be a fuller partner in assuring the safety of Americans.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, as ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I urge my colleagues to continue to support our veterans and their families by passing H.R. 4175, the proposed Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2004. The Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act would increase the rate of disability compensation for veterans with service- connected disabilities and the rate of dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses with minor children. This bill requires, effective December 1, 2004, that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs increase the rates of compensation by the same percentage provided to Social Security recipients. In keeping with the commitment to care for the brave men and women who have served this great Nation, we must make every effort to continue to meet their needs. This legislation ensures that veterans and their families will be able to adjust their incomes to keep pace with inflation and is vital to the financial stability of many veterans and their families who are struggling with the rising costs of goods and services. Our veterans and their families depend on the cost-of- living increase for their livelihood, therefore, it is important that we swiftly move this legislation. We must demonstrate our commitment to those who have already paid a great price through their selfless service to our Nation. At a time when our airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines are in harm's way, we must remember the sacrifices that those before them have made on behalf of this grateful Nation by providing this cost-of-living adjustment.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I extend my deepest gratitude to Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and also my appreciation for the Senators' kind remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Madam President, I rise today to speak on what I consider to be one of the most important areas of intelligence reform, and then I will offer an amendment to help advance that position. Over the last several weeks, I have been making a series of statements on various aspects of intelligence reform. In my recent statements, I have discussed the history of the U.S. intelligence community, the community's failure to adapt to changing conditions since the end of the Cold War, the unfortunate reluctance of both the Congress and the administration to tackle these much needed and long- reported necessary reforms, the shape that I believe our reform should take, and the danger that excessive Government secrecy poses to our national security. I have also expressed my gratitude to the independent 9/11 Commission and its predecessors for the work they have done in analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the American intelligence community and offering recommendations as to how these weaknesses can be remedied. Today, I also thank several of my colleagues for the work they have done in providing the groundwork for this legislation and moving it substantially toward fruition. Senators Collins and Lieberman have put a substantial amount of work into crafting meaningful bipartisan intelligence reform legislation that seeks to correct current failings. They and their staffs should be commended for that effort. In addition, Senators McCain and Roberts have stepped forward with very thoughtful proposals for reform, and as we work to fine-tune the Collins-Lieberman bill, their proposals will be an excellent source of ideas and alternatives. We all owe our gratitude to the other members of the Governmental Affairs and Intelligence Committees, especially Vice Chairman Rockefeller on the Intelligence Committee, and their respective staff members for all the contributions they have made to the debate over the direction of intelligence reform. I spoke last week about the direction in which I thought we should move with these reforms and the shape these reforms should take. I would now like to discuss in more detail how we might accomplish that within this legislation. I will offer an amendment which I hope will be a contribution to achieving these goals. First some background. Our national intelligence community currently resembles our military as it looked prior to 1947. It is made up of a number of agencies that originated at different times and with different structures, with shared common goals, but frequently found they had difficulty working with one another because of their different histories, different cultures, different bureaucratic structures, and different priorities. That would have also been a definition for the American military pre- 1947. In that year, at the urging of President Harry Truman, Congress passed the National Security Act, which brought together all of the components of the military. There had been a Secretary of the Navy, there had been a Secretary of War, sometimes referred to as the Secretary of the Army, and there certainly would have been a Secretary of the Air Force had the National Security Act not intervened. This new legislation created for the first time a civilian leader at the top and uniformed service chiefs reporting to that leader. This was an important reform, but it did not end all the rivalries and competition for actions and spending resources within the military. There were a series of events that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s which dramatized these continuing weaknesses. We were unable to rescue hostages who had been taken in Tehran. We were unable to avoid the massacre of over 200 American marines in barracks in Beirut by Hezbollah, and there were a series of missteps on the small island of Grenada. Reviewing all of these issues, in 1986, it was becoming apparent that though all the services reported to a single departmental head, they still had many problems communicating with one another and working effectively together. As it had in 1947, Congress again stepped forward with the Goldwater- Nichols Act, which decentralized the military establishment. Control over military operations moved from the Pentagon to several joint commands, each responsible for a different geographic area of the world. As a result, the U.S. military has become more effective than ever before. Given that our international intelligence community is currently in a pre-1947 state, our challenge now is to enact both the equivalence of the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 at the same time. In other words, we must centralize authority and then immediately commence the process of decentralizing the bureaucracy. We waited 39 years between the National Security Act and Goldwater- Nichols. We cannot afford to wait 39 years between the action we will hopefully take this year and the time we will begin to decentralize the intelligence bureaucracies. It is essential that this legislation create a strong director of national intelligence and also lay out the best possible structure for intelligence collection and analysis. In my view and in the view of many others, our intelligence community would be most effective if it were organized around the mission-based model that brings personnel from different agencies and specialties together to focus on whatever intelligence missions the national director deems to be most important. In a recent publication called ``Intelligence Matters,'' I state: This may seem counterintuitive, but for us to deal with this decentralization, we must first centralize. Since their inception, the agencies that make up our foreign intelligence community have focused on assignments like the collection of signals or visual images. While each agency focuses on its own responsibilities, the larger realities--like the changed nature of the enemy--go unattended. They are nobody's business. The structure we have before us today gives us an opportunity to place those large issues of adaptation to new threats in an appropriate structure. The director will be responsible for giving the centers their missions and assigning them the personnel and resources they need to do their job. He or she can then be held accountable for the centers' performance and accomplishments. This model was previously suggested by the 9/11 Commission. In the conclusion of its report, it discusses the structural problems that currently plague our intelligence community, and suggest that significant changes must be made in order to achieve unity of effort among the community's various agencies. The Commission report recommends that a national center for counterterrorism be established, and I am pleased that President Bush has endorsed the creation of such a center, and it is contained in the legislation before us today. This center will bring together personnel from a variety of disciplines and specialties from across the intelligence community to focus on the problem of international terrorism. By bringing them all together and placing them on the same staff, we can overcome the bureaucratic and sociological barriers that have sometimes prevented them from being effective. This will also help us use our intelligence resources more efficiently by ensuring that different agencies are not doing redundant work on the same threat. In addition to a national counterterrorism center, the Commission also recommends that other centers be created to focus on different global challenges, such as nuclear proliferation, international drug trafficking, or particular rogue states such as North Korea, and Iran. These centers would be able to bring together personnel in the same manner as the Counterterrorism Center, allowing us to be more efficient and effective in intelligence gathering and analysis. The Commission recommended that management of these centers should be one of the director's primary responsibilities. Their recommendation states: The current position of Director of Central Intelligence should be replaced by a National Intelligence Director with two main areas of responsibility: (1) to oversee national intelligence centers on specific subjects of interests across the U.S. government and (2) to manage the national intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute to it. The national director must be given the flexibility to create, reorganize or even disband these centers as needed, just as the Secretary of Defense has the authority to shift the responsibility of the unified commands. For instance, Syria and Lebanon were once included in the European Command, but as the international situation changed, it became more appropriate to move them to Central Command, which already included their Middle Eastern neighbors. A second instance is the Caribbean region, which was previously included in the Atlantic Command and has since been moved to the Southern Command, which includes the rest of Latin America. Congress had empowered the Secretary of Defense to make these decisions while maintaining its constitutional responsibility for oversight and appropriations. This wise allocation of authority has enabled the Department of Defense to do what the intelligence community has been unable to do; that is to respond to changing conditions in a swift and decisive manner. The authors of Goldwater-Nichols gave the Secretary of Defense the necessary level of flexibility and adaptability by not writing into law which commands should be created and what countries they should include. Instead, we empowered the Secretary to establish or alter the unified commands as circumstances dictate. The current version of the Collions-Lieberman bill includes language to establish national intelligence centers, in accordance with the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. This is obviously a significant step in the right direction. However, I believe that is necessary to make some modifications to the language in order to clarify the purpose of the centers and to ensure that the national intelligence director has the authority needed to manage them effectively. Some of the provisions that we need to be aware of and include in the final version of this legislation as it relates to national intelligence centers are these: First, we should include language making clear that the mission of the national intelligence centers is to focus on specific threats. In keeping with the Commission's recommendation, this would mean that some centers might focus on specific countries or regions, while others would focus on global problems such as nuclear proliferation. Second, we must make the national intelligence centers the focal point of intelligence gathering and analysis for their particular area of focus. The centers should develop a strategy for the collection and analysis of intelligence regarding their area of focus and draw upon the resources of the various intelligence agencies to implement this strategy. To give an example of how this might work, imagine that the national director believes that we need a focus on counterproliferation of nuclear weapons, and surely we do. In a very important recent book, ``Nuclear Terrorism,'' by Graham Allison, it is pointed out that there are two important truths as it relates to nuclear terrorism. The first is that it is inevitable that nuclear weapons will come into the hands of terrorists who will use them against us. The second truth is that inevitability is preventable. Professor Allison points out a number of steps that must be taken in order to avoid the inevitable. Many of those relate to the intelligence community's role. Professor Allison makes a number of suggestions as to what reforms are required in order to avoid a nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist who is destined to use it against the people of the United States. Just to summarize his points: First, American intelligence must move beyond its Cold War mindset. This legislation will help us achieve that goal. Second, the United States must cultivate long-term strategic relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. I believe having a strong director of national intelligence will contribute to that objective. Third, the American intelligence community must enhance its data- mining efforts to process, analyze, and disseminate open sources of intelligence. This legislation provides a heightened awareness of the value and the credibility of open source information, that is information that is available, other than through clandestine means. Finally and above all, intelligence assessments must be credible. I believe this provision for the establishment of national intelligence centers will make a dramatic contribution toward enhancing the credibility of U.S. intelligence. The fact that we are creating within this legislation one national intelligence center, that for counterterrorism, and leaving the creation of the other centers up to the discretion of the national intelligence director is essentially an accident of history. The 9/11 attacks were the use of conventional weapons--fire and gasoline--in a nonconventional manner--large airplanes flying into large buildings. If the attacks of 9/11 had taken another form, such as a cargo container which was loaded at a distant point and arrived in the Port of New York and was unloaded, and a week later found itself in downtown Chicago, and because that container, in addition to its commercial cargo, also carried a dirty nuclear bomb, and that bomb, were it to be detonated, we would have had an event multiple times of what, in fact, happened on 9/11. And I can assure you that the center would have been written into this legislation and would have been the center on the avoidance of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We are about to give that authority to the director of intelligence. I believe we should give it to him with as close as possible the same authority and the same capability as we are statutorily giving to the center on terrorism. That is what this amendment attempts to do. Finally, we must ensure that our national intelligence community is constantly adapting in response to changes in the world around us. Unfortunately, our intelligence community, since its inception in that same National Security Act of 1947, has had difficulty adapting to changed circumstances. It had that difficulty in the 1950s. It has had that difficulty since the last of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Our intelligence agencies were slow in shifting their focus from the Soviet Union to the more diffuse threat such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, and rogue states. As former CIA Director James Woolsey put it: It was as if we had been struggling with a dragon for 45 years and finally defeated it . . . and then found ourselves in the jungle with a lot of poisonous snakes. The snakes were harder to keep track of than the dragon. The national director should be required to frequently review the mission and areas of responsibility of the intelligence centers, so that we do not waste time staring at the dragon which we have already slain. He must also have the ability to create new centers rapidly, so that they are not slow to react to the appearance of snakes. The amendment I am offering would modify the very instructive policies in the Collins-Lieberman bill to lay the groundwork for reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and ensure that the national director has sufficient authority to carry them out. Madam President and colleagues, I draw your attention to the fact that I have discussed this amendment with Governor Kean and with former Congressman Lee Hamilton, the distinguished Chair of the 9/11 Commission. And I am pleased they have responded enthusiastically. I have received a letter from Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton which includes this statement: The importance of integrated, all-source analysis cannot be overstated. Without it, it is not possible to ``connect the dots.'' No one competent today holds all of the relevant information. Our view is it is imperative to have unity of effort across the intelligence community. Therefore, we strongly endorse the creation of national intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across the U.S. Government. Clearly, with regard to the high priority of counterterrorism, the centers should be the intelligence entity inside the national counterterrorism center . . . we have proposed. Other national intelligence centers--for instance, on counter-proliferation, crime and narcotics, the Middle East, Russia and China--could be created based on the President and National Security Council's determination of need. The letter concludes: A true sharing of all relevant information among analysts, and the creation of national intelligence centers offering the best advice and analysis to the President--together with the continued independence of State, Treasury, Energy and Defense Department analytical units--provides a better way to foster competitive analysis than does the status quo. To keep the country secure, we believe the government must build the intelligence capabilities it will need for the broad range of national security challenges in the decades ahead. We have the opportunity to take a step which will fundamentally enhance the security of the people of America not only against the threat that we know today, not only against the dragons with which we are currently grappling, but with those poisonous snakes that may not be so obvious, the poisonous snakes which may be hiding just beyond the horizon. The national intelligence centers will be a key to our ability to do for intelligence what Goldwater-Nichols did in 1986 for our military. I urge my colleagues to seriously consider and to adopt these amendments to the excellent legislation which is before us today. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I thank my good friend Senator Wyden for his thoughtful work on this amendment, for his always generous personal relationship, and for his commercial reference to the book ``Intelligence Matters.'' I will be using some of the material from that book in my comments this afternoon as I rise to speak in favor of the amendment which addresses our Government's dangerous tendency toward excessive secrets. From the very beginning of our Nation, the American people have been concerned with the Government's attempts, almost an irresistible attempt by any government, to hide or to fail to disclose issues that properly should be available to the public. President John F. Kennedy said in his first year as President: The very word ``secrecy'' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings . . . We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. In a free, open, democratic society, we must always begin with the belief that the people should have access to all of the information which the Government holds on their behalf. The only exceptions to this rule should be those made for necessary personal or corporate privacy reasons, such as tax returns, and for legitimate reasons of national security. Now, of course, there are occasions when the national security of the United States is best served by the withholding of certain information, such as when we conceal the sources and methods of gathering extremely sensitive information to protect the sources themselves. However, our current system of classifying information is being abused to an extent that borders on the absurd. But there is nothing comical about this development. In my judgment, the two key issues we are going to have to face if we are going to overcome the many fundamental problems which are facing our intelligence community are, first, the inadequacy of our human intelligence to be able to confront the threats that we now face, and, second, this issue of secrecy. Now, I know that much of our analysis and focus will be on the specific problems identified by various groups which have looked into the events leading up to 9/11, including the Joint House/Senate Inquiry. However, there are some other issues which are embraced in 9/11 but which go well beyond 9/11. One of those which has been a recurring failure of America's intelligence is the failure to see the big issue. Why was it that our intelligence did not see the fact that although it had stated there were precisely 550 sites where weapons of mass destruction were being either produced or stored in Iraq, once we got to Iraq, the number was actually zero? Can you imagine that we have an address book of 550 sites that were supposed to be the dangerous locations, and as soon as we occupied the country we started knocking on 550 doors and did not find any of it? Think of the damage that failure has meant to the United States as a fundamental rationale for going to war in the first place and to our international reputation. A second example of the failure to see the big issue is the one Senator Moynihan used as a centerpiece of his book ``Secrecy,'' and that was the fact that our intelligence community failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. As Senator Moynihan pointed out, indicators that the Soviet Union was on the brink of economic collapse were available years in advance of the end of the Cold War. Yet our intelligence community, and specifically the CIA, greatly misperceived the strength of the Soviet economy and, therefore, did not realize that collapse was imminent. Unfortunately, the CIA and other intelligence agencies insisted on classifying nonsensitive information about the state of the Soviet economy. If this information had been disclosed to the public and to experts outside the Government, we could have seen the CIA was working with flawed data. That flawed data would have been subject to challenge. And perhaps before the collapse of the Berlin Wall we would have concluded that the Soviet Union was not internally stable in order to maintain its position in the military, space, and scientific competition with the United States. Had we done so, this undoubtedly would have allowed us to develop smarter, more effective strategies regarding the Soviets and their allies. To give one example of that, during the period when it was widely known by many that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, but where we were being told by our intelligence agencies, with information not available to the general public, that in fact the Soviet Union remained a competitive force, we were providing the resistance fighters in Afghanistan with some of the most sophisticated military materials, particularly items such as the Stinger missile, to use in the war against the Soviet Union. If we had known how close the Soviet Union was to collapse and had thought about the consequences of having hundreds if not thousands of pieces of some of the most lethal military equipment in the world in the hands of those who were resisting the Soviets in Afghanistan, we might have rethought whether that was a wise policy or whether we were pursuing a short-term victory at the expense of arming a part of the world which was going to be our long-term adversary. Those are the consequences of failure to see the big picture. I believe one of the principal reasons we repeatedly failed to see the big picture is exactly the secrecy which we have imposed upon material, therefore denying the opportunity for a wide range of Americans to see the information, challenge the information, and, if it is unable to sustain that challenge, force the information to be corrected. One of the more recent failures that was disclosed by both the House/ Senate Intelligence Committees Joint Inquiry and the recent 9/11 Commission related to some of the evidence that there was a connection between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and at least some if not all of the terrorists inside the United States. This, in my opinion, was one of the most significant findings of the inquiry. Its significance is that if a foreign government is providing support to terrorists embedded inside the United States, it contributes substantially to the ability of those embedded operatives to maintain their anonymity while they are planning, practicing, and executing very complex terrorist plots. That is what happened prior to 9/11. It was our conclusion that in fact these terrorists were not here alone, that they were receiving that type of support. We raised the question, if it was happening before 9/11, what is our level of confidence that it is not happening after 9/11? Details of our findings that led us to this chilling possibility were included in the Joint Inquiry's final report. Let me read from a section of that final report which was made available to the public. But I note the brackets around these paragraphs. Those brackets indicate that while this information was made available to the public, it was only done so after it was sanitized, rewritten by the agencies which had scrutinized this report, particularly the CIA and the FBI. But here is what they would allow to be made available to the American people: [Through its investigation, the Joint Inquiry developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States. The Joint Inquiry's review confirmed that the intelligence community also has information, much of which has not yet been independently verified, concerning these potential sources of support. In their testimony, neither CIA nor FBI officials were able to address definitively the extent of such support for the hijackers globally or within the United States or the extent to which such support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature. Only recently, and at least in part due to the Joint Inquiry's focus on this issue, did the FBI and CIA strengthen their efforts to address these issues. In the view of the Joint Inquiry, this gap in U.S. intelligence coverage is unacceptable, given the magnitude and immediacy of the potential risk to U.S. national security. The intelligence community needs to address this area of concern as aggressively and as quickly as possible.] What happened was that even with that sanitized version of the introduction to that section, then the intelligence community proceeded to censor the rest of the section, page after page. Twenty-seven pages were completely blank so that the American people were never given the opportunity to know what we knew about the role of foreign governments--specifically, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia--in support of the terrorists. Does it make America safer that this type of information is withheld? What an absurdity. Of course, this puts Americans at greater risk. Why was this done? Why was this withheld from the American people? I believe it was withheld not for national security reasons. And I might say I am joined in that assessment by my colleague, Senator Dick Shelby, who reviewed this information, as I had, and concluded that 95 percent of the information which had been censored was not of a national security nature. Obviously, it was embarrassing, embarrassing to the CIA, to the FBI that such an infrastructure of support could have been allowed to exist and grow in the United States and then be used by people who killed 3,000 Americans. I believe this information is just one example of the tendency toward excessive secrecy, including the most recent example of that, which is the refusal to declassify any portion of the recently released national intelligence estimate regarding the scenario of future events in Iraq. This report, which represents the consensus view of all our intelligence agencies, outlines several possible scenarios for the future of Iraq and combines the best information and analysis available within the executive branch. While a few of the sources of information probably should continue to be concealed, the national intelligence estimate itself should not be. As the Congress and the American public debate the best way to proceed in Iraq, we should have access to the best thinking available on that subject. The administration thus far has characterized the national intelligence estimate on Iraq as being guesses. The administration should act immediately to declassify the national intelligence estimate so that the American people can determine whether it is a mature and professional assessment of the range of choices we have in Iraq. Our Joint Inquiry recommended that the President and the intelligence agency review the Executive orders, the policies and procedures that govern classification, the withholding from the American people of information. The purpose of this review would be to ``expand access to relevant information for federal agencies outside the intelligence community, for state and local authorities, which are critical to the fight against terrorism, and for the American public.'' If I could comment a moment on that access to State and local officials, there were at least five incidents within a matter of weeks of 9/11 in which one or more of the terrorists was under the control of a State and local law enforcement officer, generally because they had committed a traffic offense. Yet the State and local law enforcement officers did not have access, because of excessive secrecy, to the information that these very people who were under their direct command were also listed on a terrorist watch list as being people who, had they been outside the United States, would not have been allowed to enter. But now they are in the United States, and the people who are the most likely to encounter them, State and local law enforcement, are denied the information upon which they can protect the safety and security of the American people. It is an outrage. Two-thirds of these terrorists spent most of their time in the United States in my State of Florida. I am not proud of that, but it happens to be a statement of fact. I have talked with local and State law enforcement leadership in my State and I asked: If the same thing that occurred in the summer of 2001 were to occur in the fall of 2004, what would the result have been? Do you know what the answer is? Exactly the same, that our State and local law enforcement would continue to be denied access to the information that would allow them to be of optimal effectiveness in providing us, the American people, optimal security. Returning to the recommendations of the 9/11 Joint Inquiry, the Joint Inquiry called on the Director of Central Intelligence, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of State to review and report to the House and Senate proposals to protect against the use of the classification process as a shield to protect agency self-interest. What has happened in the now almost 2 years since this report was filed? The answer is, nothing has happened. There has been no effort by any of those agencies to present to the Congress their ideas of how we can protect ourselves against agency self-interest. The recommendation also called upon Congress to undertake a similar review of classification procedures and consider in particular ``the degree to which excessive classification has been used in the past and the extent to which the emerging threat environment has greatly increased the need for real-time sharing of sensitive information.'' Again, sad to say, almost 2 years since the report was filed, no executive agencies have taken any action to review and report on their classification procedures. This means that we in the Congress, as the representatives of the people who are being denied this information, must now step forward and force action. The amendment offered this afternoon by my colleague from Oregon would create an independent national security classification board within the executive branch to review current classification policies and procedures. The board would then propose more coherent, rational standards to Congress and the President and help to ensure that new standards are implemented. Once the new standards are in place, the board will have access to all documents classified for national security reasons and will have the authority to review decisions made by employees of the executive branch. The board will be able to recommend that the President reverse or alter classifications with which it disagrees. The President will have the authority to ignore the board's recommendation, but the President will be required to notify Congress and the American public that he or she has done so. Early in our country's history, Patrick Henry argued: The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. Much more recently, Senator Moynihan concluded his book on the evils of government secrecy with these words: A case can be made . . . that secrecy is for losers, for people who don't know how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in the mode of an age now past. We would do well to heed both the words of Patrick Henry and Senator Patrick Moynihan. We would do well, by such heeding of these words, to avoid the peril of excessive secrecy and its consequences, including the consequence of designating the United States of America as losers. We now have the opportunity to avoid that fate. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, by now everyone is well aware of the destruction Florida has endured over the past 45 days. First, Tropical Storm Bonnie struck the panhandle. Then Hurricane Charley crashed into Florida's west coast. That was followed by Hurricane Frances, which wreaked havoc throughout the State. And last week Hurricane Ivan tore through the panhandle. As a result of these storms, today 61 of the State's 67 counties have been declared disaster areas. Floridians are grateful for the Senate's quick action in providing the initial $2 billion in relief funds. They also look forward to the Senate's quick consideration of the President's supplemental request for additional assistance. As important as this Federal assistance is, however, it represents only a fraction of the money needed for Florida's families to rebuild. The Insurance Information Institute estimates that insurance companies will pay out more than the $15.5 billion in insurance claims paid as a result of Hurricane Andrew. Of course, that amount is not the entirety of losses Floridians have suffered. In fact, as a result of the magnitude of the claims incurred from Hurricane Andrew Floridians will be responsible for a larger share of the losses from these storms than they incurred in 1992. Many Floridians will face thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs as a result of these storms. Those families with money in a retirement account, e.g. 401(k) or IRA, are quite likely to be forced to look to that money to rebuild their homes and their lives. Doing so, however, will come at a significant cost. First, any funds withdrawn are subject to the income tax. That's appropriate, since these funds have not been taxed previously. In addition to the income tax due on these withdrawals, taxpayers under age 59\1/2\ will face a 10 percent penalty for early withdrawal. Under normal circumstances this penalty serves a very worthwhile purpose. It encourages workers to leave funds in their retirement accounts for their intended purposes. The situation in Florida is far from normal, however, and in this instance the penalty serves as a ``ransom'' imposed by the Federal government on workers access to funds in times of desperation. The bill I am introducing today with Senator Nelson is a small but important step that we can take to help Floridians help themselves. It waives the 10 percent penalty for families that have suffered a loss as a result of a disaster. Although it was inspired by the storms that have ravaged our State, it is not exclusive to the victims of these storms. The penalty waiver is available to any taxpayer who suffered a loss as a result of a major disaster declared under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief Act. To qualify for this relief the taxpayer must have sustained a loss that has not been compensated by insurance or otherwise. The bill also gives taxpayers a five-year window within which they can reinvest these funds for their retirement.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, by now everyone is well aware of the destruction Florida has endured over the past 45 days. First, Tropical Storm Bonnie struck the panhandle. Then Hurricane Charley crashed into Florida's west coast. That was followed by Hurricane Frances, which wreaked havoc throughout the State. And last week Hurricane Ivan tore through the panhandle. As a result of these storms, today 61 of the State's 67 counties have been declared disaster areas. Floridians are grateful for the Senate's quick action in providing the initial $2 billion in relief funds. They also look forward to the Senate's quick consideration of the President's supplemental request for additional assistance. As important as this Federal assistance is, however, it represents only a fraction of the money needed for Florida's families to rebuild. The Insurance Information Institute estimates that insurance companies will pay out more than the $15.5 billion in insurance claims paid as a result of Hurricane Andrew. Of course, that amount is not the entirety of losses Floridians have suffered. In fact, as a result of the magnitude of the claims incurred from Hurricane Andrew Floridians will be responsible for a larger share of the losses from these storms than they incurred in 1992. Many Floridians will face thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs as a result of these storms. Those families with money in a retirement account, e.g. 401(k) or IRA, are quite likely to be forced to look to that money to rebuild their homes and their lives. Doing so, however, will come at a significant cost. First, any funds withdrawn are subject to the income tax. That's appropriate, since these funds have not been taxed previously. In addition to the income tax due on these withdrawals, taxpayers under age 59\1/2\ will face a 10 percent penalty for early withdrawal. Under normal circumstances this penalty serves a very worthwhile purpose. It encourages workers to leave funds in their retirement accounts for their intended purposes. The situation in Florida is far from normal, however, and in this instance the penalty serves as a ``ransom'' imposed by the Federal government on workers access to funds in times of desperation. The bill I am introducing today with Senator Nelson is a small but important step that we can take to help Floridians help themselves. It waives the 10 percent penalty for families that have suffered a loss as a result of a disaster. Although it was inspired by the storms that have ravaged our State, it is not exclusive to the victims of these storms. The penalty waiver is available to any taxpayer who suffered a loss as a result of a major disaster declared under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief Act. To qualify for this relief the taxpayer must have sustained a loss that has not been compensated by insurance or otherwise. The bill also gives taxpayers a five-year window within which they can reinvest these funds for their retirement.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. The broad goal of ensuring that the Goldwater- Nichols model is applied to the intelligence community should be the top priority as we shape the organizational reforms in our pending legislation. It is my intention next week to speak to some specific organizational reforms which should be included in order to achieve this broader objective of a decentralized, joint, and nimble intelligence community, capable of responding to our emerging threats. Let me repeat Flynt Leverett's conclusion: It is going to require strong Presidential and congressional leadership to achieve genuine reform. That is our challenge. Next week, we will be tested as to whether we will be able and worthy to meet that challenge. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, this is the fourth floor statement I have made on the subject of intelligence reform. I have spoken previously about the history of our intelligence community, how did we get to where we are today. I have talked about the failures of the intelligence community to adapt after the end of the Cold War. And I have talked about the unfortunate lethargy with which both the current administration and, I must say, the Congress, have responded to the needs for much-needed reform of our intelligence agencies. I must also express my gratitude for the excellent work of the independent 9/11 Commission. This Commission has built upon other sets of recommendations going back to the mid-1990s for the overhauling of our intelligence structure. Today, I would like to spend a few minutes discussing the shape that I believe the organizational reform should take, and I would like to begin by briefly recalling the history of our modern Department of Defense. The Defense Department evolution can be divided into three historic phases: first, pre-1947; second, 1947 through 1986; and, finally, 1986 until today. In the first phase, the pre-1947 phase, practically going back to the birth of our Nation, we had independent services which had little coordination one with the other. The Navy had its own Cabinet level Secretary. The Army had its own Cabinet level Secretary. The Army Air Corps, which was a product largely of the Second World War, was about to be spun off from the Army and almost certainly would have had its own bureaucratic structure. What avoided that from occurring was that Congress, at the insistence of President Harry Truman, stepped in, in 1947, with the National Security Act. This act created, among other things, the Department of Defense with a single civilian at the top and service chiefs reporting to that single Secretary at the top. That action did not end all rivalries and competition for budget dollars and prestige, but it helped. However, there were dramatic instances of operational failures, including the botched attempt to rescue hostages in Iran and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon and the problems which plagued the invasion of Grenada. All of these in their own way pointed to weaknesses in the structure that existed in the period from 1947 to 1986. By 1986, Congress moved to address these concerns, the concerns that the services were not communicating well together or coordinating their activities toward common missions. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 decentralized the military establishment and created joint operation commands based upon geography. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were given responsibility for planning and advising the civilian command structure on strategy. The joint commands have become very familiar to us all, and I might say, I am proud to say that three of these are based in my home State of Florida: the Southern Command in Miami, the Central Command, and the Special Operations Command in Tampa. Goldwater-Nichols gave our Nation a much more effective mission- oriented warfighting machine. It is well recognized that this could not have happened had it been conducted under the centralized form of 1947. The challenge today is, it took 39 years for the military to evolve from the centralized system of 1947 to the decentralized system of 1986. Using this analogy of our military command structure, I would suggest that our current intelligence community, the community of 2004, is in the pre-1947 state. I would further suggest that if this is the year to be ``the 1947 for intelligence,'' we cannot wait 39 years to get it right with our intelligence community, that we cannot centralize the leadership of intelligence agencies under a new director of national intelligence and then wait for decades until we enact the equivalent of Goldwater-Nichols legislation for the decentralization of intelligence. Given the threats we face around the world, it is urgent that in the same act that brings the intelligence agencies together--which are defined around functions--under a new director of national intelligence, that in that same legislation we need to lay out the plan for the most effective management of intelligence and collection and analysis in order to achieve the missions responding to the threats we have today. At the very least, we should plant the seeds for the next necessary step--decentralization, jointness of effort among our intelligence agencies and personnel, and a mission-based orientation. I would propose, as has the 9/11 Commission, that we empower the director of national intelligence to establish centers which are built not around regions of the world, as are our military commands, but around the threats to which our intelligence community must better understand and equip us to respond. The 9/11 Commission recommended one such center, a center on counterterrorism. In the legislation that is currently being considered by the relevant committees in the Senate, there is a statutorily directed counterterrorism center. I am pleased that President Bush has now begun to provide, belatedly as it is, the creation of such a center by statute. Other centers which should be authorized in this legislation but not specifically identified are those that focus on other challenges, challenges that we face today, challenges that we may face in the future. For instance, I do not believe anyone in this Chamber would question the fact that we need to have a national intelligence center which focuses on how we are going to counter and combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We will probably also find that we need to have a center which focuses on financing, the financing of rogue states, the financing of terrorist organizations. It is entirely possible that we will need to create centers to respond to threats that are defined by national boundaries or regions, such as the specific dangers posed by regimes in North Korea and Iran. But most of the threats we now face do not lend themselves to geographic definitions. Just look at how al-Qaida has rejuvenated itself into so many decentralized parts of the world with such a flexible, nimble organizational structure, that we failed to wipe it out in Afghanistan, diverted our attention to Iraq, and have now allowed the enemy to become much more violent and effective. The analogy that I have used is to that of a puddle of mercury. If you slam your fist into the mercury, it does not disappear. It becomes a thousand tiny blobs scattered over the tabletop. That is essentially what we have done to al-Qaida. We have slammed our fist into the puddle of mercury and now we are faced with literally hundreds of droplets around the world. The key to this mission-based decentralization of intelligence, in my opinion, is that we must give the director of national intelligence the statutory authority to manage the community with flexibility and nimbleness so he or she can quickly establish new centers or modify existing centers as future threats emerge, just as Goldwater-Nichols has given that authority to the Secretary of Defense. Again, there is an analogy in the Defense Department since Goldwater- Nichols. Originally, the countries of Syria and Lebanon were assigned to European Command because they were thought to be more relevant to European defense issues than the Middle East. Recently, there has been a reorganization for those two countries, recognizing the fact of the threat they pose through such things as providing sanctuary to some of the major international terrorist groups, that it would be more appropriate to assign them to Central Command which has responsibility for the Middle East and Central Asia. I am very pleased that such an approach has a growing number of advocates within the intelligence community. As an example, Flynt Leverett, a former senior analyst at the CIA and later Senior Director for Middle Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council from 2002 to 2003, is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in July of this year. In that article, Mr. Leverett said the following: Clearly, structural reform needs to go beyond the creation of a freestanding intelligence ``czar'' who would oversee the entire American spy network. We need to develop a model of ``jointness'' for the intelligence community, analogous to that which Goldwater-Nichols Act did for the uniform military 18 years ago . . . Before Goldwater-Nichols, too many modern military missions were characterized by disaster . . . Since Goldwater-Nichols required the armed services to collaborate, we have seen the successes of Panama, Operation Desert Storm, and the outstanding battle performance of our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. This model should be applied to American intelligence. This means moving away from the current organizational structure, [which is] defined primarily along disciplinary and agency lines . . . Instead, we should organize and deploy our resources against high priority targets, including terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, China, and the problem states in the Middle East. Focused on a particular target, each group would draw on people and resources from across the intelligence community. . . . Existing agencies would function primarily as providers of personnel and resources, much as the individual military services function in relationship to the combatant commands. It is clear that our intelligence agencies cannot move towards partnership on their own. The post-9/11 battles among the counterterrorist center, the new Terrorism Threat Integration Center, the F.B.I., and the Department of Homeland Security over primacy in assessing the terrorist threat strongly suggest that we have regressed in our efforts to integrate . . . It is going to require strong presidential and Congressional leadership to achieve genuine reform. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Leverett's entire article be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I have listened with interest to the comments of my good friend from Illinois, as I did earlier today by my friend from West Virginia. I respect their analysis of this nomination. I hope they respect my disagreement with that analysis. I rise today to support the nomination of a friend, a man with whom I have worked for over 25 years, a fellow Floridian whose judgment and integrity I highly regard. I support the confirmation of Porter Goss as the next Director of the CIA. I have known Congressman Goss and his wonderful family for more than two decades. I commend them for their willingness to delay the well-earned retirement which they thought would lie before them at the end of this session of Congress to take on this very difficult and important responsibility. My colleagues know that I have been extremely critical of this administration for, among other things, its failure to hold anyone accountable for the intelligence failures that allowed terrorists to strike our Nation on September 11, 2001, and for the failure that led us into the war in Iraq. I have been extremely critical of the President and the Vice President for allowing America to be distracted from the real war against terror in Afghanistan and to call upon us to retreat from that real war against the real terrorists who had killed 3,000 Americans and using fabricated intelligence to draw us into the war in Iraq. I have repeatedly questioned why the President has waited more than 3 years since September 11 to begin a serious discussion of restructuring, reorienting, and reforming our intelligence capabilities. I am here today to support the nomination of Porter Goss precisely because of these concerns. From my personal experience, I can tell you that Porter Goss is the right man for this job. He is uniquely qualified to serve as America's Director of Central Intelligence. He is a man of great character, exceptional intelligence, a tremendous work ethic, and outstanding personal and professional integrity. Let me share a story. As Governor of Florida, I had known of Porter Goss as he served as a distinguished mayor of the town of Sanibel Island, FL. In the early 1980s, the county in which Sanibel is located, Lee County, FL, was in the midst of probably the largest public works project in the history of that county, a major new airport which is now known as the Southwestern Florida International Airport. In the midst of that, three of the five members of the county commission were indicted for corruption, largely relating to activities involving the construction of the airport. The county government was in disarray. Public confidence in the county government had sunk to a new low, and this major, critically important project to the future of the citizens of southwest Florida had come into question. It was my responsibility as Governor of Florida to first suspend from office those individuals who had been indicted, and then to look for three citizens of Lee County who could assume the important responsibility of restoring the integrity of county government and completing the important airport project. Although I am a Democrat, and had just been reelected as a Democrat, and Porter is a Republican, it was my feeling that his personal characteristics were more important than his party label, and so I appointed him to one of those three positions. And from that appointment, he quickly became the chair of the Lee County commission. Party affiliation did not matter then. I do not believe party affiliation should matter today in determining who should be the next Director of our Central Intelligence operation. What mattered then was the fact that Porter, with his clear commitment to public service, his integrity and his leadership skills, at a time when his community desperately needed all of them, was able to recapture the confidence of the people, was able to restart this important airport project, which now is one of the most important economic assets of the community. When it comes to the intelligence community, Congressman Goss has the balanced perspective of having been both an insider and an outsider. For a decade early in his career, he served the Nation both in Army Intelligence and the CIA. He knows from personal, firsthand experience the value and the risks of clandestine operations. Since he has been in Congress--elected in 1988--and especially as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he has come to know the agencies from an oversight capacity. Now, some have said he is too close to the intelligence agencies, that he is too protective of the status quo. But from my partnership with him as cochairmen of the congressional joint inquiry into the events of September 11, it is my firm belief, and my assurance to my colleagues, that Porter Goss can and will be independent in his judgments. Porter Goss will also be clear and tough minded in determining where there are needed reforms and leading us to those reforms. If any of my colleagues or citizens of this great Nation wish to have an indication of where those reforms are likely to take us, I would direct you to the 19 reforms recommended by that congressional joint inquiry, upon which our Presiding Officer participated with great distinction. As we move to implement much-needed reforms in our intelligence community, I am confident Porter Goss will not be part of the problem but will be a leader in taking us toward principled and effective solutions which will make Americans safer. This time the President got it right. I strongly urge the confirmation of his nominee to be the Director of Central Intelligence, Porter Goss.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, VA, has a long and distinguished history of collaboration with various universities across the country. No such partnership has yielded more successful results than that between the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, VAMC, in Gainesville, FL, and the University of Florida, UF. In keeping with their long history together, these two notable institutions announced on July 6, 2004, that they will be working together to help stroke victims. The Translational Research in Rehabilitation Initiative, as it has been named, is a $2.7 million effort to improve the lives of those who have suffered from strokes and other brain injuries. Its goal is to drastically shorten the time between scientific discovery and the development of therapies used for the treatment of these patients. Currently, an average of 17 years go by before discoveries in clinical trials are routinely incorporated into medical treatment. Previous thinking was that the mature nervous system could not be repaired after injury. Since 1990, however, scientists have known this is not true. As such, the joint initiative will utilize the advanced skills of UF scientists and physicians to translate discoveries from animal research into quicker ways of reconstructing the damaged human nervous system. With VA's assistance, UF also will recruit three new faculty members, whose goal will be to accelerate brain-injury research to find combinations of drugs and rehabilitation therapies that will help stroke victims. The project is an extension of research that began 1999 with Leslie Gonzalez-Rothi, Ph.D., a neurology professor associated with UF's Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute and program director of the Brain Rehabilitation Research Center at the Gainesville VAMC. That year, Dr. Gonzalez-Rothi obtained the first rehabilitation research and development grant from VA to start the Brain Rehabilitation Research Center. At the center, UF scientists study combinations of drugs and rehabilitation techniques in people who have suffered strokes, focusing their efforts on rehabilitating patients and teaching them to relearn lost abilities. This new mission will explore the ways doctors can actually help heal the injury and is part of the July renewal of a 5-year, $4.25 million rehabilitation research and development grant to the center. In addition to the grant, the Gainesville VAMC will provide nearly 4,000 square feet of laboratory space in its medical center to support the effort. This new partnership between VA and UF is a shining example of what VA can and will accomplish through its impressive research capabilities, especially with the help of its university affiliates. The strides that result from the Translational Research in Rehabilitation Initiative will significantly improve patient care for the entire Nation, making a difference in the lives of veterans, as well as the general public. I am very proud that this project is being conducted in my home State of Florida.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I strongly support the amendment. We have had too much classification of material, which has had the result of making us less secure, not more secure. The expert opinion of people like General Scowcroft ought to be made available to the American people and the Congress so it can be used as we attempt to construct systems that will make us safer. There is no reason for the extensive classification process used in this administration, ranging from the Scowcroft report to the classification of 27 pages of our Senate-House joint inquiry relating to the role of foreign governments in assisting the terrorists. This would be a good place to start. The American people will be safer by our actions.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I commend Senator Nelson on this issue and thank Senator Stevens for his efforts. This amendment represents the first step in correcting an injustice. That injustice is the lack of meaningful disaster relief for the farmers, ranchers, and growers of Florida. Agriculture is the second largest generator of income in Florida. It is responsible for $7 billion in cash receipts and accounts for a total of $60 billion in total economic impact. Mr. President, 44,000 farmers and growers produce 280 different crops ranging from tropical fruits to winter vegetables to greenhouse and nursery products to aquaculture and honey and more. The twin disasters of Charley and Frances devastated a significant portion of this economic sector. Preliminary estimates indicate more than $2 billion in damage to Florida agriculture. Some growers were hit twice; before they could determine their initial losses, they lost the rest of their crops. It may take months to determine the final cost of these storms. The ground first must dry out before growers can learn if they will be able to plant and harvest a crop this year. The growers and their families need help now. Yet today's request from the administration contains no aid for them. Between fiscal year 1989 and fiscal year 2003, Congress added $49.2 billion to USDA programs. Of that amount, $21.4 billion went for market loss payments to compensate for low prices, and $17.9 billion went to crop disaster payments to producers who suffered a natural disaster crop loss. In the past, the Senate has responded when our farmers and ranchers were in need. We again must respond in an appropriate way by providing the aid that is contained in this amendment. I want to commend those officials who have been trying to help Florida agriculture since Hurricane Charley first hit the State. Dedicated public servants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have been assessing the damage and directing farmers to available assistance programs. The private sector has worked long hours to minimize the damage. Producers who may have suffered only minor losses are helping their neighbors who are not as fortunate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture as always is using its resources to aid the victims of these disasters. Additional funds are necessary to begin recovery operations. Yet, those funds were not included in the administration's recent request. I want to explain why these funds are necessary. Some natural disasters destroy crops. These hurricanes have destroyed more than crops. For example, nurseries and greenhouses collapsed or were crushed by the storms. Replacing a structure is more difficult and costly than just replacing plants. Consider the citrus industry. In some groves, you can walk from end to end and never touch the ground because it is covered with fallen grapefruits. Next year, another crop may grow, but the grove's owners, and their families, need help today. Even worse, the storms destroyed thousands of citrus trees. It takes 5 years for a new tree to produce fruit and seven years for it to turn a profit. We are approaching that time of year when people throughout the country order and send gifts of Florida citrus. Its been estimated that packing houses and related businesses could lose as much as $100 million from the storms. Consider the impact on the workers in these facilities. Preliminary estimates indicate that the sod industry in Florida has suffered $300 million in losses. Many of the sod farms are flooded, and too much water is not good for sod. Florida's cattle and calving operations generate more than $370 million in cash receipts. The storms destroyed fences and dumped debris on grazing lands. Florida calves are fed and grow at feedlots in other parts of the country. Consider the plight of the winter vegetable growers. Many in Florida began preliminary planting before the hurricanes hit. Existing programs do not cover their pre-planting costs. They must plant by a certain date to be eligible for aid. If the ground is too wet and they can't plant in time, they suffer twice--the lack of a cash crop and the lack of disaster aid. The amendment does not ignore the human side of agriculture. It includes funds to assist groups that provide emergency services to the many people who work on farms where crops have been destroyed. Many farm workers have lost their jobs. They also have seen their homes destroyed, or they find themselves without water or power. I realize that the preliminary estimates of $2 billion in losses will be reduced, once insurance and other payments are taken into account. But the need exists today. The transmittal letter for the emergency supplemental asked Congress ``to limit this emergency request to those items directly related to the recovery efforts from the impact of these recent major disasters.'' This amendment meets this requirement. After a more detailed examination of the damage, we may have a need for additional funds for agriculture assistance. That is why I consider this amendment to be just an important first step but not the final step toward the goal of helping the farmers, ranchers, and producers of Florida. Amendment No. 3656

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, nurses are an invaluable resource for the VA health care system, as well as for health care systems the world over. As such, VA has established nurse-managed primary care clinics at many of its medical centers. These clinics are run by nurse practitioners who serve as independent practitioners with prescriptive authority and a focus on delivering cost-effective, efficient, high quality care. I am pleased to say that on July 6, 2004, the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, of which I am ranking member, received VA's favorable report on these clinics, entitled, ``Nurse-Managed Primary Care Clinics Evaluation.'' To complete this report, VA identified three clinics in three VISNs: Fergus Falls, MN; Denver, CO; and Madison, WI. VA then evaluated patient satisfaction, access to care, provider experiences, functional status of patients receiving care, cost of care, and waiting times. Overall, the report concluded that veterans seem immensely satisfied with the care they receive at the clinics and that the costs associated with them are reasonable. I am very proud of the success of these clinics, though not at all surprised by the quality of care provided by VA's nurse practitioners. The patients surveyed at the three clinics stated that they were highly satisfied with the services received there, especially in terms of length of time spent waiting at the office, time spent with the veteran, explanation of what was done for the patient, technical skills and personal manner of staff, as well as the overall visit. In addition, 67 percent of the veterans served by these clinics rated them good on wait times, convenience of the office location, and the ability to get through to the office by telephone. The Nurse-Managed Primary Care Clinics Evaluation resulted from a June 14, 2001, hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. At this hearing, in-depth discussion about innovations at a nurse-managed clinic took place. Subsequently, nurse recruitment and retention provisions were included in Public Law 107-135, which included an evaluation of nurse-managed health care clinics in VA. I am pleased that the committee was able to effect the survey that resulted in this extremely encouraging report. Currently, VA employs 36,000 registered nurses, approximately 6 percent of which are nurse practitioners. Nurses have long been recognized by VA, as well as those of us who oversee it, as indispensable to the delivery of health care. In fact, according to a 1999 article by M.O. Mundinger in Nursing Economics, nurse practitioners are able to effectively provide 90 percent of the services primary care physicians do. In recognizing the great value nurses hold, VA has done all it can to foster and fully utilize these essential members of the health care community. Its nurse-managed primary care clinics are one important, and successful, facet of this effort.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, as he leaves, I would like to commend Senator Nelson, my good friend and colleague, who has given an enormous amount of attention to two disastrous hurricanes that have already hit our State, both before and in the aftermath. He is now continuing that as we face yet another hurricane in our State. I extend my appreciation, admiration, and, as a Floridian, my thanks.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, on Saturday the Nation paused to observe the third anniversary of the horrible tragedy of September 11, 2001. In the first hours and weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Nation was shocked by what had been the unthinkable--a terrorist plot carried out on the soil of the United States of America. We have seen grisly images of terrorism on our television screens from the Middle East, from Africa, from the Baltics, even from Great Britain. But now we have been hit here at home seemingly without warning, without the chance to have prevented the loss of over 3,000 innocent lives. We now know that the terrorist attack of September 11 was the result of a sophisticated plot, a plot that developed over many months, a plot that required the coordination among a number of individuals and we know that had our national intelligence agencies been better organized and more focused on the problem of international terrorism this tragedy would have been avoided. Incredibly, it is now more than 3 years after that tragic event and the basic problems in our national intelligence community that contributed to our vulnerability on September 11, 2001, are now for the first time being seriously considered. Let me be clear. These problems were not a mystery before September 11. Before September 11, there had been a series of reviews of our national intelligence, reviews of our national intelligence in the context of terrorism and a series of very similar conforming recommendations. These weaknesses that contributed to September 11 were well known. They were well known by the administration and a majority in this Congress. What had occurred is that they had been essentially dismissed. I am delighted that the good work of the 9/11 Commission has finally shaken the administration and my colleagues out of their lethargy. In my last statement I identified five major problems and challenges of the U.S. intelligence community. Today I would like to suggest the direction the reforms should take in response to each of these problems and challenges. First, the failure to adapt to a changing adversary and a changing global environment. In the final report of the congressional joint inquiry, we optimistically stated: The cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001 provided a unique and compelling mandate for strong leadership and constructive changes throughout the intelligence community. However, the record is that since September 11 the intelligence community has been slow to accept the concept that a non-nation state can challenge the United States of America. We are all familiar with those scenes immediately after September 11 when the finger of responsibility was pointed not at al-Qaida, not at the Taliban, not at the place in which the terrorist plot had emerged but, rather, to Iraq because only a nation state could carry out a plot as complex and as devastating as September 11. We have taken only first steps to understand the real enemy, international terror. Satellites will not give us the understanding, the capability, nor the intentions of Osama bin Laden. Yet the allocation of our intelligence resources continues to be dominated by the maintenance of the cold war satellite architecture and the development of yet a new generation of satellite technology. The recruitment and training of human intelligence agents has accelerated but remains inadequate. A sense of urgency is required to dramatically increase the number of men and women in the intelligence agencies with the command of the languages and the cultures of the Middle East, Central Asia, and China. In none of our intelligence agencies is this failure to transition to new threats and to new demand more evident than in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is, first and foremost, a law enforcement agency and it deserves its reputation as the best in the world. In that important responsibility, the priorities and professional rewards are for investigating a crime after it has occurred, arresting the culprit, providing the court admissible evidence to secure a conviction, and sending the criminal to jail. That is not the orientation of an intelligence agency. There the objective is to understand the threat before the act has occurred so the plot can be interdicted. So what should we do? The United States can begin by learning a lesson from our foe. Since our unfinished war in Afghanistan, al-Qaida has regrouped and decentralized. It has established alliances with terrorist groups in over 60 countries. This may seem counterintuitive, but in public administration there is an admonition that in order to decentralize, an organization must first centralize. Since their inception, the intelligence agencies have focused on their specific assignments, such as the collection of communications or the analysis of visual images. As an example, the National Reconnaissance Office is paid to think about the capabilities of the next generation of satellites, not whether the relative importance of satellites in relation to human intelligence is declining. The larger realities--such as the changed nature of our enemies--go underattended. That is why the joint inquiry recommended that we centralize greater control over the intelligence agencies in a director of national intelligence to ``make certain the entire U.S. intelligence community operates as a coherent whole.'' Once the agencies are retrieved into a coherent whole, I would then recommend that they, as the combined military commands of Goldwater- Nichols, be then decentralized around specific missions such as countering global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terror. This new architecture would itself be subject to constant change as old threats decline and go away and new ones emerge to replace them. Such a structure would require constant attention to these questions: Who is the enemy today? Who is the enemy likely to be tomorrow? And what do we need to know in order to successfully confront this enemy? A second reform designed to keep the intelligence community focused on both today and tomorrow is to increase the linkages between the intelligence communities and other sources of information and analysis. There have been some successful attempts to reach out to, for instance, academic programs and private sector think tanks. These initiatives should be expanded and integrated as a permanent component of the intelligence agency rather than an occasional effort. I also believe the intelligence communities need to reach out to the consumer. Just as in a commercial venture, where the needs and desires of the consumer drive the success of the provider, the intelligence community should do likewise. What a difference it might have made if before September 11 someone had worked with the administrators of our most vulnerable systems--airlines, seaports, power, and industrial plants--to understand their vulnerabilities and assess whether current intelligence would indicate the need for change in their traditional means of operation in order to harden them from terrorist attacks. It was no mystery that terrorists were considering using commercial airlines as weapons of mass destruction. That had been discussed for the better part of a decade. The problem was we did not connect that information with those who had a responsibility for the safety of commercial airlines. Finally, if we are to recentralize our intelligence agency so we can then decentralize based on specific tasks, we need to change the position of the Director of Central Intelligence. Since 1947, when the intelligence community of the United States was first established, the Director of Central Intelligence has also been the head of the CIA. Given the divergent responsibilities of both jobs, that needs to be changed. To give an analogy, we do not ask the Secretary of Defense to also be the Secretary of the Army. Each job has its own special perspectives and responsibilities. Yet that is essentially what we are doing with a merger of one of the intelligence operative agencies--the CIA--with the head of the individual who is supposed to have a view across the entire intelligence community. The head of the central intelligence function is designed to be one who can make strategic decisions regardless of how they affect the CIA or any other specific functional agency. It is time, today, to apply the same rule we have applied since immediately after World War II to our military, to our intelligence community. A second failure of intelligence is the repeated instances in which the intelligence community has failed to provide strategic intelligence. Our late colleague, Pat Moynihan, as the Presiding Officer knows, used to have his seat in the back row, middle section of the Chamber of the Senate. From there he often complained that while the United States intelligence services can provide us with information on how many telephones there were in the Kremlin and information on how many sailors man the latest class of Soviet warships, the intelligence community had not been able to figure out that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse due to its weakening economy. Sometimes that kind of information gleaned both from publicly available sources and a knowledge of the country, rather than wiretaps and satellites, is the most important information there is. Senator Moynihan had a solution. He wanted to abolish the American intelligence agency. I believe the need to collect, analyze, integrate, and disseminate intelligence is too great. Instead, rather than abolition, we need a series of reforms designed to enhance the gathering of strategic intelligence. For starters, the President should direct the next Director of Central Intelligence, whatever title he or she might have, to expand the number and orientation of voices that contribute to the intelligence process. The Bush administration has been accused--correctly, in my opinion--of practicing incestuous amplification. In other words, the only people who were at the table are people who have the same point of view. Their views are then vetted through people who again share the same beliefs. As a result, the original conclusion is not only validated, it is amplified. After the attacks of September 11, the intelligence community was accused of failing to connect the dots. Incestuous amplification is unlikely to either connect the dots or expand the number of dots which are visible. Two places to start this report would be the State Department and openly available sources of information. Unfortunately, the State Department has been the orphan of this administration. This is a particular shame, given the fact that the State Department has gotten it right more often than any other security agency. From the beginning, the Secretary of State was skeptical of the stories coming out of Africa and Damascus about the status of Saddam Hussein's restoration of his nuclear capabilities. Using information from our own sources as well as European allies, the State Department had the best assessment of conditions in postwar Iraq. The intelligence community needs to be more amenable to the use of open source information. The percentage of information which we contributed to a wise ultimate judgment derived from open sources--such as journalists, regional television and the Internet--is increasing. The duty of reading and assessing the significance of events reported openly in a foreign post is too often assigned to the newest, the least experienced intelligence officer or Foreign Service officer. There are indicators, for example, that press and television reports in the Middle East should have raised concerns before September 11 that a tragedy in the homeland of the United States was in the making. It is for that reason that the joint inquiry recommended that ``Congress and the administration should ensure the full development within the Department of Homeland Security of an effective all-source terrorism information fusion center that will dramatically improve the focus and quality of counter terrorism analysis and facilitate the timely dissemination of relevant intelligence information both within and beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence Community.'' I wish to pause to give particular credit to those words and that wise policy to our colleague, Senator Richard Shelby. He served for an extended period of time as both chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee and throughout that period was particularly adamant in his support for integrating intelligence collection sources so that all could be taken into account with the wisest analysis and use of intelligence. This idea--the fusion center--was signed into law within the Department of Homeland Security. But what has happened since? What has happened since is this very good idea has languished. The goal of the fusion center was not only to perform analysis that would fill the gap between foreign and domestic intelligence, but it also was to share information with State and local law enforcement and to access their capability. This is not happening. The third failure is the failure to establish within the intelligence community priorities and then deploy behind them. Rather than set up intelligence systems to validate convenient political notions, we need a system that pursues mutually agreed upon intelligence priorities. To that end, the President must assure that clear, consistent, and current policies are established and enforced through the intelligence agency. The President needs to charge the National Security Council with the preparation of a governmentwide strategy for combating terrorism at home and abroad. It is an outrage that we are now more than 3 years from September 11 and we do not have a clear national strategy of how we are going to eradicate international terrorists. The restructuring of the intelligence community suggested above can significantly contribute to a more coherent set of intelligence initiatives, but without leadership and commitment from the President, little progress will be made. Fourth, the intelligence community has not implemented the policies necessary to recruit, train, reward or sanction, maintain the talents, or diversify its human intelligence capabilities. The intelligence community's current recruitment and training regime has been inadequate to overcome this handicap. Of particular concern to me is the difficulty of receiving a security clearance for a first-generation American of Arabic ancestry. These young Americans, who have a heritage in the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia, are most likely to have absorbed colloquial Arabic, Farsi or Pashtun, at home, and could have the personal skills that will increase their value as a case agent. Of course, they are likely to have something else; that is, they are likely to have a family. An intelligence security background check--an important part of assuring the patriotism of our intelligence community--includes interviews with family members. And if those family members live in Syria, for example, it may be difficult or impossible to get a clearance. If one of the family members, even a distant one, has been in the service of that foreign government, the recruit is likely to be rejected, even though he or she may meet every standard of being a patriotic American. By failing to find ways to overcome this bias, we are denying ourselves the benefit of one of our Nation's greatest assets, our diversity. Another frequently cited reason for difficulty of recruitment of intelligence officers is the mid-1950s culture of the intelligence community. While most other aspects of our society have become accustomed to frequent turnover in careers--in fact, the average American can anticipate working at seven or more distinctly different jobs or places of employment throughout his or her worklife-- intelligence agencies continue to seek to employ people who are prepared to make a lifetime commitment. Our Joint Inquiry recommended a series of reforms to bring the human talent in the community, which is in line with the current challenges, to the intelligence community. Those included a focus on bringing midcareer professionals into the intelligence community, allowing for more time-limited service for college graduates, finding ways to bring more native language speakers into the intelligence agencies, and other efforts at diversification. At this point, I commend the former Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. George Tenet, for the work he has done to initiate these policies. I am pleased that the recently enacted Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2005 includes seed money for the development of a reserve officers training corps style program for the intelligence community at several universities, a recruitment and training program which will provide financial aid in exchange for a commitment of service within the intelligence community. This could be a significant response to the need for proficiency in some of the world's most difficult languages and least known cultures and histories. Having these students under supervision during their college careers would also facilitate the clearance of first-generation Americans of Arab background into the intelligence services. And it would have, as does the military reserve officers training corps, the further attribute of facilitating jointness; that is, the willingness of people to see the mission rather than stop their vision at the particular agency at which they serve. Once these young people enter their respective intelligence agencies, many of them will have known each other during their shared preparatory experience and, therefore, will be more likely to work effectively together. The fifth failure is the failure to realize that many of the most important decisions made by the intelligence community that were previously described as tactical have now become strategic. There have been too many instances, most of which we cannot talk about in open session, when mid-level bureaucrats in the intelligence community have made decisions at a tactical level without a more strategic view as to the implications of those decisions. These can be seemingly as simple as the rotation of surveillance aircraft or other means of surveillance which, when discovered, set off a diplomatic firestorm with one of our friends or with one of our enemies. The leadership of the intelligence community has a special responsibility to determine if there is a full understanding of the implications, rewards, and risks of an action. Review and ultimate judgment on tactical measures must be made by someone with the requisite strategic vision and authority. For that reason, and because of the significant confusion that the FISA process--the process by which a warrant was obtained to either place a wiretap or review the effects of a foreign person--caused for the FBI in seeking to investigate suspects prior to 9/11, it is important we reform the way the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is now taught and applied. For example, the officials of our Government who are charged with making the ultimate decision on these warrants, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State or their delegates, must place the individual application of such a warrant into the context of U.S. strategic global interests. There are areas where the Congress, through oversight, can and must play a significant role. In a subsequent statement, I will review in more detail the role of Congress in the oversight and direction of the intelligence community and some of the reforms that I suggest should be made in order to more effectively carry out that responsibility. America lost more than 3,000 of our people on September 11. But we lost something else. We lost our innocence. We can never bring back those people we lost, nor will we ever restore America's innocence. What we can do is honor their memories. What we can do is learn from their loss by embarking on the road from innocence to wisdom. Government must lead when the people hesitate. And the people must lead when our Government, as it has under our current President, falters. Our safety and our future are too important to be left to change. Luck may spare us. It will never protect us.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. The declassified version was released to the public on July 24, 2003. I filed legislation, S. 1520, September 11, the Memorial Intelligence Reform Act, to implement those recommendations 1 week later on July 31, 2003. Each of these panels, in common, concluded major changes were needed to better protect the American people, including such steps as much longer human intelligence capabilities. Yet we did not see the leadership that was needed to fully implement any of those recommendations. Rather, when it comes to reforming our intelligence community, our Nation's leaders can be described as lethargic, at best, negligent, at worst. Let me be clear, my condemnation is not directed only at the current administration but previous administrations, as well. For instance, in my judgment, the Clinton administration was guilty of two principal failures. One, it did not seriously consider or initiate the changes necessary to move our intelligence agencies into the 21st century; second, it did not take adequate steps to wipe out the al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, camps which produced thousands of extremists trained in the effective skills of terrorism. The blame is not totally at the White House. This Congress deserves blame for its failure to move with a greater sense of urgency. I will discuss those failures in a future date. Now we have the 9/11 Commission report. We are likely to see passage of an intelligence reform package before the election. I am convinced the American people will recognize that valuable time has been lost in the 3 years since September 11, 2001, and should we suffer another terrorist strike on our land before these reforms are fully implemented, we will not be able to dodge tough questions about why we failed to respond sooner. It is abundantly clear that had we heeded the lessons to be learned from September 11, we might have avoided the embarrassing failures of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that led us into the war in Iraq. President Bush should have exercised his full powers as Commander in Chief in the hours immediately after September 11 by calling together the leadership of the agencies whose failures contributed to that tragedy. The President should, in the bluntest of terms, have demanded a full review and a report and steps to correct these deficiencies to be submitted to the Oval Office within no longer than 100 days. The No. 1 lesson of September 11 is obvious: Our intelligence on the terrorist threat was unreliable. It was subject to major gaps of necessary information and analysis. Had we applied exactly those same lessons learned as we prepared for the war in Iraq, the President would have had less confidence in the intelligence he was being given on issues such as weapons of mass destruction and the conditions that our military men and women would face during and after the initial assault. Ponder this: What a difference that would have made as we learn from the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the problems of pre-Iraqi war intelligence. If we do not now take action to remedy those weaknesses, we will not be able to avoid accountability for our failure to detect and deter the next attack. As has been demonstrated over the past decade, the fundamental opponent of intelligence reform is inertia and the natural tendency to maintain the status quo. Before we can get people to reject the status quo, there has to be, first, an agreement as to what are the problems to which the status quo has contributed. I have found that the medical model of first diagnosing a problem and then prescribing a remedy to be a useful prescription with social problems. Today, I want to give the diagnosis of our intelligence community that a careful physician might offer. Next week, I will come to the Senate to offer my prescription. This is what I consider to be five major problems and challenges facing American intelligence. One, the failure to adapt to a changing adversary and a changing global threat environment. Just as it was difficult 40 years earlier for the intelligence community to make the transition from the practices of the OSS against Germany and Japan, today's intelligence community has found it even more difficult to shift from the cold war to the war on terror. Our new enemy is distinctly different than we are. It is a non-nation state, asymmetrical in the extreme. It is motivated by a religious belief that denies the legitimacy of governments which intrude on the direct relationship which should exist between all law and man. We are almost deaf to the numerous, frequently arcane languages that our new adversaries speak. As a people and as a nation, the United States has limited expertise in their cultures. By the failure to make the transition to this new world we inhabit and the new threats we face, American intelligence is rendering itself less and less capable of bringing the security which our citizens need and deserve. A second failure is the repeated instances in which the intelligence community did not provide effective, strategic intelligence. In the summer of 2001, intelligence was reporting to American decisionmakers that, yes, al-Qaida was something of a threat to U.S. interests, but outside the country, not inside the homeland of the United States. So while we spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fortify our embassies abroad, we did virtually nothing to increase the safety of domestic commercial aviation. As the planning for the war was intensifying in the winter and spring of 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz reached two conclusions which were validated by intelligence, much of which came from the intelligence agencies within the Department of Defense. They claimed that after the war the U.S. troops would be received as liberators and that the Iraqi people would shower our troops with flowers, as the American soldiers had been welcomed in Paris in 1944. They went on to say that the Iraqis would turn on the faucets of that nation's oil riches and pay for the occupation and rebuilding of their nation. Sadly, of course, neither of these projections has come true. The third failure is the failure to establish within the intelligence community broad priorities and then to deploy the resources of the intelligence community behind those priorities. In December of 1998, former CIA Director George Tenet declared terrorism was the intelligence community's primary target, that America was at war with al-Qaida. The problem is that within the CIA and the other intelligence agencies few heard the battle cry and even fewer responded. Rather than set up intelligence systems to validate convenient political notions, we need a system that pursues mutually agreed-upon priorities Fourth, the intelligence community has not implemented the policies necessary to recruit, train, reward or sanction, maintain the talents or diversify its human intelligence capabilities. The U.S. human intelligence at the end of the cold war has been described as very deep in our knowledge of the Soviet target, almost ignorant about everything else. In the places where we most need human intelligence, such as in the Middle East and Central Asia, we are woefully deficient. The intelligence community's current recruitment and training regimes, which rely heavily on college campus career days, has been inadequate to overcome this handicap. We are confronting terrorists with a band of men and women who are enthusiastic to perform the challenging intellectual work of an analyst or the dangerous undertaking of an operative, but often lack the necessary skills to be effective. In my opinion, we need to rethink our system of intelligence recruitment, training, and performance evaluation. The fifth failure is the failure to realize that many of the most important decisions made by the intelligence community that were previously described as tactical have now become strategic. Unfortunately, the level and perspective of those tasking the gathering of that intelligence has not changed, often with highly adverse consequences. One of the reasons that congressional oversight of the intelligence community exists is because in 1960, in the days before a planned summit between President Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Krushvchev, the Soviet Union downed an American U-2 spy plane. The tension surrounding the plane's mission and its downing aborted the summit, and that enraged Senator Mike Mansfield. This is what Senator Mansfield said: Not a single member of the Cabinet nor the President exercised any direct control whatsoever over the ill-fated U- 2 flight at the critical moment at which it was launched. He continued that the decision to undertake the flight ``owes its origin more to bureaucratic inertia, lack of coordination and control and insensitivity to its potential cost than it does to any conscious decision of politically responsible leadership.'' In other words, a tactical blunder had set back a strategic goal. Today, even more than in 1960, tactical intelligence gathering operations need to show an appreciation--a greater appreciation than is true today--for their strategic implications. Mr. President, it has been 3 years since we suffered the horror of September 11. The time to act is long since past. In future days, I will discuss recommendations to address what I think are the major challenges we face, and to urge the courage and commitment, will and urgency, to protect the American people in the way that we failed to do on September 11, 2001. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, finally, there is the report of our own House-Senate Joint Inquiry into the intelligence failures that surrounded 9/11, which I had the honor of co-chairing with Representative Porter Goss. The Joint Inquiry file our report with its 19 recommendations in December 2002. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the names of the members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in the 107th Congress who served on the Joint Inquiry.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and good friend, Senator Kennedy, for his courtesy in allowing me to make these remarks at this time. Mr. President, this is a propitious moment. At exactly 8:46 tomorrow--Saturday--morning, we will observe the third anniversary of the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. That moment changed our Nation and our world forever--and in the hours and days that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we in public office undertook an important obligation. We vowed, in the memory of the nearly 3,000 innocent people who died that day, to take action to prevent attacks of that magnitude from ever happening again within our homeland. In his speech delivered before a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, President Bush put it this way: Americans are asking, How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command--every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war--to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network. Unfortunately, one day before the third anniversary of 9/11, we have not met that commitment. We have failed to adequately focus on what it will take to fight this new threat, one that calls for new thinking and new governmental infrastructure. The No. 1 requirement for meaningful reform is strong and consistent Presidential leadership. We have seen leadership lacking at several crucial turning points in recent history, both before September 11, 2001 and since. I have believed for many months--since well before the final report of the independent 9/11 Commission was released in July--that the problems in our intelligence community are not a mystery, they are known weaknesses that simply have yet to be fixed. I commend the 9/11 Commission for its fine work, especially chairman and former Governor of New Jersey Tom Kean and vice chairman and former Congressman from Indiana Lee Hamilton. And I am optimistic that their report has shaken our nation's leaders out of their lethargy and caused them to focus on the need for reform of our intelligence gathering and analysis. But the record is clear. The 9/11 Commission's work built on a series of commissions and studies that offered recommendations for reform of the intelligence community going back nearly a decade. But those recommendations were--tragically--all but ignored. Just to mention the reports that were before the Congress and before the President, I would date these efforts to 1995, when Congress created the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, also known as the Aspin-Brown Commission. Its final report was issued on March 1, 1996. Since then, there have been the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, also known as the Gilmore Committee, which issued the first of its five reports in December 1999, the National Commission on Terrorism, also known as the Bremer Commission, which issued its report in June 2000, and the National Commission on National Security in the 21st century, also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, which issued its final report in January of 2001. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the membership of each of these commissions, which demonstrates the quality of the individuals who studied these problems and made recommendations.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my support for Senator Murray's amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill. Our Nation's seaports are now the gateway for 95 percent of our international trade, and as such they play a vital role in our national economy. The volume of domestic and international trade is expected to double over the next two decades, as globalization continues to increase linkages between the people of different countries. Seaports' essential role in our economy makes them a natural target for terrorist groups or other entities seeking to inflict harm on the United States of America. We know that al-Qaida and other international terrorist groups have shown a preference for targets of economic importance, and we have seen the economic impact of port closures causes by strikes or weather emergencies. We can conclude from this that terrorist groups could consider American ports to be viable targets, and there are a variety of ways that terrorists could attack a port to disrupt activity, cause damage, and kill American citizens. It is therefore vital that we take adequate steps to ensure that our Nation's ports are appropriately defended. Congress has addressed seaport security concerns over the last several years, and we have passed several bills that have sought to modify and improve the security of American seaports. In 1997, I had the opportunity to spend a day working as a customs inspector at Port Manatee, FL, where I was able to learn about these security challenges firsthand. Several of my Senate colleagues and I convinced President Clinton to appoint an interagency commission addressing seaport security. This commission's recommendation were taken seriously by members of Congress, and we began working on legislation. In the fall of 2002, we passed the Maritime Transportation Safety Act, which raised security standards at American ports. This legislation authorized the appropriation of whatever funds were necessary to meet the new security requirements. The Coast Guard has estimated that meeting these new requirements will cost approximately $7.2 billion over the next decade, and that first-year start up costs will total roughly $1.4 billion. America's port authorities seem to agree with the Coast Guard's assessment, since they have requested nearly one billion dollars in port security grants. So far only a fraction of this need has been met by federal funding. This means that we have essentially handed our local port authorities a very large unfunded mandate. If we are going to follow through on our commitment to protect our Nation's seaports, we must ensure that port authorities have the resources they need to meet the security requirements we have established. Increasing funding for port security grants will help ensure that our seaports are able to prepare for a possible terrorist attack. While this amendment does not provide port authorities with the nearly $1 billion they need, it certainly brings us much closer to that goal.