Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. All right. Great. So that leaves us with your amendment No. 1189, dealing with air cargo, and amendment No. 1190, dealing with hazardous materials; is that correct?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the amendment from the Senator from Hawaii I know is well-intentioned, but we are working within a budget, and the purpose of our bill was to focus our energies on areas where we saw highest threat, and, yes, we did reduce the amount of first responder funds and take those monies and move them onto the effort to try to fight weapons of mass destruction and to put more people and more emphasis on protecting our borders. That is where the money is moved, but we kept $1.9 billion in the first responder funds, and that means that since 2003 there will have been $13 billion put into first responder funds. To try to put this into perspective, this money has been flowing so fast into these accounts that there remains, from 2004 and 2005 appropriations, almost--or over--$7 billion of unspent money, I mean money that is in the pipeline that simply cannot be handled efficiently yet. So we are putting another $1.9 billion under this bill on top of that $7 billion. And we believe that that is reasonable, in light of the needs on the borders, to put more people on the borders. That is why we made this decision. The amendments of the Senator from Hawaii, although well-intentioned, are subject to a point of order, and we will make a point of order at the proper time. At this point, I yield to the Senator from North Dakota.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GREGG. Let me join with the Senator from Massachusetts on his concern. It is a very important and correctly stated concern about the way these funds are being distributed and the slowness with which these funds are coming out. In this bill we have put forward additional funding for port security. We consider that a priority, an area of significant threat. We bumped up the amount of money for port security over what the President requested. We put in the report language which specifically says on page 11 that we believe the Department can expedite awards for Homeland Security grants--including a series of them, port security-- and the committee directs the Department to submit a report to the committee on February 18, 2006, that lays out a schedule for the award of grant funds made available by this act as well as any prior year funds that remain obligated. If any grant funds are awarded after March 30, 2006, the Department should provide a detailed explanation for the delay. It is a legitimate concern and something the committee has focused on. The Senator's proposal is constructive to the effort. We would be happy to accept it by unanimous consent. I ask unanimous consent the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts be accepted.

Mr. GREGG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Obviously I am perfectly happy and do not intend to make this point of order until the Senator from West Virginia feels he has had adequate time to discuss this matter with the chairman of the full committee, and hopefully it can be resolved. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I know the Senator from West Virginia, the senior Senator in the Senate and the ranking member of the full committee, has discussed this matter with Senator Cochran. I am perfectly willing to pursue that course. I am willing to talk with the chairman of the full committee on that point, but I think probably from the chairman's position--I cannot make his case because I have not talked to him about it but suspect his concern is that opens the door that could lead to a large amount of authorization from 2005 being used, which would then generate outlays in 2006 which would absorb money that I suspect the chairman of the full committee feels he is going to need in order to meet what is a fairly tight budgetary restriction already subjected to the 2006 bill. So I can understand if the chairman of the full committee might be reticent to accept such a request, but I will certainly be happy to-- well, I will not need to pass it on because I know the Senator from West Virginia has, but I would be happy to sit on the sidelines and allow these titans to settle this issue.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from North Dakota wants to ask for 2 or 3 minutes to offer an amendment. I understand we are going to have 4 minutes, equally divided, before we begin the vote on the Collins and Feinstein amendments. So I would ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for about a minute and a half, in response to the Senator from Hawaii, that we then go to the Senator from North Dakota for the purpose of calling up an amendment, speaking for 2 or 3 minutes, and then that we go into the 4-minute presentation prior to the vote and the votes occur after that. After the first vote, which will be the Collins vote, I would ask there be, by unanimous consent, 2 minutes equally divided, with 1 minute controlled by the Senator from California and 1 minute by the Senator from Maine.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the proposal of the Senator from West Virginia. It is sincere and well intentioned. Obviously, if we had the extra money, I would do it. Unfortunately, we are working within budget restraints, and the decision was made within this bill to move dollars from accounts that we felt had either robust funding or a fair amount of money still in the pipeline toward accounts where we knew we had great needs such as weapons of mass destruction and border security. I simply note that in the area of firefighter assistance, since 2003 we have put $2.5 billion into this initiative. In an earlier amendment, we moved money from the equipment funds over to the staffing funds so that we now have $115 million in this budget for staffing initiatives, which I think is very important because of that $2.5 billion, a very small percentage has been spent on staffing. As the Senator from West Virginia noted, we need to get people up to speed as to training and staffing capabilities. We retain still $500 million for equipment in this bill, which is a fair number of dollars. We have approximately $715 million in the pipeline which has not gone out yet from 2005. Hopefully it will go out quickly and soon, but it has not gone out yet. So we know there is a fair amount of money in the pipeline. Overall, the funding for firefighters, since 2003, is now over $3 billion, which is a very strong commitment to our firefighter community and one which is very appropriate considering, as the Senator from West Virginia has so effectively outlined, the risks which these people undertake every day for our safety. So we believe that this is a strong commitment to the firefighter community. We would like to do more if we could do it within this budget context, but we cannot. Unfortunately, this amendment would put us outside of the budget guidelines we are presently pursuing or subject to. In addition, of course, many of these firefighting departments can obtain money from their State plans on top of the earmarked funds which go to the fire departments, the earmarked firefighting funds of $3 billion. There is the rather significant and robust commitment of over $14 billion which has been made toward first responder activity generally, and all of these dollars would theoretically be available to fund firefighters. Obviously that is not going to happen, but clearly, if the State plan decides they need more money in their firefighter community, a State plan can allocate that money for those firefighter initiatives beyond the money which comes through this $3 billion initiative over the last 3 years. So this is a strong commitment to the firefighter community, and it is an attempt to reorient that commitment so that we focus more on staffing than on equipment, which we feel has received a disproportionate amount of the funding over the last few years at the expense of the staffing and training activities. That is where we stand in this bill. I believe the bill is reasonable on this point. At the proper time, obviously a point of order will lie against this amendment, and I would presume that we would have to make it. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask that prior to the votes which are to occur at 5 o'clock on the Feinstein and Collins amendments--I guess the Collins amendment will be first--that 4 minutes be equally divided between the two sides with 2 minutes under the control of Senator Collins and 2 minutes under the control of Senator Feinstein.

Mr. GREGG. I make a point of order a quorum is not present.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, just to bring my colleagues up to speed as to what the hoped-for game plan is, there has now been agreement reached between the parties which will allow us at 11:30 to turn from the debate on the formula proposal, offered by Senators Collins and Feinstein, to the issue of the veterans amendment offered by Senator Reid on behalf of Senator Murray. We will debate that for half an hour equally divided. Then we will vote on that at 12:00. Then we will return to the debate on the Collins amendment and the Feinstein amendment, and that debate will continue, so that the entire debate will encompass approximately 3 hours which would mean it would wrap up somewhere around 3:30, 3:45. At that point, there will be a window because we can't have a vote then due to outside circumstances. So there will be a window of an hour, an hour and 45 minutes, during which Members can bring amendments forward or, if they wish, during the debate time maybe come and be recognized to set these amendments aside for purposes of offering amendments. In any event, there will be hopefully two votes occurring somewhere around 5 o'clock. This evening there is a joint Senate event for families. That is where we stand. We haven't reached that agreement yet.

Mr. GREGG. I think the assistant Democratic leader's counsel is very appropriate and hopefully will be listened to. The debate we have is a large State/small State debate over a formula. This is authorizing language being put on an appropriations bill, which we in the Appropriations Committee try to avoid. As a practical matter, this bill allocates funds. I hope Members will take a look at the allocation we did in this bill because this program has not been authorized. Our theory in this allocation process was to have a threat-based allocation. I feel very strongly that this whole bill has been redirected with the work of Senator Byrd--I note that this is his belief also--we reworked the bill to be a threat-based bill. We did it in the area of border security, weapons of mass destruction, and we did it in the area of this formula. We protected and grandfathered all the States so the States going through upgrades of trying to get their first responder house in order will not see a devastating cut in what they are receiving. Everything over the grandfathered amount essentially moves on the basis of threat. So the actual appropriation in the bill falls about halfway between the two theories being put forward here by the competing interests relative to how this formula should be designed on the authorizing side. I just note that for my colleagues' edification. At this time, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senators. ]

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11:30 today the Senate resume consideration of the Reid for Murray amendment regarding veterans health; provided further, that the time until 12 noon be equally divided in the usual form, and that at noon the Senate proceed to a vote in relationship to the Murray amendment, with no second degrees in order prior to the vote. I further ask that the pending Feinstein-Cornyn amendment be modified in order to become a first-degree amendment. I further ask that the time for Senator Feinstein's statement until 11:30 be divided equally between Senator Feinstein or her designee, and Senator Collins or her designee to debate the Collins and Feinstein amendments concurrently; provided further, that at 2:15, there be an additional 90 minutes divided as stated above; finally, I ask that at 5 p.m. today the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Collins amendment, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Feinstein amendment, with no amendments in order to either amendment prior to the votes.

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

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I believe the Senator can ask unanimous consent for approval.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 this afternoon, the Senate proceed to a vote on the adoption of a resolution which is at the desk and relates to the recent bombings in London; provided further that no amendments be in order to the resolution or preamble. I further ask that there be a moment of silence prior to the vote on the resolution.

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

Mr. GREGG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand the Senator's point. My purpose here is to recognize the fact that we put over $2 billion into equipment, and we need to start focusing on training. This will move $50 million over to the training side and still leave in the pipeline a dramatic amount of money for equipment. We can address that issue down the road, as the Senator from West Virginia represents he may wish to do, but at this point I think this reallocation of funds is a statement of policy that is appropriate. I again ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.