Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, can we have order.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will claim my time, but I want the Senate to be in order before I begin.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wanted to rise to carry on the discussion which the Senator from Texas has so eloquently begun relative to the proposal that is coming forward to the Senate today called SCHIP. Under the cloak of trying to address the issue of health care for children, we are seeing an explosion in cost, the purpose of which is not necessarily to cover children who need coverage because many of the children who are going to be covered here are already covered under private plans, but the purpose is actually to dramatically expand the role of government in the area of limited health care in this country, and it is openly acknowledged as being an effort to move down the road toward universal health care. Independent of the substantive policy of how we approach insuring and making sure children get health insurance in this country, there is the ancillary policy of fiscal discipline. This Congress, so far, under its Democratic leadership has abandoned the concept of fiscal discipline. They are spending money on all sorts of initiatives around here that go well beyond even the extraordinarily high numbers which were put in the budget under this Democratic Congress. We have returned, without question, to the days of tax and spend. In fact, it was interesting today that there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, an editorial that listed I think it was ten different areas where there have been proposals to dramatically increase the tax burden on the American people, to gather up funds by the Democratic Party so they can then be spent on other initiatives. This proposal, this SCHIP proposal as it comes forward to us under the auspices of the liberal leadership of the Senate, is a classic example of spending which can't be afforded and spending which uses gimmicks in order to mask its real costs. This chart reflects the fact that the spending in this proposal jumps $35 billion--$35 billion--over a 5-year period, taking a program that could be fully funded today for about a third of that but adding an additional two-thirds on top of that in order to take care of initiatives which basically fund two things: No. 1, they fund adults under a children's health insurance program, and No. 2, they fund bringing children off of private insurance and putting them on the public insurance system so that taxpayers generally have to pay for something which is now being paid for in the private sector. So the cost of this program jumps radically over the next 5 years, and then, in the ultimate act of fiscal cynicism and fraud, they claim the program will drop back down to being a $3.5 billion program after it has reached a peak of $16 billion in 2012. Are they going to abolish the program in 2013? Of course not. But in order to avoid their own rules of how you have to pay for things around here or are supposed to pay for things around here when you put a new program on the books, in an act, as I said, of fraud and cynicism, the liberal leadership of this Senate has decided to claim that this program, which we will be spending $16 billion on in 2012, we will suddenly only spend $3.5 billion in 2013. Ironically, that number, $3.5 billion, is even less than what the program costs today, which is about $5 billion. So this whole area in here, this white area, is totally unfunded, unless you assume this program now being put on the books is going to suddenly end 5 years from now--which is, of course, absurd. We don't end programs in the Federal Government. We certainly don't end a program that is focused on trying to fund health care for children. So what happens is that $40 billion over the next 5 years which will be spent on this program, no doubt about it--in fact, a lot more than that if the House bill passes--is treated as if it is a virtual number, as if it doesn't exist, as if it is some sort of nonspending event by an accounting mechanism which claims that actually we are not going to spend that $40 billion, we are just going to spend this $3.5 billion on that program on an annual basis. The disingenuousness of this reaches a new level of misrepresentation to the American taxpayer as to what the burden is that is going to be put on them as a result of this proposal. Now, why do they do this? Why do they deny there is $40 billion of spending, which they know is going to occur, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle absolutely know is going to occur? Why do they deny it is going to happen? Why do they use this gimmick where they claim we are going back to a cost of a program which is less than it is today after we put a cost on the books that is three times what it is today? Because they want to avoid something called pay-go--pay-go--which is their representation of how they discipline the Federal budget. Every time you listen to a colleague from the other side of the aisle talk about disciplining the Federal budget, you will hear those words: I am for pay-go; I am for pay-go. We hear it from the budget chairman incessantly. We hear it from other members of the other side of the aisle. Pay-go is the way we will discipline the Federal budget. Well, let's see what they have done to pay-go since they have been in charge of the Congress. There is no more pay-go. It should be fraud-go. It is actually Swiss cheese-go since this Congress has been dominated by the Democratic Party. I will bet you that everybody who ran for election from the Democratic side of the aisle to this Congress said they were going to discipline the Federal deficit using pay-go. Since they have been in office, since they have been running this Congress, they have either waived or gotten around pay-go on about 12 different occasions, representing billions of dollars of cost to the American taxpayer, of which this $40 billion item we are doing today is one of the biggest. With minimum wage, they went around pay-go; with the Water Resources Development Act, they went around pay-go; with PDUFA, they went around pay-go; with immigration reform, they went around pay-go; with the Energy bill, they went around pay-go; with the MILC bill, they went around pay-go; with the county payments or payments in lieu of taxes, at $4 billion, they went around pay-go; with the new mandatory Pell grants, $6 billion, they went around pay-go; and now here, with SCHIP, they are going around pay-go to the tune of $40 billion. Almost $90 billion has been proposed to be spent by the other side of the aisle since they took control of this Congress which should have been subject to pay-go but where they have either waived, ignored, or gimmicked pay- go out of existence. So where is the fiscal discipline? It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. The only thing they intend to use pay-go for is to force taxes to go up on American workers. They will use it for that, there is no question about that. When we get to the point where some of these tax issues are raised by expiring, they will say pay-go applies to that and we have to pay for that, so taxes will go up on the American workers and on the American economy. But when it comes to spending money, there is no discipline of pay-go from the other side of the aisle. Anyone who stands on the other side of the aisle and claims that pay- go is a viable vehicle for disciplining the Federal deficit, well, the next thing they are going to tell you is they have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn or that the check is in the mail. The simple fact is, it is a fraud on the American taxpayer when that statement is made. This bill pretty much completes the thought that there is no more pay-go. Then, on top of that--they are not comfortable enough in this bill to spend $40 billion and claim they are not spending it, which is exactly what they do in the second 5 years--that is not enough for the other side of the aisle. In the House, they put in language repealing one of the most important enforcement mechanisms to discipline the cost of Medicare, which is, if for 2 years the payment for the cost of Medicare from the general fund exceeds 45 percent of the overall cost of Medicare--as we all know Medicare is supposed to be an insurance program that is paid for by the HI insurance, but it also gets support by the general fund--if that cost exceeds 45 percent for 2 years in a row, then we, as a Congress, are supposed to take another look and say that is not the way Medicare is supposed to be funded. It is supposed to be funded through the HI insurance. We go back to look at disciplining Medicare spending and making it more affordable. No. Not any longer. The House of Representatives not only spends $40 billion they claim they are not spending and don't pay for, they also, in their bill, repeal the 45-percent rule, one of the few disciplines around here which allows this body to stand up and say we are profligate. Let's get this under control. I think the American consumer needs to know that they get what they pay for. In the last election they got a Congress which has a philosophical viewpoint which has not changed a whole lot in the last 50 years. I was here the last time Congress was dominated by the Democratic Party. I was here when Tip O'Neil ran the House of Representatives. Wow, did we spend money back then. Let me tell you, we are back to that style of governance. Only this time it is being done with the representation that there is discipline because we are using pay-go. Unfortunately, however, pay-go doesn't exist when it comes to spending. It is ``fraud-go,'' it is ``Swiss cheese-go,'' and the American people get stuck with the bill. Our children and our children's children get stuck with the bill because, in order to address certain political constituencies, the other side of the aisle believes it needs to spend the money, and it does not have the courage to stand up for its own rules, the rules they put forward. I have always said pay-go was a fraud, but the other side of the aisle marches behind that banner in budget after budget, claiming that pay-go gives us fiscal discipline. Here is $90 billion of spending in just 6 months. They have only been in charge for 6 months--$90 billion. That is a lot of money in 6 months that should have been subject to pay-go, which has been gamed, ignored, or claimed an emergency so that pay-go would not apply. As a practical matter, let's have no more talk of pay-go in this body. Let's talk about what we are really doing on this SCHIP bill. We are going to spend $40 billion, and we do not pay for it. That is just in the next 5 years. If you extrapolated this, it actually works out to be somewhere in the $2 trillion to $3 trillion range over the life expectancy of the program, the 75-year life expectancy, which is the way we calculate things around here that deal with entitlements. This is not fiscally responsible, and it is clear, if we continue down this path, we are going to set up a train wreck for those who come after us and have to pay the costs of this type of profligate spending which has no discipline attached to it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first, I appreciate the acknowledgment of the Senator from Missouri of my views on the Part D proposal. She is correct, I did not vote for that proposal because it was not paid for. I don't think one expensive program deserves another expensive program, especially when the second expensive program is backed with very poor policy. What I wish to talk about tonight is the policy. The issue, of course, should be how we get more children insured and how we get fewer people uninsured in this country. There are a variety of ways to do that. I have had a number of proposals of my own in this arena. However, it is not a good idea to approach this issue of how we get more children insured by suggesting that the best way to do it is to take a lot of kids off private insurance and move them on to public insurance or to, under the nomenclature of protecting children, which is, of course, very popular--and we have had lots of pictures on this floor already of children who have gone through very serious health concerns who need to have the support of the health community, of using children and pictures of children and anecdotal stories about children for the purposes of using a Federal program which is entitled children--to cover adults, some adults who, in fact, do not even have children. There are a lot of serious policy problems with this initiative. The irony, of course, is this initiative is not about insuring more children, although that is a stated goal. The purpose of this initiative is to essentially take another large step down the road toward Federal control and delivery of health care in this country, universal health care, as it is popularly referred to. That is not me phrasing that. The chairman of the Finance Committee, who is always very forthright, always very honest about what he is doing around here, said exactly that: SCHIP is a major step on the road to a universal, one-payer, Federal health care system. There are a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle who especially believe that should be the proper way to insure people in this country or take care of health care needs in this country, and I respect that viewpoint. However, I do not think it accomplishes what the goal is, which is to deliver high-quality health care to the most people in this country, to make health care affordable to most people in this country, and to give people in this country the opportunity to get good health care. What it does is what was described earlier in one of the starkest and most effective attacks on universal health care I have heard on this floor, when the Senator from North Dakota essentially explained the Indian health care program and what a disaster it is. What is the Indian health care program? The Indian health care program is single-payer Federal health care. He was talking about kids not being able to see dentists, kids not being able to get broken arms fixed, kids put in serious situations and adults in equally serious situations and no resources, no capability to take care of these people who are having serious health care problems. Interestingly enough, he used the word which is most often associated with those studies which have looked at universal health care or federally mandated health care or single-payer health care. He used the word ``rationing.'' He said rationing was occurring on the Indian reservations. He is right. He is right because that is what happens when you go to a single-payer system and the Federal Government becomes the payer. That is what they have in England, they have rationing. If you have certain situations, if you have a hip replacement, you are going to be rationed, depending on your age. If you have cancer and you are under a certain age, you are going to get hit with rationing. If you have to have some sort of invasive procedure which is optional, you are going to get hit with rationing. The same thing happens in Canada. Why do you think Canadians come to America for health care? In New Hampshire, we see it fairly regularly, Canadians coming over the border to get their health care at Boston, at one of the many extraordinary medical facilities in Boston or at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, one of the best, most extraordinary facilities in New England, in the country quite obviously. Why? Because there is quality there, because things are being done there that are not being done in Canada, and you can get served. You don't have to wait in lines 2, 3, 4, 5 years for some sort of elective surgery, or if you have to have something done that is a major, complicated issue, you don't have to worry that the people doing it maybe do not have the expertise you need because the Government hasn't paid for the science behind the necessary research to produce that service. This SCHIP fight is as much a debate about whether we are going to move to a single-payer system with the Federal Government taking complete control over health care as it is about how we pick up coverage of children in this country who don't have coverage. Coverage for children in this country is affordable. We can do it without going to a single-payer system. We don't need to take 2.2 million kids off one system and put them on the SCHIP system. We don't need to take, I believe it is 1.7 million kids off private insurance and put them on public insurance. The total amount of children who are going to be covered by this $35 billion in new program over the next 5 years--do you know how much? Mr. President, 4.5 million children. But of that number, 2.2 million already have coverage. So actually there are only 2.3 million children you are picking up, and it is costing you $35 billion to do that. That works out to something akin to $3,200 per child. You can go on the Internet today and buy an insurance policy for a child for about $1,300. So in the classic way that the Federal Government works, we are going to spend twice as much of your tax dollars to pay for insurance for children, and we are going to take people who are already covered and move them from having the private sector bear the cost of that coverage over to the public sector so the public sector bears the cost of that coverage. Does that make sense? Is that common sense? Is that a good use of resources? Of course, it isn't. The practical effect is also that under this proposal, the program is not paid for. In the second 5 years, in order to avoid the pay-go discipline which is allegedly on the other side of the aisle, the Holy Grail that is supposed to be followed in every instance--of course, they have waived it now nine times on domestic spending they like--they take the cost of this program and project that in year 6 of this program, a program which will have been built up to $16 billion in spending annually will suddenly drop back to $3.5 billion in spending. Now that doesn't pass the smell test. That is the laugh test. That is absurd on its face. No Federal program ever disappears around here, and you don't take one that supposedly is benefiting children and cut it by almost $12.35 billion. That is not going to happen, but that is the assumption that is made in this bill in order to avoid having to pay for this bill. So this big white area, which is all the area that isn't covered of the projected costs--and this is actually a conservative number, by the way, this projected cost, that represents $40 billion, $40 billion that is unpaid for--is a cost we pass on to our children, by the way. Ironically, we say we are going to insure our children by paying twice as much as it costs to insure them and by taking a bunch of kids off private insurance and move them to the public sector, and then at the same time we are going to create a $40 billion debt which our children will have to pay for. I am not sure our children are getting all that good a deal, to be very honest with you, in this exercise. Plus, the ultimate goal of the exercise--I believe the ultimate goal has been stated by the chairman of the committee--the ultimate goal is to move toward a universal, single-payer system, where the Federal Government pays for health care. Here is the goal: You have all these folks on Medicare on one end, the elderly folks--that is me. I shouldn't call them too elderly--and then you have all these people on SCHIP, taken off private sector and being put in the public sector, such as this bill does, you have compressed the number of people available in the private insurance market, you are going to crowd out the private market. That is the game plan, crowd out the private market so you end up with a single-payer plan. As I have already gone through, single-payer plans make very little sense from a standpoint of quality and rationing. I don't think this country will be very comfortable with a single-payer plan, any more comfortable than, for example, the Indian population appears to be on the Indian reservations, as was explained to us by the Senator from North Dakota, who was describing a single-payer plan, otherwise known as Indian health care. So within this proposal, not only does it have this $40 billion gap in funds in spending, which it doesn't pay for in order to avoid the pay-go rule, not only does it take a bunch of kids who already have private insurance and move them to the public side, 1.7 million kids, and then end up paying twice as much to insure them as it is probably costing the private sector and sticking themselves with that bill because they don't pay for the program in the outyears, not only does it do all that, which is terrible policy, but it compounds this by taking a program which is supposed to insure children and using it to insure adults. Both the predecessor program, State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the present program as proposed under this legislation, Children's Health Insurance Program, do not say anything in their title about insuring adults. They are supposed to be insuring children. That is the idea. But some of our States, in a very creative exercise, have decided to expand this program to insure adults. That makes some people in this body quite happy because it fulfills this exercise of moving toward universal health care. You can use the SCHIP program or the CHIP program, which is supposed to be for children, to pick up adults, and then we will even narrow further the population of people who would be available for private sector insurance and, thus, move even more aggressively toward public, single-payer insurance, public single-payer plans, universal health care, rationing, reduction in quality. It makes no sense that this should be allowed to continue. Now, actually, the committee knows this. In fact, they sort of tacitly recognized it, because they put in place language which attempts to partially phase out this coverage of adults. They say over 3 years these waivers will end that cover adults, but adults will be insured, instead of at the rate of Medicaid, which is what the States have a right to reimbursement for when they insure adults who qualify, they will get some new blended rate that is higher than Medicaid but less than what you pay for children. So in a tacit way the committee has sort of acknowledged that they shouldn't be insuring adults with a program called Children's Health Insurance. The only adults who could possibly and appropriately--and I have no problem with this--be covered under that would be pregnant women. Obviously, there is a clear issue of insuring a child if a woman is pregnant. She has a child. She is with child and, therefore, clearly that coverage is reasonable. But adults are supposed to be covered, if they qualify for Federal coverage, under Medicaid, not under the children's health insurance system. So the amendment I am offering essentially completes the thought of the committee on this point by saying: No, we are not going to reimburse States. This isn't about insuring so much as about what the reimbursement rate is to the State--what sort of windfall a State gets when they move adults on to the SCHIP program. There are a lot of State Governors who have figured out, I can get more money for my State, which I can use to help me balance my budget, if I put more adults under SCHIP because my reimbursement rate from the Federal Government is significantly higher. So that is why this happens. Well, it is not right. It is gaming the Federal system to do that. Waivers shouldn't be granted to allow that to happen, and this administration bears many of the problems when it comes to that. They do not come to this issue with clean hands, that is for sure, because they have given a lot of these waivers. But the committee at least recognized this was not good policy and has tried to mute it a little bit so that States, when they do game this, will only be able to game it for another 3 years and then reduce it to about half of what gaming goes on in the outyears. But there shouldn't be any of this. There is no reason to give States a breathing spell here on this issue. There is no reason to encourage States to put more adults into the system in the interim or to put more adults in the system in the future because you are reimbursing at a higher rate than Medicaid reimburses at. No reason at all. There is no good policy reason. The States have certainly had a good run of money coming in to them that they didn't deserve, because the Children's Health Insurance Program was not supposed to insure adults, it was supposed to insure children. So we are not doing them a disservice and we are not treating them unfairly by saying: All right, that policy ends. The SCHIP program, the new CHIP program, will be for children, not for adults. So my amendment essentially does this. It says: Adults will not be covered under this program at the SCHIP rate. They can still be covered under the Medicaid rate but not under the SCHIP rate, which seems to be a very reasonable approach to a program entitled children's health insurance. Amendment No. 2587 to Amendment No. 2530 Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and my amendment be reported.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I was wondering if I could ask the Senator from North Dakota how long he expects to debate this amendment.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I join with Senator Conrad in recognizing Paul Cullinan of the Congressional Budget Office. Paul's leadership, extremely dedicated work, and the products of his unit have been essential to understanding entitlement programs and the long-term fiscal condition of the United States. Paul has served CBO Directors and Budget Committee Members of the House and Senate with distinction. He represents the type of dedicated public servants whom we are fortunate to have at the CBO.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Thank you.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from South Carolina for reaching this understanding on how to proceed relative to making sure our borders are secure. The language in this amendment, which adds a significant amount of money to support the expansion of the boots on the ground and the technology on the border, is critical to the first step--which has been related here by a number of individuals--of securing the border as part of our effort to get comprehensive immigration reform. I think we all understand the American people are asking the question, Why isn't the border secure? This has been an effort that has been ongoing for a number of years now, to make the border secure. But this amendment we are taking up now would be the final downpayment on what is necessary to accomplish that goal. We know what we need in order to secure the border. It is more border agents, it is more physical fencing but a lot more virtual fencing, it is more detention beds, and it is more ICE agents. It is also necessary to have in place the law these individuals need in order to enforce the border and pursue people who come into this country illegally and who may be inappropriately here and who are committing crimes here. Unfortunately, that language was not included in this amendment. That language was stripped out yesterday. But still, getting the resources in place in order to support the border is the first critical step, and this bill does that. I have been working on this issue for a long time, both as past chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and as past chairman of the Commerce, State, Justice Appropriations Subcommittee in the Appropriations Committee, as have Senator Cochran and Senator Byrd. There has been a strong commitment on the part of the Appropriations Committee to accomplish these goals. But there has always been additional resources needed in order to fully fund border security. Now, with this amendment, we will actually put in place those additional resources. I congratulate the Senator from South Carolina for bringing this process to closure. I congratulate the majority leader for reaching a consensus here that could be bipartisan. As Senator McConnell said last night, this is a positive, bipartisan effort to try to step forward on one of the most critical issues we have as a nation, which is making sure the people who come into this country come into the country legally. So it is the end of a long road, quite honestly, relative to the responsibility of Congress. We will now have put in place the necessary resources to secure the border. The question now becomes whether those resources will be effectively used. Certainly, we will have to use all our oversight capability to ensure that occurs, but at least we have addressed our responsibility of making sure the funds are there to support the necessary additional boots on the ground, the additional expansion of security along the border in the form of virtual fencing and in the form of physical fencing, and the additional detention beds necessary to make sure that when someone is apprehended for coming into the country illegally, they are not simply set off on their own recognizance to appear in court someday but are actually restrained in a place so they can be returned back to the nation they came from in an orderly manner, which is critical. So this is a good bill and good language. I am glad we are making this progress on it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, the Senator from Maryland be recognized.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, before congratulating the Senator from South Carolina for bringing forward this extremely important amendment, let me begin by congratulating the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Mississippi, the senior members of the Appropriations Committee, chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, who also are chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, for bringing forward a bill which makes major strides toward addressing our needs as a nation to protect ourselves and to make sure our borders are secure. This has been a very integral issue for both of these leaders for many years. Senator Cochran, who chaired this committee before the Democratic majority took over, and Senator Byrd, who was the ranking member on this committee for years and has been intimately involved in the effort to try to make sure we adequately address things like port security--their leadership is extraordinary, and this bill is a reflection of that. I do not want this amendment to in any way imply they have not made an extraordinary and a very effective effort to move forward with border security because within the context of the dollars they had available to them, they have done excellent work. What this amendment does, however--and I congratulate the Senator from South Carolina for bringing it forward--is acknowledge the fact that we have an emergency here. It is as big and important an emergency relative to national security as the war in Iraq is. I look at them pretty much as the same type of national emergency. The issue of controlling our borders is an issue of national security, of making sure that we as a country are safe and we maintain our viability as a nation. A country that doesn't control its borders is not safe and will lose its viability as a nation. So nothing is more important to us from the standpoint of protecting national security and making sure we get operational control over the borders, which the Senator pointed out effectively, as this amendment moves forward. Some have said: Why would the former Budget Committee chairman, and now ranking member, be willing to offer an emergency resolution which brings this bill up by $3 billion? That is the reason. I have voted to make sure our troops are fully funded in Iraq. I am voting for this amendment because it will make sure we have the people we need on the border to assure that our national security is maintained. In maintaining security over the border, this amendment, once and for all, will put into place the necessary funding--this isn't an authorizing event, remember--to be sure we have the boots on the ground, the technology in place, and the detention capability in place in order to manage the border. It takes the present situation where we are ramping up the 20,000 border agents and increases that number to 30,000 by 2012, and prefunds it, for all intents and purposes. In addition, it gives us 45,000 detention beds, which is what we need to stop the catch-and-release process. So when the border agents apprehend someone whom they deem to be in this country inappropriately, they have a place they can put that person, where they can find them until they make a final determination--when the court system makes a final determination of whether that person is illegally in this country and should be returned. The way the law works now, unfortunately, we don't have enough beds. What happens is the person gets detained and the court system says return in a couple weeks and we will dispose of whether you are here legally. For the most part, they don't show up for court. This amendment will end that practice of catch and release, and I congratulate the Department for having worked hard to try to do this with the resources they presently have. In addition, this amendment will fully fund the commitment that we as a Congress made at least 2 years ago now to put into place the necessary hard fence and the virtual fence so that we know who is crossing the border, or when someone is crossing illegally, and we can stop, as well as possible, those who attempt to enter illegally. We know we need hard fencing in urban areas and we need virtual fencing along the less populated areas. We put out a plan and hired a contractor to put up the virtual fencing. This amendment guarantees that that virtual fencing, which involves a lot of electronics and air observation through Predators and the equipment necessary, such as helicopters and vehicles, will enable the people on the ground to apprehend these individuals who come in illegally where the crossing occurs, and it involves the necessary resources and capital investment to accomplish all of that, which is absolutely critical. It has the capital resources in it necessary to get the job done of protecting our borders, and the American people, if this amendment passes, will be able to look at the dollars that have been put into the pipeline, which will accomplish what is the first thing the American people want relative to immigration reform, which is secure borders. I supported the last comprehensive immigration bill. I was one of the few members on our side who voted for that bill. I believe we need to do something in a comprehensive way. But I also recognize the reality of the situation, which is that the American people will not move forward or will not accept movement in the area of comprehensive immigration reform until they are confident we have regained control over our borders. This amendment accomplishes that. In addition, there are a number of authorizing events in here. I recognize that authorizing appropriations is anathema to many of us. As was pointed out eloquently by the Senator from South Carolina, we don't have effective immigration reform. So the vehicle for accomplishing very targeted law enforcement reform--and this is law enforcement reform--in the area of protecting our borders is going to have to fall to the Appropriations Committee. It has not been unusual for the Appropriations Committee to assume the role of taking on an authorizing event when it is narrow and aimed at an issue of doing something that delivers a better service, and in this instance it is protecting our borders. That is not an unusual event for the Appropriations Committee. It is a lift, but it is something the Committee has done in the past and done rather well. I have chaired a couple of committees where that has been done. This is the time to do it. This is the time to put into place the authorizing language necessary to do the demonstration programs on US- VISIT, which we absolutely need, to address the issue of how you deal with criminal aliens who have committed a felony, a rape, or are child abusers--that language is in here--and to address the issue of how you deal with sanctuary cities, and especially give State and local law enforcement individuals the authority to be an adjunct to the law enforcement effort being put forward by border control and Customs in the area of making sure our borders are secure. When someone comes through the northern border, for example--we don't have a lot of security on the northern border in the sense that we have it on the southern border because it is mostly forest or terrain that is not open. People can cross that border fairly quickly and easily and always have been able to. We don't have the same problem on the southern border. We have waves of people coming in there. Most of the first individuals coming in at the northern border will usually meet people of a law enforcement nature, but not our Customs and Border Patrol agents. It is probably going to be somebody south of there, in Epping, NH, or in New Ipswich, who says I want to know if you are here legally, and they have to have some authority to be able to raise that issue. They have to have probable cause. They have to have the authority to step forward when they have probable cause. This bill gives that authority. This is a good and appropriate piece of legislation for us to take up at this time. I recognize it puts the bill in further jeopardy because it is emergency funding and it adds $3 billion to the bill. But this is a national security issue and it needs to be done. I also recognize the Senator from West Virginia pointed out that this bill has received a letter from the administration saying they may or may not--but implying they would--veto it because it is over their allocation. Like the Senator from West Virginia, that concerns me a great deal because I, again, must state that I don't see a whole lot of difference between fighting the war in Iraq and fighting the war on the border to protect ourselves from people coming into this country who may do us harm. Those are two issues which merge in this entire question of how we fight the war on terror. I can separate this bill from the other appropriations bills that may be over the administration's request-- maybe in agriculture, or in foreign operations, or in education and labor, or maybe in transportation, which is the actual day-to-day operations of the Government. But when it comes to fighting the war on terror and protecting national security, I believe we have to do everything necessary to accomplish that, and that means, in this instance, fully funding the necessary people to go on the border and the capital resources necessary to support those people on the border. Amendment No. 2415 to Amendment No. 2412

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, at this time, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. GREGG. This amendment simply changes the date, Mr. President. It is a technical amendment. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Maryland in allowing me to proceed and, obviously, the Senators from West Virginia and Mississippi.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. I understand the Senator is essentially embracing the concept of moving forward independently with the DREAM Act, essentially; is that the position of the Senator?

Mr. GREGG. If I could simply make the point in the form of a rhetorical question: I am not sure the DREAM Act, as viable as it may be, has a great deal to do with Homeland Security's job on the border. Of course the Lindsey Graham amendment, of which I was a sponsor, is focused at Homeland Security's responsibility on the border. But I appreciate the point of the Senator. I am not sure why he stopped there. Why doesn't he just reoffer the entire comprehensive immigration bill?

Mr. GREGG. So the amendment is germane?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I disagree with the ruling of the Chair and, therefore, I appeal the ruling of the Chair. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. GREGG. I would like 3 minutes to quickly point out where we are.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if I can ask the leader a question, as I understand it, we are going to try to work out an agreement on the funding and the language which is behind the funding that didn't authorize the language----

Mr. GREGG. Is that the money that increases border agents from 23,000 up to 30,000 and increases the number of beds to 45,000 and covers the fence, the virtual fence, and the number that funds ICE?