Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President: I would like to ask unanimous consent that on Thursday, July 13, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety be authorized to hold a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed revisions to the particulate matter air quality standards.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 13, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing on ``Renewing the Temporary Provisions of the Voting Rights Act: Legislative Options after LULAC v. Perry'' in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Panel I: Michael Carfin, Partner, Jones Day, Washington, DC; Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chairman, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Lexington, MA; Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity, Sterling, VA; Joaquin G. Avila, Assistant Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law, Seattle, WA; Nina Perales, Regional Counsel, MALDEF, San Antonio, TX; Sherrilyn Ifill, Associate Professor of Law, University of Maryland Law School, Baltimore, MD.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. This deals with the transfer of $1 million to the finance officer.

Mr. GREGG. And this is the amendment dealing with the transfer of $1 million to the finance officer.

Mr. GREGG. Now the pending amendment is the amendment on LORAN.

Mr. GREGG. And the pending business is the LORAN amendment.

Mr. GREGG. That is not the LORAN amendment. We set that one aside.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4585 be called up at this time, which is, as I understand, the LORAN amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Just for the clarification of the Senate, we are now back on the LORAN amendment; is that correct, Mr. President?

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I now understand that the Senator from South Dakota has an amendment he wishes to offer, and we will proceed to that. If there are other people who wish to bring amendments over prior to the 2 o'clock vote, we would be happy to hear from them.

Mr. GREGG. I inform the Chair that pursuant to the deeming language of Public Law 109-234, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation of the pending amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. GREGG. I yield back the balance of my time, unless the Senator from New York wants 2 minutes. I renew the point of order.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, the Senator from Delaware makes a strong and effective case for the need of stronger rail security. He puts it in the context of what is happening in other nations, what has happened in England or what happened yesterday in India. There is no question-- and the most recent instance that was potentially here in the United States involving New York. There can be no question but that rail is a threatened infrastructure and a target of opportunity. The problem with his amendment is, as he knows, we are constricted by certain rules that we have in allocation. We funded rail security at more than we funded last year--not a lot more and certainly nowhere near what the Senator from Delaware has asked for. But we have used up all the allocation to take care of what we consider to be appropriate needs that have to be addressed--threat issues, mass destruction, border security, and things we have already discussed. His amendment, as it is structured, would add $1 billion on top of what we have received as an annual allocation, which means that it would break other allocations, exceed the agreed-to number, and that is something we can't do. As much as I recognize the legitimacy of many of the points he makes, I think it is, however, important to put in context what is happening in rail. The number in this bill--and we have about $187 million for rail security--is not the only commitment to rail. In fact, if you look at the amendment that the Senator from Delaware has put forward, a big chunk of the money, I think, goes to tunnel security or other construction. We talked about it quite a bit. Amtrak and the northeast corridor, which is Amtrak, gets its funding through another subcommittee. That subcommittee has, in its appropriation, a lot of money for Amtrak. In fact, it has $770 million for capital improvement which can be used for tunnel security. It has $440 million, I believe, for operating costs which can be used for security. That comes through a different committee. And it is available for many of the things which these dollars would be used for. In addition, I think it is important to note how our priorities are set by States and communities which have a large amount of rail and get the funds which we give them with great flexibility to be used to address threat. We distribute billions of dollars under this bill and the prior homeland security bills to major urban areas, especially along the northeast corridor. Those funds go out on the basis of threat. And communities such as New York, Washington, Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia have the opportunity to use those funds for rail security, if they wish to. But what we have seen from these communities is that they don't prioritize rail security at that level. They use it for other things. For example, in 2005, of the grants that went to States and to communities, they spent only 2 percent of their discretionary pool on rail security; in New York, a little more, 12 percent. But on average, it was 2 percent. The State of Washington actually was the most aggressive. They spent 29 percent of theirs on transportation security. In the largest urban areas, the average has been around 8 percent. Communities which have the opportunity to make the choice, do we put it into our subway systems and bus systems or do we put it into some other area where we see threat, we have decided that their commitment will be at this fairly small level of the overall dollars that are available. But the dollars are there in rather large sums--literally billions of dollars-- and $5 billion approximately is still in the pipeline which could be used in these areas. There are other resources that can go toward rail. Those that are specific, such as the Amtrak funding that will come through for capital improvement, $770 million out of the Transportation bill or the operating account, which is $440 million, or those which are more general but could be reallocated toward rail, which are the city and State discretionary funds. So there is money and a lot of it that is available to move in this direction and address these needs. Assume for the moment there is not enough, which is the argument of the Senator from Delaware. I am willing to accept that more money could certainly be used in this area. What is the way we should approach this? It is not to break the cap. It is, rather, to tie it to a fee system, much as we have done with the airlines. The Senator from Delaware mentioned the airlines. We have a transportation fee in the airline system, which essentially funds the TSA activities which involve a lot of capital activities in the area of airport security and obviously all the personnel. There are 22 million people who ride Amtrak. If you put a $5 transportation fee on their tickets, which is about the same as the airline fee, that would generate almost exactly the amount of money the Senator from Delaware is requesting. If the Senator wanted to bring his amendment back with that type of a fee system which would allow for the extra money and then allocate it the way he is suggesting it be allocated, rather than these other sources of revenue, I could agree to that, potentially. But in its present form as a cap buster, as a budget buster--because it takes the top off the appropriations bill--we cannot agree to this. It is not that we do not feel there aren't needs there. There are needs there, but we feel there are other sources to fund those needs. We feel we make a strong commitment, relative to rail in this bill in the context of what has been done historically, and to the extent the Senator from Delaware feels an even stronger commitment has to be made beyond what Amtrak and cities and towns have as discretionary funds and beyond the $187 million in this bill, should do it the same way we are doing it with TSA, which is to use a fee system. Those are our thoughts. It is subject to a point of order because it is $1 billion over the budget and would essentially blow the 302(b) cap. At the proper time, I will make that point of order, unless it is amended.

Mr. GREGG. The floor is the Senator's.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent at 2 p.m. today the Senate proceed to a vote on the motion to waive the budget with respect to the Biden amendment No. 4553, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent the amendment of Senator Coburn, No. 4589, be withdrawn.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, there was an understanding that the Senator from New Mexico would offer the first amendment this morning, and then we can go to the Senator from Oklahoma. He has five amendments. How much time will that take to offer?

Mr. GREGG. We presume that after the Senator from New Mexico proceeds, we will go to the Senator from Oklahoma for his five amendments. If other Members have amendments they wish to offer, we would like to have them bring them to the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I apologize. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator's amendment be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Oklahoma in the area of making sure the taxpayers know where their money is being spent. I think it has been constructive, and I will be happy to accept the amendment. But I do believe that at least relative to this appropriations bill there ought to be some recognition of the fact that this is probably the cleanest bill brought to the Senate in the history of the Senate relative to what would be deemed earmarks in the pejorative sense. I am not one of these people who subscribes to the view that the Congress should not earmark. I happen to believe there are a lot of instances where the congressional prerogative of spending the money requires that we do earmark in order to make the case against the executive branch, which can earmark unilaterally, and basically in true secrecy, by simply spending the money however they want to spend it once we give it to them. Often their direction is incorrect, and the purpose of the Congress should be to redirect it. Now, there are other earmarks, particularly like the famous ``bridge to nowhere,'' and other things, that may and do have serious issues. I would take the entire highway bill that passed the Senate--of which I was one of four people who voted against it, which had $24 billion of earmarks--as the most egregious example of when Congress got carried away with directing money inappropriately. But there is a purpose for earmarks. And this bill is a classic example of that, quite honestly. The amendment, for example, that was offered yesterday by the Senator from West Virginia could be deemed an earmark amendment, I suppose, because he said specifically: Coast Guard, you shall purchase this plane; Customs, you shall refurbish this plane. You shall buy armament for these Coast Guard helicopters--all of which benefited some district in this country. And some Member of the Senate benefited from that by putting out a press release, I suspect, that we just bought an airplane for the Coast Guard, and it is going to be produced in someplace or other. But the reason we had to do that was because the administration had not sent up the necessary capital improvements to make sure the Coast Guard had the aircraft, to make sure they had the armament on their helicopters, to make sure the helicopters were replaced, to make sure the vehicles were replaced because, for whatever reason, the Department of Homeland Security had not determined that those were priorities. We think they are priorities. In this bill there are no, what you would call, district earmarks to speak of. There are a few probably in there somewhere, but nothing of any significance compared to what the average bill that comes through this place has. I do believe when we do our job right--which is the way I think this bill was done--when we do not use earmarks for the purposes of basically addressing an individual need that is maybe not within the context of the basic goal of the agency--although many things are that are deemed earmarks, that we rather use the earmark structure as a way of getting agencies to do what has to be done in order to complete their missions appropriately--that we should get credit for that. This bill should be acknowledged as a bill that is a pretty good example of how this should be done right. So I appreciate the vigilance of the Senator from Oklahoma. He has become the watchdog of earmarks. And he is doing the Lord's work in many ways. I am perfectly happy to have sunshine on this bill because I think this bill is a classic example of the way it should be done. So has the amendment been reported, Mr. President?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent it be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I renew my unanimous consent request.

Mr. GREGG. In response to the Senator's request that I hold this in conference, I have no problem in trying to hold this in conference. As the Senator knows, the House has a different approach to some of these issues. But I think this is a very reasonable request. People should tie their names to what they are willing to spend taxpayer dollars on. It should be public, as the Senator said. That is the way we should do it. I am perfectly happy to support that aggressively.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we have no problem with this proposal. The Department will have a problem with it simply because if the Senator has followed the activities of this Department, their ability to produce the reports requested is limited or at least their efforts have not been stellar. In any event, it is a reasonable request. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.