Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the ``Tribal Recognition and Indian Bureau Enhancement Act.'' I am proud to join the senior Senator from Connecticut in reintroducing this legislation. Senator Dodd and I are interested in making the tribal recognition process a more fair and open process. I am aware of another bill introduced last month by Chairman Campbell that also seeks to reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs' recognition process. While I am concerned with several aspects of the Senator's bill, I am nonetheless gratified to see that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognize that the current BIA process is fraught with problems. I know that both Chairman Campbell and Vice Chairman Inouye want to reform the broken tribal recognition process at the BIA. I look forward to working together with both Chairman Campbell and Vice Chairman Inouye to craft and pass legislation to fix a process that Vice chairman Inouye last year called a ``scandal.'' I would first like to reiterate my support for the recognition of our historic Indian tribes. Unfortunately, this important recognition process is not operating as it should--in particular, the decisions are murky on the criteria for recognition when, and how, they may be satisfied--and those shortcomings are undermining the legitimacy of the entire process. The lack of public confidence in the tribal recognition process is of grave concern to me. In my home State of Connecticut, public interest in the recognition process has increased because of the ability of recognized tribes to open large casinos. Senator Dodd and I introduced both of these bills in the 107th Congress in an effort to reinvigorate the process and redeem the BIA program for future generations. Our bill will codify existing recognition criteria and require the BIA to provide notice of pending petitions to various interested groups-- something that will benefit both the tribes and the communities that surround them. The companion bill Senator Dodd and I have introduced today will and provide the resources that stakeholders of limited means require to meaningfully participate in the process. As a whole, our two pieces of legislation move towards a stronger recognition system in which all interested persons are able to participate, and participate meaningfully. In particular, the ``Tribal Recognition and Indian Bureau Enhancement Act'' is intended to ensure that recognition criteria are satisfied and all affected parties, including affected towns, have a change to fairly participate in the decision process. It ensures that: affected parties be given proper notice; that relevant evidence from petitioners and interested parties, including neighboring town, is properly considered; that a formal hearing may be requested, with an opportunity for witnesses to be called and with other due process procedures in place; that a transcript of the hearing is kept; that the evidence is sufficient to show that the petitioner meets the seven mandatory criteria in federal regulations; and that a complete and detailed explanation of the final decision and findings of fact are published in the Federal Register. Having created these new procedures, our second bill is intended to ensure that all stakeholders are able to participate in them. It would provide grants to local governments and needy tribes to allow them to hire genealogists, lawyers, and other professionals necessary to participate in proceedings. Grants would be available to assist eligible parties in BIA proceedings regarding the recognition of a tribe as well as proceedings regarding whether to place land into trust for a tribe. We view these bills as working in tandem: we can't make the recognition process stronger and more transparent without giving participants the appropriate professional resources. Together, these bills insist on systemic reform while investing in ore legitimate results. I want to stress that these bills do nothing to affect already recognized federal tribes or hinder their economic development plans. Nor do they change existing Federal tribal recognition laws. It is still my hope that tribes could support these reforms, so as to buttress the legitimacy of their recognition rulings. I again want to express my commitment to working with members from both sides of the aisle to craft a more fair and effective tribal recognition process for the BIA. The tribal recognition process is an important issue not only for Connecticut, but for many States throughout this great Nation of ours. The process, unfortunately, is broken, and we should come together to fix it for the benefit of all involved. I look forward to working with Senators Dodd, Chairman Campbell, and Vice Chairman Inouye on legislation to create a better recognition process.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the ``Tribal Recognition and Indian Bureau Enhancement Act.'' I am proud to join the senior Senator from Connecticut in reintroducing this legislation. Senator Dodd and I are interested in making the tribal recognition process a more fair and open process. I am aware of another bill introduced last month by Chairman Campbell that also seeks to reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs' recognition process. While I am concerned with several aspects of the Senator's bill, I am nonetheless gratified to see that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognize that the current BIA process is fraught with problems. I know that both Chairman Campbell and Vice Chairman Inouye want to reform the broken tribal recognition process at the BIA. I look forward to working together with both Chairman Campbell and Vice Chairman Inouye to craft and pass legislation to fix a process that Vice chairman Inouye last year called a ``scandal.'' I would first like to reiterate my support for the recognition of our historic Indian tribes. Unfortunately, this important recognition process is not operating as it should--in particular, the decisions are murky on the criteria for recognition when, and how, they may be satisfied--and those shortcomings are undermining the legitimacy of the entire process. The lack of public confidence in the tribal recognition process is of grave concern to me. In my home State of Connecticut, public interest in the recognition process has increased because of the ability of recognized tribes to open large casinos. Senator Dodd and I introduced both of these bills in the 107th Congress in an effort to reinvigorate the process and redeem the BIA program for future generations. Our bill will codify existing recognition criteria and require the BIA to provide notice of pending petitions to various interested groups-- something that will benefit both the tribes and the communities that surround them. The companion bill Senator Dodd and I have introduced today will and provide the resources that stakeholders of limited means require to meaningfully participate in the process. As a whole, our two pieces of legislation move towards a stronger recognition system in which all interested persons are able to participate, and participate meaningfully. In particular, the ``Tribal Recognition and Indian Bureau Enhancement Act'' is intended to ensure that recognition criteria are satisfied and all affected parties, including affected towns, have a change to fairly participate in the decision process. It ensures that: affected parties be given proper notice; that relevant evidence from petitioners and interested parties, including neighboring town, is properly considered; that a formal hearing may be requested, with an opportunity for witnesses to be called and with other due process procedures in place; that a transcript of the hearing is kept; that the evidence is sufficient to show that the petitioner meets the seven mandatory criteria in federal regulations; and that a complete and detailed explanation of the final decision and findings of fact are published in the Federal Register. Having created these new procedures, our second bill is intended to ensure that all stakeholders are able to participate in them. It would provide grants to local governments and needy tribes to allow them to hire genealogists, lawyers, and other professionals necessary to participate in proceedings. Grants would be available to assist eligible parties in BIA proceedings regarding the recognition of a tribe as well as proceedings regarding whether to place land into trust for a tribe. We view these bills as working in tandem: we can't make the recognition process stronger and more transparent without giving participants the appropriate professional resources. Together, these bills insist on systemic reform while investing in ore legitimate results. I want to stress that these bills do nothing to affect already recognized federal tribes or hinder their economic development plans. Nor do they change existing Federal tribal recognition laws. It is still my hope that tribes could support these reforms, so as to buttress the legitimacy of their recognition rulings. I again want to express my commitment to working with members from both sides of the aisle to craft a more fair and effective tribal recognition process for the BIA. The tribal recognition process is an important issue not only for Connecticut, but for many States throughout this great Nation of ours. The process, unfortunately, is broken, and we should come together to fix it for the benefit of all involved. I look forward to working with Senators Dodd, Chairman Campbell, and Vice Chairman Inouye on legislation to create a better recognition process.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to offer some comments in response to the Columbia shuttle disaster that we all learned about last Saturday. Since then, we Americans and most of the rest of the world really have been in a state of grief again, a state of mind and heart that many of us, of course, have experienced both personally and nationally before. Once again, in this case of public grief, television became our common touchstone, binding us through the ether, informing us with gripping yet familiar scenes and words. And once again, we learned things we wished we had known and thought before the great loss. We learned of the astronaut whose aunt and uncle had lost a son on September 11 at the World Trade Center. Once again, they share a personal loss with the whole Nation. We learned of the Israeli astronaut who was part of the mission that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, an act that we now know saved the world from the menace of Saddam Hussein with his finger on a nuclear button. We learned of a woman who emigrated from India to the United States, became an American citizen, and then an astronaut. Surely that is one of the most vibrant and exciting realizations of what we call the American dream I have ever heard. I am sorry I did not know all this before the terrible news of last Saturday. That is both a testament to the success of the space program and a mark of how easy it is for all of us to forget the risks others have taken and are taking to advance the frontiers of our knowledge. The fact is, we take too much for granted, and it is sad it does take tragedy to shock us into an awareness of the sacrifices that are constantly being made by others on our behalf. That was certainly true about the role of our firefighters and police and emergency medical and health personnel after September 11. It is true when our military men and women go into combat to protect our security. The loss of the Black Hawk crew in Afghanistan this past week is again a reminder of how much danger other Americans face on our behalf. It is true also with regard to the Columbia, when the loss of that shuttle has caused us once again to stop and think about the men and women who climb on top of rockets and head into the coldness of outer space to advance the leading edge of human experience from which all of us benefit. We owe those seven brave souls our gratitude. We owe the same to those who fly today aboard the International Space Station and to those who are preparing to fly back and forth in the months and years to come. Amidst the painful familiarity of the moment we are experiencing come the calls for a thorough accounting of what happened; how did it happen. There are some who say we should have done this and others who say we should not have done that. Others will say we should abandon space, echoing a refrain we have heard intermittently now for more than 4 decades. Skepticism about space exploration, combined with the economic restraints faced by our Nation for many of the years of the past 4 decades, has, in fact, lowered our sights and diminished our momentum in space. We must and we will investigate what happened to Columbia. No holds should be barred and every step should be taken to discover exactly what went wrong and to set about making it right so people will never again look aloft to see a fiery comet signalling the destruction of a spacecraft with its historic crew. Yet we must be realists. No human advance comes without risk. In the history of human space flight, in fact, we have lost the crew of Apollo 1, Soyuz 1 and 11, the Challenger, and now Columbia. This is the most difficult, dangerous, and daunting work I can imagine. That in part is why we do it. President Kennedy said more than 40 years ago: We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. There is no acceptable number of spacecraft lost in pursuit of what is hard and what is unknown. Obviously just one loss is too many. But we must recognize that the sacrifice of those who have died has not been in vain. The space program has yielded enormous results. It has also given our Nation and people throughout the world a sense of wonder that cannot be easily recounted in mere dollars and cents. Our gross spiritual product, if you will, GSP, is higher than it would otherwise have been thanks to the efforts of the astronauts, the scientists, and all who make the exploration of space a noble part of our civilization. We must emerge from this investigation of the Columbia tragedy and from our introspection about it resolved to do more, not less, to think bigger, not smaller, to aim higher, not lower. Just as we must build something great and beautiful where the World Trade Center towers once stood, a fitting tribute to the men and women of the Columbia is not really to fix what went wrong but to do what is right, to do what is characteristically American, to continue--indeed, to expand--their mission and to lift our sights to the heavens once again and pursue new missions--as Charles Krauthammer has written--``to the moon and beyond.'' We should do so not because we know what knowledge and benefits that pursuit of those goals will achieve; we should do so because we do not know. Yet we can be confident, based on our experience, that the effort will prove more than worth our while. That is the wonder of exploration, to go beyond the next bend in the river, over the next mountain, beyond the far horizon, not because we know what is there, but because we do not and want to find out. Most great feats of exploration in human history have yielded benefits far in excess of what anyone could have predicted when they began. Surely we will find something on the Moon or Mars or elsewhere in the cosmos that will astonish us and transform the way we live. Surely we will discover things about ourselves in the process of mounting those great missions that will change our lives. Spend the money here on Earth, some will say. Our problems are too great here to waste money in space or on the Moon or Mars. First remember that not one single dollar will actually be left in space, on the Moon, or on the surface of the red planet. Every dollar invested in space is invested here on Earth, circulating throughout our economy, creating a multiplier effect as the jobs and discoveries associated with the space program lift in time our GDP, our gross domestic product. Our new missions in space should be as the International Space Station is: American-led but international in scope. People and resources of many nations can and should be pooled to ensure that the great space missions of the 21st century are global projects that make sense, because success is more likely, of course, if we tap the best minds of the broad community of nations, not just our own. The investment needed can best be realized through contributions from many peoples, not just the American people. Such a common venture also has other salutary effects. As President Clinton has said, We need a world with more friends and fewer terrorists. And what better way to expand our circle of friends than to invite them to join us on an inspiring voyage together into the unknown wonders of space. What better way to showcase our own unique values and technological advances than to lead a team of many nations whose citizens will share with us a stake in the outcome and a share of the pride. Finally, embarking on a bold new age of discovery will help revive the American spirit. In the midst of terrorist threats from abroad, a shaken sense of security here at home, a troubled economy, and shocks to our system such as those we faced on September 11 and after from the anthrax and now from the loss of the Columbia, the American people may be feeling uncertain about our future. These have been tough times. But I am confident we are at heart an optimistic people and that for us the best truly is yet to come. We have to find ways to strengthen our can-do spirit, to unleash our optimism and give us a stronger sense of national purpose and greater hope in a better future. No single enterprise can accomplish that goal. I do not mean to suggest that a visionary space program alone will turn the national tide. There are other missions to consider as well that are closer to Earth--great missions--which together we can accomplish to cure cancer, make our Nation energy independent, and defeat the scourge of AIDS. But remember that the American dream is not a zero-sum game. We can do more than we realize. We can expand opportunity and vision and hope if we set our minds, our hearts, and our national will to the task. We have all been reminded in recent days of all that President Kennedy set in motion with his brief words to the Congress in 1961 when he committed America to land a man on the Moon before that decade was out. We should remind ourselves, too, of how far we have come in the hundred years since the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. We cannot know how far and how fast mankind, humankind, will travel across the country or the universe by this century's end. That is the wonder of it. But if we fail to heed the call to explore, we will only succeed in stifling an astounding revolution that is bound to occur sooner or later. Centuries ago, William Shakespeare wrote: Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. We must not let our doubts make us lose the good we can win by venturing further into this special frontier in space of which we are aware. In words that are more American than Shakespeare's, Mark Twain captured that same sensibility in one of the great American novels-- maybe the greatest--``The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,'' where Huck, with Jim, on the raft delighted always in approaching the next bend in the river, not knowing what they would find around the bend, but never fearful, always excited, and always confident of their ability to deal with whatever they found. In those last sentences of that great novel, Huck says: I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest. So he did, and so have we Americans before and since. We will not-- those of us who are blessed to be citizens of this great country now-- reap all that we sow, not in our lifetimes. Yet we will find nourishment for our national spirit in the effort itself and from the knowledge that we are working to make a better tomorrow for those who will follow us as citizens of this country and the world, whose faces we will not live to see, whose names we cannot know, but whose lives we can touch for the better by what we do today. We do know the names of Rick Husband, Will McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon. May God have mercy on them, their families, and friends, and may their souls be embraced in eternal life. May they, like modern-day angels, experience forever the peace, joy, and beauty of space flight. And may we never turn back from the journey of discovery that inspired these heroes and must still inspire our Nation and the world to ever greater heights. Let's light out for the territory ahead of the rest, and today that territory is beyond the sky. For that is the stuff of the American dream and the heart of the human soul. It must be our choice today, for surely it is our destiny. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, it's my pleasure to rise in tribute to the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team, which on Saturday, January 18, made Division I history by winning their 55th consecutive game. In doing so, they surpassed the 54-game streak set by Louisiana Tech between 1980 and 1982 and delighted fans all across my state. Fifty-five straight wins would be an incredible accomplishment in any sport at any time. But it's especially impressive in women's college basketball today, because this is an era of true parity in the sport. There are so many strong teams able to compete with and, on any given night, beat a great team like the Huskies. But the Huskies keep on working, and they keep on winning. At home and on the road, in blowouts and in squeakers. Sometimes they win with defense. Sometimes with 3- point shooting. Sometimes with pure hustle. But they always find a way. It's no wonder the Huskies have an admirer in legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, whose UCLA men's basketball teams in the early 70s set an all-time Division I record with 88 straight wins. Coach Wooden said of what the Huskies have accomplished, ``It's a tremendous feat in any era. I think they play the pure game, more so than the men. The best college basketball in my opinion is played by the better women's teams.'' Of course, last year the very best team in the nation was UConn, which racked up a perfect 39-0 season en route to the national championship. The players on that team, led by All-American seniors Sue Bird, Tamika Williams, Swin Cash and Asjha Jones built the bulk of this record streak. And this season, a team led by All-American junior Diana Taurasi and many terrific young players is in the hunt for the championship again. There will be many tough games to play. Just this Monday, January 20, they matched up against Notre Dame and extended the streak to 56. And on February 1st, they will play Duke, now ranked first in the country. Competition isn't about perfection. It's about perseverance. I'm reminded of the words of Michael Jordan, who said, ``I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot . . . and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed.'' So even if, if, the team should lose someday, the real measure of their character will be how they bounce back, what they learn, how they become an even better team because of it. So much of the credit for this team's success goes to coach Geno Auriemma, who has built the best program in the nation during his 18 years in Storrs. Assistant Coach Chris Dailey has also played a pivotal part in the remarkable run. The Huskies have won three national championships over the last seven years. They have made 14 straight NCAA tournament appearances and won a combined 23 Big East regular and tournament championships. Over the last three years, they've amassed an astounding 123-4 record. I wish them luck in the weeks and months to come as they seek to extend the streak further. This has been a month of history in women's college basketball. Tennessee coach Pat Summit just won her 800th game, and the Huskies won their 55th straight victory. It's a golden time for the sport, and for all the fans who love it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Secretary Gordon England to the position of Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary England has earned my appreciation and respect as Secretary of the Navy. We have met in oversight hearings conducted by the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve, and by the Airland Subcommittee I have been privileged to chair. Based on that experience, I have no doubt but that Secretary England will make a highly honorable and effective Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. His qualifications are not in question, nor is his dedication. Throughout his entire professional career, Secretary England has demonstrated a unique readiness, willingness, and ability to help make America safer. However, as I have said repeatedly, it will not be enough for this Department to be led by public servants with good judgment, strong experience, and in-depth expertise in homeland security. Of course, that helps tremendously. But more important than the quality of the officers is the quality of the orders, and in my view, since September 11, the Bush administration has not proven itself bold enough, aggressive enough, or visionary enough to make America significantly safer. Let me give you three quick examples. First, intelligence. This administration's failure to confront, much less fix, the fundamental problems that plague our intelligence community has been discouraging, disappointing, and I believe potentially dangerous. I am, of course pleased that the President, in his State of the Union address, announced his support for the creation of a Terrorism Threat Information Center. For many months now, I and other members of the Senate have been proposing a similar analysis center as a way of addressing one of the most glaring weaknesses in our domestic defenses exposed by the September 11 terrorist attacks. This new center will be the place where the dots are connected, to give our Government a better chance of uncovering terrorist threats and preventing attacks. I am glad that the Administration has finally agreed this is critical to our ability to better protect the American people, though I must admit my frustration that it has taken this long for the President to awaken to the wisdom of this solution. During the debate over the Department of Homeland Security, I proposed creation of an independent Intelligence Directorate, under the Secretary of Homeland Security, to be staffed by analysts on loan from the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies, and given maximum access to the information about all terrorist threats collected by those agencies. Its purpose would be clear, to connect the dots and overcome the failures to share intelligence that surely contributed to the successful terrorist attacks on our country. Unfortunately, the President opposed that approach. Instead, the administration insisted on focusing the Department's intelligence center on protecting critical infrastructure, rather than on performing analysis primarily designed to preempt and disrupt attacks before they occur. In the end, a compromise was reached; creating a single directorate that would analyze all terrorist threats as well as assess vulnerabilities to the infrastructure. However, until the President's State of the Union Address, the administration has insisted on implementing its original concept of infrastructure protection. But there is still serious reason for concern. The President said Tuesday night the new analysis center would answer to the Director of Central Intelligence and would be composed of analytical units from the FBI and the CIA. But Congress's clear intent was that he should create a strong Directorate to ``connect the dots'' within the Department of Homeland Security. Historic rivalries among the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies are a major problem we must overcome. Placing this fusion center in the new Department would ensure analysis from an independent entity outside of the existing rivalries. The President's approach perpetuates a major part of the problem. Though I am glad he has finally agreed that we need a single Terrorist Threat Information Center, the President has been altogether too reluctant to challenge the status quo in the intelligence community and the FBI. Second, the role of the military. As Secretary England understands well, our armed forces have tremendous resources. There are 1.3 million people on active military duty, most of them in the United States, and about 900,000 members of our Reserves and Guard. That's 2.2 million defense personnel. We expect the Department of Homeland Security to employ about 170,000 people. Taxpayers will invest almost $393 billion this year, money well spent, in their Department of Defense. The new homeland defense department will probably have a budget, and total resources, about one tenth that. Now, of course, our military's principal activities will be and must be outside our borders. As we are learning in the effort to disarm Iraq, we need our forces to be strong. We need them to be flexible. We need them to be ready at any time. But I believe at the same time we can and must use some of our defense assets more effectively here at home. Our Department of Defense has trained, disciplined, cohesive units with more experience in responding to crisis, more technology, and more expertise in dealing with chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological weapons, than anybody else in government. It has created a new northern command to defend the United States. In this new kind of war taking place on a homeland battlefield, we must use all those resources optimally. I've put forward some ideas on how to do that, primarily by applying some of the expertise and experience of our National Guard. I hope the administration engages in this discussion and comes forward with some ideas of its own. Secretary England's experience will make him an invaluable contributor to this discussion. Third, let me briefly discuss the role of the private sector. ``United we stand, divided we fall'' is not a cliche. In the case of the war against terrorism, it is a truism, and a warning for us all to heed. This war cannot be won by Government alone. We must be one Nation under collaboration, one Nation under cooperation. I hope Secretary England, who has extensive experience as an engineer and executive in the aerospace industry, is ready to think creatively about how best to engage private industry to better protect us from terrorism, because in the past 16 months, the Bush administration has been far too passive on this front. We are paying a price for that passivity. According to a report issued by the Council on Competitiveness in December, the vast majority of U.S. corporate executives do not see their companies as potential targets of terrorism. Only 53 percent of survey respondents indicated that they had made any increased security investments between 2001 and 2002. And most of the security changes in the past year in the private sector have focused on ``guards, gates and guns'', in other words, on protecting the physical security of buildings alone. Despite 80 percent of the respondents to the Council's survey indicating they had conducted vulnerability assessments related to their physical plants, barely half have studied the vulnerabilities in their telephone and shipping networks, electric power supplies, and supplier companies, and even fewer companies had made any changes based on these assessments. With 85 percent of our critical infrastructure owned by the private sector, this slow action ought to be a national concern, and correcting it ought to be a national priority. Another area I believe we should instantly expect more productive public-private partnerships is in vaccine development. I am pleased that the President has now acknowledged the need to build new shields to protect ourselves from the deadly bioterror arrows that our enemies may use against us. This is an urgent priority that our Government has let languish for far too long. Unfortunately, the administration's approach to developing medicines to protect us against a bioterror attack has been too narrow, too conventional, too slow, and too small to rise to this urgent challenge. Respectfully, the new initiative announced by the President, what we know about it today, seems to be more of the same. So far, the administration has addressed this problem by providing funding for basic research by academics. But that is not the only thing we need to do to swiftly develop breakthrough new medicines that we can stockpile and deploy. To do this the right way, we also need to engage our ingenious private sector, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, which have so far shown no interest in this research. Today, even if the academic scientists find a promising lead, there is no company ready to move that antidote or medicine from concept to product, from laboratory to bedside. Back in December of 2001 I introduced legislation, now cosponsored by Senator Hatch, S. 3148, to provide incentives to private companies to take up and accelerate this vital research. The BioShield program apparently adopts one of the ideas from our bill, to provide a guaranteed purchase fund for needed medicines. That is good news, and I am glad the President has seen the wisdom of this approach. I have said for more than a year that we can't expect these private companies to commit themselves to this R&D if they cannot determine the scope and terms of the market that might await them. But based on the details the White House has released to date, BioShield does not incorporate any of the other incentives I have proposed, no tax incentives, no intellectual property protections, no liability protections, no incentives to develop research tools or construct manufacturing facilities. It is a bare and belated beginning on what we have to do to engage the private sector in this research. We are in grave danger. The Defense Science Board estimated in 2000 that we have only 1 of the 57 diagnostics, vaccines and drugs we need to deal with the top 19 bioterror threats. In other words, if you do the math, we were less than 2 percent prepared. No progress has been made since then. The DSB said if we were to launch a major industrial development effort, we might be able to develop twenty of these countermeasures in 5 years and thirty in 10 years. The President's announcement of $600 million in funding over 10 years won't begin to address this massive and threatening gap. The administration's failure on this front is, in my view, part of a general myopia. The President seems unwilling to enlist every sector and segment of society to do its part to help us win the war against terrorism. But Americans want to contribute. They want to know what they can do for their country. This would have been the perfect place for the President to pave the way to a new, productive partnership between Government and the private sector. But, regrettably, he has missed the opportunity. I have put forward a comprehensive proposal to ignite private development of the countermeasures we will need to protect ourselves from the dozens and dozens of bioterror agents that might be used against us. Those medicines, antidotes, and vaccines won't materialize by accident. Getting that done will take leadership from Washington. Let me conclude by saying that I appreciate Secretary England's commitment to serve. The country appreciates his public and private service over the course of the last 40 years, and values his experience, expertise, and management skill which will be focused on this urgent new challenge. I look forward to partnering with soon to be Deputy Secretary England and Secretary Ridge, but I also look forward to pushing and prodding this administration, which has so far moved too slowly and cautiously in closing our dramatic homeland security vulnerabilities.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator Landrieu in offering this amendment to provide historic preservation funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Sixteen of us from both parties sponsored similar legislation last session, which passed the Senate as well as the House. But the two pieces did not come together in the closing days of the session. American history has been a constant, if not always consistent, march toward an ideal. That ideal is equal opportunity for all. In every generation, it has taken the work of pioneers to open the gates of the American community to people who had previously been excluded. We have seen it happen with one immigrant group after another. Pioneers have stepped forward when others would not, to defiantly State, in effect, that we as a nation will not be defined by surface characteristics. We will look deeper and try harder. The pioneers have held us to our national promise, and reminded us that America and Americanism are not about where you came from, what language you speak, what religion you practice, or what you look like, but about belief in basic ideals of responsibility, opportunity and community. Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been such pioneers for generations, and they continue today to help America become its best self. In April of this year, I went to Allen University in Columbia, SC to talk about reforming higher education to help more Americans at all income levels not only go to college, but graduate--and get a good job when they do. Today, about 30 percent of undergraduates at 4-year colleges are minorities. That is an increase of 10 percent over the last 10 years. HBCUs have helped expand that access to college. However, we are still living in a country where if you are white, you are twice as likely to obtain a bachelor's degree by the time you're 24 than if you are African American. And if you are wealthy, you are five time more likely to actually get a bachelor's degree than if you are from a low-income family. In other words, we don't have equal opportunity--not yet. Historically Black Colleges have always held us to the high human standards to which America deserves to be held--and to which our people demand we be held. Today, America has over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which educate about 300,000 undergraduate students and thousands of graduate, professional and doctoral students. In fact, 8 of the top 10 producers of African-American engineers are HBCUs. And 42 percent of all the PhDs earned each year by African Americans are earned by graduates of HBCUs. Despite playing such a central role in our economy, society, and culture, HBCUs have been physically eroding for years. In 1998, the National Trust for Historic Preservation reported that most of the HBCUs in the United States are showing serious signs of neglect. The trust said that campus landmarks are decaying and college grounds are badly in need of attention. And a 1998 General Accounting Office report estimated that in HBCUs nationwide, there were more than 700 historic buildings in disrepair. That is why I am proudly sponsoring this amendment to provide more restoration funding for historic sites at Historically Black Colleges and Universities throughout the Nation. These beautiful, architecturally significant structures are in most cases over a hundred years old, and were often built using the help of the students themselves. Their architectural beauty is a sign of something deeper--the fact that they have served as critical portals of opportunity for African Americans throughout our history. That is why they deserve our strong protection and sensitive preservation. I saw this firsthand. When I visited Allen University, I went to Arnett Hall--a building that had been transformed from an eyesore into a beautiful and stately facility with the help of Federal funds. In the past, students and faculty would walk into the hall and get the message that we as a nation were neglecting these historic treasures. Now, they absorb the message that we consider historically black colleges and universities central to our history and to our future. Thanks in no small part to these institutions, the overarching history of African Americans in this country has been not a tragedy, as it once was, but a brilliant movement toward dignity, inclusion, freedom, and opportunity. that is the right message for African Americans and all Americans. In closing, I would also like to reiterate that this amendment is not new. Bills providing historic preservation funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities unanimously passed both Houses at the end of last year. By approving this amendment, we will clean up last year's unfinished business. Please join with me and Senator Landrieu to adopt this amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the nomination of Governor Ridge to become the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I do so with the utmost confidence in the personal integrity and professional ability of Governor Ridge. We in America should honor and support public servants who take on challenges as difficult and daunting as this one. This will be one of the hardest, and, instantly, one of the most important jobs in Government. We are in the midst of a crisis. We are at war. Raising our guard is an urgent task, and it falls to this new Secretary and those under his command to close our many vulnerabilities as quickly and effectively as possible. I believe that Governor Ridge, from his experience in the Congress, as Governor of Pennsylvania, and of course over the last year as the director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, is very well prepared for the job. I am confident that this Department, which I have worked hard for over a year now to try to bring into being, will be in good hands. But at the same time, I must express my deep doubts as to whether the administration in which Governor Ridge serves has done enough to make the Nation safer, and as to whether going forward it has the strong vision and strategy, as well as the necessary fiscal commitment, to improving America's security. Based on its design, the establishment of a Department of Homeland Security ought to be a great leap forward in our homeland defenses. We will at long last consolidate more than two dozen agencies and offices and organize them in a logical, accountable, and strong chain of command. And at the top of the agency, we will have a single cabinet secretary with budget authority who will be held accountable to the Congress and to the people. But getting there from here is no small task. It is both a tremendous opportunity and a sobering responsibility. Creating this Department will be the largest and most complex Federal Government reorganization since the 1940s, and demands a strong partnership between Congress and the executive branch. Let me say for my part, as one who fought for the new Department for more than a year, in the Governmental Affairs Committee and on the Senate floor, that I plan to do everything I can to ensure that the Department has the resources and the support it demands and deserves, because this is the most urgent responsibility our government has today. We must strive to do this together, across party lines. For generations, we in the Congress have managed to elevate support for our armed services above partisan politics, and we must do the same for homeland security. At the same time, we must work together to oversee the organization, the long-term strategy, and the day-to-day operations of the Department. That is our obligation to the American people. But I have never been under the illusion that reorganization itself would, by itself, be the solution to our homeland security challenges. It was only always the necessary first step. Having the right structure is no guarantee of success. We also need the right people, policies, programs, and resources. And in this area, the administration's homeland security efforts over the past year and three months have left much to be desired and much to be done. After many months of raising our guard, America is not nearly safe enough. It is no exaggeration to say that the holes in our defenses are not getting demonstrably smaller. According to almost every independent assessment produced in the past few months, America remains dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attack. The most persuasive of these, in my view, was produced by Former Senators Hart and Rudman, the men who, long before we were attacked, were calling for our government to reshape itself to better guard against the threat of terrorism. Last year, Senators Hart and Rudman headed a second task force intended to assess the progress made since September 11 and recommend urgent reforms. That task force released its report last October. I quote from its introduction: ``America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy.'' In our committee hearing last week, Governor Ridge indicated that he fundamentally understands the amount of work we have left to do. I appreciate that. He and I disagree about how much has been accomplished over the past year, but I am grateful we share the same understanding of the size and scope of the challenge that remains. Let me repeat some of the hard facts about our remaining vulnerabilities: Our local and State law enforcement officials are operating in a virtual intelligence vacuum with no access to the terrorist watch lists that the State Department provides to our immigration and consular officials. In the words of the Hart-Rudman report, this means that, when it comes to combating terrorism, ``the police officers on the beat are effectively operating deaf, dumb, and blind.'' That's unacceptable, and in my view, the administration has taken very small steps at best to fix this problem; containers, ships, trucks and trains entering the United States over our borders and through our ports are subject to hardly any examination. Of the 21,000 shipping containers that come through our ports every day, no more than 2 percent, that's about 400, are inspected. The administration has begun to address this problem, trying to balance the competing demands of security and commerce, but we remain dangerously at risk; our first responders are unprepared for potential chemical or biological attacks. They lack the necessary training, and their communications systems are in most cases incompatible with one another. Again, I know the administration has talked about fixing this problem, but solutions have yet to materialize; we must make better use of our National Guard's effectiveness and expertise here at home. I have put forward proposals suggesting how our country can do that but again, I have heard few ideas or directives from the White House on this front. We lack effective vaccines and medicines to counter the vast majority of biological and chemical weapons. I have put forward comprehensive legislation to spur the private sector development of these countermeasures. Our attempts to engage the administration in a conversation on meeting this urgent need have fallen on deaf ears. I believe it is unnerving and unacceptable that we have not come further faster. Bureaucratic inertia is a powerful force. That's why the Homeland Security Act which we passed and the President signed needs to be implemented boldly and aggressively. Governor Ridge seems to understand this, upon being appointed the President's Homeland Security Advisor, said that, ``The only turf we should be worried about protecting is the turf we stand on.'' And while he has tried his best to honor that statement, I am not yet convinced that the administration as a whole is prepared to live up to that rhetoric. Let me give you one crucial example of an area in which a generally reactive rather than proactive mindset is already producing serious problems: intelligence collection, dissemination, and analysis. We now know that the failure of our intelligence agencies to connect the dots on September 11 was the single greatest error among many glaring failures. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has thus far failed to challenge or change the status quo of the intelligence community to fix what is broken. On paper, the passage of the new Homeland Security Act has ushered in a new era. The bill creates a single all-source information analysis and infrastructure protection unit within the new Department. We had a lot of discussion and debate over the roles and responsibilities of this new unit, would it be focused only on protecting critical infrastructure, or would it be designed to help do what we didn't do before 9/11, namely ``connect the dots'' to prevent attacks before they occur. In the end we compromised: it would do both. But I am very disturbed by indications that the administration believes the primary responsibility of the new Department's intelligence unit is to protect critical infrastructure, and that performing analysis to prevent attacks is peripheral or secondary at best. The fact is, we can imagine horrific terrorist attacks that are not against critical infrastructure but against people, a bomb in a shopping mall or a biological agent dropped from overhead onto city streets. It makes no sense for the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence division to put on critical infrastructure blinders rather than assessing and processing all information related to terrorist attacks against Americans here at home. This is an absolutely central question, not in any way a semantic distinction. The question here is whether the new Department will systematically work to prevent all terrorism, or whether it will have the much narrower mission of protecting critical infrastructure. During the long debate over the legislation creating a Department of Homeland Security, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held hearings focused specifically on the intelligence mission and information needs of the new Department. We analyzed the Administration's original legislation and determined that the information analysis and infrastructure protection directorate it proposed was too narrowly focused and would not have the access to information it needed to ``connect the dots'', and therefore prevent future terrorist attacks. We proposed separate directorates for intelligence and for critical infrastructure which would be headed by separate, Senate confirmed Under Secretaries. This was to make it clear that the intelligence function in the Department would be focused on its full range of missions, preventing attacks, improving border security, better informing our emergency response activities, and, yes, protecting critical infrastructure. The administration resisted this approach, and insisted that the directorate be headed by a single Under Secretary. However, they agreed that separate Assistant Secretaries, one for information analysis and another for infrastructure protection, would head up two distinct entities in the directorate. And it was clear that the Directorate would be focused on detecting and preventing attacks, as well as protecting critical infrastructure. As a result the language in the Homeland Security Act reflects a compromise. It makes clear that the mission of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate includes detecting and preventing all terrorist threats against our country, not just those against critical infrastructure. Regrettably, long after our deliberations finished, long after the bill was signed, the Administration has apparently now decided that no compromise was reached, that the position in the President's original proposal was adopted by the Congress. Let me make clear: that is a false interpretation, and it is one which, if unchallenged, will mean that the Department of Homeland Security will, from the beginning, have abdicated one of its most vital functions, that is preventing acts of terrorism against the American people. The legislative history is clear, yet the administration is apparently intent on creating an intelligence unit narrowly focused on protecting only critical infrastructure, rather than preventing any and all acts of terrorism against the American people on our home soil. This is not what we agreed to, and it is not what America needs. I will continue to insist that the administration fulfills the intent of the legislation we passed. Finally, let me say a few words about the critical problem of insufficient funding, which has so far hamstrung and hobbled our efforts to better protect America. We have dozens of Federal agencies, including many that are being consolidated into the new Department of Homeland Security--that are in the midst of urgent work post-September 11. The Coast Guard, Border Patrol and others need to train their employees and invest in new technology. They need to pay bills for expensive investments they have already made. But this administration isn't providing them with the necessary funding . . . and some in Congress are not rising to the challenge either. Indeed, just last week on the Senate floor, the Republican leadership rejected a $5 billion package of investments in homeland security programs. The problem is especially pressing at the local level. Local and State first responders, who are also our first preventers of terrorism, are not getting the support they need, despite promise after promise from the administration. Late last year, the President inexplicably blocked $2.5 billion in emergency spending that could have gone to federal agencies and state and local officials for their homeland security efforts. That was wrong. This war on terrorism cannot be won with wishful thinking. It will take strong leadership and a lot of money. It will take real, not rhetorical, partnership among every layer and level of government. It will take talent, training, and technology. And it will take tireless effort on the part of thousands of Federal employees. All this will soon fall on Governor Ridge's broad shoulders. I do not doubt his talent or his commitment to the job. I have confidence in his competence. But unless and until this administration strengthens its strategy, corrects its long-term vision, and puts its money where its mouth is, and does all these things urgently, the hard work of a good man, and of the thousands of men and women in his charge, will not be enough to make America as safe as we must be.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to restore a little sanity to our Nation's clean air policy. For the past 2 years, I have joined my colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee in requesting an analysis of the health impacts of the administration's New Source Review rules. We have asked through letters, through committee questions, through oral questions at hearings. Yet our requests fell on deaf ears, or shall I say on dead air, and the EPA finalized the rules without conducting any careful analysis. That is why today I join Senator Edwards in offering this amendment-- one that I call the ``look before you leap'' amendment. All we do in this amendment is delay the effective date of the final rules for less than 7 months, during which time we commission a NAS study to evaluate the effects of the rules on air emissions and human health. In just 7 months, depending on the outcome of those objective, scientific studies, we could prevent serious potential damage to our environment and to public health. What the Bush administration is proposing is not, as some in the administration might suggest, a nip-and-tuck. It's not a few technical rule changes. It is a significant change in our clean air policy. The administration is introducing new, more permissive rules for measuring whether a facility meets clean air requirements. In Congressional testimony, the EPA admitted that fully 50 percent of the facilities that are now subject to the Clean Air Act's technology requirements would fall out of those requirements under the rule changes. When I hear that, I cannot believe there will be no health impacts. If literally half the sources are no longer subject to these provisions of the government's main clean air law, how can the air get anything but dirtier? Then I look at recent studies commissioned by the Rockefeller Family Fund and prepared by Abt Associates--the EPA's own consultant--that show emissions will increase as a result of the new regulations. Based on the bulk of the evidence, it is counterintuitive and I think illogical for the EPA to claim--over and over again--that their new rules will do no damage to the environment. Then again, the EPA never offers any proof of this claim, so perhaps we are expected to accept in on faith. This amendment will give us the answer. We no longer will have to argue back and forth--the study being commissioned by the National Academies will give us the facts. And we don't have to wait long. Less than 7 months, and then we can go forward with the rules knowing what their impacts will be. If the study shows significant environmental harm, and the majority of this body still wants them to be adopted, then so be it. But at least we made an informed choice. Anyone in this Senate who has bought a house has toured the house before putting their money down. They've gotten an appraisal. They've conducted an inspection. Well, we're on the brink of buying a new set of rules here that we will have to live with for many, many years. I don't think we want to close our eyes, close our ears, cross our fingers and hope for the best. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is remiss. This amendment also brings a benefit for the states. Just last week, STAPPA-ALAPCO--the organization of state and local air regulators-- wrote to Administrator Whitman asking for a 1-year delay in the rules. They had already written to complain about the air impacts of the rules, but this letter was different--it aimed at the administrative knots in which the states are being placed by the new regulations. You see, these rules are not optional for States--they are being shoved down their throats. And for the 12 States and the District of Columbia that implement the New Source Review program on their own, they will have to incorporate the rule changes into their programs by March 3. So my colleagues are clear, let me name them: Washington, California, Nevada, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. As the rules were only published on December 31, that only gives these states and the district 3 months to evaluate and implement a tremendously complicated area of law. Neither has EPA provided the training and guidance that all States will need to implement the rule. That is why the States wrote to EPA last week and stated that: ``The March 3 effective date simply does not allow sufficient time for delegated state and local agencies to prepare for and executive effective implementation of the new NSR rule.'' By passing our amendment, we will be giving the state and local agencies the time that they desperately need. Call it breathing room-- for our environment and for our State governments. This is a controversial topic, and I know my colleagues have been pulled in many different directions on this vote. But we are not asking for anything here but smart, well-informed policymaking. Once a rule like this is put in place, it is hard to reverse; indeed, according to EPA, the whole point of this rule is to provide industry with long-term certainty. We asked EPA to look before they leapt, and they refused, ignoring this institution's right to oversee their rulemaking at the same time. We should understand the clean air impacts of these rule changes before they become the law of the land. We need to stop and take a breath before we change the law, so that we know that all Americans can breathe safely, easily, and freely in the future.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, it is my pleasure to rise in tribute to the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team, which on Saturday, January 18th made Division I history by winning their 55th consecutive game. In doing so, they surpassed the 54-game streak set by Virginia Tech between 1980 and 1982 and delighted fans all across my state. Fifty-five straight wins would be an incredible accomplishment in any sport at any time. But it's especially impressive in women's college basketball today because this is an era of true parity in the sport. There are so many strong teams able to compete with and, on any given night, beat a great team like the Huskies. But the Huskies keep on working, and they keep on winning, at home and on the road, in blowouts and in squeakers. Sometimes they win with defense. Sometimes with three-point shooting. Sometimes with pure hustle. But they always find a way. It's no wonder the Huskies have an admirer in legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, whose UCLA men's basketball teams in the early 1970's set an all-time Division I record with 88 straight wins. Coach Wooden said of what the Huskies have accomplished, ``It's a tremendous feat in any era. I think they play the pure game, more so than the men. The best college basketball in my opinion is played by the better women's teams.'' Of course, last year the very best team in the nation was UConn, which racked up a perfect 39-0 season en route to the national championship. The players on that team--led by All-American seniors Sue Bird, Tamika Williams, Swin Cash and Asjha Jones--built the bulk of this record streak. And this season, a team led by All-American junior Diana Taurasi and many terrific young players is in the hunt for the championship again. There will be tons of tough games to play. Just this Monday, January 20th, they matched up against Notre Dame and extended the streak to 56. And on February 1st, they will play Duke, now ranked first in the country. Mr. President, competition isn't about perfection. It's about perseverance. I'm reminded of the words of Michael Jordan, who said, ``I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot . . . and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed.'' So even if-- if--the team should lose someday, the real measure of their character will be how they bounce back, what they learn, how they become an even better team because of it. So much of the credit for this team's success goes to coach Geno Auriemma, who has built the best program in the Nation during his 18 years in Storrs. Assistant Coach Chris Dailey has also played a pivotal part in the remarkable run. The Huskies have won three national championships over the last 7 years. They have made 14 straight NCAA tournament appearances and won a combined 23 Big East regular and tournament championships. Over the last 3 years, they've amassed an astounding 123-4 record. I wish them luck in the weeks and months to come as they seek to extend the streak further. This has been a month of history in women's college basketball. Tennessee coach Pat Summit just won her 800th game--and the Huskies won their 55th straight victory. It is a golden time for the sport, and for all the fans who love it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join my good colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Harkin, in offering this amendment to ensure that we live up to the promise we made just over 1 year ago to improve student achievement by raising standards, increasing accountability, and investing more resources in the classroom. Recently we celebrated that 1-year anniversary of the most far- reaching Federal education reform in a generation. Today, we ought to be celebrating our progress and looking forward to more. Instead, too many public schools across the country are being taught the difference between rhetoric and reality, and when they read the name of this bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, they are being taught the meaning of irony. It is sadly fitting that the traditional first anniversary gift is paper because so far, this education reform has happened only on paper, not in practice. The bill was signed, but the bills haven't been paid. The No Child Left Behind Act is an important law. It is a bipartisan law. It is a strong expression of our intent to prepare all our children to excel in our increasingly competitive information economy. I am proud to have helped shape it. But what good is a piece of legislation if the executive branch ducks its implementation? What value is a bill if government lacks the will to make it happen? A little over a year after signing the bill, the President deserves a report card on putting it into action. And here is what I would give him: an ``A'' for words, a ``D'' for deeds, dollars, and dedication. In Stamford Public Schools, where I was educated, those are pretty bad grades. President Bush talks plenty about the soft bigotry of low expectations; somebody needs to make sure he understands the hard reality of inadequate appropriations. The fact is the funding levels that the President has requested have been consistently, dramatically below what was originally promised, leaving inadequate funding to educate our neediest children. Money isn't everything, but schools need money to hire good teachers. They need money to implement high quality reforms. They need money to truly raise standards. Without those resources, the new bill is just Washington's hollow holler for them to change. It is a disgrace that the President has underfunded title I by nearly $5 billion compared to what was called for in the bill he himself signed with great fanfare. Our amendment would, will, fill that gap by funding an additional $4.65 billion, to ensure that we meet our commitment to fully fund education for our Nation's most disadvantaged students. In my own State of Connecticut, this would mean an addition of nearly $11 million for local schools to help them fund the critical reforms that will raise academic achievement for all students. It would also raise the maximum amount of the Pell grant to $4,500 so that more low-income students are not priced out of higher education. My father worked days and nights in his store to earn enough to send me to college. I was the first in my family to go. But for most families in an equivalent position today, even two incomes aren't enough to cover tuition. The Pell grant increase we propose is not nearly enough to fully meet the needs of low- and moderate-income students, but it is a positive step forward. It will help make the college dream, the dream to keep climbing the learning ladder and get the skills necessary to compete in this information economy, a reality for more students. Of course Federal money can't flow freely, not while we fight a war against terrorism at home and abroad. But the choice we face isn't between fighting the war against terrorism and fixing our schools. It is infuriating to hear people suggest that false choice. The truth is, this administration's unfair and unaffordable tax cut, which does too little to grow the economy and too much to reward a few taxpayers, has made it all but impossible to meet other critical needs. Think about what it would cost to fully fund the new education law and raise Pell grants versus what the President wants to spend on the least effective pieces of his 2001 tax cut, or on his misguided so- called stimulus plan proposed earlier this month. This is about priorities. Do we spur economic growth with responsible tax cuts and necessary investments in education, or do we blow the bank on unaffordable and ineffective tax cuts and chronically fail to rise to our commitment to education? Throughout our history, public schools have been the ladder that children in poverty climb to enter the middle class, the ladder that kids at all economic levels climb to reach greater heights and access new opportunities. More and more that ladder is extending into higher education as well. But in recent years, for too many kids those rungs have gotten slippery. The ladder has gotten rickety. If passed, this amendment will help make the learning ladder steady and strong again. But if not, as standards continue to rise in our elementary and secondary schools, and college costs continue to soar, we will be setting up our kids for a long, hard fall. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to join me in supporting this amendment that will restore $6 billion to our public schools, and put us back on track for meeting our funding commitment to the high-quality academic reforms Congress strongly supported last year.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am deeply troubled that the Bush administration has not done more since September 11, 2001, to close major gaps that remain in our domestic security. Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, who presciently predicted a major terrorist attack within our borders before it actually happened, produced a new report last September in which they observed that ``America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy.'' This is a sobering prediction. And it has convinced me to make it a personal priority and mission to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security has the resources it needs and deserves. The fact is homeland security costs money, to train people in the skills they need, to buy the right equipment, and to pay the men and women in every community across America, on police forces, in fire departments, and emergency medical services, who are our front line troops in the war against terrorism here at home. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported last year that cities will have already spent more than $2.6 billion on additional security costs between September 11, 2001, and the end of 2002, with precious little help from the Federal Government. Seventeen months after the September 11 attack, thousands of communities across the country have been unable to press ahead to meet this awesome security challenge. Our firefighters are left holding the ladder. Our police departments are put in fiscal handcuffs. Washington is demanding expensive new programs without offering States the financial support to implement them. And the States, according to the National Governor's Association, are already experiencing their worst budget crises since World War II. Governors will have a harder time developing and implementing emergency preparedness plans. And local communities may not even be able to pay for critical security projects and programs that are already underway. Federal agencies, too, are being underfunded, with the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, and others coming up hundreds of millions of dollars short of what they need to protect us. Indeed, it may surprise some people, though not the first responders, to know that all the money appropriated by Congress in the days immediately following the terrorist attacks in 2001 has not reached its destination, and the administration has exercised no leadership that I can see to speed up the process. For example, according to a December 2 report from the Office of Management and Budget, FEMA had obligated only $33 million out of some $214 million in budget authority for States for emergency management planning and assistance. That is truly shameful. A year ago, in his fiscal year 2003 budget, President Bush proposed spending $3.5 billion on first responders for training, equipment, and planning to respond, if necessary, to a major terrorist attack. Of course, none of that money has been appropriated, and now, as we try to resolve outstanding fiscal year 2003 appropriations, I am distressed to learn that our Republican colleagues are seeking to cut $1 billion from the homeland security funding levels Senate appropriators agreed to last year. Homeland security cannot be had on the cheap. Therefore, I am proud to cosponsor Senator Byrd's amendment. This amendment would make good on our promises to put in place critical new programs to boost homeland security and, most important, to help State and local governments and first responders bear the costs of their front-line responsibilities in the war on terrorism. First, it would provide the full $2.5 billion in homeland security funding in last summer's emergency supplemental appropriations bills. This is money, for first responders among others, that was approved by Congress but which the President blocked from actually being spent. The amendment also restores about $1 billion in cuts to the fiscal year 2003 spending bills below what Senate appropriations agreed to last summer and fall. Finally, the Byrd amendment provides money for critical new programs. It includes $850 million to help States and localities implement the President's smallpox vaccination plan. Another $585 million would go to implement the new port security law, legislation that passed overwhelmingly in November but which to date has not been funded. We will not be any more secure if we just pass these security blueprints, then walk away. Taken together, the amendment will provide $1.4 billion to State and local governments, including grants to make first responder radio equipment compatible, a priority ever since we learned of the communications problems that hampered September 11 rescue workers. The amendment will provide an additional $1 billion for border security, including funding new initiatives to identify suspicious container traffic and to keep track of who enters and exits our borders. I truly hope the Bush administration hasn't settled on a strategy to talk tough on homeland security, while withholding the money necessary to make that security possible. So far, their approach has been all talk and little action, but we can't defend the country on words alone. It is time to make our commitment to our domestic defenses ever bit as strong and bipartisan as our commitment to our Armed Forces. If we won't do that now, with September 11 still fresh in our minds and hearts and our communities still struggling to protect themselves, when will we? (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to honor a man who over the course of three generations brought joy into millions of Connecticut homes, Bob Steele. Bob died on Friday, December 6 at the age of 91 after a wonderful life and career on and off the airwaves. Bob was with WTIC in the weekday early morning slot for an astounding 55 years, from 1936 to 1991. And he even continued doing the show for the past decade, after his official retirement, on the first Saturday of most months. He hosted his last broadcast on November 2 of this year, at age 91. For all that time, we in Connecticut woke up with Bob, and that made our days a bit brighter. He would talk about the world. He would predict sports scores. He would play from his eclectic collection of music, and whistle some tunes himself. He would carefully pronounce and define the word of the day. He would tell corny jokes, which, I must admit, are my favorite kind. He would tell us the secret to making great scrambled eggs. He would remind us not to leave the house without our keys. The broadcast I have described may sound more fitting for a small town than for a State of nearly 3\1/2\ million people. But that is the way Bob was. He was always, pun intended, on our wavelength, always on our frequency. That is what made Bob a legend. That is what got him enshrined in the Radio Hall of Fame, the same hall where Jack Benny and Bob Hope are canonized. The life he lived and the legacy he leaves are even more amazing when you consider Bob's personal journey. He grew up in Kansas City, MO, with his mother, who rented rooms in their apartment to pay the bills. Bob made ends meet himself by delivering telegrams by bicycle and then delivering emergency drug prescriptions by motorcycle. After high school, he tried professional boxing as a welterweight, but couldn't quite hack it in the ring. So he headed out West to Los Angeles, where he got a few bit parts and took to announcing motorcycle races. Then, in the spring, 1936 season, a Hartford motorcycle race promoter recruited him. With no money in his pocket, not even enough to pay the YMCA the $1 deposit they required for a room, he came to Connecticut. Since then things have never been the same over the airwaves of our great state. We should have a special appreciation for Bob Steele today. In this era of nonstop news, shrill political debate, and shock jocks, Bob's voice, one of strength, warmth, kindness, and gentle humor, will resonate for generations. When he wasn't on the airwaves, Bob was a great family man, and a champion of literacy throughout Connecticut's communities. Bob helped create the Bob Steele Literacy Volunteers Reading Center in Hartford and wrote a book called, ``The Word for the Day: 65 Years of Wit & Wisdom on Mispronunciation.'' Wit and wisdom were two things he had in surplus. One morning a few years ago, when Bob blew a cue, something that was very rare for someone so seasoned, he recovered gracefully. ``That 5-second pause was due to my inexperience,'' he said. ``I'm new here.'' The word of the day, which Bob taught us every single morning, was his trademark. In that spirit, let me suggest that one word exemplified every day in Bob's life and career. That word is ``friend.'' Our thoughts and prayers go out to his widow Shirley, their four sons Robert, Paul, Philip and Steven, and their grandchildren and great grandchildren. May God bless them and bless the memory of Bob Steele.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend and colleague, Senator McCain, to introduce the first ever comprehensive legislation to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States. Today we take the first step up a long mountain road, a road that will culminate with this country taking credible action to address the global problems of our warming planet. The rest of the world is now taking on the challenge this problem presents. The United States, as the world's largest emitter of the gases and the home of the world's strongest economy, must not have its head in the clouds. Climate change is not a new problem. Recently, I had come across my desk a 1979 document produced by the National Academy of Sciences at the request of then-President Carter. The document says, ``When it is assumed that the CO2 content of the atmosphere has doubled, the more realistic of the modeling efforts predict a global surface warming of between 2 degrees and 3.5 degrees with greater increases at higher altitudes.'' That is remarkably similar to last year's national communication on climate change that predicted a warming of 2.5 degrees to 4 degrees over the next century. So in some sense, we have known about this problem for over two decades. That's two decades of neglect. We don't need to spin our wheels in the mud any longer. It is time to get traction. It is time to take action. I do not believe there is any longer any credible dissent on the central question: namely, whether human-caused climate change is happening. The thermometer mercury is creeping up, glaciers are melting, and waters are rising. According to a NASA study released last month, the permanent, summer ice cap over the Arctic Ocean is disappearing far faster than previously thought and will at this rate be gone by the end of the century. And just last week, two major new research studies said global warming is already posing a dire threat to the world's plants and animals, a danger that is likely to rise dramatically, with the temperature, in the coming years. The scientific evidence is potent and persuasive. But we've witnessed other changes across the globe that have anecdotally announced the arrival of global warming to human populations. I noticed two examples recently that resonated with me; both come from the Arctic north, and in my view are canaries in the climate change coalmine. The first example comes from the Native American populations of Alaska and Northern Canada. In just the past few years, a robin appeared in an Inupiat village in Alaska. Unfortunately, the elders, despite an intimate awareness of their 10,000 year old language, did not know what to call the bird. You see, there is no word for robin in their language. A second example comes from the town of Nenana, AK, which has an annual lottery to determine when a tripod placed on the frozen Tenana River would break through the ice. And over the past 50 years, that breakthrough has occurred earlier and earlier. So, it's not only in the language of statistics that climate change is occurring. It's in the language of everyday life. The nature of this problem is that it gets worse every year we fail to face it head on. It's not unlike the federal budget deficit. The weight of the interest payments bearing down on us grow over time and dig us deeper and deeper into a hole of our own making. So too with global warming. Today the problem is manageable. Tomorrow, quite literally, we could be up to our waists in it. There are a few remaining skeptics who still doubt that human greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change but even they should understand the wisdom of taking preventive action. Even they should realize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions now is the best insurance policy against the possibility of future catastrophe. The question remains, then, what we should do about it. There is no easy fix. Carbon dioxide, once released, stays in our atmosphere for about a century, so any solution needs to be long-term. But I believe that the legislation we have drafted and will soon introduce will take us on the path to that ultimate solution, and do so in a way that can provide an economic boost, not an economic burden, to American businesses. Given our flagging economy, this is a critical point for us all to absorb. Our approach works like this. The country's overall emissions will be capped, then individual companies will have the flexibility to find the most innovative and cost-effective ways to drive their emissions down. They will trade pollution credits, also called allowances, with each other rather than paying penalties to the government. The result of that innovative model is that we will unleash and focuses the genius of American enterprise to take on a critical common challenge. And the innovation unleashed as companies compete will create a boomlet of new, high-paying jobs. It's no wonder the Wall Street Journal editorial page endorsed this approach saying that it would achieve the same amount of overall pollution reduction at a lower cost than traditional regulation, and urging the Bush Administration to sign on. In making its endorsement, The Wall Street Journal looked, as we did, at the record. Many similar programs have helped solve pollution problems throughout the country and the world. The most well-known example is the Acid Rain Trading Program in the 1990 Clean Air Act, one of the most successful environmental programs in history and something I was proud to have a hand in creating. This program secured strict cuts in sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants at less than a quarter of the predicted costs to industry. We have some initial reaction to our proposal from our country's leading economists, and the response has been positive. For instance, Steven DeCanio, a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the former staff economist on this issue in the Reagan White House, stated the following about our proposal: The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 is a good first step towards the ultimate goal of stabilizing levels of greenhouse gas emissions that will prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate. The Bill embodies market mechanisms that will enable emissions reductions to be accomplished efficiently, and has provisions for an equitable allocation of the emissions permits. Funds are set aside to assist workers and communities that may be adversely affected by the transition. The Bill permits flexibility in the manner by which the emissions reductions are achieved, including allowing credits for verifiable enhancement of carbon sinks and limited international emissions trading. The proposed legislation also encourages investment in energy-efficiency technologies, as well as the establishment of a national emissions database and funding for new research. All of these features of the Bill are components of a strategy that can enable the United States to begin to make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is supportive of economic growth and beneficial to our standard of living. It is entirely appropriate that the risks of global climate change be addressed in specific legislation at this time. But this bill is more than a broad policy proposal. It is a detailed legislative design for the system. Our staffs have been working ardently over the past 16 months to craft a detailed proposal that could find support both in the halls of industry and amongst the nation's leading environmental organizations. Hopefully that means that both sides of the aisle in Congress will find something to their liking. I hope all involved realized that this is no marker bill; it is a comprehensive proposal. Please indulge me as I run through a few of the key details. Our bill covers the four main sectors of the U.S. economy that emit greenhouse gases: electric utilities, industrial plants, transportation, and large commercial facilities. For each of these sectors, we ease back on the greenhouse gas accelerator, spreading the burden equally amongst the companies. The progress required is real but realistic. By the year 2010, we ask only that they return to 2000 levels. By 2016, we ask that they return to their 1990 levels, in keeping with our treaty commitment under the Rio Convention. In doing so, we provide each participant with a generous amount of flexibility on how to comply with their obligations. There is no limit on the amount of allowances that they may obtain from other participants in the system. Moreover, companies in the system can avail themselves of ``alternative compliance'' options, including sequestration projects, international reductions, and verified reductions made by parties outside the system. Such ``alternative compliance'' options can be used to satisfy 300 percent of the average companies' obligation. These alternative compliance options will have other benefits as well. As many members of this committee already know, sequestration projects can produce environmental benefits beyond the benefit to the climate, including reduced deforestation and more sustainable agricultural practices. Such projects also bring a needed infusion of money into the farm economy not through subsidies, but through the sale of a new ``crop,'' sequestered carbon dioxide. Even now, with a purely speculative market in greenhouse gases, Entergy Services and Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association brokered a deal for 30,000 million metric tons of carbon over 10 years. The sale price was not divulged, but the point is that the deal was made even in the absence of a real market. Our program would greatly increase the opportunity for these types of sales by farmers. Our businesses will benefit dramatically from the regulatory certainty that our bill will provide. Businesses now receive a confusing set of messages from the Federal Government. On the one hand, they know that, with climate change worsening every year, government will somehow and sometime have to require them to reduce their emissions. As the Conference Board recently noted in a June 2002 report, ``climate change is an issue business executives ignore at their peril.'' On the other hand, businesses are being left uncertain about Washington's ultimate global warming policy plans, and therefore have a perverse incentive to put off any real anti-pollution technology investments. Indeed, our innovation economy more broadly is unwilling or unable to engage while the Federal Government continues to vacillate. As a result, we are losing countless dollars in new market and job opportunities. Europe and Japan already have an early head start in the pollution reduction industry. That lead will only grow if our government stands pat. Finally, I want to mention one other, perhaps unlikely reason to support this legislation beyond our economic and environmental well being, and that's foreign policy. Many of our most important allies are much more worried about climate change than we in the United States have historically been. When the Bush administration plays down the risks of global warming and shows no interest in devising a serious solution, it frays our relationship with those allies. That's especially true since we as a nation are responsible for about a quarter of the world's total climate change problem. We should never compromise critical American policy simply to satisfy the international community. But in this case, doing what's in our own best environmental and economic interests will also earn respect and support around the world. And lest we forget it also happens to be the right thing to do. The Earth is not only ours to use; we are stewards of it, who must hold it in trust for future generations to live in, breathe in, and, yes, prosper in. Regrettably, this Nation's climate change policy to date has not respected our role as stewards. It is time we reverse that trend, and our bill will help do exactly that. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend and colleague, Senator McCain, to introduce the first ever comprehensive legislation to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States. Today we take the first step up a long mountain road, a road that will culminate with this country taking credible action to address the global problems of our warming planet. The rest of the world is now taking on the challenge this problem presents. The United States, as the world's largest emitter of the gases and the home of the world's strongest economy, must not have its head in the clouds. Climate change is not a new problem. Recently, I had come across my desk a 1979 document produced by the National Academy of Sciences at the request of then-President Carter. The document says, ``When it is assumed that the CO2 content of the atmosphere has doubled, the more realistic of the modeling efforts predict a global surface warming of between 2 degrees and 3.5 degrees with greater increases at higher altitudes.'' That is remarkably similar to last year's national communication on climate change that predicted a warming of 2.5 degrees to 4 degrees over the next century. So in some sense, we have known about this problem for over two decades. That's two decades of neglect. We don't need to spin our wheels in the mud any longer. It is time to get traction. It is time to take action. I do not believe there is any longer any credible dissent on the central question: namely, whether human-caused climate change is happening. The thermometer mercury is creeping up, glaciers are melting, and waters are rising. According to a NASA study released last month, the permanent, summer ice cap over the Arctic Ocean is disappearing far faster than previously thought and will at this rate be gone by the end of the century. And just last week, two major new research studies said global warming is already posing a dire threat to the world's plants and animals, a danger that is likely to rise dramatically, with the temperature, in the coming years. The scientific evidence is potent and persuasive. But we've witnessed other changes across the globe that have anecdotally announced the arrival of global warming to human populations. I noticed two examples recently that resonated with me; both come from the Arctic north, and in my view are canaries in the climate change coalmine. The first example comes from the Native American populations of Alaska and Northern Canada. In just the past few years, a robin appeared in an Inupiat village in Alaska. Unfortunately, the elders, despite an intimate awareness of their 10,000 year old language, did not know what to call the bird. You see, there is no word for robin in their language. A second example comes from the town of Nenana, AK, which has an annual lottery to determine when a tripod placed on the frozen Tenana River would break through the ice. And over the past 50 years, that breakthrough has occurred earlier and earlier. So, it's not only in the language of statistics that climate change is occurring. It's in the language of everyday life. The nature of this problem is that it gets worse every year we fail to face it head on. It's not unlike the federal budget deficit. The weight of the interest payments bearing down on us grow over time and dig us deeper and deeper into a hole of our own making. So too with global warming. Today the problem is manageable. Tomorrow, quite literally, we could be up to our waists in it. There are a few remaining skeptics who still doubt that human greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change but even they should understand the wisdom of taking preventive action. Even they should realize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions now is the best insurance policy against the possibility of future catastrophe. The question remains, then, what we should do about it. There is no easy fix. Carbon dioxide, once released, stays in our atmosphere for about a century, so any solution needs to be long-term. But I believe that the legislation we have drafted and will soon introduce will take us on the path to that ultimate solution, and do so in a way that can provide an economic boost, not an economic burden, to American businesses. Given our flagging economy, this is a critical point for us all to absorb. Our approach works like this. The country's overall emissions will be capped, then individual companies will have the flexibility to find the most innovative and cost-effective ways to drive their emissions down. They will trade pollution credits, also called allowances, with each other rather than paying penalties to the government. The result of that innovative model is that we will unleash and focuses the genius of American enterprise to take on a critical common challenge. And the innovation unleashed as companies compete will create a boomlet of new, high-paying jobs. It's no wonder the Wall Street Journal editorial page endorsed this approach saying that it would achieve the same amount of overall pollution reduction at a lower cost than traditional regulation, and urging the Bush Administration to sign on. In making its endorsement, The Wall Street Journal looked, as we did, at the record. Many similar programs have helped solve pollution problems throughout the country and the world. The most well-known example is the Acid Rain Trading Program in the 1990 Clean Air Act, one of the most successful environmental programs in history and something I was proud to have a hand in creating. This program secured strict cuts in sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants at less than a quarter of the predicted costs to industry. We have some initial reaction to our proposal from our country's leading economists, and the response has been positive. For instance, Steven DeCanio, a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the former staff economist on this issue in the Reagan White House, stated the following about our proposal: The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 is a good first step towards the ultimate goal of stabilizing levels of greenhouse gas emissions that will prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate. The Bill embodies market mechanisms that will enable emissions reductions to be accomplished efficiently, and has provisions for an equitable allocation of the emissions permits. Funds are set aside to assist workers and communities that may be adversely affected by the transition. The Bill permits flexibility in the manner by which the emissions reductions are achieved, including allowing credits for verifiable enhancement of carbon sinks and limited international emissions trading. The proposed legislation also encourages investment in energy-efficiency technologies, as well as the establishment of a national emissions database and funding for new research. All of these features of the Bill are components of a strategy that can enable the United States to begin to make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is supportive of economic growth and beneficial to our standard of living. It is entirely appropriate that the risks of global climate change be addressed in specific legislation at this time. But this bill is more than a broad policy proposal. It is a detailed legislative design for the system. Our staffs have been working ardently over the past 16 months to craft a detailed proposal that could find support both in the halls of industry and amongst the nation's leading environmental organizations. Hopefully that means that both sides of the aisle in Congress will find something to their liking. I hope all involved realized that this is no marker bill; it is a comprehensive proposal. Please indulge me as I run through a few of the key details. Our bill covers the four main sectors of the U.S. economy that emit greenhouse gases: electric utilities, industrial plants, transportation, and large commercial facilities. For each of these sectors, we ease back on the greenhouse gas accelerator, spreading the burden equally amongst the companies. The progress required is real but realistic. By the year 2010, we ask only that they return to 2000 levels. By 2016, we ask that they return to their 1990 levels, in keeping with our treaty commitment under the Rio Convention. In doing so, we provide each participant with a generous amount of flexibility on how to comply with their obligations. There is no limit on the amount of allowances that they may obtain from other participants in the system. Moreover, companies in the system can avail themselves of ``alternative compliance'' options, including sequestration projects, international reductions, and verified reductions made by parties outside the system. Such ``alternative compliance'' options can be used to satisfy 300 percent of the average companies' obligation. These alternative compliance options will have other benefits as well. As many members of this committee already know, sequestration projects can produce environmental benefits beyond the benefit to the climate, including reduced deforestation and more sustainable agricultural practices. Such projects also bring a needed infusion of money into the farm economy not through subsidies, but through the sale of a new ``crop,'' sequestered carbon dioxide. Even now, with a purely speculative market in greenhouse gases, Entergy Services and Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association brokered a deal for 30,000 million metric tons of carbon over 10 years. The sale price was not divulged, but the point is that the deal was made even in the absence of a real market. Our program would greatly increase the opportunity for these types of sales by farmers. Our businesses will benefit dramatically from the regulatory certainty that our bill will provide. Businesses now receive a confusing set of messages from the Federal Government. On the one hand, they know that, with climate change worsening every year, government will somehow and sometime have to require them to reduce their emissions. As the Conference Board recently noted in a June 2002 report, ``climate change is an issue business executives ignore at their peril.'' On the other hand, businesses are being left uncertain about Washington's ultimate global warming policy plans, and therefore have a perverse incentive to put off any real anti-pollution technology investments. Indeed, our innovation economy more broadly is unwilling or unable to engage while the Federal Government continues to vacillate. As a result, we are losing countless dollars in new market and job opportunities. Europe and Japan already have an early head start in the pollution reduction industry. That lead will only grow if our government stands pat. Finally, I want to mention one other, perhaps unlikely reason to support this legislation beyond our economic and environmental well being, and that's foreign policy. Many of our most important allies are much more worried about climate change than we in the United States have historically been. When the Bush administration plays down the risks of global warming and shows no interest in devising a serious solution, it frays our relationship with those allies. That's especially true since we as a nation are responsible for about a quarter of the world's total climate change problem. We should never compromise critical American policy simply to satisfy the international community. But in this case, doing what's in our own best environmental and economic interests will also earn respect and support around the world. And lest we forget it also happens to be the right thing to do. The Earth is not only ours to use; we are stewards of it, who must hold it in trust for future generations to live in, breathe in, and, yes, prosper in. Regrettably, this Nation's climate change policy to date has not respected our role as stewards. It is time we reverse that trend, and our bill will help do exactly that. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill on behalf of myself and Senator Daschle to remedy some problems in landmark legislation passed at the end of the last Congress, and signed into law by President Bush, to establish a Department of Homeland Security. The legislation we are offering today would strike seven extraneous special interest provisions inserted into the Homeland Security Act by Republican leadership in the bill's waning hours, provisions that are contrary to the bipartisan spirit in which the Homeland Security Act was conceived. Since the days following September 11, 2001, when terrorists viciously took the lives of 3,000 of our friends, family and fellow Americans, I have advocated establishing a Department of Homeland Security to beat the terrorist threat. Senator Arlen Specter, and I initially proposed creating a new department in October 2001. Our measure was not just bipartisan. It was in fact intended to be nonpartisan. Unfortunately, some partisan battles did ensue, primarily regarding longstanding civil service protections for homeland security workers, and I remain very concerned about the potential impact of these provisions. Nevertheless, the final bill was, for the most part, a critical, well-constructed piece of legislation that incorporated the majority of the provisions approved by the Governmental Affairs Committee, and which an overwhelming majority of the Senate embraced. In some very specific ways, however, the bill was flawed. In the final stages of passing the bill, the Republican leadership hastily inserted several special interest provisions that had no place in this measure. Most of these provisions had never been in any version of the legislation before the Senate before they were presented in a take-it- or-leave-it package by Republicans, and several had not been considered by either chamber. The method and spirit in which these provisions found their way into what should have been a consensus piece of legislation was utterly objectionable and Senator Daschle and I made an effort to remove them at the time. That effort narrowly failed, but not before news of these special interest provisions had created great consternation for Democrats and the public, and even for some Republicans. Indeed, according to numerous published reports, the Republican leadership was able to muster the votes to preserve the provisions only after promising to revisit at least some of the most egregious additions during this session of Congress. I believe that the seven extraneous provisions my legislation targets hurt the Homeland Security Act as it was finally passed by the Congress and signed by the President. And I believe that, by attaching these measures to what could have and should have been a common cause, the Republican leadership all but admitted that the provisions cannot withstand independent scrutiny. Following are the provisions my bill would strike. First, perhaps the most egregious add-on to the Homeland Security Act was a provision that dramatically alters the way certain vaccine preservatives are treated for liability purposes under the law. To quickly summarize this very complicated issue, children who are hurt by childhood vaccines generally may not go directly to court to hold vaccine manufacturers liable. Instead, they have to go first to what's called the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which offers compensation for some of these claims. Parents argued, however, that the bar on lawsuits didn't use to apply to claims regarding faulty vaccine additives. These seemingly arcane legal distinctions were particularly important to a large number of parents of autistic children who have attributed their children's autism to thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that used to be in some childhood vaccines. These parents sued the manufacturers of both vaccines and thimerosal, and they had many lawsuits pending in the courts as of last Fall. If you are wondering what any of this has to do with Homeland Security, you are doing exactly what we all did last November when in the waning days of debate on the Homeland Security bill, a provision addressing this issue appeared for the very first time in any version of the bill. That provision fundamentally altered the way vaccine additive claims would be treated from then on. With the swoop of a pen, the pending additive lawsuits against both vaccine and additive manufacturers were thrown out of court and, the provision's supporters alleged, sent into the compensation fund. As I said last Fall, I don't know whether there is any relationship between thimerosal and autism. I also don't know whether these cases really should be resolved in court or through the compensation fund. But I do know that figuring out where and how to resolve these claims is a very contentious, complex and challenging task, and is just one part of addressing broader problems with the vaccine compensation system. For example, the vaccine compensation fund's viability may be affected by the addition of claims regarding these additives. I also know that it is an issue that the committees of jurisdiction had been struggling with for a long time and that they should have been left to resolve. And I certainly know that a last second addition to the Homeland Security Act was absolutely the wrong way to deal with this issue and the wrong bill to use to take so many injured parents' and children's legal rights away. Indeed, we know that even more now, as it has become clear that while the provision closed the courthouse door to autistic children, it apparently didn't open the compensation fund window as its supporters said it would--because it didn't make the changes to either the fund's statute of limitations or to governing tax code provisions that would be necessary to obtain access to the fund for these cases. The bottom line is that this was a wrong and poorly conceived provision to put in the Homeland Security bill--something I thought even the Republican leadership acknowledged when they were forced to make promises to get rid of this provision in order to save their bill. We should scrap it now, and let the committee of jurisdiction undertake a careful review and, I hope, get it right this time. My legislation would also strike from the Act a measure that requires the Transportation Security Oversight Board to ratify within 90 days emergency security regulations issued by the Transportation Security Agency. If the oversight board does not ratify the regulations, they would automatically lapse. Despite the TSA having decided that they are necessary, 90 days later, lacking the board's approval, they'd disappear. This doesn't make any sense. In the current climate, shouldn't we be trying to find new ways to expedite and implement TSA rules, not always to disrupt and derail them? This provision is contrary to new procedures that the Senate passed in 2001 in the aviation security bill. Under that law, regulations go into effect and remain in effect unless they are affirmatively disapproved by the Board. I think that's a better system. Another provision would extend liability protection to companies that provided passenger and baggage screening in airports on September 11. But we in the Senate decided against extending such liability protection in at least two different contexts. First, the airline bailout bill limited the liability of the airlines, but not of the security screeners, due to ongoing concerns about their role leading up to September 11. Then, the conference report on the Transportation Security bill extended the liability limitations to others who might have been the target of lawsuits, such as aircraft manufacturers and airport operators, but again not to the baggage and passenger screeners. Like that little mole you hit with the mallet in a whack-a-mole game, somehow this provision reappeared in the Homeland Security Act. We must strike it. Another unnecessary and overreaching provision I seek to strike gives the Secretary of the new department broad authority to designate certain technologies as so-called ``qualified antiterrorism technologies.'' His granting of this designation, which appears to be unilateral, and probably not subject to review by anyone, would entitle companies selling that technology to broad liability protection from any claim arising out of, relating to, or resulting from an act of terrorism, no matter how negligently, or even wantonly and willfully, the company acted. This provision seems to say that in many cases, the plaintiff can't recover anything from the seller unless an injured plaintiff can prove that the seller of the product that injured him or her acted fraudulently or with willful misconduct in submitting information to the Secretary when the Secretary was deciding whether to certify the product. Even in cases where a seller isn't entitled to the benefit of that protection, the company still isn't fully, or in many cases even partially, responsible for its actions, even if it knew there was something terribly wrong with its product. Perhaps worst of all, this measure caps the seller's liability at the limits of its insurance policy. In other words, if injured people were lucky enough to get through the first hurdle and even hold a faulty seller liable, they still could go completely uncompensated even if a liable seller has more than enough money to compensate them. The Homeland Security Act unwisely and unnecessarily allows the Secretary to exempt the new department's advisory committees from the open meetings requirements and other requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, FACA. Agencies throughout government make use of advisory committees that function under these open meetings requirements. Existing law is careful to protect discussions and documents that involve sensitive information, in fact, the FACA law currently applies successfully to the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the State Department, even the secretive National Security Agency. So why should the Department of Homeland Security be allowed to exempt its advisory committees from its requirements? Why should its advisory committees be allowed to meet in total secret with no public knowledge? We all say that we're for ``good government,'' for openness, integrity, and accountability. But as it now stands, few of us will be able to say with confidence that the new department's advisory committees are designed to be as independent, balanced, and transparent as possible. I know full well that the Homeland Security Department will deal with sensitive information involving life and death, but so does the National Security Agency. So does the FBI. So does the Department of Defense. Their advisory committees aren't allowed to hide themselves away from the public. Finally, our legislation would alter a provision in the Act creating a university-based homeland security research center. Now, I have nothing against creating a university research center focused on homeland security. But there's a problem with this particular provision as it is written. The research center that it would create is described so narrowly, through 15 specific criteria, that it appears Texas A&M University has the inside track, to say the least, to get the funding and house the center. Science in this country has thrived over the years because, by and large, Congress has refused to intervene in science decisions. Science has thrived through peer review and competition over the best proposals-- which are fundamentals of federal science policy. We are violating them here. This is nothing short of ``science pork.'' When it comes to making these research funding decisions, we need a playing field that's truly level, not one that only looks level when you tilt your head. Our legislation keeps the university-based science center program. However, it removes the highly-specific criteria that appear to direct it to a particular university. That's the way we'll get the best science, not by making Congressional allocations to particular institutions. I'm extremely pleased we have created a Department of Homeland Security and plan to do everything I can to help ensure its success. But these flaws are real. They are serious. And they are utterly unnecessary. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to honor the Members of the Senate who will be leaving us at the end of this Congress. They will not be here in this Chamber next year, but each will leave an indelible imprint on this body, and on the lives of the American people. First, I wish to say a few words about my colleague, my compatriot on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and my friend, Fred Thompson, who has served the people of Tennessee and the people of America ably and nobly for the past 8 years. The man the Screen Actors Guild knows as Fred Dalton Thompson acts-- and acts quite well, I should add--but the man we know as Senator Fred Thompson has never read off of anyone's script. Again and again, he has done what he in his heart believed was right for the nation. I will always admire his clarity, integrity, and intellectual curiosity. Since his joining the Senate in 1994, I have known Senator Thompson as a dogged investigator who is always willing to go wherever the evidence may lead, and as an independent-minded legislator who sticks to and stands on principle. Senator Thompson was the first Republican after John McCain to support campaign finance reform--an act that speaks volumes about who he is and for what he stands. On the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Thompson and I worked closely together on probing the evidence and then issuing a report on the government's highly suspect investigation into the alleged wrongdoing of Wen Ho Lee. Senator Thompson brought a singular focus to dissecting and fixing the government's computer security problems. And he has and spared no energy working to ferret out waste, mismanagement, corruption, and abuse in the federal government. Senator Thompson understands that the people's Government must do justice to the people's values--not just in the pronouncements it makes, but in the way it does business every day. Every Member of this body respects the quality of Senator Thompson's reasoning and the strength of his voice. Whether it's on defense, intelligence, free trade, or a wide range of other issues, Senator Thompson's words are cogent and clear, and his deeds are consistent with those words. In addition to his career as a Senator, he has practiced law, written a book, acted in 18 motion pictures and a television show, posted his mother's recipe for fresh coconut cake on his website, and--in the midst of it all--managed to find a lovely women to marry. I am in awe of his energy and vitality. We know each other as colleagues, as partners, and often as intellectual opponents. But we also know each other as human beings. And at every point and in every context, Senator Thompson has brought wisdom, decency, and a great sense of humor to this Congress. When he served as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he treated me with great consideration and respect, and I hope in my time as Chairman I have afforded him the same courtesies. I am disappointed to see him go, but look forward to watching him on television on Wednesday nights. Mr. President, I also wish to honor Senator Strom Thurmond. We all know that the 20th century was the American Century. It was also the century in which, primarily in his service in the U.S. Senate, Strom Thurmond left his indelible mark on the history of this nation. There are not many Members of this body today who bring the breadth of his experience to the floor. Senator Thurmond began his career as a farmer, teacher, and athletic coach. He was Superintendent of Education in his home county. He was town and county attorney. He was state senator in his great state of South Carolina. He was a judge. He served in the Second World War, and was part of the Normandy invasion with the 82nd Airborne. He was governor of South Carolina. Then, in 1954, he was elected to the United States Senate. The long list of these accomplishments would take most Americans 300 years to accumulate. Senator Thurmond has gotten them all under his belt in a mere 100. And he has raised a family, to boot. Through it all, Senator Thurmond has grown not only as a legislator but as a human being. When we honor him, we pay tribute to human beings' capacity for growth. After running for President, as I mentioned, as a state's rights candidate, he later supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday on behalf of his state. That transformation sent a powerful message that all of us could become better Americans and better individuals--and that the United States of America, for all its blessings, can always become a better nation. I also wish to honor another Member the Senate will miss, my good friend from Texas, Senator Phil Gramm. Senator Gramm has only served since 1984, not since 1954 like Senator Thurmond, but his achievements have been remarkable indeed. Senator Gramm, who came to the Senate with a Ph.D. in economics and a distinguished career in teaching, has become one of this Chamber's foremost experts on fiscal policy, one of its clearest voices on defense and foreign policy, and one of the most stalwart defenders of individual liberties. He has a wonderful intuitive understanding of the value of basic research and other technological innovation, and I have been proud to work with him to increase both the Government's total funding commitment to science and the effectiveness of the money we spend. Senator Gramm is an ideologue--and I mean that in the best sense of the word. He fervently defends his beliefs against all challenges. Senator Gramm relishes debate. Here on the floor, you can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. And let me add--and I say this reluctantly, having been at the receiving end of more than a few of his missives--that he is quite good at it. In that way, he has continued and advanced one of the great traditions of this body. Yes, compromise is what makes governments great and marriages happy; we all know that. But without firm principles and intellectual passion to guide us, without ideals we are not willing to sacrifice, we would never know what is worth compromising. And Senator Gramm has never forgotten why he is here or what he is fighting for. I wish him luck in the private sector, where he will continue to serve the nation and will, much to his liking, make much more money in the process. The Senate is losing many giants at the end of this term. Let me now say a few words about Jesse Helms of North Carolina--a Navy veteran in the Second World War, a respected journalist, a businessman, a city councilman, and since 1973, a legendary legislator in the Senate. As a Member of this body, Senator Helms has done too much to mention here today. But he is most respected for his leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There, he has proven to be a tireless defender of the interests of America--and an advocate of the inalienable rights of people all over the world to the basic freedoms and opportunities we enjoy. I have always admired his steadfastness and his strength. And I have always known that the goals we seek--a strong America that advances democracy and increases prosperity around the world--are the same. And we have at least one other thing in common. Senator Helms' name was placed in nomination for Vice President of the United States--this was at the GOP convention in Kansas City in 1976. Although he asked the convention to withdraw his name, he nevertheless received 99 delegate votes. A few years later, I could have used those votes. Another Senator retiring after a distinguished career--in his case because he is trading the U.S. Capitol for the Governor's mansion in his great home state of Alaska--is Senator Frank Murkowski. Hopefully his new challenge will afford him more opportunities to enjoy life with his lovely wife Nancy, his six children and his 11 grandchildren. For four terms of office, Senator Murkowski has served the people of his state with vigorous energy and rigorous attention to detail since being elected to the Senate in 1980. He delivers for the people of Alaska--and they appreciate it. I am confident he will continue to lead with distinction as governor. My friend and colleague Senator Max Cleland gave elegant departing remarks yesterday on this floor. Those remarks reminded me how much the Senate will miss his buoyant personality, his eloquent words, his principled service to the people of Georgia, and his transcendent faith. I was privileged to serve alongside Senator Cleland on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, where he was always courageous, independent, and tenacious. I also had the good fortune of working with him on the Armed Services Committee and the Small Business Committee. I could not have wished for a kinder or more decent man to call my colleague. Senator Cleland also was an early supporter of and essential contributor to the bill establishing a Department of Homeland Security that we reported out of committee in May. Therefore, the historic bill we passed yesterday, and the Department it will create to protect the American people from terrorism here at home, is due in no small measure to his efforts. But Senator Cleland will be remembered for the spirit he brought to this Senate as much as for the many things he accomplished here. His grit, His wit. His honesty. His willingness to take risks. His never- failing sense of humor. I wish Max the best of luck. Mr. President, let me also take a moment to honor my friend and colleague Senator Jean Carnahan who has added to a long and storied career by serving the people of Missouri with care, skill, and devotion over the last 2 years. Senator Carnahan was not only the proud occupant of Harry Truman's seat, but was an able custodian of Harry Truman's legacy. She legislated with an independent mind and a pragmatic personal philosophy, always putting the well-being of Missouri's working families first. I have been fortunate enough to serve alongside Senator Carnahan not only on the Governmental Affairs Committee, where she quickly proved to be an invaluable asset, but on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Carnahan doesn't only talk about bipartisanship. She practices it. I'm proud to call her a fellow New Democrat, and even more proud to call her a friend. We are losing many women and men of principle from this body; I hope an equal number replace them. I will fondly remember Senator Bob Smith for his unwavering adherence to the values of his faith and his family. And I admired Senator Smith's hard work on the Environmental and Public Works Committee in defense of New Hampshire's environment and this nation's. Bob is a man of honor and I was proud to serve with him. Many of us strive for eloquence here on the floor. But few of us are as consistently passionate and persuasive as another departing colleagues, Robert Torricelli, who served seven terms in the House of Representatives and then here in the Senate since 1996. As a fellow northeastern and fellow member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, I will miss his wisdom and great sense of purpose. He is extremely gifted and gave great service for New Jersey and America. Finally, Mr. President, a special word for our dear departed colleague Senator Paul Wellstone--who I want to describe in the best way I know how, as a mensch--a man, a very good man. He radiated decency and kindness and commitment to make the world a better place. That was so not just in what he said and did on camera, but in what he said and did in quiet moments, small moments, private moments. Much has been made of the fact that Paul was a teacher. And it is fitting. I think about all the lessons that Paul Wellstone the political scientist taught to his students, and how every one must have come alive when he ran for office--and won--in 1990. That inspiration will last for generations. Paul Wellstone taught his students, by example, that Americans who want change can do much more than carp or complain. They can and should enter and shape the system. They can and should be a part of the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Senator Wellstone uplifted the Senate and uplifted our democracy, and he did it with the clarity of his conscience and the power of his principles and passions. It's no wonder Paul titled his book The Conscience of a Liberal, after Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative. Paul had read Senator Goldwater's book as a boy, and though he found himself at the opposite end of the political spectrum, Paul admired Goldwater's decency, his honesty, and his conviction. The name ``Paul'' comes from the Roman family name ``Paulus,'' which meant ``small'' or ``humble'' in Latin. And Paul was physically small. He was spiritually humble. But the scope of his ideals and of his service was monumental. In The Ethics of the Fathers, a tome of Jewish law, it is written: ``It is not your obligation to complete the task [of perfecting the world], but neither are you free to desist [from doing all you can].'' Paula Wellstone, as a Senator, a father, a husband, and a man, lived these words and lived them well. May he rest alongside his wife and daughter in peace. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, it is a happy twist of fate that the Senator from Pennsylvania is on the floor as I rise to support final passage of this legislation, which would create the unified and accountable Department of Homeland Security that the American people urgently need to protect them. It is a happy twist of fate because the legislative journey that brings us to the eve of adoption of this critically important legislation began on October 11, 2001, more than a year ago, but clearly a month after September 11, 2001, when I was privileged, along with Senator Specter, to introduce the first legislation that would authorize the creation of this Department. I thank him for joining me on that occasion and for working with us right through the road we have traveled, which has been long and taken twists and turns we never could have foreseen. We have even run into a few potholes along the way. The important point is we are about to reach the destination, and we are going to reach it together--in a broad, bipartisan statement of support for this critically necessary new Department. Giving credit where it is due, the journey actually began before October 11 and September 11, more than 18 months ago, when the visionary Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, led by our former colleagues Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, warned us of our vulnerabilities to terrorism with a painful prescience, and urged the creation of exactly the kind of new consolidated federal department to fight terrorism that we are about to adopt. As I say, we have reached our destination, and that, I believe, is testament to the power of the basic idea underlying this legislation. It is also a reflection that our history changed on September 11, our vulnerabilities were exploited by our terrorist enemies, and we can never let that happen again. Those vulnerabilities remain, notwithstanding the improvements that have been made over the last year. We recognize that protecting ourselves from terrorism will take an unprecedented commitment of people and resources. Building this Department will involve no shortage of problems, as any massive undertaking of this kind would--but we, after this initial act of creation, must be ready to improve, to support, and ultimately to protect the American people with this Department. We have no choice. Obviously, as I have said earlier today and at other times in the debate on the bill, the measure before us is not perfect. No legislation ever is. There are parts of the legislation before us that I think are not only unrelated to homeland security and unnecessary, but unwise and unfair. Of course, we made an attempt to eliminate those provisions with the motion to strike that came very close to passing earlier today. But this is the legislative process here on Earth, not a perfect process such as that which might exist in a heavenly location. We do not always get what we want here. Hopefully, though, through compromise, steadfastness, and hard work, the American people will get what they need. And that, I think, is what is happening with the adoption of this bill, which will occur in just a few hours. We must remember also--to say what is clear--that this bill will be written in the law books. It is not written in stone. If we need to make changes down the road, we can and we will. Nonetheless, all of those caveats, conditions, and concerns about certain elements of the legislation notwithstanding, we are about to be part of an historic accomplishment. It is the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since 1947, probably the most complex Federal reorganization in history, but that is what our present circumstances require to sustain our security. When we pass this bill, we in Congress must then not turn away but turn our attention toward overseeing the Department, with a clear vision and commitment. We must provide the necessary resources, which we still have not done, not just to this Department but to all of those throughout America, the Federal, county, State, and local governments who will partner with us to protect the security of the American people. Early next year, we will have to confirm the Department's leaders and begin to review its strategies and objectives. I look forward to playing an active oversight role under the new leadership of the new chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins of Maine, and in the Senate at large. Part of that oversight role must be taking great care to make sure this administration and future administrations use the authorities this bill gives them in a constructive and constitutional manner. The important thing to say is we are ending this journey mostly together, certainly with a strong bipartisan vote. Though we have made the twists and turns and had the obstacles along the way I have referred to, the fact is, once we end this part of the journey, we begin the next phase. On that phase, I hope and believe nonpartisanship will be the rule, not the exception. I hope and believe that we will oversee and support the historic new effort to achieve homeland security in our new circumstances with as little partisanship as has been demonstrated by those of us who have been privileged to work as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where there are disagreements, but rarely are they partisan. That, I hope and believe, will characterize our work in support of the new Department of Homeland Security. I want to speak to some of the conditions this legislation will correct. As I said earlier, we have made some progress over the past 14 months in trying to close the vulnerabilities September 11 revealed. The Office of Homeland Security has been created. The FBI and CIA have begun the process of reform. FEMA has focused more resources on countering terrorism. Smallpox vaccines are stockpiled around the country. We have begun efforts to link Federal law enforcement authorities to State and local police and to give community first responders some of the guidance, if not yet the resources, they so critically need. But the fact is we remain fundamentally and unacceptably disorganized, and that is why we need to restructure in exactly the way this legislation will require. Today, there are a lot of people and agencies in the government whose responsibilities include homeland security. Their duties often overlap. Everyone is in charge of their own domain and, therefore, no one is in charge of the overall homeland security effort. A year ago, we came to understand tragically, painfully, that the status quo was untenable. We knew we had these gaps in preparedness, but in the aftermath of September 11, there was no agreement on how to move forward. Our Governmental Affairs Committee held 18 hearings, and over time we grew more convinced our weaknesses were so profound they cried out for fundamental reorganization. We saw border patrol agencies that seemed unable to communicate with each other, let alone to stop dangerous goods and people from entering the United States of America. We saw intelligence agencies, despite strong signals about a potential terrorist attack of the type we sustained on September 11, failing to put those pieces together. We saw first responders around the country spread thinner than ever. And we saw deviously creative terrorists acquiring and applying technology to advance their own ends--but an American government that had not yet sought to marshal the most innovative people, our people, in the history of the world to meet this life-or-death challenge. We did not like what we saw. So we worked hard to better organize it, to make it more efficient, to make it more focused, to create a bill that would empower a Secretary with budget authority to get the agencies involved in homeland security to work together. That is what led to our introduction of the bill with Senator Specter and others, including Senator Cleland, and ultimately to report the bill out of the Governmental Affairs Committee in May. I don't think we can count the ups and downs since then. The finished product we are prepared to vote on today is, notwithstanding the concerns I have expressed, a great leap forward for the security of the American people. It is a great achievement to have reached agreement on a governmental reorganization of this magnitude. This is, after all, a very turf-conscious town, one in which we often speak volumes about the need for change, but just as often, probably more often, fail to deliver change. This bill will deliver change. Former Senators Hart and Rudman, who ably led that commission I referred to, this year were asked again to head an independent task force created by the Council on Foreign Relations. The final report of the task force, released October 24, 2002, was entitled titled ``America Still Unprepared--America Still in Danger.'' I read from the conclusion. Quickly mobilizing the nation to prepare for the worst is an act of prudence, not fatalism. In the 21st century, security and liberty are inseparable. The absence of adequate security elevates the risk that laws will be passed immediately in the wake of surprise terrorist attacks that will be reactive, not deliberative. Predictably, the consequence will be to compound the initial harm incurred by a tragic event with measures that overreach in terms of imposing costly new security mandates and the assumption of new government authorities that may erode our freedoms. Accordingly, aggressively pursuing America's homeland security imperatives immediately may well be the most important thing we can do to sustain our cherished freedoms for future generations. That is exactly what we will do when we adopt this legislation in a few hours. And pursuing America's homeland security imperatives is not only critically important for future generations of Americans; let us also realize that, as we adopt and create this new Department, we set a powerful example for the nations of the world. Terrorists threaten innocent lives everywhere. When we demonstrate that we are willing and able to earn both security and more freedom, we will show free nations that they can preserve their way of life without living in fear of terror. And, equally important, we will demonstrate to those nations remaining in the world whose people are not free that they can embrace freedom and tolerance and democracy without compromising their safety. There are few more important signals we can send by our example to the nations of the world. In 1919, Henry Cabot Lodge said famously: ``If the United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it.'' I add today, when the United States succeeds, the best hopes of mankind succeed with it. When we succeed in protecting our homeland security and preserving our freedom, we will show the way to nations throughout the world. This evening we say to the people of America: have confidence, your government is organizing itself to protect your security. We need not accept another September 11 type terrorist attack as inevitable. It is not. We are the strongest nation in the world. If we marshal our strength as this new Department can, no future terrorist attack such as September 11 will ever occur again. Finally, I give credit and thanks to the Members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and to the majority staff for their passion, precision, and persistence. They were tireless, working day and night, through recesses, weekends, and holidays, and they have every right to be proud of this product of their labor: a new Department that will better protect the American people for generations. The names of the staff members, from both the Committee and from my personal staff, are: Holly Idelson, Mike Alexander, Larry Novey, Susan Propper, Kevin Landy, Josh Greenman, Bill Bonvillian, Michelle McMurry, Kiersten Todt Coon, Joyce Rechtschaffen, Laurie Rubenstein, Leslie Phillips, Fred Downey, Adrian Erckenbrack, Yul Kwon, Thomas Holloman, Donny Williams, Janet Burrell, Darla Cassell, Wendy Wang, Megan Finlayson, and Adam Sedgewick. I thank them all for their commitment. I would also like to thank the numerous staff for other members who have been so helpful throughout the process. On the Governmental Affairs Committee, so many staff played an important role in this bill. On Senator Durbin's Staff, Marianne Upton and Sue Hardesty. On Senator Akaka's staff, Rick Kessler, Nanci Langley, Sherri Stephan and Jennifer Tyree. On Senator Levin's staff, Laura Stuber. On Senator Cleland's staff, Donni Turner. On Senator Carnahan's staff, Sandy Fried. On Senator Carper's staff, John Kilvington. On Senator Dayton's staff, Bob Hall. Senator Daschle's staff also has contributed greatly to the enactment of this legislation; I'd like to thank in particular Andrea LaRue. From the Office of Legislative Counsel, I'd like to thank Tony Coe and Matthew McGhie for their assistance and guidance. I thank Senator Thompson, who is leaving the Senate soon--tonight, presumably--for the pleasure of his company on this journey, and the contributions he made to the historical accomplishment this legislation represents. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will request that the new Secretary of the Homeland Security Department give attention to the concerns about emergency management raised by the Senator from Minnesota, and I hope that homeland defense-integrated emergency management and training systems will be given due consideration for funding through grants from the extramural programs.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, as manager of the legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, I want to share with the Senate my views on the meaning and intent of several key provisions in H.R. 5005, the final homeland security legislation approved by the Senate on November 19, 2002. These provisions have been through several iterations and they have been debated extensively. H.R. 5005 is the result of over a year of deliberations begun last October when I introduced legislation (S. 1534) with Senator Specter to create a Department of Homeland Security. That legislation was subsequently combined with legislation by Senator Graham (to create a White House Office for Combating Terrorism) and became S. 2452, which was reported out of the Committee on Governmental Affairs on May 22, 2002. Before the Senate had a chance to consider that bill, however, the President announced his support for a Department of Homeland Security. The Administration's bill, first submitted to Congress on June 18, 2002, encompassed almost all of S. 2452's organizational elements regarding the Department. The Governmental Affairs Committee held hearings to consider the administration's proposals, and, I prepared an amendment to S. 2452 that was considered, and adopted, at a July 24-25 business meeting of the Committee. That expanded version of S. 2452 went a considerable way to incorporate the administration's proposals. In late July, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Homeland Security bill, H.R. 5005. This House bill became the base bill for floor consideration in the Senate, and the amended version of S. 2452 was offered on the Senate floor as SA 4471 to H.R. 5005. The following statement will discuss various provisions in H.R. 5005 and, where appropriate, their relationship to similar provisions in SA 4471. It is intended to supplement a statement and other material I submitted for the Record on September 4, 2002, (S8159-S8180) which interpreted key provisions in SA 4471 (also referred to as the Committee bill). Intelligence Title II, Subtitle A, Section 201 of H.R. 5005, establishes a Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. This is a critical provision that goes to the heart of the weaknesses that have been exposed in our nation's homeland defenses since September 11, 2001--that is, the lack of information sharing related to terrorist activities between intelligence, law enforcement, and other agencies. This directorate stems from the President's legislative submission in June, which included a proposal to create an information analysis and infrastructure protection directorate in the Department. However, the President's concept has been altered and expanded in response to testimony before the GAC and input from key Senators. The version in H.R. 5005, while not exactly what the GAC recommended, represents a substantial improvement over the President's June 18th, 2002 proposal. If fully implemented, and if the new department and the various agencies responsible for gathering and providing intelligence properly interpret its provisions, it will improve our capacity to fuse that intelligence in order to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. S. 2452, as originally reported on May 22, 2002, and based largely on recommendations by the bi-partisan Hart-Rudman Commission, included directorates for critical infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and border security. The President's June 18th proposal added a fourth directorate for ``information analysis and infrastructure protection.'' SA 4471 was developed after examining the President's proposal and hearing from expert witnesses on the critical need for a national level focal point for the analysis of all information available to the United States to combat terrorism. On June 26 and 27, the GAC held hearings on how to shape the intelligence functions of the proposed Department of Homeland Security--to determine how, in light of the failure of our government to bring all of the information available to various agencies together prior to September 11, 2001, the government should receive information from the field, both foreign and domestic, and convert it, through analysis, into actionable information that better protects our security. The GAC's hearings focused specifically on the relationship between the Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community. The hearings featured testimony from some of our country's most noted experts in intelligence issues, including Senators Bob Graham and Richard Shelby, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Other witnesses included Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Jeffrey Smith, former General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency; Lt. Gen. William Odom, former Director of the National Security Agency; Chief William B. Berger, President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police; and Ashton B. Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. Finally, CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller also testified. Senator Graham's written testimony stated that the Intelligence Committee's hearings thus far have uncovered several factors that contributed to the failures of Sept 11--one of which is ``the absence of a single set of eyes to analyze all the bits and pieces of relevant intelligence information, including open source material.'' Senator Shelby's written testimony stated that ``most Americans would probably be surprised to know that even nine months after the terrorist attacks, there is today no federal official, not a single one, to whom the President can turn to ask the simple question, what do we know about current terrorist threats against our homeland? No one person or entity has meaningful access to all such information the government possesses. No one really knows what we know, and no one is even in a position to go to find out.'' General Patrick Hughes, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, echoed these points. His testimony stated that, ``in our intelligence community, we currently have an inadequate capability to process, analyze, prepare in contextual and technical forms that make sense and deliver cogent intelligence to users as soon as possible so that the time dependent operational demands for intelligence are met.'' These hearings made it clear that: (1) there is currently no place in our government where all intelligence available to the government is brought together to be analyzed, (2) the Department of Homeland Security requires an all-source intelligence analysis capability in order to effectively achieve its mission of preventing, deterring, and protecting against terrorist attacks, (3) the intelligence function should be a smart, aggressive customer of the intelligence community, (4) the intelligence function must have a seat at the table when our nation's intelligence collection priorities are determined, (5) the Department is already a significant collector of intelligence-related information, through such agencies such as the Customs Service and the Coast Guard being transferred into the Department, and (6) the Department must have sufficient access to information that is collected by intelligence, law enforcement, and other agencies. This final point was underscored by Senator Shelby, who testified that the relatively limited ``access to information'' provisions in the President's proposal were unacceptable, and that it would be a mistake if they were adopted. The President's proposal was to create an ``information analysis and critical infrastructure protection division''--whose most important role, as CIA Director Tenet testified at the GAC hearing on June 27, 2002, would be ``to translate assessments about evolving terrorist targeting strategies, training, and doctrine overseas into a system of protection for the infrastructure of the United States.'' Its purpose would be to focus the intelligence function on detecting and mitigating against threats to critical infrastructure rather than the entire range of potential threats. Consequently, the intelligence analysis function in the Department of Homeland Security would not be designed to uncover terrorist plots or prevent acts of terrorism before they occurred. The Governmental Affairs Committee rejected this more limited approach and subsequently approved a more robust intelligence directorate, along with a separate directorate for critical infrastructure protection, which were incorporated in SA 4471. Some of these improvements are now incorporated in H.R. 5005. Most importantly, like SA 4471, H.R. 5005 makes it clear that the purpose of the information analysis function in the Department goes beyond critical infrastructure protection to encompass disseminating intelligence in order to deter, prevent, and respond to all terrorist threats. Section 201(d) of H.R. 5005, which describes responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, at paragraph (1), states: ``to access, receive, and analyze law enforcement, intelligence information, and other information from agencies from the Federal Government, State and local government agencies), and private sector entities, and to integrate such information in order to--(A) identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the homeland; (B) detect and identify threats of terrorism against the United States; and (C) understand such threats in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities of the homeland.'' Clause (B) especially establishes that the information analysis function must be designed in order to ``detect and identify'' threats of terrorism. In addition, Section 201(d)(9) states that the responsibilities of the Under Secretary (for information analysis and infrastructure protection) shall include the following: ``to disseminate, as appropriate, information analyzed by the Department within the Department, to other agencies of the Federal Government with responsibilities relating to homeland security, and to agencies of State and local governments and private sector entities with such responsibilities in order to assist in the deterrence, prevention, preemption of, or response to, terrorist attacks against the United States.'' Again, it is important that the new information analysis division focus on doing everything within its power to deter, prevent and preempt, acts of terrorism, while also ensuring that our nation is adequately prepared to respond. As noted earlier, the President's June 18th proposal would have established a more limited function primarily designed to assess threats and vulnerabilities to our critical infrastructure. This is an important task and will clearly be a major focus of the Department of Homeland Security, but the Department's information analysis role will now encompass all terrorist threats, not just those to critical infrastructure. Many potential terrorist attacks--for example a bomb in a shopping mall and attacks using weapons of mass destruction--are not directed at critical infrastructure, but at producing mass casualties. Thus, the intelligence analysis function in the Department can and must focus on the full range of threats that we face. And it must have the capacity to access and properly analyze all of the information about terrorist attacks that our government possesses. Secondly, though it falls short of the Committee's recommendation, the final legislation does establish dedicated leadership for both the information analysis and infrastructure protection functions. SA 4471 established separate, Senate confirmed Under Secretaries for ``intelligence analysis'' and ``critical infrastructure protection.'' This was to ensure that focused leadership--with sufficient clout--was provided for each of these complex, and major challenges facing our government. With 85 percent of our critical infrastructure owned by the private sector, it is clear that full time leadership will be required to ensure that adequate protective measures are identified and put in place. Similarly, the tremendous challenge of overcoming barriers to information sharing within the intelligence community and establishing a robust intelligence analysis division will likely occupy a significant amount of time of the Secretary and Under Secretary. H.R. 5005 takes a somewhat different approach: like the President's June 18th proposal, it establishes a single Under Secretary with overall responsibility for both information analysis and infrastructure protection. However, in Title II, Section 201, (b)(1) and (b)(2) it also creates two Assistant Secretaries to lead information analysis and infrastructure protection, respectively. Earlier, Title I, Section 103 of the legislation establishes several officers who shall be appointed by the President ``with the advice and consent of the Senate,'' including not more than 12 Assistant Secretaries (Sec. 103 (a)(8)). The Assistant Secretaries for information analysis and infrastructure protection will clearly occupy two of the most critical positions in our government: consequently, Congress' expectation is they will be among the 12 Assistant Secretaries who will be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Third, responding to the testimony of Senator Shelby and others, the SA 4471 provided broad, routine access to information for the Secretary of Homeland Security. The assumption behind the Committee's approach was that, unless the President determined otherwise, all information about terrorist threats, including so-called ``unevaluated intelligence,'' possessed by intelligence agencies would be routinely shared by intelligence agencies and other agencies with the Department of Homeland Security. In contrast, the President's proposal would curtail the Secretary's access to unanalyzed information. The Secretary would have routine access to reports, assessments and analytical information. But, except for vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure, the Secretary would receive access to unanalyzed information only as the President may further provide. H.R. 5005 has wisely moved towards SA 4471. In Section 202 (a), H.R. 5005 states that, ``except as otherwise directed by the President, the Secretary shall have such access as the Secretary considers necessary to all information, including reports, assessments, analyses, and unevaluated intelligence relating to threats of terrorism against the United States and to other areas of responsibility assigned by the Secretary, and to all information concerning infrastructure or other vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed, that may be collected, possessed, or prepared by any agency of the Federal Government.'' This is crucial because the Secretary must have access to the information he or she deems necessary to protect the American people, and cannot simply rely on agencies that have historically been reluctant to share information to determine what the Secretary should have. In Section 202(b)(1) the legislation provides that the Secretary may enter into cooperative agreements with agencies to provide access to such information. At the same time, if no request has been made, or no agreement has been entered into, agencies are still required to provide certain information that is specified in the legislation. This includes, at Section 202(b)(2) (A) all reports (including information reports containing intelligence which has not been fully evaluated), assessments and analytical information relating to threats of terrorism against the United States and to other areas of responsibility assigned by the Secretary; (B) all information concerning the vulnerability of the infrastructure of the United States, or other vulnerabilities of the United States, to terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed; (C) all other information relating to significant and credible threats of terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed; and (D) such other information or material as the President may direct. These provisions require agencies to provide significant amounts of information to the Secretary, even in the absence of a cooperative agreement. With respect to the information required in Section 202(b)(2)(C); in many cases, it may be impossible for agencies to know if certain information is related to ``significant and credible threats'' of terrorism precisely because that can only be determined once the information is fused with information from others. Consequently, to meet the statutory requirement, agencies should clearly endeavor to collect requested information, even if it is not already available, and they should err on the side of providing more, rather than less, information that is already on hand to the Department's analysts. This is clearly the best way to help ensure that the Department can effectively carry out its mandate to prevent, deter, and preempt terrorist attacks. Finally, like SA 4471, H.R. 5005 makes the Department responsible for working with the Director of Central Intelligence to protect sources and methods and with the Attorney General to protect sensitive law enforcement information (Section 201(d)(12)). Also, as the Committee recommended, the substitute formally includes the elements of the Department concerned with analysis of foreign intelligence in the ``intelligence community'' (Section 201(h)) while also empowering the Secretary to consult with the Director of Central Intelligence and other agencies on our nation's intelligence gathering priorities (Section 201(d)(10)). These provisions will ensure that the Department becomes a full partner with the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies in our intelligence community, and that is has a crucial seat at the table in all proceedings where intelligence-gathering priorities are established. Though H.R. 5005 is not exactly what the Governmental Affairs Committee recommended in SA 4471, it does contain key aspects of the Committee's approach and establishes a single point in our government with the responsibility for receiving and assessing all information about terrorist threats to our homeland. Thus, it does represent a very significant improvement over the Administration's proposal. As a result, the information analysis and infrastructure protection function in the Department, assuming it is properly implemented, will greatly improve our nation's overall capacity to prevent, deter, protect against, and respond to terrorist threats against our homeland. Science and Technology The Department will have profound scientific and technological needs, and both the immediate and long-term success of its mission will require the implementation of a broadly-coordinated, tightly-focused, and sustained effort to invest in critical areas of research, accelerate technology development, and expedite the transition and deployment of such technologies into effective use. H.R. 5005 attempts to meet this objective by creating a strong, coherent, and well-funded Directorate of Science and Technology. The Directorate established in this legislation follows directly from the model embodied in the homeland security bill passed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, SA 4471, and explicated in the Chairman's Statement on September 4, 2002 (Congressional Record, pages S8162-S8164). In keeping with that model, the Directorate will be headed by a Senate-confirmed Under Secretary for Science and Technology with expansive responsibilities, as outlined in Section 302, for directing and managing homeland security research, development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation (RDDT&E) activities; coordinating the federal government's civilian efforts, as well as developing a national policy and strategic plan, for meeting homeland security R&D needs; advising the Secretary and supporting the Department's efforts to analyze risks and threats; ensuring the rapid transfer and deployment of technologies capable of advancing homeland security objectives; and conducting research on countermeasures for biological and chemical threats. Research, Development, Demonstration, Testing & Evaluation With respect to his RDDT&E responsibilities, the Under Secretary will act through an array of mechanisms and authorities established in H.R. 5005. The primary driver of innovation within the Directorate will be a Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), which is conceived to be similar in purpose and organization to the highly successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) within the Department of Defense (DOD). Over the past five decades, DARPA has been recognized as one of the most productive engines of technological innovation in the federal government. Its success has been grounded in its ability to recruit outstanding scientific and technical talent, promote creativity and adaptability under a lean, flexible organizational structure, and entice collaboration from other R&D entities by leveraging an independent source of funds. Because the HSARPA created in H.R. 5005 is purposefully patterned after the nearly identical Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (SARPA) contained in SA 4471, the legislative intent concerning the missions, roles, Acceleration Fund, and structure of that organization (see Chairman's Statement on September 4, 2002, Congressional Record, pages S8162-8163) are, of course, straightforwardly applicable to HSARPA. In order to enable HSARPA to achieve parallel success to DARPA, Section 307 of H.R. 5005 provides HSARPA with a $500 million Acceleration Fund to support key homeland security R&D both within and outside of the federal government, leverage collaboration from R&D entities external to the Department, and accelerate the development, prototyping, and deployment of homeland security technologies. The Secretary is likewise provided with DARPA's flexible authority to hire and manage top-flight personnel. Although SA 4471 placed limits on this authority by setting a ceiling of 100 personnel who may be hired pursuant to this authority and instituting a 7-year sunset provision [SA 4471, Section 135(c)(3)(C)], those limits have been eliminated in H.R. 5005 to allow the Secretary greater discretion in exercising such authority commensurate with need [Section 307(b)(6)]. In a later section, Section 831, H.R. 5005 also confers the Secretary with another important authority currently available to the DOD--the ability to engage in ``other transactions'' for both research and prototype projects. This flexible contracting authority for such projects has been integral to DARPA's success, and HSARPA will therefore have the same authority. While the legislation vests this authority directly in the Secretary, it is clearly and specifically contemplated that such authority will be delegated appropriately to other officials within the Department, particularly the Under Secretary for Science and Technology and the Director of HSARPA, for use in connection with R&D and prototyping activities under their direction or management, including extramural RDDT&E projects and projects supported by the Acceleration Fund. Nothing in this legislation should be construed as requiring or encouraging HSARPA to adopt or replicate any specific programs within DARPA, such as the Total Information Awareness Program, or as conferring HSARPA with any additional authority to overcome privacy laws when developing technologies for information-collection. Separate provisions for the Department's other extramural and intramural RDDT&E activities are set forth in Section 308. These provisions are not intended to supercede the specific provisions established for HSARPA under Section 307, and should not be in any way limiting on HSARPA. Regarding the university-based center or centers for homeland security described in Section 308(b)(2), legislative intent regarding the need for flexible application of this provision in order to avoid unfairly favoring one or more particular institutions was clarified in the November floor statements of the Republican manager of the final bill, Senator Phil Gramm. It should therefore be emphasized that the criteria listed under Section 308(b)(2)(B) should not be considered absolute or dispositive in nature, but rather, as factors that should be considered in the context of national homeland security needs and the relative strengths of candidate institutions in meeting those needs. Consistent with this intent, Section 308(b)(2)(C) specifically provides the Secretary and the Under Secretary with full ``discretion'' in determining whether, how, and when to implement these provisions. Consideration of additional relevant criteria to supplement (and, within their discretion, to supercede) those delineated under Section 308(b)(2)(B) is specifically contemplated in Section 308(b)(2)(C). This subsection anticipates as the Secretary and Under Secretary exercise their discretion that they actively engage in a comprehensive, dispassionate, and competitive review of available institutions to determine the optimal selection for serving national interests. It is contemplated that consortia of universities capable of meeting particular areas of required expertise would be eligible to serve as a university center or centers; therefore, there is no restriction on such consortia being considered under Section 308(b)(2). To assure full oversight of the fairness of the selection process, the Secretary is required to report to Congress under Section 308(b)(2)(C) on the full details of the selection and implementation of the university centers. Regarding the headquarters laboratory described in Sections 308(c)(2)-(c)(4), it deserves reiterating that the establishment of such a headquarters laboratory is not mandatory under the legislation. The Secretary and the Under Secretary should use their discretion in determining whether the designation of such a laboratory is necessary and would better assist the Directorate in fulfilling its functions. It is the intent of H.R. 5005 that the Directorate coordinate and draw broadly upon the full range of S&T resources and expertise available in the federal government rather than creating new, duplicative stovepipes. Accordingly, the risks attaching to the latter should be weighed carefully against the potential benefits of establishing a single headquarters laboratory. As an alternative, the Secretary could certainly opt to select a group of institutions and laboratory elements with expertise in a variety of fields to fill the pertinent need. Consequent to the principle of affording the Department with rapid, non- bureaucratic, expansive, and flexible access to existing federal S&T capabilities, the legislation in Section 309 provides the Secretary with authority to utilize any of the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and sites through a variety of mechanisms, most notably, joint sponsorship agreements, and in Section 309(g), establishes an Office for National Laboratories within the Directorate to create a networked laboratory system among the DOE laboratories to support the missions of the Department. With regard to Section 309(c), it should be clarified that this provision is limited to those programs and activities that are transferred from the DOE to the Department under this legislation. There is no general requirement or obligation within this or any other provision to execute or maintain separate contracts for work commissioned by the Department to non-transferred DOE laboratories or sites or their operators. Interagency Coordination and the National Policy and Strategic Plan Notwithstanding the mechanisms described above for enabling the Department to engage and support important homeland security R&D, H.R. 5005 recognizes that the vast bulk of research and development relevant to homeland security will continue to occur outside the direct control of the Department--in other agencies, in academia, and in the private sector. A critical challenge, therefore, will be to ensure that the Department has the proper tools and mechanisms to elicit cooperation across a wide range of disparate R&D entities, each with their own missions and priorities, and to coordinate their collective efforts in service to homeland security goals. A key coordination mechanism envisioned by the legislation is the development of a national policy and strategic plan as described in Section 302(2). This national policy and strategic plan integrates the concepts of the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism and the technology roadmap articulated in SA 4471 [Title III and Section 135(c)(2)(B)] into a single national blueprint for meeting S&T goals and objectives for homeland security. It is intended that a comprehensive technology roadmapping exercise (which is commonly accepted within the S&T community as a prerequisite to optimal organization and coordination of large-scale R&D projects) serve as a basis for, and central component of, the larger policy and plan, and that the resulting roadmap, policy, and plan provide the framework within which all relevant stakeholders, both within and outside of government, will coordinate on a common homeland security RDDT&E agenda. Effective coordination will also require a forum and body through which intensive communication and collaboration may occur. Along these lines, the legislation in Section 311 establishes a Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee (``Advisory Committee'') consisting of representatives from academia and the private sector to both advise the Department and coordinate with communities outside the federal government in conducting homeland security R&D. The utility of having an external, independent entity to inform and guide intra- Department and interagency S&T efforts has been previously demonstrated by the advisory group assembled by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in response to the September 11th attacks. This group, which published a prominent review of the government's homeland security R&D efforts in June 2002 (Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism), played an important and constructive role in identifying and stimulating much needed improvements. Section 311 requires a similar entity to be established that may, among other things, advise the Department by continuously critiquing homeland security S&T efforts in a ``red team'' capacity or function, and recommending new approaches for the Department and outside agencies. It is specifically anticipated that the National Research Council of the NAS, drawing on its extensive network of S&T contacts and the expertise it developed in compiling its June 2002 report, will select appropriate candidates for membership onto the Advisory Committee [Section 311(b)(2)], as well as support the Advisory Committee's work on an ongoing basis. The Advisory Committee is initially authorized for three years, which is a reasonable time period to permit the Secretary to meaningfully assess the Advisory Committee's efficacy in fulfilling its defined purpose. Should the Secretary determine after the initial authorization period that the Advisory Committee has provided, or is likely to provide, useful support and functionality to the Department, it is anticipated that the Secretary will reconstitute or re-establish the Advisory Committee pursuant to his authority under Section 871(a). With respect to R&D coordination among the federal agencies, H.R. 5005 does not specifically carry over the Homeland Security Science & Technology Council (``S&T Council'') from SA 4471 given that it may be unnecessarily redundant to create a new interagency council when interagency coordination mechanisms already exist in the form of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and its various subcommittees. This does not diminish the importance of such an interagency body to the homeland security R&D effort. To the contrary, an active interagency coordination entity must be considered fundamental to enabling the Secretary and the Under Secretary to fulfill their core responsibilities of coordinating the federal government's civilian homeland security R&D efforts [Section 302(2)] and carrying out the Department's S&T agenda through coordination with other federal agencies [Section 302(13)]. The omission of the interagency S&T Council from H.R. 5005 assumes that the NSTC and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), working with the Secretary and the Under Secretary, will establish and promote the strong interagency coordination mandated in Sections 302(2) and 302(13). Consequently, the Secretary, the Under Secretary, the OSTP, and all members of the NSTC are expected to commit to ensuring the viability of the NSTC as a productive coordination mechanism. In the event that such faith proves to be misplaced, a separate interagency group composed of senior R&D representatives from relevant federal agencies and officials from the Executive Office of the White House should be immediately constituted by the Secretary and the Under Secretary based on the authorization for interagency S&T coordination contained in Sections 302(2) and 302(13). These provisions also constitute a directive to agencies with S&T expertise in areas pertinent to homeland security to fully and actively participate in such interagency efforts. scientific and technical support, risk analysis, and the homeland security institute Another major set of responsibilities assigned to the Under Secretary relates to providing specialized advise, expertise, and support to other actors within the homeland security organization [Sections 302 (1), (2), and (3)]. Perhaps the most critical of such responsibilities is supporting the Department with respect to assessing, analyzing, and mitigating homeland security threats, vulnerabilities, and risks. Section 302(2) calls for including coordinated threat identification within the national policy and strategic plan, and Section 302(3) specifically calls for the assessment and testing of ``homeland security vulnerabilities and threats.'' Although primary responsibility for coordinating and integrating risk analysis and risk management resides with the Secretary and the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, the highly complex and technical issues inherent to modern risk analysis methods demand substantial scientific and technical expertise. Section 302(3) mandates that the Under Secretary for S&T support the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection in this regard. Therefore, Section 305 addresses the problem of obtaining the necessary S&T expertise by giving the Secretary broad authority to establish or contract with Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), which could perform functions not only related to R&D, but extending to risk, threat, and vulnerability analysis. While this authority is discretionary, H.R. 5005 anticipates that it will be exercised actively in accordance with need. In fact, so compelling was the NAS's recommendation in its June 2002 report to create an independent, non-profit institution for critical analysis and decision support, that H.R. 5005 includes another provision to trigger immediate exercise of the broad FFRDC authority. Specifically, Section 312 mandates the creation of a Homeland Security Institute (``Institute'') focusing expressly on capabilities related to risk analysis, scenario-based threat assessments, red teaming, and other functions relevant to homeland security. The Institute is initially authorized for three years, which is a reasonable time period to permit the Secretary to meaningfully assess the Institute's efficacy in fulfilling its defined purpose. Should the Secretary determine after the initial authorization period that the Institute has provided, or is likely to provide, useful support and functionality to the Department, it is anticipated that the Secretary will, pursuant to his authority under Section 305, renew, reconstitute, or re-establish the Institute with appropriately expanded or modified functions to service the Department's ongoing and expanding risk assessment mission. technology transition The Under Secretary is responsible for ensuring that technologies capable of supporting homeland security are quickly tested, evaluated, transitioned, and deployed to appropriate users within or outside the Department. Section 302(6) explicitly requires the Under Secretary to establish a system for transferring such technologies. This system should include processes and mechanisms for identifying homeland security actors and entities with unmet technological needs; matching such entities and needs with available technologies or, if none are readily available, assisting in the development, testing, evaluation, and deployment of new technologies to meet identified needs; ensuring viable technology transition paths for products of homeland security R&D, including HSRAPA-derived technologies; aligning internal R&D priorities and programs to technological needs inside or outside the Department; communicating externally with both technology developers and users to promote alignment of extra-Departmental R&D efforts with homeland security-related technological needs; providing technology developers with information and guidance on interfacing with governmental customers of homeland security technologies; and providing technical assistance to potential governmental users of homeland security technologies. To support the Under Secretary in executing these responsibilities, Section 313 establishes a Technology Clearinghouse (''Clearinghouse'') to serve as a national point-of- contact for both technology developers and potential users. The Clearinghouse must coordinate with the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), and may fully integrate with the TSWG. In light of the fact that the mission of the TSWG dovetails with, and is fully embraced by, that of the Directorate, it is contemplated that the Under Secretary may assume full or joint management, technical, and/or policy oversight of the TSWG. testing and evaluation of technologies for internal acquisition and deployment With respect to technologies being considered for internal use Department-wide or within one or more of its constituent entities, intelligent and well-coordinated testing, evaluation, procurement, and deployment will be crucial given that the new Department will have extensive technological needs, requirements, and dependencies. Too often, government agencies are hampered and distracted from their fundamental missions as a result of unstructured, technically unsophisticated approaches to technology acquisition and deployment that generate interoperability problems downstream. In order to effectively carry out the requirement for the Under Secretary to comprehensively conduct, direct, integrate, and coordinate the demonstrating, testing, and evaluation activities of the Department as articulated in Sections 302(4), 302(5), and 302(12), the Secretary and the Under Secretary should implement procedures to ensure that new technologies being considered for acquisition will be compatible and interoperable with other existing or anticipated technologies. New technologies should not be permitted to move to acquisition without the Under Secretary's sign off on the prior stages in the innovation process, particularly the demonstration, testing, and evaluation stages. The Under Secretary is understood to occupy the role of the Department's chief technology officer, and it is anticipated that he will be provided with responsibilities and authorities befitting that role. Accordingly, the Secretary shall act through the Under Secretary to operationally test and evaluate all major systems targeted for potential acquisition by any entity within the Department, and grant the Under Secretary authority to approve or reject such systems in his discretion. Nothing in this provision is to be construed as proscribing other Departmental entities from undertaking testing and evaluation activities so long as they do so in coordination with, and subject to the final approval of, the Under Secretary. The Under Secretary should also coordinate with the Department's Chief Information Officer, the Under Secretary for Management, and other federal agencies in promoting government-wide compatibility and interoperability of homeland security technologies and systems. By vesting in the Under Secretary the full and broad authority to manage the Department's full spectrum of innovation, from basic research [Sections 302(4), 302(5), 302(11), and 302(12)] through demonstration, testing, and evaluation [Sections 302(4), 302(5), and 302(12)] to transition and deployment [Section 302(6)], the Under Secretary will have the means and mandate to initiate a powerful, systematic approach to innovation that generates new technologies for combating terrorism and ensures integrated acquisition and use of such technologies. Placing control of all the key innovation stages with the Under Secretary is critical to assuring that research, development, demonstration, testing, evaluation, and deployment in the Department do not become disjointed and fractured so that a coherent innovation process can prevail. Research on Countermeasures for Biological and Chemical Threats True preparation for future biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear attacks will depend upon the development of vaccines and medicines to combat the most likely threats. At present, our nation is woefully unprepared for this type of attack. In his June 28, 2002 testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Dr. J. Leighton Read discussed the barriers to the development of a national medical arsenal to combat terrorism. The federal government has a long and successful history in conducting basic biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have served as an international model for funding and conducting human health-related research. However, in facing biological and chemical terrorism, we face a new challenge. In addition to encouraging basic research and training the next generation of scientists, the federal government will have to deliver actual pharmaceutical products and will have to deliver them quickly. Unlike the traditional pharmaceutical market, companies that choose to develop drugs to fight bioterrorist attacks that may never occur will not be able to rely on an existing market. Yet producing actual products to meet biological and chemical threats will depend upon private sector involvement. As a result, the Under Secretary should incorporate the goal of engaging the private sector into develop biothreat countermeasures into every level of his strategy, and adopt plans and policies to enable such private sector participation to occur. H.R. 5005 provides tools to accomplish this task. While Section 302(4) states generally that the Under Secretary's responsibilities do not extend to human health-related research and development activities, this provision should be construed consistent with other specific provisions in H.R. 5005 ascribing the Under Secretary a major role in addressing biological and chemical threats related to terrorism, a role which will require the Under Secretary to conduct specific types of human health- related research and development activities. Section 302, therefore, does not circumscribe the Under Secretary's authority to conduct research necessary to implement the major biothreat-related functions delineated in Sections 302(2) (requiring the Under Secretary to develop a national policy and plan that addresses, among other things, chemical and biological terrorist threats, and further requiring the Under Secretary to coordinate the Federal Government's civilian efforts to identify and develop countermeasures to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and other emerging terrorist threats), 302(5) (requiring the Under Secretary to direct, fund, and conduct national research and development for detecting, preventing, protecting against, and responding to terrorist attacks, which perforce include those involving biological or chemical agents), 302(8) (requiring the Under Secretary to collaborate with the Secretary of Agriculture under the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002), 302(9) (requiring the Under Secretary to collaborate with the Secretary of HHS in determining biological agents and toxins to be listed as select agents), 303(1)(A) (transferring control and management of certain chemical and biological national security programs within the Department of Energy into the Department of Homeland Security), and Sections 303(2) and 1708 (establishing and transferring into the Department a National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center). The National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center (``Center'') established and transferred in H.R. 5005 will, in particular, require the Under Secretary to engage in extensive human health-related R&D. The Center is intended to lead the Department's research efforts on bioterrorism by developing ``countermeasures to potential attacks by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction'' (Section 1708). The Center will conduct research on bioterrorism, and by definition, this should include study of the pathogenesis of bioterrorist agents, the immune response to these pathogens, and research on vaccines, drugs, and other medical antidotes. Since the Center is placed under the direction and management of the Directorate, the Under Secretary is conferred with substantial obligations to conduct human health-related R&D. While the Secretary clearly has the authority to conduct the type of R&D discussed above internally, H.R. 5005 contemplates that the civilian human health-related countermeasures research carried out by HHS shall remain under the direction of the Secretary of HHS. Sections 304(a) and (b) mandate that while the Secretary of HHS shall retain authority for such research, he shall collaborate with the Secretary of Homeland Security in developing between the two Departments a coordinated strategy and outcome measurements for these research activities. As outlined in H.R. 5005, it is crucial that such research reflect the overall national policy and strategic plan developed by the Secretary and the Under Secretary under Section 302(2), and that the efforts of the two Departments be fully in concert. In the biothreat and chemical threat areas, the Secretary should work to ensure the resulting policy, plan, and benchmarks mandated under Section 302(2) reflect what is most needed and what pharmaceutical products can be timely developed against the most likely and dangerous threats to the public. Since this will require participation from the private sector, the policy and plan, which will include a technology roadmap, must necessarily include a strategy for translating basic science results into product development within the private pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Emergency Preparedness and Response The Department will coordinate the federal response to disasters. This responsibility will encompass natural and manmade disasters, terrorist attacks and all incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, and other large-scale emergencies. In addition, the Department will assist the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture in responding to public health and agricultural emergencies. The Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response was designed to spearhead this effort within the Department. In order to accomplish these tasks the Department will need an interdisciplinary, well funded, and well-organized Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response. The initial design of this directorate was established by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in S. 1534. This original design was refined by the Governmental Affairs Committee amendment, SA 4471, and further explained by the Chairman's statement on September 4, 2002 (Congressional Record, pages S8162-S8164). Consistent with this original design, H.R. 5005 establishes a Directorate that includes the essential federal emergency response agencies and offices. The Directorate shall build and direct a comprehensive national incident management system and consolidate existing federal emergency response plans into a single, coordinated national plan as outlined in H.R. 5005, Sections 502(5), 502(6), and 507(b)(1-2). States and localities should have access to and information about these systems and plans to ensure optimal coordination during an emergency. These plans should encompass all affected governmental entities and reflect both local and national needs. The consolidated federal response plan, outlined in Sections 502(6) and 507(b)(1-2), must interface with state and local response plans and should utilize local resources wherever possible. Interoperability The planning responsibilities of the Under Secretary shall include the development of a comprehensive plan and effort for improving communication interoperability during emergency response (H.R. 5005, Section 502(7)). In developing the communication technology and interoperability, the Under Secretary must pay particular attention to the development, support and utilization of effective telemedicine networks, as well as the application of advanced information technology to effective training for and delivery of emergency medical services. Standards In order to implement the missions delineated in Section 502, the Directorate shall establish and disseminate standards for equipment, personnel, training, resources, and the resulting emergency response. Standards shall be used as benchmarks for training and acquisition to ensure a uniform quality and interoperability during a response. The Under Secretary shall use these standards to provide recommendations and guidance to state and local governments. Public Health and Agricultural Emergencies The Secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture shall retain the authority to oversee the federal response to public health and agricultural emergencies, respectively. This authority includes the authority to declare such emergencies. However, these agencies shall fully collaborate with the new Department which shall support these agencies in their response, especially with regards to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The Department should serve as an active and involved resource during bioterrorist and agroterrorist attacks. As outlined in Section 887 of H.R. 5005, the Department shall work in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other engaged federal agencies to optimize information sharing between agencies commencing forthwith, as well as before and after the declaration of a public health emergency. This provision was intended to ensure that all involved agencies have all the information necessary to effectively perform their role in the federal response. See also, Section 892. Training In order to help ``ensure the effectiveness of emergency response efforts'' as required in Section 502(1) of H.R. 5005, the Directorate shall lead federal efforts to train first responders in disaster response. The term, first responder, shall include law enforcement, fire fighting, emergency medical, health care, and volunteer personnel. To be effective, training shall encompass exercises, on-line computer simulations, drills, courses, and other interactive learning environments. Personnel should be trained in every aspect of emergency response, including prevention/preparation, mitigation, active response, and recovery efforts. Training should include utilization of the Noble Training Center, transferred to the new Department as part of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (Section 503(5)) and other training sites and campuses within the Federal Emergency Management System, as well as full coordination with the National Guard. Finally, the Directorate shall improve, and train first responders in use of, governmental on-line resources to ensure they have the latest information available during a response. Strategic National Stockpile Authority to oversee the Strategic National Stockpile shall be transferred to the new Department. In H.R. 5005, this transfer of authority is described in Sections 502(3)(B), 503(6), and 1705. This language clarifies that the existing structure of the Stockpile program, as described in Section 121 of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (Public Law 107- 188), shall remain intact. The Stockpile shall continue to be a multi- agency effort, with significant roles for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services. In particular, the Department should continue to incorporate the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Preparedness (CDC) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP), within the Department of Health and Human Services, in determining the composition of the stockpile and the parameters for its use. The Department shall consult the CDC and OPHEP in deciding which medications, vaccines, and medical supplies are most appropriate for the Stockpile (Section 1705(a)(1)(C)). The Department shall also coordinate with the Secretary of Health and Human Services in determining the need to deploy the stockpile, on an incident-by- incident basis. The Under Secretary should continue to use the resources of Department of Veterans' Affairs in procuring and storing the contents of the Stockpile (Section 1705(a)(1)(B)). And the Under Secretary shall call upon the Department of Defense and the National Guard to help transport and secure the contents of the stockpile as appropriate. The Office of Emergency Preparedness SA 4471 described, in detail, the transfer of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP) from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department. The transfer of OEP was retained in H.R. 5005 in sections 502(3)(B) and 503(5). Since the Office of Emergency Preparedness is not defined in statute, it should be clarified that the transfer of OEP shall include the Office and all of its component agencies. This includes the National Disaster Medical System, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, the Noble Training Center, the Special Events Disaster Response program, and all other programs directed by OEP. Of course, nothing in the final legislation should be construed to mean that the transfer of the OEP programs shall result in the transfer of personnel whose primary duties reside outside of OEP. The National Disaster Medical System For example, the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) is an inter- agency program. It involves personnel, facilities, and equipment from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies. The personnel and assets from these departments that are deployed by NDMS during the an emergency response, but whose primary day to day roles are central to the missions of agencies outside of the Department, shall remain part of their home agencies. This includes members of the Disaster Medial Assistance Teams (DMATs), the Disaster Mortuary Assistance Teams (DMATs), and the Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMATs). The transfer of the NDMS component of OEP shall be restricted to the management, organizational, and coordinating personnel, functions, and assets. The Metropolitan Medical Response System Similarly, the transfer of the Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) does not include transfer of member hospitals. Rather it shall consist of a transfer of the grant programs and related personnel. The MMRS grants have been used to improve hospital and first responder preparedness in select metropolitan regions across the country. Administration of these ongoing grants will become part of the new Department. Although H.R. 5005 transfers the authority of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness for OEP (Section 503(5)), the Under Secretary shall at all times attempt to maximize communication and interaction between OEP and its component programs and the Department of Health and Human Services, which will be crucial in meeting the Directorate's mission requirements. As the preceding discussion illustrates, OEP will have to coordinate efforts of personnel from several different agencies. But in addition, OEP and its programs must remain integrated into the larger national public health infrastructure. Particular efforts should be made to coordinate OEP programs with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. This office, within the Department of Health and Human Services, is charged with coordinating intra and interagency health preparedness efforts. OEP should remain a part of this larger whole. Conduct of Certain Public Health-Related Activities Section 505 of H.R. 5005 addresses two critical issues. First, it is imperative that the efforts to improve our public health infrastructure and their emergency preparedness remain under the control of the Secretary for Health and Human Services, although coordinated with the Secretary. On June 28, 2002 the Governmental Affairs Committee heard testimony from several public health experts. In their testimony, the witnesses concurred that in order to be functional during an emergency, public health preparedness efforts had to be integrated into the larger public health system. This ``dual-use'' improves underlying public health efforts while ensuring health providers remain familiar with emergency preparedness networks and programs. Their testimony pointed out that dual-use was particularly important during a response to a biological attack. In this case, the terrorist attack may not be immediately apparent and detection may depend upon the ability of normal health care systems to detect unusual patterns of illness. H.R. 5005 also stressed this important theme through Section 505 and language in Section 887, which calls for interaction between the agencies before and after the declaration of a public health emergency. Section 505 stipulates that the Department of Health and Human Services shall retain primary authority over efforts to improve State, local, and hospital preparedness and response to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear and other emerging terrorist threats ``carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services.'' In this regard, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall have authority to set priorities and preparedness goals. However, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, working through the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness, must develop a coordinated strategy for these activities in collaboration with the Secretary (Section 505(a)). In doing so, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will also collaborate with the Secretary in establishing benchmarks and outcome measures for success. Nothing in Section 505 should be interpreted as disrupting ongoing preparedness efforts within the Department of Health and Human Services. All ongoing emergency preparedness grants should continue. Selection criteria and the evaluation of grant application shall continue to be determined by the Department of Health and Human Services, consistent with Section 505 provisions. Human Resources Management H.R. 5005 contains two key provisions relating to employees at the new Department--section 841, which governs the establishment of a human resources management system, and section 842, which deals with labor-management relations at the Department. These provisions have been among the most contentious in debate on this legislation. The Administration has consistently sought what it calls ``flexibility'' in the personnel area, by which it means a carte blanche to waive civil service protections and union rights of the employees at the Department. Sections 841 and 842 of H.R. 5005 are significantly more protective in this regard than the provisions in the President's original proposal (i.e., the one released June 18, 2002), but these sections remain a major disappointment. A risk remains of politicization, arbitrary treatment, and other personnel abuses in the federal government, in a way that may damage the merit-based workplace federal employees and the American people have come to depend on. I hope what I fear does not come to pass, and that this Administration and future Administrations will not overstep bounds, overexert authority, and thereby undermine the effectiveness of the new Department. I have summarized below the protections that sections 841 and 842 do provide. Establishment of Human Resources Management System. Section 841 authorizes the Secretary, jointly with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to prescribe a ``human resources management system'' (HRMS) for the Department. The section provides that the HRMS may waive certain provisions of the civil service statutes, and specifies required procedures by which the system is to be developed, negotiated, and adopted. When it comes to the creation of a HRMS, the law still requires that employees in the new Department will be hired, promoted, disciplined, and fired in conformity with all merit system principles and in violation of no prohibited personnel practices. If and when existing civil service rights and protections come up for consideration in the development of a HRMS, the Administration may waive, modify, or otherwise affect such rights and protections only to the extent it can clearly demonstrate that they clearly conflict with the homeland security mission, and that they are not being waived merely in the interest of administrative convenience. Fair and independent procedures must be maintained for employees with grievances, such as those who allege abuse or corruption within the Department. Changes to the system must be carefully crafted through negotiation and collaboration with employees and their representatives; and, if a disagreement arises, the period of at least 30 days that section 841 requires for bargaining and mediation between the Administration and the employee representatives must be substantial and in good faith, not cosmetic. The provisions in section 841 that allow a HRMS to waive statutes are precisely drawn, detailing which parts of the United States Code may be waived, modified, or otherwise affected and which parts may not. For example, the legislation specifically forbids waiver of merit system principles or prohibited personnel practices. Furthermore, as to provisions referred to in 5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9), the legislation forbids waiver not only of the provisions themselves, but also of provisions implementing those protections through affirmative action or through any right or remedy. Sections 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9) include laws against discrimination, against reprisal for whistleblowing, and retaliation for exercising rights. Section 841 thus assures that the HRMS will not affect employees' ability to appeal a personnel action to the Merit Systems Protection Board, under existing law, in a case where the employee alleges a discrimination, retaliation, or reprisal covered and referred to by Sec. Sec. 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9). Section 841 also requires the HRMS to ensure that employees may organize and bargain collectively, subject only to exclusion from coverage or limitation on negotiability established by 5 U.S.C. chapter 71 or other law. Furthermore, the grant of waiver authority under section 841 refers explicitly and only to part III of title 5, United States Code. Section 841 thus grants no authority to waive any provision of law outside of part III. This means, for example, that the HRMS may not waive, modify, or otherwise affect such government-wide employee rights and protections as, for example: (1) the Office of Special Counsel's authority to investigate any prohibited personnel practice and seek corrective action or disciplinary action from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) (5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1211 et seq.); (2) employees' right to seek corrective action from the MSPB in a case of reprisal for whistleblowing (5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1221-1222); (3) the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (Pub. L. 95-521, as amended; printed as an appendix to 5 U.S.C.); (4) Veterans benefits (including appeal rights to MSPB) (38 U.S.C.); and (5) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 201 et seq.). Likewise, some of the right and protections applicable to particular agencies or groups of employees being transferred to the Department are set forth in portions of the United States Code outside of part III of title 5, or were not enacted by Congress as incorporated into the United States Code at all, and these rights and protections may not be waived by the HRMS. While the waiver authority granted by section 841 is broad, the provisions noted above and other provisions that may not be waived under section 841 can afford significant protections against politicization, arbitrary action, and abuse. The Secretary and the Director must be scrupulous in not attempting to waive, modify, or otherwise affect any provisions of law that are beyond the express waiver authority, because such an attempt would violate section 841. Labor-Management Relations. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) states that the President may issue an executive order excluding any agency from coverage under the Federal Sector Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS) if the President determines: that the agency has a primary function in intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and that the provisions of the FSLMRS cannot be applied consistent with national security. Section 842 of H.R. 5005 builds on that existing provision by stating that, for the President to issue an executive order excluding an agency transferred to the Department, not only must the criteria in 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) be satisfied, but also two additional clarifying criteria must be satisfied: that the mission and responsibilities of the agency materially changed, and that a majority of the employees in the agency have as their primary duty intelligence, counterintelligence, or investigative work directly related to terrorism investigation. That provision would provide employees at the Department some appropriate measure of stability in their labor relations, although the provision is subject to a subsequent provision of section 842. The President can override the earlier provision if he determines that the earlier provision would have a substantial adverse impact on the Department's ability to protect homeland security, and provides Congress a detailed written finding explaining the reasons for the determination. The President has to give the Congress 10 days' advance notice by submitting the written explanation. At the expiration of the ten day period, the President would then have the power to issue an executive order under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) under the criteria of that section only. I still fail to understand why any President would need to remove collective bargaining rights from federal employees, whose union rights are very limited in comparison with the private sector, and who have a long history of helping to protect the homeland and continue to do the same protective work in the new Department. But if and when this President or a future President does move to eliminate collective bargaining within a unit of the Department, the President can take this step only if it is truly essential to national security and homeland security and not merely a convenience to management. This requires that the Department's leadership must first make good-faith efforts to work cooperatively with the unions before the President can determine that union representation is incompatible with national security or homeland security. And the written explanation that the President is required to provide to Congress must of course be thorough and specific. The requirement reflects a bipartisan concern that this Administration and future Administrations must make the case for stripping workers of their right to bargain collectively before issuing an Executive Order. The President must provide Congress a comprehensive and specific explanation on the threshold issue of how and why the right of workers in a particular agency or subdivision to collectively bargain would have a substantial adverse impact on homeland security. Other provisions. Two other provisions of H.R. 5005 relating to human resources management warrant comment. Section 881 requires that the Secretary, in consultation with the Director of OPM, shall review the pay and benefit plans of each agency transferred to the Department and, within 90 days, submit a plan to Congress for ensuring the elimination of disparities, especially among law enforcement personnel. Nothing in section 881 provides for how the elements of the plan shall be put into effect, however, so I believe it would be desirable for the plan to identify the specific changes to law, regulation, and policy that would be needed to eliminate the disparities, and make specific recommendations for effecting those changes. Section 1512(e) states that the Secretary, in regulations prescribed jointly with the Director of OPM, may adopt the rules, procedures, terms and conditions established by statute, rule, or regulation before the effective date of the Act in any agency transferred to the Department under the Act. This section 1512 contains the Savings Provisions for the reorganization effected by the Act, and subsection (e) is intended to enable the Secretary to keep a transferred agency subject to the same rules, procedures, terms and conditions that applied to the agency before the transfer. This provision does not, of course, provide authority to the Secretary to take a provision that was applicable to one agency before the effective date and apply it to another agency or other part of the Department.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will request that the new Secretary of the Homeland Security Department give attention to the concerns about emergency management raised by the Senator from Minnesota, and I hope that homeland defense-integrated emergency management and training systems will be given due consideration for funding through grants from the extramural programs.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, as manager of the legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, I want to share with the Senate my views on the meaning and intent of several key provisions in H.R. 5005, the final homeland security legislation approved by the Senate on November 19, 2002. These provisions have been through several iterations and they have been debated extensively. H.R. 5005 is the result of over a year of deliberations begun last October when I introduced legislation (S. 1534) with Senator Specter to create a Department of Homeland Security. That legislation was subsequently combined with legislation by Senator Graham (to create a White House Office for Combating Terrorism) and became S. 2452, which was reported out of the Committee on Governmental Affairs on May 22, 2002. Before the Senate had a chance to consider that bill, however, the President announced his support for a Department of Homeland Security. The Administration's bill, first submitted to Congress on June 18, 2002, encompassed almost all of S. 2452's organizational elements regarding the Department. The Governmental Affairs Committee held hearings to consider the administration's proposals, and, I prepared an amendment to S. 2452 that was considered, and adopted, at a July 24-25 business meeting of the Committee. That expanded version of S. 2452 went a considerable way to incorporate the administration's proposals. In late July, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Homeland Security bill, H.R. 5005. This House bill became the base bill for floor consideration in the Senate, and the amended version of S. 2452 was offered on the Senate floor as SA 4471 to H.R. 5005. The following statement will discuss various provisions in H.R. 5005 and, where appropriate, their relationship to similar provisions in SA 4471. It is intended to supplement a statement and other material I submitted for the Record on September 4, 2002, (S8159-S8180) which interpreted key provisions in SA 4471 (also referred to as the Committee bill). Intelligence Title II, Subtitle A, Section 201 of H.R. 5005, establishes a Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. This is a critical provision that goes to the heart of the weaknesses that have been exposed in our nation's homeland defenses since September 11, 2001--that is, the lack of information sharing related to terrorist activities between intelligence, law enforcement, and other agencies. This directorate stems from the President's legislative submission in June, which included a proposal to create an information analysis and infrastructure protection directorate in the Department. However, the President's concept has been altered and expanded in response to testimony before the GAC and input from key Senators. The version in H.R. 5005, while not exactly what the GAC recommended, represents a substantial improvement over the President's June 18th, 2002 proposal. If fully implemented, and if the new department and the various agencies responsible for gathering and providing intelligence properly interpret its provisions, it will improve our capacity to fuse that intelligence in order to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. S. 2452, as originally reported on May 22, 2002, and based largely on recommendations by the bi-partisan Hart-Rudman Commission, included directorates for critical infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and border security. The President's June 18th proposal added a fourth directorate for ``information analysis and infrastructure protection.'' SA 4471 was developed after examining the President's proposal and hearing from expert witnesses on the critical need for a national level focal point for the analysis of all information available to the United States to combat terrorism. On June 26 and 27, the GAC held hearings on how to shape the intelligence functions of the proposed Department of Homeland Security--to determine how, in light of the failure of our government to bring all of the information available to various agencies together prior to September 11, 2001, the government should receive information from the field, both foreign and domestic, and convert it, through analysis, into actionable information that better protects our security. The GAC's hearings focused specifically on the relationship between the Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community. The hearings featured testimony from some of our country's most noted experts in intelligence issues, including Senators Bob Graham and Richard Shelby, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Other witnesses included Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Jeffrey Smith, former General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency; Lt. Gen. William Odom, former Director of the National Security Agency; Chief William B. Berger, President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police; and Ashton B. Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. Finally, CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller also testified. Senator Graham's written testimony stated that the Intelligence Committee's hearings thus far have uncovered several factors that contributed to the failures of Sept 11--one of which is ``the absence of a single set of eyes to analyze all the bits and pieces of relevant intelligence information, including open source material.'' Senator Shelby's written testimony stated that ``most Americans would probably be surprised to know that even nine months after the terrorist attacks, there is today no federal official, not a single one, to whom the President can turn to ask the simple question, what do we know about current terrorist threats against our homeland? No one person or entity has meaningful access to all such information the government possesses. No one really knows what we know, and no one is even in a position to go to find out.'' General Patrick Hughes, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, echoed these points. His testimony stated that, ``in our intelligence community, we currently have an inadequate capability to process, analyze, prepare in contextual and technical forms that make sense and deliver cogent intelligence to users as soon as possible so that the time dependent operational demands for intelligence are met.'' These hearings made it clear that: (1) there is currently no place in our government where all intelligence available to the government is brought together to be analyzed, (2) the Department of Homeland Security requires an all-source intelligence analysis capability in order to effectively achieve its mission of preventing, deterring, and protecting against terrorist attacks, (3) the intelligence function should be a smart, aggressive customer of the intelligence community, (4) the intelligence function must have a seat at the table when our nation's intelligence collection priorities are determined, (5) the Department is already a significant collector of intelligence-related information, through such agencies such as the Customs Service and the Coast Guard being transferred into the Department, and (6) the Department must have sufficient access to information that is collected by intelligence, law enforcement, and other agencies. This final point was underscored by Senator Shelby, who testified that the relatively limited ``access to information'' provisions in the President's proposal were unacceptable, and that it would be a mistake if they were adopted. The President's proposal was to create an ``information analysis and critical infrastructure protection division''--whose most important role, as CIA Director Tenet testified at the GAC hearing on June 27, 2002, would be ``to translate assessments about evolving terrorist targeting strategies, training, and doctrine overseas into a system of protection for the infrastructure of the United States.'' Its purpose would be to focus the intelligence function on detecting and mitigating against threats to critical infrastructure rather than the entire range of potential threats. Consequently, the intelligence analysis function in the Department of Homeland Security would not be designed to uncover terrorist plots or prevent acts of terrorism before they occurred. The Governmental Affairs Committee rejected this more limited approach and subsequently approved a more robust intelligence directorate, along with a separate directorate for critical infrastructure protection, which were incorporated in SA 4471. Some of these improvements are now incorporated in H.R. 5005. Most importantly, like SA 4471, H.R. 5005 makes it clear that the purpose of the information analysis function in the Department goes beyond critical infrastructure protection to encompass disseminating intelligence in order to deter, prevent, and respond to all terrorist threats. Section 201(d) of H.R. 5005, which describes responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, at paragraph (1), states: ``to access, receive, and analyze law enforcement, intelligence information, and other information from agencies from the Federal Government, State and local government agencies), and private sector entities, and to integrate such information in order to--(A) identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the homeland; (B) detect and identify threats of terrorism against the United States; and (C) understand such threats in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities of the homeland.'' Clause (B) especially establishes that the information analysis function must be designed in order to ``detect and identify'' threats of terrorism. In addition, Section 201(d)(9) states that the responsibilities of the Under Secretary (for information analysis and infrastructure protection) shall include the following: ``to disseminate, as appropriate, information analyzed by the Department within the Department, to other agencies of the Federal Government with responsibilities relating to homeland security, and to agencies of State and local governments and private sector entities with such responsibilities in order to assist in the deterrence, prevention, preemption of, or response to, terrorist attacks against the United States.'' Again, it is important that the new information analysis division focus on doing everything within its power to deter, prevent and preempt, acts of terrorism, while also ensuring that our nation is adequately prepared to respond. As noted earlier, the President's June 18th proposal would have established a more limited function primarily designed to assess threats and vulnerabilities to our critical infrastructure. This is an important task and will clearly be a major focus of the Department of Homeland Security, but the Department's information analysis role will now encompass all terrorist threats, not just those to critical infrastructure. Many potential terrorist attacks--for example a bomb in a shopping mall and attacks using weapons of mass destruction--are not directed at critical infrastructure, but at producing mass casualties. Thus, the intelligence analysis function in the Department can and must focus on the full range of threats that we face. And it must have the capacity to access and properly analyze all of the information about terrorist attacks that our government possesses. Secondly, though it falls short of the Committee's recommendation, the final legislation does establish dedicated leadership for both the information analysis and infrastructure protection functions. SA 4471 established separate, Senate confirmed Under Secretaries for ``intelligence analysis'' and ``critical infrastructure protection.'' This was to ensure that focused leadership--with sufficient clout--was provided for each of these complex, and major challenges facing our government. With 85 percent of our critical infrastructure owned by the private sector, it is clear that full time leadership will be required to ensure that adequate protective measures are identified and put in place. Similarly, the tremendous challenge of overcoming barriers to information sharing within the intelligence community and establishing a robust intelligence analysis division will likely occupy a significant amount of time of the Secretary and Under Secretary. H.R. 5005 takes a somewhat different approach: like the President's June 18th proposal, it establishes a single Under Secretary with overall responsibility for both information analysis and infrastructure protection. However, in Title II, Section 201, (b)(1) and (b)(2) it also creates two Assistant Secretaries to lead information analysis and infrastructure protection, respectively. Earlier, Title I, Section 103 of the legislation establishes several officers who shall be appointed by the President ``with the advice and consent of the Senate,'' including not more than 12 Assistant Secretaries (Sec. 103 (a)(8)). The Assistant Secretaries for information analysis and infrastructure protection will clearly occupy two of the most critical positions in our government: consequently, Congress' expectation is they will be among the 12 Assistant Secretaries who will be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Third, responding to the testimony of Senator Shelby and others, the SA 4471 provided broad, routine access to information for the Secretary of Homeland Security. The assumption behind the Committee's approach was that, unless the President determined otherwise, all information about terrorist threats, including so-called ``unevaluated intelligence,'' possessed by intelligence agencies would be routinely shared by intelligence agencies and other agencies with the Department of Homeland Security. In contrast, the President's proposal would curtail the Secretary's access to unanalyzed information. The Secretary would have routine access to reports, assessments and analytical information. But, except for vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure, the Secretary would receive access to unanalyzed information only as the President may further provide. H.R. 5005 has wisely moved towards SA 4471. In Section 202 (a), H.R. 5005 states that, ``except as otherwise directed by the President, the Secretary shall have such access as the Secretary considers necessary to all information, including reports, assessments, analyses, and unevaluated intelligence relating to threats of terrorism against the United States and to other areas of responsibility assigned by the Secretary, and to all information concerning infrastructure or other vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed, that may be collected, possessed, or prepared by any agency of the Federal Government.'' This is crucial because the Secretary must have access to the information he or she deems necessary to protect the American people, and cannot simply rely on agencies that have historically been reluctant to share information to determine what the Secretary should have. In Section 202(b)(1) the legislation provides that the Secretary may enter into cooperative agreements with agencies to provide access to such information. At the same time, if no request has been made, or no agreement has been entered into, agencies are still required to provide certain information that is specified in the legislation. This includes, at Section 202(b)(2) (A) all reports (including information reports containing intelligence which has not been fully evaluated), assessments and analytical information relating to threats of terrorism against the United States and to other areas of responsibility assigned by the Secretary; (B) all information concerning the vulnerability of the infrastructure of the United States, or other vulnerabilities of the United States, to terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed; (C) all other information relating to significant and credible threats of terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed; and (D) such other information or material as the President may direct. These provisions require agencies to provide significant amounts of information to the Secretary, even in the absence of a cooperative agreement. With respect to the information required in Section 202(b)(2)(C); in many cases, it may be impossible for agencies to know if certain information is related to ``significant and credible threats'' of terrorism precisely because that can only be determined once the information is fused with information from others. Consequently, to meet the statutory requirement, agencies should clearly endeavor to collect requested information, even if it is not already available, and they should err on the side of providing more, rather than less, information that is already on hand to the Department's analysts. This is clearly the best way to help ensure that the Department can effectively carry out its mandate to prevent, deter, and preempt terrorist attacks. Finally, like SA 4471, H.R. 5005 makes the Department responsible for working with the Director of Central Intelligence to protect sources and methods and with the Attorney General to protect sensitive law enforcement information (Section 201(d)(12)). Also, as the Committee recommended, the substitute formally includes the elements of the Department concerned with analysis of foreign intelligence in the ``intelligence community'' (Section 201(h)) while also empowering the Secretary to consult with the Director of Central Intelligence and other agencies on our nation's intelligence gathering priorities (Section 201(d)(10)). These provisions will ensure that the Department becomes a full partner with the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies in our intelligence community, and that is has a crucial seat at the table in all proceedings where intelligence-gathering priorities are established. Though H.R. 5005 is not exactly what the Governmental Affairs Committee recommended in SA 4471, it does contain key aspects of the Committee's approach and establishes a single point in our government with the responsibility for receiving and assessing all information about terrorist threats to our homeland. Thus, it does represent a very significant improvement over the Administration's proposal. As a result, the information analysis and infrastructure protection function in the Department, assuming it is properly implemented, will greatly improve our nation's overall capacity to prevent, deter, protect against, and respond to terrorist threats against our homeland. Science and Technology The Department will have profound scientific and technological needs, and both the immediate and long-term success of its mission will require the implementation of a broadly-coordinated, tightly-focused, and sustained effort to invest in critical areas of research, accelerate technology development, and expedite the transition and deployment of such technologies into effective use. H.R. 5005 attempts to meet this objective by creating a strong, coherent, and well-funded Directorate of Science and Technology. The Directorate established in this legislation follows directly from the model embodied in the homeland security bill passed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, SA 4471, and explicated in the Chairman's Statement on September 4, 2002 (Congressional Record, pages S8162-S8164). In keeping with that model, the Directorate will be headed by a Senate-confirmed Under Secretary for Science and Technology with expansive responsibilities, as outlined in Section 302, for directing and managing homeland security research, development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation (RDDT&E) activities; coordinating the federal government's civilian efforts, as well as developing a national policy and strategic plan, for meeting homeland security R&D needs; advising the Secretary and supporting the Department's efforts to analyze risks and threats; ensuring the rapid transfer and deployment of technologies capable of advancing homeland security objectives; and conducting research on countermeasures for biological and chemical threats. Research, Development, Demonstration, Testing & Evaluation With respect to his RDDT&E responsibilities, the Under Secretary will act through an array of mechanisms and authorities established in H.R. 5005. The primary driver of innovation within the Directorate will be a Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), which is conceived to be similar in purpose and organization to the highly successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) within the Department of Defense (DOD). Over the past five decades, DARPA has been recognized as one of the most productive engines of technological innovation in the federal government. Its success has been grounded in its ability to recruit outstanding scientific and technical talent, promote creativity and adaptability under a lean, flexible organizational structure, and entice collaboration from other R&D entities by leveraging an independent source of funds. Because the HSARPA created in H.R. 5005 is purposefully patterned after the nearly identical Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (SARPA) contained in SA 4471, the legislative intent concerning the missions, roles, Acceleration Fund, and structure of that organization (see Chairman's Statement on September 4, 2002, Congressional Record, pages S8162-8163) are, of course, straightforwardly applicable to HSARPA. In order to enable HSARPA to achieve parallel success to DARPA, Section 307 of H.R. 5005 provides HSARPA with a $500 million Acceleration Fund to support key homeland security R&D both within and outside of the federal government, leverage collaboration from R&D entities external to the Department, and accelerate the development, prototyping, and deployment of homeland security technologies. The Secretary is likewise provided with DARPA's flexible authority to hire and manage top-flight personnel. Although SA 4471 placed limits on this authority by setting a ceiling of 100 personnel who may be hired pursuant to this authority and instituting a 7-year sunset provision [SA 4471, Section 135(c)(3)(C)], those limits have been eliminated in H.R. 5005 to allow the Secretary greater discretion in exercising such authority commensurate with need [Section 307(b)(6)]. In a later section, Section 831, H.R. 5005 also confers the Secretary with another important authority currently available to the DOD--the ability to engage in ``other transactions'' for both research and prototype projects. This flexible contracting authority for such projects has been integral to DARPA's success, and HSARPA will therefore have the same authority. While the legislation vests this authority directly in the Secretary, it is clearly and specifically contemplated that such authority will be delegated appropriately to other officials within the Department, particularly the Under Secretary for Science and Technology and the Director of HSARPA, for use in connection with R&D and prototyping activities under their direction or management, including extramural RDDT&E projects and projects supported by the Acceleration Fund. Nothing in this legislation should be construed as requiring or encouraging HSARPA to adopt or replicate any specific programs within DARPA, such as the Total Information Awareness Program, or as conferring HSARPA with any additional authority to overcome privacy laws when developing technologies for information-collection. Separate provisions for the Department's other extramural and intramural RDDT&E activities are set forth in Section 308. These provisions are not intended to supercede the specific provisions established for HSARPA under Section 307, and should not be in any way limiting on HSARPA. Regarding the university-based center or centers for homeland security described in Section 308(b)(2), legislative intent regarding the need for flexible application of this provision in order to avoid unfairly favoring one or more particular institutions was clarified in the November floor statements of the Republican manager of the final bill, Senator Phil Gramm. It should therefore be emphasized that the criteria listed under Section 308(b)(2)(B) should not be considered absolute or dispositive in nature, but rather, as factors that should be considered in the context of national homeland security needs and the relative strengths of candidate institutions in meeting those needs. Consistent with this intent, Section 308(b)(2)(C) specifically provides the Secretary and the Under Secretary with full ``discretion'' in determining whether, how, and when to implement these provisions. Consideration of additional relevant criteria to supplement (and, within their discretion, to supercede) those delineated under Section 308(b)(2)(B) is specifically contemplated in Section 308(b)(2)(C). This subsection anticipates as the Secretary and Under Secretary exercise their discretion that they actively engage in a comprehensive, dispassionate, and competitive review of available institutions to determine the optimal selection for serving national interests. It is contemplated that consortia of universities capable of meeting particular areas of required expertise would be eligible to serve as a university center or centers; therefore, there is no restriction on such consortia being considered under Section 308(b)(2). To assure full oversight of the fairness of the selection process, the Secretary is required to report to Congress under Section 308(b)(2)(C) on the full details of the selection and implementation of the university centers. Regarding the headquarters laboratory described in Sections 308(c)(2)-(c)(4), it deserves reiterating that the establishment of such a headquarters laboratory is not mandatory under the legislation. The Secretary and the Under Secretary should use their discretion in determining whether the designation of such a laboratory is necessary and would better assist the Directorate in fulfilling its functions. It is the intent of H.R. 5005 that the Directorate coordinate and draw broadly upon the full range of S&T resources and expertise available in the federal government rather than creating new, duplicative stovepipes. Accordingly, the risks attaching to the latter should be weighed carefully against the potential benefits of establishing a single headquarters laboratory. As an alternative, the Secretary could certainly opt to select a group of institutions and laboratory elements with expertise in a variety of fields to fill the pertinent need. Consequent to the principle of affording the Department with rapid, non- bureaucratic, expansive, and flexible access to existing federal S&T capabilities, the legislation in Section 309 provides the Secretary with authority to utilize any of the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and sites through a variety of mechanisms, most notably, joint sponsorship agreements, and in Section 309(g), establishes an Office for National Laboratories within the Directorate to create a networked laboratory system among the DOE laboratories to support the missions of the Department. With regard to Section 309(c), it should be clarified that this provision is limited to those programs and activities that are transferred from the DOE to the Department under this legislation. There is no general requirement or obligation within this or any other provision to execute or maintain separate contracts for work commissioned by the Department to non-transferred DOE laboratories or sites or their operators. Interagency Coordination and the National Policy and Strategic Plan Notwithstanding the mechanisms described above for enabling the Department to engage and support important homeland security R&D, H.R. 5005 recognizes that the vast bulk of research and development relevant to homeland security will continue to occur outside the direct control of the Department--in other agencies, in academia, and in the private sector. A critical challenge, therefore, will be to ensure that the Department has the proper tools and mechanisms to elicit cooperation across a wide range of disparate R&D entities, each with their own missions and priorities, and to coordinate their collective efforts in service to homeland security goals. A key coordination mechanism envisioned by the legislation is the development of a national policy and strategic plan as described in Section 302(2). This national policy and strategic plan integrates the concepts of the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism and the technology roadmap articulated in SA 4471 [Title III and Section 135(c)(2)(B)] into a single national blueprint for meeting S&T goals and objectives for homeland security. It is intended that a comprehensive technology roadmapping exercise (which is commonly accepted within the S&T community as a prerequisite to optimal organization and coordination of large-scale R&D projects) serve as a basis for, and central component of, the larger policy and plan, and that the resulting roadmap, policy, and plan provide the framework within which all relevant stakeholders, both within and outside of government, will coordinate on a common homeland security RDDT&E agenda. Effective coordination will also require a forum and body through which intensive communication and collaboration may occur. Along these lines, the legislation in Section 311 establishes a Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee (``Advisory Committee'') consisting of representatives from academia and the private sector to both advise the Department and coordinate with communities outside the federal government in conducting homeland security R&D. The utility of having an external, independent entity to inform and guide intra- Department and interagency S&T efforts has been previously demonstrated by the advisory group assembled by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in response to the September 11th attacks. This group, which published a prominent review of the government's homeland security R&D efforts in June 2002 (Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism), played an important and constructive role in identifying and stimulating much needed improvements. Section 311 requires a similar entity to be established that may, among other things, advise the Department by continuously critiquing homeland security S&T efforts in a ``red team'' capacity or function, and recommending new approaches for the Department and outside agencies. It is specifically anticipated that the National Research Council of the NAS, drawing on its extensive network of S&T contacts and the expertise it developed in compiling its June 2002 report, will select appropriate candidates for membership onto the Advisory Committee [Section 311(b)(2)], as well as support the Advisory Committee's work on an ongoing basis. The Advisory Committee is initially authorized for three years, which is a reasonable time period to permit the Secretary to meaningfully assess the Advisory Committee's efficacy in fulfilling its defined purpose. Should the Secretary determine after the initial authorization period that the Advisory Committee has provided, or is likely to provide, useful support and functionality to the Department, it is anticipated that the Secretary will reconstitute or re-establish the Advisory Committee pursuant to his authority under Section 871(a). With respect to R&D coordination among the federal agencies, H.R. 5005 does not specifically carry over the Homeland Security Science & Technology Council (``S&T Council'') from SA 4471 given that it may be unnecessarily redundant to create a new interagency council when interagency coordination mechanisms already exist in the form of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and its various subcommittees. This does not diminish the importance of such an interagency body to the homeland security R&D effort. To the contrary, an active interagency coordination entity must be considered fundamental to enabling the Secretary and the Under Secretary to fulfill their core responsibilities of coordinating the federal government's civilian homeland security R&D efforts [Section 302(2)] and carrying out the Department's S&T agenda through coordination with other federal agencies [Section 302(13)]. The omission of the interagency S&T Council from H.R. 5005 assumes that the NSTC and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), working with the Secretary and the Under Secretary, will establish and promote the strong interagency coordination mandated in Sections 302(2) and 302(13). Consequently, the Secretary, the Under Secretary, the OSTP, and all members of the NSTC are expected to commit to ensuring the viability of the NSTC as a productive coordination mechanism. In the event that such faith proves to be misplaced, a separate interagency group composed of senior R&D representatives from relevant federal agencies and officials from the Executive Office of the White House should be immediately constituted by the Secretary and the Under Secretary based on the authorization for interagency S&T coordination contained in Sections 302(2) and 302(13). These provisions also constitute a directive to agencies with S&T expertise in areas pertinent to homeland security to fully and actively participate in such interagency efforts. scientific and technical support, risk analysis, and the homeland security institute Another major set of responsibilities assigned to the Under Secretary relates to providing specialized advise, expertise, and support to other actors within the homeland security organization [Sections 302 (1), (2), and (3)]. Perhaps the most critical of such responsibilities is supporting the Department with respect to assessing, analyzing, and mitigating homeland security threats, vulnerabilities, and risks. Section 302(2) calls for including coordinated threat identification within the national policy and strategic plan, and Section 302(3) specifically calls for the assessment and testing of ``homeland security vulnerabilities and threats.'' Although primary responsibility for coordinating and integrating risk analysis and risk management resides with the Secretary and the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, the highly complex and technical issues inherent to modern risk analysis methods demand substantial scientific and technical expertise. Section 302(3) mandates that the Under Secretary for S&T support the Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection in this regard. Therefore, Section 305 addresses the problem of obtaining the necessary S&T expertise by giving the Secretary broad authority to establish or contract with Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), which could perform functions not only related to R&D, but extending to risk, threat, and vulnerability analysis. While this authority is discretionary, H.R. 5005 anticipates that it will be exercised actively in accordance with need. In fact, so compelling was the NAS's recommendation in its June 2002 report to create an independent, non-profit institution for critical analysis and decision support, that H.R. 5005 includes another provision to trigger immediate exercise of the broad FFRDC authority. Specifically, Section 312 mandates the creation of a Homeland Security Institute (``Institute'') focusing expressly on capabilities related to risk analysis, scenario-based threat assessments, red teaming, and other functions relevant to homeland security. The Institute is initially authorized for three years, which is a reasonable time period to permit the Secretary to meaningfully assess the Institute's efficacy in fulfilling its defined purpose. Should the Secretary determine after the initial authorization period that the Institute has provided, or is likely to provide, useful support and functionality to the Department, it is anticipated that the Secretary will, pursuant to his authority under Section 305, renew, reconstitute, or re-establish the Institute with appropriately expanded or modified functions to service the Department's ongoing and expanding risk assessment mission. technology transition The Under Secretary is responsible for ensuring that technologies capable of supporting homeland security are quickly tested, evaluated, transitioned, and deployed to appropriate users within or outside the Department. Section 302(6) explicitly requires the Under Secretary to establish a system for transferring such technologies. This system should include processes and mechanisms for identifying homeland security actors and entities with unmet technological needs; matching such entities and needs with available technologies or, if none are readily available, assisting in the development, testing, evaluation, and deployment of new technologies to meet identified needs; ensuring viable technology transition paths for products of homeland security R&D, including HSRAPA-derived technologies; aligning internal R&D priorities and programs to technological needs inside or outside the Department; communicating externally with both technology developers and users to promote alignment of extra-Departmental R&D efforts with homeland security-related technological needs; providing technology developers with information and guidance on interfacing with governmental customers of homeland security technologies; and providing technical assistance to potential governmental users of homeland security technologies. To support the Under Secretary in executing these responsibilities, Section 313 establishes a Technology Clearinghouse (''Clearinghouse'') to serve as a national point-of- contact for both technology developers and potential users. The Clearinghouse must coordinate with the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), and may fully integrate with the TSWG. In light of the fact that the mission of the TSWG dovetails with, and is fully embraced by, that of the Directorate, it is contemplated that the Under Secretary may assume full or joint management, technical, and/or policy oversight of the TSWG. testing and evaluation of technologies for internal acquisition and deployment With respect to technologies being considered for internal use Department-wide or within one or more of its constituent entities, intelligent and well-coordinated testing, evaluation, procurement, and deployment will be crucial given that the new Department will have extensive technological needs, requirements, and dependencies. Too often, government agencies are hampered and distracted from their fundamental missions as a result of unstructured, technically unsophisticated approaches to technology acquisition and deployment that generate interoperability problems downstream. In order to effectively carry out the requirement for the Under Secretary to comprehensively conduct, direct, integrate, and coordinate the demonstrating, testing, and evaluation activities of the Department as articulated in Sections 302(4), 302(5), and 302(12), the Secretary and the Under Secretary should implement procedures to ensure that new technologies being considered for acquisition will be compatible and interoperable with other existing or anticipated technologies. New technologies should not be permitted to move to acquisition without the Under Secretary's sign off on the prior stages in the innovation process, particularly the demonstration, testing, and evaluation stages. The Under Secretary is understood to occupy the role of the Department's chief technology officer, and it is anticipated that he will be provided with responsibilities and authorities befitting that role. Accordingly, the Secretary shall act through the Under Secretary to operationally test and evaluate all major systems targeted for potential acquisition by any entity within the Department, and grant the Under Secretary authority to approve or reject such systems in his discretion. Nothing in this provision is to be construed as proscribing other Departmental entities from undertaking testing and evaluation activities so long as they do so in coordination with, and subject to the final approval of, the Under Secretary. The Under Secretary should also coordinate with the Department's Chief Information Officer, the Under Secretary for Management, and other federal agencies in promoting government-wide compatibility and interoperability of homeland security technologies and systems. By vesting in the Under Secretary the full and broad authority to manage the Department's full spectrum of innovation, from basic research [Sections 302(4), 302(5), 302(11), and 302(12)] through demonstration, testing, and evaluation [Sections 302(4), 302(5), and 302(12)] to transition and deployment [Section 302(6)], the Under Secretary will have the means and mandate to initiate a powerful, systematic approach to innovation that generates new technologies for combating terrorism and ensures integrated acquisition and use of such technologies. Placing control of all the key innovation stages with the Under Secretary is critical to assuring that research, development, demonstration, testing, evaluation, and deployment in the Department do not become disjointed and fractured so that a coherent innovation process can prevail. Research on Countermeasures for Biological and Chemical Threats True preparation for future biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear attacks will depend upon the development of vaccines and medicines to combat the most likely threats. At present, our nation is woefully unprepared for this type of attack. In his June 28, 2002 testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Dr. J. Leighton Read discussed the barriers to the development of a national medical arsenal to combat terrorism. The federal government has a long and successful history in conducting basic biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have served as an international model for funding and conducting human health-related research. However, in facing biological and chemical terrorism, we face a new challenge. In addition to encouraging basic research and training the next generation of scientists, the federal government will have to deliver actual pharmaceutical products and will have to deliver them quickly. Unlike the traditional pharmaceutical market, companies that choose to develop drugs to fight bioterrorist attacks that may never occur will not be able to rely on an existing market. Yet producing actual products to meet biological and chemical threats will depend upon private sector involvement. As a result, the Under Secretary should incorporate the goal of engaging the private sector into develop biothreat countermeasures into every level of his strategy, and adopt plans and policies to enable such private sector participation to occur. H.R. 5005 provides tools to accomplish this task. While Section 302(4) states generally that the Under Secretary's responsibilities do not extend to human health-related research and development activities, this provision should be construed consistent with other specific provisions in H.R. 5005 ascribing the Under Secretary a major role in addressing biological and chemical threats related to terrorism, a role which will require the Under Secretary to conduct specific types of human health- related research and development activities. Section 302, therefore, does not circumscribe the Under Secretary's authority to conduct research necessary to implement the major biothreat-related functions delineated in Sections 302(2) (requiring the Under Secretary to develop a national policy and plan that addresses, among other things, chemical and biological terrorist threats, and further requiring the Under Secretary to coordinate the Federal Government's civilian efforts to identify and develop countermeasures to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and other emerging terrorist threats), 302(5) (requiring the Under Secretary to direct, fund, and conduct national research and development for detecting, preventing, protecting against, and responding to terrorist attacks, which perforce include those involving biological or chemical agents), 302(8) (requiring the Under Secretary to collaborate with the Secretary of Agriculture under the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002), 302(9) (requiring the Under Secretary to collaborate with the Secretary of HHS in determining biological agents and toxins to be listed as select agents), 303(1)(A) (transferring control and management of certain chemical and biological national security programs within the Department of Energy into the Department of Homeland Security), and Sections 303(2) and 1708 (establishing and transferring into the Department a National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center). The National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center (``Center'') established and transferred in H.R. 5005 will, in particular, require the Under Secretary to engage in extensive human health-related R&D. The Center is intended to lead the Department's research efforts on bioterrorism by developing ``countermeasures to potential attacks by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction'' (Section 1708). The Center will conduct research on bioterrorism, and by definition, this should include study of the pathogenesis of bioterrorist agents, the immune response to these pathogens, and research on vaccines, drugs, and other medical antidotes. Since the Center is placed under the direction and management of the Directorate, the Under Secretary is conferred with substantial obligations to conduct human health-related R&D. While the Secretary clearly has the authority to conduct the type of R&D discussed above internally, H.R. 5005 contemplates that the civilian human health-related countermeasures research carried out by HHS shall remain under the direction of the Secretary of HHS. Sections 304(a) and (b) mandate that while the Secretary of HHS shall retain authority for such research, he shall collaborate with the Secretary of Homeland Security in developing between the two Departments a coordinated strategy and outcome measurements for these research activities. As outlined in H.R. 5005, it is crucial that such research reflect the overall national policy and strategic plan developed by the Secretary and the Under Secretary under Section 302(2), and that the efforts of the two Departments be fully in concert. In the biothreat and chemical threat areas, the Secretary should work to ensure the resulting policy, plan, and benchmarks mandated under Section 302(2) reflect what is most needed and what pharmaceutical products can be timely developed against the most likely and dangerous threats to the public. Since this will require participation from the private sector, the policy and plan, which will include a technology roadmap, must necessarily include a strategy for translating basic science results into product development within the private pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Emergency Preparedness and Response The Department will coordinate the federal response to disasters. This responsibility will encompass natural and manmade disasters, terrorist attacks and all incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, and other large-scale emergencies. In addition, the Department will assist the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture in responding to public health and agricultural emergencies. The Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response was designed to spearhead this effort within the Department. In order to accomplish these tasks the Department will need an interdisciplinary, well funded, and well-organized Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response. The initial design of this directorate was established by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in S. 1534. This original design was refined by the Governmental Affairs Committee amendment, SA 4471, and further explained by the Chairman's statement on September 4, 2002 (Congressional Record, pages S8162-S8164). Consistent with this original design, H.R. 5005 establishes a Directorate that includes the essential federal emergency response agencies and offices. The Directorate shall build and direct a comprehensive national incident management system and consolidate existing federal emergency response plans into a single, coordinated national plan as outlined in H.R. 5005, Sections 502(5), 502(6), and 507(b)(1-2). States and localities should have access to and information about these systems and plans to ensure optimal coordination during an emergency. These plans should encompass all affected governmental entities and reflect both local and national needs. The consolidated federal response plan, outlined in Sections 502(6) and 507(b)(1-2), must interface with state and local response plans and should utilize local resources wherever possible. Interoperability The planning responsibilities of the Under Secretary shall include the development of a comprehensive plan and effort for improving communication interoperability during emergency response (H.R. 5005, Section 502(7)). In developing the communication technology and interoperability, the Under Secretary must pay particular attention to the development, support and utilization of effective telemedicine networks, as well as the application of advanced information technology to effective training for and delivery of emergency medical services. Standards In order to implement the missions delineated in Section 502, the Directorate shall establish and disseminate standards for equipment, personnel, training, resources, and the resulting emergency response. Standards shall be used as benchmarks for training and acquisition to ensure a uniform quality and interoperability during a response. The Under Secretary shall use these standards to provide recommendations and guidance to state and local governments. Public Health and Agricultural Emergencies The Secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture shall retain the authority to oversee the federal response to public health and agricultural emergencies, respectively. This authority includes the authority to declare such emergencies. However, these agencies shall fully collaborate with the new Department which shall support these agencies in their response, especially with regards to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The Department should serve as an active and involved resource during bioterrorist and agroterrorist attacks. As outlined in Section 887 of H.R. 5005, the Department shall work in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other engaged federal agencies to optimize information sharing between agencies commencing forthwith, as well as before and after the declaration of a public health emergency. This provision was intended to ensure that all involved agencies have all the information necessary to effectively perform their role in the federal response. See also, Section 892. Training In order to help ``ensure the effectiveness of emergency response efforts'' as required in Section 502(1) of H.R. 5005, the Directorate shall lead federal efforts to train first responders in disaster response. The term, first responder, shall include law enforcement, fire fighting, emergency medical, health care, and volunteer personnel. To be effective, training shall encompass exercises, on-line computer simulations, drills, courses, and other interactive learning environments. Personnel should be trained in every aspect of emergency response, including prevention/preparation, mitigation, active response, and recovery efforts. Training should include utilization of the Noble Training Center, transferred to the new Department as part of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (Section 503(5)) and other training sites and campuses within the Federal Emergency Management System, as well as full coordination with the National Guard. Finally, the Directorate shall improve, and train first responders in use of, governmental on-line resources to ensure they have the latest information available during a response. Strategic National Stockpile Authority to oversee the Strategic National Stockpile shall be transferred to the new Department. In H.R. 5005, this transfer of authority is described in Sections 502(3)(B), 503(6), and 1705. This language clarifies that the existing structure of the Stockpile program, as described in Section 121 of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (Public Law 107- 188), shall remain intact. The Stockpile shall continue to be a multi- agency effort, with significant roles for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services. In particular, the Department should continue to incorporate the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Preparedness (CDC) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP), within the Department of Health and Human Services, in determining the composition of the stockpile and the parameters for its use. The Department shall consult the CDC and OPHEP in deciding which medications, vaccines, and medical supplies are most appropriate for the Stockpile (Section 1705(a)(1)(C)). The Department shall also coordinate with the Secretary of Health and Human Services in determining the need to deploy the stockpile, on an incident-by- incident basis. The Under Secretary should continue to use the resources of Department of Veterans' Affairs in procuring and storing the contents of the Stockpile (Section 1705(a)(1)(B)). And the Under Secretary shall call upon the Department of Defense and the National Guard to help transport and secure the contents of the stockpile as appropriate. The Office of Emergency Preparedness SA 4471 described, in detail, the transfer of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP) from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department. The transfer of OEP was retained in H.R. 5005 in sections 502(3)(B) and 503(5). Since the Office of Emergency Preparedness is not defined in statute, it should be clarified that the transfer of OEP shall include the Office and all of its component agencies. This includes the National Disaster Medical System, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, the Noble Training Center, the Special Events Disaster Response program, and all other programs directed by OEP. Of course, nothing in the final legislation should be construed to mean that the transfer of the OEP programs shall result in the transfer of personnel whose primary duties reside outside of OEP. The National Disaster Medical System For example, the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) is an inter- agency program. It involves personnel, facilities, and equipment from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies. The personnel and assets from these departments that are deployed by NDMS during the an emergency response, but whose primary day to day roles are central to the missions of agencies outside of the Department, shall remain part of their home agencies. This includes members of the Disaster Medial Assistance Teams (DMATs), the Disaster Mortuary Assistance Teams (DMATs), and the Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMATs). The transfer of the NDMS component of OEP shall be restricted to the management, organizational, and coordinating personnel, functions, and assets. The Metropolitan Medical Response System Similarly, the transfer of the Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) does not include transfer of member hospitals. Rather it shall consist of a transfer of the grant programs and related personnel. The MMRS grants have been used to improve hospital and first responder preparedness in select metropolitan regions across the country. Administration of these ongoing grants will become part of the new Department. Although H.R. 5005 transfers the authority of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness for OEP (Section 503(5)), the Under Secretary shall at all times attempt to maximize communication and interaction between OEP and its component programs and the Department of Health and Human Services, which will be crucial in meeting the Directorate's mission requirements. As the preceding discussion illustrates, OEP will have to coordinate efforts of personnel from several different agencies. But in addition, OEP and its programs must remain integrated into the larger national public health infrastructure. Particular efforts should be made to coordinate OEP programs with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. This office, within the Department of Health and Human Services, is charged with coordinating intra and interagency health preparedness efforts. OEP should remain a part of this larger whole. Conduct of Certain Public Health-Related Activities Section 505 of H.R. 5005 addresses two critical issues. First, it is imperative that the efforts to improve our public health infrastructure and their emergency preparedness remain under the control of the Secretary for Health and Human Services, although coordinated with the Secretary. On June 28, 2002 the Governmental Affairs Committee heard testimony from several public health experts. In their testimony, the witnesses concurred that in order to be functional during an emergency, public health preparedness efforts had to be integrated into the larger public health system. This ``dual-use'' improves underlying public health efforts while ensuring health providers remain familiar with emergency preparedness networks and programs. Their testimony pointed out that dual-use was particularly important during a response to a biological attack. In this case, the terrorist attack may not be immediately apparent and detection may depend upon the ability of normal health care systems to detect unusual patterns of illness. H.R. 5005 also stressed this important theme through Section 505 and language in Section 887, which calls for interaction between the agencies before and after the declaration of a public health emergency. Section 505 stipulates that the Department of Health and Human Services shall retain primary authority over efforts to improve State, local, and hospital preparedness and response to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear and other emerging terrorist threats ``carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services.'' In this regard, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall have authority to set priorities and preparedness goals. However, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, working through the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness, must develop a coordinated strategy for these activities in collaboration with the Secretary (Section 505(a)). In doing so, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will also collaborate with the Secretary in establishing benchmarks and outcome measures for success. Nothing in Section 505 should be interpreted as disrupting ongoing preparedness efforts within the Department of Health and Human Services. All ongoing emergency preparedness grants should continue. Selection criteria and the evaluation of grant application shall continue to be determined by the Department of Health and Human Services, consistent with Section 505 provisions. Human Resources Management H.R. 5005 contains two key provisions relating to employees at the new Department--section 841, which governs the establishment of a human resources management system, and section 842, which deals with labor-management relations at the Department. These provisions have been among the most contentious in debate on this legislation. The Administration has consistently sought what it calls ``flexibility'' in the personnel area, by which it means a carte blanche to waive civil service protections and union rights of the employees at the Department. Sections 841 and 842 of H.R. 5005 are significantly more protective in this regard than the provisions in the President's original proposal (i.e., the one released June 18, 2002), but these sections remain a major disappointment. A risk remains of politicization, arbitrary treatment, and other personnel abuses in the federal government, in a way that may damage the merit-based workplace federal employees and the American people have come to depend on. I hope what I fear does not come to pass, and that this Administration and future Administrations will not overstep bounds, overexert authority, and thereby undermine the effectiveness of the new Department. I have summarized below the protections that sections 841 and 842 do provide. Establishment of Human Resources Management System. Section 841 authorizes the Secretary, jointly with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to prescribe a ``human resources management system'' (HRMS) for the Department. The section provides that the HRMS may waive certain provisions of the civil service statutes, and specifies required procedures by which the system is to be developed, negotiated, and adopted. When it comes to the creation of a HRMS, the law still requires that employees in the new Department will be hired, promoted, disciplined, and fired in conformity with all merit system principles and in violation of no prohibited personnel practices. If and when existing civil service rights and protections come up for consideration in the development of a HRMS, the Administration may waive, modify, or otherwise affect such rights and protections only to the extent it can clearly demonstrate that they clearly conflict with the homeland security mission, and that they are not being waived merely in the interest of administrative convenience. Fair and independent procedures must be maintained for employees with grievances, such as those who allege abuse or corruption within the Department. Changes to the system must be carefully crafted through negotiation and collaboration with employees and their representatives; and, if a disagreement arises, the period of at least 30 days that section 841 requires for bargaining and mediation between the Administration and the employee representatives must be substantial and in good faith, not cosmetic. The provisions in section 841 that allow a HRMS to waive statutes are precisely drawn, detailing which parts of the United States Code may be waived, modified, or otherwise affected and which parts may not. For example, the legislation specifically forbids waiver of merit system principles or prohibited personnel practices. Furthermore, as to provisions referred to in 5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9), the legislation forbids waiver not only of the provisions themselves, but also of provisions implementing those protections through affirmative action or through any right or remedy. Sections 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9) include laws against discrimination, against reprisal for whistleblowing, and retaliation for exercising rights. Section 841 thus assures that the HRMS will not affect employees' ability to appeal a personnel action to the Merit Systems Protection Board, under existing law, in a case where the employee alleges a discrimination, retaliation, or reprisal covered and referred to by Sec. Sec. 2302(b)(1), (8) and (9). Section 841 also requires the HRMS to ensure that employees may organize and bargain collectively, subject only to exclusion from coverage or limitation on negotiability established by 5 U.S.C. chapter 71 or other law. Furthermore, the grant of waiver authority under section 841 refers explicitly and only to part III of title 5, United States Code. Section 841 thus grants no authority to waive any provision of law outside of part III. This means, for example, that the HRMS may not waive, modify, or otherwise affect such government-wide employee rights and protections as, for example: (1) the Office of Special Counsel's authority to investigate any prohibited personnel practice and seek corrective action or disciplinary action from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) (5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1211 et seq.); (2) employees' right to seek corrective action from the MSPB in a case of reprisal for whistleblowing (5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1221-1222); (3) the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (Pub. L. 95-521, as amended; printed as an appendix to 5 U.S.C.); (4) Veterans benefits (including appeal rights to MSPB) (38 U.S.C.); and (5) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 201 et seq.). Likewise, some of the right and protections applicable to particular agencies or groups of employees being transferred to the Department are set forth in portions of the United States Code outside of part III of title 5, or were not enacted by Congress as incorporated into the United States Code at all, and these rights and protections may not be waived by the HRMS. While the waiver authority granted by section 841 is broad, the provisions noted above and other provisions that may not be waived under section 841 can afford significant protections against politicization, arbitrary action, and abuse. The Secretary and the Director must be scrupulous in not attempting to waive, modify, or otherwise affect any provisions of law that are beyond the express waiver authority, because such an attempt would violate section 841. Labor-Management Relations. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) states that the President may issue an executive order excluding any agency from coverage under the Federal Sector Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS) if the President determines: that the agency has a primary function in intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and that the provisions of the FSLMRS cannot be applied consistent with national security. Section 842 of H.R. 5005 builds on that existing provision by stating that, for the President to issue an executive order excluding an agency transferred to the Department, not only must the criteria in 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) be satisfied, but also two additional clarifying criteria must be satisfied: that the mission and responsibilities of the agency materially changed, and that a majority of the employees in the agency have as their primary duty intelligence, counterintelligence, or investigative work directly related to terrorism investigation. That provision would provide employees at the Department some appropriate measure of stability in their labor relations, although the provision is subject to a subsequent provision of section 842. The President can override the earlier provision if he determines that the earlier provision would have a substantial adverse impact on the Department's ability to protect homeland security, and provides Congress a detailed written finding explaining the reasons for the determination. The President has to give the Congress 10 days' advance notice by submitting the written explanation. At the expiration of the ten day period, the President would then have the power to issue an executive order under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(b)(1) under the criteria of that section only. I still fail to understand why any President would need to remove collective bargaining rights from federal employees, whose union rights are very limited in comparison with the private sector, and who have a long history of helping to protect the homeland and continue to do the same protective work in the new Department. But if and when this President or a future President does move to eliminate collective bargaining within a unit of the Department, the President can take this step only if it is truly essential to national security and homeland security and not merely a convenience to management. This requires that the Department's leadership must first make good-faith efforts to work cooperatively with the unions before the President can determine that union representation is incompatible with national security or homeland security. And the written explanation that the President is required to provide to Congress must of course be thorough and specific. The requirement reflects a bipartisan concern that this Administration and future Administrations must make the case for stripping workers of their right to bargain collectively before issuing an Executive Order. The President must provide Congress a comprehensive and specific explanation on the threshold issue of how and why the right of workers in a particular agency or subdivision to collectively bargain would have a substantial adverse impact on homeland security. Other provisions. Two other provisions of H.R. 5005 relating to human resources management warrant comment. Section 881 requires that the Secretary, in consultation with the Director of OPM, shall review the pay and benefit plans of each agency transferred to the Department and, within 90 days, submit a plan to Congress for ensuring the elimination of disparities, especially among law enforcement personnel. Nothing in section 881 provides for how the elements of the plan shall be put into effect, however, so I believe it would be desirable for the plan to identify the specific changes to law, regulation, and policy that would be needed to eliminate the disparities, and make specific recommendations for effecting those changes. Section 1512(e) states that the Secretary, in regulations prescribed jointly with the Director of OPM, may adopt the rules, procedures, terms and conditions established by statute, rule, or regulation before the effective date of the Act in any agency transferred to the Department under the Act. This section 1512 contains the Savings Provisions for the reorganization effected by the Act, and subsection (e) is intended to enable the Secretary to keep a transferred agency subject to the same rules, procedures, terms and conditions that applied to the agency before the transfer. This provision does not, of course, provide authority to the Secretary to take a provision that was applicable to one agency before the effective date and apply it to another agency or other part of the Department.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, it is a happy twist of fate that the Senator from Pennsylvania is on the floor as I rise to support final passage of this legislation, which would create the unified and accountable Department of Homeland Security that the American people urgently need to protect them. It is a happy twist of fate because the legislative journey that brings us to the eve of adoption of this critically important legislation began on October 11, 2001, more than a year ago, but clearly a month after September 11, 2001, when I was privileged, along with Senator Specter, to introduce the first legislation that would authorize the creation of this Department. I thank him for joining me on that occasion and for working with us right through the road we have traveled, which has been long and taken twists and turns we never could have foreseen. We have even run into a few potholes along the way. The important point is we are about to reach the destination, and we are going to reach it together--in a broad, bipartisan statement of support for this critically necessary new Department. Giving credit where it is due, the journey actually began before October 11 and September 11, more than 18 months ago, when the visionary Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, led by our former colleagues Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, warned us of our vulnerabilities to terrorism with a painful prescience, and urged the creation of exactly the kind of new consolidated federal department to fight terrorism that we are about to adopt. As I say, we have reached our destination, and that, I believe, is testament to the power of the basic idea underlying this legislation. It is also a reflection that our history changed on September 11, our vulnerabilities were exploited by our terrorist enemies, and we can never let that happen again. Those vulnerabilities remain, notwithstanding the improvements that have been made over the last year. We recognize that protecting ourselves from terrorism will take an unprecedented commitment of people and resources. Building this Department will involve no shortage of problems, as any massive undertaking of this kind would--but we, after this initial act of creation, must be ready to improve, to support, and ultimately to protect the American people with this Department. We have no choice. Obviously, as I have said earlier today and at other times in the debate on the bill, the measure before us is not perfect. No legislation ever is. There are parts of the legislation before us that I think are not only unrelated to homeland security and unnecessary, but unwise and unfair. Of course, we made an attempt to eliminate those provisions with the motion to strike that came very close to passing earlier today. But this is the legislative process here on Earth, not a perfect process such as that which might exist in a heavenly location. We do not always get what we want here. Hopefully, though, through compromise, steadfastness, and hard work, the American people will get what they need. And that, I think, is what is happening with the adoption of this bill, which will occur in just a few hours. We must remember also--to say what is clear--that this bill will be written in the law books. It is not written in stone. If we need to make changes down the road, we can and we will. Nonetheless, all of those caveats, conditions, and concerns about certain elements of the legislation notwithstanding, we are about to be part of an historic accomplishment. It is the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since 1947, probably the most complex Federal reorganization in history, but that is what our present circumstances require to sustain our security. When we pass this bill, we in Congress must then not turn away but turn our attention toward overseeing the Department, with a clear vision and commitment. We must provide the necessary resources, which we still have not done, not just to this Department but to all of those throughout America, the Federal, county, State, and local governments who will partner with us to protect the security of the American people. Early next year, we will have to confirm the Department's leaders and begin to review its strategies and objectives. I look forward to playing an active oversight role under the new leadership of the new chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins of Maine, and in the Senate at large. Part of that oversight role must be taking great care to make sure this administration and future administrations use the authorities this bill gives them in a constructive and constitutional manner. The important thing to say is we are ending this journey mostly together, certainly with a strong bipartisan vote. Though we have made the twists and turns and had the obstacles along the way I have referred to, the fact is, once we end this part of the journey, we begin the next phase. On that phase, I hope and believe nonpartisanship will be the rule, not the exception. I hope and believe that we will oversee and support the historic new effort to achieve homeland security in our new circumstances with as little partisanship as has been demonstrated by those of us who have been privileged to work as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where there are disagreements, but rarely are they partisan. That, I hope and believe, will characterize our work in support of the new Department of Homeland Security. I want to speak to some of the conditions this legislation will correct. As I said earlier, we have made some progress over the past 14 months in trying to close the vulnerabilities September 11 revealed. The Office of Homeland Security has been created. The FBI and CIA have begun the process of reform. FEMA has focused more resources on countering terrorism. Smallpox vaccines are stockpiled around the country. We have begun efforts to link Federal law enforcement authorities to State and local police and to give community first responders some of the guidance, if not yet the resources, they so critically need. But the fact is we remain fundamentally and unacceptably disorganized, and that is why we need to restructure in exactly the way this legislation will require. Today, there are a lot of people and agencies in the government whose responsibilities include homeland security. Their duties often overlap. Everyone is in charge of their own domain and, therefore, no one is in charge of the overall homeland security effort. A year ago, we came to understand tragically, painfully, that the status quo was untenable. We knew we had these gaps in preparedness, but in the aftermath of September 11, there was no agreement on how to move forward. Our Governmental Affairs Committee held 18 hearings, and over time we grew more convinced our weaknesses were so profound they cried out for fundamental reorganization. We saw border patrol agencies that seemed unable to communicate with each other, let alone to stop dangerous goods and people from entering the United States of America. We saw intelligence agencies, despite strong signals about a potential terrorist attack of the type we sustained on September 11, failing to put those pieces together. We saw first responders around the country spread thinner than ever. And we saw deviously creative terrorists acquiring and applying technology to advance their own ends--but an American government that had not yet sought to marshal the most innovative people, our people, in the history of the world to meet this life-or-death challenge. We did not like what we saw. So we worked hard to better organize it, to make it more efficient, to make it more focused, to create a bill that would empower a Secretary with budget authority to get the agencies involved in homeland security to work together. That is what led to our introduction of the bill with Senator Specter and others, including Senator Cleland, and ultimately to report the bill out of the Governmental Affairs Committee in May. I don't think we can count the ups and downs since then. The finished product we are prepared to vote on today is, notwithstanding the concerns I have expressed, a great leap forward for the security of the American people. It is a great achievement to have reached agreement on a governmental reorganization of this magnitude. This is, after all, a very turf-conscious town, one in which we often speak volumes about the need for change, but just as often, probably more often, fail to deliver change. This bill will deliver change. Former Senators Hart and Rudman, who ably led that commission I referred to, this year were asked again to head an independent task force created by the Council on Foreign Relations. The final report of the task force, released October 24, 2002, was entitled titled ``America Still Unprepared--America Still in Danger.'' I read from the conclusion. Quickly mobilizing the nation to prepare for the worst is an act of prudence, not fatalism. In the 21st century, security and liberty are inseparable. The absence of adequate security elevates the risk that laws will be passed immediately in the wake of surprise terrorist attacks that will be reactive, not deliberative. Predictably, the consequence will be to compound the initial harm incurred by a tragic event with measures that overreach in terms of imposing costly new security mandates and the assumption of new government authorities that may erode our freedoms. Accordingly, aggressively pursuing America's homeland security imperatives immediately may well be the most important thing we can do to sustain our cherished freedoms for future generations. That is exactly what we will do when we adopt this legislation in a few hours. And pursuing America's homeland security imperatives is not only critically important for future generations of Americans; let us also realize that, as we adopt and create this new Department, we set a powerful example for the nations of the world. Terrorists threaten innocent lives everywhere. When we demonstrate that we are willing and able to earn both security and more freedom, we will show free nations that they can preserve their way of life without living in fear of terror. And, equally important, we will demonstrate to those nations remaining in the world whose people are not free that they can embrace freedom and tolerance and democracy without compromising their safety. There are few more important signals we can send by our example to the nations of the world. In 1919, Henry Cabot Lodge said famously: ``If the United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it.'' I add today, when the United States succeeds, the best hopes of mankind succeed with it. When we succeed in protecting our homeland security and preserving our freedom, we will show the way to nations throughout the world. This evening we say to the people of America: have confidence, your government is organizing itself to protect your security. We need not accept another September 11 type terrorist attack as inevitable. It is not. We are the strongest nation in the world. If we marshal our strength as this new Department can, no future terrorist attack such as September 11 will ever occur again. Finally, I give credit and thanks to the Members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and to the majority staff for their passion, precision, and persistence. They were tireless, working day and night, through recesses, weekends, and holidays, and they have every right to be proud of this product of their labor: a new Department that will better protect the American people for generations. The names of the staff members, from both the Committee and from my personal staff, are: Holly Idelson, Mike Alexander, Larry Novey, Susan Propper, Kevin Landy, Josh Greenman, Bill Bonvillian, Michelle McMurry, Kiersten Todt Coon, Joyce Rechtschaffen, Laurie Rubenstein, Leslie Phillips, Fred Downey, Adrian Erckenbrack, Yul Kwon, Thomas Holloman, Donny Williams, Janet Burrell, Darla Cassell, Wendy Wang, Megan Finlayson, and Adam Sedgewick. I thank them all for their commitment. I would also like to thank the numerous staff for other members who have been so helpful throughout the process. On the Governmental Affairs Committee, so many staff played an important role in this bill. On Senator Durbin's Staff, Marianne Upton and Sue Hardesty. On Senator Akaka's staff, Rick Kessler, Nanci Langley, Sherri Stephan and Jennifer Tyree. On Senator Levin's staff, Laura Stuber. On Senator Cleland's staff, Donni Turner. On Senator Carnahan's staff, Sandy Fried. On Senator Carper's staff, John Kilvington. On Senator Dayton's staff, Bob Hall. Senator Daschle's staff also has contributed greatly to the enactment of this legislation; I'd like to thank in particular Andrea LaRue. From the Office of Legislative Counsel, I'd like to thank Tony Coe and Matthew McGhie for their assistance and guidance. I thank Senator Thompson, who is leaving the Senate soon--tonight, presumably--for the pleasure of his company on this journey, and the contributions he made to the historical accomplishment this legislation represents. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the distinguished Senator from Ohio for yielding, and I thank him for his comments, which are right on the mark. Information assurance will be critical to the new Department of Homeland Security, and independent evaluations can be useful tools to improve the security of information systems. In fact, information assurance is critical to the entire Federal Government and deserves to be a key component in any cybersecurity strategy. I look forward to seeing this framework for independent software evaluation evolve and improve through processes like the National Information Assurance Partnership and the Common Criteria.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I also thank the Senator from Ohio for his comments and look forward to working with him, as well. unaccompanied child protection act

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to applaud passage by the House and Senate today of the E-Government Act of 2002. The E-Government Act is strong, bipartisan legislation that will help bring the Federal Government into the electronic age by improving the access of all citizens to the government services and information they rely on every day in their work and personal lives. The bill that we are passing today, H.R. 2458, represents a consensus between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House, and with the administration. It is the product of more than a year of negotiations and cooperation between Senators Fred Thompson, Conrad Burns and me, and Congressmen Tom Davis, Jim Turner, Dan Burton, and Henry Waxman. It is also the result of important input from a range of constituencies who support electronic government. This bill has won the support of the IT industry, of the public access community, of privacy advocates, and of non-profit groups interested in good government. There are many others who have contributed to the legislation, too many to name here. The bill demonstrates what can happen when we put aside partisan interests and work together to improve the performance of our Government. I introduced the E-Government Act, S. 803, on May 1, 2001, with Senator Burns as chief co-cosponsor, and many original co-sponsors from both parties. This March after months of negotiations with the White House and with the help of my friend Senator Thompson, an amended version of the bill was reported out of the Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee filed Report No. 107-174 with the bill; this report provides important explanations and background on key concepts and terms in the legislation and should be referred to as relevant legislative history. The E-Government Act first passed the Senate on June 27 of this year. This fall, the House Government Reform Committee took up H.R. 2458, companion legislation to S. 803 that had been introduced by Rep. Jim Turner on July 11, 2001. The House Government Reform Committee incorporated virtually all of the amended S. 803. It also expanded upon several provisions and added new ones, some of them initiatives that had been worked on for some time by Congressman Davis, Turner, Burton and Waxman. The revised E-government legislation was passed by the House by unanimous consent early this morning. In less than a decade the tremendous growth of the Internet has transformed the way industry and the public conduct their business and gain access to needed information. This, in turn, has spawned a growing public expectation that government will make use of new information technologies, and a growing support for electronic government. Information technology, and the Internet in particular, provide a unique opportunity to re-package government information and services, so they are offered to the public according to the needs of individual customers. They can also facilitate interagency cooperation without requiring a major reorganization of government agencies. Ultimately, e- government can transform the way government operates, essentially effecting a ``virtual'' reengineering of government. This paradigm shift requires systems based on function and the needs of the citizen rather than agency jurisdiction. If the government integrates processes across agency boundaries, the public will experience government as a seamless web of offerings. Federal services and information on the Internet can even be consolidated with those of state and local governments. The ``E-Government Act of 2002'' will facilitate this transformation to a government organized more appropriately according to the needs of the public. The bill requires agencies to link their e-government initiatives to key customer segments, and to work collectively in doing so. The E-Government Fund provides necessary funding for inter-agency projects, overcoming the difficulty in securing appropriations for cooperative endeavors. The Federal Internet Portal provides ``one-stop shopping'' for citizens, businesses, and other governments: information and services will be integrated according to the needs of all users, all of it accessible from a single point on the Internet. The Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government will oversee and promote this vital transformation. Among its many provisions, the E-Government Act would: establish an Office of Electronic Government, headed by a Presidentially-appointed Administrator within the Office of Management and Budget; authorize $345 million over four years for an E-Government Fund to support interagency e-government projects; improve upon the centralized Federal Government online portal that now exists so that it is more user friendly and establish an online directory of Federal web sites, organized by subject matter; require Federal courts to post opinions and other information online, and regulatory agencies to conduct rule- making over the Internet; improve recruitment and training of information technology professionals in Federal agencies; and encourage electronic interoperability so that different agencies can communicate with one another more efficiently. We have taken care to include significant privacy protections and we extend and improve successful information security provisions due to expire this month. The Thompson-Lieberman Government Information Security Reform Act, which was enacted at the end of the last Congress, has provided a sturdy management framework for protecting the security of government computers. Congressman Davis has authored a new version of the legislation, updating it and improving it. As we are also in the process of debating homeland security legislation, it is worth noting that the E-Government Act is directly relevant to the goal of ensuring improved homeland security. The E- Government Act will give the Federal Government the tools and structure to transform its IT systems, one of the greatest vulnerabilities of agencies now tasked with homeland security missions. As we've seen through dozens of depressing revelations over the last year, we have desperate need for more effective information systems at agencies like the FBI, CIA, Department of State, the INS, and state and local authorities. The E-Government Act will help the Federal Government get that job done, by establishing more effective IT management, establishing mandates for action, and authorizing funding. The bill will also substantially enhance the ability of the Federal Government to quickly provide information and services to citizens to help them prepare for, and respond to, terrorism, natural disasters, and other homeland threats. In the hours and days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Americans flooded government websites in record numbers, seeking information more targeted than what the media was providing: what was happening; how they should respond to protect themselves from possible future attacks; how they could help victims; and how people who were victims themselves could seek assistance. The E-Government Act will substantially enhance the ability of the Federal Government to quickly provide information and services to citizens to help them prepare for, and respond to, terrorism, natural disasters, and other homeland threats. Mr. President, Congress's passage of this legislation will result in a better Government and a stronger America.