Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. In this case, because I have used very little time, I want to hold it to allow the Senators from Maryland both to have the chance to speak.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, let me conclude in the moment I have remaining. I have the feeling this will not be the last moment I or other Members will have to discuss the Graham-Miller substitute or the question of protections for Federal workers. There is a significant disagreement about the protections for homeland security workers. I do think, as we talk about the Nelson- Chafee-Breaux compromise, which I support, that it will be seen that it not only gives some protection to Federal workers, particularly those who are currently unionized and will be transferred to the new building, but it leaves the President with the last word on matters of national security. Let not the debate on that matter obscure the fact that, as Senator Gramm himself has said, 95 percent of his substitute is the same as our committee bill. So let's settle the small point of disagreement and get the rest that we agree on done. I believe my time has expired. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Illinois such time as he requires.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I yield myself a moment or two or as much time as I require. I will yield in a moment so Senator Miller may speak. While he was on the floor, I wanted to thank Senator Durbin for the substantial contribution he made to the committee's proposal for a Department of Homeland Security overall and the specific, unique, very valuable proposal he made regarding information technology. This is really a key to all sorts of activities in our world today, including homeland security; the ability to interconnect levels of our government, different agencies that will be part of the new Department and Federal, State, county, and local governments. I appreciate it. Senator Gramm and I have had discussions, and at some point, as the most controversial parts of this discussion work their way to either an agreement or the Senate works its will, I hope we can sit and talk about sections of our committee bill, such as Senator Durbin's, which are not partisan; they are good Government, with a capital G, good. We ought to be able to reach a bipartisan agreement to include that in whatever Department of Homeland Security we create. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Objection.

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, could the Chair indicate how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I am very pleased to see in the Chamber my friend from Hawaii, Senator Akaka, a very significant member of our committee, who has contributed substantially, in so many ways, to our legislation that came out of committee. I yield the Senator up to 10 minutes for his statement.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, of course, we want to have a vote on the substitute amendment. What is the basis for denying Senators the normal privilege, which the Senator from Texas has exercised and utilized on so many occasions, to offer a second-degree amendment to his substitute so the Senate can work its will, dispose of it, and then go to an up-or-down vote?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Maryland is absolutely right. There is no justification for it. At some level, it is not only wrong, it is offensive. And I thank the Senator for his substantial contribution to this debate. May I ask the Chair how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That is correct.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I do not object to my colleague from Connecticut speaking. I want Senator Reid to know I would not be surprised to see the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, a cosponsor of the amendment, on the floor hoping to say a few words. I will be mindful of that. The creation of a Department of Homeland Security, in which we're now engaged, is an urgent investment in the present and future safety of America. We need to take this step, and we need to take it now. But even as we do, we must recognize that we're acting on an incomplete picture of the problems that need to be fixed. We're relying on partial and sporadic reports about how the government failed to meet the challenge of securing our homeland pre-September 11. When the new department gets up and running, we owe it to ourselves, and to the country we're striving to secure, to give it as complete and independent an assessment as possible of what went wrong before September 11 and why. If we don't come to terms with the whole truth by looking back at what happened, we can never move forward with the knowledge and confidence we need to set things right. Since September 11, all of us, and particularly the families of the victims, have been subjected to the wrenching process of learning about their government's failures through a tortuous trickle of leaks and soundbites. All of this has hurt the nation psychologically by increasing anxiety and feeding speculation, leaving doubts about whether our government has come to terms with the full scope of the failures that allowed those terrible attacks to succeed. It has also damaged our spirit by turning almost every revelation into a regrettable volley of charges and counter-charges. And it has hurt us practically by failing to give us a clear, clean picture--with perspectives, context, nuance and shades of gray--of what agencies failed, how they failed, and why. As we begin to build a Department of Homeland Security, we will need that picture to make sure we do it right. I do want to pay tribute to the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committees, which have uncovered valuable and disturbing evidence of the intelligence community's failure to share and capitalize on information about the hijackers, in the months preceding September 11. As Senator John McCain and I see it, a non-political, blue-ribbon commission would build on the joint committees' work--reviewing their findings and continuing to explore areas they touched on--as part of a sober, comprehensive inquiry into all our pre-September 11 institutional shortcomings. I also must add that I was enormously gratified last Friday when the administration reversed its longstanding opposition to creating an independent commission. Last November, even before we began drafting a bill, Senator McCain and I wrote the President inviting him to work with us. Since we never heard back, we introduced legislation in December. In the intervening months, we held an informative hearing on the proposal, reported it out of the Governmental Affairs Committee, which I am privileged to chair, and eventually won the backing of 22 co-sponsors from both parties. As was the case with creating a Department of Homeland Security, I welcome the administration's support--regardless of when it arrives. Since Friday, we have entered into discussions with the administration, which requested a variety of changes. Assuming passage of the amendment today, we will gladly continue these talks. This amendment is based on S. 1867, legislation I introduced with Senator McCain on December 20 of last year. The legislation has been revised as it made its way through the legislative process. The Committee on Governmental Affairs heard from a distinguished panel of witnesses at a February hearing. The witnesses, all of whom had served on past commissions, recommended an inquiry by an independent commission into the September 11 terrorist attacks. The bill was reported out of committee by voice vote on March 21 of this year. I refer my colleagues to the committee's written report, no. 107-150, for a fuller explanation of the legislation's, and this amendment's, context, purposes and justification. The bill reported out of committee contained some changes from our original version. Several of those changes were the result of our discussions with Senator Torricelli, who had introduced a similar bill with Senator Grassley and others. Others were the result of the recommendations of our hearing witnesses and extensive consultations with experts. Last Thursday I described several ways in which the amendment we are voting on today differs from S. 1867, the bill that was reported out of committee. The amendment would ensure an even division between Republicans and Democrats in choosing commission members--with the majority parties in the Senate and the House receiving three picks each, while the minority parties in each house get two picks each. This is the configuration of an equivalent commission recently created by the House, and it has other notable precedent, in the form of the National Commission on Terrorism, created by Congress in 1999, and headed by former Ambassador Paul Bremer. There are three other changes from the text of S. 1867. The amendment emphasizes that the Commission should build upon the work of Congressional committees and other inquiries, especially the joint inquiry of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees regarding the terrorist attacks. We do not by any means intend this change to suggest that the Commission should avoid looking at specific issues related to intelligence just because the Committees had investigated the same issues. Rather, the Commission should use the Committees' fine report as a resource, as it continues to review the role of the intelligence community. The amendment also provides that the Vice Chairperson of the Commission, in addition to the Chairperson and others, can issue subpoenas. The amendment envisions a Vice-Chairperson with powers and responsibilities essentially equivalent to that of the Chair. This model worked very well in the case of the National Commission on Terrorism. Finally, the amendment makes technical improvements to the bill's alternative subpoena enforcement mechanism. As Senator McCain and I envision it, the commission would have purview over a broad range of areas. Of course, it would examine intelligence shortcomings, which are at the very core of our failure to anticipate September 11th. But it could also scrutinize a variety of other factors--law enforcement, immigration and border control, foreign policy, commercial aviation, for example--before recommending reforms. Commission members would be private citizens--not elected officials-- with expertise in a range of subjects related to what went wrong on September 11th. And the commission would have subpoena power and the right to meet in private session. It would also have enough time, a top level staff, ample investigatory powers, and adequate funding to perform its job properly. We are not interested in using this commission to point fingers across the room. I hope and believe that an independent commission will make the government as a whole look in the mirror. After all, it is our common security, and improving it is our common responsibility. We have a history of learning from history. America's first day of infamy, Pearl Harbor, was followed both by congressional investigations and by an independent commission. In the wake of other national tragedies--the assassination of President Kennedy, for example, and the Challenger explosion--similar independent investigations were launched immediately. In the last two decades, investigative panels were convened after devastating terrorist attacks against U.S. military and diplomatic facilities, including the Marine barracks in Beirut; Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the USS Cole. In 1989--after months of pressure from Congress and families of victims--the first President Bush created a commission to investigate the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Essential lessons were learned from each of these inquiries, and the inquiries represent a recognition in the value of immediately reviewing terrorist attacks, to provide vital information about possible vulnerabilities which could be corrected. The commission we propose would build on those examples. I have heard the criticism that recommendations of commissions are not followed, and therefore the modest expense in establishing them is not justified. Yet past commissions, with a small investment of resources, have had a real impact. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld: the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, which he chaired, recast our assumptions about the ballistic missile threat. What better evidence can there be than the homeland security legislation we are debating today, modeled closely on the recommendations of the prescient Hart-Rudman Commission? The National Commission on Terrorism issued a litany of policy prescriptions ranging from domestic law enforcement to intelligence to foreign policy--a number of those immediately passed the Senate, and more have been implemented since the September 11 attacks. And if in the past we had been lulled into complacency that we were safe against terrorism within our borders, how can anyone doubt that the enormity of the September 11 attacks will not keep this nation focused on what needs to be done? At our Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the commission bill in February, Columbia University Professor Richard Betts, who served on the National Commission on Terrorism, said an independent commission is important because it would conduct a quote ``sober investigation that the public could have confidence is as objective as humanly possible.'' This is our goal. I have met with families of September 11th victims on several occasions, and their desire for this commission is the strongest argument I can present on its behalf. The persistent advocacy of Stephen Push, Kristen Breitweiser, Mary Fetchet, Beverly Eckert, Monica Gabrielle, and many others--despite their devastating loss--has inspired my profound respect. Husbands, wives, and children were murdered on September 11th. Their survivors need to come to terms with what happened so that they may move on with their lives. The families want answers to questions that echo in my own mind and heart: Why was such a simple plan so successful in achieving its evil goals? What opportunities were missed to prevent the destruction? At a June rally organized by family members in support of this legislation, Mindy Kleinberg, a mother of three who lost her husband, Alan, on September 11th, told the New York Times--``I want to be able to look into the eyes of my children, and tell them the evil is over there, that they are safe, and that their country is secure. Nine months have passed, and I still cannot do that. I do not have answers.'' Let us help these families--and the nation they represent--find closure. Three thousand men, women, and children of America's family were murdered. We need definitive answers that force us to face what happened and why--answers that will ultimately lead to a stronger and better America, and an America less tortured by piecemeal speculations about what might have been. President John F. Kennedy said, ``In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility; I welcome it.'' We too must welcome it, with a strong vote in favor of creating this commission so that we might live well-informed and therefore safer lives in the future.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am pleased to urge adoption of the amendment offered by Senator McCain and ask that the vote be taken by the yeas and nays.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I have had the chance to speak about the urgent necessity of this independent commission to review the causes of the tragic events of September 11. It responds to the public interest by creating the best possible Department of Homeland Security to close the gaps that existed prior to that. The joint intelligence committees have done excellent work that led to disclosures that cry out to us for further investigation by our intelligence apparatus--and some other aspects of our Government that created the vulnerabilities which enabled the terrorists to strike at us last September 11. There is very little time available. I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania and 2\1/2\ to the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, is there time remaining?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Arizona, who has been such a leader in this effort, be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, for literally more than a year now, the bipartisan membership of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee has been working to strengthen our homeland security, particularly and intensely after the events of September 11 which showed the extent to which the disorganization of Federal homeland security activities created vulnerabilities of which the terrorists took advantage. The amendment offered by the great Senator from West Virginia is the most direct challenge the committee's work will face in this debate because it puts at issue the question not only of the approach the committee has taken in creating the Department but whether we in the Senate believe it is urgently necessary to have a Department of Homeland Security, a better organized Federal Government to protect the American people anytime soon. This amendment will retain the basic administrative structure of the Department as we have proposed, but that is all. The amendment nominally sets up the same six directorates as the Governmental Affairs Committee proposal, but that is where the similarity ends. Here is an example: We created a directorate for emergency preparedness and response. Our Committee proposal transfers six distinct agencies, or sets of programs, and includes more than seven pages of legislative text specifying the missions and operating provisions of the directorate. The parallel provision in Senator Byrd's amendment, section 134, found on page 37 of that amendment, consists of not seven pages but seven lines of text. Three creates the directorate, and four authorizes an Under Secretary to run it. But that is all. No goals, no missions, no duties, no programs, no personnel, no directorate in any real sense. That is the approach taken by this amendment for all of the directorates, with the exception of Immigration, where the amendment does not disturb our provision to transfer and restructure the Immigration and Naturalization Service. For example, our provisions regarding a new division of intelligence would immediately begin building a potent new capability to analyze all information regarding terrorist threats and disseminate the information to help prevent or protect against attacks. The Intelligence Directorate in the Byrd amendment is an empty room with a name on the door, awaiting future legislation to give it staff and purpose; and so it would remain, I fear, indefinitely, because there is no effective termination point, no effective implementation point in the amendment's structure. Section 139 of the Byrd amendment calls for the Secretary of the new Department to submit to Congress over the course of the next year a series of legislative proposals for these shell directorates, including recommendations for the transfer of authorities, functions, personnel, assets, agencies, or entities, all of which would fill them up and give them some meaning. Those recommendations are to be submitted to Congress at least 4 months apart, beginning no sooner than February 3, 2003--next year. That means that, at best, Congress would have the administration's proposals a year from now--a year to recreate proposals that we have before us today. The amendment states that Congress should take action on these proposals within 13 months of enactment of the underlying homeland security legislation. But even if this deadline were heeded, it means only that Congress would take some action. Congress could reject one or more of the proposals or vote to study the matter further. The fact is that it is very hard to bind a future Congress to do anything. So at the end of the year, under the committee's proposal, that is the deadline for this Department to be fully up and running. Thirty days after the President signs legislation under our proposal, the new Secretary would have the power to start getting the Department running. A lot of it would start rapidly, but it would all be done within a year. Within a year, under the Byrd amendment, there is nothing but the hope that Congress will react to the proposals the administration will have sent it. So with the exception of immigration functions, there would be no assurance in the end that anything would ever be transferred into the new Department. It could indefinitely remain a bare-bones proposal with no meat on its skeletal frame whatsoever. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes of the time I have to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleagues today in paying tribute to our friend from South Carolina, Senator Strom Thurmond, who through his 48 years of distinguished service in this body has given special meaning to the term Senior Senator and left an indelible mark on the history of this great Nation. Well before Senator Strom Thurmond celebrated his 100th birthday this year, he had become an institution within this institution. To many American, that is primarily because of his much-celebrated durability. But to those of us who have the privilege to work with him here in the Capitol, it is as much a measure of his inexhaustible amiability, the graciousness and decency that have come to define Strom's way, and his extraordinary dedication to the people and the country he serves. Senator Thurmond has been such a fixture here in the Senate, it is easy to forget that he led a remarkable public life long before he came to Washington. He 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. And from that position of leadership he went on to run for President in 1948, before getting elected to the Senate for the first time in 1954. Since then, Senator Thurmond has had the unique distinction of having been a delegate to six national Democratic Conventions and six national Republic Conventions. And he has found the time to be reelected to the Senate an astounding eight times, serving as an esteemed member of the Senate Armed Services Committee since 1959, and as President pro tempore of the Senate from 1981-86 and 1995-2001. I have had the honor of serving with Senator Thurmond on the Armed Services Committee for more than a dozen of those years, and it is readily apparent why the people of South Carolina--not to mention his colleagues on both sides of the aisle--hold him in such high regard. Quite simply, every day he is happy to be helping and protecting the security of our country. Here in Washington, he has been a fierce protector of his State interests. And at home he has been a gentle and caring friend to his constituents, always ready to listen and willing to act on their behalf. It is a testament to that friendship and admiration that at least 20 buildings, centers, rooms, and statues in South Carolina have been named after him. And that's not counting all the streets and roads that carry the Thurmond name. The long list of these accomplishments would take most Americans 300 hundred years to accumulate. Senator Thurmond has gotten them all under his belt in a mere 100. And through it all, Senator Thurmond has grown not only as a public servant and leader, but as a human being. After running for President 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. And today, in recognition of all his hard work for all the people of South Carolina, he is beloved throughout his State by constituents of all colors. That transformation sends 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. For all this, we honor Senator Thurmond as a man of iron with a heart of gold, who has lived a love for his country and all that makes it exceptional, and given not just the best of years of life but just about every year of life to make his community and his country a better place. The Senate will just not be the same without him. But today we can and should celebrate the tremendous difference he has made. So we thank him for all your service and sacrifice, and wish you a long and healthy retirement. God knows you have earned it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, if I may, objection has been heard, but I thank both my colleague from Pennsylvania and my colleague from Nevada for their statements. I share the frustration of the Senator from Pennsylvania and the disappointment with our inability to reach an agreement to allow for consideration of the CARE Act, which started out much broader. We have worked on it and really got it down to its essence and it is a good bill. It employs an expanding number of tax incentives to encourage charitable contributions. The Senator from Pennsylvania said not just faith-based organizations but all charitable organizations. It is kind of a community-based or civic-based, nonprofit-based bill. It has the support of 22 cosponsors in the Senate. The occupant of the chair, the junior Senator from New York, is one of our original cosponsors. It is supported by the President, by the majority leader, Senator Daschle, as we said, and by 1,600--I repeat, 1,600--religious and community groups and social service providers, large and small, across the country. We ought to pass this bill. It is one of the best bills we take up this year for not just faith-based groups but for our communities. For reasons that are sometimes clear and sometimes not, some of our colleagues are holding up action on the CARE Act. Some who are objecting have not yet disclosed their identity. Given the fact that time is slipping away in this session, I appeal to my colleagues to not let this opportunity to help make our country as good as our values slip away, and let's particularly not squander the bipartisan consensus we have achieved on this method of transforming the good will in our country into more good work. A lot of effort has gone into crafting this bill by people on both sides. I particularly thank Senator Daschle and his staff for the work they have done. Ideally, we can agree, as the Senator's unanimous consent proposal stated, to have one amendment on each side. Maybe we could agree on a couple more, if that is necessary. Let's have an open debate. Let's move the bill forward. Let's deliver this unique CARE package to its rightful destination, which is on the President's desk. I hate to have Senator Santorum and me in a position where we start to look for a vehicle to which we can attach this as an amendment. We should not have to do that. I hope, working together, we can avoid that and get this legislation passed. I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.