Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Friday, January 17, 2003 at 9 a.m. to consider the nomination of the Honorable Tom Ridge to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is the time when we ask both sides of the aisle to trust us. We took out a program we know is going to go back into this bill and put additional money in another place because we know the House will help us put it back in. This will help save another portion of this bill that we support. We have done this for years. The other side has done it, too. We know what the House wants. The House wants this back in. We want to convince them the other money we have in here also is good. I urge the Senate to give us the flexibility to deal with this bill in conference the way it is outlined. It is a very flexible bill. There are 11 bills in 1 amendment. I guarantee it will survive. I pledge it will survive, but also what will survive is another $2 billion we need for another program. This is part of that program. So on the basis of trust, I ask my colleagues to trust us. I move to table this amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. As I understand it, that was a mistake in drafting the amendment. I have no objection.

Mr. STEVENS. That is the specific question I asked after I read the article. I was told there is money to pursue the development and testing of the system to which I believe you are referring. Let us finish this tonight now, and I will report back to him before the vote tomorrow as to whether or not it is possible to achieve the Senator's result without adopting this amendment. I agree. We have a lot of ports on the coast of Alaska. We have 25 percent of the domestic oil coming out of those ports. So I understand port security. I am willing to work with the Senator from New York on port security. It may be possible to earmark money to see to it that this pilot project is pursued. If the Senator wishes to respond, OK. Otherwise, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time tonight. We have 2 \1/2\ minutes on each side tomorrow. I hope we can reach a conclusion that we can adopt the Senator's proposal. I yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. STEVENS. The Senator makes a valid request. The staff with whom I have to confer are gone now. We might pursue that. I will be pleased to report to him in the morning precisely if we can do that. I recall the subject, however, because this system has not been deployed yet. If the Senator read his hometown paper the other day, they have accused me of taking this money out, that it was never in specifically. However, the money was in the bill to do it if the Homeland Security Department decided to do it. It may be possible for us to earmark a portion of that money to pursue the experiment that the Senator wishes. Whether we would earmark the money specifically for these specific reports, again, I don't know. The Senator's amendment would, in fact, deal with pilot projects for the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the Port of Virginia, and there is a ``may'' in there.

Mr. STEVENS. In the homeland security portions of the bill we have $24.7 billion, and it is subject to immense discretion as to how the money is spread. It is spread throughout the bill--$24.7 billion--for homeland security.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the hour is late, but we have in the amendment that contains the 11 bills a total of $24.7 billion for homeland security. That is better than $3 billion a month to be spent for homeland security. There is nothing that prevents the homeland security agencies from pursuing this task that the Senator's amendment would fund. What this does, however, is add another $150 million to the total of this bill and makes it subject to a veto by the President. We have no more room for amendments. We have just used up the balance of the offset that we had available. This amendment, as worthy as it may seem, in my judgment is unnecessary because there is plenty of money in this bill. There is an overwhelming amount of money. I really stake my reputation on the fact that some of that money will carry over to the next fiscal year. It just cannot be spent as fast as people want to spend it. The $20 billion we put up for New York in 2001 has not been spent yet. The $20 billion we gave to the President of the United States to pursue al-Qaida and to prepare our homeland security defenses has not totally been spent yet. Why should we continue adding amounts to this bill because people want to assure that their project is going to be built before the homeland security agency is even established? I don't want to debate at length here. I do believe it is a matter of discipline. We do not have a budget resolution. If we had a budget resolution, this would be subject to a point of order. But each one of these amendments that is going to come at us now is going to add a little bit more. This subject was covered in the Byrd amendment which we defeated. Senator Byrd wanted to add more money to the $24.7 billion. One of them was this port security project. Now we have this little amendment coming in, $150 million. It has been here too long. One hundred fifty million dollars is a lot of money, and to add it to this bill is going to make it subject to a veto. Tomorrow morning, I shall oppose this amendment and show that this amount was in the Byrd amendments--both of them--which have been defeated. This is part of it. I predict, if this one is passed, we are going to see 50 small amendments and we will have put the $5 billion back in the bill. So I am not prepared to do that. Maybe the Senate is willing to do that. I told somebody else that it is hard for a person to eat a pound of cheese unless he takes it a half ounce at a time. That is what we are going to be looking at--50 amendments to put $5 billion back into this bill and make it subject to a veto. Now I am not going to permit that without a fight. We have reserved the right to table, and I shall make a motion to table this at the appropriate time tomorrow because it is the same subject once again. The money is there. We just don't need redundant money. We do not need redundant money for homeland security. It forces us to go into a concept of how big the deficit is and yet we won't spend the money.

Mr. STEVENS. It is my understanding it would have to insert a figure ``1'' before the ``7'' in the third line.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object again, wouldn't it be necessary to amend this amendment in more than one place in order to accommodate that change?

Mr. STEVENS. It may have gone to the leader, but I didn't get it.

Mr. STEVENS. Reserving the right to object, I have not seen the amendment yet.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. STEVENS. Does the Senator yield back the remainder of his time?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, does the Senator wish to have any further comments tonight? It would be my intention to yield back the time on our side because there is a 2\1/2\-minute comment period in the morning when we take up this amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, what is the next order of business?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am constrained to say at this late time of the night, that President Lincoln offered a bonus of $1 million and every odd section along the railroad right of way to anyone who completed the transcontinental railroad. Subsidies to railroads are 150 years old. But the problem is that was not a taxpayer burden. I think we have to really examine this and find out what is the taxpayer burden for the future as far as Amtrak. I yield the remainder of my time and I urge the adoption of the amendment.

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

Mr. STEVENS. It is not my time now.

Mr. STEVENS. There is a tax fund for roads with the gasoline tax; there is a fund for airports with airplane tickets. How about a program that charges people on trains to pay for whatever you need for trains?

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield on my time?

Mr. STEVENS. I would be pleased to go out and see my normal condition of life and enjoy the snow this evening. Does the Senator from Delaware expect to speak tonight?

Mr. STEVENS. There is no objection. I understand we probably will not use that 90 minutes.

Mr. STEVENS. Before each of the two votes--your vote and the vote on the amendment of the Senator from New York, and 5 minutes prior to votes on each amendment tomorrow morning.