Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Homeland defense. Thank you.

Mr. STEVENS. Which division will be the subject of the first vote?

Mr. STEVENS. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I shall use the remainder of our time and then the Senator from West Virginia, the chairman, shall close on this motion. I call to the attention of the Senate that the act of September 18 was specific in the sense of dealing with $40 billion for the costs of: . . . providing Federal, State and local preparedness for mitigating and responding to the attacks . . . providing support to counter, investigate, or prosecute domestic or international terrorism . . . providing increased transportation security . . . repairing public facilities and transportation systems damaged by the attacks; and . . . supporting national security. Then it says: Provided, That these funds may be transferred to any authorized Federal Government activity to meet the purposes of this Act. It later specifically says: . . . not less than one-half of the $40 billion shall be for disaster recovery activities and assistance related to the terrorist acts in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, on September 11, as authorized by law. . . . ``As authorized by law,'' the funds must go to Federal agencies for authorized Federal activities. Senator Byrd's amendment--and I think we are going to have to go there sometime in the future--goes beyond this law. It goes beyond the $40 billion and makes $15 billion more available, and not all of it is channeled through Federal activities. Again, I do not argue with the intent. I think he is right. Eventually we will have to do that. But for now, if we look at what my amendment has done--and we are going to modify it to a certain extent, based upon the comments of the Senator from West Virginia and the Senators from New York. No one is perfect about this. We are trying to allocate this money where it is needed within the $40 billion and follow the existing law and authorization. The authorization for the $20 billion we are dealing with now is in the act of September 18. But for that authorization, the whole amount would be subject to a point of order on the basis of emergency. But that emergency was declared on September 18. We are dealing with a concept of fulfilling that. Nothing we do tonight will alter the commitment to New York and Pennsylvania and Virginia that not less than $20 billion of the $40 billion is dedicated to Federal activities in support of recovery in those States. Respectfully, New Jersey was not included, I am sorry to say. They probably are the beneficiary of some of the moneys that will be spent in recovering from the New York moneys that were guaranteed. I think we probably should have included New Jersey in there on September 18, as a matter of fact. But I urge the Senate not to declare this emergency and not to support the waiver of the budget resolution that provides for such a procedure of a point of order when the moneys exceed the amount of the budget process. We had an agreement with the President. The Senator from West Virginia and I have done our absolute best to keep the agreement with the President. I think the Senator from West Virginia will be the first to admit his $15 billion goes beyond the concept of the rest, to which the rest of us were committed. I hope to be here in the Chamber in March or April supporting the chairman, the Senator from West Virginia, and supporting the request of the President of the United States for additional moneys to cover many of the targets of his amendment. I yield the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent the time remaining be divided 25 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia and 5 minutes to me.

Mr. STEVENS. It has been requested we now proceed with the point of order and then proceed with the vote on my amendment following that, if it is possible to do so. There is still other debate to be heard, I think, on my amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my desire to start the process of having some of the votes that I have indicated must be encountered. It would be my intention to now raise a point of order against the two emergency designations set out in division C of the committee- reported amendment as prepared by Senator Byrd.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, let me describe, if I may, the problem we face. We are in the month of December, which is the last month of the first quarter of fiscal year 2002. When we finish this bill, however it may look after it goes to conference with the House, and then goes to the President and the President signs it, it will be approximately the end of the year. In other words, the new money in this bill will be spent in three of the quarters of the calendar year 2002. Realizing that, I visited with my good friend, Chairman Byrd, and suggested we deal with the issues he wanted to deal with by putting additional money in the bill as money to be made available in 2003, the first quarter of 2003, which would be the last quarter of calendar year 2002. Had we done that, we would have stretched the payments over the normal four quarters of a year. I think we may have been able to solve the issue that way. Senator Byrd said he would rather proceed with the 2002 bill. It does, I might add, have some extra points of order that could have been raised against the other approach. So he deferred on that, and we went back to the drawing board to see what we could do to deal with the problem of the President's position and the position just presented by Senator Byrd. Let me say, basically, I believe as the future unfolds in this country, substantially all of the additional $15 billion that Senator Byrd wants to make available will be requested by the administration. I will be surprised if they don't request more than that. The problem is, how much money should be pushed into the system now? We had a bill before the Congress when we first reacted to the events of September 11. We were requested to present a $10 billion supplemental. Senator Byrd and I had some meetings and we decided that ought to go up to $20 billion. While we were working on that, we got word that the President had gone into the Rose Garden with some people from New York and Virginia and Pennsylvania and agreed it ought to be $40 billion. With the leadership of Senator Byrd, we charted through the quarters of the legislative process a supplemental providing $40 billion: The first $10 billion to be available to the President without any interference by Congress, the second $10 billion to be available after 15 days' notice to the Congress on how the President intended to spend it, and the last $20 billion to be available in an appropriations bill to be passed by the Congress. This bill covers the $20 billion, the last $20 billion of the $40 billion. We have had a great many meetings, hearings, and consultations from a vast number of people in the country who believe there should be more money available now. Were I President, I think I would agree. But I am not President. Mr. President, we are at war. We really are at war. We are in a period of time where, if we take action to challenge the President now, we could well leave an impression, I think, that we do not have bipartisan support of the President as Commander in Chief. I have changed my position on this matter. I told my friend, the chairman of the committee, that I had. I believe we can legitimately say that the money we make available now through this bill and through the bills that are still pending here: the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, the Foreign Assistance bill--before we are through here, we will have presented to the administration $375 billion more than is available to the Presidency right now. The current level of expenditures by the Department of Defense, for instance, is based on the year 2000. We have increased that considerably. The amount of money available to the President for the conduct of the war, really, under the Food and Forage Act--I have to explain that. There is an old act that allows the President of the United States to spend money to pursue conduct of a war or when there are troops deployed, our troops deployed. We saw it in Kosovo; we saw it in Bosnia; we have seen it in connection with the activities of the alert in South Korea; we have seen it in many instances. This President has not used the Food and Forage Act yet, but he could use any of the money in this bill to achieve the goals Senator Byrd would achieve with $15 billion and come to us later and say, we want the money. In any event, beyond that, we have been told there will be--by Governor Ridge and by the President himself--there will be a request presented to Congress early next year for supplemental moneys for the year 2002, to pursue the further activities that are necessary to meet the problems of homeland defense and the problems of recovery from the disaster of September 11. I believe what we have to do is to look again at the $20 billion and allocate the $20 billion in a way to make sure there is available now enough money to handle at least the first quarter of the next year-- that will be the second quarter of the fiscal year--and then some. So what I have done, in an amendment that is now pending, is to allocate the $20 billion in that fashion, pursuing, to a vast extent, the recommendations of Senator Byrd and his $15 billion additional. The amendment before the Senate right now, addressing division B of the pending bill, would amend that division B to allocate the $20 billion in this fashion: $7.3 billion for the Department of Defense, of which we have earmarked $2.3 billion for bioterrorism defense. I emphasize that. The Department of Defense should have a great role in the total defense of the country. I think bioterrorism is one of the key issues. I believe that is one of the key issues of Senator Byrd. We allocate $7.05 billion for New York. Of that, $5.05 billion is for the FEMA disaster relief; $290 million is for the FEMA Firefighters Grant Program; $2 billion is for the Housing and Urban Development emergency community development block grant. We also allocate $5.65 billion for homeland defense. It is allocated, $1 billion for the Department of Justice--that is for FBI, INS, and the U.S. Marshals; $400 million more for the Department of Energy for nuclear facilities; $256 million for the legislative branch security; $800 million for Coast Guard and FAA security which includes $100 million for more airport security; $50 million for the White House security. There is $334 million for the Treasury. Again, the Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Customs are included in that $334 million. We have $300 million for food security, $100 million for the Justice Department general administration, Patriot Act, which is covered by Senator Byrd's proposal; $362 million for the Bureau of Justice Assistance, $237 million for State and local law enforcement, $775 million for Federal antiterrorism enforcement--that is executive, nondefense, of which $575 million is for the Postal Service, $100 million for cyber-security, and $100 million for increased security at public events. We also add $94 million for NASA and for the National Science Foundation security upgrades, and $156 million for the EPA Counterterrorism and Anthrax Cleanup Program. If one examines this supplemental, one finds that almost every single item mentioned by Senator Byrd is covered by our allocations. But they are lower. Admittedly, Senator Byrd had $15 billion in two emergency sectors. We have eliminated that and moved back into the $20 billion and allocated the $20 billion in a way primarily reflecting, to a great extent, what the House did. It also reflects to a substantial degree what the President originally requested. And it covers basically, as I said, all of the items Senator Byrd would cover. In the $2.3 billion bioterrorism defense allocation, for instance, we have provided money for upgrading State and local capacities, improving hospital response capabilities, improving the CDC, starting a national pharmaceutical stockpile which includes the purchase and deployment of the smallpox vaccine that has already been purchased. That contract has already been signed. It includes the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease at NIH, one of the signal areas that we must fund. And it has other preparedness activities. The money for New York is committed to rebuild the infrastructure of Lower Manhattan. The FEMA disaster relief includes the $290 million for the FEMA Firefighters Grant Program, and it will involve grants to local communities to expand and improve firefighting programs through the FEMA Firefighters Grant Program. Over 50 percent of the funding will go to volunteer fire departments in rural communities. We have tracked to a great extent what my friend has done: If you look at the money for homeland defense, $1 billion for the Justice Department more than they have now in their normal bill which has already passed, the State, Justice, Commerce bill. This adds to what they already have available, $1 billion for coordination of information in the field of FBI--particularly the Trilogy Computer Modernization Program. And it does address the INS construction backlog to make sure we can take care of the outposts that were mentioned by Senator Byrd. There is $40 million for the Department of Energy nuclear facilities, which covers, again, really a downpayment on the program Senator Byrd announced in that area. There is $256 million for legislative branch security. Again, I know of no argument about that. There is $800 million for the Coast Guard and FAA security. The port security hearing was held today, and this includes the port security task force creation to ensure coordination of the efforts to protect our ports. It also includes the $100 million to add to the moneys we already made available to carry out the new requirements imposed on FAA in the airline and airport bills we have already enacted into law. I could keep on going. It has $300 million for food security to increase the number of food inspectors, as Senator Byrd indicated. It must be done. But I emphasize we can put up the money Senator Byrd asked for. We can't find those people in just one quarter. The President's people are going to make some further requests. I think what we need to do is make sure there is money to meet any of the areas outlined by Senator Byrd available now, and see what Governor Ridge and what the President want us to do to direct our attention to the future. There is no question that the great part of the money must be directed towards antiterrorism, and antiterrorism law enforcement in particular. The Postal Service very much needs a great deal of money. Again, I want to sidetrack. There are major issues involved in where we are going now that have to be addressed by legislative committees. For instance, the Postal Service told us they had lost over $6 billion and they wanted assistance. When we examined it, we agreed we should provide some additional money. But we have to have some basic consideration of the question of how much of that loss should be paid by the taxpayers of the United States and how much should be borne by the ratepayers of the Postal Service, an independent entity that is not really financed by the Federal Government anymore, except in connection with disaster concepts. It may be that we will have to change that paradigm. It may be that we should help pay for some of the newer equipment that the Postal Service needs in order to prevent future disasters such as we had in the handling of the anthrax letters by Postal Service employees. We also have to urge them to take steps to modernize so the system itself does not expose employees to contamination by substances such as that sent through the mail. We need to have an inspection system. And we need to have a system of treating the mail so it cannot carry these infectious diseases. What I am saying is, if you examine the amendment I presented as an amendment for the Senate to speak out, and say to the administration that we have different priorities than have been presented to us before, we funded them through at least the first quarter of the calendar year 2002. We, of course, have to go to conference with the House and meet them in any event, but I think any fair reading of this amendment would say this is enough additional money through the use of the $20 billion to meet these priorities of the Congress, and we can await the request of the President for additional money and at that time be part of the process to meet the needs of the future as the country changes. That would be my last comment to the Senate. We have a great many problems that come from the realization we are now exposed to different types of disasters. The disaster act that is in place was primarily passed at the time when we addressed natural disasters. It is the Stafford Act. The Stafford Act provides that the Federal taxpayer will replace facilities owned by public entities that were destroyed because of the disasters such as we saw in New York. It assists local communities in replacing streets and docks, or whatever, in community-owned utilities, but it doesn't replace privately owned utilities. It doesn't replace privately owned facilities that went down with the public facilities. Clearly, it doesn't even cover the publicly owned building that went up 104 stories. We don't know. We know we have to address that. That is not something we ought to address as appropriators. This should be addressed by the legislative committees in the Congress responding to legislative solutions that set the new guidelines for how we handle disasters caused by terrorism. I say to the Senate that I think Senator Byrd has stepped forward and offered us a solution to some of those problems by funding them now. But I think the Congress should be involved in making those decisions as to what we replace. Should we replace all of the firetrucks in the country? Should we replace only those that come in and qualify for the grants? I do not know. I pointed out in committee that we have some of the oldest firetrucks in the Nation operating in Alaska villages. They were given to those villages at the end of World War II, and they have never been able to replace them. But the intent is to replace those facilities that were destroyed by the disaster or, because of the disaster, have become inoperable. There are a couple, by the way, that were destroyed by the fire itself. I believe we need to have decisions on a bipartisan basis as to how to solve those problems, and to put the money up now would not solve the problem. It would create a greater problem of having stepped down the road to say we will pay it if anyone comes forward and wants a new fire engine. There is not enough money in Senator Byrd's bill to replace all the firetrucks in the country. I am sure he would agree. On the other hand, we all agree there should be some help for communities to modernize their facilities to respond to terrorist attacks, and to respond to acts of terrorism of any kind. I have to confess that this Senator believes the bioterrorism, cyberterrorism, and food security problems are of the highest priority. I think the great problem is we need to be able to detect substances that are currently undetectable. One physician told me we were lucky that the anthrax attack was the first attack because anthrax is detectable and it is treatable. There are substances that we know exist out there that are not detectable, that are not treatable, and they are not curable. We need to have research to find out how we can detect them and how we can manage them once they are detected. We started down that road in the Defense bill itself. There is $100 million in there for the Department of Defense to continue its studies, and expand them in those two areas of detection of these substances currently undetectable, and how to treat them once detected. Freon disease, for instance, is one of the leading examples of that. That is the manifestation of mad cow disease in human beings. We know from the experience in Britain that it is not only undetectable, but even the people who carry it may not know it for several years before it manifests itself in the brain of a human being. Once it does, if it comes in contact with any utensils in any facility, those utensils and facilities must be destroyed. There is no way to know what portion of them are uncontaminated. You must destroy everything that comes in contact with it. That is why much of the great disaster took place in England in the past. We should join the international effort in that regard. Our bill starts us down that line. I have spoken longer than I intended to speak. But let me now address the problem we face. There are people on our side of the aisle who prepared a chart of the problems that this bill faces in terms of points of order. Senator Byrd's two provisions that would add the emergency money in division C of this bill are subject to points of order. They could be waived by 60 votes. The basic bill itself that came over from the House to the Senate is subject to a point of order. The House waived that point of order. We, similarly, could waive it, or we could ignore it here. There is also the point of order that comes out of the 1996 Budget Control Act which imposed a limit upon us of the amount of money we could spend in the year 2002. Since the year 1999, that has been waived to a certain extent, but we, through that process, came to a balanced budget. I thought we did a very good job. The balanced budget now is disappearing because of the semicollapse of our economy through the recession and our ability to recover from the terrorist acts and prevent further ones. What I am saying right now is we have to waive the Budget Control Act; in effect, lift the caps. We have done that in section C of this bill. Senator Byrd's version puts it right in the bill. If we vote that, that lifts those caps. But there is at least three, maybe four other points of order involved here that once we get into, if we are divided on a partisan basis--it looks as if we might be--there is no way out. I have offered this compromise for the Senate itself to speak out and say, let us settle this now and give the administration enough money to do what we think they should do through the first part of next year. And let us come back and respond to the President's request for a supplemental when we get back here next year. Mr. President, I am not the Parliamentarian my friend is, but I can say, from my study of this bill, there is no way out if we have a point of order and a motion to waive and that motion is not carried. It does not appear that any of those points of order would be waived by the Senate, according to my understanding of the situation now. My amendment takes us around those. My amendment says, let's set aside the $15 billion. We deal with about half of it in the $20 billion, and we move on to next year and the request from the President, and we do not have this collision. And we also--I am back where I started--do not leave the impression that a Senate that wants to provide bipartisan support to the Commander in Chief at a time of war is insisting upon doing what he says he does not want us to do. I do not argue with my friend from West Virginia at all about the items he says must be covered sometime in connection with the recovery from this disaster. On how far we go on some of them we might have disagreement, such as firetrucks or what is covered in public facilities and what not. But the necessity for more money than the $40 billion is now apparent to everybody, even from the comments Governor Ridge has made as head of our home defense organization. So I say to my friend once again, I am sad to be in this position. I really am because the Senator knows--and we worked on some of these figures--I believe the needs are there. And I believe the needs will have to be met sometime in the future. But I would rather give the money now to initiate meeting those needs and determine the extent to which we will meet the needs, and which we will actually want to meet, and which we will set aside and say are the responsibility of ratepayers or local governments or States. My friend from Hawaii and I are from the generation of which President Kennedy was a part. As I sat here this afternoon, I was thinking about his comment at his first inauguration: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. If the things we worry about today would be worried about by every American, if every American would really take on the job of watching for those erratic people who are part of a conspiracy plot, if every American would come forth and assist the Government, volunteer to provide help to people who need help now, our job, using the taxpayers' money, would be substantially reduced. I think that will come as we, more and more, live up to our current slogan that we stand united. I would prefer to see the Senate stand united and adopt my amendment, move on this bill, and take it to conference. We will be in conference Monday if this amendment passes. We will still be arguing about points of order next Friday if it does not. I hope I have offered an honorable solution to the conundrum I see the Senate facing. I plead with the Senate to act in a bipartisan way and to tell the President: There are some priorities we want you to follow. Follow them within the first $20 billion, if you disagree with the $15 billion that Senator Byrd seeks--which he does; we know he does--but, meanwhile, be assured when we come back next year, we are going to make certain that the supplemental that is requested will cover the needs of the country with regard to protection against terrorism. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the chairman has presented a program which is a program for the future, without any question one that reflects a substantial number of meetings that I have had with the chairman, and others, over a period of time since September 11. We have, however, a position taken by the President of the United States that he believed we had an agreement not to exceed the $40 billion that we previously approved for supplemental money for 2002 to cover the expenditures required to initiate the recovery from the disastrous attacks in our country on September 11 of this year. We have before the Senate section A of the committee bill, the Defense appropriations bill for 2002, that was prepared by my good friend, the chairman, Dan Inouye of Hawaii, and me and our staffs. It has been included in the amended version reported by the full committee that Senator Byrd has described and has been reported as we presented it, as a matter of fact. Senator Inouye's version of the Defense bill for next year is in section A. I do not intend to address that at all. I do, however, address the problem presented with the President's position of not wanting additional money at this time beyond the $40 billion that he previously agreed to when he signed the supplemental we previously passed this year. To achieve that goal, I now call up amendment 2243.

Mr. STEVENS. I will yield for a parliamentary inquiry, provided I do not lose my right to the floor to make my point of order.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I welcome the opportunity to join Senator Inouye in presenting the fiscal year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act. The chairman has just effectively described the bill before the Senate, and I will add only a few comments that I want to make to endorse the presentation that he has made. This bill before the Senate is a good bill. Section A of the bill Senator Inouye and I have worked on for some time. Later today it is my intention to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. It is amendment No. 2743, substitute for divisions B and C that concern the allocation of funds from the previous emergency supplemental appropriations bill that relate to the September 11 attacks on our Nation. For the defense portion, there I am referring specifically to section A of the bill before the Senate. I am especially pleased we succeeded in funding the 5-percent pay raise and the $9.5 billion increase in readiness funds in the O&M section of this bill. Of special importance to me are three initiatives in the bill that will dramatically enhance our national security. First, the bill includes $143 million to continue the multiyear procurement contract for the C-17 airlifter. Our current deployment relies heavily on the C- 17 fleet, and this initiative will continue the procurement of that aircraft--now the backbone of our strategy for deployment. As I said, we continue to rely on the C-17 fleet for our deployment policies of the Department of Defense, and we need as many of those as we can get. Second, this bill fully accommodates the President's request of $8.3 billion for missile defense programs, and it carries out the conditions set forth in the Defense authorization bill for the allocation of that money. The successful test earlier this week of the ground-based midcourse interceptor reflects the great progress made in this missile defense program by LTG Ron Kadish and the people in his command. I congratulate them. We are now talking about the ground-based midcourse interceptor program which is a portion of the missile defense program. That is what is in the bill before the Senate. Third, the bill includes a new provision that authorizes the Secretary of the Air Force to lease 100 new air refueling tankers. If executed by the Department--that is, if these leases are followed through by the Department--these leased aircraft would replace the 136 KC-135E aircraft which are currently in use as air refueling tankers. They average in excess of 41 years of age. I notice the chairman said 42. I am sure he has more updated information than I. This initiative, as the chairman said, endorsed by the Secretary of the Air Force, has been cleared by CBO as having no budgetary impact in fiscal year 2002. Earlier this week I answered a question of the press and other Members of the Senate about this provision and told them this bill did not, at that time, specify the aircraft to be procured. Because of the clearance procedure of the CBO, we have now put in the bill a designation that these aircraft to be leased will be the Boeing 767s because there is adequate information upon which we can base the conclusion and really advance the argument that there will be a commercial market for these aircraft at the end of the lease involved. What I really want to tell the Senate is that this bill reflects countless hours of collaboration by myself and Chairman Inouye and the members of the committee and our staff. Both my chief of staff, Steve Cortese, and the chief of staff for Senator Inouye, Charlie Houy, have really put in weekends and hours that cannot even be counted to be sure that this bill before the Senate is what we intend it to be. Our allocation in this bill was $2 billion less than the President's amended request. The committee allocated additional funds for military construction and defense nuclear weapons programs. Those really are defense, in my judgment. I have supported and advocated the allocations to those programs. But I recognize the pressure everyone is working under to make certain we have an adequate allowance for defense. I believe the priorities of Members of the Senate, as requested by them to both Senator Inouye and myself, are reflected in this bill in a balanced and fair fashion. I state to the Senate that if I were still chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, there really are very few changes I would recommend to the Senate in the bill. I recommend none now because the differences are so minor that they really should not affect the consideration of the bill. There is, however, a long day ahead of us. It is my hope we can strike a compromise. For that purpose, I will offer the substitute and explain it further after Senator Byrd has presented his statement concerning the Senate amendments as reflected by the bill that has been reported from the full Committee on Appropriations and is before the Senate now. I do appreciate every consideration that has been extended to me and my staff by Chairman Inouye and his staff director, Charlie Houy, and the chairman of the full committee and his staff. I wish I could say I look forward to this debate. At present, I think we are heading toward being in the position of being between a rock and a hard place. I will try to search out a way to move one or the other or both. Thank you very much.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, as I understand it, if I set that aside and make the point of order and have the vote on that, then we will come back to my amendment after that vote.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield for a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. STEVENS. The way my motion is worded, I am raising a point of order against the two emergency designations in division C, and I am trying to get those two issues settled at one time.

Mr. STEVENS. The motion to waive is debatable.

Mr. STEVENS. I will be happy to yield to the distinguished chairman for a question.

Mr. STEVENS. May we have a quorum call and I will regain the floor when we come back?

Mr. STEVENS. Under that circumstance, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ted Stevens

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