Fred Thompson

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for his remarks and his support of the Thompson amendment. I thank the Senator from Virginia for the same. I think both of these Senators, without dispute, would be recognized as people who have been students and have been leaders in the areas we are dealing with today. I think their support on this important amendment is crucial. I was particularly taken with the comments of Senator Warner as he related his thoughts listening to the President a little while ago before the United Nations. I had the same thoughts. The President made a magnificent speech. In part, it was a legal brief, where he outlined ad seratim the various instances where Saddam Hussein had rejected the sanctions that had been placed on him by the United Nations, rejected the resolutions that had been passed by the Security Council time and time and time again, rejected inspectors, rejected sanctions, basically rendering what the United Nations and the international community as a whole and specifically the Security Council, what they had done, rendering it a nullity. I thought it was a very effective walk through history. There was no secret information disclosed. It was a rendition of what we all should have known. The people who were listening to him today were taken on that walk down memory lane of all the things that have happened since 1990 and the attempts that the United Nations have made, the attempts the Security Council have made, all thwarted by this one country, as he continued to oppress his own people, as he continued to either attack or plan attacks for others, as he continued to develop his weapons of mass destruction, as he finally acknowledged, yes, he did have chemical and biological weapons after lying about it for all those years and our inspectors telling us he had a virtual Manhattan nuclear project the last time we went in there. And now he has closed us out and we are wringing our hands over what we know and what we do not know. That is our position. Internationally, the entire world is, because he has put us in that position, once again, and deprived us of any knowledge of exactly what he is doing, although we know he has the intelligence, he has the scientists, he has the infrastructure, the capability, the know-how, the desire, everything, except possibly enriched uranium with which to make a nuclear weapon. Unfortunately, there is a lot of that in the world. We do not know whether he has it. Part of it was an effective legal brief. Part of it was inspirational. It was an appeal to the United Nations for it not to become irrelevant in terms of world peace. If the U.N. and the Security Council allow a country such as this, a regime such as this, to thwart the very purpose of the creation of the United Nations, then what authority, what standing, what moral suasion is it going to have in the future when the next tinhorn dictator comes along and hunkers down and takes a little bombing and goes on with his suppression of people and killing of innocents and using weapons of mass destruction on his own people as he prepares for the next attack. I thought it was very effective. And what is the relationship between Saddam Hussein and terrorism? The President pointed out one of the most dangerous circumstances we can contemplate is having a regime such as his with the ability to transfer his capabilities over to terrorists. We know he has a long history of relationships with various terrorist organizations, including some with al-Qaida. Are we to assume he would not ever use as a surrogate someone to do his dirty work? It is extremely relevant to the battle on terrorism. I think those who urge that we totally clean up the battle on terrorism over here, because it is a distinct problem, before we address the situation in Iraq are missing that point. Which brings us to the bill we are considering today. It is very relevant. It is a homeland security bill. This is where all the chickens come home to roost in regard to our Nation's security. What concerns me about this bill is that in more than one instance there is an attempt to diminish the President's authority. This bill would not give the President authority that other Presidents have had. Most all of the Members serving here today served under President Clinton. It would take away authority President Clinton had with regard to national security. This bill would lessen--give less authority, in terms of the management of this monolithic new Department we are about to create, than the head of the FAA has to manage the FAA. With regard to the subject matter that is addressed by the Thompson amendment, we would not give the President the right to have his own adviser inside the White House as he deals with all these issues. That concerns me. I do not think that is going in the right direction. We are not going to do anything in this Congress to diminish Congress's traditional role. Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens have made it clear that they are not going to stand back and let the traditional appropriations authority of the Congress be set aside. Senator Lieberman has made that clear. The bill reflects that position. I am sure we will be able to work out something along those lines that does not diminish our authority in any way. We have the power of the purse. We have the power of the purse. This bill creates many positions, including the new Secretary, that will be Senate confirmed. He will have to come before this body. So we are not diminishing the authority of the Congress. What we are doing is establishing a brandnew, important Department that we are going to have to approach in a bit of a different way than we have approached other Departments at other times because we have not been very successful with other Departments at other times. This Government is rife with Departments and governmental agencies that have waste and fraud and abuse, sending out checks for billions of dollars to people who are not even alive; losing large pieces of equipment, at least on the books, such as ships and things of that nature; having the GAO come before us year after year after year, saying these agencies are not doing any better. They cannot pass an audit. Government as a whole cannot pass an audit. We do not know what assets and liabilities we have. We cannot keep up with them. It is a mess. We are pulling 22 of these agencies into a new Department. We cannot approach it the same old way. We have to have a 21st century paradigm in order to address a 21st century problem. Most of the rules we are operating under now were created in the 1950s when we had a paperwork Government. People came into Government at this position, worked for 20 years, and were promoted in lockstep in these 15 steps, with 10 steps within each of the 15, totally unable to address modern-day problems. As the GAO tells us we cannot handle the information technology challenge that faces our Government, private industry has been able to. We have been trying to incorporate information technology capability in the IRS for years. We have spent billions of dollars and still the computers will not talk to each other--and they are not the only ones. We have human capital problems. We have financial management problems-- year after year. So that is all the background for considering an amendment such as this, which addresses the bill where it creates a new Office of Combating Terrorism. We are suggesting the President ought to have a little flexibility, a little traditional flexibility to have, in the White House--not over at the new Department but in the White House--a person he chooses to coordinate not only what is going on in the new Department but the important national security, or homeland security, entities that are not in the new Department. Coordination is needed. We have that coordinated. The President established an Office of Homeland Security. The President established an Office of Combating Terrorism within the NSC. Those are already there. You say we need them Senate confirmed. NSC is not Senate confirmed. We have a Senate- confirmed position we are creating in the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. This bill, as it is drafted now, mandates the development of a national strategy. We have a national strategy. We have had it since July. I don't know whether the idea is to set the old one aside and come up with a new one or submit the one the President has already put out again. This was a good idea back several months ago. Time has passed it by. The suggestion is made that this new person inside the White House, confirmed by the Senate over the President's objection, would have budgetary authority that would allow this new person to decertify the homeland security budget. The budget goes to him before it even goes to OMB. What kind of situation is that going to be? What if you were asked to take on the job of new Secretary of Homeland Security knowing that your budget was going to go to some guy over in the White House and he had to be satisfied before it even got to you? How would you like it over at the OMB, when we are going into a period of deficit, when people, apparently in this Congress, still think we can have guns and butter indefinitely, we don't have any problem spending helter-skelter, left and right? He has to balance all that. And he has a guy over in the White House who has only one priority, homeland security. And as important as it is, it is not the only priority this Government has. But he has veto power over the Government. There never has been a circumstance like this in the history of Government. There never has been a big Department, like the Department of Homeland Security, and what we are creating, with authority and responsibility and jurisdiction over the issue at hand, homeland security in this case, and a White House-confirmed position with decertification budget authority all at the same time. I think it would absolutely be havoc for any administration, Democrat or Republican. I think it would lessen accountability, not increase accountability. Goodness knows, we need increased accountability. The President has said he is going to keep Governor Ridge. I don't know whether the idea is we will give this new fellow an office down at the other end of the hall or that the President is not being square with us, that he will really get rid of Ridge or that he will give Ridge this job. I don't know what the idea is. The President said he is going to keep up the office. He is entitled to have his own counsel, as Presidents traditionally have. So I urge we not do that. I urge we maintain the status quo there; that we not take another step to restrict the President, to restrict either his national security authority that Presidents traditionally have, restrict the new Secretary's authority to manage the Department, in the new age and time and challenge that we face, and we not restrict the President within his own office in terms of whom he wants to bring in and have confidential conversations with, who cannot be called up to the Hill at any time. I said early on in this discussion before these bills were presented that ultimately it was clear Congress was going to have somebody's leg to chew on. Congress needed to have somebody who is accountable to come up here and testify. I didn't particularly welcome this back and forth as to who was going to talk and what office they would talk in and what other office they would not talk in. I don't think that would do any of us any good. I knew that ultimately somebody was going to have to come up here and be a spokesman and be accountable. We now have that. That is the new Secretary. That is the new Department of Homeland Security. We don't need it with regard to the position in the White House. The President said he doesn't want it. I believe on these close questions, if indeed my colleagues believe it is a close question, that we ought to give the President the benefit of the doubt. He is now, without boast, the leader of the free world. As we are facing the challenge of terrorism and the challenge that is presented by Saddam Hussein, as evidenced by his speech today, the ears of the entire world were trained upon him. That is not anything to do with him personally. That is the position of the President of the United States. In times such as these, if you can compare any other time with this-- especially in times of war, especially in times of issues of war and peace--whoever is President of the United States is the leader of the free world and is the leader in espousing those values that we hold dear, knowing as the entire world does that we are going to be on the front lines of any enforcement action the world deems necessary for the cause of freedom and democracy. That is not a hokie sentiment. That is not Democrat-Republican. That is just reality. I hope as we consider these issues that my colleagues will give on balance the call for a bit of flexibility, at least as much as we have given prior Presidents, and at least as much as we have given heads of these other agencies when facing challenges that are much less than what we are facing today. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Thompson amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of our time. It is imperative that we have a vote in 2 minutes. The Senator from Utah wanted a moment. From looking at the clock, we have 2 minutes until 2 o'clock; is that right?

Mr. THOMPSON. How much time does each side have remaining?

Mr. THOMPSON. The Senator from Connecticut has how much?

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back our time if the Senator is.

Mr. THOMPSON. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. And I would not try to take it, even if I thought I could. I respond to my friend from West Virginia by saying, I was simply going to address the issue very briefly and ask for the yeas and nays, frankly, on the second-degree amendment. I might add, I think the Senator is correct in the way he described it, but we had three basic concerns. One had to do with the Senate confirmation. The other one had to do with the fact that it put this person in a position of being a strategy maker, a statutory strategy maker, when we already have a national strategy. I have no objection to reporting to Congress periodically, but being in on the front end of that, I think that horse has already left the barn.

Mr. THOMPSON. In July.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Thomas Swanton, a staff member of Mr. Specter's office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of the debate on H.R. 5005, the homeland security bill.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow in Senator Brownback's staff, Jay Wolff, be permitted privileges of the floor during the homeland security bill.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend floor privileges to Wan Kim and Michael Volkov, who are both on detail to the minority staff of the Judiciary Committee, during the course of any debate on H.R. 5005, the homeland security bill.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, as we debate the Interior Appropriations bill, I would like to take this opportunity to focus attention on underinvestment in our national parks, an issue of particular importance to me and the millions of Americans who visit our national parks each year. Earlier this year I joined 27 of my colleagues in writing to Chairman Byrd and Senator Burns to request a $280 million increase above the fiscal year 2002 level for the National Park Service's operating budget. While the bill before us does not reach that goal, it is a step in the right direction and provides almost $98 million more than last year's funding level. I thank Chairman Byrd and Senator Burns for their leadership, and especially for their commitment to continue working to increase operational funding for the National Park Service and to eliminate the deferred maintenance backlog by 2007. Our national parks are a precious resource that we have a responsibility to protect. I have seen first hand the important role that our national parks play in conserving our natural resources and shaping our national heritage, and I have also witnessed the problems associated with a lack of resources for our parks. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, located in my home State of Tennessee, is the Nation's most visited national park, welcoming more visitors each year than the Grand Canyon and Yosemite combined. Unfortunately, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, like so many other parks across the country, is struggling to cope with an increasing number of visitors, a deteriorating infrastructure, and a general lack of resources. While Congress has regularly increased funding to operate and maintain the National Park System, we need to do more. The Federal Government has a fundamental responsibility to ensure that the Nation's 385 national parks are preserved for the enjoyment of current and future generations. Since 1980, park visitation has grown by more than 40 percent and Congress has added more than 60 new park units. More visitors means more stress on roads, campgrounds, and trails, and requires higher staffing levels to ensure that visitors are kept safe and resources are protected. One might say our parks are being loved to death, and Congress must make it a priority to provide the funding necessary to keep pace with increasing needs. The threats facing the parks can no longer be ignored, and each year of delay only compounds the problem. The amendment I am offering with Senator Cleland makes clear the Senate's commitment to meeting our responsibility to our national parks. The amendment expresses the sense of the Senate that Congress should, to the maximum extent practicable, continue efforts to increase operational funding for the National Park System and to eliminate the deferred maintenance backlog by 2007. The President has promised to address the maintenance backlog, and I commend his efforts. The deterioration of our national parks did not happen overnight, and a solution is going to require a long-term commitment from both the administration and Congress. The national parks exist for the use and enjoyment of all Americans and teach us important lessons about ourselves and the natural world in which we live. At a crucial time in our Nation's history, Americans should able to visit our national parks and experience them as they were meant to be enjoyed. A neglected and underfunded National Park System is not the legacy that I want to leave to our children and grandchildren. I am pleased that the Senate has recognized the importance of adequately funding our national parks, and it is my hope that Congress will continue to provide increased funding in the years to come.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senator Warner, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, the purpose of this amendment is to strike title II and title III and make conforming amendments. Title II would create an office in the White House that would coordinate the homeland security activities of the Federal Government. Title III would require the new office and the Secretary of Homeland Security to jointly produce a national strategy. The administration opposes the creation of an office in the White House that would have a Senate-confirmed director with specific responsibilities and authorities. The White House believes that such an office would blur the lines of accountability and diffuse responsibility, particularly since the White House already has an office, the Office of Homeland Security, that is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's homeland security efforts. The committee's proposed structure will also create confusion because similar functions will be performed by the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of the Office of Homeland Security, and the Director of the Office of Combating Terrorism, which is the National Security Council. With all these different offices, it will be extremely difficult to determine who is responsible. When a homeland security issue arises, which official does the Congress hold accountable, the Secretary for Homeland Security or the proposed Director of the Office for Combating Terrorism? We should also recognize that statutorily creating an office in the White House impairs the President's flexibility and authority to structure the Executive Office of the President to best meet his and the Nation's needs. The President traditionally has had broad authority to structure the Executive Office as he sees fit. This proposal is an infringement on that authority. There certainly have been times when it has been necessary to create an interagency coordinating body in the White House. The creation of the National Security Council is an excellent example of this. However, this proposal goes too far. It gives the proposed office specific responsibilities and authorities that tie the President's hands and limit his ability to mold the office to serve the needs of the American public. Another disconcerting aspect of this proposal is that it would require the director to be Senate confirmed. For the last year, the President has made it clear that he desires a confidential homeland security adviser who would advise him on domestic security issues. He doesn't want or need another Senate-confirmed official who would be required to testify before a congressional committee. We have such an individual in the new Secretary that has been created. The President must have his own advisers who work for him. I think he is entitled to that. Senator Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also expressed concern in a letter to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, where he wrote: The structure proposed by the Chairman would be redundant of the structure that is already in place. He further said that: The budget review and certification authorities would undercut the ability of several cabinet members, including the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Director for the Central Intelligence, to carry out their responsibilities. In the case of the Secretary of Defense, in particular, the proposal would give the director of this new office the ability to decertify; in essence, to veto the defense budget. It would be unwise to give this authority to an official who does not have to balance the many competing needs of the Department of Defense. Finally he said: The drafting of a new comprehensive strategy for homeland security is unnecessary. Legislating anything other than a periodic review and update of this strategy would be burdensome and would divert attention and resources away from the administration's focus on homeland security. Prior to the President's June 6 decision to support a Department of Homeland Security, I spoke in favor of a Senate-confirmed official that the Congress could hold accountable. We now have that with the new Secretary, or soon will have with the new Secretary of Homeland Security. I see little value in creating this new office when such an office already exists. Simply put, another office in the White House is redundant and unnecessary. Moreover, probably more importantly, there appears to be several negative consequences, potentially creating confusion as to accountability, as to budget authority, and the creation of a new homeland security strategy. Therefore, I urge adoption of the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I appreciate the well-thought-out statement of my colleague from Florida with regard to his opposition to this amendment. I think the groundwork has been laid now for a good discussion of the pros and the cons. The points my good friend made are not valid and are certainly not sufficient to defeat this amendment. I support this amendment basically for the following reasons, in addition to what I said earlier: It seems the opponents of this amendment--those who would create the new national Office for Combating Terrorism--take the position we need a coordinator to develop a strategy. But since this idea was first proposed, lots of things have happened. One is we are now on to the consideration of a large, new Department containing 22 agencies. Secondly, we have a strategy. In July, the President came forth with a national strategy. Now we have under consideration a large new Department taking in most of the agencies that will have a homeland security function, and we have a strategy that this new Department will be following in trying to implement the safety measures that we all know are needed. In addition, we still have a coordinator. We have someone to coordinate this new Department and those agencies which cannot be brought into the new Department, such as the Department of Defense and the FBI and other agencies. That is the Office of Homeland Security, under the leadership of Mr. Ridge. We also have the Office for Combating Terrorism under the NSC. Those offices are already there. We have those two offices in the White House serving a coordination function. Plus, we will have a new Department with a new Secretary and all of his responsibilities. So we have a strategy. I have not heard criticism that the strategy is not a good one or that we should go in a different direction or that there is some reason we should set up a whole new mechanism and bureaucracy to come up with a new strategy. So we have those components which the opponents of this amendment say we need. I agree we need them. We have them. We have them in a different way than what our friends on the other side would suggest. It is suggested that the National Security Council is an analogous entity or one after which this provision in the Senate bill has been patterned. There has been a comparison between the NSC and this proposed office, but the National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council, and this legislation gave the NSC broad responsibilities and limited authority. The head of the NSC, of course, is not confirmed by the Senate. There is no advice and consent with regard to the NSC. There is no Senate- confirmed official. The NSC has no budget authority, which is another big distinction between the NSC and the proposed Director in this bill. It was also designed for the sole purpose of coordinating policy. In contrast, the proposed White House office would have specific statutory responsibilities and functions; would have a Senate-confirmed Director; would have considerable budget review authority; and would, I submit, interfere with the executive branch's current budget process. I will dwell on that particular aspect of the bill because I think it is significant. That has to do with the budget authority. It is substantial. In title II, section 201, it states the new Director is: To coordinate, with the advice of the Secretary, the development of a comprehensive annual budget for the programs and activities under the Strategy, including the budgets of the military departments and agencies within the National Foreign Intelligence Program relating to international terrorism, but excluding military programs, projects or activities relating to force protection. It goes on to say: To have the lead responsibility for budget recommendations relating to military, intelligence, law enforcement [et cetera]. . . . To serve as an advisor to the National Security Council. It goes on in section 202 and says with regard to the submittal of proposed budgets to the Director: The head of each Federal terrorism prevention response agency shall submit to the Director each year the proposed budget of that agency for the fiscal year beginning in that year for programs and activities of that agency. . . . The proposed budget of an agency shall be submitted to the Director before that information is submitted to the Director of the OMB. It goes on to say: If the Director determines that under paragraph (1) that the proposed budget of an agency for a fiscal year . . . is inadequate, in whole or in part . . . the Director shall submit to the agency . . . a notice and a statement. It goes on to state: The head of the Federal terrorism prevention response agency that receives a notice [as described] shall incorporate the proposed funding . . . set forth in the statement accompanying the notice in the information submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. . . . So as I read that he pretty much had to do what the Director says even though the agency has the primary responsibility for dealing with the problem under their jurisdiction. It goes on under the section having to do with review and decertification, the Director: Shall review each budget submitted under paragraph (1); And may decertify the proposed budget. So, in effect, this Director has a veto over the budget. National Terrorism Prevention and Response Program budget in general: For each year, following the submittal of proposed budgets for the Director under subsection (b), the Director shall, in consultation with the head of each terrorism prevention agency concerned-- (A) develop a consolidated proposed budget for each fiscal year for all programs and activities under the Strategy . . . And submit it to the President and Congress. The head of the Federal terrorism prevention and response agency may not submit to Congress a request for a reprogramming or transfer of any funding specified in the National Terrorism Prevention and Response Program Budget for programs or activities of the agency under the Strategy for a fiscal year in excess of $5,000,000 without the approval of the Director. So, obviously, there is substantial budgetary authority--even though we have created a new Secretary with vast responsibilities, including the normal budgetary responsibilities--that the head of this Department would have. We still have the OMB and the regular process. Yet we would have a new Director who may not have the entire view of the Government that OMB has. Certainly it has an important function, an important role to play. Certainly it can have some input, but the ability to unilaterally make those kinds of budgetary decisions when we have this process, at a time when we are creating a new Department and a new Secretary, and to kind of take that away from the OMB, which has responsibility for a bigger picture, shall we say, I submit is not a good idea and it is unnecessary. It is not necessarily accurate to say that more is better when creating this Department. We can make it so large, so huge, there are so many moving parts--and we already have more directorates in the Senate bill than the President would submit--that it becomes unworkable or much more difficult to handle and to manage than is necessary. Also, it takes away from ease of accountability. One of the most difficult things we have seen in the Governmental Affairs Committee with regard to the overall operation of the Government in looking at so many of the efficiencies that many of the Departments have and that we fear we may be incorporating into this new Department is lack of accountability, who is in charge. If the administration has it their way--and I submit on a close call you ought to give an administration, and the President, and a new Secretary, a fighting chance to take the approach they want to take and then have the accountability of making it work than otherwise--if we adopted the President's suggestion, we would have the Office of Homeland Security, Mr. Ridge, which he says he will retain under any circumstances. So we have to assume he will. The Office of Combating Terrorism, under the NSC, which we have, and a new Department with a new Secretary with a big umbrella covering 22 agencies, I submit that will be complicated enough. We do not need a new directorate duplicating the budget process, duplicating the strategy process, when we already have one, and doing all those things that the administration is saying we don't want to do, we don't need to do. There has not been any good reason to say that is an incorrect position or that we need it. I don't think anyone has ever recommended exactly what we are considering today. The Gilmore Commission suggested a statutory White House position. That is true. But they did not also suggest a new Department. That was before we had the new Department under consideration, as we have today. Hart-Rudman recommended a new Department, but they did not recommend a statutory White House position. They recommended a coordinator, as I recall. I think I am accurate in saying that no Commission, no entity, anywhere, has ever recommended we have both a statutory, confirmable White House entity in addition to a new Department with a new Secretary which would be confirmable. I submit it is a reasonable and prudent thing to prune this huge-- some have called it--monstrosity. Maybe I have in times past. It is so big and potentially so unwieldy. I hope it does not turn out to be a monstrosity. I am talking about the new Department with all of the different agencies and 170,000 people, coming together and all of that. Surely, on something that is clearly as duplicative as this, we can pare it down a bit, use those offices and people we already have in place in all these key positions, and give the administration the ability to start this extremely important operation on a level playing field and one with which they feel comfortable. It does nothing for homeland security. It does not do anything to make this Nation safe by just adding on new agencies or any offices and new Directors and new responsibilities. Let this entity also do what this other entity is already doing and establish someone else in play with regard to that. That does not do a thing to enhance homeland security. I submit that it diminishes homeland security. None of us want to do that. So I submit the amendment is founded on sound principles and deserves serious consideration. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Connecticut for eloquently laying out his case against this amendment. It makes for a good debate. As I sit and listen and think about what we are about here, it occurs to me that never before in the history of this country have we ever set up an organizational framework at this level of government. That is a pretty strong statement. I stand to be corrected if I can be. We are setting up something here that we have never tried before. We are experimenting in a way in which we should not be experimenting. Why do I say that? I say that because we have never had a situation in the highest levels of government where we had a department with clearly defined responsibilities for an area of government and a White House entity that is Senate confirmed with decertification authority over the budget that pertains to that Secretary. If there is another situation like that in the history of the Government, I will acknowledge it and stand corrected. Reference has been made to the drug czar. He is Senate confirmed. He has decertification authority. But there wasn't a department such as the one we are in the process of creating. He, by his nature, by the nature of his job, had to coordinate legions of different entities and agencies and departments' budgets under the framework they had then. There was no one drug department or drug-fighting department other than him. He was it. He had to deal with budgets of the Department of Agriculture, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the DC court services and offender protection, the Department of Defense, the intelligence community management account, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of the Interior, the judiciary, the Department of Justice--I am not listing all the divisions and agencies within these Departments--the Department of Labor, the OMBCP, the Small Business Administration, the Department of State, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of the Treasury. He was a coordinator in the truest sense of the word--not analogous at all to the situation we have here. Reference has been made again to the NSC. We all know that the NSC not only does not have decertification authority; the NSC has no budget authority. The NSC is not confirmed by the Senate. Reference was made some way to our Trade Representative. He is confirmed by the Senate. He is the Trade Representative. I guess you could make some analogy to the Department of Commerce in terms of there being a Department that somehow has a responsibility in that area, but he is the person there, plus the fact that he has no decertification authority with regard to the Department of Commerce or anybody else. So, again, I cannot think of another situation where we have had a large Department that we are getting ready to create, with 22 agencies, 170,000 people, and all the responsibilities, and we are going to be looking to that new Secretary. Everybody agrees there needs to be a coordinator there. I don't hear any reference to Mr. Ridge not doing a good job or the present circumstance not working out. As the Office of Homeland Security is now constituted, we have a coordinator. But a new Department, a coordinator, who has decertification authority--think about how that would work. It is a recipe for conflict and turmoil within any administration. I don't know that there is a comparable in the history of our Government. It stands to reason that there would not be. What we seemingly have done is taken a lot of good ideas from a lot of people and added them together and not eliminated much of anything. I don't know of any proposal that we do that is truly analogous. Perhaps Brookings comes the closest, but they were thinking about a much narrower Department. They were thinking about a border security department more than anything else. So I suggest that we really think this through. More is not necessarily better. Do we really want a new coordinator who apparently is going to work down the hall from Mr. Ridge? I don't know if we are assuming--the President tells us he deserves to have his own person there. Are we assuming that he is going to back off? Is the new person--new Director--going to work down the hall from Mr. Ridge? Are we going to insist that the President get rid of Mr. Ridge's position because one is not confirmed and the other one is to be confirmed? It cannot be the same person serving both functions. I don't know what we are assuming. Do we really want to set up a person there who has decertification of the budget--even over the military, apparently, according to Senator Warner, who can speak for himself, and I understand he will--inside the White House? It is to be submitted to the budget and to him before it even goes to OMB, when you have a Secretary there with all of the responsibilities, budgetary and otherwise, that Secretaries normally have? Do we really want to do that? Is that really going to improve the operation of Government? Like I say, there have been different ideas at different times, at different stages of this process. Many of them are good ideas, but many of them came before the President proposed his ideas for a Department and before he submitted his national strategy in July. To a great extent, unfortunately, what we have done is taken all these proposals and kind of added them together and said if a Senate-confirmed new Secretary for a Department is good, then a Senate-confirmed new Office of Homeland Security would be even better. And if the responsibility of the new Secretary for his budget is a good idea, let's have somebody over in the White House who can decertify his budget. As I say, I think it is a recipe for turmoil within any administration. It is a recipe for conflict. I know that is not what is intended. As I sit here and think about how this would work, I think that would happen in any administration. I think Mr. McCaffrey used his authority one time to great consternation with regard to everybody, but it would not be anything-- perhaps he used it wisely, and I assume he did, but it would not be anything like a new Secretary with the responsibilities that a new Secretary would have, and the responsibility that OMB has. We are going from a budget surplus to a budget deficit. We have no idea, in my humble opinion, as to how much this is going to cost us. We don't know how much it is going to cost the private sector and the State and local governments. I think it is going to be a lot if we do what we need to do to protect our infrastructure and the other things that constitute homeland security. It is certainly going to cost the Federal Government an awful lot of money. We cannot shut this Nation down. We cannot spend all of our money on homeland security. We cannot have someone--I suggest it would not be wise--in the White House who only has responsibility for homeland security dictating what the entire Federal budget ought to look like. Somebody has to balance those, goodness knows, legitimate and, I would even say, primary concerns. But they are not exclusive concerns. We don't have an unlimited amount of money. We are apparently not willing to make tradeoffs. We are spending money like there is no war against terrorism. We are adding new entitlement programs--the Congress is--as we speak. We have done some and are in the process of doing others. So what are we going to do, send somebody up in the White House to say, stop, don't let us kill again; is that the idea? I think it has to do more with the will of Congress. We are going to have to do the right thing as a Congress. The Secretary is going to have to make proposals. The President and the head of OMB are going to have to say how much money we have to spend, and then take it to Congress and see what we think about it. There will be plenty of ways for Congress to exert its will--properly so. We are not going to be cut out and should not be. That is the normal process. Do we really need another entity, which I think would be unprecedented, in the midst of all this confusion and difficulty that we are going through? People talk about maybe we ought to look at this thing in stages. Maybe that is one of the things we ought to look at in stages. If it turns out that the strategy does not pan out, it is not satisfactory, that the budgetary situation is not working, it might be something we can revisit at another time. But with all these difficulties, is this really something we want to interject in the middle of this very difficult process? I submit to you that it is not. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I agree we do have some points of agreement. One is the fact that we do need a person in the White House in this coordination function. I agree with the second point also that we need a person with some clout. I submit Condoleezza Rice has clout and Tom Ridge has clout to do their jobs. Neither is confirmed by the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, the Senator from Texas is right. This is a significant change in procurement policy. The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which has jurisdiction over Federal procurement policy, has not had a single hearing to consider this issue and the impact it will have on the procurement process. I think at the outset it ought to be observed that it is very unfair to publicly accuse a company of being a tax cheat when they have not violated one single law, rule, or regulation of the United States. I have been informed since this discussion has been going on that one of the many unintended consequences, probably, and potentially unintended results, is one involving a company called Intelsat. If we are going to prohibit companies from dealing with the new Department of Homeland Security, why limit it to the Department of Homeland Security? Let's prohibit them from doing business with--I guess, the closest comparable department would be the Department of Defense. But the Department of Defense uses satellites of Intelsat. I do not know the extent of the traffic, but I think it is significant, and I know it is important to the national security of this country. Intelsat is a Bermuda company, and it is an inversion. That is the sort of thing we are dealing with, if thoughtful people think this thing through before we finish up this process. Another result of this amendment would be to allow foreign companies that have always been foreign companies to be able to bid on Department of Homeland Security contracts. But it would preclude foreign companies that have at one time in the past been headquartered in the United States from bidding on those contracts, even if the work would be performed in the United States by American workers. So if you have always been foreign, you can deal with the Federal Government. But if at one time, at any time in your past history you were an American company, you can't. That doesn't make any sense to me. I am also concerned that this amendment might violate our trade obligations because it is discriminatory against certain foreign-based companies. If we were to enact the amendment, what would be the unintended results? I am concerned we would be giving governments an excuse to ban U.S. companies from bidding on foreign contracts, when we have been fighting to get foreign governments to open their procurement process to U.S. companies. Denying a company the ability to be awarded Federal contracts based solely on the location of its headquarters represents a significant change in Federal procurement policy and counteracts years of work to streamline the Federal acquisition process. If we begin to use Federal contracts as leverage against potential contractors, the system will inevitably become highly politicized and the goal of obtaining the best value on Government contracts will no longer be a priority; It will be a political football, where the procurement process will turn into an attempt to punish our enemies and reward our friends instead of trying to get the best deal for the Government--which, of course, is the best deal for the taxpayer, who the proponents of this amendment claim they are looking out for. Government contracts are not gifts. Federal contractors face a burdensome process full of redtape, paperwork, and unique Government regulatory requirements. That is why it can be difficult to get multiple companies to even bid on a contract. We have attempted to streamline this process in recent years in order to increase competition, to save taxpayers money, but restrictions such as this discourage companies from bidding in the first place. We do not want to end up in a situation where DHS has to rely on sole-source vendors because we prohibit the Department from contracting with an inverted corporation. The least we could do is provide the Secretary with the authority to waive the ban in order to ensure competition in the bidding process. That procurement bar is a serious sanction, reserved only for egregious conduct such as fraud or criminal offenses in connection with obtaining the contract or performing a public contract. What is important to Government procurement officials when evaluating a contract bid is not where the bidding company is headquartered. They look at where the work is to be done, whether the company will do a good job, and whether the bid is cost effective. Whether or not you believe corporate inversions should be prohibited, the fact of the matter is that inversion transactions are legal under the current tax laws. Because the amendment is retroactive, it would bar companies that have engaged in legal behavior--an inversion--from bidding on DHS contracts. The inversion could have occurred a year ago or 10 years ago. Either way, these companies had no way of knowing that they could be banned from bidding on federal contracts if they inverted. This amendment's definition of an inversion is problematic, because it would snag any company that inverted at any time if 50 percent of the shareholders are the same before and after the inversion. This amendment would not just go after the sham transactions that are targeted by the Finance Committee bill. It would also catch companies that engaged in inversion transactions for legitimate business reasons. The Finance Committee-reported bill has an 80 percent shareholder test, which is intended to target the most egregious transactions. It is important to note that these companies do and will pay U.S. tax on the income earned from their government contracts regardless of whether they are headquartered in the U.S. The amendment does not address the root cause of corporate inversions, which is our highly complex foreign tax regime that taxes companies on a worldwide basis. U.S. tax laws put domestic companies at a distinct disadvantage relative to their foreign competitors who are taxed on a territorial basis. That is the heart of the problem. That is the root cause, and that is what we ought to be addressing. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON. Reserving the right to object, as I understand it, Senator Gramm will speak first. Then I will have the opportunity to speak and then Senator Lieberman. Does the Senator from Minnesota want additional time?

Mr. THOMPSON. First? First meaning immediately, right now, before Senator Gramm?

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for the statement he has made today and for his leadership, once again, on this issue, and for his contribution toward our being here today. He speaks eloquently as to our need to do things differently with regard to this Government and with regard to the reorganization of a very important part of our Government. His analogy of gasoline and engines I think is right on point. It doesn't matter how much gasoline you put into a faulty engine, it is still a faulty engine. We need to do better than that. There is no reason that at end of the day we can't pass a bill that is going to make this country safer than it was before, and that is our common goal. Few need to be reminded why we are here. While September 11 was not the opening salvo, it was the event that forced us to confront the scope of the threats to our country and to recognize the need to do something significant and meaningful to address those threats. Prior to the 1980s, most terrorist groups were regionally focused and lacked the means and the connections to operate on a global scale. They relied upon state sponsors for financial support and often fought for ideological reasons. The few exceptions were those who fought to destroy the Israeli state. During the 1980s, this trend began to change. With the increase in militant Islamic attacks against Israel, the rise of revolutionary Iran, and the formation of Mujahedin in Afghanistan, terrorism began to take a more extremist tone. Then, in 1983, a small group in Lebanon, now known as Hizballah, began using a devastating new tactic to target Western troops: suicide bombings. The United States was the first to experience the destructiveness of this form of attack. In April 1983, a suicide bomber drove a 2,000 pound truck bomb into the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63. The full impact of suicide bombings, however, was not felt until 6 months later. On October 23, 1983, a lone suicide bomber drove a truck laden with explosives into the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen and injuring dozens more. Since 1983, we have experienced other terrorist attacks as well. In 1989, terrorists downed Pam Am 103, killing over two hundred; in 1993, extremists tried to destroy the World Trade Center by detonating a van laden with tens of pounds of high explosives; in 1995, Timothy McVeigh exploded a rental van outside the Oklahoma Federal Building, killing 168 people; in 1996, religious extremists blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring another 372; in 1998, extremists blew up truck bombs outside the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, murdering 252 people, including 12 Americans, and injuring at least 5,000 more; and in 2000, extremists blew themselves up alongside the U.S.S. Cole, nearly sinking the ship. 17 American sailors were killed and another 39 were wounded. The list does not include a number of planned terrorist attacks that were disrupted or prevented by U.S. or foreign intelligence, military, and law enforcement operations. It is easy to imagine, however, that this list could have been much longer. Over the last 10 years, Congress literally held dozens of hearings on what we should do to combat terrorism. We have also had report after report highlighting the dangers of terrorism. The General Accounting Office alone has issued over 50 reports on various ways to better protect our country against terrorist attack. Several independent commissions have also recommended measures that would have addressed many of our vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, we did not implement measures because they were either costly or unpopular. We lacked both consensus and a sense of urgency. If anything positive can be gleaned from the tragic attacks of September 11, perhaps it is the appearance of a national consensus for change. Most Americans today believe that the deficiencies in our homeland security must be corrected and are willing to bear the costs of doing so. President Bush has personally embraced this task and employed every tool at his disposal. Some of the actions that he has taken to date include: Destroying terrorist camps in Afghanistan and helping to restore a civil government in that beleaguered land; tracking and eliminating funding sources for terrorist organizations; deploying greater intelligence resources around the world to hunt down terrorists; fostering an international consensus and forming a diplomatic coalition against terrorism and its supporters; creating the Northern Command in the Department of Defense to manage and coordinate the defense of the territory of the United States; and, doubling the ``Homeland Security'' budget to $38 billion; and developing a National Homeland Security Strategy. A critical element of the Administration's response to terrorism is the President's proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security. this proposal is not a new idea. Seven months before September 11, the Hart-Rudman Commission released its third comprehensive report on U.S. national security. To the surprise of many, the commission proposed the creation of a new federal department to better counter the threat posed by terrorism. Unfortunately, most considered such an idea at that time to be impractical. Even after September 11, many of us were less than enthusiastic about the creation of such a department. To their credit, Senators Hart and Rudman continued to push for a department. Our colleagues, Senator Lieberman and Senator Specter, eventually took up their cause and offered legislation that would create a Department of Homeland Security. Over the last eleven months, the President's Office of Homeland Security has carefully examined every facet of our homeland security weaknesses, our needs, our effort, our allocation of resources. It considered numerous proposals for a homeland security organization from outside studies, commission, and members of Congress, including the Hart-Rudman proposal. The President eventually came to the conclusion that reorganization on a large scale was necessary. The President's proposal would not have been possible had the Administration not taken the time to conduct its comprehensive review. The President's June 6 proposal was unusual in several respects. Reorganization of the executive branch on this scale has not occurred or been attempted for 55 years. The proposal would move 22 federal agencies and programs with some 170,000 employees into a single department with a total budget for fiscal year 2003 of nearly $38 billion. Upon receiving the President's proposal, the governmental Affairs Committee held a number of hearings and subsequently marked up a substitute amendment to S. 2452, the bill we are moving to consider. While there is broad overlap between the President's proposal and the committee's substitute amendment, there are significant differences as well. The debate will mostly focus on the differences. Before I highlight some of these areas, let me also take some time to summarize the Committee's substitute and explain the importance of some of its provisions. As it currently stands, our country's homeland security effort is disorganized and disjointed. Many Federal agencies responsible for homeland security have many other responsibilities as well. The guiding principle of the proposals to reorganize Federal agencies into a new department of Homeland Security is the recognition that the Nation needs a reinvigorated and refocused effort on the part of these agencies. A new department will force agencies whose missions only partly involve homeland security to refocus their efforts to make homeland security their primary effort. Both the President's proposal and the committee's substitute amendment to the Lieberman-Specter bill would enhance border security by bringing in under one roof all the agencies responsible for border control. The Border Patrol, the Customs Service, the new Transportation Security Administration, the appropriate components of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the coast guard will all become a part of the new department, with an eye towards developing a fully integrated approach to border security operations. On border security, I do want to point out my concern that the committee substitute keeps the components of the Immigration and Naturalization Service intact in a new Immigration Affairs Directorate of the new department. I think the Border Patrol must not only become part of the new department, but must be made a part of the Border and Transportation Security Directorate if the new Department of Homeland Security is to be as effective as we need it to be. I hope we are able to take a look at this structural issue as the debate proceeds. The President proposed that the new department contain a component to assess the Nation's vulnerabilities to terrorism, analyze information regarding threats to our homeland, and match the threat assessments to the nation's vulnerabilities to help prioritize our homeland security efforts. The President's proposal was designed to fill a gap in the Federal Government's intelligence capabilities. While a number of agencies conduct a variety of threat assessments, and a few agencies conduct narrowly focused vulnerability assessments, no one in the federal government married the threats with the vulnerabilities to develop national policy. The committee substitute differs from the President's proposal by splitting the intelligence analysis component of the new department from the infrastructure protection component and creating two distinct organizations within the new department. I support the establishment of an intelligence capability in the new department, but I believe the President's proposal is more sound than the Committee's approach. I will discuss this later. Clearly, one of the greatest strengths we have to employ against potential enemies of our nation is technology. The President proposed a component of the new department to focus on weapons of mass destruction, which the President believes are not receiving adequate attention from existing agencies. Building on the President's proposal, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Domenici, Chairman Bingaman, and I worked to develop a Science and Technology Directorate to develop and focus a concerted national effort, relying on resources the Federal Government has already deployed, primarily the National Laboratories and their partnerships, that will develop new technologies to combat terrorist threats. Thus far, the department that both the President and the Committee propose focuses its efforts on prevention, on before-the-fact counter- terrorism activities. The proposals go further, however, by bringing in as part of the new department the responsibilities for consequence management, for the after-the-fact efforts. The main component of this aspect of the proposals is the inclusion of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the new Department of Homeland Security. By bringing together the management of the prevention responsibilities and the consequence management responsibilities, we hope to eliminate bureaucratic impediments and unify diverse bureaucracies, improve coordination, find and exploit appropriate synergies, and strengthen the Federal Government's entire homeland security effort. We must be realistic about this reorganization. It is mammoth. It will take years of exacting effort to get it done. Congress may be called upon again to legislate changes to the new department. Let us not forget that many believe that the Defense Department was not fully realized until 1986, almost 40 years after it creation, when Congress enacted the Goldwater-Nickles Act. When the President first proposed this massive homeland security reorganization, I did some research into the mergers of private companies. My staff and I have consulted with management and merger experts in the private sector and in academia. I regret that their analysis of the prospect for success was largely pessimistic. Many private sector mergers fail. The problems are obvious: blending corporate cultures and product lines is not a simple task. chief executive officers who have been through mergers that were smaller and much less complicated than this one give us only about a 20 or 30 percent chance of success. These odds are not promising. It makes me wonder what we need to do to improve those odds. The transition period will be particularly difficult. In some ways, it will be like an elephant on roller skates attempting to learn to juggle. The proposed reorganization will be greatly complicated by the fact that several of the agencies being transferred currently are themselves dysfunctional from a management standpoint. A lack of coordination, improper payments, waste, missing equipment, human capital shortcomings, and program inefficiencies are all serious problems confronting the Federal Government at large. These problems will piggy- back their way into the new department with the incoming component agencies and will limit its effectiveness unless we address them here. The management challenges facing this Department are in many respects a reflection of the Federal Government as a whole. For years, the Governmental Affairs Committee has had parades of witnesses and reports telling us that the executive branch and Congress must together do a better job of managing the taxpayers' money. Simply put, we are a government that cannot pass an audit. Last year, the Government Affairs Committee released a report titled ``Government at the Brink,'' that highlighted some of the waste, fraud, and mismanagement that pervades our Federal Government. Unfortunately, this new department is inheriting a number of agencies that were the focus of that report. The Immigration and Naturalization Service lacks sufficient staff resources to perform intelligence functions; the Customs Service cannot rely on its data systems to determine where the workload is heaviest and therefore where to assign its employees; the Federal Emergency management Agency, FEMA, faces significant problems in managing its grants, and the list goes on and on. These are not partisan problems. They developed and have existed in both Republican and Democratic administrations. They have flourished when Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, when Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, when Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, and when there was split control of Congress. While we cannot cure these government-wide problems in this bill, we must recognize them, learn from our experience with them, and try to avoid these problems in the future as we create this new Department. The current management paradigms for the Government that try to address these problems are largely the creation of the post-World War II expansion of the executive branch. They are largely premised on a command-and-control approach to management. These paradigms are out of date for the modern, largely white-collar, technological workforce needed by the Federal Government to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The current management structure throughout the executive branch puts no premium on accountability. Managers find it difficult to reward good performers, and even more difficult to sanction poor performers. Efforts by employees and managers to find new ways to meeting agency missions are rebuffed, often by political appointees who have only short-term goals in mind. These appointees rarely see the value of major management reforms whose benefits may not accrue to the agency and its leaders for years to come and long after they are gone. For a number of years, both the legislative and executive branches have been promoting performance-based management. The primary legislative reform to promote a new emphasis on results is the Government Performance and Results Act--we call it the Results Act-- which was enacted by a Democratic Congress during a Democratic administration. President Bush and his staff at the Office of Management and Budget have made great efforts to make performance-based management a reality throughout the executive branch. The President has developed a management agenda that, when fully implemented, will force agency managers to focus more closely on the results they are achieving with the resources Congress and the taxpayers provide to them. Congress, which started the revolution toward performance-based managing in Government, should encourage the executive branch to continue to increase its emphasis on managing for results. We should be a partner with the President in encouraging new management techniques and giving Federal managers the tools they need and the flexibility they require to accomplish the missions we assign to them. In return, we must demand greater accountability from the President and those he appoints to manage Federal agencies. Even with this emphasis by both branches of Government on better management, the results are mixed at best. Each year, the GAO continues to place the same agencies and the same Departments on its list of entities that are at high risk for waste, fraud, and mismanagement, demonstrating how deep and seemingly intractable this problem is--which brings us to our present consideration: We simply must give this new department and this new Secretary the management tools with which to carry out this new massive and vitally important job. The sheer volume of people, property, and assets involved in the new department is overwhelming. Coupled with our expectations that this new department will be the cure that will strengthen our domestic security, I fear that we are setting ourselves up for failure if we do not provide the new Secretary with the flexibility to manage the department properly. By maintaining the status quo, not only will the Secretary be required to pay the same salary to two counterterrorism experts with vastly different performance and ability levels, we are also prohibiting the Secretary from accessing a single cent of the unexpended funds from agencies that are transferred to the new department to assist in the transition. Instead, the Secretary must appeal to Congress to enact enabling legislation each and every time the Secretary of the new department needs some flexibility to reorganize or get this department up and running successfully. Supporters of the legislation before us disagree. They argue that the Secretary does not need additional managerial tools or flexibility to take on this monumental task. It is true that flexibility is not needed to set up another Federal bureaucracy that resembles the rest of Government. Flexibility is not needed to replicate the problems that pervade our Government in terms of Federal workforce management, financial management, information technology management, and program overlap and duplication. Managerial tools and flexibility are not needed to create another Federal Department that ranks at the top of the General Accounting Office's ``high-risk'' list of agencies in the Government that are most vulnerable to waste, fraud, and mismanagement. Managerial tools and flexibility are not needed to create a civil service, that, according to one expert, Paul Light, of the Brookings Institution, and former staff member to the Governmental Affairs Committee: Underwhelms at virtually every task it undertakes. It is sluggish at hiring, hyper-inflated at appraising, permissive at promoting, weak-kneed at disciplining, and mind-numbingly elongated at firing. Our goal in this new department must not be to replicate the failures Mr. Light outlines, but, rather, to make improvements. If we cannot improve our well-known operational shortcomings now that our Nation's security is at issue, when in the world will we ever be able to do so? According to the legislation before us today, the mission of the new department is to ``promote homeland security,'' ``prevent terrorist attacks,'' and ``reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism.'' I question how this new department will possibly be able to fulfill its mission if it is bogged down by the same old persistent management problems that have faced the rest of our Government for so many years. First and foremost, I think most of us would agree with Paul Light, and other experts, that the Federal civil service system, the process the Federal Government uses to hire and promote workers, is broken. Madam President, this is a logical stopping point for me. If I am reading the clock correctly, we are very close to the time of recess for our briefing. So, with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. Senator Lieberman can perhaps consult with the Senator from Minnesota as to the way we will proceed. If the Senator is willing to set aside the amendment for a moment, we will bring it back in due course and proceed with the discussion, if that is agreeable.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time used by the Senator from Texas not be charged to either side.

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