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[Page: S8052] GPO's PDF---
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed under Senator Lieberman's time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
TERRORISM INSURANCE
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have to believe that the President is not getting the right information from his staff; otherwise, knowing him, I cannot believe he would say some of the things he has said recently.
I was running yesterday morning, and on Public Radio I heard a preview of the speech the President was going to give before a union in Pennsylvania. And I thought they must have made a mistake. Then, later in the day, I heard him complete that speech, and he went ahead just as they had said on Public Radio.
As we consider homeland security and the measures we should take to defend America, I think it is important we talk about terrorism insurance . That is the issue I want to talk about. I believe the President has not received the proper information from his staff.
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon about a year ago, many American businesses have had trouble purchasing affordable insurance covering acts of terrorism .
As a consequence, many construction projects and real estate transactions have been delayed, interrupted, and in some cases canceled. We are talking about billions of dollars worth of projects that have been stalled, some terminated, solely because of the lack of being able to purchase terrorism insurance .
These problems cost many American workers their jobs and prevent businesses from being as productive as they could be. Clearly, the lack of affordable terrorism insurance has had a harmful effect on our Nation's already troubled economy.
I am glad we are back from our break and the President is back from his vacation. However, as I have indicated, yesterday, the President made some statements relating to terrorism insurance , about the need for Congress to move forward on terrorism insurance , that simply were without any fact.
As millions of students across the country go back to school, I want them to understand that they must speak the truth. I repeat, I do not think the President said what he said yesterday based upon full knowledge of all the information.
The truth, Mr. President, is Senate Democrats--because I have been here offering the unanimous consent request for months--have been leading the effort to pass an effective terrorism insurance bill--and we started on this last year--while Republicans have delayed and attempted to thwart this important legislation time after time. The President should know that. The leadership in the Congress of his party has not allowed us to go forward on this legislation.
One of the statements he made before the union is: I am for hard hats, not trial lawyers.
This is terrorism insurance . We should move it forward. I am confident everyone can see through these statements the President made as being without fact.
I want to remind him and the people who give him advice--give him good information, good background information so he can speak with the full knowledge of the facts.
We are eager to pass terrorism insurance . We have done everything within our power to do that. This would help workers, businesses, and the Nation's economy.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks last year, our colleagues--Senators DODD, SARBANES, and SCHUMER--developed a strong bill to help businesses get the affordable terrorism insurance they badly need.
When we attempted to move this bill last December, the minority voiced no fundamental disagreement with the bill but argued over the number of amendments to be offered. This was done in an effort to prevent us from moving forward on this legislation. So we could not do it in December. We came right back and started on it. After having had many private attempts to get this legislation moving, we decided to go public and try to move it from the floor, right from where I stand.
We tried offering in early spring unanimous consent agreements to take up the terrorism insurance legislation. Again, there was no objection to the base text or that the Dodd-Sarbanes-Schumer bill should be the vehicle we would bring to the floor. They wanted some amendments. We wanted to treat this as any other legislation. They said let us agree on the number of amendments. Whatever number we came up with wasn't appropriate. We could not move it. Finally, they simply disagreed with bringing up the bill at all.
It is the right of the majority leader to decide which bills are brought to the floor. If the minority is opposed, they have the right to offer amendments and attempt to modify the text of the bill. We have offered to bring the bill up with amendments on each side so everyone could have the opportunity to make changes.
Nevertheless, the minority continued to object and further prevented us from passing the terrorism insurance legislation.
In April, the importance of the terrorism insurance legislation was enunciated by Secretary O'Neill in his testimony before the Appropriations Committee that the lack of terrorism insurance could cost America 1 percent of the GDP because major projects would not be able to get financing.
Finally, we were able to get an agreement that we could bring the bill to the floor. We passed the legislation. And then came weeks and weeks of more stalling by the minority. We could not get agreement on appointing conferees. We attempted and attempted and attempted. First, they were upset because the ratio was 3 to 2, which is fairly standard. They said they wanted 4 to 3. So we came back
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Finally, we were able to get agreement on the appointment of conferees. But now nothing is happening in the conference. We cannot do that alone. So I hope the record is clear. I know we refer to ``the people downtown''--that is, the government representatives, the lobbyists who are concerned about this issue, the real estate and hotel owners, and these special interest groups. They know how we have tried to move this legislation. I only hope the people who have lost their jobs and are unable to move forward--these people in Pennsylvania yesterday who were told we are holding this up--understand that simply is not the truth.
So I certainly hope this legislation can be completed and we can have a bill sent to the President. It is the right thing to do. The legislation is important, and I hope we can do it sooner rather than later.
I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes of my time now to the Senator from Illinois who, I might say parenthetically, has been an extraordinarily thoughtful, constructive participant in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's consideration of the question of homeland security and, in that sense, has contributed mightily to the proposal we will put before the Chamber tonight. I am glad to yield 15 minutes to Senator Durbin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Chairman LIEBERMAN for his leadership on the Governmental Affairs Committee. I think the record demonstrates that before the President called for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, our committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Senate, under Senator Lieberman's leadership, proposed a law to create such a Department.
At the time, it is interesting because it was on a partisan roll call, if I remember correctly, nine Democrats for it, seven Republicans against it. We argued that a question of this magnitude, a challenge of this gravity, required a separate Department at that moment in time. Neither the President nor his loyal followers in the Senate were prepared to join us in that effort.
So I salute Senator Lieberman for his leadership, and I am happy now that we have reached the point where we are speaking again, as we should when it comes to our Nation's defense, in a bipartisan manner. I hope that as we proceed to the debate on this bill, we can gather together again that same bipartisan force.
There is nothing that says Congress or the Senate have to agree on everything and, frankly, if we did, it would probably betray the principles and values of this Nation. But when it comes to our national security and defense, particularly the creation of a Department of this magnitude, I think it is all well and good that when the debate ends, we do try to find some common ground.
Our Government simply has to change and adapt to the challenge of international terrorism . A reorganization of this magnitude is not going to be simple--it is going to take some time--but this Congress is up to the task. Throughout our history, from 1789 when the first Congress created the first executive branch Departments of State, War, and Treasury, to 1988 when the latest Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, was created, Congress has worked to make sure the Government was organized to do the job the American people asked of it.
Protecting our Nation's people is our highest priority. On March 15, 2001, almost 6 months before the attack on September 11, the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, known by the shorthand name of the Hart-Rudman Commission, named after its co-chairmen the distinguished former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, released a report entitled ``Road Map For National Security: An Imperative For Change.'' The Commission was, unfortunately, prescient in seeing the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism . The No. 1 recommendation of the Hart-Rudman Commission was to create a Department of Homeland Security.
It is worth quoting for the record some of the report that came out of the Commission. It says, the combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack.
These words were written 6 months before September 11. They went on in their report to recommend the creation of an independent national homeland security agency, and they suggested there were some agencies of Government which naturally would come under the roof and under the authority of this new Department and quite effectively, or at least more effectively, defend the United States.
The blueprint they laid out was really the basis for this bill we have before us, the Senate version, the Governmental Affairs version, from Senator Lieberman. The backbone of the new Department will be FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with the Departments guarding our borders and our perimeter. This new Department everyone sees as a way to protect our country more robustly.
Some have questioned, though, how a new Department and how reorganizing Government will really make us any safer. Right
now there are more than 45 agencies in the Federal Government with some responsibility for homeland security. If we look at it, it is just too diffuse. It cannot be focused. It cannot be coordinated. In the words of my friend and former House colleague, Gov. Tom Ridge, we are going to, frankly, not have the force multipliers we need that organization and coordination will bring.
Some of my colleagues have charged we are moving too quickly. Well, I happen to agree with the premise that this race to enact this legislation by September 11 of this year, on the 1-year anniversary of that terrible disaster, was precipitous. It would have been a miracle if we had been able to create a bill that quickly which would have really met the task. It is better for us to take the additional time to do it right. To meet some self-imposed deadline or some deadline imposed by the press or our critics does not make a lot of sense when we are talking about a Department that is going to be facing the responsibility of protecting America for decades to come.
As a member of the committee, I want to report to our colleagues that I think our committee has done its job. This does not mean we should not debate the issue and deliberate on some alternatives and some modifications. What we have before us is an effort, backed by bipartisan work for many years under both Republican and Democrat chairmen. This committee has held 18 hearings since last September 11 setting up this new Department. It is a committee that has held a series of hearings over the last 4 or 5 years on the issues that are involved.
I remind my colleagues that this extensive body of work of this committee and its chairman allowed our committee to report out a bill on May 22. Once the President decided he wanted a similar Department, we tried to coordinate his intentions with our own. Realizing that all wisdom does not reside in one branch of Government or the other, we have listened to the President's suggestions. I am hopeful he will be open to our own.
One of the things I included in this as an element that was of particular personal interest related to the whole question of information technology. The proposal to restructure 28 agencies into a new, unified Homeland Security Department poses a complex challenge to integrate the system's infrastructure of our information technology to support the new Department's mission.
Let me get away from these high falutin' words, high sounding words, and get back to the real world where I live, because I am not part of this computer generation. I struggle with my own computers and e-mail to try to be up to speed. In the amendment that I adopted, what we are really saying to the Office of Management and Budget
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I am sorry to report to the Senate and to the people following this debate that that does not exist today. In fact, it has been a very low priority. If we look at the sorry state of affairs of computers at agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we can certainly understand the need for this amendment. Currently, each of the agencies we expect to consolidate has its own separate information technology budget and program--the Coast Guard, Customs, FEMA, INS, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, and others.
Each one has a unique system that does not necessarily have the capacity to communicate or coordinate these activities. Frankly, is that not what this debate is all about, so that all the agencies of the Federal Government will coordinate their resources, their authority, and their wisdom into one unified effort to create the force multiplier that Governor Ridge mentioned?
Because these divergent systems need to be linked, it is important to ask key questions now to ensure this new Department will help the agencies brought together and others outside to coordinate their communication and share information. It is equally important to establish appropriate links between the Homeland Security Department and other agencies, such as the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the FBI, the State Department, and State and local officials, which may not be embraced under the Homeland Security Department's organizational umbrella.
Given the current state of affairs in the Federal information technology systems reflected in incomprehensible delays in meeting congressional mandates, I think this is long overdue. I will give two illustrations of why this is timely.
Six years ago, Congress mandated the Customs Department and INS to establish a database to record those exiting the United States with visitor's visas. Those coming into the United States in many instances need visas to be in the United States, and we thought we should keep track of those who are leaving so we will know the net number of visa holders in the United States, which can range in the tens of millions at any given time.
Six years ago, Congress said to the INS: Keep track of people leaving with a visa. Six years later, it is still not done. It has not been accomplished. The inspector general at the Department of Justice tells us it is years away.
So when Attorney General Ashcroft said, to make America safer, we are going to take the fingerprints and photographs of all people coming into the United States on a visa, I am sure people around America were nodding their heads saying, I guess that is necessary; it is certainly reasonable. Well, it is technologically impossible today to do it. We do not have the computer capability to keep track of people leaving the United States with a visa, let alone the millions coming into the United States on visas.
So for the Attorney General to make that suggestion is to say that he is going to go drill for oil on the Moon. It is not going to happen--not until we come a long way from where we are today.
We also said, incidentally, to the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service: We notice that they both collect fingerprints. Can they merge their databases so that law enforcement agencies across the Federal Government, across the Nation, around the world, will have access to a common database of fingerprints collected by the United States? We asked them to do that 3 years ago. It still has not been done.
So when it comes to information technology, do not delude yourself into believing we are where we ought to be. We are not.
The creation of this Department and the amendment which Senator Lieberman and others were happy to accept and said nice things about, I hope will move forward in achieving that goal.
The enterprise architecture and resulting systems must be designed for interoperability between many different agencies. I hope we get this achieved quickly.
I have had a great deal of frustration, even anger, over the lack of progress we have made since September 11. To have the new person in charge of information technology from the FBI testify before the Judiciary Committee saying it will be 2 years before the FBI is up to speed with their computers is totally unacceptable. Members should not stand for that one second. To think one can go to any computer store in any major city in America and buy computers with better capability than the computers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is shameful. That exists today; it should change. This bill will be part of the change.
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