Department of Homeland Security Approporiations Act, 2006
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Shelby-Sarbanes transit amendment. This amendment increases transit security funding by $1.1 billion. It is endorsed by both the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra, the commuter rail agency serving Chicago and all of northeastern Illinois.
The amendment would provide $790 million for public transportation agencies for capital security improvements, $333 million for operational security improvements, and $43 million for grants to public or private entities to conduct research on terrorist prevention technologies. This money would be doled out to agencies based on risk.
The amendment seeks the funding needed to fund a bill passed by the Senate in 2004 known as the Public Transportation Terrorism Prevention Act.
After the London bombing last week, we became acutely aware of how vulnerable our transit systems are in this country, although some of us have been concerned about these problems for years.
Since the London bombing, transit systems across the Nation have been upgraded to an Orange Alert level, meaning more canine patrols, deployment of explosive detection devices, increased security guard patrols, and increased customer assistance. A significant amount of this has been borne by State and local governments.
I was disappointed today to hear about Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoffs remarks that State and local governments should bear much of the burden of protecting transit systems. A bomb in a subway, he says, may kill 30 people, while a fully loaded airplane may kill 3,000 people.
This argument is misleading. A well-orchestrated, multipronged attack on one of Metra's largest trains, which carry up to 1,600 passengers or the equivalent of three fully loaded Boeing 747 aircraft, could produce a similar body count.
I am sure the families of the 50 victims of the London attacks don't think the lives of their loved ones were any less important than those of people who have been killed on airplanes.
Transit systems are an accident waiting to happen. They are a vulnerability we have ignored for far too long, and the terrorists know it.
The Federal Government has a responsibility to protect trains as well as airplanes, for the public good, and it needs to take responsibility.
For CTA, this increased security is costing an estimated extra $60,000 a day, on top of an already massive increase in security spending borne since September 11.
Metra has diverted millions of dollars in funds for police overtime pay, extra outside security police, and bomb-sniffing dogs.
Our rail system covers approximately 16,000 acres, carrying 500 freight and 700 commuter trains each day. More than 2 million passengers travel to or from Chicago on Amtrak, and Chicago's transit systems take 73 million local passenger trips a year. These people and this cargo needs to be secure.
Despite these facts, and other impressive statistics from New York, New Jersey, California, and elsewhere where rail and transit systems are relied on heavily, in the President's budget proposal, nearly 90 percent of Federal transportation security funds have been directed to aviation security. While I don't want to take away from the importance of aviation security improvements, this amendment attempts to diminish that inequity.
In this bill before us, the committee proposes only $100 million for intercity passenger rail transportation, freight rail, and transit security grants. This is one-third less than we appropriated last year and hundreds of millions less than the Senate has authorized for these programs over the years.
While the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, will offer an amendment to boost this funding by an additional $100 million, there are two things wrong with this approach. One, he takes it away from State and local grants. And two, $100 million is not enough, given the risks.
He will talk about the need for fiscal discipline; he will talk about this amendment and other important rail security amendments as busting the budget, but it is a question of priorities. We are busting the budget every day for the priorities of tax cuts and funding the war in Iraq.
Transit operators must take effective steps to reduce the risk of terrorist attack. And they need help to do it. State and local governments are investing their own time and money, and the Federal Government should respond.
We should not wait for terrorists to attack a U.S. transit system to react. We need to take action now.
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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the minority leader.
Madam President, I want to raise this point: If you can't discuss the issue of intelligence and security on a bill about homeland security, where would you raise the issue? What we are talking about here are men and women who are the first line of defense against terrorism. These are intelligence agents who literally, many of them, risk their lives every day to protect Americans.
What happened here? There was a decision made by some people in the White House--that is what Mr. Novak said--to disclose the identity of a covert CIA agent, the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, for the purpose of political retribution. That is what it was all about. They were angry with Ambassador Wilson, and so they were going to disclose his wife's identity, a woman who had put her life on the line for the United States. That disclosure endangered her life and the lives of everyone she worked with. It was political.
The Senator from Minnesota is right. At the heart of this is politics: a decision by someone in the White House at the highest level for political revenge to go after the identity of this woman.
Let me tell you what other CIA officers had to say about it. They all happen to be Republicans. After this happened, this is what they said, those who were contemporaries of hers:
My classmates and I have been betrayed. Together, we have kept the secret of each other's identities for over 18 years. ..... This issue is not just about a blown cover. It is about the destruction of the very essence, the core, of human intelligence collection activities--plausible deniability--apparently for partisan domestic reasons.
We have heard people come to the floor on the Republican side who have said this is all political and it is not that important and why don't we get back to the bill. It is important. What Senator Reid has offered--an amendment which I am proud to cosponsor--basically says, if you disclose the identity of a covert CIA agent, you lose your security clearance. Why? Because why should we continue to give information to people about those who are risking their lives for America if they are going to misuse it, in this case, for political purposes? That is what this is all about. It is fundamental and basic.
For those who say: I am going to vote against that, think about what you are saying. You are saying a person can disclose the identity of a CIA agent and still keep their security clearance, gathering more information and the identity of more agents. How can that give the men and women in our intelligence community any confidence that we stand behind them? I don't believe it can.
There is a second-degree amendment that has been offered and referred to by the Senator from Kentucky. In the time I have been on Capitol Hill, it may be the worst drawn amendment I have ever seen. I don't think those who put it together sat down and read it very carefully. Because if they did, they would understand that the language they put in it is so broad and so expansive that it draws together many innocent people and many people they didn't intend.
Listen to this: Any Federal officerholder who makes reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the Senate shall lose their security clearance.
We did a quick check. I am sorry to say to the Senator from Kentucky, you are going to be stunned to know that many chairmen and former chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee have done just that. They have disclosed a classified reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the Senate. I won't read all the names of my colleagues into the RECORD--I guess I could--who have come to the floor and have already violated this provision in the second-degree amendment.
One of my colleagues was on the floor. I went to him and said: I am not going to read your name into the RECORD. You did it. You may not have known you did it, but you did.
This amendment was so poorly drafted that it has brought all of them under this prohibition where they can't have a security clearance.
Let me tell you the second part on which the Senator from Kentucky continues to make reference. If the standard is, whatever we say on the floor may be used by an organization such as Al-Jazeera against the United States, we are in trouble. These are the clippings from Al-Jazeera's Internet site where they have cited Senator after Senator for things they have said on the floor. Be careful on the second-degree amendment. It goes far beyond what they intended.
Mr. REID. I yield 1 more minute to the Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. The Senate Armed Services Committee had a meeting yesterday. They discussed FBI reports about Abu Ghraib, about Guantanamo. They have no control--the members of that committee--about how those reports will be used by others. Here is the Al-Jazeera Web site which referred to Senators on that committee who were using those reports. Under the language of the amendment being offered by the Senator from Kentucky and the majority leader, these Senators, who believed they were doing their job, would lose their security clearance. I know they are trying to come back and attack us and say, if you are going to say something negative about Karl Rove, we are going to say something negative about you. But this amendment was so poorly drawn that they have drawn into their net of suspicion and accusation many of their own colleagues.
I yield the floor.
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