Legislative Process

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my colleagues, particularly my good friend from Connecticut, as well as the minority leader, for laying out our position. Before I begin, I do want to thank the Senator from Maine, the Senator from Connecticut, his colleague, the other Senator from Connecticut, as well as the Senator from Mississippi for their hard work on this issue. Nobody gainsays the importance of doing ethics reform. I certainly have been a member of the Rules Committee and involved in it. The bottom line is very simple: Doing ethics reform and dealing with the Dubai issue are not mutually exclusive. We can do both. We can do both this week. The motion made by the minority leader makes that perfectly clear. The two are not mutually exclusive. Nothing would make us happier on this side of the aisle than working out an agreement where we would be given time to debate this amendment, separately or as part of the bill, whichever would be the majority's preference, and then move back to the very important, thoughtfully worked-out legislation on ethics reform.

We have to deal with the Dubai ports issue not in April or May but now. That is not only what the American people want, it is important to every one of us. I come from New York. We went through 9/11. Ever since that day, ever since the next day, when I put on this flag which I wear every day in memory of those who were lost, I have said: We have to do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. That doesn't mean it should be No. 16 or No. 17 or even Nos. 3 or 4 on the list. It should be No. 1.

When we heard that Dubai Ports World was going to take over our ports, it naturally raised alarms, not because the country was an Arab country but because the country had had a long nexus with terrorism. The more you look at the deal, the worse it gets. That is the problem.

First, we find out that the review done by the CFIUS committee was cursory, quick. They didn't even call the port authorities, such as New York, New Jersey, and ask about it. The letter that my friend from South Carolina first procured, Senator Graham, given to Senator Reid and myself, lays out very clearly how an operator of a port can have a great deal to do with security. Then not only did we find out that the review was cursory and casual, it seemed that the wheels were greased to let this deal go through. Everything was quick. Everything was secret. Everything was quiet.

A group of us--myself, my colleague from North Dakota, both colleagues from New Jersey, my colleague from New York, both colleagues from Connecticut, many others from the metropolitan areas--said: We have to do something. We have to move because we can't wait. The bipartisan legislation that we introduced said: Put the deal on hold. Do the 45-day review.

Make sure the report goes to Congress. We get to see it; a nonclassified version goes to the American people. And then we get the right, if we choose, to disapprove.

The 45-day review was going forward, but none of the other conditions have been met. Right now the law would be such that the 45-day review would go forward. We wouldn't know how thorough it would be because it would be secret. The Congress and the American people would never know the results of the review, and the President would get to say ``yes'' or ``no.'' The President has already said ``yes.'' If the President had said: I am going to take a new look at this after the 45-day review, it might give us some hope. But he didn't. It is Alice in Wonderlandlike--verdict first, trial second.

Then, this weekend, a few more things occurred. The head of Dubai Ports World was on national television in America on a CNN show. And when asked by Wolf Blitzer, chief correspondent in Dubai, how many containers do you inspect here in Dubai, he answered: I don't know.

When asked what kind of security guarantees do you have about the employees who might work on the perimeter or with the cargo manifests, he didn't even care. He simply said: We have to make our British shareholders happy. That has been the whole trouble with this process. That has been the trouble with the CFIUS process. It seems that economics and diplomacy trump security.

In fact, I have been around the CFIUS process for a while, being a member of the House Banking Committee and now the Senate Banking Committee. I have been on the Banking Committees for every one of my 26 years in Congress. Basically, it was passed before I got here, but the CFIUS process was basically done to give national security cover and allow economic deals to go forward. Because in the 1980s and the 1990s, the greatest concern we had was not security but economics. After 9/11, all that changed, but the CFIUS process did not.

Many of us have come to the same conclusion that JERRY LEWIS in the House came to, and I guess 62 of the 64 Appropriations Committee members, bipartisan, in the House Appropriations Committee, that this deal should be stopped.

We don't have the luxury of waiting. That appropriations bill may not get over here until April, the supplemental. It may not be voted on until May. The deal will be consummated and done. And then they will say: You can't undo it. There will be constitutional and legal problems.

We have to act now. There are a variety of ways to act. I have chosen one. There is no monopoly on that. Maybe there is another. And certainly there are a variety of procedures. We can vote, as Senator Reid offered, as a separate standing bill today, tomorrow, early next week. We can do it as part of this bill. We can make an arrangement and make it somewhere else. But the voice of the Senate must be heard. Lobbying reform is important, yes, but so is security. Lobbying reform has some time urgency, given everything we have seen, yes, but not more time urgency than this deal which might engender our security.

Let me be clear: We can do both. This Chamber can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can spend some time debating this, go back to lobbying reform and accomplish both our goals. But let me make one thing clear: We will use whatever parliamentary means we can to make sure there is a vote on this issue. In recent months and years, the Senate has changed. It is much harder to offer amendments. The tree is filled up. There are agreements that amendments cannot be germane. Cloture is filed. Our job, my job, as I represent 19 million New Yorkers, is to see that they are secure, above all. Therefore, I believe that we must vote on this amendment soon, quickly, and move on to other business.

I tell my colleagues, certainly this Senator from New York and, I think, many of my colleagues, will do everything we can to make sure that there is a vote on Dubai Ports World, a meaningful vote that ends the deal before it is too late.

I yield the floor.

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