Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2007

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007

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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Hawaii for his leadership on this issue.

How many of us in this Senate have been visiting with the families of veterans, welcoming the veterans home, being there when the soldiers are sent off to battle, standing and saying: We will not forget you--trust us, we will not forget you? Now we have a chance to vote. And the American people can judge whether we are going to remember these soldiers and these veterans.

Senator Akaka and Senator Murray have come forward with an honest way of paying for the help veterans need. They have said it is not free. They acknowledge that it is going to cost us, but they acknowledge that it is a promise we made. Did we not say to these young men and women: If you will risk your life for America, if you will put your life on the line for our country, we will not forget you, we will stand by you? And they come home, some of them wounded, some of them broken in spirit, and need our help. As Senator Akaka has said, now is the moment to stand up and say that we will be there.

There is an amendment to be offered on the other side without money. Senator Akaka does the responsible thing for our veterans.

We are going to say to the wealthiest among us and to the most profitable corporations: You have to give back a little bit. Is that such a hard ask? Is that difficult for us to do at a time when we are asking hundreds of thousands of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, the husbands and wives of America, to give up parts of their lives in service of our country? Is it too much to ask that a wealthy corporation give back a little bit so that these veterans will be taken care of?

I have been out to Walter Reed. Senators on both sides of the aisle have visited veterans. We meet these young men and women. Some of them have lost a leg, an arm, sometimes two legs, some suffered head injuries. They are fighting to come back through rehabilitation, and once they have made it through the critical phase and they are back home, we want the veterans hospitals to be there to help them, and that is what the Akaka amendment is all about, so that we keep that commitment.

We know as well many of these veterans come back without any visible scars, but because of what they have seen, the stress they have lived under, things they have been asked to do, they are haunted by that experience. They don't want to lose their marriage. They don't want to turn to alcohol and drugs. They want the helping hand of counseling.

I went out to the Heinz VA Hospital outside Chicago and sat in on one of these sessions with these returning bright, strong, healthy looking soldiers who were torn inside because of demons in their minds from what they had seen, and they sit there in counseling sessions and try to come to grips with the struggles that they have in their lives. Should we not be sitting there with them? Should we not give them the very best counseling? That is what Senator Akaka proposes. The Senator challenges this Senate not just to wave the flags in the parade but to stand up for the soldiers and the veterans who march behind those flags every single day for America.

I am proud to support the Akaka and Murray amendment. I do not stand alone. Virtually every major veterans group in America knows that this is the real deal, the Akaka-Murray amendment is the real amendment. That is why it has the support of so many organizations--the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, Retired Enlistment Association, the American Legion. These are men and women we counted on for America's safety and America's future. Now they count on us. I urge my colleagues to join in supporting the Akaka-Murray amendment. It is the real amendment to help our veterans.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of our time.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is an interesting amendment. I am happy to cosponsor it with Senator Menendez, Senator Schumer, and Senator Clinton.

Consider this: When you went to the airport this week and you wanted to get on an airplane, they asked you to take your shoes off, right? That is what we do every week around here. That is what we do in America to make sure we are safe on an airplane.

Now comes the Senator from New Jersey with a request and a suggestion that, in the scheme of things, is much more valuable to our security. Millions of containers come into the United States every year. The General Accounting Office took a look at the containers we inspect and found that fully one out of three of the most risky containers are not even being looked at. We are not inspecting them. So the next time you take your shoes off at the airport, you might ask yourself: Is this keeping America safe? Or would it be keeping America safe to have our containers inspected, as Senator Menendez is suggesting with his amendment?

The Senator from New Hampshire says it is a lot of money. It is a lot of money. It is $900 million for new technology, for new inspectors, for better approaches to looking at these containers. But when you talk about the security of America and the expense we are going through and the lives that are at risk across this Nation and overseas in keeping America safe, can we do anything less? I think the Senator from New Jersey has an excellent suggestion to make America safer.

Improving port security is an important part of homeland security because the U.S. maritime system includes more than 300 sea and river ports. The system also has more than 3,700 cargo and passenger terminals and more than 1,000 harbor channels spread along thousands of miles of coastline.

Port security is a multi-layered system of defenses that includes monitoring the people, cargo and vessels entering our ports from the time they leave a foreign port to the time they arrive in the United States. Additional port security funding is needed to improve dockside and perimeter security, provide important security upgrades such as surveillance equipment, access controls to restricted areas, communications equipment, and the construction of new command and control facilities.

This funding is crucial because our Nation's ports were identified by GAO as the remaining ``vulnerability'' in our transportation system and that efforts to secure our Nation's ports ``lacked clear goals and measures that track progress.'' GAO has also stated that, as a result of staffing imbalances, 35 percent of high-risk containers were not inspected.

In addition, GAO reported that the security checks performed by Customs and the Border Patrol are not rigorous enough and that staffing problems have kept Customs from validating participant's security information.

In Illinois, the Chicago Port is the 36th largest port in the Nation and the largest on the Great Lakes. Chicago is also the largest inland general cargo port in America, and the city as a whole is the commercial transportation crossroads of the Nation. Illinois and the Port of Chicago link waterborne commerce, foreign and domestic, via our vast rail and highway systems for distribution throughout all of North America, Canada, Mexico, and the world. Global cargo movement through the Chicago area in containers, barges, vessels, trucks, airplanes, and railcars totals hundreds of millions of tons annually. Chicago ranks seventh in the Nation among the United States Census Bureau 2004 statistics of the ``Top Twenty-Five Customs Districts. Chicago's total dollar value of goods imported and exported is about $94 billion.

The City of Chicago and the Chicago police department provide local security and the Coast Guard patrols the waterways but additional funding is needed for patrol vessels, security enhancements and cameras, and inspection equipment.

The Coast Guard estimates that over $7 billion is needed through 2012 for ports to comply with Federal security standards and to date, only 13 percent of that amount has been provided.

In 2006, $175 million was provided for port security which is not nearly enough to secure all of the Nation's ports.

In 2006, $138 million was provided for the Container Security Initiative--CSI--which is not enough to examine high-risk containers at every foreign port with vessels destined for the U.S.

I am concerned that 6 percent of the 9 million containers arriving at U.S. ports are scanned or inspected each year due to a billion dollar funding shortage for critical port security needs. Until the administration is willing to work with Congress to fund, equip and hire the needed personnel to protect our ports from being used by terrorists, it will not matter if a U.S. or a foreign company is in charge of our ports. In that regard, our Nation's ports and infrastructure are so important to the security of our homeland that the approval process for foreign companies that want to manage U.S. infrastructure should include greater Congressional oversight and involvement.

The President's budget folds port security in with all other transportation and critical infrastructure needs, eliminating the port security grant program in favor of a Targeted Infrastructure Protection Grant.

The budget also forces ports to compete for limited resources with mass transit, rail, and other critical infrastructure sectors.

The President's budget requests $139 million for CSI whereby containers deemed to be high risk are opened and inspected. The President's budget also requests $76 million for the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism--C-TPAT--program which screens shipping companies and the companies that provide them with any services. More money is needed than is provided in the President's budget for the CSI and C-TPAT programs to inspect containers at foreign ports and validate security information.

The Menendez-Clinton-Durbin Port Security Amendment moves the U. S. toward the goal of 100 percent scanning of containers. Currently, Customs screens all cargo coming into the U.S. using a combination of intelligence information and data provided on shipping manifests. The amendment provides an additional $600 million for port security grants, $100 million for at least 400 new staff to increase inspections and identify high-risk containers as part of CSI and C-TPAT, and $105 million for radiation portal monitors and gamma/x-ray imaging technology.

Specifically, the amendment triples the current amount of funding for the Port Security Grant Program to $600 million. These funds are highly sought by local port authorities such as the Port of Chicago.

The amendment provides $100 million to increase the number of inspectors at foreign ports and improve the process for validating security information.

The amendment also provides $100 million in funding for more finely tuned technologies that can locate contraband material in shipping containers.

The amendment provides $105 million for U.S. ports to install cargo imaging and radiation portal monitors to detect radiation and identify high density shielding used to block radiation emissions.

In addition, the amendment provides $10 million for U.S. ports to update technology so that officials can receive and integrate downloadable images of containers at foreign ports into our existing scanning and inspection system.

Finally, the amendment provides $50 million to help developing countries purchase equipment to scan and inspect containers.

I ask all my colleagues to stop and reflect for a moment. This is about more than Dubai and who is going to manage our ports. It is about the safety of America. God forbid something happens, let's be on the right side of history. Let's support the Menendez amendment and make sure these containers are inspected.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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