Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2004 - Continued

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004—CONTINUED

AMENDMENT NO. 1372

Mr. REED. Mr. President, earlier this week, the Senate debated a comprehensive amendment by Senator Byrd with respect to deficiencies in this bill regarding resources for homeland security. Essentially, what Senator Byrd was trying to do was to match the resources we need with the rhetoric we have heard about protecting the homeland of the United States.

I am disappointed Senator Byrd's amendment did not prevail. Within that amendment, there were resources devoted to transit security. Today, I offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Sarbanes to address what I think is an amazing and unacceptable lack of resources and investment for securing and protecting our Nation's trains, buses, and ferries. Indeed, these vehicles and these transportation modes provide transportation for millions of Americans each day, and they require protection.

I want to be clear. This is not the fault of the committee, and certainly not the fault of the chairman who has done an extraordinary job in securing an additional $1 billion for the subcommittee's allocation. But the fact is that the
administration has not asked for sufficient resources to protect the transit systems in the United States. Again, this is why, together with Senator Sarbanes, I am offering this amendment to add $100 million for the protection of our public transit systems.

Each day, millions of Americans, old and young, rich and poor, every kind of American, board a bus or a train to go to work, school, or a doctor's appointment. Each year the Federal Government spends billions of dollars to build and maintain these systems. Yet to date, shockingly, the Federal Government has only invested below $90 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 for transit security if we exclude the very special circumstances of rebuilding transit systems that were attacked and severely damaged during the September 11 attack.

We have recognized the need to protect our airlines and we have spent billions of dollars to do so, but there is the same compelling need to protect the transit systems of the United States.

There are two major reasons we must protect these transit systems: First, we want to avoid, preempt, and prevent, a terrorist event involving a transit system; second, we need transit systems that have interoperable communications, trained personnel, and additional equipment to mitigate the consequences of any type of terrorist event in the United States.

It is quite clear transit systems are a target of terrorists. According to a report in 1994 by John P. Sullivan and Henry I. DeGeneste: "Transit systems are attractive targets for a number of reasons. They carry large numbers of people within concentrated, predictable areas and timeframes. They are accessible since they provide easy user access. Finally, their target-rich infrastructure which often covers extensive geographic areas frequently renders countermeasures impractical."

So we know this. Indeed, the Federal Transit Administration knows it. To their credit, they have taken meager resources to
provide transit assessment assistance to any transit system that is required or requested. They have been able to advise these transit systems. But advice is not dollars. Advice does not build or buy equipment that will protect commuters in our transit systems.

We already know transit systems are a target, in many cases targets of choice. The Mineta Institute indicates that between 1997 to 2000 there were 195 terrorist attacks against transit systems worldwide. Most of these attacks were against buses.

I should point out, 90 percent of these attacks occurred against buses. In the Middle East, we have seen the horrific pictures of buses blown up by suicide bombers. No one wants to see such pictures in the United States.

Of course, the most horrific example of a terrorist attack against transit was the 1995 sarin gas attack in Japan where 11 people were killed and 5,500 innocent people were injured due to the work of a small band of crazed individuals.

We understand there is a great potential for terror attacks against transit systems. Given the increasing danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, these transit attacks could be horrific in the future.

I also mention that not only do we need to avoid attacks against transit, we need to be prepared in the case of another terrorist attack in the United States. I refer to testimony before my subcommittee last year, as I chaired the subcommittee with respect to transit's role in September 11. The first is a statement by Jenna Dorn, the Administrator on the Federal Transit Administration.

At 8:52 a.m. on September 11th, minutes after the first hijacked jet plowed into One World Trade Center, a Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train master gave life-saving instructions to conductors and operators.

A train from Newark, carrying about 1,000 passengers, had just pulled into the station below the World Trade Center. The train master told the crew to keep everyone on the train, board everyone in the station, and immediately depart for the Exchange Place stop in Jersey City. Public transportation employees immediately evacuated passengers who mistakenly left the train.

A train from Hoboken carrying another 1,000 people was just behind the Newark train. The train master told that crew to keep the doors closed at the Trade Center and head immediately to Jersey City.

The train master then told another train in Jersey City to discharge all passengers and head back to the World Trade Center to evacuate remaining travelers and transit personnel. That train departed with its precious cargo at 9:10 a.m., 40 minutes before the first building collapsed.

That train master, Richie Moran, and PATH's emergency response plan, saved thousands of lives. As we watched the death toll climb in New York, it is astounding to realize that no one riding the PATH or New York City subway lines that morning was injured.

That is not an accident. That is the result of good communications, planning, training, all the issues that they showed in New York City. But let me suggest the level of planning, training, and equipment in New York City is not duplicated in many cities around this country—and it should be.

Also, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD excerpts from the statement by Richard A. White, the general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, who talks of the integral role of that system in evacuating personnel during the attack on the Pentagon.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

On September 11, when WMATA was needed most, and in the midst of regional chaos, Metrorail and Metrobus were ready, and delivered for the National Capital Region. We operated the equivalent of back-to-back rush hours virtually without incident, after the Federal Government and other regional employers sent hundreds of thousands of workers home around mid-morning. We were operating the entire day. We did what we do best. We moved large numbers of people safely and efficiently.

Throughout the day, the WMATA workforce performed extraordinarily. Not once did an employee put their own individual concerns ahead of their sense of duty to the customers. The transit police, the bus and rail operators, the station personnel, the customer service representatives—everyone—demonstrated their dedication to our mission of moving people safely and securely.

Further, we never lost communications throughout the day. We established and maintained contact with local State, and Federal authorities, and we communicated with our riders through in-system messages, our phone system and over the internet through the website.

WMATA, blessedly, suffered no property damage, no loss of life, and no injury to any of its employees nor to any of our customers on that terrible day.

Mr. REED. Senator Sarbanes and I asked for a GAO report on transit security. The GAO visited 10 transit properties all over the country of varying sizes and characteristics. They surveyed 200 of the 6,000 transit operators of the Nation. Their report clearly indicates the compelling need for Federal assistance.

In addition to that, it clearly indicates the scope of that system. Of just eight of the transit systems that had conducted professional security assessments and asked professionals to come in and review procedures, equipment, personnel, the cost to upgrade these systems, for just 8 out of 6,000, was $700 million. If we were to upgrade all of our transit systems in this country, it would be on the order of billions of dollars. Yet, those costs have not been met by the administration for this compelling need.

The administration has barely funded transit security, about $88 million. Some of this, frankly, was discretionary funding from the Department of Homeland Security which they, to their credit, decided to commit to the issue of transit security.

We have to provide the resources. In addition, we have to also ensure that there is appropriate responsibility and oversight.
That is why our amendment also calls on the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation to sign a memorandum of agreement to ensure that the two agencies, as well as the Federal Transit Administration and the Transportation Security Administration, have in place strong linkages, coordination, and understanding of their mutual and separate roles. We have been repeatedly assured that this agreement was imminent. It has yet to be produced, yet to be issued. Our amendment asks that this be done expeditiously. My colleague, Senator Sarbanes, will address these points also.

Our position today is not to cause panic but to prevent panic by having the resources so that our transit systems are not targets of terrorists and that our transit systems can, in fact, provide value to the support in the wake of any type of attack on a major urban area in the United States by terrorists. This is a well-crafted amendment. Certainly the need is there. I urge support of the amendment.

I recognize at some point the chairman may raise a budget point of order against my amendment, and at the appropriate time either I or Senator Reid of Nevada will move to waive the point of order. I urge my colleagues to support my motion to waive.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REED. Mr. President, the purpose of our amendment is not necessarily to impede any deployment of technology. It simply recognizes that even if this technology is deployed, tested, or evaluated in 6 stations or 100 stations, the cost of implementing this system and other systems—the amendment talks about protecting transportation facilities, not just subway lines, but buses and interurban transportation, all types and modes of transportation—even if you could deploy, the cost would be significant.

Our amendment asks that this budget recognize those significant costs.

Again, there is no question that the chairman has tried his best to come up with the resources to try to meet this need. But the need is so staggering—billions and billions of dollars. The funds in this bill devoted to transit security is so meager that our amendment simply tries to strike a balance. The $100 million would go to help systems buy equipment and train personnel. All of that is necessary.

We also would ask that the Department of Homeland Security issue the plans they have long said they were going to do between the proper transportation and the proper homeland security to coordinate their activities with respect to transit security.

I urge the amendment be adopted.

I further point out that even if we were to adopt this amendment—I understand at the appropriate moment the Senator from Mississippi will make a budget point of order—this is truly a very modest downpayment on the cost of ensuring that all of our transit systems, our buses, and our subway systems have the same degree of preparedness as we are trying to develop for our airlines and for other modes of transportation.

If we reject this amendment, we will simply be in a situation where we might be able to demonstrate a few projects, and we might be able to test the system, but we will never deploy those systems across the Nation in transit systems. There are 6,000 transit systems.

Again, it is $100 million, just a meager downpayment for what is really a multibillion-dollar requirement for the United States.

I recognize that the Senator has said he is proposing to make a point of order.

At this point, I yield my time in anticipation of such a point of order.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REED. I thank my colleagues for providing this level of funding, and I look forward to working with them to ensure that our Nation's airports can successfully meet their security needs.

BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to engage the chairman and ranking member in a colloquy regarding the increasing demand for investigative work by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Rhode Island.

Neither the Bureau nor its predecessor, the U.S. Customs Service, has stationed a permanent investigator or special agent in Rhode Island. Several years ago, two special agents were designated to serve my State but were stationed in Boston, where they have frequently been pulled away to other duties.

Without a permanent investigative presence in Rhode Island, serious and growing challenges remain unaddressed, including financial crimes, money laundering, and the smuggling of narcotics and other contraband that enter by marine vessels and on international flights at Rhode Island's T.F. Green Airport.

The legislation before us includes an additional $20,300,000 to increase investigations staffing for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I applaud the chairman and ranking member for providing these funds and for including language in the committee report recognizing the need to devote additional resources to the core investigative missions of the Bureau.
I would ask my colleagues, the Senators from Mississippi and West Virginia, to join me in urging the Bureau to ensure that Rhode Island and other underserved States receive a permanent investigative presence to meet these growing challenges.