Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

AMENDMENT NO. 3615, AS FURTHER MODIFIED

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment I have at the desk be modified by language that is at the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment, as further modified, is as follows:

On page 13, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:

GROUND TRANSPORTATION

For necessary expenses of the Transportation Security Administration to support efforts for identification and tracking for shipments of hazardous materials and continue and expand upon the background check system for commercial driver licenses with a HAZMAT endorsement, $70,000,000: Provided, That the amount appropriated under title I for the Human Resources Account of the Office of the Under Secretary for Management shall be reduced by $70,000,000.

Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Mississippi for his graciousness in allowing this amendment to be modified. I agree with him that we have the same goals, but our analysis of how well we are progressing toward those goals is woefully inadequate.

I want to make clear what the amendment seeks to do because there have been some concerns raised by the American Trucking Association and some truck firms. To address those concerns, which I did not think were real, I modified the amendment to make that clear. Here is what the amendment does not do: It does not require that members of the trucking industry purchase GPS systems for their truck fleets. It does not require trucking companies to present plans to TSA of current truck routes throughout the country.

My amendment simply provides the TSA with the resources to begin looking into how we go about monitoring what has been shown to us as a vulnerability within our existing plan to secure our country from terrorist threats. I know the ATA, which has resisted any regulation of the trucking industry, has raised some concerns, but their concerns are either incorrect or shortsighted.

My amendment provides the TSA with flexibility and much needed funds to address truck security and has none of the mandates or high costs that have been talked about. Both the TSA and DOT, I will agree with my friend from Mississippi, are currently working on improving and expanding truck-tracking systems and background checks for commercial driver's licenses with the HAZMAT endorsement. But let me suggest something. Here is the plan. First, they were doing nothing, and a year, a year and a half ago, I prodded and prodded. So now the plan is that any new application for a HAZMAT license will be checked out, a background check will be given. The problem is, all existing licenses will not be checked until they are renewed.

Since most States have 5-year renewal periods, we are not going to check many of these licenses until 2007, 2008, 2009, even 2010.

When one asks the TSA why they are not doing it more quickly, they say one word: Money. We do not have the money.

It is hardly believable that $10 million here or $9.4 million there, which is spread across a whole lot of programs and research, will be enough. So the bottom line is, we agree that we have to do this, but I would rather err on the side of making sure we get it done quickly, given that the terrorists have said-at least with al-Qaida-that truck bombs are a preferred weapon. Every one of us knows what has happened. We have not provided the money we need in homeland security, whether it is truck security or anything else. We slow-walk these programs.

To say that somebody could have a hazardous material license and be on a terrorist watch list and we will not catch up to them until 2010 makes no sense. When TSA says they have not done this or not done it quickly because they do not have the money, what we do is provide them the money. There is an offset, an offset from a pot of money that simply says let us outsource some structural personnel reorganizing.

It amazes me that we could spend $70 million for that but only $15 million for the whole program of truck security.

As for the GPS system, it is needed. We do not mandate it because we, like our friend from Mississippi, are not sure exactly the best way to go. But we sure want TSA to come up with a plan quickly and figure out how to do it and not impose the costs on the trucking industry if need be.

Here in America, a lot of companies put in a GPS system on their own, not to deal with terrorism but to deal with stolen trucks.

I remind my colleagues that a truck carrying hazardous material is missing, gone, from Pennsauken, NJ, not far from my city, and we still do not know where it is. We do not know what has been done with it. In all likelihood, it was stolen for mercenary purposes. But can we afford the risk that the next truck is stolen for terrorist purposes?

Simply training with the ATA program, which trains truck drivers on safety in terms of terrorism, does not deal with the fact that a terrorist might wish to steal a truck, hijack a truck, use a truck. All the training programs of good drivers, legitimate drivers in the world will not deal with that, and that is why we believe these other steps are so needed.

The bottom line is this is not a whole lot of money. This is a serious threat. It is offset. There are no mandates. Again, I say to my colleagues, we do not wish to wake up one morning and say: What if-God forbid there was a terrible incident-we had done more and allocated the money needed?

I yield the floor.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, let me make a couple of quick points.

First, the ATA letter says there are mandates. It was written before we modified the amendment. If there were any, there was no intention to have mandates, but now the amendment as modified makes it clear, so I think their letter is outdated.

Of course, no industry wants any regulation. We are in a brave new world. The airline industry didn't want anything done after 9/11 unless the Federal Government paid for the whole thing. We are not outlining what ought to be done and what mandates should be, but we ought to move forward and find out how to make our trucks, particularly the trucks carrying hazardous materials, safer.

It is a small amount of money. It says take $70 million out of a pot of money to outsource, to make TSA more efficient, and put it into truck security to do two things: First, to check on who can get a driver's license for hazardous materials, to avoid a situation like the one when hijackers were able to go fly planes, and, second, to study how to set up a GPS system so we can track trucks in case they are stolen.

I urge support of the amendment. I think we would be foolhardy not to do so.