Making Further Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I stand here to back up our leader, the Senator from West Virginia, who has waged a long fight.
    
First, I wish to say that the Senator from New Hampshire is very erudite, and I am glad he chairs his subcommittee, but what he is saying, that we do not need money, does not square with the facts. The bottom line, if you have followed the fight of our good friend, our leader, the Senator from West Virginia, is that this administration has constantly cut back on homeland security, on requests they have made, and on things that we need.
    
We are in a strange situation; that is, when we fight a war on terrorism overseas, every penny is available, as it should be. We back up our men and women who are overseas. But when it comes to fighting here at the homeland, we have no money. The analogy would be telling the generals to fight the war in Iraq—the upcoming war we pray to God will not happen; but if it does, fight the war in Iraq—with no new money. It makes no sense.
    
I want to point out three areas because I heard my colleague from New Hampshire.
    
First, in my State—all of which I know from my State; and I will take one end of my State and the other—at one end we have a northern border; at the other end we have a port. The northern border is totally unguarded. Every 2 weeks we hear on television the fact that some unknown group may have come over the northern border.
    
In the PATRIOT Act, a bipartisan act which the Justice Department pushed, we called for tripling the Border Patrol, Customs, and INS on the northern border. In Buffalo we have the second largest port of entry between Canada and the United States. I have been there. I have talked to the head of the Border Patrol in New York on the northern border. I have talked to the head of Customs. I have talked to INS. They are desperately short of people.
    
If my friend from New Hampshire thinks we don't need money to increase personnel for Customs, INS, and the Border Patrol, I would invite him to come to my State.
    
For the southern border, we have some guards and strictures, and, unfortunately, the terrorists have realized that and they use the northern border.
    
Again, the President called for tripling—tripling—in the PATRIOT Act, the personnel of those three Departments on the northern border. The underlying amendment does virtually nothing. Even the amendment offered by my good friend from West Virginia does not triple the amount we need on the northern border, but at least it takes a step in that direction.
    
I have asked the people in Buffalo and in Plattsburgh and in Ogdensburg why they can't hire people. Because they don't have the money. Not that the personnel aren't there, not that there are bureaucratic bottlenecks, but they don't have the money.

Let's go to the southern end of my State, New York City, the port. Right now, unfortunately—and this is well known—we are wide open in terms of what can be smuggled into our ports on the Pacific, on the Atlantic, and on the gulf coast. God forbid if a nuclear weapon was smuggled in.
    
My good friend from Virginia and I, Senator Warner and I, put in an amendment in the homeland security bill, and then in Senator Hollings's port security bill, to create detection devices to prevent these nuclear weapons from coming in. Do you know what we were told? There is no money. The President asked that it be taken out.
    
How can we say we need to go into Iraq to find nuclear weapons—I supported the President in his move to go into Iraq—and at the same time leave our ports wide open to someone else—al-Qaida, a Chechen—smuggling in a weapon?
    
Again, the amendment of our leader, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, does not come close to putting the money in we need, but he puts in some. At the same time we are raising the budget for the war overseas by tens of billions of dollars, we refuse to even begin to do what we need on homeland security.
    
Let me say to my friend from New Hampshire, the only bottleneck that prevents us from developing a detection device and implementing it on every container, on every toll booth at the northern and southern borders, to prevent nuclear weapons from coming in, is money. Again, if we are going to fight this war on terrorism abroad, we need the dollars to do it. Everyone agrees. But, somehow, there is a disconnect, and when we fight the war on terrorism at home, we say there are no dollars.
    
God forbid that something happens and we rue the day.
    
One final point. My friend, again, from New Hampshire was saying that our first responders in our localities do not need any more money, that the $3.4 billion they put in is enough. I beg to differ.
    
Let me talk about New York City.
    
If you drive over the Brooklyn Bridge, there is a police officer at each end of the bridge now. There never used to be. Now that has to be 24 hours, 7 days a week, to prevent someone from placing a bomb there. That is six police officers—three shifts, 24 hours a day—for each end of that bridge and for each end of every one of our bridges.
    
We, in New York City alone—Commissioner Kelly, Mayor Bloomberg—have requested $265 million of this committee, not for anything new, and not for the new equipment that my good friend from New Hampshire talks about, but simply to pay for some of the costs.
    
Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, the city of New York has been—up until now; I hope it does not happen again—their No. 1 target.

Mr. SCHUMER. We, in New York City, are stretched. I know what is going to happen. They are going to say: New York City, $265 million out of $3.4 billion? That is unfair. Everyone else needs the money.
    
Well, we are the No. 1 target. We don't have enough money for the first responders. And this is true throughout every part of our community—our hospitals, our firefighters. Everyone is stretched. Our States and local governments have no money to do all this. So, of course, we need more. The amendment of the Senator from West Virginia doesn't do enough, but at least it is a step on the road.
    
I could go on and on. I have talked about the northern border, which involves Customs, INS, and Border Patrol. I have talked about the port of New York and all the ports of the country which involve both TSA and some of the scientific research. I have talked about first responders. I could go on and on, but I know there is not enough time. We desperately need this money. Let us hope and pray that our stinginess in this vital area, where there is no ideological dispute, doesn't hurt our people this year or next year or the year after.
    
The Senator from West Virginia is making a lonely and difficult fight. He has done it for 6 months. But once again, we will look back on history and say he was right. We cannot fight a war on terror at home if we don't appropriate the dollars.
    
My good friend from New Hampshire can say we may not need this or we may not need that. In my State, the focal point of terrorism, we are not doing what we should on homeland security because we don't have the dollars—plain and simple.
    
I will enthusiastically support the amendment by the Senator from West Virginia, my leader. I hope the rest of the Senate will, too. God forbid we regret the day we do not.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership, the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from West Virginia, and I thank our Senator from Arizona for letting this amendment go through. If we did not, we would have the same situation we had last August when Amtrak closed.
    
I find it rather perplexing that so many of my colleagues are willing to subsidize the basic transportation infrastructure for roads—it is the Federal Government, not the passengers, that pays for roads—we are willing to pay for airports—again, Federal Government money pays for airports, both general aviation and commercial aviation—but we are not willing to do it for rail. It makes no sense, no sense whatever. It is unfair. It is probably geographic. Every State has airports and every State has roads but not every State has Amtrak. So people who do the same thing for air and for roads do not do it for rail.

Mr. SCHUMER. That is something we should consider, but we should not consider pulling the rug out from Amtrak. Roads are subsidized far beyond the nickel gas tax, and airports are taxed far beyond the ticket price. Federal dollars go into each of those; we all know that. It is not simply that one is subsidized by the other. It makes no sense if you just believe in air and roads.

    
Before September 11, we had delay after delay after delay in the Northeast and then throughout the country in the air. In Europe, where they have as great a density, they do not have it. If you go a short distance, you take a speedy train. If you go from Paris to London, you take the Chunnel. From Paris to Frankfurt, you take the TGV. We will have to have rail in this country because we do not have enough space at the airports, we do not have enough space on the roads in the Northeast corridor, in California, and in so many other parts of the country where we have dense populations. So let's all pull together.
    
My good friend from Arizona fights subsidies in a lot of places, and I appreciate that. But so many others will vote for subsidies in every other place, but when it comes to rail, we say no. That makes no sense. It is unfair.
    
I am glad we have this amendment on the floor. I salute the leadership of my colleagues. I hope we will do something about Amtrak. The new head of Amtrak will shut that place down if we do not fund it, and then the country will have an economic cataclysm that will affect everyone, whether you have Amtrak in your community and in your State or not.
    
I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague from Alaska. I will try to be brief on this amendment.
    
Mr. President, this amendment deals with port security, particularly port security research and development. And it increases the funding by $150 million. I believe this is a bare minimum of what we should be passing. First, let me make a point that we have lax security at our ports. And that has created a terrorist threat that jeopardizes not only the ports themselves but cities near the ports and any city in America because so much can be brought in through the ports and then be trucked elsewhere and cause untold damage.
    
The statistics are chilling. Mr. President, 95 percent of U.S. overseas trade is conducted at our Nation's 361 ports. The Port of New York and New Jersey, for my home State, in part, is the largest on the east coast. Yet in that port less than 3 percent of the total cargo is scanned or inspected. Despite the risk we face, despite the threat that hangs over our head, ports are receiving an extremely small amount of Federal funding—basically nothing. We need to do more.
    
Let me explain to my colleagues what the problem is.
    
What is the greatest danger that we could face here in America? It is very simple. A terrorist group could—it could be a country; it could be a group—smuggle a nuclear weapon into one of the large containers that comes to our ports by the tens of thousands every month.
    
They can put that container on a ship. They can put the container on a truck as it drives over the Canadian and Mexican borders. If that nuclear weapon is successfully smuggled into this country and detonated, as bad as 9/11 was, the damage would be much worse.
    
Right now we have no way to check whether such a nuclear weapon could be smuggled into our country. I have been worried about this. So I did some research. Here is what I found. I talked to scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Those are two energy labs that don't produce weapons. I asked: What can we do to prevent a nuclear weapon from being smuggled into our ports?
    
They said: There is good news and bad news. The good news is that every radioactive device emits gamma rays which can pass through anything except lead and tungsten and some very thick metals. The bad news is, the only way to detect these devices right now in a practical way is a Geiger counter, and it has to be held about 3 feet in front of the nuclear source of the radioactive device.
    
You can't go on every container, each of which contains scores of these crates, put a Geiger counter by each one, and hope that you could detect any nuclear weapon that might be smuggled in because that would bring commerce to a standstill. They said: However, in that cyclotron in their laboratories, the scientists can detect radiation 50, 60, 70, 80 feet away, but the devices that detect nuclear radiation are big and delicate. They can't be bounced around.
    
The main purpose of this proposal is to make those devices practical, to make them smaller and more robust, and then they could be put on every crane that loads or unloads containers of ships, on every toll booth as the container goes through the toll booth, and any nuclear weapon smuggled into this country could be detected.
    
Our money here is for research and development. Such a device could probably be developed within a short period of time, as little as a year or two. And I find it totally anomalous that we are willing to go to war in Iraq, a war in which I have supported the President, to make sure they don't have nuclear weapons, when our whole foreign policy establishment is focused on North Korea, but when it comes to detection devices for al-Qaida or any other terrorist group that might smuggle those weapons in, we say we don't have the dollars.
    
The amendment I originally offered was with my good friend, Senator Warner. We were able to get it in the homeland security bill, through the support of former Senator Thompson, Senator Lieberman, as well as Senator Hollings and Senator McCain. When it came to the end of the day, we were told the administration wanted no spending in the homeland security bill. So our amendment didn't have the dollars, although it was authorized by Senator Hollings in the port security bill.
    
This is a relatively small amount of money that could save us from the worst catastrophe possible. One hundred fifty million dollars to develop such detection devices that could prevent any nuclear weapon from being smuggled in through our ports is something every one of us should support. Unfortunately, it is not in the bill. I understand there are lots of needs. I am hoping that my colleague from Alaska would examine this amendment and support it and accept it. The ports everywhere in America are vulnerable, and this is not just money at a random purpose. It is not pork. It is designed simply to deal with nuclear weapons that might be smuggled into our country.
    
We can't do it unless we have such devices. We are not going to be able to stop each container and inspect each one. As I said, we inspect 3 percent. Just as we can have X-ray machines at our airports that can detect explosives, we can have such devices at our ports and at our border crossings that detect an even worse danger—nuclear weapons.

    
In the Hollings port security bill, there was authorizing language. So this appropriation is authorized. It is, again, a small amount of money that would stop a nuclear weapon from being smuggled into this country. The shame of it is, this is not a very difficult thing to do. The science is there. The experts say we can create such a device. The danger is enormous. I don't know a single argument against doing this.
    
As I say, it is a bipartisan proposal. The original bill was by Senator Warner and myself. It was supported by both Democratic and Republican members of the Homeland Security Committee, but because the administration didn't want any spending in the homeland security bill, we are here.
    
I am hopeful that my colleagues will look at this amendment and support it because the safety of our country depends on it. If a nuclear weapon were smuggled in a container, put on a truck and exploded, whether it be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago or St. Louis or any inland city because they can be put on that truck and driven there, we would rue the day we didn't develop such detection devices. The terrorists know our weaknesses. They know we have done a pretty good job on airport security. They know our ports are wide open. If they should get hold of a nuclear device right now, we would be naked to them. We can stop that. But we can stop it in a year or two for a small amount of money.
    
I am hopeful my colleagues will support this amendment.
    
With that, I don't know if my colleague has any questions or any comments, but I don't have anything more to say. I will only yield any time I might need to answer any of his questions or respond.

Mr. SCHUMER. I understand this is a large bill. I just ask my colleague, from what section of the bill could this be funded?

Mr. SCHUMER. If I might, I understand there is a lot of money for homeland security, and I understand there are huge needs. I appreciate that my colleague said this is an important subject and probably needs to be done, but he has been around here much longer than I have. I have been in the House 18 years and now in the Senate 4. But in my experience, something like this that has no lobby behind it, has no interest pushing for it, no State or city is going to lobby, no group is going to lobby, no company is going to lobby, no union is going to lobby—in my experience, unless you earmark a certain amount of money—and I am not out to increase the budget. If my friend from Alaska would be willing to take a part of that $24 billion and earmark $150 million for this subject, I would be happy to withdraw the amendment. I don't want to increase the budget.
    
My worry is, even though we say we have a lot of money in homeland security, in the scheme of things, this may not be funded. I am obsessed with this issue. I think this is the greatest danger we can face in the country, and I am worried we will not do it. I would wait until tomorrow morning, but if the Senator could show me a way to take it out of some existing pool of money and earmark it so it would not be caught in the political vicissitudes, I would support that. I don't want to add any more money, but I know there is a huge pot of money, and this is out there. The odds are that it is not going to be funded, as important as it is.

Mr. SCHUMER. If the Senator would yield, I am not out to specifically do it for any one port. I rather want the research done to develop the devices. Once the devices were developed, we would have to deploy them at all our ports.