Joe Lieberman: “we return now to S. 4, Improving America's Security Act. This is the legislation that emerged from the Homeland Security…”

“we return now to S. 4, Improving America's Security Act. This is the legislation that emerged from the Homeland Security Committee in response to the appeals of the members of the 9/11 Commission, and others, to finish the job we began with the previous 9/11 legislation we adopted. We made some progress last week in the first two days of consideration of the bill. We will have a vote sometime tomorrow on the motion to strike the provision of the bill that would give equal rights to transportation security officers at the TSA. We will begin debate sometime this afternoon on alternative proposals to those presented in S. 4 for distributing homeland security grant funds. We have important matters to debate and vote on in the next few days. I know Senator Reid and, I hope, Senator McConnell want to finish this bill--that is, to bring it to passage--by the end of this week. I remind colleagues that S. 4 was reported out of the Homeland Security Committee on a strong nonpartisan vote, 16 to 0, with one member abstaining. I thought, as we return to the consideration of S. 4, I might go back to a hearing our committee held on January 9 to consider this legislation, particularly to draw from the testimony of three of the witnesses before the committee that day, three women who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. This is a way, before we get into the details of the bill, to remind ourselves why this legislation is before us and what it is all about.”