Susan Collins: “let me just add to the comments made by the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee about the amendment offered…”

“let me just add to the comments made by the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee about the amendment offered by the Democratic leader. I mentioned earlier that this amendment is 507 pages. This, in my hand, is the port security bill. Now, this, in my hand, is the Reid amendment. I can barely lift it. It requires no fewer than 95 reports, certifications, and determinations. It has 37 pages of findings. It has 16 sense-of-the- Congress resolutions. It requires 36 GAO reports and audits. But what is not in there? There is virtually nothing in there that relates to port or maritime security. In fact, we have now done a search of the entire amendment. We found one--one--reference to port security and one reference to maritime and cargo security in the entire Reid amendment. I think that makes the point. I think that says it all. This amendment is irrelevant to the underlying bill. As I mentioned earlier, it includes provisions that the Senate has already decisively rejected on what our policy should be in Iraq and what the funding formula should be for the homeland security grant program. It is not as if those provisions were rejected years ago; they were rejected just a few months ago. So it makes no sense for this amendment to include formula changes and a change in our policy in Iraq that this body, by more than 60 votes in each case, decisively rejected.…”