Frank Lautenberg: “when you look over at this section of the Chamber, you see three Senators who were front and close to what results from…”

“when you look over at this section of the Chamber, you see three Senators who were front and close to what results from an act of terrorism. We saw it in the World Trade Center. We lost over 700 people from the State of New Jersey, and the combination was almost 3,000 people. We know what you have to do to prevent anything like that from ever happening. We are going to spend up to $500 billion before this year is over on our security interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have an obligation to do as much as we can for people we serve in an area that has been subjected to terrorism and is classified as the worst 2 miles in the country for terrorist attack. Much of that will come as a result of the activity in our harbors and our ports. I salute my colleague, new to this body but leaderly in his actions that we have seen thus far, and particularly with this, stepping up, as we say in the vernacular, to the plate to say: OK, Mr. President, you want to protect our people? The leadership here in the Senate certainly says they want to protect our people. Then, by golly, spend the money. We are looking for $900 million for the additional port security funds. Let's do it. We survey 5 percent of the cargo that comes in, in containers, to the country. That is nothing, on a relative basis.…”