Lincoln Chafee: “Creating the Department of Homeland Security is an enormous undertaking. In fact, it is the largest Federal undertaking…”

“Creating the Department of Homeland Security is an enormous undertaking. In fact, it is the largest Federal undertaking since the creation of the Department of Defense. Senator Breaux, Senator Nelson, and I offer this amendment to address the concerns, not only of the President, of course, but also concerns of the many thousands of Federal employees to whom we are entrusting our national security. As Senator Breaux and Senator Nelson have pointed out aspects of this amendment, I think it is important to note that what we have done is taken Republican amendments, I say to my colleagues on this side of the aisle, we have taken Republican amendments from the House, the Republican amendment offered by Representative Morella from Maryland, Republican amendments offered by Representative Portman and Representative Quinn, from Ohio and New York, and offered them into this amendment. This is an honest attempt at bipartisanship. Most important, as Senator Nelson has said, this amendment will finally enable the Senate to move the process forward by getting this bill to conference with the House. Without this compromise, there will be no Senate bill. There will be no Department of Homeland Security. But with this compromise we can empower the conference committee to work with the administration to finalize a bill that will meet the President's legitimate concerns and protect employees' legitimate rights. I do urge passage of this amendment.”