January 24, 2003 Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City "To Provide for the Common Defense" As Prepared In the months following September 11th, a new reality took hold in every corner of our country. We saw the National Guard in our airports and in front of government buildings. Bioterrorism and weapons of mass destruction were talked about at kitchen tables and in classrooms all across America. The skies over New York and Washington DC were patrolled by our military. And nearly every American came to believe that we were taking bold steps to guard against terrorist attacks and make our nation safe. But time has passed and our vigilance has faded. Not at the front lines here at home, where our police, firefighters and emergency response personnel remain alert. Not at the front lines overseas, where our men and women in uniform are serving to defend us every day. Our vigilance has faded at the top, in the corridors of power in Washington, DC, where the strategy and resources to protect our nation are supposed to originate. Where leaders are supposed to lead. Our Constitutional imperative, to "provide for the common defense," has not been fully realized. As a result, our people remain vulnerable, nearly as vulnerable as they were before 8:46 a.m. on September 11. And here in New York, that complacency doesn't just threaten our security, it tears at our hearts. Here we are, gathered in the city that lost nearly 3,000 lives - 343 were firefighters and EMTs, and 60 were police officers. We can never forget what the first responders did. With no thought about their own safety, they rescued tens of thousands of lives. And in the aftermath, they stayed, searching until every square inch of Ground Zero was covered. Some of the same men and women who symbolized America's resolve on its darkest day are in this room. We're glad you are here, thankful for your service. Yet, some of you face the unbelievable threat of losing your jobs. Would we dare do this to our military forces overseas? Would we dare pull Army and Navy officers out of duty in the Persian Gulf and force them into retirement? Would we strip the Marines or the Air Force of planes or equipment that they need to confront Al Qaeda or Iraq? Of course not; and yet, that is precisely what will be happening to the men and women and resources we need here at the frontlines of our homeland defense. While today, the new Department of Homeland Security opens its doors in Washington, DC, here at this conference, we are examining the question of how far has our nation come since September 11th when it comes to Homeland Security. What has been done, and what is left to be done? Where are we now, and where do we go from here? The truth is we are not prepared, we are not supporting our first responders, and our approach to securing our nation is haphazard at best. We have relied on a myth of homeland security -- a myth written in rhetoric, inadequate resources, and a new bureaucracy, instead of relying on good old fashion American ingenuity, might and muscle. I believe we need to get this nation back on the right track when it comes to domestic preparedness. We need a similar kind of mobilization that happened after Pearl Harbor to strengthen our domestic defense. We need new, comprehensive and focused policy initiatives, like the legislation I will propose today. And we need to find out where our homeland security money is going because, as the survey I will release today will show, it is not getting to most of our cities and towns. Homeland Security is not simply about reorganizing existing bureaucracies. It is about having the right attitude, focus, policy and resources, and right now we are lacking in all four. Soon after the planes hit the towers, the Pentagon, and crashed in the field in Pennsylvania, commentators and citizens described these tragic attacks as our generation's Pearl Harbor. And despite the differences, there is something to that comparison, especially in the way the date stands out so starkly in our minds, and always will. And especially in the way people felt in the aftermath of these surprise attacks; we felt like W.H. Auden wrote, "For nothing now can ever come to any good." And yet, because we are Americans, some good did come when we rose up and conquered fascism. And in our time, we have defeated the Taliban and put Al Qaeda on the defensive. But the comparison stops just when it should continue. Within weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor, blackout shades were in every window along the East Coast. Yellow sirens lined the West Coast to warn of a possible Japanese attack. Searchlights shot to the sky from Bryant Park, and Time Square dimmed its great white way. People signed up for military service in droves. A sleeping giant awoke, and marched to victory in 1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was clear about what America needed to accomplish in order to fight the war. He called for factories and workers to double their production of guns, tanks, ammunitions, and he drafted all able men. In fireside chats, he prepared the country for the long road to victory. And the American people responded to FDR's forthright call for sacrifice. Soon the effort on the Home Front was just as great as the effort on the Western Front. Americans rationed gasoline, meat, and butter. They recycled rubber and metal. Victory Gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables consumed at home. Six million women went to work in our factories. The American worker accepted lower wages to keep inflation down. And Civil Defense was in every village, town, and city. This focused effort prepared our nation and produced our victory against the original Axis. New York's Mayor La Guardia was appointed the head of the Office of Civil Defense. Out of concern that the draft was taking so many police and firefighters, he called for volunteers to keep the city safe. He said, "The war will come right to our streets and residential districts." He was right; it just didn't happen for another 60 years. And "over there" has finally come over here. After September 11th, the concept of war was forever changed. The battlefield is now anywhere at anytime, the frontlines are at our front doors, and we now have veterans and casualties of the war on terrorism. Do we need to ration? Of course not. Do we need Victory Gardens? No. And no one has to accept a lower wage to fend off inflation. Times have changed and because of our new technologies and advancements, we do not need to imitate exactly what the Greatest Generation did. But we do need to imitate how they felt and how quickly and forcefully they responded to the new threat our nation faced. We do need more of that same attitude. We need to meet the challenges to our freedom with resources, attitude, ideas and focus. We have of course made some progress. Our military forces have fought bravely and successfully overseas. Airports are more secure. The improved information sharing between the FBI and local law enforcement helped capture the terrorist cell outside Buffalo. We hired 750 more food inspectors as part of a $3.2 billion effort to combat bioterrorism. My hardworking colleague Senator Schumer secured $150 million for port security and to improve technologies that could detect nuclear bombs in cargo containers on ships and trucks headed for American ports and border crossings. And we all know that New York City is on the road to recovery. While these accomplishments matter, they are nowhere near enough. And today when people ask "Are we safer today than we were on the morning of September 11, 2001?" The answer is only marginally, because somewhere along the line, we lost our edge. We let our guard down. Now is the time to renew our sense of purpose in a way that mirrors what happened after Pearl Harbor. The very first thing I did when this new session of Congress began was to reintroduce the Homeland Security Block Grant Act, which will provide more than $3 billion in direct funding to our communities and local police, fire and emergency responders. It was my first order of business in this new Congress because America's first responders should be first on our domestic security agenda. But in working with Mayors, fire commissioners, police chiefs, and other emergency workers on this legislation, I heard over and over again that they do not have the resources they need to protect America. So I conducted a survey to get at the question: Just how much federal funding for homeland security is really getting to our communities? We reached out to every town, village, city and county in New York State -- from Westchester to Rochester -- that would be eligible to receive funding under my Block Grant bill and do you know what we found? Of the forty counties and municipalities that responded, a full seventy percent have said that they have not received any homeland security funding. Not one single penny. One of the most striking findings is the extent to which communities tried to improve their preparedness levels without sufficient resources, though many respondents conveyed that this could not continue without significant federal assistance. Since September 11th, cities and towns have answered the call to increase our defenses at home, investing more than $2.6 billion from their own budgets in the name of homeland security. In Buffalo, they spent $465,000 responding to every possible anthrax scare. Extra security personnel were hired to protect Buffalo Niagara International Airport for $843,000. There are new costs to protect the city's water system--$366,000. And because of the lack of funding, 97 police positions were lost and two fire companies were closed. In Yonkers, they have incurred more than $109,000 in building security costs, $57,000 to purchase new protective suits, storage units for anthrax evidence, and $61,000 for additional police officers assigned to City Hall. And in 2003, they need more than $250,000 to cover additional security measures. The City of Albany spent $368,000 on first responder overtime costs, $40,000 on gas masks for the police department, $1.5 million to protect three reservoirs that provide water to the capital region, and $3.7 million to purchase equipment that would help it better detect biological and chemical agents in the Loudenville reservoir. Every day our public servants from Binghamton to Buffalo to Brooklyn are sacrificing to secure every corner of this country. But every day, despite some of our efforts, we do less and less for them. We expect people and cities and towns to react to oranges, reds, and yellows, but we do not give them the green light they need to do their jobs. It is too bad that the people who issue the warnings to our cities aren't the same people who write the checks to cover their costs. Even New York City, which was the most prepared city in America on September 11th, still has a lot to do. Since September 11th, NYC has dedicated 1,000 police officers to counterterrorism and intelligence. In order to purchase better emergency equipment for police officers, firefighters, and public hospitals, they need more than $189 million. $99 million is needed for first responder training. It will take m than $223 million to improve communications equipment. The bottom line: According to the City's own estimates, New York City needs more than $900 million in order protect this city and respond to a future attack. But sadly, the Administration is holding up valuable resources that New York City and so many other cities and town across America need. They have delayed $1.5 billion that was supposed to go immediately to first responders. And back in August, the President refused to designate as an emergency $2.5 billion for homeland security costs. Adding insult to injury, last week Congress had a choice. As many of you know, Senator Byrd, both last year and this year, has been a stalwart fighter for homeland security funds, holding hearings to find out what America needs and imploring our colleagues to meet those needs. Last week, we could have passed the Byrd Amendment that had $585 million for port security, $150 million to purchase interoperable radios so our police, firefighters and emergency service workers can communicate effectively, and another $83 million to protect our borders, but in each case Congress settled for less. Yes, you heard correctly - Congress settled for less. Can you imagine our predecessors in the Congress in 1942 or 1943 doing such a thing? As I said earlier, Homeland Security is about attitude, focus, policy and resources. We need a new attitude, a more intense focus, serious comprehensive policy, and adequate resources to do the job right. We need to move beyond the piecemeal approach, and we cannot continue to operate under the illusion that simply putting a new name on an old building fixes the problem. That is why today I am announcing the "Provide for the Common Defense Act." The Provide for the Common Defense Act does four main things: First, it establishes a Public-Private Security Task Force, within the Department of Homeland Security, that would work with industry leaders and security experts to help develop minimum security standards for certain industry sectors to follow. I know that many industries have already voluntarily taken on this task, and we need to learn from them. Those that make up our nation's critical infrastructure including telecommunications, energy, banking, finance, and transportation, would have one year to develop adequate standards on a voluntary basis. If they do not, the federal government would assume that responsibility. For example, I have already introduced legislation to strengthen security at our nation's nuclear power plants and chemical plants. Because when it comes to security, it is in everyone's interest, owners and operators included, to secure our nation's critical infrastructure. But while it is in everyone's interest, at the end of the day, it is the federal government's responsibility, to make sure standards are set and maintained. Second, the Provide for the Common Defense Act moves America beyond the Cold War era when it comes to research and development. Of the federal government's investment in combating terrorism, only five percent of those resources have been dedicated to research and development. And we know that our investment in non-military, non-health related R and D has decreased by .02 percent since September 11. This bill ensures that there is a "Counter-terror Technology Fund," a central dedicated funding source for major new investments in promising technology. Third, this bill provides extra attention to our most vulnerable regions. As we in New York know all too well, certain places are more appealing targets because of the American values they represent or because they are densely populated. The Homeland Security Act provided a coordinator for the Washington, DC metropolitan region but not for the New York metropolitan region. Senator Schumer and I believe that we need this office and that we can correct this inconsistency by providing a coordinator for the tri-state area and requiring vulnerability assessments of our nation's ten most populated metropolitan regions. Similarly, this legislation aims to correct the disparity in attention paid to our northern and southern borders. According to a July, 2001 report from the Justice Department, only 4 percent of border patrol agents work along the U.S.-Canadian border-that means 96 percent of the agents patrol the southern boarder. While there have been some improvements, they are not enough, so I believe we need to designate a northern border coordinator within the Homeland Security Department. Fourth and finally, we need to create more than a department, we need to create a deterrent. We want to show the terrorists that if they attack, we're prepared. We will not be caught off guard. We want to send a message that while they might break our hearts by taking away our loved ones, they will not break our spirit and take away the lives we lead as Americans. We can do this by filling some of the major gaps left by September 11th, like tracking the health of the first soldiers in this new war who lived and worked and volunteered at Ground Zero and coordinating our relief services in a national 2-1-1 line. So, in taking the broad and long view of homeland security, the Provide for the Common Defense Act establishes a Public-Private Task Force to develop minimum security standards, sets the stage for progress and investment with a Counter-Terror Technology Fund, pays special attention to our most vulnerable regions, and aims to deter future attacks. By providing for our common defense, we make a common commitment as a nation, as leaders, and as private citizens to do all that we can to make September 11th the only day of infamy for this generation. The good news is there is no shortage of ideas to improve our domestic defense. The bad news is that few of these ideas have become the law of the land. And that's a dangerous thing. Because rhetoric won't stop the spread of anthrax or smallpox. Rhetoric won't help the Coast Guard track ships that are carrying dangerous cargo. Rhetoric won't secure our chemical and nuclear power plants. We need to put our best ideas into practice and back them with resources. Unfortunately, the main idea to come out of the Administration in recent weeks is to eliminate the tax on dividends - at a cost of $364 billion. Will ending the dividend tax make air travel safer? Will it secure our nuclear power plants? Will it keep a dirty bomb out of New York harbor? Will ending the tax on dividends save one police officer or firefighter his or her job? In short, will it make America safer, more secure? Of course, the answer is no. Around the world, terrorist attacks continue. More than 200 people died in the Bali bombings. American servicemen were killed in Kuwait. Al Qaeda blew up a French destroyer in Yemen. A car bomb in Kenya killed 14 tourists, and a shoulder-launched missile by the grace of God missed a plane carrying more than 200 people to Israel. It is very possible that Osama Bin Laden is alive, and that al Qaeda and even other organizations are plotting all the while. We cannot secure our nation without a renewed focus and vigilance like we had in those weeks and months after that tragic day in September. Even though some of the flags have come down from windows and no longer wave on front lawns, I still believe that the American people are prepared to make sacrifices, if need be, to secure our nation. They are patriots and I believe that if they are asked, they too will answer the call. Now is the time to adjust our attitude, our focus, our policies, and our resources to fit our new reality. Now is the time to Provide for our Common Defense. And we need only look to our nation's own history to see how this can be done. Next week, Americans will gather around their televisions to listen to President Bush's State of the Union address. On February 23, 1942, Americans gathered around their radios to listen to President Roosevelt's call to arms and for the nation to sacrifice for the greater good. He said, "Never before have we been called upon for such a prodigious effort. Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much." Those words are as true today as they were then, and we ignore their wisdom at our own peril. For the full results of the study conducted by Senator Clinton's office, please click here.