Mr. Gregg: I wanted to talk today a little bit about the progress we're making relative to securing our borders here in the United States as a result of efforts made by this Congress and the Administration, but before I do, I just wanted to comment briefly on the Senator from Illinois' presentation relative to the actions of this Congress and its passage of legislation or its investigative activity.

It is truly disingenuous when the Assistant Leader for the Democratic side comes to the floor and says, we have done nothing as a Congress when almost every major piece of legislation that has been brought to the floor of this Senate has been filibustered by the other side of the aisle. Bill after bill after bill has been stymied, stopped, and, in fact, it has been no secret, it's an open understanding around here that the purpose of the Democratic Leadership has been to make it virtually impossible to pass legislation in the Senate in order that the Senate appear to be an ineffective body. Their feeling being that if they can obstruct enough things they can make an argument that they -- that Congress isn't functioning and they should be put in charge.

It's an ironic position, of course, and has been characterized to the situation when a man who shot both his parents when brought before the court asked for mercy because he declares himself an orphan. The fact is that the Democratic Leadership of this body has decided to actively obstruct and try to stop almost any legislation of any significance that's come to the floor, and as a result, many things have been stopped because, as we all know, this is a body which functions essentially on a 60-vote majority, not a 51-vote majority. Even though the Republican membership may have 55 votes, we cannot pass something if there is a united opposition.  And so it's happened again and again and again, and so I do find it a bit disingenuous that they make this argument. It's their right to make it, of course, but I think an honest reflection of what is actually happening around here makes the argument rather superficial and inadequate in its essence and its purpose.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the progress we've made relative to securing the border because this is one of those situations where the facts on the ground haven't yet caught up with the public perception, which is understandable. That happens a lot in all sorts of areas where things that are moving in the right direction, which were broken but are being repaired, there's still a perception that things are fundamentally broken.

We are moving in the right direction relative to the border. Since 2005, we have made rather significant strides towards putting in place the infrastructure and the people necessary to secure the border. I have the good fortune to chair the Subcommittee on Homeland Security. It may well be the only major appropriations bill that gets out of this Congress before we adjourn here in October. That bill and the precursors to that bill, the appropriations bills which we passed in the last two years and the supplementals that have gone with those bills, have allowed us to significantly expand our commitment to homeland security. This has been an aggressive step taken by the Republican Congress and the Administration. Back in 2005, we took a look at the problem, and when I assumed the leadership of this Subcommittee, and we basically reoriented this whole funding stream relative within the Homeland Security Department relative to the issues of weapons of mass destruction and border security. We concluded that those were the two major threats which we as a Committee should focus on, and so we took significant amounts of funds at that time and moved them into those accounts. Initially, back in 2005, the Administration wasn't too excited about that. But after they took a hard look at what they were doing, they felt it was a good idea and decided to join us in our efforts. Since 2005 that effort has accelerated and has gained strength and has made significant gains.

By the time this next bill passes -- which I hope will be before we leave here at the end of September -- it is expected we will have put in place almost 4,000 new border agents, a 40% increase in border agents, people physically on the ground. We will have put in place 9,000, almost 10,000 new detention beds, so that when we catch people, we don't have to release them. It was really inappropriate, the policy which was being followed, which was that when you catch
somebody coming across the border, you simply either took them back across the border if they were Mexican or you released them and told them to come back and appear for a court date if they weren't Mexican. What we found is nobody came back for those court dates. With the 10,000 additional beds we will put in place that policy which will be curtailed with catch and release.

We've added hundreds of miles of new fence and we'll continue to add new fencing where it is appropriate. We dramatically increased our Customs and Border Patrols so that we're now up to almost 18,000 Custom and Border Patrol -- Customs officers I'm talking about here, not border patrol– Customs officers who monitor our ports of entry.

We have greatly increased the commitment to the Coast Guard, which is the first line of defense relative to our ports and also plays a major role along the access points of our coastline for people who are coming into the country illegally. We've added $7.5 billion in the Coast Guard accounts which are going to give them the new capability they need with the boats and the aircraft, specifically upgrading their aircraft, upgrading their helicopters. All of this in order to give the Coast Guard the ability to intercept people who may be coming here to do us harm.

We dramatically increased our commitment in the area of nuclear detection, set up the nuclear deterrence office which basically is a focused effort on the question of how you deter a nuclear attack and also respond to it should it ever occur -- God forbid that should ever happen. That is obviously the intention of some of our enemies. They intend to try to accomplish that, and we need to be focused to try to stop that from happening.

We dramatically expanded the intelligence capability of the Department of Homeland Security with an analysis center by adding over $500 million. These are increases that are making a difference in our capacity as a country to know who's coming into the country, what's coming into the country and whether or not the people who are coming into the country represent a threat or whether they're just people who are coming in here to pursue appropriate lawful activity in the area of commerce or just in the area of visiting us or taking advantage of our educational systems.

These are major steps forward. And the problem hasn't been solved yet. We all understand that. But we continue on this path towards significantly upgrading our capabilities in the area of boots on the ground and technology supporting those boots.

Later this week there's going to be the release of the contracting for the security program for the entire border which will be a major step forward. It will mean we'll start the construction of major technology improvements along the border to use our advantage in technology to be able to police our borders. And then in addition, recognizing that should somebody actually breach our borders with some weapon that might harm us, have the capacity to try to mitigate the effects of that through better technology and the research that surrounds that effort.

We have basically made a huge commitment in this area, dramatically increasing our funding, dramatically increasing our personnel, dramatically increasing our technological capability. And it is very likely that within the next year – in fact, it's probable, not likely; within the next year the results of this are going to become very clear to the American people. But as with many things, the perception that the border remains an open sieve, which it was, and it shouldn't have been, but it was, especially along the Southern border, the perception that we didn't have the technology to protect ourselves -- which we didn't -- the perception that we had not adequately upgraded the Coast Guard to do its job -- which we hadn't -- all remain perceptions in the marketplace, the perceptions among the public, understandably so.

But the facts on the ground are that we are significantly upgrading our capabilities along the border, that we have significantly upgraded our technological capability and are continuing to expand that dramatically, that we are significantly improving the capacity of the Coast Guard, and that systems like U.S.  VISIT, which basically track who's coming into the country through a fingerprint process, are up and running and appear to be giving us significant results.

So I think we can, we should talk about the good things that are happening and our efforts to do the right thing along the border, which is secure it, and the progress that we're making and recognize that although we're not there yet, we're clearly on a path towards accomplishing our goal, which is to make sure that people who come into this country, first, come in legally. And secondly, when they come in, they do us no harm, and their purposes are to do us no harm. And, thirdly, the product that's coming into this country is for the purpose of commerce and not for the purpose of harming us. Mr. President, I yield the floor.