Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2007--Continued

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--Continued

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the Collins-Lieberman amendment would provide $986 million to help prevent terrorist attacks and to enable us to respond more effectively if one does occur. It enjoys the support of a wide range of first responder groups, representing our police and our firefighters.

Our amendment has two components. First, it restores funding to the fiscal year 2006 levels for key grant programs that assist first responders, as well as State and local governments. These are such programs as the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, emergency management performance grants, the FIRE Act, and SAFER programs.

As this chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service indicates, the aggregate difference between the fiscal year 2006 appropriated amount and the proposed budget request for this year is $395 million. Our amendment ensures that none of the programs listed on this chart would be funded at any less than the level that was appropriated for fiscal year 2006.

Last year, for example, Congress appropriated $550 million for the State Homeland Security Grant Program, a key source of assistance to State and local governments and first responders. This level, I point out, was only half of the fiscal year 2005 enacted level. Communities use these funds for first responder preparation activities such as emergency planning, risk assessments, mutual aid agreements, equipment, training, and exercises.

It is important to realize that the biggest single expenditure of these funds is the purchase of interoperable communications equipment. Therefore, a vote for our amendment is a vote to increase funding for interoperable communications equipment for first responders.

Under the Collins-Lieberman amendment, we would also provide an additional $150 million for the State Homeland Security Grant Program to create a better national response system that will operate more smoothly at the Federal, State, and local level. Our committee's investigation into the preparedness for and response to Hurricane Katrina clearly demonstrated inadequate response and deficiencies in our ability to respond effectively to the catastrophic events. This is not the time to reduce the Federal Government's commitment to national preparedness.

The budget also shortchanges first responders in other programs, such as the FIRE Act and the SAFER grants. We would take care of that as well as the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, one of the programs that focuses on preventing terrorist attacks.

Another important aspect of the Collins-Lieberman amendment deals with port security grants. Unfortunately, the administration's budget does not dedicate a separate funding stream for port security. Instead, it folds port security in with all other transportation and critical infrastructure, thus providing no assurance at all that any money will be provided to strengthen the security of our ports. The estimates are, from the ports administrators, that we need to have $400 million for port security grant funding. Because of budget constraints we don't go that far, but we do include dedicated funding, $300 million in port security grant funding. We have proposed an increase to move the funding level to meeting the identified needs and to help us improve the security of our ports.

There are so many needs, but we have worked very hard to keep the cost of our amendment down. It is fully offset. I hope our colleagues will support this proposal. It also provides funding for a number of other critical infrastructure needs, such as our Nation's rail and transit systems.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and send a message to our first responders that they are a top priority. The additional funding provided by the Collins-Lieberman amendment is an investment we simply must make to strengthen our ability to prevent, detect, and if necessary respond to attacks on our homeland.

I urge support for the amendment, and I yield the remainder of my time.

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