Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2004

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for sponsoring this legislation along with me, Senator Warner, Senator Clinton, and others. It is vital legislation.

In general, we have to make homeland security as large a national priority as security overseas. I have been supportive of the President in fighting the war on terror overseas, but I do not think we are doing enough at home. I have had a series of amendments in that regard. This amendment may be the most important of all amendments.

Senator Specter laid this out quite well. We have certain areas that have high needs in terms of the threat to them. To take all the money in an airplane and let it gradually disperse itself all over the United States would not make sense.

My city of New York has tremendous problems. I live near the Brooklyn Bridge. That is, obviously, a target. Our city has two police officers at each end of that bridge 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We could not do less given the great needs of security. Just figure that out. Four officers to fill a 24-hour a day, 7-day-a week shift. That is 20 just for that bridge.
Multiply it by the multiplicity of bridges, tunnels, the airports and high buildings, and New York City is spending a tremendous amount on security.

It is not just cities such as New York. Buffalo, at the other end of my State, is one of the 30 cities wisely included in the high needs formula last time by the Homeland Security Department.

Buffalo has a border with Canada, with bridges. They found a terrorist cell in Lackawanna, a city on the border with Canada. All the commerce with Canada creates special needs.

Our amendment says: Let everyone get a certain amount of money. Everyone has a police department and a fire department. But understand that there are certain areas that have high threat. We ought to do something for them.

This is a modest amendment. First, it only raises the high-needs area $250 million to $1 billion. Second—and I underscore this to my colleagues because I have been asked—this does not have an offset. It does not take money away from the smaller States, smaller cities. The theory behind this amendment is we need to do more for our police and our fire and our first responders. Therefore, we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul. We are, rather, saying let the high-needs areas, the high-threat areas, be funded.

Secretary Ridge, former Office of Management and Budget Chair Daniels, and, in conversations on the phone, present OMB Chair Bolton have all agreed we should improve the formula. We should make it better to correspond with high-threat areas. This amendment tries to do that by adding some money into the area that, in my opinion, this bill has most underfunded: High threat.

I remind my colleagues of one other point. Last year, we allocated $800 million to high threat. The needs are greater. We should be going up. The House allocated $500 million in their bill. If we go to conference with only the $750 million in the mark, we are virtually certain to go backward in terms of the money that high-threat areas need and that high-threat areas deserve.

I quote from a well-received report from the Council on Foreign Relations, chaired by a former colleague, Warren Rudman. The Council has estimated: The Federal, State, and local spending for homeland security should increase by $19.7 billion a year for the next 5 years and more targeted to the areas where the threats are.

If they think we need $19.7 billion more and we are only increasing this by $250 million, it shows the modesty of the request compared to the actual need.

To come out of conference and cut money to high-threat areas would be just what many feared in the wake of September 11: that we were getting complacent; that we are going back to the pre-September 11 days; that because nothing has happened in the last year, year and a half, we can relax.

The conditions that cause terrorism, the idea that small groups of people can use technology to do us terrible damage is with us as much today as it was on 9/10/2001. The good news is we can do things to stop it. We can do them at the Federal level, and we can do them at the local level. But this does cost money.

Money is dear. Obviously, with the deficit we have and other problems, it is dear. But life is even dearer. This is one area where nobody disputes that the Federal Government has the lead role. This is not something the private sector can do on its own. It is not something the States and localities can do on their own.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. Again, it doesn't take money from anything else. It does raise the overall amount by a modest $250 million but probably in the area of the budget that is least funded. Even the mark done by the chairman has less money for high-threat areas than we actually allocated last year.

I yield the floor and return the remainder of my time back to my colleague from Pennsylvania, but I hope we will support this amendment.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I want to reiterate what my colleague from Pennsylvania said. It is the same amendment as
last time, except it has an offset because many colleagues wanted that. The offset doesn't come from small States or from any part of the homeland security distributional money. Rather, it comes from two categories called information analysis and infrastructure protection, which is reduced by $187 million. We reduced it by adding up all the various specific amounts that were asked for in the specific programs, and this was an overage after that. Second, science and technology, research and development, where we went with the President's commitment of $803 million, rather than the committee number of $866 million. Our high-needs areas need help. This will do it without breaking the budget by one nickel.

It does rearrange the priorities some, but it is the priorities we think are fair. We are trying to accommodate many colleagues on the other side who wished for an offset. This seems to be the right one. I reiterate, our high-needs areas, wherever they may be, or high-threat areas, need more help than they are given in the bill. The bill goes down from the amount we did last year, despite promises by all that it would go up. We don't break the budget, and we don't take it from small States.

I urge support for this amendment, and I yield the floor as we approach the time of 3:40.