Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 25, 2006)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, we have something which is called the Metropolitan Medical Response System. This is the system that has been set up in 125 major communities across the United States, every major metropolitan area, in order to coordinate the response of the police, the fire and the emergency medical personnel in the event that there is a terrorist attack; a hurricane; tornado; an earthquake; or, as we have learned over the last 6 or 8 months, an avian flu disaster which hits a community. Last year, there was $30 million which was appropriated. To the credit of the committee, the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota, after the White House recommended zero for this program, the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota have restored the $30 million. But in the Homeland Security Committee, on which I serve, by a unanimous vote just a month ago, our committee voted to double the number to $60 million.
Now, why did we do that? Well, in addition to that number's being endorsed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, all of these medical personnel across the country who say that the funding is woefully inadequate, you have just about every local police and fire department who are saying that they are going to be overwhelmed if one of these disasters hits their community.
So just to recap the last 12 months, since the $30 million was established as the number, we have already had Hurricane Katrina, which has exposed the inadequacies of the coordination of local police and fire and medical personnel. We have had the avian flu, which has arisen as a threat to the public health and safety of every community in our country. And there is no community at this point which is bragging that they are prepared to deal with this catastrophe if it hits their hometown.
So what we have done is identify a couple of programs, including the MAXHR program, which every union in America is opposed to because it is just going to redesign the whole way in which people are hired, and instead substituted money which will actually go to these local police and fire and medical personnel so that we can have the planning which is put in place.
We all know that when a catastrophe occurs in a community, nobody calls the Department of Homeland Security. They call the local police department, they call the local fire department, they call the local hospital. They are crying out to us saying they don't have the resources. That is why the Homeland Security Committee upped the number from $30 million to $60 million just last month.
Every one of these people, we saw it New York City, we saw it down here, these people are heroes. But heroes need help. They need the resources. They need the planning to be put in place. That is why the fire chiefs, that is why these local unions are all crying out, please, give us the help. We will take the risk. We will go into the flaming buildings. We will try to stop the flood. We will put our own health on the line in the event of an avian flu hitting a community. But give us the planning, give us the capacity now to put in place the response mechanism.
That is what this amendment does. And all it does is respond to what all these experts have told us the number has to be. $30 million is clearly inadequate, given what we have learned since last year with avian flu and what happened in New Orleans and across the whole gulf coast.
I urge an ``aye'' vote in order to ensure that this funding is made available to these local heroes.
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