Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - July 12, 2006)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am proud to join with my colleagues from New York and New Jersey. We are doing three amendments together. One, Senator Clinton's amendment, increases the threat money. The second, the amendment of Senator Menendez, which I believe will be offered within the hour or shortly thereafter, will change the wording in the formula. My amendment increases money for transit homeland Security by $300 million. All of these amendments are important to our New York-New Jersey area.

We have seen, in the last few months, two things. First, the New York-New Jersey area, of course, continues to be, unfortunately, a target of choice. When terrorists talk about creating devastation to our homeland, unfortunately, New York comes first to their minds. It means that our city has to be extra vigilant. Our State has to be extra vigilant. Our friends across the river have to be extra vigilant.

Frankly, while there are threats everywhere, New York has to be more vigilant than anywhere else. Yet in a deep disappointment that still wounds us, the Homeland Security Department dramatically cut back on our funding.

The amendment Senator Clinton is offering with which I am proud to be her partner, along with Senator Menendez and Senator Mikulski, basically increases the overall pot because we have two problems. The pie is not large enough, and the way the pie is distributed, maldistributes the money. Senator Menendez' amendment deals with how the money is distributed.

It is an outrage that the Secretary of Homeland Security, who promised Congress before he was nominated that he would be fair to New York, has cut back so dramatically. He has used the most foolish of formulas. He had a peer review process. I have great respect for the sheriff of a small town in the Rocky Mountain States, but in all due respect to that sheriff, he should not be the judge of how New York needs money.

Today we saw the list of terrorist sites. It reaches the point of absurdity. The Old McDonald Petting Zoo is a target for terrorists. I have been to petting zoos when I was a kid. I took my children to petting zoos, but I never saw a terrorist hiding behind one of the sheep in Little Bo' Peep's flock. Then they have the Amish Popcorn Factory as a terrorist site.

Why did this happen? It is because of the careless and sloppy attitude at Homeland Security that reflected itself in the formula by which our city and our State were dramatically cut.

The amendments we are talking about would both increase the size of the pie desperately needed when we know the war on terror is real and the threat to our homeland is not subsiding. It is desperately needed because we are one Nation. Just as the mayor of New York City is not on some peer review panel to determine whether New York City should get corn subsidies, the small town officials, who are very good people in defending their city, are not the folks to determine how much New York needs and where it needs it. We will be having other amendments later that deal with some of the specific issues.

My amendment is the third leg of this stool. New York has been targeted repeatedly, whether it is releasing cyanide on a New York City subway car or trying to blow up the PATH that Senator Lautenberg talked about that brings millions of commuters during the course of each year across the river from New Jersey to New York.

The terrorists know what we are doing. The Internet allows them to know it. They look for our weakest pressure point.

We have done virtually nothing on rail security. Nothing. We spend a couple of pennies for each mass transit rider while we spend $7 or $8 on each person who flies. And I am glad we spend the $7 or $8 on the people who fly. But mark my words, the terrorists know if air travel is pretty well protected they will look somewhere else.

The most logical place they look, unfortunately, is to the rails, where millions of people are in unguarded entrances, coming together. We saw it in Madrid. We saw it in London. Unfortunately, once again, we saw it in Mumbai yesterday. We will see it again. I wish that were not true. God forbid, but it will happen.

This is a modest amendment. My colleague, Senator Biden, asked for a large amount of money. This is just $300 million, but it will go a long way. Right now we only spend $150 million. What we would do in our amendment is double, add $200 million, grants on rail security, the personnel, the dogs. Talk to terrorist experts. They say dogs that can smell explosives or biological or chemical weapons are the best anecdote. This would pay for things like that.

We also put aside $50 million to develop detection devices. Technology allowed terrorism to occur. Technology can protect us. But we are not availing ourselves of that technology. One of the things I have been pushing for for years is the money to develop a detection device, much like a smoke detector, that could sit on the ceiling of a subway car or in the entrance of a railroad station. When someone came by with a great deal of explosives or biological or chemical or nuclear material on their bodies, it would go ``beep, beep, beep,'' and the police would be able to make an arrest before damage was done.

This amendment sets aside a modest $50 million to begin that research.

Finally, the amendment provides $50 million for overtime reimbursement. Every time we hear of a threat in a different part of the world, the New York City police department must put men and women on overtime to guard the subways and the dog squads and everyone else. This is a Federal responsibility.

The bottom line is, the soft underbelly of subways, buses, and tunnels are highly vulnerable to the kinds of terrorist attacks we have seen in London and Madrid and Mumbai. Unless we take real steps to beef up mass transit security immediately, the bottom line is, we spend more than $7 per airline passenger on air security but little more than a penny per mass transit rider.

In the wake of these most recent threats and yesterday's tragic attacks in India, we need to be doing a lot more to even the score. This week, we have increased funding for border security and port security. I ask my colleagues to do the same for rail systems. I will ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment at an appropriate time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this amendment is simple. It adds $300 million to probably the most woefully neglected area of homeland security, and that is security on the rails, whether it be mass transit, whether it be long-term passenger rail, or freight.

We have seen in the last year that transit rails are a target of choice for terrorists. We saw it in London, we saw it in Madrid, and we saw it just yesterday, unfortunately, once again in Mumbai. Our rails are very vulnerable. We spend over $7 per air traveler for homeland security; we spend about a penny for mass transit. And the terrorists always look for our vulnerability. Transit is vulnerable. Passenger rail is vulnerable. Freight rail is vulnerable. There are miles and miles of unguarded track and thousands of people entering unguarded entrances. If there were ever a place we needed help, this is it.

There are, obviously, things we are doing on port security. The amendment of the Senator from West Virginia increased that funding. It makes no sense, given that the rails have been the target of the last three major terrorist attacks around the world, to have a paltry $150 million for rail security.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov