Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - July 13, 2006)

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the amendment offered last evening by the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez. To me, this feels like Groundhog Day. Last year on this very bill the Senate debated exactly the same issues regarding the funding for the Homeland Security Grant Programs. The proposal last year, with the exact same minimum as the Menendez amendment, was soundly defeated. Senator Lieberman and I offered an alternative that was agreed to by a vote of 71 to 26.

The chart I am going to display explains it to our colleagues. The Menendez amendment would slash homeland security dollars for 36 States and the District of Columbia. It would take funding from 36 States and hand it over to 14 States--14 States that already receive more than 70 percent of the funding.

I am particularly surprised that this amendment is being offered after the widespread criticism and outrage over the funding allocation decisions by the Department of Homeland Security just a few weeks ago. I have told Secretary Chertoff that I believe he achieved what I would have thought was impossible: he made both New York and the State of Maine equally unhappy with his allocation decisions.

Many of the advocates for this amendment criticized the way in which the Department used its discretion to distribute funds. I share in their criticism. Their concerns are understandable, but their proposed solution is absolutely baffling because it would give even more discretion to the Department of Homeland Security to decide, with virtually no guidance, how to allocate these funds.

The Department has clearly demonstrated that it has a long way to go in perfecting a risk allocation methodology. Indeed, if you look at the recent inspector general's report from the Department on critical infrastructure, which was used in part to help determine these funding allocations, you will see that the Department has a very long way to go in coming up with a worthwhile risk-based system.

On that list of critical infrastructure was a petting zoo, for example, an ice cream shop, a doughnut shop. This is part of our critical infrastructure, absolutely essential assets? Yet the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey provides virtually no guidance on how a risk-based formula would work. By contrast, the legislation approved by the committee I chair puts forth risk factors that the Department should weigh.

The Menendez amendment simply hands the reins over to the same Department that was so widely criticized in its funding decisions. The result of the approach of Senator Menendez will be that more funding will be given out under a flawed and inexact methodology. That is exactly why we still need to maintain a healthy State minimum, to assure that flawed distribution methods do not lead to gaps in our security system.

The minimum in the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey, .25 percent, is simply too low. It slashes by two-thirds the Homeland Security grants that every State is now guaranteed. Under his amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million, for both the State Homeland Security Grant Program and the law enforcement program for this year. Compare that with a minimum allocation of slightly more than $7 million for fiscal year 2006 and $9 million the year before.

Again, let me emphasize this. Under the Menendez amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million for homeland security, prevention, and response needs. That is a 72-percent cut in guaranteed funding to each State. I encourage my colleagues to talk to the emergency managers in your State, to talk to your first responders, your police officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, to find out what gaps in homeland security would be left unfilled if they faced such a sharp and massive reduction.

If we are going to become better prepared as a nation, each State must receive a predictable and reasonable base allocation of homeland security funding. States need a predictable base level of funding each year in order to support multiyear projects such as creating interoperable communications networks or first responder training regimes on a natural basis.

Risk-based funding, if distributed properly, certainly is important, and I support it and have proposed it. But it doesn't take away the need for this steady funding stream so that every State can bring its security up to a base level.

Let me give you perhaps the best example of the need for multiyear, steady, predictable funding, and that is the interoperability of first responder communications.

I am sure you recall, Mr. President, that the 9/11 Commission pointed to the lack of compatibility in communications equipment as contributing to the loss of life on 9/11.

The investigation that the Senate Homeland Security Committee did into the failed response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated beyond any doubt that there is still a major problem. We saw different parishes in Louisiana using incompatible communications equipment that slowed and hampered the response to victims.

The National Governors Association reported last year that 73 percent of States have not developed Statewide communications interoperability networks. That is a complicated, expensive and multiyear process.

That is exactly the kind of goal--the interoperable communications network--that the steady, predictable funding from the Homeland Security Grant Program is designed for.

The National Governors Association during last year's debate wrote to me saying:

To effectively protect our States from potential terrorist events, all sectors of government must be part of an integrated plan to prevent, deter, respond and recover from a terrorist act. For that plan to work, it is essential that it be funded through predictable, sustainable mechanisms, both during its development and its implementation.

It is important to know that current law requires States to develop a 3-year homeland security plan. Multiyear planning is critical to developing a successful prevention and response strategy. Yet, if we are going to ask States to plan 3 years out, we have to be prepared to guarantee them a predictable base level of funding.

When we talk about the significance of preventing the next terrorist attack, it is important to note that terrorists often stage their operations training and hideaway from their most obvious targets.

This hits home to those of us in Maine because two of the terrorists that flew the plane into the World Trade Center on 9/11 started their journey of death and destruction from Portland, ME, a city of approximately 65,000 people. That is where they started.

Just think if they could have been apprehended in Portland and maybe the number of lives that could have been saved.

As the publication of the International Association of Chiefs of Police notes, several of the terrorists involved in the attack had routine encounters with State and local law enforcement officials in the weeks and months prior to the attack.

If the State, tribal and local law enforcement officers are adequately equipped and trained, they can be invaluable assets in efforts to identify and apprehend suspected terrorists before they strike. We must provide State and local law enforcement with the tools they need to keep our country secure.

I note that it isn't only the two terrorists who started from Portland, ME that are good examples of terrorists hiding or training or transiting through rural areas. The 9/11 Commission told us that two of the terrorists, for example, were in Norman, OK, and others were in Norcross, GA.

All of these examples illustrate the vulnerability of towns and cities across America while highlighting the need for effective cooperation among all levels of government.

The Menendez amendment takes rational evaluations of need or effectiveness out of the distribution methodology. I hope my colleagues will take a close look at the exact language of the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey. I think they will be very concerned by that language if they do so.

This language factors out of the funding equation consideration of whether an area actually needs funding or

whether it has a plan to spend the funding effectively.

That is an invitation to waste, fraud, and abuse if ever I have heard one.

The amendment would inevitably lead to more wasteful spending. It assures that we will hear about more cases of first responders' dollars being wasted.

For example, New Jersey spent a small fortune worth of dollars that were supposed to go for homeland security purposes on air-conditioned garbage trucks.

That is the kind of waste that we want to avoid. But when you take out any consideration of need, of effectiveness, of planning from the formula, that is exactly the kind of wasteful spending you are going to get.

The RAND Corporation recently cautioned us that homeland security experts and first responders have cautioned against an overemphasis on improving the preparedness of large cities to the exclusion of smaller communities and rural areas.

The report recognized that much of the Nation's critical infrastructure--water plants, for example, or chemical plants and other potential high-value targets--is located in rural areas.

We all know of the threat of a terrorist attack on our food supply. That is another example.

There are so many rural hospitals which have shown that they are unprepared. I could give you example after example.

But, surely, it makes no sense to give the Department of Homeland Security, which has already proven that it does not have the systems in place to handle an allocation that is based on the Department's interpretation of risk--surely, it doesn't make sense to give discretion to the Department. But that is exactly what the Menendez amendment would do. It would give more discretion. It strikes any consideration of whether an area needs the funding, whether it has a good plan for the funding, and whether the funding will be used effectively.

The Menendez amendment will hurt our national efforts to protect our country from terrorist threats. It will leave most States worse off. It leaves the District of Columbia worse off than under current law.

Under his amendment, each State would be assured of only a little more than $2 million for both State Homeland Security Grant Programs and the law enforcement programs this year.

Again, I compare that to a minimum allocation of approximately $7 million last year and $9 million the year before.

Thirty-six States and the District of Columbia would be clear losers.

The Department would be given more discretion--discretion it has already shown it cannot handle. And this amendment, because it does not consider need and effectiveness and does not set out criteria for the Department to use, would result in additional wasteful spending.

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AMENDMENT NO. 4634

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I had reserved the final 4 minutes of my time in opposition to the Menendez amendment. I am going to claim that time now.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey. Let me briefly summarize three issues that make the amendment so problematic.

First, it slashes the minimum allocation for homeland security grant moneys for States. It would impose a two-thirds cut in the guaranteed allocation which would undermine the efforts of States that have entered into multiyear projects such as improving the interoperability of their communications equipment which is an expensive multiyear proposition.

Second, the amendment makes absolutely no sense. If my colleagues are unhappy, as I am, with the Department of Homeland Security's allocation of funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program, why would they want to give unfettered discretion to the Department on how to allocate the funds?

The amendment has absolutely no criteria included in it to define risk. By contrast, the proposal that was approved by the Homeland Security Committee sets out criteria--such as whether there had been a terrorist attack previously, the population density, whether it is a border State, whether it is on the coastline--and gives guidance to the Department since it has clearly shown that it does not have a well-developed system for allocating based on risk. We have seen the results of that.

Third, the Senator from New Jersey strikes the requirement in current law to have the Department look at the need for the funding. All of us are concerned about reports that homeland security grant money in some localities has been wasted, whether it is on leather jackets or air-conditioned garbage trucks, actual cases, one in the District and one in New Jersey, or for other questionable purposes. We need to make sure that the Department is allocating the funds not only based on risk, threat, and vulnerability but also on need and effectiveness. There are no requirements for this funding to be developed and allocated based on the need for it nor the effectiveness of the State's plan.

For those three reasons and many more, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Menendez amendment. Thirty-six States and the District of Columbia would lose funding under his proposal. The funding instead would be reallocated to 14 States which already receive more than 70 percent of all the funding for homeland security.

This is a misguided amendment. It will lead to wasteful spending. It will undermine the efforts to bring all States up to a base level of preparedness and response. I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

I see the Senator from Delaware is on the floor. He has been very active in this area. If I do have any time remaining, I would be happy to yield to my colleague, the Senator from Delaware.

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