Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 12, 2007)
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me start, Mr. Chairman, by commending the subcommittee chairman on putting together a thoughtful bill, his first as the chairman of this important subcommittee. I must also recognize the chairman's continuation of this subcommittee's bipartisan tradition as well as to state how much I appreciate the chairman's willingness to listen to the concerns on this side of the aisle and accommodate us as much as possible.
I would, however, like to briefly say a few words about some specific items of concern. First, fiscal responsibility.
The 302(b) allocation for the Department of Homeland Security is $36.25 billion. That is $2.1 billion above what was requested of us and amounts to a 13.6 percent increase above fiscal 2007. And that doesn't even include the billions in one-time emergency funding that has been added to the DHS budget over the last year, including the $1.05 billion in unrequested funding just approved in the supplemental last month.
If you include that figure in the increase, it is almost a 17 percent increase over the current year. By comparison, the budget request would give the Department a 7.2 percent increase, and I think that recommendation is more than sufficient, even generous, for the Department.
The public is demanding accountability and fiscal responsibility, and I don't think we can exclude any Federal agency from fiscal discipline, even the Department of Homeland Security. More money and more government do not equal more security.
Therefore, I will offer an amendment later today to limit the budget to a more than generous and responsible 7.2 percent increase over current spending. I am hopeful my colleagues will support that effort.
And when I use the term ``responsible,'' Mr. Chairman, I am also stating that we must ensure DHS has sufficient resources to carry out legislative direction. The bill includes a bold mandate for ICE to contact every correctional facility in the country, over 5,000 of them, at least once a month to identify incarcerated aliens and initiate deportation proceedings against them. That is a laudable goal, and I support the policy and the goal. But, Mr. Chairman, it is going to be very, very difficult to do mechanically and it is unfunded.
We are going to be asking the States and localities to pay, assumedly, for the review of who is in their jails.
Number two, they don't have the authority nor the capability to determine whether or not Joe Blow in cell 18 is an undocumented alien or not. It's not their job, and they don't have the capability to do that. So I don't know what will be the result of this mandate. It is unfunded, and it is going to be very difficult to put in practice. The Department already surveys routinely the most probable jails where the most probable criminal aliens are being held anyway.
Despite the requirement for ICE to report on the resources needed to carry out this unfunded mandate, I am concerned that the bill presupposes ICE can simply transfer or reprioritize monies from other sources within their budget, for example, the fugitive apprehension program. They are out there trying to catch the criminals on the streets that are loose. It seems to me they are a bigger danger than those incarcerated in the jails.
These enforcement activities involve many duties, duties that include tracking down at-large criminals, investigating smuggling networks, preventing child pornography, preventing the exploit of sensitive national security technology, and taking down employers who are exploiting illegal immigrants to the point of abuse.
From which of these critical missions should ICE take monies in order to comb the Nation's jails and correctional facilities, most of which never have any criminal aliens in them anyway? So to suggest that ICE should refocus its resources almost exclusively on jailed illegal aliens at the expense of trying to catch fugitives on the street who are raping and plundering seems to me as short-sighted as it is potentially very dangerous.
There must be a balance among ICE's many critical missions. And I am concerned this bill falls short in that regard. I am hopeful the Chairman will work with me and others to develop a more realistic implementation of this policy as we move forward.
I have other concerns as well. Any immigration policy starts out with securing the border. If we can't control who crosses our Nation's borders, all other possible immigration initiatives will fail. To address this critical issue, Congress has authorized and appropriated for substantial infrastructure on the southwest border. But the bill contains a number of onerous restrictions on funding for fencing and other tactical infrastructure along our borders until the Department performs certain actions.
At first glance, these individual fencing and tactical infrastructure requirements appear to be based upon sound policy. However, added together, they are a series of obstacles that can potentially impede installation of critical border security systems. I fear that securing the border will be greatly deterred.
While I am pleased with the continuation of robust planning requirements for SBInet, I am absolutely committed to securing our borders as rapidly as possible. We will work with the Chairman to ensure that DHS accomplishes that critical task on time and on budget. There must be a balance between prudent oversight and timely execution of the Department's border security mission.
In addition, Mr. Chairman, the bill removes for the first time the cap on the number of TSA screeners that was put into this bill in 2002, and every year since. That cap was established for very good reasons, reasons that still exist. TSA was created by Congress in 2001. At that time, I chaired the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, and we put in this cap because TSA was demonstrating absolutely no discipline in its planning, hiring and use of technology. TSA's mindset was to hire an army of screeners, 70,000 of them, while advancements in research and technology were largely ignored.
By requiring in law that TSA could not exceed 45,000 screeners, TSA was forced to refocus its decision-making. They began to place better, cheaper, and more effective technologies and machines in the airport, x-ray machines and the like, and started to slowly clear out the more expensive, manpower-intensive trace detection machines in the lobbies of airports.
The screener cap, Mr. Chairman, works. Without it, I am fearful that TSA will go back to its old ways of solving screener problems by simply adding more people, a very short-sighted, costly, and dangerous solution. Given these concerns, I plan to offer an amendment to restore the 45,000 screener cap later today.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about the annual expectations we may be setting for State and local grants. These funds are intended to address counter terrorism needs and disaster preparedness, the Homeland Security portion of local first responders' budgets and duties. These agencies are certainly happy, of course, to get these grant funds, and now even expect it. I am concerned that we are transforming the mission and purpose of these grant programs from risk reduction to that of revenue sharing, something it was never intended to be.
Rather than just adding billions to these grant programs, as this bill does, what we ought to be doing is working with the authorizing committees to change the way these grant programs are authorized and administered, and lay out specifically what the Federal Government expects for the grants that we do make.
Grants to States and local communities are intended to reduce our vulnerabilities and are not immune from fiscal discipline, particularly when you consider that there is nearly $5 billion in unspent first responder grant dollars simply laying there waiting to be spent. We should be working on seeing that the pipeline is unclogged. Why put billions more dollars in the hopper when it's full already, waiting to be drained out the bottom in a clogged pipeline?
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I believe this bill has the potential to do a lot of good. There are many provisions and funding recommendations that I agree with. I applaud Chairman Price's efforts to keep the Department on track to produce results, provide strong oversight, and continuing the subcommittee's tradition of strict accountability.
I look forward to working with him and the Members of the House and the Senate as the bill moves forward.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The committee mark already includes huge increases in grants for the urban areas, and I am opposed to this further increase. I mean, there is only so much money to go around to all of the cities in the country and all that need help.
Just for an example, the urban area grants portion of the bill is increased already over current spending by some $30 million. It is up to $800 million just for the urban area grants.
Port security grants, all of which go to the large cities, increases from $210 million to $400 million in the bill already.
Rail and transit security grants go from $175 million currently to $400 million.
And then the SAFER fire grants, moneys that go to urban area fire departments for personnel costs, goes from $115 million to $230 million, double what it is now. There are huge increases in these grant programs, particularly for the urban areas.
I know the gentleman appreciates that. But we just don't have any more to go around unless you take it from another worthy cause.
I would oppose the gentleman's amendment.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Reclaiming my time, and I would like to ask the gentleman a question, or ask his comment.
At the end of the bill, in the general provisions, I'll be offering an amendment to cut, across the board, 5.7 percent of the entire bill, across the board.
Even with that so-called ``cut'' in the increase, it will still be a 7.1 percent increase over current spending, taking the budget request that came to us from OMB.
Would the gentleman feel compelled to support that type of an approach?
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Well, at the end of the bill, Mr. Chairman, I can't do it now and I would like to have done it at the outset of the debate, under our rules, it can only be offered at the end of the discussion. But at the end of the bill I will be asking Members of this body to reduce the increase for homeland security from its 16 percent level to 7.1 percent, which is the President's request; and, number two, thereby avoiding a veto.
I desperately want this body to pass a responsible funding level for the Department of Homeland Security and not have it vetoed. There is a veto threat there. If you want to prolong this agony over the bill, we need to pass a responsible funding level for the Department, which I think the President's proposal is responsible and even generous. But this Department, like all other departments in the government, is still subject to fiscal responsibility.
I am for a strong homeland defense, like all the rest of you, and for a number of years I chaired this subcommittee and I think we have done a good job of holding spending in line. But this increase is not needed. It is wasteful and it must be controlled. And the overall cutting amendment that I will offer at the end of the debate will be the responsible way to do it. And I would hope the gentleman and all of his colleagues in the body would support that when the time comes
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