Change of Vote

Floor Speech

CHANGE OF VOTE -- (Senate - October 16, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. I rise today to support the funding bill for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science and Related Agencies and commend Senators Mikulski and Shelby for their hard work on this legislation.

This bill provides important funding that will strengthen the American economy, promote scientific advancement, and protect our national security. It reflects our priorities by funding State and local law enforcement agencies across the country. Since September 11, 2001, these agencies have been on the front lines of Nation's efforts to fight crime as well as to safeguard our communities against terror.

Our law enforcement officials have accepted these responsibilities willingly and have performed admirably. But for several years, they have been burdened by their expanded role. These agencies have asked the administration and Congress for help--but instead of providing them with the funding they need, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress sought instead to cut their budgets. To those who patrol our streets, these repeated budget cuts made no sense, and they made no sense to those of us in the Democratic minority in Congress.

Thankfully, there's a new group of sheriffs on Capitol Hill. This Democratic Congress is committed to providing law enforcement with the tools they need to help keep our communities safe.

This bill delivers on our commitment. It provides nearly $2.7 billion in State and local law enforcement assistance--$1.5 billion above the President's request.

The American people learned a decade ago that federal funding for State and local law enforcement helps reduce violent crime. During the Clinton administration, we provided meaningful funding for tough and effective anticrime programs. The Community Oriented Policing Services Program put more than 115,000 additional cops on the street and in our schools. Byrne grants helped fund state and local law enforcement agencies, criminal justice systems, and antidrug task forces.

This investment in State and local law enforcement paid off. Violent crime nationwide fell by nearly 26 percent between 1994 and 2000. And study after study showed the link between lower crime rates and Federal assistance for law enforcement. In Illinois, nearly $40 million in COPS grants have funded 5,540 additional police officers and sheriffs. Nearly 700 local and State law enforcement agencies in my home State have directly benefited from this funding.

In northern Illinois, the village of Johnsburg has a population of about 7,000. Experts recommend 1 police officer per 400 to 500 people. Johnsburg, however, has only 10 officers--an average of 1 per 700 residents. The lack of officers in Johnsburg means that often they have only one car patrolling the streets. This is no way to ensure the safety of small town residents. Small towns like Johnsburg desperately need the funding provided by COPS grants in order to put cops on the beat and keep crime off of their streets.

COPS grants also play a crucial role in the war against drugs. I am sorry to say that Illinois has a serious problem with methamphetamine abuse. In Williamson County, Sheriff Tom Cundiff is using COPS funding to train some 150 individuals in dismantling meth labs. This is no inexpensive undertaking--the breathing apparatus needed for each person alone costs $3,000. Sheriff Cundiff tells me that COPS funding has allowed him to train eight times the number of officers than he could have trained without our help.

This funding is also vital for the safety of our schools. Nearly $22 million has been awarded to add 181 school resources officers to improve safety for students and teachers in public schools throughout Illinois. Why is this money so important? In Breese, IL, town of 4,000, the population doubles every day as the children of Clinton County arrive in Breese to attend school. This influx strains the resources of the police department and its six officers. With a grant of just $56,000, the Breese police department will be able to install cameras and other security equipment in their schools. These cameras will feed images to computers in police cruisers so officers can patrol the village while still keeping track of what's happening at school.

Since the late 1990s, the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress have cut funding for State and local law enforcement, year after year, budget after budget. Not surprisingly at the same time the administration was slashing funds for state and local law enforcement, violent crime rates started going up.

According to the FBI's crime reports, violent crime rates increased 2.3 percent in 2005 after years of decreases, and then rose again by 1.9 percent in 2006. This represents tens of thousands of additional violent crimes each year. This alarming increase in violent crime rates should have been a call to action. But it wasn't.

Instead, the administration's's 2008 budget request tried to cut more than half of all State and local law enforcement funding. It cut the COPS program down to a mere $32 million, virtually eliminated the Byrne/JAG program, and eliminated the juvenile accountability block grant program.

Can the administration honestly say that we should be spending billions of dollars a month to police the streets of Iraq but that we can't afford to pay for proven crime prevention programs here at home? Earlier this year, Russ Laine, the chief of police in Algonquin, IL, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing about rising crime.

Chief Laine also serves as the vice-president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and he speaks on behalf of chiefs throughout the Nation. He talked about the growing crime problem in Algonquin, a tiny town that had just suffered its first drive-by shooting and has seen clashes between violent gangs. He also talked about the strain that law enforcement agencies have felt in trying to fight crime while also detecting, investigating and preventing terrorist acts.

In his testimony, Chief Laine said the following:

We willingly accept the new responsibilities in combating terrorism, but our ability to continue with traditional policing is our best weapon against terrorism....... Law enforcement are doing all that we can to protect our communities from increasing crime rates and the specter of terrorism, but we cannot do it alone. We need the full support and assistance of the federal government.

Chief Laine, help is on the way.

The fiscal year 2007 continuing resolution passed by this Congress earlier this year provided $2.6 billion in State and local law enforcement assistance programs. It included funding increases for the COPS and Byrne/JAG programs. The bill we consider today further increases state and local law enforcement funding. It provides $550 million for COPS and $1.4 billion for State and local law enforcement grants.

This bill also increases funds the crime and terror prevention efforts of Federal law enforcement agencies. The FBI, DEA, ATF and the U.S. Marshals are all funded in this bill, and all at levels exceeding the President's request.

Let's pass this bill and give law enforcement agencies the tools they need to keep our communities safe.

I would be remiss, however, to yield the floor without mentioning that this bill goes beyond providing vital support to law enforcement agencies across the country.

This legislation also helps another important issue we face today--climate change. According to the National Academy of Sciences, our ability to monitor severe weather systems, declining fish stocks, shortages of freshwater, increased soil erosion, and significant changes to the global climate all depend on NASA's Earth science budget.

This bill restores funding for environmental polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites. These satellites provide data about our planet that allow Federal and State agencies, scientists, and industry to identify and assess environmental patterns and threats. After the Bush administration proposed cutting funding for these satellites, scientists from both NOAA and NASA reacted strongly, arguing that the decision would place ``the overall climate program in serious jeopardy.''

This measure also provides funding to implement some of the recommendations made by the Joint Ocean Commission to protect the planet's waters. It funds research into

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coastal areas and the Great Lakes, including studies on invasive aquatic species. The need to address invasive species is nowhere greater than in Illinois, where the Asian Carp threatens Lake Michigan and the entire Great Lakes ecosystem.

Global climate change poses a threat to our future and to our national security. Failing to recognize and plan for the consequences of global warming would be a serious mistake.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation for the safety of our communities and the future of our planet.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the motion to commit. This appropriations process is about choices. We have to make these choices. I think Senator Mikulski, as chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee, and her counterpart, Senator Shelby, have made good choices. If you look at the money that is spent here over what the President requested, you have a right to ask: What are we going to spend it on? When you ask that question, you understand why they made the right choices.

Does America need 100 more FBI agents to fight the rising threat of violent crime? We do in Illinois and in Maryland and in West Virginia, maybe even in Mississippi, because we find the violent crime rate rising in America. Do we need the 100 more FBI agents the Senator has called for? I think the people across America would say: Obviously, we do.

How about the Drug Enforcement Agency? Is the drug issue no longer a problem in America? I wish that were the case. We know better. What Senator Mikulski has done here is put an extra $50 million in this bill for the Drug Enforcement Agency to lift its hiring freeze, to hire 200 new agents to fight the drug peddlers and drug gangs across America. Is that a priority? Is that worth spending more than the President requested? Obviously, it is.

Have you been back to your hometowns to meet with the police department?

Remember what they asked you about first: What have you heard about Byrne grants? What have you heard about the COPS Program? How about the Federal money that is going down to police departments so they can have better training, better equipment, and be ready if, God forbid, something terrible happens in that community. That is what they ask me about in Illinois. Senator Mikulski heard that, Senator Shelby heard that, and they put an additional $1.6 billion in to go back to State and local governments to help on law enforcement preparedness.

If we ever face another act of terrorism, it is unlikely that our local residents are going to pick up the phone and call Members of Congress. They are going to dial 9-1-1 and pray to God that the party on the other end of that call is a fire department and a police department and a medical responder ready to move, and move quickly and effectively. With this appropriation, we will be able to do that. The list goes on.

What troubles me about this whole debate is that last year, when the Republican Congress sent spending bills to the President $50 billion over his request, he didn't veto one of them. He didn't even threaten to veto one of them. He didn't take a trip to South Carolina to announce he was going to veto one of them. Not one. This year, we are $20 billion over and the President says: I am standing my ground.

Well, let me tell you about the ground that he is standing on. It is shaky.

Mr. BYRD. It is.

Mr. DURBIN. Because in a week from now, this same President is going to come to this Congress and ask us for, I say to the Senator from West Virginia, $192 billion more for the war in Iraq.

Mr. BYRD. Get out of my face.

Mr. DURBIN. He will ask us for $192 billion for the war in Iraq. That is for 1 year.

Mr. BYRD. Just 1 year.

Mr. DURBIN. It is not paid for, and now we hear from the President's party: We can't afford $3.2 billion to make America safe at home, for our own police departments, our own FBI, our own Drug Enforcement Agency.

I think the Members who are pushing this motion to commit believe the Senate is suffering from attention deficit disorder; that we cannot think ahead, that the President will just in a few days ask us for $192 billion to make Iraq safe. We know that is coming. They don't want to talk about that. Is it too much to ask for $3.2 billion to make America safe? Doesn't a stronger America begin at home? Doesn't it begin with our own Department of Justice? Doesn't it begin with our police departments?

I would say to my colleagues, we understand the choices here, and the right choices have been made by this committee on a bipartisan basis. They worked this bill through the committee, and they worked hard on it. Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby brought it to the floor. Amendment after amendment they have gone through the process. Now, the Senate will make a decision: Are we going to toss all their work overboard, are we going to commit this bill back to the committee? I hope we don't. I hope we stand up for this country in which we live, this country we love that deserves the protection that this bill will give. Let's defeat this motion to commit.

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