Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, as former chair and current ranking member on the Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee and member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I offer this amendment in good faith to save lives and to protect American citizens.

Like my Republican colleague, Chairman King, I have a strong concern with the current appropriations bill in its current form which in and of itself could potentially cause dangerous threats to our national security by drastically cutting vital response and prevention programs, leaving Americans and their visitors vulnerable when we are most in time of need.

My amendment will make great strides to remedy this danger by ensuring that the Department of Homeland Security allocates $50 million for the Port Security program, $100 million for the Public Transportation Security Assistance and Railroad Security Assistance program, $50 million for Interoperable Emergency Communications Grant program, $10 million for the Buffer Zone Protection program, and $42.3 million for the Metropolitan Medical Response System.

The Richardson amendment dedicates $252 million of the $1 billion authorized, all while still preserving the chairman's original intent by allowing 50 percent of those dollars to remain flexible under the direction of what the committee had originally provided and also still maintaining the $247 million that the committee designated for Stonegarden and for training.

Mr. Chairman, each and every day, America faces threats to our national security. Certainly, the most well-known are the threats to our ports and our transit systems, which I have particularly been focused on given the fact that my district covers two of the largest ports in the entire United States.

However, these programs that I've mentioned so far go beyond the LA area. When you consider the recent tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri, the floods in Tennessee, other natural disasters, and other large-scale emergency situations facing our Nation, strong and effective security and response programs are vital to the lives of all Americans coast to coast. It therefore seems counterintuitive and shortsighted to undermine port and rail security, medical response and communication efforts by cutting the grant programs, or should I say, by not ensuring that these particular categories have sufficient funds in them. My amendment ensures that the funds will be available for port and rail security assistance grant programs.

Now, despite the recent strides that we have made in the war on terror, when we found bin Laden's diary, we learned that he was already in the process of having discussions about attacking our transportation infrastructure system.

At the heart of American infrastructure and fundamental to the success of our economy is clearly protecting our ports and our rail system. These systems have been known to be targeted in the past. All we have to think of is Madrid, London and Tokyo. Across the country, port and transit security forces are already stretched to the limit, and thanks to the substantial cuts that were already made via the end-of-the-year appropriations bill for fiscal year 2011, their jobs were made even more difficult as they were expected to do more with less. The same is true for other important State and local grant programs, like the Metropolitan Medical Response System, which aids emergency medical first responders and interoperable communications grants that are so important to our first responders.

Finally, I also want to talk about the buffer zone grants that are available, which are important for people to understand. When you think ``buffer,'' you think maybe a sea area. Actually, they are regional assessments that are done to determine if critical infrastructure is properly protected. If it is not, those grants go out of that particular area to fix it.

Thus, while prioritizing and dedicating 25 percent of the funds to fund port and rail transit grants, medical response programs and emergency communication efforts, my amendment preserves the Secretary's flexibility to allocate funding as the committee had initially directed.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to please withdraw their points of order, and I ask the Chair to find my amendments in order where they are not cutting other programs or adding to the deficit. I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment and provide these key elements of national security the funding that they need.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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