Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

AMENDMENT NO. 3632

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment introduced by my colleague and friend, Senator Clinton, and me. It doesn't take money away from anybody else. It simply increases the amount of money to the high-needs areas. There are lots of ways to skin this cat. It is clear that the areas most under threat, cities such as New York City, the No. 1 target, as we know, of the terrorists, need far more help than we get. I think there has been a general outcry by the 9/11 Commission and many others that it is so unfair to give, say, the State of Wyoming more on a per-capita basis than New York City gets in terms of terror. I don't doubt the need Wyoming has for dollars. But if Wyoming has the need for dollars, certainly New York has a greater need for dollars.

What we have done with this amendment, which is one way to do it, is to simply increase the high-needs area. It does not touch the general formula but, rather, goes to high needs.

Let me share a little history about this high-needs area. As you may know, when we first were setting up this formula, I spent a lot of time negotiating with the White House as to how we would allocate money. Then the point person for the White House was the Secretary of OMB, Mitch Daniels. We came to the conclusion that obviously every State needed some money. And knowing how the House and Senate work, we weren't going to get a formula which would send money to the 5 or 10 largest cities or the 5 or 10 largest focal points. So we negotiated the formula in two parts.

The first was the general formula, and there was a specific need for every State and taking care of those States. Now, the remainder of that formula, which we are not discussing now, was supposed to be allocated by discretion by the administration. They basically punted the ball and did that on a per capita basis.

I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional 5 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Mr. COCHRAN. I will not object. I have a unanimous consent request to make.

Mr. SCHUMER. I yield to the Senator for that purpose.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:20 today, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Mikulski amendment No. 3624, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior to the vote; provided further that there be 2 minutes equally divided for debate prior to the vote.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Schumer has asked for 5 minutes and I have no objection to that. The other Senator from New York may wish additional time.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. REID. The Senator from New York wishes 5 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we had the high-needs formula, which really didn't do justice to the areas that had the highest needs. We came up with this high-needs formula.

Frankly, the first year it worked quite well and quite fairly. The bottom line is that, of the high-needs allocation the first year, which I believe was $700 million, New York City, the city that has been the focus of both terrorist attacks, received $225 million. While still on a per capita basis, we were not getting what we thought was a fair share, it certainly came a lot closer.

But what has happened is two things. First, on the high-needs formula, other localities came in and asked for money. They said they are a high-needs area. The number of cities last year that were under the high-needs rubric expanded. The first year it was a handful, the next year it was 30, and last year it was 50. So now lots of localities are competing for this high-needs money. That is fine. I am not one to begrudge that. I think we are not doing enough on homeland security, and this is one place we should be spending more dollars.

We are not trying to take away money from the high-needs area. I remind my colleagues that the amendment we are offering will apply to a larger number of cities than first proposed. But the bottom line is very simple; that is, once the high-needs funding was spread among many cities, the cities of the greatest need, such as New York and Washington, did not get the dollars they needed. Over the last 3 years, the amount of money that New York City has received has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. The bottom line is very simple: We are not getting what we need.

Let me talk about some of the needs in New York City. I live in Brooklyn, a proud Brooklynite. We have the Brooklyn Bridge, which crosses from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Every time I cross that bridge-usually by car and once in a while on a bicycle-there are two police officers at each end of the bridge. That bridge is guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as it must be. We picked up somebody in Ohio a few years ago who was intent on trying to destroy that bridge. Well, that is 20 police officers, because it is five shifts of four people. Multiply that by the number of bridges and tunnels comparable to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and that shows you the magnitude of what we are doing.

It is the same thing with our firefighters and our emergency responders and our hospitals. All of them have had to do so much more because our city is at the epicenter more, quite frankly, than a hospital, police department, or a firefighting department in a middle-sized city in the middle of America, which doesn't have to do quite what we do. My guess is that bridges in Omaha, or Wichita, or Albuquerque are not guarded by two police officers at either end for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; nor should they be. But they have to be in New York.

We will do everything we can to prevent another 9/11. Yet as we have gone further along, the amount of money New York City has been given has decreased. I know there are other cities that have needs. I worked hard to see that Buffalo was included in this formula, with $10 million. A few other cities in upstate New York have problems.

So there are only two ways to go about solving this problem. One is to rob Peter to pay Paul, to reallocate the funds that are there. That is not this amendment. We don't touch that. The other is to increase the high-needs funding, so the cities that are under the greatest threat and the greatest danger can at least be reimbursed in greater part. Certainly, we won't be made whole for the homeland security efforts that we must undertake.

We heard a few months ago, when we picked up the new intelligence, what the areas were they were focusing on: Washington, DC, and the New York City metropolitan area; five buildings, two in DC, two in Manhattan, and one in northern New Jersey. Again, we can bring home the need to focus that should be here. Yet we are not doing it.

Let me tell you, if you think we don't have the money, we are going to spend $416 billion on defense this year. We are only spending $33 billion on homeland security in toto. We are spending less than $2 billion on helping our first responders, on helping our localities that have worked so hard and so well to defend us from terrorism. It would seem to me that any fair allocation of dollars would be giving New York City more money, giving some of the other cities more money.

Let me go over the numbers. Last year, New York's share of high-needs areas dropped to 9 percent. We didn't receive 9 percent of the attacks. Thus far-and I hope there are no more anywhere in America-we received 100 percent of the two terrorist attacks that have occurred.

Our city, as I say, is struggling. We have needs like everybody else. We have a great police department, a great fire department, a great EMT department, and great hospitals. But they cannot do it alone. So it is my hope that our colleagues will rise to the occasion.

This money, as I say, will not just benefit New York but other cities of high needs throughout the country. Let's stop underfunding this very needed program. Let's stop saying let the other guy do it. In a time of terrorism, we need leadership. This amendment represents leadership, and I hope we can get the sufficient number of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

I yield the floor.