Senate objects to House additions to emergency spending bill
It's kind of like a game of ping pong with billions of dollars in emergency homeland security funds at stake.
The Senate last week sent the fiscal 2010 emergency supplemental spending bill for fiscal 2010 (HR 4899) back to the House, which already once considered and sent back the Senate version of the measure.
But the Senate could not pass the emergency spending measure the House sent to it July 2, instead sending back the original Senate version of the bill, first passed May 27.
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, explained the problem after this action occurred July 22.
The House bill, he said, contained additional funding for education jobs and assistance to farmers, largely opposed by Senate Republicans. Thus, the Senate was unable to muster 60 votes to approve the legislation.
The House bill also included more money for financial assistance to Gulf Coast residents struck by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It further contained $701 million in funds for border security, as requested by the Obama administration, to hire 1,200 more Border Security agents and to place more surveillance technology along the US southwest border.
Members of the Arizona congressional delegation in the House blasted the Senate's rejection of border security funds Friday.
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), a freshman on the Homeland Security Committee, said the southwest border needs the resources refused by the Senate rejection of the bill.
"Is it any wonder why Arizonans are so fed up with Washington on border security? This funding is critical to the planned security surge along the border. While we need far more manpower and resources than this plan would provide, it would be a first step in the right direction. Now instead of joining the House in increasing the commitment to better protect border communities, the Senate is actually standing in our way," Kirkpatrick said.
"This is no time to be playing political games with public safety. The leadership in the House should help us fix the Senate's mistake and keep this provision in the final bill," she added.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) expressed "outrage" over the Senate's rejection of the House bill.
"Southern Arizonans should be appalled that the United States Senate said 'no' to supporting the troops on the border, said 'no' to protecting the ranchers in my district who are threatened daily and said 'no' to increasing Border Patrol agents who would help stop the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into our country. Arizonans repeatedly have said they want stronger border security and senators yesterday turned their backs on them. This is the kind of Washington gridlock that Americans are sick of," Giffords declared
Giffords pointed out that a yearlong deployment of National Guard troops to the US southwest border would begin starting August 1. But it's a hollow mission of the 1,200 Guardsmen are not relieved by 1,200 additional Border Patrol agents within that year, she lamented.
As such, the effectiveness of the Guard's support mission is jeopardized, Giffords argued.
Still, Inouye argued for the good the Senate bill could do and called upon the House to pass it.
At issue of course, is roughly $33 billion to fund ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also would receive about $5 billion for disaster relief support and additional funds for the Gulf oil spill cleanup.
Inouye said of the Senate's rejection of the House bill: "However, we cannot let the perfect get in the way of the good. The action we are taking today, while not perfect, ensures that FEMA will have funds in its disaster relief fund in the event there is another hurricane, or flood, or tornado, and allows them to restart commitments from previous disasters that were put on hold because of the depletion of the fund. We cannot delay further the funds necessary to ensure that our servicemen and women have everything they need to do their jobs effectively."
With several months lost and supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at stake, House leaders may act quickly to adopt the Senate's measure or they could return to further deliberations.
The House sent to the Senate July 2, however, upset some homeland security stalwarts because it slashed $2 billion from the BioShield Strategic Reserve Fund at the Department of Health and Human Services for buying medical countermeasures to defense against a biological, chemical,radiological or nuclear attack.
The House did so to offset the costs of education assistance in its bill.
That was a bad idea, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
"The catastrophic events of September 11th and the anthrax attacks that followed demonstrated that our government was ill prepared to deal with the kinds of terrorist attacks we may well face in the future," Lieberman said in a July 22 statement. "Furthermore, the casualty potential of a biological attack is far greater than any terrorist attack we have seen to date. Yet, we still have no modern vaccine for anthrax and no countermeasures for dozens of other potential bioterror pathogens."
BioShield is intended to correct those shortfalls but it cannot do so without appropriate investments, Lieberman said. To rob the fund of those investments would prove "frightfully shortsighted."
The ball, as it were, is now back in the House's court.
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