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Spending Panel Questions DHS Fiscal 2010 Priorities |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Wednesday, 13 May 2009 |
While generally supportive of budget proposal, lawmakers were skeptical of cuts to radiological detection efforts
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano generally received positive feedback on her department's fiscal 2010 budget proposal in her first appearance before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, but lawmakers expressed their dissatisfaction with cuts in programs to detect radiological threats to seaports and cities.
David Price, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcomittee, congratulated Napolitano on a budget submission of $42.7 billion in discretionary spending that discontinues the "disingenuous practice of leaving holes" in areas where Congress has strong interest, such as grants to state and local emergency managers and first responders. The budget proposal for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would fund grant programs at $3.9 billion-a level close to what Congress traditionally has approved.
Price expressed disappointment, however, with a proposed cut of 70 percent to Assistance to Firefighters Grants, which he hailed as critical to employing US firefighters in areas that need them. He also questioned a proposed cut of 10 percent in administrative costs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at a time when FEMA is in a critical rebuilding stage.
The chairman also noted that DHS would provide no funding for advanced spectroscopic portals (ASPs) to detect radiological threats in cargo in fiscal 2010 and no funding for the biometric exit portion of the US-VISIT system to check foreign travelers in and out of the country. He wondered why DHS would propose to move the Federal Protective Service (FPS) out of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and into the National Protection and Programs Directorate, a unit of DHS with no law enforcement powers, when FPS is really a law enforcement agency.
The fiscal 2010 budget would boost ICE's Secure Communities program by 40 percent over fiscal 2009 to $198 million-a move Price applauded as placing an appropriate emphasis on deporting criminal aliens out of the United States. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) cautioned balance in ICE's approach to enforcing immigration laws, however, noting that none of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were criminal aliens.
Lewis also criticized a 30 percent increase in budget to the DHS secretary's office while many frontline agencies would see only modest increases to cover the rate of inflation.
While DHS would see an increase in fiscal 2010 discretionary funding of 6.3 percent over fiscal 2009 in the budget proposal, Lewis declared that DHS is the only federal department in the Obama administration's budget projections to receive decreased funding over the next five years. DHS proposes to make up the difference with increases in aviation passenger fees, which Lewis frowned upon as an idea that Congress doesn't like very much.
"Given the current threat environment, now is the worst time to short change our investment in security," Lewis asserted.
Secretary's Response
Napolitano defended the proposed budget, stressing that it called for $121 million for new technologies to detect explosives; $87 million to protect critical infrastructure; $116 million for staff and technology to disrupt smuggling of weapons and cash from the United States into Mexico; $40 million for smart security technology funding on the US northern border to expand and integrate surveillance capabilities; and $112 million to strengthen the E-Verify employment eligibility verification program.
In addition, the budget proposal would help unify DHS by spending $79 million on a new headquarters campus at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, DC, which would consolidate 35 separate offices, along with $200 million to bring DHS agencies together under one information technology structure.
With regard to E-Verify, Napolitano told Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the architect of the program, that she was a strong supporter and would support a reauthorization period, even permanent reauthorization, at the discretion of Congress although the budget proposal calls for only a three-year reauthorization.
Napolitano reported that 26 percent of all US employers using E-Verify are based in Arizona, where she made the use of the verification system mandatory for all employers while she was governor of the state.
Calvert criticized delays in a rule to require federal contractors to begin using E-Verify to ensure the eligibility of their federal contracting workforces. The rule is set to go into effect on June 30 and the secretary voiced confidence there would be no further delays in its implementation. Napolitano explained that delays had occurred only to ensure the accessibility and robustness of the system.
Napolitano also defended the budget proposal's lack of funding for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) and the Securing the Cities initiative. These programs seek to prevent a catastrophic attack scenario wherein terrorists could smuggle a nuclear device into an urban area, lawmakers argued, which should be a high priority of the Obama administration.
But DNDO would receive no additional funding under the fiscal 2010 budget proposal to give DHS time to catch up on spending still in the pipeline, Napolitano said. In addition, DHS has concluded that the radiological detection technology that Congress would like to see procured is not actually available for purchase and does not yet work as desired, prompting a need for time so vendors could catch up.
Furthermore, Securing the Cities was a three-year pilot program to secure New York City and surrounding suburbs in New York and New Jersey states against a nuclear threat, Napolitano said. DHS has money in the pipeline still to fund the remaining year of the pilot while New York City has not even submitted an application for the fiscal 2009 funds to date, she added.
DHS plans to see how the pilot actually works before expanding the program or dedicating further specific funding to the effort.
Napolitano repeated her view that 100 percent scanning of all US-bound cargo from foreign ports for radiological threats by the congressional deadline of 2012 as required by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act (Public Law 110-53).
The deadline is unreachable because it would require roughly 700 individual international agreements, the secretary said. The fiscal 2010 budget proposal would expand scanning at foreign ports by adding three more to the effort, although the Port of Hong Kong has recently withdrawn from its partnership with DHS, Napolitano said.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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