[Senate Hearing 114-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014
----------
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESS
[The following testimony was received by the Subcommittee
on Homeland Security for inclusion in the record. The submitted
material relates to the fiscal year 2014 budget request for
programs within the subcommittee's jurisdiction.]
Prepared Statement of the National Treasury Employees Union
Chairman Landrieu, Ranking Member Coats, distinguished members of
the subcommittee; thank you for the opportunity to provide this
testimony. As president of the National Treasury Employees Union
(NTEU), I have the honor of leading a union that represents over 24,000
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and trade enforcement
specialists who are stationed at 331 land, sea and air ports of entry
(POEs) across the United States.
NTEU applauds the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget that
recognizes that there is no greater roadblock to legitimate trade and
travel efficiency than the lack of sufficient staff at the ports.
Understaffed ports lead to long delays in our commercial lanes as cargo
waits to enter U.S. commerce. NTEU strongly supports the fiscal year
2014 budget request for a total of 3,477 new CBP officer hires at the
air, sea and land ports of entry--1,600 paid for by an increase of
$210.1 million in fiscal year 2014 funding and 1,877 paid for by an
increase in customs and immigration user fees that have not been
increased since 2001.
For years, NTEU has maintained that delays at the ports result in
real losses to the U.S. economy. According to the U.S. Department of
the Treasury, more than 50 million Americans work for companies that
engage in international trade and, according to a recent University of
Southern California study, ``The Impact on the Economy of Changes in
Wait Times at the Ports of Entry'', dated April 4, 2013, for every
1,000 CBP officers added, the United States can increase its gross
domestic product by $2 billion. If Congress is serious about job
creation, then Congress should support enhancing U.S. trade and travel
by mitigating wait times at the ports and enhancing trade enforcement
by increasing CBP security and commercial operations staffing at the
air, sea, and land ports of entry and increase the CBP appropriation to
the level requested in the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget
submission.
NTEU was heartened to see that there was no decrease in CBP officer
overtime funding as there has been in previous budget submissions.
Overtime is essential when CBP officer staffing levels are insufficient
to ensure that inspectional duties can be fulfilled, that officers have
sufficient back-up and that wait times are mitigated. In CBP's own
words, ``Overtime allows OFO to schedule its personnel to cover key
shifts with a smaller total personnel number.'' This is one reason that
Congress authorized a dedicated funding source to pay for overtime--
customs user fees, pursuant to title 19, section 58c(f) of the U.S.
Code.
NTEU strongly supports the increase of the immigration and customs
user fees by $2 each to fund the hiring of an additional of 1,877 CBP
officers. CBP collects user fees to recover certain costs incurred for
processing, among other things, air and sea passengers, and various
private and commercial land, sea, air, and rail carriers and shipments.
The source of these user fees are commercial vessels, commercial
vehicles, rail cars, private aircraft, private vessels, air passengers,
sea passengers, cruise vessel passengers, dutiable mail, customs
brokers and barge/bulk carriers. These fees are deposited into the
customs user fee account. Customs user fees are designated by statute
to pay for services provided to the user, such as inspectional overtime
for passenger and commercial vehicle inspection during overtime shift
hours. User fees have not been increased in years and some of these
user fees cover only a portion of recoverable fee-related costs. In
2010, CBP collected a total of $13.7 million in commercial vehicle user
fees, but the actual cost of commercial vehicle inspections in fiscal
year 2010 was over $113.7 million--a $100 million shortfall.
Increasing the immigration inspection user fee by $2 to allow CBP
to better align air passenger inspection fee revenue with the costs of
providing immigration inspection services, is also supported by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to GAO (GAO-12-464T,
page 11), fee collections available to ICE and CBP to pay for costs
incurred in providing immigration inspection services totaled about
$600 million in fiscal year 2010, however, ``air passenger immigration
fees collections did not fully cover CBP's costs in FY 2009 and FY
2010.''
NTEU is opposed to the $16 million cut in the fiscal year 2014
budget for the Foreign Language Award Program (FLAP), established by
the 1993 Customs Officer Pay Reform Act (COPRA), which allows employees
who speak and use foreign language skills on the job to receive a cash
award if they use the language for at least 10 percent of their duties
and have passed the competence test. FLAP is fully funded by customs
user fees. Also, under COPRA, Congress made FLAP funding a priority
because not only do language barriers delay processing of trade and
travel at the ports, for these law enforcement officers, communication
breakdowns can be dangerous. Since its implementation in 1997, this
incentive program, incorporating more than two dozen languages, has
been instrumental in identifying and utilizing CBP employees who are
proficient in a foreign language. Qualified employees are also eligible
for awards for use of languages of special interest, such as Urdu,
Farsi and Arabic that have been identified as critical foreign
languages in support of CBP's anti-terrorism mission.
NTEU also supports GAO recommendations aimed at more fully aligning
Agriculture Quality Inspection (AQI) fee revenue with program costs
(see GAO-13-268). According to GAO, in fiscal year 2011, CBP incurred
81 percent of total AQI program costs, but received only 60 percent of
fee revenues; whereas the Animal, Plant Health Inspection Service
(APHIS) incurred 19 percent of program costs but retained 36 percent of
the revenues. In other words, APHIS covers all its AQI costs with AQI
fee revenues, while CBP does not. AQI user fees fund only 62 percent of
agriculture inspection costs with a gap of $325 million between costs
and revenue. To bridge the resulting gap, CBP uses its annual
appropriation. NTEU also supports CBP's efforts to establish an
agriculture specialists resource allocation model to ensure adequate
CBP agriculture specialist staffing at the POEs.
Finally, NTEU supports CBP's study of land border fee options and
an active review of all other existing fee rates to ensure that they
are set at a level that recovers the full cost of performing ``fee-
related'' inspection services.
CBP has a dual mission of safeguarding our Nation's borders and
ports as well as regulating and facilitating international trade. Since
CBP was established in March 2003, however, there has been no increase
in CBP trade enforcement and compliance personnel. NTEU is concerned
that the fiscal year 2014 budget, rather than increasing full-time
equivalents (FTEs) for CBP trade operations personnel, proposes to cut
21 trade operations positions including 14 rulings and regulations
staffers who are responsible for promulgating regulations and rulings,
and providing policy and technical support to CBP, DHS, Treasury,
Congress, and the importing community concerning the application of
Customs laws and regulations.
NTEU urges the Committee not to cut CBP trade operations staff, but
to increase funding to hire additional trade enforcement and compliance
personnel, including import specialists, at the POEs to enhance trade
revenue collection.
NTEU commends the Department for increasing the journeyman pay for
CBP officers and agriculture specialists. Many deserving CBP trade and
security positions, however, were left out of this pay increase, which
has significantly damaged morale.
NTEU strongly supports extending this same career ladder increase
to additional CBP positions, including CBP trade operations specialists
and CBP seized property specialists. The journeyman pay level for the
CBP technicians who perform important commercial trade and
administration duties should also be increased from GS-7 to GS-9.
CBP continues to be a top-heavy management organization. In terms
of real numbers, since CBP was created, the number of new managers has
increased at a much higher rate than the number of new frontline CBP
hires. According to CBP's own numbers, a snapshot of CBP workforce
demographics in September 2012 shows that the supervisor to frontline
employee ratio was 1-to-6 for the CBP workforce, 1-to-6.2 for CBP
officers and 1-to-6.9 for CBP agriculture specialists.
The tremendous increase in CBP managers and supervisors has come at
the expense of national security preparedness and frontline positions.
Also, these highly paid management positions are straining the CBP
budget. With the increase of potentially 3,477 new CBP officer new
hires, NTEU urges that CBP return to a more balanced supervisor to
frontline employee ratio.
NTEU strongly urges Congress to end the sequester. Under
sequestration, CBP's salaries and expenses (S&E) discretionary and
mandatory accounts must be reduced by $512 million including a $75
million cut in CBP user fee accounts. On March 26, the President signed
a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the Government through the end of
the fiscal year. The CR does not cancel the sequester. Congress did
provide some additional funding for the CBP S&E account in the CR, but
also required CBP to maintain the current CBP officer staffing level.
Maintaining current staffing floors means CBP cannot use all of the
increased funding in the CR to reduce furloughs for current employees
since it must continue to fill vacant positions.
Prior to enactment of the CR, the CBP sequester plan required all
CBP employees to be furloughed up to 14 days during the remainder of
fiscal year 2013 or 1 day per pay period beginning early to mid-April
through September 30. With the additional funding included in the CR,
however, there may be a reduction in the number of furlough days that
all CBP employees must take before the end of the fiscal year. In light
of the new funding bill, CBP is re-evaluating previously planned
furloughs, and has postponed implementation of furloughs pending that
re-examination.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Funding for additional CBP staff must be increased to ensure
security and mitigate prolonged wait times for both trade and travel at
our Nation's ports of entry. Therefore, NTEU urges the Committee to end
the sequester and include in its fiscal year 2014 DHS appropriations
bill:
--funding to increase CBP officer staffing at the ports of entry to
the level in the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget
submission;
--funding to increase agriculture inspection and trade enforcement
staffing to adequately address increased agriculture and
commercial trade volumes; and
--funding to extend enhanced pay and retirement recognition to
additional CBP personnel, including import and other commercial
operations specialists, CBP-seized property specialists and CBP
technicians.
The more than 24,000 CBP employees represented by NTEU are proud of
their part in keeping our country free from terrorism, our
neighborhoods safe from drugs and our economy safe from illegal trade,
while ensuring that legal trade and travelers move expeditiously
through our air, sea and land ports. These men and women are deserving
of more resources to perform their jobs better and more efficiently.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony to the
Committee on their behalf.
Colleen M. Kelley,
National President.