[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 11, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3193-H3195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     PAYING TRIBUTE TO NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS AND FIRST 
                               RESPONDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Stupak) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to say a few 
words tonight. I would like to change the subject from energy to the 
energy we see day in and day out on our Nation's streets, towns and 
communities and homes, and that is that this week is National Law 
Enforcement Week. I rise to pay tribute to our law enforcement officers 
and first responders who have so bravely protected and served our 
Nation, often putting their own lives at risk.
  Since September 11, 2001, many in this Nation and this Congress have 
come to recognize the importance of the sacrifices made by men and 
women in law enforcement. As a former police officer with the Michigan 
State Police and the Escanaba City Police Department, as well as the 
founder and cochair of the Law Enforcement Caucus, this week has 
special meaning to me.
  The focus of this week will take place Friday evening, when 153 law 
enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 2040 as well as 262 
other officers killed in prior years will be formally added to the 
Peace Officers Memorial at the 2005 National Candlelight Vigil at the 
National Law Enforcement Memorial here in Washington, D.C.
  The addition of these officers' names to the memorial is one way in 
which our Nation can commemorate its fallen heroes who have died in the 
line of duty. This week allows law enforcement officers and their 
families to gather together in one place and honor those who have lost 
their lives.
  According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 
more than 16,656 Federal, State and local law enforcement men and women 
in the United States have been killed in the line of duty through 2004. 
In 2004, of the 153 fallen officers, sadly seven of these officers are 
from my home State of Michigan.
  That is why it is especially important during this special week that 
we not only recognize the dedication of these officers, but also commit 
to providing our law enforcement officers with the resources they need 
to meet the daily challenges of their jobs, particularly at a time when 
we place greater demands on them to fight and prevent terrorism here 
all across America.
  We can provide these resources only by fully funding important law 
enforcement grant programs that allow our local agencies to buy 
essential protective gear, hire the officers they need and obtain all 
the resources they need to make themselves and our communities safe.
  Congress can provide these resources through grants, especially 
through the Community Oriented Police Services, or COPS Program, as we 
know it. This COPS Program was so successful that it helped to put 
100,000 police officers on the street under President Clinton. It is 
critical that Congress continue to fully fund this program.

                              {time}  2200

  Unfortunately, the President's budget, which we really just recently 
passed, devastates the COPS program, requesting only $117.8 million for 
this important program. That is $381.2 million below last year's level. 
That is more than almost a 200, 300 percent cut in this program. The 
President's budget also zeroes out the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice 
Assistance grant program that provides funding for 19 different 
programs for counterdrug initiatives in rural communities for funding 
our jails, and 19 different programs to allow local law enforcement to 
do what is necessary in their communities to best serve and protect 
their people. These grants are used to administer, as I said, vital 
programs such as multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement teams, anti-drug 
education programs, treatment programs, staffing our jails, running 
investigative bureaus, and also all the way to alternative sentencing 
initiatives.
  If enacted, the President's budget cuts will have far-reaching 
effects on our local law enforcement communities. Local drug 
enforcement teams are crucial to keeping our communities drug-free. If 
the Byrne grant programs are zeroed out, as they are required to be 
underneath our budget, they will be unable to hire officers needed to 
sustain their drug enforcement teams.
  Let me tell my colleagues, when it comes to drug abuse, no community, 
urban or rural, is immune from this problem. To highlight how important 
these local teams are to our rural districts, there is a recent article 
in our local newspapers in my first congressional district of Michigan. 
On April 13, HUNT, or also known as the Huron Undercover Narcotics 
Teams seized 3,000 Oxycontin tablets from a home in the rural part of 
Presque Isle. This is just one example of the critical work these 
narcotic teams do day in and day out to keep drugs out of our 
communities and our schools.
  This country's drug problems are not going to go away with this one 
bust. In fact, with the emergence of prescription drugs used and dealt 
illegally like Oxycontin, some would argue the problem is only getting 
worse. My question is, why are we zeroing out the funding that enables 
programs like HUNT, the Huron Undercover Narcotics Team, to exist and 
combat this problem that is only growing more severe.
  Congress also needs to provide assistance to help regional law 
enforcement officers and first responders talk to each other in a time 
of emergency. It is called interoperability. My bill, H.R. 3370, the 
Public Safety Interoperability Act, would provide grants to local law 
enforcement agencies to modernize their communications systems and 
become interoperable. Interoperability of an officer's communications 
system would allow different police agencies in different jurisdictions 
to communicate with each other in time of crisis.
  Currently, firefighters and law enforcement officials may not be able 
to talk to each other, even if they work in the same jurisdiction. The 
tragic events of September 11 only illustrates and highlights why it is 
so important that our law enforcement officials are fully able to talk 
to each other via interoperability. Mr. Speaker, 343 firefighters and 
72 law enforcement officers lost their lives in the World Trade Center 
on September 11, and 121 of the brave firefighters lost their lives due 
to the fact that they were unable to talk

[[Page H3194]]

to each other. No one could tell them to get out of the building.
  When our first responders are confronted with an emergency situation, 
it is absolutely necessary that they are able to communicate with each 
other so they can fully assess the situation and how best to handle it. 
These are the kinds of resources and tools our first responders need. 
We need to do everything possible to ensure that our law enforcement 
officers that play an integral role in our Nation's antiterrorism 
efforts are fully interoperable and able to talk to each other, whether 
it is State, Federal, or local law enforcement, or first responders. 
Without interoperability, our public safety agencies face the challenge 
of being able to talk to each other when the emergency crisis strikes.
  My State of Michigan is one of the leaders in its mission to build a 
communications network that allows its entire local and State public 
safety agencies the ability to talk with one another by radio, 
regardless of agency or jurisdiction. The network has right now 400 
local and State agencies on it, but there are another 1,300 agencies 
that need to get on the network, and the main obstacle in reaching this 
goal is being able to get on the same network and talk to each other 
via the spectrum they need and the funding they need, which is why we 
have heard from national police and public safety organizations about 
the funding levels. If we tried to fund the whole Nation, it would cost 
about $10 billion, and that is what is needed to make this Nation's 
first responders interoperable or being able to talk to each other, 
regardless of the jurisdiction or agency they work for. But so far, it 
appears that only about $800 million in Federal grants have been 
provided for interoperability. Of this $800 million, we are not sure 
where the money all went to. In fact, how was it used? Was it used to 
buy radios? Were those radios able to talk to each other? Was it to 
upgrade systems, or was it just to study the problem? These are the 
questions we have asked on this floor of this House, because there is 
nothing more important to anyone in law enforcement than to be able to 
talk to each other to tell the situation they are in and ask for 
assistance if they so need it.
  In fact, the independent 9/11 Commission actually held hearings in 
part to examine the communication gaps that actually occurred between 
law enforcement officers and public safety agencies and first 
responders during their response to the attack on the World Trade 
Center. What the Commission learned firsthand was that fire chiefs in 
the building lobbies, in the lobbies of the World Trade Center, knew 
little of the conditions upstairs, did not hear anything about what 
police officers and helicopters were seeing as they circled the World 
Trade Center. Earlier, Federal reports on the 9/11 emergency response 
concluded that the inability of these first responders to talk to each 
other, these first responders from different agencies to talk to one 
another was a key factor in the death, as I said earlier, of at least 
121 firefighters. No one could tell them it was time to get out of the 
buildings, as it may fall upon them.
  Since then, the Federal Government has called upon our States and 
local law enforcement officers and first responders to be even more 
vigilant and be prepared for possible attacks on terrorism, yet our 
public safety agencies continue to lack the ability to communicate with 
each other, between agencies and between jurisdictions. Firefighters 
cannot talk to police, local police cannot talk to State police, and so 
on and so on.
  Despite the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and grant 
programs for first responders, program funding for modernizing their 
communications systems has fallen far short of the billions of dollars 
we need to make our Nation's public safety agencies interoperable. As I 
said earlier, approximately $800 million has been devoted to local 
public safety communications systems but, then, in 2004, no funding was 
provided at all. Again, even in the 2005 appropriations bill, not one 
dime went specifically to grants of interoperability. Why is it that we 
are always talking about the priority to make our communications system 
interoperable so we can talk to each other, but we are not providing 
the resources to get the job done?

  Another question: Congress has provided more than $4.4 billion in 
first responder grants and to the States, but it appears no one knows 
how much of this grant money has been used for communications. I even 
asked my home State of Michigan. They have received some $120 million 
in the State formula Department of Homeland Security grants, but no one 
could tell me or my staff how much has been spent on communications 
systems and communications systems that were interoperable.
  The bottom line is there is a lot of talk around here about 
interoperability, but no real reliable resources to help make this 
happen so agencies can talk to each other in times of disaster or, 
heaven help us, a terrorist attack.
  As I said earlier, I have a bill that would help address this urgent 
need, and our bill, and it is a bipartisan bill, the Public Safety 
Interoperability Implementation Act, sets up a public safety 
communications trust fund in the U.S. Treasury to expeditiously move 
our Nation's public safety agencies into the modern day state of 
communications. In the short term, the trust fund will be funded by a 
three-year grant program funded through the traditional appropriations 
cycle providing up to $500 million a year in interoperability grants. 
The key is it has to be interoperability grants, to make your 
communications system in your jurisdiction so everyone, first 
responders, firefighters, paramedics, police officers can all talk to 
each other. In the long term, we provide a short-term and also a long-
term solution; the funding for the trust fund will come from the sales 
of the spectrum conducted by the Federal Communications Commission. 
This bill dedicates 50 percent of the net revenue from future spectrum 
auctions to the trust fund. By dedicating funds from the sale of the 
spectrum, we would ensure that funding will be set aside no matter what 
happens in the annual appropriations process.
  In a few weeks we expect a bill to come out of our Committee on 
Energy and Commerce for the sale of spectrum to move our televisions 
from the analogue system to more of a high-definition television, so we 
have to go to a different spectrum. That 800 megahertz spectrum is to 
be set aside for law enforcement. But then, they need the resources, 
law enforcement needs the resources to be able to put in the modern 
communications systems so they can all talk to each other. Whether you 
are in the upper or lower peninsula of Michigan, whether you are in 
Maryland or Washington, D.C., or Virginia, these jurisdictions, these 
first responders in these areas should be able to talk to each other.
  Today we had an evacuation of the Capitol building and the office 
buildings here. I really wonder, could the Capitol Police talk to the 
Metropolitan Police? Could Metropolitan Police talk to subway police, 
could they talk to the Park Police, could they talk to the emergency 
people, could they talk to the ambulance drivers, could they talk to 
the fire department. They all responded, but could they talk to each 
other and communicate with each other to direct the resources, the 
manpower, the personnel we needed at the right time if it would have 
been a serious attack or threat here in our Nation's capital. I know in 
the Nation's capital from previous testimony, they have spent over $300 
million on interoperability in the Washington, D.C. area. I also know 
that it is not fully operational and not all jurisdictions talk to each 
other. So we have some work to do. There is new technology out there 
now which will bring down the cost of interoperability, but we have to 
put forth the resources to bring this together.
  It is clear, local agencies and the States cannot afford to do this 
on their own. It is clear specific funding will not be set aside in our 
current appropriations bill for this priority. It is time that we 
provide our first responders with the tools they need to do the job the 
Federal Government has called upon them to do, especially now during 
National Law Enforcement Week.
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk about it, firefighters and law enforcement 
officials may not be able to communicate with each other even if they 
work in the same jurisdiction. As I said, the tragic events of 
September 11 certainly indicated why this is so important. We talk 
about the events of September 11

[[Page H3195]]

or the 150 some law enforcement officers who will be placed on the 
memorial wall who died here in the past year, and we need to do 
everything we can to ensure programs like the Thin Blue Line are fully 
funded.
  The Thin Blue Line is a nonprofit, volunteer organization that 
assists and supports the families of injured or deceased officers of 
law enforcement agencies. Thin Blue Line began in Michigan and is now 
expanding throughout this Nation. Thin Blue Line volunteers assist 
families with applying for benefits, counseling, and answering their 
questions during the most difficult of circumstances. These officers 
have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and their 
families deserve to be honored, respected, and supported in any way we 
can.
  I am hopeful that we can continue as a Nation, as a Congress, and as 
citizens of this great Nation to show our commitment to law enforcement 
by supporting important funding needs, including showing our full 
support for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. It is the 
least we can do for those individuals who put their life on the line 
each and every day.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to dedicate this time to law enforcement officers 
and Law Enforcement Week. As I said, Sunday night, they will be putting 
the names of the officers who have fallen, 153 in the past year, plus 
262 others killed in prior years, on a Peace Officers Memorial at the 
National Candlelight Vigil at the National Memorial here in Washington, 
D.C., and I hope during this next week while we are in and out of 
Washington, D.C., we take a moment to reflect upon those individuals 
who provided so much to us, people and individuals we often take for 
granted, our law enforcement officials throughout this great Nation.

                          ____________________