[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 152 (Wednesday, November 16, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12921-S12923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR 
              FISCAL YEAR 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT--Resumed

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the conference 
report to accompany H.R. 2862, the Commerce, Justice, Science 
Appropriations Act. While I will be voting for this conference report, 
I have grave concerns regarding the cuts in the Edward Byrne Memorial 
Justice Assistance Grants Program.
  The Byrne/JAG program is the primary Federal assistance program for 
State and local law enforcement's counter-drug activities. This program 
is critical to fighting the domestic war on drugs. In my State of Iowa, 
this grant program funds highly successful drug task forces. I fear 
that without these grants, many of these task forces will disappear and 
the threat from methamphetamine will only grow larger.
  I have a letter from Sheriff Thomas Faust, the executive director of 
the National Sheriff's Association. His letter raises many of the 
concerns I have already highlighted with regard to the JAG program. 
Sheriff Faust's letter warns that, ``Cuts of this magnitude seriously 
inhibit law enforcement's abilities and endanger the safety and well 
being of our communities! In order to keep communities safe from crime 
and free of drugs, law enforcement must be given the resources they 
need! The fiscal year 2006 CJS appropriations bill does not provide for 
those resources.''
  While I have fears that these cuts in the JAG program will have grave 
results, because the conference report funds other critical programs, I 
will vote in support of the conference report.
  I ask unanimous consent to print the above-referenced letter in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                               National Sheriffs' Association,

                                Alexandria, VA, November 15, 2005.
       Dear Senator: On behalf of the National Sheriffs' 
     Association (NSA) and our 23,000 members, I am writing to 
     express our extreme disappointment and concern over the lack 
     of funding for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance 
     Grants Program (JAG) in H.R. 2862, the Science, State, 
     Justice, Commerce and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill.
       The JAG program, which was formed by consolidating the 
     Edward Byrne Memorial Grant program and the Local Law 
     Enforcement Block Grant program, is one of the primary 
     federal assistance programs for state, tribal and local law 
     enforcement agencies. State and local law enforcement 
     agencies, including the 3,087 sheriffs' offices across the 
     country, rely heavily on JAG funds for critical operational 
     activities. JAG funds support many of our counter-drug 
     activities, particularly drug task forces. Without these 
     funds, our sheriffs will not be able to sustain the task 
     forces or even fight the war on drugs!
       Local law enforcement agencies from all across the country 
     are already out-manned and out-gunned by the drug cartels and 
     street gangs in our communities. Over the last several years 
     we have been forced to deal with the loss of personnel, 
     because of budget cuts to the COPS program. Now the COPS 
     Universal Hiring Program has been zeroed out by Congress, 
     thus abandoning an effective program, and the JAG Funds are 
     being cut as well. These cuts will put an end to any progress 
     that has been made and destroy any hope we might have of 
     winning the war on drugs or ridding our communities of 
     methamphetamine!
       For more than a decade, the resources provided under the 
     JAG program have allowed law enforcement agencies to expand 
     their capabilities and make great strides in reducing the 
     incidence of crime in communities across the nation. It is 
     our belief that the lack of

[[Page S12922]]

     federal support for local law enforcement will surely result 
     in increased crime and drug abuse!
       The conference agreement would provide just $416 million 
     for the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, of which 
     only $321 million is available for local law enforcement 
     assistance. We find this level of funding to be unacceptable 
     and believe that Congress is failing to adequately recognize 
     the mission of law enforcement!
       Cuts of this magnitude seriously inhibit law enforcement's 
     abilities and endanger the safety and well being of our 
     communities! In order to keep communities safe from crime and 
     free of drugs, law enforcement agencies must be given the 
     resources they need! The FY06 SSJC appropriations bill does 
     not provide for those resources.
       At a time where law enforcement and securing the homeland 
     should be of the highest priority, Congress has chosen to 
     completely dismiss them as a priority! With the rise of 
     terrorism, and the fact that methamphetamine use and abuse 
     has risen to epidemic proportions, Congress should embrace 
     law enforcement, support the JAG program and COPS Hiring 
     Program, and increase their funding, not cut their funding!
           Sincerely,

                                              Thomas N. Faust,

                                              Executive Director &
                            Retired Sheriff, Arlington County, VA.

  Mr. HARKIN. This bill cuts over $200 million from the Byrne Justice 
Assistance Grant Program and over $120 million from the COPS Program. 
These cuts follow on 3 previous years of cuts that have decimated these 
important and successful law enforcement assistance programs.
  In 2002, Byrne was funded at $994 million. Next year, it will be 
funded at only $416 million--a 60 percent cut.
  I am also dismayed that after my amendment to add $34 million in 
funding to legal services programs passed the Senate, not a single 
dollar was included in the conference report. Meanwhile a study earlier 
this year found that over half those eligible for legal aid cannot 
receive the help they need with critical issues including custody, 
child support, housing, and more critically right now, navigating 
hurricane related bureaucracy.
  These programs have now been cut so severely that law enforcement in 
my State will likely be left with no alternatives to layoffs. That 
simply isn't acceptable. While I will be voting for this conference 
report because I believe that the appropriators did the best they could 
within the situation they faced, I want to serve notice on the Senate 
that we must restore funding to local law enforcement grant programs 
and to legal assistance next year.
  The fault for these drastic cuts to law enforcement programs lies 
directly with the President and with every Member of Congress who voted 
for his budget that cut $1.3 billion in law enforcement funding. 
Appropriators only get a certain amount of money to work with, and that 
money is set by the budget. It was literally impossible for 
appropriators to restore all of the $1.3 billion in direct help for law 
enforcement including over $150 million in cuts to victims, over $300 
million in assistance to States overwhelmed with illegal aliens, over 
$150 million in cuts to juvenile justice programs, almost $500 million 
in cuts to the COPS Program and $800 million in cuts to the Byrne 
Program.
  It is simply outrageous that 54 Members of this Senate voted not to 
restore this funding during the budget process and that all 55 
Republicans voted for a budget that eliminated this funding. Any one of 
those 55 people who stands up here and complains about these cuts is a 
hypocrite because they allowed it to happen.
  In my State of Iowa, these cuts that will mean a 42-percent reduction 
in the amount of Byrne funding available statewide from $4.6 million 
last year, down from $6.2 million the year before, to only $2.6 
million. We will receive only $2.6 million to fund 25 drug task forces, 
16 offender treatment programs, and 9 early intervention programs. 
These cuts will come as my State continues to be in the middle of a 
meth epidemic.
  Our preliminary estimates are that this is going to mean the loss of 
27 drug task force salaries and corresponding 1300 fewer arrests. It 
will mean layoffs. There are no longer any alternatives. It will also 
mean the loss of 22 Byrne funded programs including innovative and 
successful treatment programs. These cuts will lead to at least 1,200 
fewer meth addicts in prison receiving drug treatment. The result will 
be to put addicts back on the streets where there crimes will escalate 
and drive up the costs of prosecuting and incarcerating them the next 
time around.
  These cuts will be devastating. Between fiscal year 2003 and 2005 we 
had already slashed over $1 billion in direct help to local law 
enforcement officers. How much more can we expect our law enforcement 
officers to take?
  It is simply amazing to me that this administration and this Congress 
could be so foolish as to slash funds from programs that work. Between 
1993 and 2003, violent crime in this country declined by more than 50 
percent--from 49.1 to 22.3 incidents of violence per 1,000 persons. 
This is the exact same period of time when we provided over $1 billion 
to the COPS and Byrne programs alone.
  Even after cuts to the program, last year the Byrne Program funded 
4,316 cops and prosecutors working on 764 drug enforcement task forces 
nationally. Byrne funding led to 130,000 drug arrests in 32 States, the 
seizure of 136 tons of illegal drugs, the confiscation of over 7,000 
weapons, and the seizure of 7,691 meth labs. It is simply crazy that we 
are slashing over $200 million from this program in this bill.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference report 
accompanying H.R. 2862, the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related 
Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006, but I do so with some 
reservations. To be sure, this bill funds many programs and agencies 
vital to the Nation's security and economic strength, and the conferees 
should be complimented for drafting a balanced spending bill. However, 
this appropriations measure is also supposed to fund local law 
enforcement and juvenile crime prevention programs, and in the past, it 
did so successfully. Unfortunately, this year's version does not 
adequately fulfill the very important responsibility of supporting law 
enforcement and crime prevention programs.
  Let us first consider the Edward J. Byrne Justice Assistance Grant 
Program. For more than 30 years, Byrne grants have paid for State and 
local drug task forces, community crime prevention programs, substance 
abuse treatment programs, prosecution initiatives, and many other local 
crime control programs. Talk to any police chief or sheriff back in 
your home State and they will tell you that the Byrne program is the 
backbone of Federal aid for local law enforcement. We should not walk 
away from a program with more than 30 years of success supporting our 
local police chiefs, sheriffs, and district attorneys.
  Sadly, this conference report takes a step in that direction by 
providing a little more than $416 million for the Byrne grant program. 
That number represents a cut of more than $200 million from last year's 
level. Slashing the Byrne program in this manner will have a real and 
negative impact on local police departments, district attorneys, and 
community crime prevention programs.
  The COPS program is another victim of this conference report. Though 
my colleagues should be commended for increasing the overall COPS 
Program from last year's level of $388 million to $478 million this 
year, I am discouraged that we have zeroed out the Universal Hiring 
Program completely this year. We should remember that just 3 years ago, 
the overall COPS program received more than a billion dollars, and $330 
million of that was for the hiring program which simply puts more cops 
on the streets. And that simply has led to a reduction in crime. Do we 
want to risk this success by abandoning a program that works?
  Perhaps the biggest disappointment is how the title V Local 
Delinquency Prevention Program is treated in this appropriations bill. 
The title V program is the only Federal program solely dedicated to 
juvenile crime prevention, and the conference report dedicates $65 
million to it. But after one takes away all of the national earmarks 
that are housed in title V--all worthy programs that I support like the 
Gang Resistance, Education and Training, GREAT Program--title V is left 
with a mere $5 million to spread across the entire country. That amount 
is not enough to build robust juvenile crime prevention programs. I 
should hope that in the future, we can, at a minimum, fund the title V 
program at the Senate-passed level of $80

[[Page S12923]]

million and do so free of national program earmarks. To be sure, these 
other programs deserve federal dollars and should be funded as separate 
line items in order that title V can have sufficient program funds to 
operate successfully.
  Make no mistake, juvenile crime prevention programs supported by 
title V are worth our support. According to many experts in the field, 
every dollar spent on prevention saves three or four dollars in costs 
attributable to juvenile crime. And who can put a dollar value on the 
hundreds, even thousands of young lives turned from crime and into 
productive work and community life by the juvenile crime prevention 
initiatives supported by title V? We can and must do better.
  This conference report is the product of many long hours of 
negotiations and hard work. Subcommittee Chairman Shelby and Ranking 
Member Mikulski and their staffs deserve praise for a balanced product. 
Indeed, this bill is the result of compromise and I will vote in favor 
of it. But I hope that next year we can do a better job at helping our 
overworked local police officers and giving a ray of hope for 
disadvantaged children who desperately need our help.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my disappointment 
with respect to the funding level provided for Project Safe 
Neighborhoods in the fiscal year 2006 Commerce, Justice, and Science 
Appropriations conference report.
  The President's Project Safe Neighborhoods has been one of the most 
incredibly successful crime prevention programs in our Nation. And 
today, we passed appropriations with tragically low funding for this 
important program that has been highly effective at removing from our 
streets criminals who use guns to carry out their crimes.
  When I was Attorney General of Texas, I joined with then Governor 
Bush to launch Texas Exile. That program, modeled after the effective 
Project Exile in Richmond, VA, also was extraordinarily successful--
providing local prosecutors with the funds to get more than 2,000 guns 
off the streets and to issue more than 1,500 indictments for gun 
crimes, resulting in almost 1,200 convictions in its first 3 years of 
existence alone.
  And when President Bush came to Washington, he built upon our success 
in Texas by making Project Safe Neighborhoods one of his top priorities 
and launching the Project Exile program nationally--providing badly 
needed resources to jurisdictions throughout the country to combat gun 
related crimes.
  And in the short time this initiative has been up and running, the 
results have been astonishing. Project Safe Neighborhoods' prosecution, 
prevention and deterrence efforts have helped fuel historical lows in 
gun crime across America as well as a 30-year low in the violent crime 
victimization rate. Over the past 4 years, Federal gun crime 
prosecutions have increased by 76 percent--and virtually all of these 
criminals spend time in prison--for example, 94 percent in fiscal year 
2004.
  The administration has devoted over $1.3 billion to implement Project 
Safe Neighborhoods since its inception in 2001. These funds have been 
used to hire almost 200 new Federal prosecutors dedicated to gun crime 
and provide grants to hire approximately 540 new State and local gun 
prosecutors.
  While I appreciate any effort this body might take to embrace fiscal 
discipline--I question the efficacy of choosing to cut a program that 
literally is saving thousands of lives nationwide and making our 
society increasingly safer just as we are seeing the significant 
successes resulting from it.
  The additional Federal funding for these State and local gun 
prosecutors, as well as the associated community outreach efforts and 
other important initiatives are critical to the success of the program 
and to the national reduction of violent crime.
  That is why I was so concerned when I learned of the shortfall in 
this funding. None of the $73,800,000 in grants for State and local 
governments requested by President Bush was included initially in 
either the House or Senate.
  And I was not alone. Chairman Specter and Senators Grassley, Kyl, 
Sessions and Coburn from the Judiciary Committee as well as Senators 
Santorum and Lugar joined me in requesting full funding for the program 
in a letter dated September 8, 2005.
  And, I must thank my colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby, as well 
as fellow Texan, Congressman Jim Culberson, and their respective 
staffs, for their help in achieving at least a minimal amount of 
funding of $15 million that we were able to get into the conference 
report.
  The Project Safe Neighborhoods program serves as a model of 
coordinated government efforts--with Federal, State and local 
governments sharing the burden of prosecuting criminals and 
coordinating their resources to do so. At a time when some Federal 
agencies struggle to coordinate efficiently with state and local 
governments--the Project Safe Neighborhoods program serves as a model 
of efficiency and effectiveness.
  In closing, while I voted in favor of the appropriations conference 
report because of its many important programs--I remain committed to 
seeking full funding for Project Safe Neighborhoods next year and in 
the years to come and looking forward to working with my colleagues to 
ensure that we keep America's streets safe from violent gun-using 
criminals.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on 
agreeing to the conference report to accompany H.R. 2862.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 5, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 329 Leg.]

                                YEAS--94

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--5

     Baucus
     Coburn
     Conrad
     Dayton
     Thomas

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Corzine
       
  The conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move 
to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

                          ____________________