Congressional Record, Volume 161 Issue 15 (Thursday, January 29, 2015)

[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 15 (Thursday, January 29, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S616-S617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor as the ranking
member of the Appropriations Committee, and I come to ask my colleagues
to bring to the floor and pass a clean Homeland Security appropriations
bill for fiscal year 2015.
This isn't just Senator Barb Mikulski calling for this but also the
former heads of Homeland Security under President Bush and also under
President Obama. The very first head of that agency, Gov. Tom Ridge,
along with Mr. Chertoff and Janet Napolitano, have written to Harry
Reid and Mitch McConnell and said: Please, as former Secretaries of
Homeland Security, we write to you today to respectfully request that
you consider decoupling critical legislation to fund the Department of
Homeland Security for fiscal year 2015 from a legislative response to
President Obama's actions on immigration.
They feel that:

. . . by tethering a bill to fund DHS in FY 2015 to a
legislative response to the President's executive actions on
immigration . . .

--it could lead to a shutdown of Homeland Security.
We don't want a shutdown.
I won't go through the entire letter. They conclude with:

It is imperative that we ensure that DHS is ready, willing,
and able to protect the American people. To that end, we urge
you not to risk the funding for the operations that protect
every American and to pass a clean DHS funding bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Hon. Mitch McConnell,
U.S. Senate Majority Leader,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Harry Reid,
U.S. Senate Minority Leader,
Washington, DC.
As former U.S.Secretaries of Homeland Security, we write to
you today to respectfully request that you consider
decoupling critical legislation to fund the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 from a
legislative response to President Obama's executive actions
on immigration.
As the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and the cyber-
attacks on a major American corporation and on the U.S.
Military's Central Command remind us, the threats facing the
U.S. are very real. The national security role that DHS
plays, and by extension the funding that allows it to carry
out its vital national security mission, is critical to
ensuring that our nation is safe from harm. Funding for the
DHS is used to protect our ports and our borders; to secure
our air travel and cargo; to protect the federal government
and our nation's information, technology, and infrastructure
from cyber-attacks; to fund essential law enforcement
activities; to guard against violent extremists; to mobilize
response networks after emergencies; and to ensure the safety
of the president and national leaders.
Moreover, we appreciate that Congress possesses the
authority to authorize and appropriate funds expended by the
federal government. We do not question your desire to have a
larger debate about the nation's immigration laws. However,
we cannot emphasize enough that the DHS's responsibilities
are much broader than its responsibility to oversee the
federal immigration agencies and to protect our borders. And
funding for the entire agency should not be put in jeopardy
by the debate about immigration. The President has said very
publicly that he will ``oppose any legislative effort to
undermine the executive actions that he'' has taken on
immigration. Therefore, by tethering a bill to fund DHS in FY
2015 to a legislative response to the President's executive
actions on immigration, the likelihood of a Department of
Homeland Security shutdown increases.
It is imperative that we ensure that DHS is ready, willing,
and able to protect the American people. To that end, we urge
you not to risk funding for the operations that protect every
American and to pass a clean DHS funding bill.
Sincerely,
Michael Chertoff.
Tom Ridge.
Janet Napolitano.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, the Department of Homeland Security was
established right after the terrible attack on the United States of
America on September 11, 2001.
The Department of Homeland Security is a big agency, but protecting
the homeland is a big job, and DHS employees are on the job every day:
the Coast Guard safeguarding our waterways; Secret Service, not only
protecting the President, the First Family, the Vice President, but
also doing other important tasks; the Border Patrol and ICE--
Immigration and Customs Enforcement--securing our borders against
smugglers, traffickers, and other illegal immigrants; cyber warriors--
people protecting us against bio and nuclear threats, and then also
working with the first responders; FEMA--everything to protecting us in
the event of an attack on the homeland, to having readiness and
response and shelters and so on, to helping us now in hurricanes and
blizzards such as we are facing in the northeast. It all helps State
and local responders to have the resources they need to be able to
respond at the local level.
The Firefighters Grant Program is so beloved in our communities
where, through competitive exercise, they can go for grants to buy
respiratory equipment, the new firetrucks and so on that they need. In
my community, they can't come up with this equipment on just fish fries
and pancake breakfasts. We need a government on our side.
Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security funding runs out on
February 27.
Now let me give the background.
When we came back in September, facing the fact we had to have a
continuing resolution to get us through the fiscal year and the
election cycle, the Congress passed legislation, and then on December
13 when we did the omnibus, we passed an omnibus bill for every single
agency with the exception of Homeland Security. So every single agency,
from the Department of Defense to the Department of Health and Human
Services, Education, the weather services, all of these important
programs, NIH, were funded through the fiscal year. But we put Homeland
Security on a CR because there was an intense and actually very prickly
concern over the President's Executive action on immigration. So rather
than hold up the whole funding of the United States of America over
temper-tantrum politics over Obama's Executive action on immigration,
we went to a CR, a continuing resolution, on Homeland Security. The
Homeland Security was to take us to February 27, where wiser heads--and
now complete control by the Republican Party--would be able to move
this for full funding.
So where are we? Well, during that time in December, as the chair of
the

[[Page S617]]

Committee on Appropriations, with my vice chairman Senator Richard
Shelby, Senator Dan Coats, and the Subcommittee on Homeland Security,
Senator Dan Coats and Senator Mary Landrieu, we came up with a fiscal
framework. So did the House. They came up with it. So the very money
that we put into the CR and the clean bill that Senator Shaheen--now
the ranking member--and I had, has the funding for Homeland Security
that Homeland Security says it needs and we have arrived at on a
bipartisan basis.
If in fact we are allowed to bring up a clean bill, we have agreed on
the money. There is no dispute over the money. We have looked very
carefully at it. We worked on a bipartisan basis. We worked on a
bicameral basis. We are ready to go. What will slow us down is if we
get into an intense debate on immigration and riders to try to stop the
activities of President Obama.
I strongly recommend to my colleagues: Do not play politics with the
security of the United States of America. We were all horror stricken
at what happened in Paris. We are repulsed at what is going on with
ISIL. We are very concerned about lone-wolf attacks. We worry--and the
chair of the authorizing committee on Homeland Security in the House
has said: They are coming here, they are coming here, they are on their
way. We have got to be ready. Well, one of the ways we have got to be
ready is to make sure the resources in Homeland Security are funded and
that they are not worried about a shutdown, showdown, slamdown politics
over a fight on immigration.
Should we have a discussion on immigration? You bet. Should we even
have an outright robust debate on it? I am all for it. But leave
Homeland Security alone. Pass the money bill. If you disagree with the
money, argue over that. But if you want to fight over immigration
policy, that is another debate for another day in another way.
The Nation faces growing threats where Americans are endangered at
home and abroad. Terrorists are threatening us with bombs and guns, and
lone wolves in Ottawa, organized radicals in Paris, cyber criminals
with backing from nation states and organized crime.
In terms of the Secret Service, we have the need to reform the Secret
Service. We have fence jumpers at the White House, drones landing on
the White House lawn.
In the face of these threats, the Republican majority's response is
to hold the funding of Homeland Security up to pick a fight with the
President over immigration. Uncertainty undermines security. Let's give
the Agency certainty of funding.
We are 4 months into the fiscal year. Another continuing funding
resolution would be the fifth continuing resolution. That is no way to
run an agency so big, so complicated.
Senator Coats and Senator Landrieu and our House colleagues worked so
well to come up with the bill. They provide resources for DHS, with the
total funding of $39.7 billion, an increase of over $400 million above
the fiscal year 2014. We could pass that today. We could pass it on
Monday, we could pass it on Tuesday.
All of my Democratic colleagues and I wrote a letter to Senator
McConnell asking him to schedule an immediate vote on a clean vote on
Homeland Security. Well, let's see where we go on that.
What we have here, the clean bill offered by Senator Shaheen--now the
ranking member on the Homeland Security Subcommittee on
Appropriations--and I have a compromise funding bill that gives
certainty to the people who work on the front lines to secure the
Nation, whether it is securing the border, whether it is building
capacity to meet agricultural and biological threats, whether it is
replacing aging nuclear detection equipment, also helping our Coast
Guard build their national security cutter so the Coast Guard can
protect us against drug runners, pirates, terrorists.
More than any other specific increase, enacting a clean Homeland
Security bill shows the Congress and the Nation value. We do value
security, and we value the men and women who work every day to provide
us with that security. Uncertainty jeopardizes security. We value them.
I urge my colleagues to put their money where their mouths are to
enact a clean homeland security bill, and not to get into this whole
debate with immigration.
I look forward--as we wrap up the debate on the Keystone Pipeline, we
then take up Homeland Security and we take up a clean bill.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. BOOZMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold?
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would say to the Senator from
Arkansas, my time was delayed. I hope I have not slowed the Senator
down this morning. I didn't realize you were here.
Mr. BOOZMAN. No, No. I thank the Senator. Everything is fine. We
appreciate the Senator, as always.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

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