[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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