[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 4, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S745-S747]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I was very disappointed yesterday that
the Senate did not vote to proceed to the consideration of the Homeland
Security appropriations bill. I hope we will have an opportunity to
reconsider that vote and we will agree to take up the bill.
The need to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the
remainder of this fiscal year should not be in question. We know that
we are living in a complex world with ever-changing threats to our
Nation's security. The Department that we created specifically to
combat those threats will operate better and more efficiently with a
full-year funding plan that reflects updated spending priorities. I
have heard no Senator dispute that.
The leaders of the Homeland Security Subcommittee--both Democrat and
Republican--put a great deal of effort into drafting this measure. The
bill provides $10.7 billion for Customs and Border Protection--an
increase of $119 million over fiscal year 2014. This amount will
support border infrastructure, technology needs, roads, air and marine
assets, and higher levels of personnel, including Border Patrol agents
and Customs and Border Patrol officers.
The bill provides nearly $6 billion for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement--an increase of 13 percent.
The bill provides increased funds to identify, apprehend, and remove
criminal aliens and provides increases for investigations to help
combat human trafficking, cyber crime, child exploitation, and drug
smuggling.
The bill provides support for the Secret Service and congressional
oversight, including $25 million to address security needs at the White
House complex.
The bill provides more than $10 billion for the Coast Guard. This
includes additional resources to continue the recapitalization of the
Coast Guard fleet.
The bill provides funding for the Disaster Relief Fund. When disaster
strikes, it is important that the Disaster Relief Fund contain the
resources necessary to support an effective response.
The bill also includes House amendments designed to reverse the
President's unilateral actions on immigration enforcement. Given the
timing and breadth of the President's actions and the challenge to
congressional authority those actions represent, it can come as no
surprise that they provoked a congressional response.
I am speaking to remind Senators of the urgent and important need we
have for the adoption of funding for the Department of Homeland
Security and other provisions this bill contains. I urge my colleagues
and the leadership to help ensure that we move the Senate in the
direction of early passage after thorough consideration of the
provisions of this bill, the passage of this bill to protect our
national security.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Lee pertaining to the introduction of S. 356 are
printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and
Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. LEE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, as we continue this debate on funding
for the Department of Homeland Security, we face some fundamental
questions. Are we going to prioritize the safety and security of the
American people or are we going to put the country at risk because of
an ideological disagreement? That is the choice we face with this bill.
We can debate immigration. I think Members of the Democratic caucus
would be happy to do that. The Senate did that 2 years ago when we
passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill with 68 bipartisan
votes. But this is not the time for us to have this debate.
We need to fund the Department of Homeland Security now so they can
continue to do their work. We can either pass a clean bill that makes
critical investments in our Nation's security or we can put our Nation
at risk by playing politics with funding for the Department of Homeland
Security.
I appreciate what the Appropriations Committee chairman, Senator
Cochran from Mississippi, did earlier today by coming down and laying
out what is in the funding for the Department of Homeland Security and
laying out the important work of the Department of Homeland Security. I
believe most of us appreciate the work they do and why it is so
important to the safety and security of the country. That is why we
need to pass a clean bill to ensure that they are funded for the rest
of this year.
For those who are in the Senate Chamber and for those watching at
home who have not been following what has gone on here in Washington
with this bill, I will provide a little history on how we got to where
we are today.
In the closing weeks of the 113th Congress, Senator Mikulski, then
chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Congressman Rogers,
chair of the House Appropriations Committee, negotiated spending for
the entire government, including the Department of Homeland Security.
This was a compromise measure. Not everyone got what they wanted, but
the bill funded Homeland Security priorities at levels that would
ensure that the Department could fulfill its mission.
Then, sadly, politics came into play. Some Members of the House
Republican caucus demanded that the Homeland Security bill be removed
from the larger budget because of immigration issues. They didn't like
the President's Executive action on immigration. Now the entire
Department is funded on a short-term basis through February 27, which
is just 23 days from now.
Last month the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to
fund Homeland Security, but they added politically divisive language
that rolls back protections for immigrant children, among other anti-
immigrant measures. It also would roll back some of the efforts for
surveillance and efforts to address illegal immigrants who are
committing crimes when they come into this country.
Because of these controversial immigration riders, President Obama
immediately announced that he would veto the House-passed bill. Last
week, the entire Democratic caucus of the Senate signed a letter to
Majority Leader McConnell urging him to put the security of our Nation
first, to put politics aside, and to work with us to pass a clean
Homeland Security funding bill
[[Page S746]]
without controversial immigration riders attached--to pass a bill the
President can sign.
I ask unanimous consent to have the letter from the Senate Democratic
caucus printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, January 27, 2015.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Senate Majority Leader, The Capitol,
Washington, DC.
Dear Majority Leader McConnell: As we rapidly approach the
date on which the Department of Homeland Security's funding
expires, and as law enforcement officials face major threats
to our nation's safety and security, we write with one simple
request: work with us to pass a clean bill that funds
Homeland Security for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The House bill cannot pass the Senate. Democratic Leader
Harry Reid has called for a clean funding bill for the
Department of Homeland Security. The President has also made
clear that he will veto any bill that expressly limits his
authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion on immigration
matters. While we agree our current immigration system needs
comprehensive reform, including border security enhancements,
this appropriations bill is not the place for this debate.
In light of recent events in Paris, Ottawa and Australia,
the threat of ISIS and the proliferation of foreign fighters
that return home radicalized, DHS funding should not be tied
to divisive political issues that could jeopardize this
critical funding.
We are now four months into the fiscal year. A series of
short-term continuing resolutions to fund DHS should be off
the table. Secretary Jeh Johnson has noted that if DHS
continues to operate on CRs, counterterrorism efforts will be
limited, border security initiatives and grants to state and
local law enforcement will go unfunded, and aviation security
efforts will be hampered.
Every day, new threats emerge that endanger our citizens at
home and our allies abroad. We should not cast doubt on
future funding for the Department of Homeland Security at a
time when the entire nation should be marshalling collective
resources to defend against terrorism. Uncertainty undermines
security.
Last December, House and Senate negotiators reached a
bipartisan agreement on a bill to fund DHS for the entire
fiscal year. The best way to provide certainty and stability
for the men and women who fulfill DHS's mission to protect
the United States from harm is to immediately schedule a vote
so that this compromise bill can become law.
We know that you share our desire to keep our nation safe
in these dangerous times, and we thank you for considering
our request.
Sincerely,
Jeanne Shaheen; Richard J. Durbin; Patty Murray;
Elizabeth Warren; Edward J. Markey; Dianne Feinstein;
Heidi Heitkamp; Barbara A. Mikulski; Charles E.
Schumer; Debbie Stabenow; Thomas R. Carper; Tammy
Baldwin; Mazie K. Hirono; Patrick J. Leahy;
Angus S. King, Jr.; Mark R. Warner; Richard Blumenthal;
Bernard Sanders; Sheldon Whitehouse; Benjamin L.
Cardin; Christopher Murphy; Kirsten E. Gillibrand; Jack
Reed; Sherrod Brown; Robert Menendez; Christopher A.
Coons; Brian Schatz; Ron Wyden;
Tim Kaine; Cory A. Booker; Jon Tester; Amy Klobuchar;
Claire McCaskill; Gary C. Peters; Al Franken; Barbara
Boxer; Tom Udall; Michael F. Bennet; Martin Heinrich;
Bill Nelson; Jeff Merkley; Robert P. Casey, Jr.; Joe
Manchin, III; Maria Cantwell; Joe Donnelly.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Cloture was not invoked on the House bill. We saw that
yesterday in our vote. It is a bill that cannot become law. There are
only 24 days left before funding for the Homeland Security Department
expires.
The House bill cannot move forward. So I urge my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle to work with us to pass a clean full-year
budget, without controversial riders, to fund Homeland Security.
As the ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, I am
ready to work with my colleague Senator Hoeven, who chairs the
Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and the chair and ranking member of
the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran and Senator Mikulski, and
the entire committee to pass a bill to keep our Nation safe and to
avoid disrupting the work of the Department of Homeland Security and to
keep this critical agency operating at full strength. In fact, Senator
Mikulski and I introduced a bill last week, S. 272, which would do
exactly that.
We live in dangerous times. Every day new threats emerge that
threaten our citizens at home and our allies abroad. The Department of
Homeland Security's role in protecting our country from these threats
cannot be overstated, and its funding should not be controversial.
Right now the U.S. law enforcement community is on high alert for
terror threats after attacks in Sydney, Australia, and Ottawa, Canada,
and, of course, the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.
Just 2 weeks ago, an Ohio man was arrested when authorities
discovered he was plotting to blow up the U.S. Capitol in an ISIS-
inspired plan. ISIS has thousands of foreign fighters, including
Americans among their ranks, who can return to their home countries to
do harm and who say they intend to do that.
We were all horrified yesterday by the news of the courageous
Jordanian pilot who was killed in such a barbaric and disgusting way by
the Islamic State.
We have recently learned that ISIS plans to take advantage of the
Syrian refugee crisis and to move their fighters into Turkey and
Europe. These are real threats. They are a clear and present danger to
this country, and because they are so real, we need our
counterterrorism intelligence community operating at full strength. An
essential part of our Nation's counterterrorism and intelligence
infrastructure is within the Department of Homeland Security.
As Michael Chertoff, George W. Bush's Secretary of Homeland Security
said, ``intelligence is not only about spies and satellites.''
Intelligence is also about the disciplined daily tasks of collecting
and analyzing thousands of reports and investigations that are ongoing
all across our country--from our local and State police, our Border
Patrol agents, our port security personnel, and our Coast Guard
patrolling our shores.
The Department of Homeland Security takes these thousands of bits of
information, sifts out the critical details, coordinates with our
foreign intelligence agencies, and gets critical information to our
first responders on the ground as quickly as possible. This work is
critical to keeping our Nation safe from terrorism.
One of the chief criticisms of the 9/11 report was that we need to
improve intelligence information sharing between the intelligence
community and our first responders on the ground.
I was Governor on September 11. I know some of the challenges that we
had in New Hampshire with that information sharing. Well, that is one
of the missions the Department of Homeland Security was created to
carry out.
If you talk to Governors and mayors, police chiefs and sheriffs, and
the folks on the ground who are responsible for keeping our citizens
safe every day, ask them about their fusion centers. Ask them whether
they want their law enforcement to go back to the days when all of our
intelligence was bottled up in Washington, DC, and our towns and cities
were on their own. Of course they don't want to go back to being kept
in the dark. There is too much at stake, but that is what could happen
if the Department of Homeland Security is not fully functioning.
I wish to point out that we received a letter from the U.S.
Conference of Mayors. It is signed by Tom Cochran, CEO and executive
director. He sent it to Senators Cochran, Mikulski, Hoeven, and
Shaheen. I will not read the whole letter, but they point out a number
of issues which I believe are important in laying out the challenge and
why we need to pass a clean funding bill.
Mr. Cochran says:
I write on behalf of the nation's mayors to urge you to
expeditiously report out a ``clean'' bill to fund the
Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the
current fiscal year. A fully functioning Department of
Homeland Security is critical to the security of our nation,
our cities, and our citizens. A Department operating on a
short-term continuing resolution, despite its best efforts,
faces uncertainty and delays and simply cannot be fully
functioning.
He goes on to elaborate a number of the important programs and
important work that the Department of Homeland Security does, and I
will not read all of that.
I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S747]]
The United States
Conference of Mayors,
Washington, DC, February 4, 2015.
Hon. Thad Cochran, Chairman,
Hon. Barbara Mikulski, Ranking Member,
Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Hon. John Hoeven, Chairman,
Hon. Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Committee on
Appropriations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Cochran, Mikulski, Hoeven, and Shaheen: I
write on behalf of the nation's mayors to urge you to
expeditiously report out a ``clean'' bill to fund the
Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the
current fiscal year. A fully functioning Department of
Homeland Security is critical to the security of our nation,
our cities, and our citizens. A Department operating on a
short-term continuing resolution, despite its best efforts,
faces uncertainty and delays and simply cannot be fully
functioning.
Under its current short-term continuing resolution, DHS
cannot undertake any new spending initiatives to respond to
national needs, including those along the border, or release
any grant funding for non-disaster programs. Among the non-
disaster programs it funds are the State Homeland Security
Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative, which
provide vital resources to our cities to help them prevent
and prepare for the threat of a terrorist attack. The Urban
Search and Rescue System is a national resource that provides
lifesaving aid to disaster-stricken communities both at home
and abroad. The Assistance to Firefighter Grant programs help
local fire departments meet their baseline readiness needs.
Emergency Management Performance Grants help to fund the
emergency managers so critical to our preparedness to prevent
and respond to disasters when events--manmade and natural--
occur.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recently listed
just a few of the activities vital to public safety and
security that the Department has funded, including new
communications equipment for over 80 Los Angeles area public
safety agencies, surveillance cameras and environmental
sensors used by NYPD to detect in real time potential
terrorist activity, upgraded oxygen masks and tanks for over
30 Denver area; and 150 firefighter jobs in Detroit.
The current threat environment is serious, given the
terrorist attacks in Paris, Ottawa and Sydney and public
calls by terrorist organizations for further attacks on the
Western targets. It's vital that Congress provide stable
funding for the remainder of the year to the agency charged
with keeping all of us safe and secure, the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
Sincerely,
Tom Cochran,
CEO and Executive Director.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I will also point out a letter we
received, which again, was addressed to Senator Cochran and Senator
Mikulski.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3
more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. This is from emergency managers, and it says:
The nation's local emergency managers urge you to include
full-year funding for programs at the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) that support state and local emergency
management programs. These programs are critical to preparing
our nation for all hazards including terrorist attacks.
Again, they go on at length, and I ask unanimous consent to have this
letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
International Association of
Emergency Managers,
Falls Church, VA, February 4, 2015.
Hon. Thad Cochran,
Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Barbara Mikulski,
Vice Chairwoman, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Cochran and Vice Chairwoman Mikulski: The
International Association of Emergency Managers--US Council
appreciates the work of your committee as you consider the FY
2015 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. The
nation's local emergency managers urge you to include full-
year funding for programs at the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) that support state and local emergency management
programs. These programs are critical to preparing our nation
for all hazards including terrorist attacks.
The Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG), called
``the backbone of the nation's emergency management system''
in an Appropriations Conference Report, constitutes the only
source of direct federal funding for state and local
governments to provide basic emergency coordination and
planning capabilities including those related to homeland
security. The grant is 50-50 cost shared and supports state
and local government initiatives for planning, training,
exercises, public education, as well as response and recovery
coordination during actual events. When a coordinated
response is required, it is always a complex undertaking.
Local emergency management is core to the coordination and
collaboration of multiple agencies, jurisdictions, and
sectors.
A recent example of the importance of EMPG is provided by
Dr. Russell Decker, Director of Emergency Management and
Homeland Security for Allen County Ohio.
In the case of our January 10 refinery explosion and fire,
EMPG funds made a successful response possible with trained
emergency managers and our public safety partners
implementing response plans developed and trained through
EMPG funding, hazard materials response and air monitoring
equipment funded through State Homeland Security Grant
Program funds ensured the safety of responders and nearby
residents. I'd hate to think what could have been the outcome
if that planning, training, and exercising had not occurred.
Since many locals rely on EMPG, extended delays can mean
staff layoffs or delays in filling vacancies, postponed
training exercises, delays in plan revisions and also delays
in acquisition of needed equipment for EOCs which could mean
increased costs when funds do become available.
The delay in receiving this annual EMPG funding causes
uncertainty for local governments. Some preparedness
activities must be put on hold until the reimbursement is
assured.
Also important are grant programs such as the State
Homeland Security Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security
Initiative which help support local government preparations
for the continued threat of terrorism. Funding is needed to
sustain currently established and critical programs.
We respectfully urge that full year funding be provided for
FY 2015 to end the uncertainty.
Sincerely,
John ``Rusty'' Russell,
President, International Association of Emergency Managers,
U.S. Council.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. There are any number of reasons why we need to pass a
clean funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. We should
be working to do that now. We should stop the ideological debate and
focus on the risk to this country if we fail to act, the potential risk
we would face by passing a continuing resolution, and the risk to this
country if we shut down the Department of Homeland Security. None of
those options are acceptable.
We need to work together and get this done. I urge my colleagues to
do that.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
____________________