[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1435-1437]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to bring a clean 
fiscal year 2015 bill for the Department of Homeland Security to the 
Senate floor as soon as possible.
  Earlier this month the world watched in horror as terrorists 
massacred journalists and other innocent civilians in and around Paris. 
In December we were stunned as computers at a major corporation, Sony 
Entertainment, were attacked by North Korea. Over the past year, as 
recently as last week, in fact, we witnessed brutal executions at the 
hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
  These events illustrate all too well that the threats faced today by 
America and by our allies are real. As a former chairman and now 
ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee, I know this to be the case.
  Nearly 12 years ago, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, 
Congress created the Department of Homeland Security--we call it DHS--
to help secure our Nation and to help ensure that our Nation is 
protected against these continuing and evolving threats.
  Given the origins of the Department, the work the men and women do 
there every day to keep us safe, and the grave nature of the threats 
our country faces, it is shocking to me and disappointing to me that we 
are here today having this debate.
  We are now discussing ways we can make the Department and its 
employees more effective. We are not discussing how we can enable them 
to work better. Senator Coburn and those with whom we served in the 
last Congress did that throughout the year.

[[Page 1436]]

  Senator Johnson and I did that just yesterday with our first hearing 
on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this year. 
Unbelievably, as we focused on cyber security attacks, we are debating 
whether to give this key national security agency funding for the 
remainder of the fiscal year.
  In order for that Department to efficiently and effectively carry out 
its critical role, it needs adequate and reliable funding. They need 
it. Another short-term budget--or even worse, another shutdown--would 
be bad for the Department and bad for employee morale--very bad. More 
importantly, though, it would pose a grave threat to our security.
  Instead of sending us a straightforward clean funding bill for the 
Department, the House has unfortunately sent us a bill that includes a 
number of amendments aimed at undermining the President's immigration 
policies.
  Many of our colleagues on both sides have significant concerns with 
these amendments, and the President has indicated that he would veto 
the funding bill if the amendments stay attached to it. Thus, these 
amendments jeopardize passage of the bill, and they threaten to prolong 
the crippling budget uncertainty the Department of Homeland Security 
has operated under.
  The Department of Homeland Security already has a lot to say grace 
over. We do them no favor by playing games with their budget.
  I understand why some of our colleagues are upset about the 
President's immigration policies, and we should have a debate about 
those concerns. But first we should be doing what we have been asked to 
do by giving the Department of Homeland Security the resources that it 
needs to keep Americans safe in an ever more dangerous world.
  Two of our colleagues, Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Barbara Mikulski, 
have introduced a clean appropriations bill that mirrors funding 
provisions of the House bill. Overall, funding provisions in their 
bill, S. 272--which I understand both Democrats and Republicans on the 
Appropriations Committee agreed to last year, last December--in fact, 
provides for $39.6 billion in discretionary funding for the Department 
of Homeland Security. That is an increase of $400 million above last 
year's funding, but this measure is more than just a funding bill.
  To my colleagues who want to do what we can now to protect our 
country from the kinds of attacks we have been seeing around the world 
of late, I say: Support a clean DHS funding bill.
  To our colleagues who want reforms at the U.S. Secret Service, I say: 
Support a clean DHS funding bill. A clean bill would provide the 
resources the Secret Service needs to carry out much-needed reforms in 
the wake of the most recent White House fence-jumper incident and other 
security lapses.
  To my colleagues whose States need to recover from this week's 
blizzards or to prepare for the next storm, let me just say: Support a 
clean DHS funding bill.
  We need to ensure that FEMA and our States have access to nearly $2.6 
billion in grants to respond to future disasters--both natural and 
manmade.
  To my colleagues who want stronger border security and immigration 
enforcement, a clean DHS funding bill is what we ought to be rallying 
around. The clean bill put forward by Senator Shaheen and Mikulski 
would take additional measures to secure our border and enforce our 
immigration laws, something I know is a priority to me and, I think, to 
all of our colleagues. In fact, most of the funding increase in the 
Shaheen-Mikulski bill would go to border security and immigration 
enforcement.
  The bill our colleagues have put forward contains a little more than 
$10 billion for Customs and Border Protection, an increase of 
approximately $118 million above last year's enacted level. This 
funding level would support the largest operational force level for the 
Agency in its history--maintaining over 21,000 Border Patrol agents and 
supporting the new funding level for nearly 24,000 officers.
  The Shaheen-Mikulski bill would also enable Customs and Border 
Protection to fly more patrols along our maritime and land borders and 
to continue purchasing new force-multiplying gear and equipment. It 
would also increase funding for critical surveillance technologies 
along our border, especially along areas such as the Rio Grande Valley, 
by some $20 million.
  As our colleagues will recall, last year our Nation saw tens of 
thousands of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America 
come to our southern border. This clean full-year funding bill would 
provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement $689 million more than last 
year's funding to help address the additional needs associated with 
that surge. Specifically, it includes $3.4 billion for immigration 
detention and funds 34,000 adult detention beds.
  The Shaheen-Mikulski bill would also fully fund the employment 
eligibility verification system, known as E-Verify, which helps 
businesses to ensure they are hiring legal employees.
  Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recently said--and I fully 
agree with him--that to deny his Department full-year funding would 
actually hurt our border security.
  We cannot continue to default to short-term continuing resolutions 
and force the Department to cut corners and scramble to fund its 
highest priorities. As we have learned over these years, stopgap crisis 
budgeting is an egregious waste of money. Let me say that again--an 
egregious waste of money. By shutting down the Department or keeping it 
on a continuing resolution, we will waste tens of millions of taxpayer 
dollars, including the cost of renegotiating contracts, lost employee 
and contractor productivity, and lost training. For example, it would 
delay the award of a $600 million contract to build a national security 
cutter that the Coast Guard needs.
  But there is more than just a financial impact. The dramatic 
consequences of failing to provide full-year funding for the Department 
will be felt throughout our country. While most of the Department's 
workforce will continue to perform essential functions in the event of 
a shutdown, the bulk of its management and administrative support 
activities would cease and frontline personnel would not receive the 
support they need. It would be like trying to fight a war without 
planners, without logistics, and without supplies. It would be like us 
here in the Senate working without our staffs. We might be able to find 
a way to get our work done, but we wouldn't be as effective. And those 
at DHS who are required to come to work if a shutdown were to occur 
would not be paid until Congress restores funding. Essentially, a large 
part of our Federal homeland security efforts would be operating under 
an IOU.
  A stopgap budget or a shutdown would also further degrade employee 
morale at the Department of Homeland Security. As many of us know, the 
Department continues to rank dead last--dead last--among all other 
large Federal agencies when it comes to workforce morale.
  While Secretary Johnson, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas, and their team 
are taking important steps to make the agency a better place to work--
and we are helping them--the Department still lacks a strong sense of 
cohesion and a sense of team. But Congress too has a responsibility. 
Providing this large and complex agency the funding it needs would be a 
terrific next step.
  If my colleagues and I expect the Department of Homeland Security and 
other Federal agencies to show improved outcomes, we cannot continue to 
play games with their budgets and expect them to not feel the negative 
consequences. No business owner or manager could be expected to be 
effective and efficient under these conditions. The leadership of the 
Department of Homeland Security is no exception.
  A clean Homeland Security funding bill for the rest of the fiscal 
year is the fiscally responsible step to take. If we deny them that 
funding, we will not be punishing the President. In a sense, we

[[Page 1437]]

will be punishing a number of the employees. But most of all we will be 
punishing taxpayers because we are wasting their money and we are 
diminishing and reducing the kind of security they need in this country 
today.
  Let me just say, don't take my word for this. Our good friend Tom 
Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security and a former Republican 
Governor, with whom I served, said:

       I would be very, very disappointed if I were Secretary, and 
     the Democrats did it to me . . . It's pretty difficult to 
     plan long term when you don't know exactly how much you're 
     going to have available and what strings might be attached to 
     it. Give them the funding they need.

  And I would say to our Republican colleagues, give them the funding 
they need.
  For these reasons, I urge our colleagues in the Senate to join me in 
doing the right thing in supporting passage of a clean full-year 
appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and 
rejecting the amendments approved by the House. It would be 
irresponsible for us to continue kicking the can down the road when it 
comes to national security, and we certainly cannot afford to let this 
vital agency's funding run out.
  I ask my colleagues to think about what we are trying to accomplish 
by failing to provide the Department of Homeland Security with the 
funds they need to operate. The American voters sent Congress a clear 
message on election day. This is what they said: They want us to work 
together. They want us to get things done. And they especially want us 
to enhance our economic recovery. Given recent events around the world, 
they also want us to do all we can to keep them and their families 
safe. We need to show Americans through our actions here in Washington 
that we have heard them.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me first thank Senator Carper for his 
comments on the need for us to pass a homeland security appropriations 
bill.
  I think our constituents would be surprised to learn that we have not 
passed an appropriations bill that funds for this fiscal year the 
Department of Homeland Security, a critically important agency that 
keeps us safe.
  We know the challenges around the world. We know the challenges to 
our homeland. Yet we haven't passed a full-year Homeland Security bill. 
Instead, we have legislation that has come over from the House that is 
more interested in picking political fights on immigration policy--when 
we should be together on immigration policy--and holding up the funding 
for Homeland Security.
  I thank Senator Carper, who is the ranking Democrat on that 
committee, for bringing to our attention that the best thing for us to 
do is to take up the Shaheen-Mikulski bill, which is a clean 
reauthorization of the appropriations for this year, so we can get 
through this year, and then we can debate immigration on an immigration 
bill, debate next year's budget on a budget bill, and not have the 
politics of the House interfere with the funding for Homeland Security.

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