[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4519]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HOMELAND SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Speaker, in today's world, the threats we face are 
constantly changing. Our ability to keep America safe relies on our 
capacity to adapt quickly to these new and evolving threats.
  In the years following 9/11, the U.S. made significant changes to our 
intelligence and law enforcement capabilities that have stopped over 60 
terror plots against the U.S. and saved countless American lives.
  But 9/11 was 15 years ago. The threats we face today are vastly 
different than the threats we faced then. It is time we reprioritize 
resources to confront this new reality.
  The recent terror attacks in Brussels and Paris confirm that one of 
our largest security vulnerabilities is soft targets, relatively 
unprotected venues where large groups of people gather. Soft targets 
include places we all frequent, like airports, transit systems, 
stadiums, restaurants, and shopping malls. They are easy to attack and 
difficult to protect.
  The recent attacks also showed that threats are becoming harder to 
detect. The ability to collect intelligence on terrorist intentions and 
terror plots is more challenging because of new encryption technology 
and the reliance on lone-wolf attacks.
  Because specific and credible threats are increasingly more difficult 
to uncover, we need to redouble our efforts and reprioritize our 
funding to reduce our vulnerabilities. Yet, alarmingly, current funding 
for the Federal programs designed to keep America safe fails to meet 
the new and growing threats we face.
  The primary responsibility of the Federal Government under the 
Constitution is to ``provide for the common defense,'' but, in recent 
years, Congress has made significant cuts to the Homeland Security 
programs that were designed to protect things like soft targets. Since 
the majority took over the House in 2010, Homeland Security grants to 
help States and localities protect against and respond to terror 
attacks have been cut in half.
  Urban Areas Security Initiative grants, which large cities like my 
hometown of Chicago use to invest in the training and equipment 
necessary to respond to their unique security threats, have been cut by 
over $200 million. Transit security funding, used by the Chicago 
Transit Authority to invest in camera systems that protect against 
terror attacks and have lowered crime by 50 percent, has been reduced 
by over 60 percent. And Buffer Zone Protection grants, which once 
helped cities defend critical infrastructure like stadiums, are no 
longer funded.
  To the detriment of our security, many of my House colleagues have 
championed the harmful, across-the-board spending cuts of sequestration 
that restrict our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities and, in 
2014, forced a hiring freeze at the FBI. They champion these cuts even 
as the Secretary of Defense calls sequestration the ``biggest strategic 
danger'' to our national security, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
argues it poses a greater threat to national security than Russia, 
China, North Korea, Iran, and ISIS.
  Last year, the House majority took the budget irresponsibility even 
further by threatening to shut down the Department of Homeland Security 
over a partisan fight over immigration. All the while, Congress 
continues to prioritize billions in funding to respond to threats posed 
by a cold war that ended decades ago.
  For example, we are spending $350 billion over the next decade on our 
outdated nuclear weapons policy. By simply eliminating our 
strategically obsolete stockpile of ICBMs, we could free up $2.6 
billion a year, money that could be spent on intelligence, 
cybersecurity, and homeland security.
  While the goal of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to 
deter, detect, and prevent terror attacks remains the same, how we 
accomplish and fund that goal must continue to evolve to meet the new 
challenges we face.
  Protecting against new and evolving threats will not necessarily 
require additional spending, but it will require smarter spending. When 
it comes to national security, we must continue to ask ourselves what 
really keeps America safe in today's world.

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