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| February 09, 2004 | |||
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| LIEBERMAN HEARING STATEMENT ON FY 05 DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY BUDGET | |||
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Senator Lieberman
February 9, 2004 (as prepared for delivery) Thank you, Madame Chairman. We meet here today with fresh evidence of the urgent need to secure our homeland. Last week, information gathered by the intelligence agencies prompted the cancellation of several international flights to the United States, and deadly ricin was discovered right here in this building, in the office of Majority Leader Bill Frist. Obviously, we do not yet know the full implications of these incidents. But we know more than enough to conclude that our nation faces an array of threats from terrorists bent on doing terrible damage to us, and we are still far too vulnerable to their evil intentions. A number of independent, nonpartisan expert commissions have sounded the alarm about our lack of adequate preparedness. The Gilmore Commission - led by the former Governor of Virginia, James Gilmore - recently warned of complacency about the terrorist threat and decried the lack of a comprehensive, clear strategy to bring about improved security; expert panels of the Council on Foreign Relations have called the nation "still unprepared" and our first responders "drastically under-funded;" and a report by the Trust for Public Health reports little progress – and therefore little readiness – in defending against, and responding to, a bio-terrorist attack. I am deeply concerned about a number of critical vulnerabilities that have yet to be addressed, and a discernible lack of progress in other key areas. Secretary Ridge, it is clear to me that you have been given insufficient resources in the last two years to get the job done. The Administration’s fiscal year 2005 budget - which includes a stunning 30 percent cut, government-wide, for first responders – is the latest evidence of shortchanging the homeland side of the war against terrorism. Our government and our nation are still “dangerously unprepared” - as our former colleague Warren Rudman has said - to face the ongoing, and very real, threat of terrorism. We need far more funded and focused leadership to secure our domestic defenses and to fulfill the promise – the full promise - of the Homeland Security Act. Have we made any progress? Of course, we have. We are surely safer now with the Department of Homeland Security than we were without it. We are more aware of the threats we face and we now have a focal point for planning, implementing, and assessing our homeland security efforts. We have improved airport and airline security. We’ve also begun to look more critically at the millions of containers that enter our ports from abroad, including pushing the borders back to help secure containers before they reach American shores. We've begun to consolidate homeland defense work at the borders and elsewhere under one roof. And, in science and technology, we're at least starting to bring a new research and development agency to counter terrorist threats into existence - although it still faces bureaucratic and funding constraints. But we clearly are not as safe as we hoped we would be by now – more than two years after September 11th and more than a year after Department was created. We are still without an overall strategy that sets priorities and deadlines for homeland security efforts, and clearly allocates responsibilities among federal agencies, state and local government and the private sector. The Homeland Security Act called for a robust intelligence fusion center within DHS, but the Administration created a separate threat center that, I fear, is without a clear home and stable funding, and which does not truly break down the turf barriers among intelligence agencies. The Homeland Security Act was supposed to bring new leadership to bear on transportation and port security, critical infrastructure protection and bioterrorism preparedness; yet the federal effort in each of these areas remains incomplete and, in some cases, confused. The Homeland Security Act was meant to provide adequate support to state and local governments, and first responders. Here too the promise has not yet been kept, and our vital partners at the state and local levels struggle to find the resources and guidance they need from the federal government. By all accounts, hundreds of thousands of first responders in our country still lack the training and equipment they need to adequately protect the American people. An expert independent panel of the Council on Foreign Relations concluded that the nation needs to invest $98 billion more in first responders over the next five years to counter terrorist threats. But the President’s budget reduces key grant programs for first responders, including anti-terror grants from the Office of Domestic Preparedness, FIRE Act, and COPS programs by more than $1.6 billion – by nearly a third - and does not provide funding for the new law to authorize the hiring of firefighters. In fact, the proposed cuts are even deeper because the President wants these same funds to cover needs such as port and bus security – security concerns that previously have had their own grant programs. On bio-terror, most of the funding for the Administration’s much publicized surveillance program actually takes away from existing bioterrorism programs. The most egregious is a $105 million cut in bioterrorism preparedness grants to state and local health departments. The Administration is cutting another $39 million in grants to develop hospital surge capacity to respond to a bioterrorism attack. These are the very programs that the HHS official in charge of terrorism preparedness has said should be increased. Indeed, one public health official likened it to "laying off firefighters while investing in new hoses and ladders." Port and container security is another critical concern, given the millions of containers entering our country through ports and expert assessments that these containers and facilities could be used to wreak havoc on lives, and our economic well-being. While the Administration does propose some increases for Coast Guard personnel, and to improve the security of containers before they reach U.S. shores, it ignores so much more. The Coast Guard has said it will cost $1.2 billion in the first year – and $4 billion over 10 years – just to make basic necessary physical security improvements at the ports. Yet the Administration has proposed only $46 million to help meet these costs in FY 05 – and is not even seeking to guarantee that amount. The President’s budget also under-funds the Deepwater program to modernize the Coast Guard’s badly aging fleet and equipment. By its own admission, the Administration’s status quo budget proposal will result in a 22-year timetable for the "modernization." So, we have a long way to go before we fulfill the promise we made to the American people in those dark days following the September 11th terrorist attacks to adequately secure our homeland. I do want to stress that this debate ought not to become partisan. We ought to aspire to achieve the same level of nonpartisanship that we have achieved in our discussions about national security. For we have no more urgent priority than to provide for the domestic defense and to secure our homeland and the American people from terrorist attacks. Last year, I called for an additional $16 billion in homeland security spending beyond the President’s proposal. This year, there is at least as much critical need – first and foremost to give our first responders and preventers the tools they need to help keep us safe. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the appointment of Governor Ridge as Secretary, we now have an authorized and accountable member of the President’s Cabinet to address these critical matters, and with whom members of Congress and the American public can discuss these important matters, and I look forward to discussing them with you today, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Madame Chairman. |
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340 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510