Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] to establish $20 million in grants to protect tourist populations. This amendment will ensure that homeland security funding allocations properly reflect a state's population, including its tourist population.

Currently federal first responder funding is based on a state's permanent population. States with large tourist populations are left with the responsibility for protecting a larger number of individuals than is reflected by the funding they receive from the federal government. As a result, first responders in these states face severe funding shortfalls. We need to ensure that methods for allocating federal assistance for homeland security, especially first responder funding, considers the resources needed to protect each and every individual in a state.

Tourists represent a significant proportion of the population in many states. This is especially true for Hawaii, where, at any given time, there are over 160,000 tourists in the state. Since the current first responder grant formula does not account for tourist populations, Hawaii is responsible for protecting 13 percent of its total population without federal assistance.

This funding is critical for all states with significant tourist populations. For this reason, I am pleased to have worked with Senator Collins, Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, to include language in S. 1245, the Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act of 2003, to ensure that tourist populations are fully addressed in first responder funding. This bill favorably passed out of committee unanimously. The Reid amendment builds on S. 1245, by providing the additional funding needed to protect tourist populations in federal first responder funding.

Federal funding for homeland security should fully account for the total population in a state, including tourist populations. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.