Hearing of Committee on Homeland Security - Department of Homeland Security: The Road Ahead

Hearing of Committee on Homeland Security - Department of Homeland Security: The Road Ahead

Senator Coleman. Thank you. It is great to be back. I appreciate your great leadership and appreciate, as the new
Members will see, the incredible strength of the bipartisan relationship on this Committee with great respect for the work
of the Ranking Member also. So it is a pleasure to be here and I look forward to the testimony, Madam Chairman. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Coleman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN

Madam Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this important hearing on the future of the Department of Homeland Security. I want to join in thanking all the members on the panel for appearing this
morning before the Committee to discuss what lies ahead on this important issue.

My home State of Minnesota has a wide range of Homeland Security interests given that we share an international border with Canada, we have two major cities in Minneapolis and St. Paul and we have a major port in the city of Duluth. Unfortunately, however, this year Minnesota witnessed an average 48 percent reduction in the allocation of Federal
homeland security dollars, including a 71 percent reduction to our urban area security initiative alone. As the Department of Homeland Security evolves, Members on this Committee will have to provide effective oversight to ensure that policies and strategies pursued are well thought out and provide the best security possible.

On that note, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is currently pursing three areas of oversight regarding the response of the Department of Homeland Security to the threat of nuclear terrorism: The Container Security Imitative, the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and the deployment of radiation portal monitors. I am also interested in ways we can remove unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles for students wishing to study in the United States and reverse the perceptions about America being unwelcome to foreign students.

I am very interested to hear the panelist's thoughts on these issues and their feelings on the long term development of the
Department of Homeland Security.

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