Improving America's Security Act of 2007

IMPROVING AMERICA'S SECURITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - March 05, 2007)

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my friend from California and my friend from Texas.

Let me first start by telling my colleagues that this is virtually identical to the same proposal the Senate voted on last July during consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill. In fact, the Senate has repeatedly voted on this formula issue throughout the past few years. The Senate has also repeatedly rejected the approach put forth by my colleagues from California and Texas. The last time this amendment was voted on, it was defeated by a vote of 36 to 64.

This map says it all. The amendment offered by the Senator from California would cut homeland security grant dollars for 34 States and the District of Columbia. I emphasize that because I think by any reasonable analysis, the District of Columbia is a high-risk area. I am not stressing the District of Columbia just because the Presiding Officer is from Virginia but, rather, because it is an area that has been the subject of a terrorist attack.

What the Feinstein-Cornyn amendment would do is reallocate the funding to turn it over to 16 States that already receive 60 percent of the funding. I think we have a basic philosophical disagreement in discussing how the homeland security money should be allocated. I certainly agree that risk should be a factor, but I also believe--and the testimony before our Homeland Security Committee confirms--that all States need to receive a predictable, reasonable base allocation of homeland security funding. States need that predictable multiyear funding in order to fund complex multiyear projects, such as creating interoperable communications networks or first responder training programs. Risk-based funding, even if it is distributed properly, is important, but it is likely to fluctuate dramatically from year to year.

Furthermore, the minimums in this amendment are simply too low. Under this amendment, each State would only be assured of $2.28 million under the authorized levels for the Homeland Security Grant Program. That is just about half of the proposed Homeland Security Grant Program minimum in S. 4. I encourage Senators to talk to the first responders in their States--the police officers, the firefighters, the emergency managers--to find out what gaps in homeland security would be left unfilled if they faced such a reduction.

As one can see from this chart, there would be a substantial reduction under all of the homeland security programs. Let's take the interoperability program. We know States have not made nearly the progress that needs to be made in having compatible communications equipment. That was certainly one of the lessons from 9/11, where so many first responders lost their lives because they simply could not talk to one another. When the Homeland Security Committee did its in-depth investigation into the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, we found exactly the same kinds of interoperability problems. In fact, we found there were parishes within Louisiana where, within the same parish or county, the firefighters could not talk to the police officers, who in turn could not talk to the emergency medical personnel.

The only way to ensure a base level of security and preparedness in each and every State is to require that there be a reasonable minimum amount of homeland security grant funding awarded to each State.

The National Governors Association has said it well. The NGA has written to me that:

To effectively protect our States and territories from potential terrorist events, all sectors of government must be part of an integrated plan to prevent, detect, and respond to and recover from a terrorist act. For the plan to work, it is essential that it be funded through a predictable and sustainable mechanism both during its development and in its implementation.

It is important to note that the law requires States to develop 3-year homeland security plans, and we are requiring any homeland security funding be used to accomplish those plans and to meet minimum levels of preparedness.

I am surprised that many who are offering this amendment, which would give the Department even more latitude than it has now, are the same people who are expressing outrage at the way the Department used its authority last year to allocate the funding. I note that I joined in that outrage. As I told Secretary Chertoff at a hearing before our Homeland Security Committee, I would not have guessed he could have made both the State of Maine and New York City equally unhappy in how he allocated homeland security funds, but he managed to do just that.

The Department is moving away from the methodology it used last year to allocate funding based on risk. New York

Senators were very eloquent in describing the risk analysis DHS had used. For example, my colleague, Senator Schumer, said:

The way that the Department of Homeland Security has given out high-threat funding defies logic, and it is dangerous.

That was typical of the comments that were made.

I agree with my colleagues, and that is why we were so careful to come up with a different approach and one that includes strong accountability measures to address concerns, that requires the Department of Homeland Security to provide Congress with its risk allocation methodology in advance, and that also provides a predictable, stable level of funding which will allow States to meet their diverse needs.

One of the important parts of the funding formula the Senator from Connecticut and I have labored so hard to put forth is providing assistance to law enforcement to try to detect and prevent attacks from happening in the first place.

I must remind my colleagues that the leader of the attacks on our country on 9/11 started his journey of death and destruction not from a large urban area but from Portland, ME. Just think if we could have detected that plot and arrested Mohamed Atta in Portland, ME, before he launched his attack.

Risk is not an easy calculation. We saw that last year when the Department brought forth its very flawed methodology that made so many of us unhappy. But, unfortunately, we are seeing that approach used again by the Feinstein-Cornyn amendment because that flawed methodology which the sponsors of this amendment have embraced results in cuts to the District of Columbia--clearly a high-risk jurisdiction--and yet it would reduce funding for the District of Columbia. I think it jeopardizes the funding for 34 States--34 States, many of them border States that have obvious vulnerabilities, many of them coastal States that have obvious vulnerabilities. Then there is Kansas, with the threat of agraterrorism, about which I know the distinguished Senator from Kansas has been very concerned. Think of an attack on our food supply. That is much more likely to occur in a rural area. Think of an attack on a nuclear powerplant in a rural area.

The point is, we have a lot of critical infrastructure in this country that is located outside our large urban centers. So we have to avoid embracing a flawed methodology, and we have to recognize that every State has risks and vulnerabilities and every State needs to achieve minimal levels of preparedness, and we clearly are not there yet.

I hope we will, once again, turn down the well-intentioned but misguided amendment offered by the Senators from California and Texas. I believe it would really cause problems for our country as we try to strengthen our homeland security.

I end this segment of my comments by noting a report by the RAND Corporation that was prepared for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City, another place where there was a terrorist attack that would not generally be considered a high-risk area. It says:

Homeland security experts and first responders have cautioned against an overemphasis on improving the preparedness of large cities to the exclusion of small communities or rural areas, and it recognizes that much of the Nation's infrastructure and potential high-value targets are located in rural areas.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, because I know the Senator from South Carolina is waiting to speak, I will not go into any detail about this amendment, but I did want to file it so that my colleagues have a chance to look it over, overnight.

This amendment is an attempt to reach a middle ground on the issue of rights for TSA employees. It provides that TSA employees may join a union; may have a pay-for-performance system; will have the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board any adverse employment actions, such as demotions or firings, so they would have the same rights in that regard as other Federal employees; and it would give them explicit protections under the Whistleblowers Protection Act. It also calls for a review in 1 year's time of the personnel system to see if further changes are needed, and it asks GAG to evaluate the system.

This amendment is cosponsored by Senator Stevens, Senator Voinovich, and Senator Warner at this point.

Again, this is an attempt to find a middle ground on the TSA issue. The TSA employees do a terrific job working very hard to protect us. I believe the current law does not afford them the kind of workplace protections they deserve. Yet we want to preserve the flexibility of the TSA to be able to move people, to deploy them, to respond to imminent threats, new intelligence, or any sort of emergency situation. I believe this amendment would achieve that goal.

I will be talking about the amendment in more depth tomorrow.

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