Making Appropriations for Science, the Departments of State, Justice , and Commerce, and Related Agencies for Fiscal Year 2006 Continued

MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR SCIENCE, THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, JUSTICE, AND COMMERCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 CONTINUED

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Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate has approved H.R. 2862, the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill providing vital funding for the Departments of Commerce and Justice and related agencies. I am, however, disappointed about the fact that this bill underfunds some important priorities. I am also disappointed that the Senate rejected several worthy amendments that would have improved this bill and helped to meet our obligations to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Whether we call police officers ``law enforcement'' or ``first responders,'' I believe that Congress, in partnership with States and local communities, has an obligation to provide State and local law enforcement with the tools, technology, and training they need to protect our communities. I am deeply concerned about proposed cuts in Federal funding programs for our nation's law enforcement officers. I have consistently supported a number of Federal grant programs, including the Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving, COPS, Program, which is instrumental in providing funding to train new officers and provide crime-fighting technologies. I also support funding for the Byrne grant program, which provides funding to help fight violent and drug-related crime, including support to multi-jurisdictional drug task forces, drug courts, drug education and prevention programs, and many other efforts to reduce drug abuse and prosecute drug offenders. I know how important these programs have been to Wisconsin law enforcement efforts, in particular with regard to fighting the spread of methamphetamines.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Once again this year, the administration's budget proposal would have drastically cut the COPS Program, and would have eliminated all funding for the Byrne grant program. I have already supported efforts to restore this funding through the budget process, and am proud to continue to fight in the appropriations process to make sure that state and local law enforcement receive the Federal grants that they need and deserve. We should be doing more, not less, to support our local law enforcement. In particular, I was proud to support Senator Biden's amendment that provided additional COPS funds for the hiring of local police officers, an aspect of the COPS Program that has been dramatically cut back. The amendment also would have provided $19 million to help find children displaced by Katrina and reunite them with their families, and to support victims of domestic violence and sexual assault affected by Katrina. I regret the Senate's decision to reject this amendment.

On the other hand, I am pleased that an amendment offered by Senators DAYTON and CHAMBLISS to increase Byrne/local law enforcement block grant funding by $275 million was accepted. This amendment, which I cosponsored, restores funding for these important programs to fiscal year 2003 levels, and I hope it will be retained in conference.

While I strongly support the efforts of Senator Stabenow to address the need for first responders to have interoperable communications capabilities, I could not support her amendment. My colleague from Michigan rightly notes that making sure that all of our first responders can communicate with each other must be a priority for our Nation, and I admire her efforts to advance this cause. However, 4 years after September 11 tragically highlighted this vitally important issue, we still do not have unified national interoperable communications standards. Without these standards, there is no guarantee that a new $5 billion grant program for equipment would create the interoperable communication system we need and that our first responders and communities deserve. When spending such massive amounts of money and such a large percentage of all first responder funding on this new program, we must make sure that we are spending the money wisely. Without standards we cannot meet this test and that is why I regretfully voted against this amendment.

I am disappointed that the Senate did not adopt the amendment I cosponsored offered by Senator Clinton that would have created a commission to investigate and identify the problems with the governmental response to Katrina. Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath devastated the gulf region and exposed serious flaws in our Nation's response capabilities. While the crisis prompted untold acts of heroism and compassion that continue to this day, it also revealed gaping holes in the Government's reaction and ability to stop, reduce, or mitigate the effects of this terrible disaster.

We need answers. We need answers about what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do to make sure our response is better to future disasters. We need a serious inquiry unimpeded by political considerations or posturing, and I believe an independent commission is the right way to do that. Our Nation and this Senate have been willing to spend tens of billions of dollars in the last 4 years to address our disaster response capabilities. Hurricane Katrina showed that those capabilities still can't provide Americans with the protection and safety they deserve. We need the serious rethinking and reassessment a Katrina commission could provide so that we can effectively address our nation's critical response needs. That is why I hope the Senate will soon reconsider establishing such a commission.

In closing, I want to note my disappointment that the bill fails to address problems with media concentration. I have long been concerned about concentration and vertical integration in the radio industry, which was one of the reasons I opposed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that relaxed many ownership restrictions. I feel that consolidation has the strong potential for limiting creativity, localism and diversity on our airwaves. In 1998, twice in 2001 and again in September 2002, the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, published reports on the changes in the radio industry as a result of the 1996 act. These reports showed significant consolidation nationally and in local markets. For example in 1996, the largest radio group owned less than 65 stations; by 2002 the largest radio group had more than 1,200 stations.

I proposed a modest amendment to require the FCC to update and provide Congress with a report on consolidation in the radio industry that the FCC last produced 3 years ago. I was disappointed that I was denied even the opportunity to get a vote on my amendment. As New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's recent payola settlement shows, there continue to be problems with the radio industry and therefore there is a need for updated information about the state of the industry so that Congress can decide how to address these problems.

http://thomas.loc.gov/