Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Continued -- (House of Representatives - June 14, 2007)

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 1/2 minutes.

Ever since we created the Department of Homeland Security, we have had a problem of what to do with our air assets.

This amendment would hold $100 million from the Customs and Border Protection, CBP, Air and Marine interdiction, operations, maintenance, and procurement account until a report is received detailing the number of requests CBP receives from the use of assets and the number of those requests that are denied.

One of the problems we had when we, in effect, set up ICE and CBP was to to do with the division called Air and Marine. Air and Marine Division did not stay parked right along the border. The Air and Marine Division has assets down in Colombia. They have assets in the Caribbean, assets in the Eastern Pacific, assets at various points, because the whole point of the Air and Marine Division was both with boats and air to be able to follow in particular drug traffickers, other traffickers of contraband in high value or mass targets in the sense of illegal immigration or of terrorism.

But when we put the air assets underneath CBP and they put them under Border Patrol, the nature of what we were doing with our Air and Marine assets have fundamentally changed.

As the now ranking member of the Border Subcommittee and a member of the Homeland Security Committee since its creation, I have spent a lot of time on this issue, as well as being head of Speaker Hastert's drug task force. I have spent my entire career working on narcotics issues. This has been a huge issue. In particular, one of our problems right now is that many, if not all, of the critical assets are now more or less chained to the border; that one of the P-3s, which are critical for long-range surveillance, right now, because of their usage, and it hasn't been made a priority because the maintenance is going to the helicopters along the border, all 16, and let me repeat, all 16 air assets that are supposed to be used in counternarcotics are now down for serious maintenance, leaving the counterdrug mission severely impacted. And if we can't work out to some degree over in the Florida and the Gulf of Mexico range, they fixed this short term by having legacy Air and Marine or Customs pilots be the regional Border Patrol people and managing their assets. But along the border, we don't have that luxury.

We have been trying in the authorizing committee for some time to get a report from the agency, and I have spent hours with the relevant people in my office, as well as questioning at hearings, trying to get the data of how exactly they are using these assets. What are they denying? ICE can't get the assets to do the big-risk things. This has been one of the historic conflicts between these agencies.

I support a picket fence. We need to have a border fence. But you also have to have the ability to go behind and forward and track and take down systems. And Air and Marine is a critical part of this, and we need this report. And I hope that if we can't work this out tonight, that it can be worked out in conference committee, because this must be resolved.

May I inquire of the chairman of the subcommittee for a brief, informal colloquy here, would you be willing to continue to work with me on this subject and with the Department of Homeland Security, because it is very critical to how we are going to do counternarcotics and high-risk terrorism and how CBP is going to work with ICE in resolving the Air and Marine issue?

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Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman, and with that assurance, I am not really anxious to hold up any money in this bill either. But I would like them to be accountable to Congress because they have not resolved how they are going to move and deal with Air and Marine assets related to ICE and investigations. They sometimes have even sent helicopters where we needed a P-3. This just isn't functioning, and narcotics terrorism is ripping up this country. We have 20,000 to 30,000 deaths a year. And if we have loads of cocaine coming in, loads of heroin coming into our society, because we have got all our planes lined up on the border and our P-3s down, it will not function. And with your assurance that you will continue to work with this, watch this, and we continue to talk about it between the authorizing and the appropriators, I will be happy to withdraw my amendment tonight.

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment in effect transfers money from the alteration of bridges account, $8 million, and $21.5 million allocated from the operating expenses allocated to airborne use of force account, and moves it over to buy a Coast Guard maritime patrol aircraft.

The challenge here in Deepwater, which has had admitted problems, but which is one of the most important long-term programs of the Coast Guard for reaching out into beyond just harbor patrol to be able to protect our country, whether it be illegal contraband, such as narcotics or anthrax or whatever, or high risk terrorists, is that we don't have enough assets that are operating and functional, and part of this is aircraft.

The MH-68, the HITRON, leases have expired, and we have moved to the M-65s, which are replacing them in the field. The Coast Guard then requested four more, to bring it up to 12, of assets that go out with the Deepwater Program. This bill already cuts Deepwater $197 million. This is the only Coast Guard plus-up that we would have related to Deepwater. They deeply need these air assets.

Now, one of the challenges here is, what is this $8 million alteration of bridges account? The Coast Guard in the report language here, it suggests that the Coast Guard has asked and said we don't have people who maintain bridges and we don't want to do this. The committee is ordering the Coast Guard to do the bridges, rather than the Department of Transportation.

We also have a question of what is this $21.5 million, and it looks like it is for an MH-68 that the Coast Guard didn't want in a lease that expired.

A former Homeland Security Department official now works for a lobbying firm who has been lobbying the Hill to continue this lease, in spite of the fact that the Coast Guard doesn't want the lease. We have been unable to identify which Members have actually been advocating renewing the lease that the Coast Guard doesn't want for a helicopter we don't need, and they cut the committee request from four to two for a helicopter the Coast Guard desperately needs and wants. This would put that back in.

While it is not absolutely clear whether this is a closet earmark, it hasn't exactly been coming forward on the helicopter part or the designation in this bill, which actually doesn't designate the $21.5 million. It asks the Coast Guard to submit a plan. But the lobbyist has been all over the Hill today and recently saying this is for the MH-68 helicopter we don't want.

My amendment merely says, let's help Deepwater. Let's give them the helicopter they need and want, rather than giving them money they don't want for something they don't do that the Department of Transportation does in bridges and for a helicopter they don't want with an expired lease.

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that what the chairman was referring to was a general account of the things that I referred to which were inside the general account. I am not trying to cut funding for personnel. There is $8 million in the bill for alteration of bridges. The report language says the committee denies the request to transfer personnel devoted to maintaining safe passage of marine traffic. That means that the Coast Guard had requested to the committee that they didn't want these funds. The reason they don't want the funds is they don't have personnel that does bridges. They said this should be, according to your report language, within the Department of Transportation's Maritime Division to do bridges.

I don't know what kind of fight is occurring between Transportation and Coast Guard here, but basically the Coast Guard wants the money to do their mission, not to do bridges, and this amendment tries to address this.

Then also in the airborne use of force, there is a discussion about the $21.5 million, which just happens to be the amount that the lobbying firm is seeking to continue the MH-68 HITRON helicopter, which is a great helicopter, I have been in it, but it is not armed. It is outdated and they are moving to the M-65s. They have the M-65s on line or in production, the ones that you said that are off-the-shelf helicopters that they are now adapting, of which they had eight and they wanted four more and you gave them two more.

The money for the account that they don't want and don't have people to do and the 21.5 for a contract they don't want would buy the additional helicopter that they do want that's off the shelf and merely would need to be added to.

I would ask the chairman respectfully, can you identify who is requesting this, because we haven't been able to figure out who's pushing this MH-68 contract of which the amount of money is the exact amount of money. And the lobbyist is all over the Hill saying that that's what this is for.

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Mr. SOUDER. I agree with that. My question then would be, given what we've been hearing and we have been suggested and it is all over that this amount just happens to be the amount that was proposed for the lease and that it's intended for a lease.

Will the chairman assure me that in fact the Coast Guard is submitting an independent request to you for 21.5 and it's not intended to buy an MH-68?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Yes, I can assure you of that.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

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