Senate appropriations panel boosts homeland security spending by 2.4 percent

The Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee on July 14 completed its markup of the fiscal year 2011 spending program for homeland security by adding just over $1 billion to last year’s enacted budget – an increase of 2.4 percent -- but that amount was slightly less than its House counterpart had agreed to on June 24.

The Senate subcommittee settled on the figure of $43.790 billion, which would be 2.4 percent higher than the homeland security appropriations budget of $42.776 billion signed by President Obama for fiscal year 2010.

The House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee completed its work on the FY2011 budget last month, and announced its total appropriation as $43,890 billion.

The measures must be approved by the full appropriations committees and then the full House and Senate, before being sent to a conference committee to reconcile any remaining differences. Fiscal year 2011 officially begins on October 1, 2010.

On the Senate side, the measure was shepherded through the subcommittee by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who acted as interim chairman, in place of the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who died on June 28.

In most instances, the House and Senate were in general agreement about their approaches to homeland security funding levels, but a few striking differences emerged:

• The House subcommittee included only $430 million for investments along the Southwest Border in fencing, infrastructure, surveillance technology and SBInet. “This reflects a reduction in the SBInet portion of this account because the Secretary [of DHS] has suspended any significant new investments in the troubled technology program while the Department completes a comprehensive reassessment of the goals and structure of the program,” says a press release issued by the House subcommittee chairman, Rep. David Price (D-NC) on June 24. Three weeks later, the Senate subcommittee fully funded the same Southwest Border program to the tune of $574 million, as the President had requested.
• The two subcommittees approached the continuing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in slightly different ways. Back in June, the House panel added $38.5 million to President Obama’s FY2011 request “to enhance the Coast Guard’s oil rig inspection and spill response capacity, and to develop advanced oil spill control and cleanup technologies.” By contrast, the Senate panel added just $20 million to the president’s request, which would pay for 176 additional Coast Guard billets “to improve Coast Guard oversight of the maritime industry, including offshore oil rigs.”
• While both subcommittees supported a sizable expansion at the Transportation Security Administration – with each panel approving the President’s request for 5,355 new screeners to operate 503 new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) full body scanners, plus 275 extra canine teams – the House tossed in another $7 million “to enhance targeting systems and the capacity of the National Targeting Center to deal with expanded passenger and cargo screening,” said Rep. Price’s press release.

While much of the government is straining under budget pressures and a mushrooming federal deficit, political support for homeland security spending remains strong on Capitol Hill.

“Within the past year, our nation has witnessed a substantial increase in attempts to attack our country, both by home-grown terrorists and individuals from outside our borders,” recounted Rep. Price. “While the Christmas Day and Times Square bombing attempts are the most visible of these thwarted disasters, DHS figures show how ‘the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period’.”