President has long failed to request adequate funding for security needs

Convincing President Bush to adequately fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been a constant struggle since the establishment of the agency. As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which directs federal dollars to DHS, I have been a leading critic of the Bush administration’s misleading and inadequate annual homeland security budget requests. Much time has been spent pressing the president and Congress to provide DHS with sufficient resources that would help fulfill critical missions vital to our nation’s safety and security.

In November 2002, when DHS was established, the president announced, “Our government will take every possible measure to safeguard our country and our people.” I do not believe the president has lived up to his words. His budget requests do not provide nearly enough dollars to help the more than 200,000 dedicated men and women work on the front lines each day to secure our ports, waterways, and borders; enforce our immigration laws; protect the 700 million passengers who use our airports each year; mitigate cyber attacks; and respond to disasters. I commend those federal employees serving in the department and thank them for their dedication to protecting our nation.

In February 2008, when the Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell released the Annual Threat Assessment, we were given crystal-clear evidence that potential attacks on our homeland are not diminishing.

He confirmed that al Qaeda has regrouped in Pakistan and that terrorists continue to pose significant threats to the United States. We learned that terrorists are likely to continue to focus on prominent infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties and significant economic damage. And once again, DHS stated its belief that the aviation sector is at a high risk of attack. But the alarming information contained in the threat assessment was not enough motivation for President Bush to increase his DHS fiscal 2009 budget request, which is flat.

Additionally, the president’s border security budget proposal does not address the significant obstacles our nation must overcome if we are to fully secure our borders. While the administration asserted that it had requested an increase of seven percent for the coming fiscal year, an honest calculation tells us something different. The president’s fuzzy math does not include the $2.7 billion of funding for border security that Congress provided in the last emergency supplemental. Even the president’s budget for 2009 recognizes that most of that emergency funding was provided not simply to address a one-time need. Rather, it constitutes a vital component of border security funding that must be funded on an ongoing basis.

I am particularly troubled by the negligence found in first-responder and aviation security budget requests. The president’s 48 percent proposed cut to first-responder grants is utterly irresponsible. Hurricane Katrina proved that our communities are not prepared to respond to a major disaster. Dramatically cutting funds for our police, fire, and emergency medical personnel and for emergency planning is not a solution. Additionally, I was disappointed to learn that funding Congress approved nearly a year ago for purchasing explosive detection systems for airline passenger baggage remains unspent, sitting in the treasury.

The American public can be assured that the Congress will restore President Bush’s reckless cuts to our homeland defense. Although the president has again, in a knee-jerk fashion, threatened to veto any appropriations bill that exceeds his request, we will not allow our homeland defense to be subject to political games. When Congress sends the fiscal 2009 Homeland Security Appropriations bill to the president, I will challenge him to put the security of the American people first and to sign this bill into law.

Byrd is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.