Mark Amodei

Mr. AMODEI

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, here is a little history, and you can use it however you like. In the 2024 appropriations bill, we cut CISA $15 million, and it was because of this switchboarding issue. I agree that sometimes you want to get somebody's attention. Appropriations is money. That was done this last time. As we look at what this agency has been doing since then--and I appreciate the history. The history is strong and warrants attention, and I think we dealt with that the last time. Oversight is an ongoing and continuing thing. When I sit here and look at this and say: We are going to flat fund them. That is the proposal. I say: Well, how are you going to do that? Where is that funding going to come from? Just the standard, there you go, you are flat funded, at a time when their mission domestically in terms of infrastructure, whether that is utilities, communications or any number of things--I mean, in the media, it is like if you are going to buy a car, somebody hacked the outfit that does all that cyber stuff to make it easier to do. If you are going to go to a casino, those folks have been hacked. The mission is growing. You say: Well, who is the mission? What is that about? That is not about our friends, Mr. Chair. That is about folks who do not wish us well, so Russians, Chinese, all that other sort of stuff. I would be more comfortable with this if there was a trigger saying, if we fund that and you do this, we are going to come and get some money. I would be more comfortable with this if it were like: Here is where you are going to take it from. It is a funny time to be telling the folks who are in charge of cybersecurity in the non-DOD sectors: We are going to flat fund you. I do not believe that money is the answer to every problem that we come across. This mission has never been more challenging. I think the oversight has been good under this Director, and quite frankly, from recent history they are headed the right way. It doesn't mean you take your eyes off of them. To go back and say you are flat funded, quite frankly, I think it is a curious time. Mr. Chair, reluctantly, I don't support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner).

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, the bipartisan en bloc amendment before you is comprised of 28 amendments offered by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This en bloc amendment contains proposals that will strengthen the underlying bill. I want to highlight just a few. It would provide additional funding to bolster investigations for exploited children within Secret Service and Homeland Security Investigations. It highlights the Coast Guard's ongoing need for assets, infrastructure, and maintenance funding. It emphasizes the importance of nonintrusive inspection equipment for CBP ports of entry to improve detection of fentanyl and other opioids that plague communities across our country. It increases funds for FEMA grant programs for firefighters and other first responders and highlights the importance of grants that fund physical security improvements for nonprofit organizations at risk of terrorist attack. Again, I thank my colleagues for their participation in this process, I urge Members to support this bipartisan en bloc, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 1316, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. It is the border. It is the border. It is the border. We have heard about messaging. We have heard about managing, all of that sort of stuff, and still here we are. The bill under consideration this morning provides $64.8 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. When we hear about turning our backs, that is an increase of $2.9 billion above the fiscal year 2024 level. The bill prioritizes investments that make the border--remember, it is about the border--more secure and makes appropriate cuts to policies and programs that, quite frankly, we don't think work. When we talk about value judgments and stuff like that, if you think the record on the southern border has been a successful thing for immigration, we respectfully disagree. We have heard from the professionals in the field, our Border Patrol agents and CBP officers who are being crushed dealing with, dare I say, an unprecedented flow of migrants day after day. This bill supports them through real policy change, not just words. Our colleagues across the aisle are content to treat the border crisis as an issue that can be managed. They throw huge sums of money at a problem the failed policies created. It does not work. What do I mean? You have the flow across the border, and now it has become a problem everywhere else in the country. What do school districts do? What do housing people do? What do law enforcement people do? It is fair to focus on the border, but the impacts are not just this is just kind of that deal there. Law enforcement professionals don't want to manage the border; they want to enforce the law. They want to enforce not the law that we are talking about recently, but they want to enforce the law that has been on the books for a long time. Dare I say there are some executive orders that may put the interpretation of the law at issue. They want to enforce the law for us to change the course, to end the chaos. If you think what is happening there is a nice, calm thing and it just needs more resources for management, I respectfully disagree. My colleagues want to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to nonprofit organizations for transportation and other services that only further incentivizes the immigration rush we have got. If you can get across, we will take it from there, and what ``we will take it'' means is giving additional services for transportation. Do nonprofits reduce encounters or deter anyone from crossing illegally? No, they don't. This enables all that, so we cut funding for that program. You have heard about border management and shelter services. That is a couple of billion dollars. The numbers are right. Quite frankly, that is one of the funding sources that has been used to transport people all around the country, sometimes on airlines, sometimes in the middle of the night, but nonetheless to manage--we have got all these people here, and we have got to get them spread out as soon as possible. Madam Chair, it is time for plain talk. We zero that account out. Oh, my God, you did what? Yep. Do any of us think the Senate will leave it at zero? No. While we are talking about our colleagues in the Senate, this bill last year got zip in the way of--how about this policy or that policy. None. It is a big win for you, I guess, if you are on that side of the fence. Guess what? We are going to create some things where if you want some money back for that and you want it restricted so it isn't a slush fund to implement policies that are not on the books in terms of statute or regulation, then guess what, that is zeroed out, as are all of the funds for nonprofits. The criticism there is spot on. It is all seen as a way to facilitate huge amounts of people coming over and processing them away from the border as soon as possible. It is not border cities. They are hardened or whatever; not that they don't need help. It is cities and counties across the country. The answer, according to 3 years' worth of record-high illegal immigration, in our opinion, is a resounding no, so we cut that funding. Last year, CBP recorded 3.2 million encounters. To put it in perspective, that is about 11 times the population of the largest city in my district. That is just at the southern border in 1 year. Last year, we funded $1.7 billion for tents to process an unprecedented number of aliens that continue to cross between ports of entry under this administration's open-border policies. Has spending billions of taxpayer dollars for processing tents along the southern border just to release aliens into the interior at a rapid pace reduced illegal immigration at all? Quite the contrary. In this bill, we eliminated that funding. In the middle of an election year, the administration just announced a proclamation to shut down the border if encounters between the ports of entry reach a certain level. We have been beyond those levels for a while now. That is quite an announcement. I heard somebody earlier speak about this is about messaging. I guess in some areas, it is absolutely about messaging. Oh, by the way, all of those previous administration policies, such as shelter in place and stuff like that kind of kept things to a cooperative between two countries and at some sort of manageable level. No, those are all out the door at the beginning of this. That is why this bill invests in tried-and-true methods of securing the border that men and women in the field are asking for: more agents, more detention beds, more technology, and--I know this is bad--physical barriers. This bill makes the following border security investment: sustains funding for 22,000 Border Patrol agents, $300 million for border security technology, which is a record in that area if somebody thinks anybody is turning their back on anybody. That includes autonomous surveillance towers, mobile surveillance platforms, counter-tunnel equipment, and a significant investment in counter-drone capability. There is $600 million for a border wall because we know physical barriers work. Finally, there is $305 million in nonintrusive inspection equipment and upgrades so that we can detect fentanyl at our ports of entry. That is right. This bill does that. In addition to our efforts at the border, the bill includes funding for critical immigration enforcement efforts such as $3.1 billion to support 50,000 detention beds for ICE. This is 8,500 more beds than were funded last year and 16,000 more than this administration asked for. Yes, we have a disagreement on how many is enough. There is $822 million for flights and ground transportation for ICE to execute its statutory authority to remove more than 1.4 million migrants who are still in this country despite having final orders of removal. In case anybody didn't catch that, that is to transport people south, not north, east, and west. There is $60 million to hire more than 250 new law enforcement officers to investigate transnational criminal activity and keep our communities safe from those who seek to do us harm. Translation: fentanyl. Those folks are here to work that issue which, last I heard, was evasive, pervasive, and needs more help. The bill also makes critical investments outside the southern border. For TSA we provide $178 million to speed up computed tomography screening device efforts at the Nation's airports. This is new technology that is available that has been rolled out at some airports, but, frankly, the administration had it on a 15-year funding cycle. By the time all of our airports get that, I am sure there will be new and better technology that will make this obsolete. What does the bill do, Madam Chairman? It puts it on a 5-year cycle. It gets that out to the airports and makes the flying public safer. We doubled the requested amount to pursue those things. Then we get to China. As we continue to grow in terms of having to meet the challenge of China's military, economic, and political influence in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. must have a persistent presence in the region. This bill expands Coast Guard operations in the Indo-Pacific with additional capacity and capability to include $335 million for four fast response cutters to increase deployments in the region, $60 million for service life extension to enable the Coast Guard to deploy another medium endurance cutter, and $4.2 million for increased operations funds for the Coast Guard to interact and conduct exercises with our allies in the Indo-Pacific so that we are ready to go if we need to because we practiced with our friends. The bill funds the core responsibilities of the department and protects the homeland. What it doesn't do is fund the failed policies that further contribute to chaos at our southern border. Madam Chairman, that is how you really support the hardworking men and women of DHS protecting the Nation. We need to change course on the border. We sincerely believe that. Interestingly enough, so do many mayors of large cities across the Nation regardless of their political affiliation. We need to change that course not through gimmicks but through real policy and funding changes. This bill is a step in the right direction. Madam Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Cole, for his leadership throughout the fiscal year 2025 process and his support as we continue to take conservative appropriations bills to the floor. I also thank the ranking member of the full committee, Ms. DeLauro, and the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Underwood, who worked with us in good faith on the bill despite some disagreements on policy. I thank them for the opportunity to kick off this appropriations season, if you will, and I am looking forward to getting started here. Lastly, I express my gratitude to the staff on both sides for their tireless efforts. As we all know, without them, this would be a pretty tough thing and a much different thing to do. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 8752, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, I will just put on the Record that I associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Tiffany, and I support the amendment.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Underwood), my colleague.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. AMODEI

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, there have been a few areas covered, and so I will try to be brief. I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to thank my colleague from New York for his collegiality and professionalism in the way that we have gone through this process this year and I look forward to working with him in the future. Architect of the Capitol, their top ten projects were funded. I know there has been some discussion about it. We didn't pick them. We asked them to pick them, and so they did. In these times, when we are running deficits that are in the t neighborhood, not the b neighborhood, I don't think it is inappropriate to say we probably ought to look at some of the largest areas that we spend money on. When you look at the leg branch allocation, that pie chart, the biggest slice of the pie in the whole thing, other than running our offices and our committees and paying our employee benefits, is Architect of the Capitol. Give us your ten top priorities. I don't think that is partisan. I think that is responsible fiscal management. You can keep moving forward, but it is not like we don't have to eventually pay those bills. The Sergeant at Arms office, as I have indicated--and I won't spend a lot of time on it--is there and funded under this bill for cybersecurity and for one district office. If you have multiple ones, that doesn't make you a bad person. It just means you have to submit a plan, and we have to talk about how we deal with one district versus another based upon the realities on the ground of making that district office secure. Maybe it is a panic button. Maybe there is something else depending on that. I don't think it is irresponsible for Americans to expect the people who are responsible for spending their money to ask that we ask a few questions before we just say, Go do what you think you need to, and we will figure out a way to pay for it. That won't work. They want to make an exception for the House of Representatives that isn't there for most other folks. We are not going to do it. We need to deal with DACA comprehensively, and we should, and I will be there at the first meeting, the middle meeting, and the last meeting to deal with them. As a matter of fact, in previous Congresses, I have supported some DACA measures, which, quite frankly, weren't in compliance with what some people think a good Republican ought to be doing or whatever, but it was trying to solve a problem. It does not solve the DACA problem by carving out a tiny exception for Congress to be able to pretend like the rules on DACA shouldn't apply to us just like they do everybody else, so that is why we are at where we are at. Finally, I hadn't wanted to do this, but since this is an appropriations subcommittee and we talk about money and we are worried about the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, let me tell you why it was decided to move it. It spent $15,000 on a staff retreat at the Salamander, a luxury resort in Middleburg, Virginia; spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on customized swag, including windbreakers; spent tens of thousands of dollars on partisan diversity events we talked about not being partisan for Black History Month, Women's History Month, as well as $25,000 for racial equity group training. The office went over a year without a director as House Democrats failed to fill the position and even put one of their own staffers down there temporarily in an acting capacity while still serving as the assigned oversight staffer for House admin Democrats, a clear conflict of interest. It used taxpayer dollars to give away gift cards to staff for attending their programming; spending that is not allowed in any other context, committee or personal office budgets, and which could raise ethics questions. It is not like somebody wanted to be mean to somebody because they had a political disagreement. This is fiscal irresponsibility and needs to be addressed. I will finish with this: We addressed the oversight problem, which appropriations does, but kept the mission intact in the Chief Administrative Officer. With that, I would hope that Members would see their way clear to support this bill as a logical step for leading by example, but not basically handicapping us. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I guess since we are going to stay on it for a minute, I will go ahead and stay on it. Nobody is opposed to diversity or inclusion. Here are some of the reasons why this office was focused on. This bill that you have before you, Mr. Speaker, is consistent with administrative restructuring to streamline human resources activities consistent with the House Committee on Administration. Bringing the best person for the job in any agency or office under this bill is what we are trying to encourage. There are currently multiple staff support offices focused on human resources that can be reorganized and streamlined into one. The Chief Administrative Office is consumer focused and is best suited to create a House-wide office of talent and development. That is a new office that is created under this bill, which, by the way, has the mission of the old ODI. ODI was created under House rules as its own office but will be moving to the reproposed CAO to become a part of the new office of talent and development. By this restructuring, we expect to increase accessibility to resources provided to House staff by creating a one- stop shop while also saving millions by streamlining duplicative efforts. Not only will the reorganization make activities more efficient, but it will help with oversight. Now, let's talk about the Capitol Police for a minute. Yes, there were cuts in the requested budget for Capitol Police, but let's talk about uniformed personnel. Let's talk about the Intelligence Division. Let's talk about what the Capitol Police do to protect our campus and our operations. By the way, that is leadership details, as well. When we talk about all those functions, all of their uniformed officer positions have been fully funded. I will say that again: fully funded. Now, it takes a while to recruit, vet, and train a Capitol Police officer. It is not one of those things where you throw the switch and say we need 500 or 600 more so that we are at our full complement of around 2,200. It takes a while to train them in the academy before we turn them loose on the job. For the ones you see that they are fully trained, fully vetted, and ready to go, that takes time. It is not a budget function. They were fully funded for that. We also maintain their intelligence functions, and we also maintain their protective detail functions. There were cuts to the Capitol Police budget, but not in those areas. I will also point out that some of the cuts were in funds that they weren't able to spend in this cycle anyhow. As we are looking for savings to do the best job in terms of budget responsibility, we also wanted to recognize the reality that if you can't spend it in this cycle, let's not keep it in this cycle. Mr. Speaker, I will indicate that those were not things that were in a MAGA rush to do this, that, or the other sort of thing. It was trying to be responsible with the legislative branch allocation that we have, which, by the way, is four-tenths of 1 percent of all spending. That doesn't mean that because it is that, we don't care about it. It means we need to do our part, too. Similarly, the part that you didn't hear is that MRAs were kept the same so Members can keep doing their thing. Committee accounts on both sides were kept the same so Members could keep doing the committees' work on both sides of the aisle. Frankly, in the context that we live in, we think it was the responsible way to lead by example. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I was remiss in not saying thank you, so I will follow the lead of my esteemed ranking member and thank him and his staff as well as my staff for the way we were able to conduct the committee's business. Even though we disagreed on many things, we weren't disagreeable about it, which, some days, is quite a unique thing in this business. My hat is off to them, and my thank-you is on the record for the help from everybody on both sides. I will cover a couple of areas in the spirit that the committee worked. My colleague has mentioned the DACA program, which is, frankly, something that, while we may have some disagreements on it, overall, we may agree on more than we disagree. However, as the clerk indicated, this is the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. When we are talking about issues that deal with immigration or the DACA program or anything else, that is the appropriate jurisdiction, in most cases, of the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, the folks standing up on either side of you, Mr. Speaker, from the Parliamentarian's Office go through that drill and figure out the appropriate jurisdiction for this bill. We came to the conclusion that it wasn't. It doesn't mean that we disagree on a lot of that stuff, but nonetheless, you can't do that in the Legislative Branch bill, so we didn't. On the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, I am not going to go through what happened in that office over the last few years. I will just say this: It was created by a rule in a previous Congress. In exercising our appropriate oversight authority in seeing how that money was spent, I will just say that there was a sincere belief that that was not what was intended. When we talk about retreats, gift cards for employees, office bling, and multiple other things, it is not that the mission isn't important. It is, which is why the mission was preserved and moved under the supervision of the Chief Administrative Officer for the House, and an appropriate budget to do that work is fine. There was part of a reorganization, which now puts them under a different office that is a subset of the Chief Administrative Officer for the House. However, to continue on in a largely unsupervised, autonomous role, where the use of funds was not impressive, the committee thought that it was appropriate to maintain the mission but change the structure for more supervision. Also, when we talk about staff security, my colleague, the ranking member, is absolutely right. It is a concern for everybody. What the committee has done was say that we don't want to just throw a bunch of money at it and say go do good things with security. We wanted to have a plan. I will tell you this: Each office can designate one of their district offices for planning. My colleague's district is in the Big Apple downtown. Mine is a long way away from there. One size doesn't fit all, so we wanted to be a little thoughtful about that. That is why we deferred from just going in whole hog. You need to know that the Office of the Sergeant at Arms will now provide cybersecurity. This was done after the committee adjourned. It will now provide cybersecurity support to offices that ask for it. By the way, my figures indicate there are 364 Members who have availed themselves of some form of funding through the Office of the Sergeant at Arms for security for those offices. I look forward to continuing that when we get plans that are appropriate for the settings that those district offices are in so we can make a rational, well-based, intelligent decision on how to spend that money. Mr. Speaker, while we may not be in agreement over the amounts we are spending on each one, I don't know if there is a lot of disagreement on the mission. It is just how much emphasis it gets and how we use taxpayer dollars in a responsible manner to go ahead and pursue those goals. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AMODEI. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The legislative branch bill is what we do to ourselves. We don't need the President's budget. This is what the House, in its wisdom, does for spending with respect to the House accounts and also some accounts we share with the Senate--Capitol Police, Congressional Budget Office, other agencies like that. As we look at what we are doing here in the context of this appropriations season, the amount of money that is spent on this represents about a 4.7 percent cut from the previous budget year for purposes of the legislative branch. It gets a little bit less when you add the Senate in, but the House has done its job in terms of leading by example. Now, you may say, how have you done your job? Let me tell you this: What we have done with respect to Members' office budgets, committee budgets, and some of the support functions--for instance, in the Library of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, and the General Accountability Office--we have left those accounts at or near what their previous levels were. Some of them enjoy modest increases, but if you care about constituent services, if you care about doing a good job of being able to hold the Senate's feet to the fire, the White House's feet to the fire, or the people on the other side of the aisle's feet to the fire, you need resources to do that. The time has never been more important than it is now for us to be able to do our jobs in a way that is appropriate for the challenges that confront our country. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.