David Price

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield the balance of my time to my colleague Mr. Israel.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. That is a strange way to plan.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is saying that the present appropriation, the money in the pipeline, is not sufficient, that their ability to pull their plan together depends on whether your amendment passes.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, this agreement is not now in place; is that right?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman from New York's amendment to add a total of $40 million to the funding recommended by the committee for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. I have concerns, first of all, about two of the proposed offsets. First, the amendment proposes to reduce funding for the Office of the Under Secretary for Management by $35 million. The amendments adopted earlier this week already cut the Office of the Under Secretary for Management by 17 percent. This amendment, if adopted, would reduce the office by another 18 percent. This means that DHS will be unable to consolidate its 60 locations in the D.C. metro area into a new headquarters facility at St. Elizabeth's. Secondly, the amendment would reduce $5 million from the Coast Guard's research, development, testing, and evaluation program. This decrease would eliminate priority research to resolve how the Coast Guard can best operate unmanned aerial vehicles at sea after recent failures in the deepwater program as well as find ways to better manage invasive species such as zebra muscles and ballast water. At this time, I don't believe, Mr. Chairman, that funding for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office needs to be increased by $40 million. The committee has already increased the total funding for the office above last year's level by $35 million, excluding the supplemental funding. The bill before you did make some reductions within this office: a reduction of $20 million for the Securing the Cities program, and a reduction of $20 million for procuring radiation portal monitors. Let me briefly explain those items. The Securing the Cities program is a proposed pilot program that assumes a radioactive device is heading to the heart of New York City and, in order to detect this device, an elaborate network of radiation detection devices will be installed in a ring around the city. Congress provided $10 million in 2007 to begin this effort. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, very little of this funding has been spent because the Department of Homeland Security has not reached agreement with New York and New Jersey officials on the architecture for this initiative or developed a mutually acceptable deployment plan. DHS testified that this would not occur until at least the summer of 2007. The amendment being offered by the gentleman from New York would restore funding that we reduced from the President's budget request for this program for 2008. In total we appropriate $19.7 million instead of the $39.7 million requested because of the delays in beginning the pilot program. It is premature to quadruple this program in 1 year without a clear architecture and deployment plan that has been agreed to by all the parties in place. The bill before you also reduced funding to procure radiation portal monitors for two reasons. First, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office provided information after the submission of their budget request that reduced the number of radiation portal monitors it planned to procure from 149 to 127 systems in 2008. We fully fund this revised figure, not a higher level that DNDO no longer plans to procure. Secondly, the recently enacted supplemental provided $100 million for the procurement of radiation portal monitors. This funding, coupled with the House level for 2008, means we are actually $80 million above the funding level requested in 2008. So more is not needed. I urge Members to oppose this amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would cut the Coast Guard operating expenses account, the budget that pays for military officers and personnel, by $8 million. Given our country's need for port security, marine environmental protection and search and rescue operations, it doesn't seem like a very good time to be cutting back on Coast Guard personnel. The amendment would also cut the alteration of bridges program by $8 million. That is half of the budget for that program included in the bill. The amendment would instead move this money to the Coast Guard aircraft acquisitions budget in the Deepwater Program. The question is not whether these aircraft are needed. We know that they are. But there is a serious question about whether the Coast Guard is or would be prepared to utilize the funding that the gentleman is suggesting. The Coast Guard's aircraft acquisitions are behind schedule. The newest planes that the service is buying have not even been shown to meet the Coast Guard's needs through flight testing. So, again, as with many items in this budget, the question is not whether this is a worthy expenditure or a worthy object of expenditure. The question is what the traffic will bear in terms of next year's budget and the money that can be wisely and usefully spent. Our judgment, after carefully looking at this, is that the bill provides adequate funding for aircraft acquisition. Moreover, these items that would be cut to make room for this funding would have a negative impact on the day-to-day operations of the Coast Guard. In particular, they would delay the replacement of bridges in a major way, bridges that are a hazard to maritime safety. For all these reasons, though we certainly want to work with the gentleman in trying to push this aircraft acquisition forward. We want to do that in a prudent way, and we think this amendment is basically not helpful. So we reluctantly urge a no vote.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, Basic Pilot is a program which lets employers check the employment status of people they are hiring. It is not an enforcement program, and it can't be located in two agencies. So I have no choice but to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I can understand the need for flexibility and for these programs not to be in totally separate spheres, but I just have to say that CIS administers the Basic Pilot Program. It can't be in two agencies. The bill has $30 million for this purpose. I simply do not, cannot, grasp the rationale for carving $5 million out of the ICE budget for the same purpose. There does seem to be confusion here. That is why I am offering to take the concern forward and suggesting the amendment be withdrawn.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, is the gentleman saying he is willing to withdraw the amendment?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I will yield.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I'm sorry. I believe the gentleman is mistaken about the bureaucratic location of the Basic Pilot Program. The concern he expresses is certainly a legitimate one. Given the fact that we may be talking about duplicative efforts here, though, could I suggest that the amendment be withdrawn and we work with him as we go to conference to see how we might accommodate his concerns.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I mainly am confused about exactly what the gentleman is proposing and would like to try to clarify it if I might. The effort here is to attempt to carve out $5 million for the ICE Mutual Agreement Between Government Employers Program, which he is, I believe, confusing with the Basic Pilot Program. ICE does not administer the Basic Pilot Program. The bill already includes $30 million for CIS to carry out Basic Pilot. And it is indeed a well-regarded program to do exactly the same thing as the gentleman is describing here. But I don't understand the rationale for carving $5 million out of the ICE budget for a program that, as I understand it, would be totally duplicative. So maybe you can clarify.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let me say to the gentleman from California that this language, I think, could be widely applied. If he has items he wishes to apply to it, he should propose that. We are asking simply for a determination that these items are of higher priority and more cost effective than other items included in the Air and Marine Strategic Recapitalization and Modernization plan. We focused on this system because there are particular challenges here. But as Mr. Farr says, it is just a basic principle of good responsible government.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I am happy to yield.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I'm happy to yield to Mr. Farr.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I am happy to yield such time as he needs to Mr. Farr to complete his argument.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. It is my expectation that CBP Air and Marine with enormous aviation and maritime operations, they should have as one of their priority missions supporting the investigative or other DHS agencies, in particular ICE. That was done by the legacy Air and Marine arm of the old Customs Service, and it should not decline. So I appreciate the gentleman's raising the matter. I am happy to work with him to further the issue he has raised.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for raising this issue. And I am, of course, willing to work with him on this. I do not believe the withholding of the $100 million is necessary or desirable in this case. But I believe we need to get the confirmation that you are talking about from CBP, and I am not eager to delay the release of needed funds, but I certainly am willing to work with the gentleman to make certain that we get the information we need and the confirmation that we need that the agency is on track.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman seeks to add $150 million to fund REAL ID grants while cutting the Coast Guard's Deepwater program. I'm certainly sympathetic to the gentleman's basic idea of providing some funding for REAL ID. In fact, we added in this bill $50 million that was not requested by the administration in order to put some seed funds out there, to get the department in gear to adequately assess what the Federal Government must do to assist States in complying with this Federal mandate, which many of us have heard concerns about from our home States. I am certainly sympathetic with the idea of getting some seed funding out there for REAL ID. But I have to take issue with the offset, with the source of these funds. The gentleman is proposing to take $150 million from the Coast Guard's Deepwater program. Now, he rightly notes that the Deepwater program has had financial management problems. The committee is well aware of that. We have explored them thoroughly both under the former chairman, Mr. Rogers, and this year. Deepwater is one of the items in this bill that, while we place great importance on it, great emphasis on it, we are trying to make a very careful decision about the amount provided and the conditions under which it is provided. The bottom line is that this bill is already $197 million below the President's request for the Coast Guard's Deepwater acquisition program. There are reductions to projects with high carryover funding. There are reductions in projects where the lead asset, the first of a series to be purchased, has not yet been tested. In fact, we've been discussing some of those situations tonight. So we're reducing the program. We're also restoring accountability. $400 million of Deepwater funding is withheld pending the submission of a detailed management and expenditure plan. So we are well aware of the Deepwater challenges. But I think in light of the way we have dealt with them and the level of funding we have provided, another $150 million cut would be most unwise. So my opposition is more out of a concern for that than it is out of any inclination to downplay the REAL ID challenge. It's more in terms of this offset that I have to oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.