Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson), a very hard-working member of this subcommittee.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, this debate could go on a long time. I ask unanimous consent that all debate end after 10 minutes, that the time be controlled by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) and this gentleman.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), a very hardworking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I look forward to working with the gentleman as we move forward and will certainly work to strengthen the report language in conference as events dictate.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, briefly, since the gentlewoman says the Mayor is listening and says he only got $90 million in 2003, the figures that I have are different.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. The city in 2003 received $256 plus million, and I will get back with the gentlewoman on 2004 in a minute.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's statement very much, and he is exactly correct. We love New York City. I cannot wait to go there for the convention in a few weeks. But let me just say this: In the High Density Urban Area Grant Program out of which New York will receive a good sum of money, we are almost at the President's recommended level. We are at $1.175 billion, which is almost twice what it is now. We have almost doubled the money in that account. In addition to that, the State of New York--and New York City will get roughly half of the money that goes to New York State. That kitty is $750 million. It only leaves $500 million for everybody else. Give me a break.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his statement. Now, there is $900 million in the high-threat, high-density urban area grant program. There is also $100 million in the rail and transit security. That would go to the big cities, would it not?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. So when you add all of those moneys together, this bill is chock full of money for the big cities; is that not correct?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, do they mention Columbus, Ohio?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. In September 2002 a suspected terrorist cell was broken up in Lackawanna, New York, a city south of Buffalo, population 20,000. Five convictions. And on and on and on. Mr. Chairman, we have treated the urban areas in this bill better than we did in the current year, and we cut the formula funding for the rest of the country by a huge amount in this bill. We think we have already treated the urban areas fairly. If we had more money, we could treat them even better; but with what we have, we think we have treated them fairly. I would urge Members to reject this amendment. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI which states in pertinent part, ``an amendment to a general appropriations bill shall not be in order if changing existing law by imposing additional duties.'' I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition. Mr. Chairman, in this bill we attempted to be fair to everyone. We do not have all the money in the world. If we did, we could do perhaps what New York wants; but we do not, and we have got a whole country to deal with. There are two basic funds of money that we are talking about. One is the so-called formula funding grant program, and the other is specifically for the high-density, high-threat urban area fund. Two funds. The first one the formula grant program, 40 percent of that money goes to all the States; and everyone gets .75 percent, less than 1 percent of a fund that this year is $760 million total. But 60 percent of even the formula grant program goes to States that are most populated, and I did some research. The money that went in that fund, in this year's bill, is $1.15 billion. Of the money that goes to New York State, in 2004 New York City got over half of the State money, in addition to the urban grant fund. Now, fair is fair; and I want to be fair about this. New York City is a target. Everyone admits that. Other large urban areas are targets. Everyone admits that, and we want to help prepare. We want to do all that we can to be sure that New York City and the other large cities have all the monies that we can afford to pay for the Federal portion of what the local fire departments and the police departments and the EMT units and all do routinely. A portion of what they do is the counterterrorism effort that we are paying them for. Most of what they do, of course, are city and local and State duties. But there is a limit to what we can do. Now, what this amendment does, Mr. Chairman, is take monies out of the formula grants that goes to Kansas, Kentucky and Florida and the other States and puts $450 million out of that account into the urban area's account. We already did a lot of that in the bill. We have already reduced the formula grants, already $450 million below last year's level. And the urban area grants in the bill are $280 million above last year's level. We have already robbed Peter to pay Paul, and now Paul wants more at the expense of Peter. We have got to be sure that the rest of the country is protected as well. Just because you are not a large urban area does not mean that you are not at risk from terrorist attack. Hundreds of U.S. agricultural documents have been found in the al Qaeda caves in Afghanistan and other places. It has been reported that a significant part of al Qaeda's training manual is devoted to agricultural terrorism, a frightening fact when you recall the reported terrorist interest in crop dusters. No community is immune from terrorism. We were reminded of that on 9/ 11 when Maine played a major part in the staging of the attack on New York City, little unpopulated Maine. We do not want to ignore Maine again. In 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shree poisoned salad bars in 10 restaurants in The Dalles in Oregon, population 12,000, the largest germ warfare attack in history. The terrorists that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 trained in rural Pennsylvania, 30 miles from Three Mile Island in the months prior to that attack. Timothy McVeigh, who destroyed the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, planned his attack and purchased the materials in Herrington, Kansas, population 2,500. In January 2000, Yousef Karoun was arrested in Blaine, Washington, population 3,600, after authorities determined he was on the FBI's lookout list and found evidence of nitroglycerin on his vehicle. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into Shanksville, Pennsylvania, population 245, after being hijacked. Local fire departments quickly responded. In the fall of 2001, two people linked to an international terrorist group were arrested in Beecher Falls, Vermont, population 238, after attempting to cross the border.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I think we are all in agreement on the idea that the moneys eventually should go based on threat and risk assessment. We are all headed in that direction. I am trying to push the Department, certainly by the end of this year, to establish minimum essential requirements for every community so that everyone, based on a graduated size of the community, would have requirements to be prepared, based on the threat that faces that particular community. That is a really complex undertaking. But it is being undertaken. Hopefully, the 2005 moneys we are appropriating will be spent based on that plan. It is not quite in place yet. That way, we would all be satisfied, rural, big city, medium-sized city, what have you. If you are a city of 5,000 people, there is not much preparation perhaps you need, unless you are near a nuclear power plant or a big dam close by or what have you, which can be modified in that fashion. If you are a large city, a New York, a Washington, a Seattle, obviously you are going to get lots of money. But we are all headed toward the same direction. I do not want us to get sidetracked, as we seem to be doing with this debate, pitting region against region. That is not right. We are all one country.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Then we restored the $50 million for the metropolitan medical response system. Metropolitan means large city, does it not?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. The gentleman makes a very good point. The TSA is still operating under the system where they hire nationally. So that when there is a vacancy in San Francisco or New Jersey or where have you, that has to work its way up to the national headquarters, and it is a very inefficient way for TSA to replace people who have quit their job. We are trying to force the Department to at least regionalize the hiring process, and I would like to see it even localized so that we can replace people quickly, but the gentleman makes a good point.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I appreciate the gentleman bringing this issue forward, and it is an important issue. But the Science and Tech Directorate of Homeland Security has assured us and the Coast Guard that all elements of the Coast Guard's R&D program will remain under the direct management of the Coast Guard. I recognize the gentleman's concerns. We will work with him on this subject if the authorization bill retains R&D funding within the Coast Guard for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. And is there not $125 million for port security? The last time I checked the ports were in large cities, were they not?