Speech #1090054725

The simple fact is that you cant disregard the fact that there is $7 billion in the pipeline for first responders-$3 billion from the year 2004. $4 billion from 2005--that hasnt been spent. This bill puts another $4 billion into these accounts. so we are not shorting these accounts. One of the reasons the Senate has offered this bill is it takes money from first responders that is not going to be spent in a timely manner. moves it over to Border Patrol where we do need the money. moves it over to weapons of mass destruction where we do need the money. and that is the priority we set as a committee. in a bipartisan way. because this has been. as I mentioned a number of times. a threatbased bill. This is the first time this bill has been brought forth recently. or ever. really. based on threat. and we determined the threat was weapons of mass destruction and border porousness. The fact there were $7 billion in the pipeline. retaining $4 billion in this account we felt was an adequate amount to fund those accounts for first responders. knowing that down the road we are going to put more money into first responders as it can be absorbed. But to put more in now would mean just holding it. and that money can be much more efficiently used as we propose to use it by adding more Border Patrol agents and detention beds. and more aggressive attempts to fight the use of a weapon of mass destruction against us. So that is why we are opposed to this approach. Clearly. it breaks the allocation which we have received.