Draft FY 2012 DHS Budget Bill Released

NOTE: This would have been posted at about 8:00 am EDT yesterday but for the problems that Google was having with its Blogspot.com system.

Yesterday the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee published their committee draft of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2012. The Subcommittee will be [did hold, no news yet on what they did] holding a mark-up hearing today [Friday, 5-13-11] at 11:00 am EDT.

Obviously of immediate concern to the chemical security community is the fact that there is a CFATS extension included in the bill. The §536 of the draft would extend the CFATS authorization until October 4th, 2012. The Administration had requested a two year extension in their budget request.

A lot of the detailed numbers apparently still need to be worked out (or published, I’m not sure which), but the large program numbers are available. The Department would receive $42.2 Billion down from the President’s request of $45.0 Billion and the $43.4 Billion in the FY 2011 budget finally passed by Congress. NPPD would get $1.23 Billion down from the President’s requested $1.26 Billion but up from FY 2011’s $1.22 Billion. To date there are no details about individual programs like CERT or CFATS. The TSA spending would be $7.8 Billion, similarly down from the President’s request ($8.1 Billion) and up from FY 2011 ($7.7 Billion). The Coast Guard gets similar treatment with $11.75 Billion (Requested - $11.84 Billion; FY 2011 - $11.31 Billion).

There is still lots of work that has to be done on this bill before it comes to a floor vote, but it is significantly further along than the FY 2011 budget bill ever got. Last year we were hoping to see a Subcommittee draft going into the summer recess before the process was shut down by the retiring Appropriations Committee Chairman.