DHS Budget Bill Passes First Hurdle

The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee marked-up and passed to the full committee the FY 2011 DHS Budget Bill. The meeting was moved up one day from what I had reported earlier this week. That bill has yet to be introduced so there is no bill number or printed version of the bill available yet. All we really know to date comes from the Subcommittee web site. Chairman Price provides an overview of the proposed bill, noting that it is a bipartisan bill with much input from Republican members. He talks about a number of dollar adjustments to many high-profile programs but does not mention chemical security issues. A chart providing a comparison of high-level dollar amounts between the passed bill and this years spending and the Obama budget request shows where the $43.9 billion is going. Infrastructure Protection would receive $330,342,000 a decrease of almost $17 million over FY 2010 but only $3.4 million less than what the Administration requested. No telling where the cutbacks come from at this point. The Subcommittee report also provides a table of earmarks that are included in the legislation at this point. The number can probably be expected to grow. An article on GovExec.com notes that this is the first FY 2011 budget bill to make it out of a subcommittee in either house. Maybe this bill can make it through the entire process before the legislative branch completely shuts down for electioneering.

DHS FY 2011 Budget

Well, it looks like we are now officially going to start the DHS Budget season. The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee is now scheduled to hold a Subcommittee markup hearing for the FY 2011 DHS budget bill. The actual bill has yet to published or even introduced. The hearing will be on Friday, 06-25-10 at 1:15 pm EDT. I think that we can safely assume that there will be a provision extending the CFATS authorization for at least another year. What else will get added remains to be seen; but we are at least getting the process started. Whether or not a DHS budget bill will actually get passed before the election in November remains to be seen. I expect that we will see continuing resolutions all over the place this year.

Lieberman on DHS Budget

Earlier this week Sen. Lieberman (I, CT), the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Operations Committee sent his annual letter to the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee presenting his views on the President’s budget request. There were only two areas in the letter that addressed issues of specific interest to the chemical security community. Sen. Lieberman supported the President’s requested increase for the TSA surface transportation security program. While most of this was directed at passenger rail protection it continued funding for last year’s planned increases for surface transportation security inspectors. Part of their job will be the enforcement of the TSA’s freight rail security program. The other area of interest to our community is the funding for the chemical security program. Lieberman supports the budget request for $105 million for the chemical security program (both CFATS and the pending ammonium nitrate regulations). Specifically the letter states:

“I strongly urge the Committee to provide at least that amount for the program. The Department is currently entering the most intensive phase of the program – reviewing the proposed security plans of the riskiest chemical facilities and conducting site inspections. It is critical the Department continue to receive adequate funds to conduct this work and acquire additional expertise with which to evaluate and advise on security at the varied enterprises that use and store dangerous chemicals.”

Interestingly, there is no mention in Lieberman’s letter of the President’s request for another one-year extension of the current CFATS authorization. Of course, last year there was little or no discussion of a similar extension request that was ultimately included in the FY 2010 DHS budget. While the Chairman’s views of the DHS budget do not control how the Appropriations Committee will write the actual legislation, the fact that he is actively supporting the Administration on these areas almost ensures that these provisions will make it into the bill drafted by the Appropriations Committee.