UPDATE: Congress Passes Final $42.8 DHS Approps Bill

Oct 22, 2009 | 5 min read | Print Article

(October 21) Congress handed off a $42.8 billion appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security through fiscal year 2010 to the President yesterday . Final earmark tally:186 worth more than $420 million, compared with 149 worth $738 million in 2009. So, more projects with a smaller price tag. Remember these are the earmarks in the charts included at the end of the conference report. There may be many more lawmakers chose not to name: We're searching for those now. A potentially expensive amendment introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (see below) was cut in conference negotiations. The Border Security Fencing Infrastructure and Technology account, which funds the Secure Border Initiative, got the Senate's $800 mark, slightly more than the House allocation. Conferees actually added $20 million to “expedite” efforts in Arizona for the tortured Boeing “virtual fence” program known as SBInet. However, it held on to $75 million pending CBP’s submission of an expenditure plan reviewed by GAO. Fiscal fiascos US-VISIT and the Coast Guard’s new $24 billion Deepwater program also had funding withheld pending expenditure plans. (July 10) The Senate last night passed its $43 billion edition of the 2010 homeland security appropriations bill, with 31 disclosed earmarks worth $317 million. These include $157 million for Senator-sponsored earmarks and another $160 million in “presidentially requested spending items.” The Senate agreed years ago to keep the DHS spending bill relatively unscathed, resulting in much lower numbers of earmarks than the House. However, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) still managed to secure $40 million for an “advanced training center” in his state, and eight senators added $50.5 million for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, a group of affiliated centers spread throughout several states that receives money from Congress in each appropriations bill. The report says the Consortium also received $51.5 million from the President.

However, it also contains an amendment that could burn up an extra couple billion on our border. The amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) would require the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency to replace or reinforce 300 miles of vehicle barriers included in the 700-mile fence recently built along our southern border with “pedestrian” fencing. At an average of $4.5 million per mile , that would come out to nearly $2 billion in additional costs, which DeMint’s amendment neglects to add funding for. This means the funding would most likely wick away money from other initiatives within CBP’s border infrastructure account, including SBI-Net and maintaining the other 400-odd miles of the border fence.

(June 12) While Congressional fussing and fighting over provisions regarding IMF funding and photo releases stymied the wartime supplemental this week, House appropriators did manage to mark up the first national security bill of the FY 2010 season—the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. The committee brought in the bill at $42.6 billion, just under the President’s request, by trimming a myriad of small programs throughout the department. Substantial funds were added, however, for the Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other agencies.

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And, of course, there are earmarks . The version that emerged from the Homeland Security subcommittee Monday contained 131 earmarks worth $103 million, on track to continue the upward trend in DHS earmarking (though Homeland Subcommittee Chairman David Price said the number represents a 5% cut over last year’s House submissions). Once again, FEMA attracted the most attention, for obvious reasons: 76 earmarks go toward “state and local programs” and another 58 to “predisaster mitigation,” a program funding disaster preparation in states and local entities that has become a magnet for Congressional additives in the past couple of years. FEMA’s overall budget received an extra $118 million over the 2010 budget request, a nearly $400 million increase over 2009.

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The most high-priced earmarks are attributed to the President, who is listed as the primary sponsor of six projects worth $153 million. However, House members were happy to co- sponsor initiatives such as $92 million for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, comprised of centers in seven states including those represented by co-sponsors Chet Edwards (R-TX), John Carter (R-TX) and Rodney Alexander (R-LA).

Border infrastructure received $692 million, bringing spending on the Secure Border Initiative—which includes Boeing’s expensively tardy SBInet program as well as hundreds of miles of fencing under construction along the border—to $4.3 billion since its 2006 launch. The Committee snipped $54 million from the program’s budget to “reflect delayed schedule of SBInet technology acquisitions.”