Big week on Capitol Hill for the Department of Homeland Security. On Monday, Secretary Michael Chertoff touted his agency's achievements in anticipation of the 2009 DHS spending bill markup, while criticizing Congress for failing to pass immigration reform. On Tuesday, a gaggle of Republican Congressmen introduced two bills that would override previous legislation and require double-layer fencing along all 670 of the miles of border DHS plans to secure by year’s end. And on Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee added $2.3 billion to the White House's budget request for DHS, bringing the bill's price tag to just under $40 billion–$2.2 billion over last year's.

The subcommittee's markup, however, reflected plenty of suspicion about DHS spending along with support, adding qualifications designed to ensure tight Congressional control over the agency's purse strings. For example:

• Committee Chairman David Price (D-NC) once again asked DHS to produce a cost-benefit analysis of its border fence “so that Congress can be assured the Department is taking the most effective approach.” As we reported earlier, the committee is still holding on to $650 million in 2008 fence funding pending submission of a similar analysis required by last year’s bill.

• The markup withholds some $1.4 billion from several troubled programs to ensure that “planning takes place before taxpayer dollars are spent,” according to Price. These programs include the Coastguard’s Deepwater program, the Cyber Security initiative and the Secure Border Initiative, which includes the SBInet virtual fence. Chertoff announced Monday that Boeing was awarded contracts to install SBInet along two segments of the Arizona border despite the fact that the 28-mile prototype built by the company last year was unusable.

• Committee members increased the Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget $200 million over FY 08 to $4.8 billion, but said $800 million must go toward deporting aliens that have committed serious crimes. ICE must also cancel contracts with private detention facilities that receive bad marks from auditors and spend $2 million for facility reviews by independent medical experts. Finally, committee members added $9 million to the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) budget and required DHS to submit a plan for nationwide deployment of the program. ATD programs such as electronic monitoring cost an estimated $25 per person per day, compared to $90 per day for detention.

The hearing on DHS border security programs scheduled for the House Homeland Security Committee this morning was postponed, perhaps to let Chertoff recover.