Budget battles could jeopardize homeland security efforts

The inability of Congress to clear 11 of its 13 annual appropriations bills is impacting homeland security efforts and could jeopardize some White House priorities for next year, congressional experts said Monday at an Equity International event. The budget for the Homeland Security Department will be drawn from nine of the measures.

"Homeland security has been and continues to be an unfortunate casualty" of the budget debates, said Jim Dyer, the House Appropriations Committee's staff director.

When Congress returns in January, it will face a "daunting task," Dyer said. President Bush has asked that all fiscal 2003 appropriations bills be completed by his State of the Union speech at the end of January. Congress returns the week of Jan. 6, and the temporary legislation that is keeping the government funded until the annual bills are enacted expires Jan. 11. Dyer counted just four legislative days in January before the president's speech.

Bill Hoagland, staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, said Congress might consider an omnibus appropriations bill encompassing most or all of the remaining bills to meet the tight deadline. He also said he "would not be surprised" if the administration requests additional fiscal 2003 funding later in the year.

Hoagland said until Congress finishes the appropriations bills, two areas in particular will be "severely restricted:" money to combat bioterrorism and to aid "first responders" to emergencies.

About one-third of proposed homeland security spending falls outside the new Homeland Security Department, experts said. Rich Meade, the House Budget Committee's chief of staff, said budgeters carefully would track the money outside the department, as well as the funding within the department that is not for homeland security purposes.

Hoagland said the proposed fiscal 2003 homeland security budget, at $36 billion, is less than 2 percent of the total budget of more than $2 trillion. He noted that $24 billion would go toward non-Defense Department activities.

Hoagland divided security spending into three categories: prevention, protection and minimization. Prevention, which includes areas such as investigations, intelligence, law enforcement and immigration, would get about 40 percent, an increase of 60 percent. Protection of the border, critical infrastructures like telecommunications networks, and other areas also would get 40 percent, a 50 percent jump. Minimization of damage, involving groups such as the Federal Emergency Management Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would get the remaining 20 percent, a quadrupling of funding.

Hoagland said the administration's recently released national security strategy suggests a redirection of funding from protection toward minimization.

Meade said Congress eventually might reorganize its categories for budget requests because the Homeland Security Department cuts across nine of the 20 functions.

Separately on Monday, officials from as many as a dozen think tanks met with White House Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to discuss strategy for the department, according to Philip Anderson, director of the International Security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.