Bipartisan agreement elusive on homeland security priorities

President Bush's fiscal 2004 budget identifies homeland security as one of the nation's top three priorities, and homeland security initiatives across the government would be funded at $41.3 billion, including $36.2 billion for the new Homeland Security Department.

That would represent an increase of roughly 7 percent over fiscal 2003, according to the department, which includes 22 existing federal agencies and nearly 180,000 employees.

"Everything we have done is an effort to organize to work more efficiently and more effectively as a department," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said during a budget briefing earlier this year. "We are building our partnerships with states and localities, working with private industry, and looking at ways to streamline and to share information."

But congressional Democrats have been quick to criticize the 2004 homeland security budget, arguing that it would leave the nation's critical infrastructures, seaports and other potential targets vulnerable to terrorist threats, among other things.

"We can and must do better," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, ranking member on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. He said the federal government should spend at least $16 billion more on security in 2004 than Bush has requested in his budget.

The department's budget includes $829 million for information analysis and infrastructure protection, which is nearly four times the amount Bush requested in his 2003 budget. Of those funds, $500 million would be earmarked to assess the nation's critical infrastructures-such as telecommunications networks, transportation systems and nuclear power plants-and address high-priority vulnerabilities.

The budget also calls for $18.1 billion for the department's border and transportation security directorate. That includes $4.8 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, which is about $400 million less than TSA will receive in 2003. Ridge said the administration requested less money for TSA in 2004 because roughly $685 million of the agency's 2003 budget is earmarked for "one-time startup costs."

About $4.5 billion of TSA's 2004 budget would fund aviation security initiatives, including surveillance technologies. The TSA's security programs for maritime and ground transportation systems would be funded at about $85 million, including $55 million for creating biometrics-based "smart cards" for identifying transportation workers.

The border and transportation security budget calls for $480 million to continue building a comprehensive system to monitor the entry and exit of all foreign visitors to the United States. Current immigration law requires that system to be built by 2005.

The budget also calls for:

• $307 million for the Customs Service's commercial processing systems.
• $119 million for inspection technologies to prevent terrorists from smuggling dangerous cargo into U.S. ports.
• $62 million for the Container Security Initiative, which involves pre-screening ocean-going cargo before it arrives in U.S. ports.
• $18 million for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, which would give importers a "fast lane" into the United States if they take steps to tighten security.
• $2.5 million for Operation Safe Commerce, a government and industry partnership focusing on port security.

The Coast Guard's 2004 budget request also includes $134 million for the continued development of a "maritime 911" emergency-response system.

The Homeland Security Department's science and technology directorate would receive $803 million, including $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was modeled on the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"One of the advantages of having our own Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency ... is [that] we want to do an inventory, as best we can, both within government and outside of government, of all the homeland security-related projects ... to make sure that there is no replication," Ridge said.

The science and technology directorate's budget also includes $365 million to develop integrated systems for preventing and responding to potential biological attacks, as well as $25 million to implement a standards program through partnerships with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other federal agencies. Analyzing state and local first responders' detection equipment and communications protocols will be an initial focus of the new standards program.

The Homeland Security budget calls for $206 million in departmentwide technology investments. That includes $143 million to modernize business processes and improve information sharing by developing and acquiring new technology, software and services. In addition, $63 million would go toward wireless initiatives, such as the conversion to narrowband communications and the operation of land mobile radio systems.

First responders would receive $3.5 billion under the Bush's security budget, including $500 million in grants to firefighters, and $500 million to fund state and local law enforcement agencies' anti-terrorism initiatives.

First responders received $3.5 billion in 2003, but Ridge recently noted that Congress "placed some constraints on the distribution of those dollars." Ridge said the administration had hoped to allocate the entire $3.5 billion through a flexible, needs-based grant program. But only about $1.3 billion can be distributed through those broad-based grants in 2003.

"I know [state and local officials] need more money, and the president recognizes they need more money," Ridge said. "That's why, in this [2004] budget, he's asked for an additional $3.5 billion, which will hopefully be appropriated in a way that we can respond to the specific needs and requests of the state and locals."

But Lieberman has argued that the administration's 2004 budget would fall far short of what is needed to boost state and local counter-terrorism capabilities. Lieberman said recently that first responders should receive $11 billion next year. Lieberman said about $4 billion of those additional funds should be used to boost emergency communications. "There's no question the requirement is wide and serious," he said.

Lieberman added that the failure to deliver adequate resources to first responders has been "the single-most glaring gap" in homeland security leadership. He cited a recent study by the National Fire Protection Association, which found that only a quarter of the nation's fire departments can communicate effectively with state and federal emergency-response agencies.

"In New York on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Lieberman said, "we lost firefighters because their communications equipment wasn't compatible with what the police were using."