Senate approves $1.9 billion for border security

The Senate approved an amendment Wednesday to the $106.5 billion fiscal 2006 emergency supplemental to bolster border security by $1.9 billion and help win support for the stalled immigration bill.

On a 59-39 vote, the Senate approved the amendment by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., backed by a handful of Democrats including Appropriations ranking member Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other Democrats opposed the measure because it was financed with a 2.8 percent cut in military programs in the bill, which Frist and Gregg said was necessary to avoid adding to the federal deficit. The Senate defeated, 54-44, a Reid amendment that would have provided full funding for the amendment minus the offset.

No senator disputed the need for the border money, and the funding was identical in the Frist and Reid measures. Both would provide $790 million for replacement of helicopters and aircraft to patrol the southern border, $600 million to upgrade Coast Guard patrol boats and equipment, and $120 million for new Customs stations and checkpoints.

But the debate was tinged with midterm and presidential politics, with the parties sparring over spending priorities. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., accused Frist, her potential presidential rival, of taking money from troop pay, body armor and efforts to combat roadside bombs.

"Don't cut the research we finally have going as to how we're going to defeat improvised explosive devices because you now decide you want to do border security," Clinton said.

Gregg lambasted the Democratic arguments, saying he had met with Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who assured him there would be no funding disruptions. Defense spending in the supplemental still would be $67 billion, more than the regular annual budgets of most Cabinet agencies, and Gregg said the Pentagon should be able to trim $2 billion within an overall $530 billion budget.

"So to come down here and allege that these funds are going to come out of the needs of the people on the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan is pure poppycock," Gregg said. "When the defense budget was being cut, savaged basically under the Clinton administration ... it was people like Sen. Stevens, Sen. Warner who stood on this floor and tried to stop it."

Frist praised adoption of his amendment, saying he hoped Reid would agree to work "in good faith" to pass the immigration bill before the Memorial Day recess. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday the border security amendment would help "four or five" Republicans who previously opposed a deal to support the compromise on immigration that includes a temporary guestworker plan.

Graham said Republicans are "looking for a way" to support the compromise and the additional funding to bolster border security resources provides political shelter.

Greta Wodele contributed to this report.