Senate bolsters northern border patrols, OKs spending bill

The Senate unanimously approved its version of the fiscal 2007 Homeland Security spending bill Thursday, after plowing through dozens of amendments affecting everything from the number of Border Patrol agents to whether citizens can carry guns during times of crisis.

A few amendments to boost spending were approved this week, meaning the final bill would provide the department with about $32.8 billion in discretionary spending. The House version of the budget bill would provide about $32 billion.

Both Republicans and Democrats proposed amendments Thursday that would have boosted spending in areas such as border security and disaster assistance.

Only those that had acceptable offsets, however, were approved, as Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., held the line on any spending that would bust the budget cap for the bill.

An amendment by Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., to increase the number of Border Patrol agents along the northern border was approved. The plan calls for transferring $44 million from the department's administrative travel and printing accounts to pay for 236 more agents along the northern border.

Dayton said that only about 1,000 agents are now deployed to the northern border, of which only about 250 are on duty at any given time.

Senators also approved an amendment from Sen. David Vitter, R-La., that would prohibit the government from confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens during emergencies.

Vitter said law-abiding citizens had guns confiscated during Hurricane Katrina. He modified his amendment to say that guns possessed by criminals or those committing crimes could be confiscated.

The amendment was approved, 84-16.

But two amendments on border security by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., were defeated. One would have provided $1.8 billion for construction of barriers along the southern border, while the other would have provided about $85 million to hire 800 new investigators for enforcement of immigration laws inside the United States.

Sessions argued that the Senate authorized construction of barriers and hiring of investigators in the border security and immigration reform bill it recently approved, and the Homeland Security spending bill presented a way to appropriate the needed funds.

Sessions proposed to pay for his amendments by having Senate and House appropriators make cuts to other homeland security accounts. Appropriators would have the discretion to determine which accounts to cut.

Gregg and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., lobbied heavily against the amendments, saying they would result in unacceptable cuts within the department's budget. The internal immigration enforcement amendment died, 66-34, with the barrier construction proposal falling, 71-29.

Similarly, an amendment by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that would have provided $300 million extra to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund was defeated by a 54-46 vote.

Gregg said the amendment did not have proper offsets. He also argued that the disaster relief fund has $9.3 billion in it, and if more is needed in the future he would support an emergency supplemental bill.

Senators also shot down an amendment by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., that would have required the department to allocate all grants based on risk assessments to the maximum extent possible while guaranteeing each state at least .25 percent in minimum grant funding.

Republicans, joined by several Democrats argued the amendment would result in lower funding for most states and would not provide proper guidance to the department for grant allocations.

The amendment failed, 64-36.