Appropriators add $2.3 billion to to DHS spending bill

The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Wednesday approved a fiscal 2009 Homeland Security appropriations bill that gives the department $39.9 billion in discretionary spending, including a boost in funding for politically popular grant programs and efforts to find and deport criminal illegal immigrants inside the United States.

The bill, approved unanimously by voice vote, gives the department about $2.2 billion more than Congress allocated for the current fiscal year.

The funding is also about $2.3 billion more than the department requested. "We believe that we've put together a very defendable, credible bill," said House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price, D-N.C.

The bill includes about 100 earmarks totaling about $200 million, primarily in the area of pre-disaster mitigation and emergency operations programs, according to Price and an aide.

The subcommittee would not release the list of earmarks and the lawmakers who requested them. Price said the funding for earmarks is about equal to the fiscal 2008 spending bill.

Appropriators significantly boosted funding for state and local grant programs over what the Bush administration had requested. Notably, the bill provides $950 million for state homeland security grants, $800 million to support firefighters, $400 million for ports and $400 million for transit security grants.

It also allocates $50 million to help states meet mandates of the so-called Real ID law, which requires them to eventually issue new, secure driver's licenses and identification documents to their residents. But states have complained of an unfunded federal mandate which will cost billions of dollars to carry out. On another front, the subcommittee gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement $800 million specifically to track down and deport illegal immigrants, especially those inside U.S. jails, who have committed serious crimes. Overall, the subcommittee allocated ICE $4.8 billion.

House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said he supports the funding bill but was concerned about several aspects of it. Rogers said he believes appropriators are placing too many restrictions on the department's ability to build fencing along the southwest border.

Both the fiscal 2009 spending bill and the fiscal 2008 spending bill requires the department to submit expenditure plans to access border security funds, and requires consultation with local communities about building fencing. Rogers also objected to a provision in the bill requiring the department to pay prevailing wages on all contracts. And he complained the bill does not cap how many airport screeners the Transportation Security Administration can hire. When Rogers chaired the subcommittee, the cap was kept at 45,000 screeners.

Among other provisions, the bill includes nearly $300 million to support the department's role in the Bush administration's cybersecurity initiative, and $775 million for building a virtual fence along the border. The bill also allocates funding for the department to open a controversial office that will coordinate the dissemination of satellite data to federal agencies and possibly state and local governments. An aide said the funding level is classified, and the bill requires the department to give appropriators its plans for the new office. The bill also withholds funding for the department to develop a system that uses biometrics, such as fingerprints, to verify when foreigners leave the country through airports. Funding for the system, which is part of the US-VISIT program, would be withheld until the department conducts test programs comparing how the airlines collect the fingerprints to how the government does the collection.