House supplemental includes $500 million for border security
Measure sets aside money to hire 1,200 new agents along the Southwest border and up to 500 new officers to reduce shortages in inspectors.
The House Appropriations Committee's version of the fiscal 2010 war supplemental spending bill includes $500 million in new spending for security efforts along the Southwest border and allows $177.2 million to be transferred from other accounts to pay for the deployment of National Guard troops there, according to a draft of the bill obtained by CongressDaily.
The border spending in the supplemental bill, which the panel will mark up on Thursday, comes as President Obama authorized the deployment Tuesday of 1,200 National Guard troops to secure the border.
As part of its efforts to shore up security along the Mexican border, the White House also needs $500 million in supplemental funding to pay for border protection and law enforcement activities.
Besides the border funding, the House bill provides $33 billion for the Defense Department and $4.5 billion for the State Department to continue operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of this fiscal year.
The measure also includes billions of dollars in non-defense spending, including $23 billion in education money intended to avert hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs at elementary and secondary schools. The bill also adds $5.7 billion for Pell grants.
On Tuesday, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, announced he would drop efforts to attach the education funding to the Senate's version of the supplemental.
The border security spending in the House bill includes $356.9 million for "salaries and expenses" for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Of that funding, $208.4 million is set aside to hire 1,200 new agents along the Southwest border, and another $58 million is to hire up to 500 new officers to reduce shortages in inspectors, according to the draft, or chairman's mark.
Separately, the bill adds $46 million to pay for designing, building and deploying tactical communications to support enforcement activities along the border and another $9 million to build as many as three Border Patrol forward-operating bases.
The measure also includes $30 million for law enforcement activities aimed at reducing the threat of violence along the border, and $8.1 million to provide basic training for new Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents.
In addition, $50 million is allocated for Operation Stonegarden, which allocates grants to local law enforcement for personnel and training costs associated with stopping illegal immigration and drug smuggling along the border.
The Senate's version of the bill does not address border security, although several senators are offering border-related amendments during floor debate this week. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for instance, has introduced an amendment that would add $144 million to increase the presence of unmanned aerial vehicles along the border.
In terms of new defense spending, the House bill includes $5.2 billion for procurement, which is $792 million above the Pentagon's request to replace combat losses and fill shortfalls in the military's inventory.
The additional funding provides $40.5 million to buy two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, $175 million for one E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early-warning aircraft, $100 million to buy one CV-22 Osprey aircraft, $175.9 million for additional Marine Corps trucks, $104 million to buy three HH-60M Combat Search and Rescue Pave Hawk helicopters, and $200 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment.
The bill matches the administration's $1.1 billion request for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, which have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The bill also adds $179.7 million to the military's research and development accounts to develop a "double-V" hull for the Army's Stryker vehicle to make it less vulnerable to attacks from roadside bombs.
The House bill, meanwhile, includes about $2.8 billion for relief efforts after the January earthquake in Haiti, essentially matching the Senate's version of the spending measure.
As with the Senate bill, the House measure includes a provision permitting the Coast Guard to obtain one or more advances of up to $100 million each from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to pay for the federal response to the Gulf Coast oil spill. It also includes about $67 million for various agencies for the oil spill.