Chambers split over use of drones on the border

House and Senate lawmakers are divided over spending tens of million of dollars more to buy aerial drones for border patrol, with appropriators in one chamber saying the investment is badly needed and those in the other questioning the price tag.

In a last-minute bid in late July, the Senate boosted its version of the homeland security spending bill for fiscal 2008, S. 1644, by $3 billion. The Homeland Security Department is expected to use a portion of those funds to buy and deploy four unmanned aerial vehicles within two years for use along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"The debate we had a few weeks ago on immigration reform should not deter Congress from doing what is still needed to secure our borders and reduce illegal immigration," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a leading advocate of the additional spending. "We should take what we learned from that debate -- that the American people want enforcement -- and put it into workable legislation. That's exactly what we've done here."

House lawmakers, however, want to apply the brakes to spending on UAV technology. They did not include the additional $3 billion in their budget bill, H.R. 2638, and instead moved to prevent Customs and Border Protection from buying new UAVs until the agency "certifies that they are of higher priority and more cost effective than other items in the air and marine strategic recapitalization and modernization plan."

House lawmakers did, however, include $10.6 million to cover recurring costs to support CBP's existing UAVs.

The two chambers will have to resolve their differences in conference when Congress returns from recess. The department recently announced that it wants to buy three new UAVs in 2008 and a fourth in 2009.

The debate over whether UAVs are a good investment for border security has been waged for the past few years but has no immediate end in sight. A 2005 Congressional Research Service study, for example, listed advantages and disadvantages of the technology.

"The use of UAVs on the northern and southern borders could potentially act as an important force multiplier by covering previously unpatrolled areas or more effectively surveilling areas already patrolled," the report stated. "The benefit of increased coverage, however, may not be so significant when terrorists ... can and have entered the country through more easily accessible official ports of entry."

Border Patrol officials announced last March that a Predator B UAV was used to detect and track six suspected illegal aliens along the Arizona border with Mexico. Agents apprehended the group, discovering that one was wanted for raping a child in Washington.

House lawmakers, however, noted that the Coast Guard's developmental vertical UAV has experienced a series of setbacks and might never be procured.

Appropriators wrote in the report accompanying the House bill that "the Coast Guard recently chartered a research study to investigate the viability of the VUAV and explore alternatives to fill the VUAV 'gap' if the project is not continued." To that end, the House bill would provide up to $5 million to begin researching an alternative.