Washington, D.C. – Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Susan Collins (R-ME) today urged her colleagues to support the Fiscal Year 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Report and urged speedy passage of the measure, which includes several provisions authored by the Senator. The Report is slated for floor consideration in both houses before Congress recesses. It allocates $34.8 billion to improve vital components of our homeland security, including implementing new security standards for our nation’s chemical facilities and strengthening the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), both of which were spearheaded by Chairman Collins.
“This bill represents a comprehensive package of carefully crafted national security improvements,” said Senator Collins. “There are major advances in protection for chemical facilities, which are a major homeland security vulnerability. Further, the far-reaching FEMA reforms sought by my Committee are essential to ensuring that we can better prepare for and respond to all disasters in a more timely and effective manner.”
The Conference Report included language crafted by Chairman Collins and House Homeland Security Committee Chairmen King that gives DHS new authority to require mandatory security standards at high risk chemical plants nationwide. DHS is directed to require covered facilities to complete vulnerability assessments and create and implement site security plans. It gives the Secretary a means to inspect and sanction non-compliant facilities, including the authority to shut down non-compliant facilities. The provision protects security information but allows it to be shared with appropriate authorities, including State and local government officials and first responders. This regulatory authority is authorized for up to three years until permanent, comprehensive authority is enacted.
The Report also includes provisions crafted by Collins to strengthen FEMA. Specifically, FEMA becomes a distinct entity within DHS, similar to the Coast Guard and Secret Service, protected from reorganizations that might degrade its capabilities. Its preparedness and response capabilities are reunited, empowering the agency to meet the challenges of all aspects of emergency management: preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. The Report allows for a stronger regional focus that will include multi-agency Strike Teams to ensure a speedy response, and creates a new Office of Emergency Communications that will develop a national emergency communications strategy, and coordinate efforts by the federal, state, and local governments, emergency responders, and the private sector to achieve effective emergency communications. Finally, the package includes new measures and controls to achieve more efficient purchases of goods and services, and to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse. These were many of the core recommendations of the Committee’s Hurricane Katrina report.
“Five years since 9-11, a year past Katrina, we still face systemic weaknesses in our arrangements for preparation and response. A CBS News – New York Times poll conducted earlier this month revealed that only 14 percent of Americans feel safer than they did five years ago. We can do a great deal to change that perception – and the reality as well,” said Senator Collins. “Whether our next great national trauma is inflicted by terrorists, by accident, or by natural forces, there are many urgent tasks that need to be started sooner rather than later.”
At the request of Senator Collins, the Conference Report also pushes back implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative until June 1, 2009, affording DHS the time needed to develop standards for alternative forms of U.S. identification so that residents in border states like Maine are not forced to acquire costly passports.
Additionally, the Conference Report:
- Provides for significant investment in Customs and Border Protection to implement the Container Security Initiative and to staff borders between ports of entry;
- Increases funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to improve investigation and intelligence;
- Funds the Transportation Security Administration to upgrade railroad safety;
- Allocates new resources to the Coast Guard and the Secret Service;
- Funds grants to assist state and local law enforcement with terror-prevention activity, port security, firefighter assistance, and rail security.