By Calvin Biesecker
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the budget cuts contained for her department in the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government this year are “not good” for security, citing a wide range of risks.
“All I can say about the House budget for FY ’11 is that it is not a good budget for security,” Napolitano said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee that examined the
FY ’12 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “It will have impacts on things like protecting the critical infrastructure along that mile in New Jersey, through reductions in grants, through reductions in our personnel, and if that budget becomes the basis for the FY ’12 budget, then I think the Congress needs to understand, I think it is my job to help it understand, that that in all likelihood will have a security impact.”
Napolitano was responding to a comment by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who said that the CR would chop two-thirds of the funding available for port security grants in FY ’11, which means that the Port of New York and New Jersey stands to lose $33 million in security funding. Lautenberg said that the port region includes a two-mile stretch that the FBI says is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to a terrorist attack given that millions of people work and live nearby and due to the fact that that there is a large chemical manufacturing presence.
Later in the day, Napolitano told the House panel that oversees homeland security appropriations that the proposed cuts to DHS contained in the CR would have “serious impacts” on her department.
During the day, Napolitano went through a litany of impacts, including offering some specifics if the House gets its way with cutting the DHS budget. The House budget “would cut measures for aviation security [and] cut funding to sustain the progress that has been made in enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. It cuts critical cyber security tools and operations. It cuts intelligence personnel. It cuts Coast Guard funding to support our war efforts abroad and it cuts grants that support counter-terrorism and disaster response capabilities at the local level.”
Later in her testimony, Napolitano offered specifics.
For the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the House funding bill in FY ’11 would cut the number of whole body imaging machines to be purchased in half, that is, 250 instead of the requested 500 for airport checkpoints, Napolitano said. The bill also only funds 415 of the 811 portable explosive trace detection machines requested and funds 100 of the 275 canine teams requested, she said.
Other measures in the bill would cap the number of Transportation Security Officers (TSO), which would result in “increased wait times for passengers and costs to TSA,” Napolitano said.
Additional cuts include “personnel responsible for background investigations, funding for 235 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers along the southwest border, intelligence, redress, and air cargo and surface inspections,” Napolitano said. Cuts would also impair the “deployment of intelligence personnel to state and local fusion centers,” which, in turn, limits the flow of information and the coordination between DHS and state and local law enforcement agencies, she added.
At the House hearing, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, disagreed with Napolitano over the impact of the CR on front line operational personnel. He said the House proposal fully funds all intelligence efforts and front line operations and personnel, including all ICE agents, as well as increases the number of Border Patrol agents and Coast Guard personnel by the end of FY ’11.
Napolitano answered that hers’ and Aderholt’s staffs need to get together because of the “strong difference of opinion” over the impact of the CR on DHS.
She also said that the proposed funding in FY ’11 would cut in half the DHS science and technology budget and decrease grants by $1 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Administration to states and localities for preparedness.
Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), the ranking member on the Senate panel, said that the nation’s fiscal deficits force priorities to be made, adding that DHS, like all Americans, will have to do “more with less.”
Napolitano said that tough choices were already made in crafting the FY ’12 budget request, although she said that DHS will work with Congress as the budget discussions proceed.
This week the House and Senate each approved another CR to keep the government afloat for two more weeks. If at some point Congress fails to approve a stopgap funding bill then the federal government will shut down.
The last time the government shut down was for two periods that stretched between 1995 and 1996, more than seven years before DHS was created. Napolitano told the panel that her department has been looking “afresh” at what shut down would mean for it.
Front line personnel who perform security operations would remain on the job, Napolitano said, although he back room personnel who support them would not. That means the front line personnel “would not have the full backing of the department that they would otherwise have,” she said.
Pointing to TSOs, which are the TSA agents who conduct security screening at airport checkpoints and in the checked baggage areas, and Border Patrol agents, Napolitano said these employees tend to be on the low end of the pay scale and she is worried about the “financial duress” they would be under without a paycheck.
On other DHS matters, Napolitano said that full funding for the Coast Guard’s sixth National Security Cutter (NSC) will be contained in the FY ’13 budget request. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp said on Tuesday that funding for the sixth high endurance vessel had to be left out of the FY ’12 request because it jeopardized other programs (Defense Daily, March 2).
However, leaving out long-lead procurement funding for the sixth NSC from the FY ’12 only delays the shipbuilding program. At one time the Coast Guard had hoped to maintain a production rate of one NSC per year. But that schedule went awry during protracted negotiations for the fourth cutter as the service moved its contracting from the original lead systems integrator directly to shipbuilder Northrop Grumman [NOC] and because of changes in the new contract.
Last November, the Coast Guard awarded Northrop Grumman a construction contract for the fourth NSC with delivery slated for early FY ’15, about three years later than the third NSC is expected to be delivered. A long-lead material contract was awarded in January for NSC 5, which is expected to be delivered in the latter half of FY ’15. NSC 6 isn’t expected to be delivered until early FY ’18, the Coast Guard told Defense Daily yesterday.