Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
Appropriations Committee
Hearing On FY03 Supplemental Appropriations
For The War In Iraq
And For Other Purposes
March 27, 2003

We welcome Secretary Ridge and Secretary Rumsfeld back to the Committee.

We convene at a time when our country faces enormous challenges, at home and abroad.

Americans are performing with skill and determination and valor on both fronts.  Our soldiers and Marines have been engaging tenacious guerilla fighters in Iraq’s harshest weather conditions.  Our sailors are superbly executing their complex missions.  Our Air Force already has performed thousands of missions over long distances amid withering ground fire, eliminating threats to all our troops.

On the home front, our first responders and thousands of dedicated federal workers are giving their all to preparedness and prevention.  Police officers, firefighters and emergency rescue workers are being pushed to the limit with added duties, longer shifts and cancelled time off.  The new responsibilities they are shouldering in guarding against and preparing for terrorism have become largely unfunded mandates on them and on their states and communities.  Every time the threat alert level is raised, it takes millions more in local and state costs to respond.

The Administration readily accepts the need to fund our anti-terrorism efforts abroad, but the Administration continues to downplay and minimize the real needs in real communities across the nation for adequate resources to meet homeland defense needs here at home.  That must change.  We need to do both – we need a robust response to terrorism on both fronts, here and abroad.

This supplemental spending plan the President has submitted to the Congress addresses costs in Iraq and other locations overseas but misses the mark by a mile in funding our needs on the home front.  We are fighting a two-front war, yet the President’s request mostly only addresses  the war in Iraq — as well as the needs of a few coalition allies.

It is frustrating, as well as more than a little ironic, that after all of the repeated requests from Congress, state and local officials, over a period now of a year and a half, about the need for taking care of the fight against terrorism at home, the Administration has decided to request almost $8 billion in assistance on behalf of the foreign nations that it considers helpful in the war against Iraq, but only $2 billion for first responders.  The nation’s governors and mayors have made abundantly clear the urgent need for that same level of funding, $8 billion.  Our hometown heroes need help now.

In recent months, the nation’s first responder needs have become increasingly urgent.  I have repeatedly joined with Congressional leaders like Senator Byrd, Senator Daschle and others in asking the President, in this supplemental request for appropriations, to include at least $5 billion for our state and local first responders.  But the Administration has fallen far short in this bill, including only $2 billion to assist state and local governments to support federally mandated terrorism preparedness during this time of heightened threats and insecurity.  The amount included in the supplemental is inadequate.

No federal agencies are doing the jobs that we need first responders to do.  When terrorists attack, the first call that is made is not to a federal agency in Washington.  It is to 9-1-1, for their state and local first responders. 

Let me conclude by asking a simple question.  Whether or not you agree with the appeals from Congress about the need for taking care of our first responders, at least listen to the governors, mayors, police and fire chiefs.  Were they wrong to request $7 billion to $9 billion for domestic preparedness funding?

I hope you will agree that they are right, and I hope the Congress will respond accordingly, even though the Administration so far has not.

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