Vermont Victories In Homeland Security Budget Bill –

House Leaders Drop 11^th Hour Bid
To Kill Leahy Amendment
That Mandates Improvements
In New Border-Crossing System

House, Senate Now Ready To OK Bill With Leahy’s Measure
To Delay Border-Crossing ID Requirements
Until Bush Administration Certifies
Better Coordination And Preparation

Leahy Also Beats Back Bid
To Curb First-Responder Grants
To Vermont And Other Smaller States

WASHINGTON (Friday, Sept. 29) – Vermont Friday was poised to score two significant policy wins engineered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) as the U.S. House and Senate neared final passage of the annual homeland security budget bill, after key House leaders dropped an 11^th-hour bid to strip from the bill Leahy’s amendment to mandate improvements in a controversial new border-crossing ID system.

Leahy’s legislation will buy more time to improve implementation of the controversial PASS Card system for border crossings – a system that will require new identity cards and methods for crossing U.S. borders, including the Northern Border with Canada.  Leahy was joined by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in writing and offering the amendment, which would postpone implementation of the PASS Card system – part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) -- for 17 months, until June 1, 2009, or earlier, if the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State certify to Congress that several standards in the amendment are met before the program moves forward.

House and Senate Appropriations Committee conferees on Monday had approved Leahy’s amendment and included it in the final bill.  Leahy’s amendment had been in the Senate-passed version of the bill but not the House’s version.  Since then, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) have mounted a rare post-conference bid to strip the Leahy-Stevens Amendment from the conference agreement.  Speaker Hastert now has ended his effort to remove the Leahy amendment.  A floor colloquy Friday involving Chairman Sensenbrenner is expected to indicate his wish that the two agencies promptly comply with the amendment’s requirements so that the PASS Card system can be implemented as close to the original deadline as possible.  Leahy and supporters of the amendment will also introduce a Senate colloquy at the time of passage to explain why the amendment is needed.  The House is expected to pass the bill Friday, before adjourning this year’s regular session, and the Senate is expected to follow suit either Friday or Saturday.

The final version of the bill also continues Leahy’s all-state minimum formula for the basic first-responder grant program, which has brought more than $70 million to Vermont’s fire, police and rescue agencies in the last four years.  Leahy also had successfully led the effort to beat back an attempt to weaken the funding formula during earlier Senate debate on the bill.  Under the final version of the bill, Vermont’s first responders will receive a minimum total of $6.75 million in grants over the next year.

Leahy is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and of its Homeland Security Subcommittee, which handled the Senate’s work in drafting the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security.  Leahy was also a leading Senate conferee on the bill. 

Leahy says the lack of sufficient coordination on the PASS Card system between DHS and State, and between the Bush Administration and the Government of Canada, has spelled trouble for the system, unless its problems are corrected.

"We are buying time that we hope the Bush Administration will use promptly and wisely to fix the PASS Card system,” said Leahy.  “There has been too much drift and too little careful drafting by these agencies so far, and it’s been shaping up as a train wreck in slow motion.  Poor planning and premature implementation of this system could clog our borders while making us less secure.  There is widening agreement in Congress that these problems need to be fixed, and it’s encouraging that Congress is now ready to prod these agencies to come to grips with this and to buy sufficient time to get this system ready before it's unleashed on an unsuspecting public."

Leahy also noted that President Bush this summer, when asked about the Leahy-Stevens Amendment, implied that the Administration will accept a deadline extension, if Congress passes one [see news account, below].

The certification requirements in Leahy’s WHTI amendment will require the two departments to:

1.)  Ensure that the technology for any Passport Card (PASS Card) meets certain security  
            standards – and that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology certify the
            technology chosen by DHS and State.

2.)  Share the technology with the governments of Canada and Mexico.

3.)  Justify the fee set for the PASS Card.  

4.)  Develop an alternative procedure for groups of children traveling across the border under adult supervision with parental consent.

5.)  Install all necessary technological infrastructure at the ports of entry to process the cards and train U.S. agents at the border crossings in all aspects of the new technology.

6.)  Make the PASS Card available for international land and sea travel between the United States and Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda.

7.)  Establish a unified implementation date for all sea and land borders. 

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(from July 6 White House Bulletin account of Bush-Harper news conference:)

Passport Discussion.

Momentum Building To Delay Implementation Of Western Hemisphere Travel initiative.  President Bush met with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Harper today, and border security issues were a key part of their agenda.  Both Prime Minister Harper and President Bush briefly discussed the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) in their remarks today.  PM Harper said, “The President and I agree that the implementations of the provision of the WHTI must not unduly hinder cross border travel or tourism or trade. To that end, we've tasked our officials to agree on common standards on secure and alternate documents and preferably as soon as possible.”  President Bush also addressed the topic, saying, “Yes. I think that if Congress decides there needs to be flexibility, there'll be flexibility.  Interestingly enough, the Senate passed -- made its intention clear to extend deadlines. That hadn't happened in the House yet.  And so, we're operating in the executive branch under the idea that nothing will change. And therefore we need to get to the Canadian government as quickly as possible our definition of what a reasonable policy is. If Congress decides to be flexible, we obviously will be flexible.”

Congress passed a law in the aftermath of 9/11 mandating that the State and Homeland Security Departments require all Western Hemisphere travelers have a passport to cross US borders beginning in 2008.  While much of the US media and political attention has focused on the US border with Mexico, before the July 4 break both the House and Senate quietly passed appropriations amendments that would force a delay in implementation of that deadline, with an eye on US-Canadian travel.  US lawmakers from states bordering Canada fear the technology meant to facilitate travel of safe citizens across the US-Canadian border has not been developed as fast as hoped, and as a result, the 2008 deadline threatens to dry up some of the tourism trade and other business in the Canadian border regions.

One key piece of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requires the State Department to create a Passport Card (“PASS Card”) program meant to facilitate travel across the US-Canadian border.  The idea was to come up with a system that would not require cleared people, some of whom commute daily between the US and Canada, to carry and show a passport each time they traverse the border.  The PASScard is also meant to be considerably cheaper to obtain than a US passport.  Canadian border state lawmakers fear that the technology and implementation of the PASScard system is lagging, and won’t be in place in time to make the WHTI efficient.  The amendment sponsored by Sens. Leahy and Stevens, attached to two separate spending bills, would push WHTI implementation back to June, 2009 and:

·        Ensure that the technology for any Passport Card meets certain security standards – and that DHS and State agree on that technology.

·        Share the technology with the governments of Canada and Mexico.

·        Justify the fee set for the Passport Card.

·        Develop an alternative procedure for groups of children traveling across the border under adult supervision with parental consent.

·        Install all necessary technological infrastructure at the ports of entry to process the cards and train U.S. agents at the border crossings in all aspects of the new technology.

·        Make the Passport Card available for international land and sea travel between the United States and Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda.

·        Establish a unified implementation date for all sea and land borders.

The delay is strongly backed by the travel and tourism industries.  An industry source tells the Bulletin that not only is 2008 probably an unworkable deadline, but also that State is pushing to phase-in implementation of the WHTI even earlier, requiring passports for all air and sea passengers by January 1, 2007.  The industry source notes that the Administration and the agencies involved are under heavy pressure in the media and in pockets of Congress to step up implementation of the post-9/11 security measures, having been criticized so far for a slow response on many fronts.

But the source notes that State still has yet to issue final regs on how it would implement the air/sea passport requirement.  Without final rules in place, there is little opportunity in the remaining months of 2006 for the government or the industry to mount a public information campaign to let travelers know what the new requirements are.  The travel and tourism industry fears that confusion could seriously hurt their business.

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