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Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Outlines His Trade Budget Priorities

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Lieberman announced his homeland security budget priorities in his annual letter to the Senate Budget Committee.

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Highlight of the Trade-Related Aspects of Chairman's FY 2010 Budget Priorities

Highlights of the trade-related aspects of Lieberman's FY 2010 budget priorities include:

Port of entrystaffing - Lieberman supports a funding increase for additional staffing at ports of entry the majority of which would be used for hiring, training, and deploying an additional 1,600 officers to the busiest ports of entry (POE) as determined by average wait times at air and land POE or at maritime POE as determined by CBP's Resource Allocation Model (RAM) required by the Security and Accountability for Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006.

He recommends that the balance of the funding should be used to support the inspection of plants and agricultural products at ports of entry, including the hiring of 200 additional agriculture specialists who serve a critical role in protecting the U.S. from both the intentional and unintentional introduction of diseases and pests that threaten human health and the U.S. economy.

Ports of entry infrastructure - According to Lieberman, the U.S. POE infrastructure is currently significantly out of date and although the economic stimulus bill's $400 million in POE infrastructure funding is a good first step, it merely represents a down-payment on the far greater need to modernize U.S. ports of entry. For this reason, Lieberman states that he supports support maintaining funding for the CBP construction account at $403 million in FY 2010.

Planning for intermodal freight infrastructure - Lieberman states that he supports the funding request in the President's FY 2010 budget for integrated planning at DHS and the Department of Transportation for the development and modernization of intermodal freight infrastructure, linking freight rail networks with U.S. ports and highway network. Intermodal transportation hubs are key components of the U.S. transportation network, and are a particular risk to the health of that network, as an attack at or near an intermodal hub would have a cascading effect on domestic and international commerce.

CSI, C-TPAT, ATS, etc. - Lieberman states that he supports fully funding the President's request for programs like the Container Security Initiative (CSI), the Customs-Trade Partnership against Terrorism (C-TPAT), and the Automated Targeting System (ATS). He also supports increasing funding for additional CBP Officers, who could be deployed to maritime ports of entry, for research and development within the Science & Technology Directorate's Maritime Security Division, and for nuclear detection programs throughout the Department of Homeland Security.

Secure Freight Initiative - Lieberman notes that under the Secure Freight Initiative (SFI), for the past 18 months operations have continued at the majority of the initial ports and DHS has been able to identify particular hurdles ports would need to overcome if foreign ports were going to scan 100% of cargo containers. In particular, DHS has acknowledged that larger volume ports and ports which process a great deal of transshipped cargo pose some of the biggest challenges.

Therefore, Lieberman states that he supports an additional $30 million for SFI in FY 2010, above the President's request, to be equally split between U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) budget and the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration budget, for adding two new ports to the SFI program.

One port would be added to test scanning solutions for a port processing a high volume of transshipped cargo, and a second port would test systems processing medium to high volumes of containers (though not necessarily transshipped containers).

CBP, ICE, border security - Lieberman notes that although the President's budget offers few details concerning border security programs and does not establish a baseline for CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding in FY 2010, he supports increases of $390 million for CBP and $90 million for ICE in FY 2010.

Lieberman expresses concern that border security funding may not be being targeted as efficiently as it should be and could lead to a misalignment of resources and the under-funding of critical border security priorities, in particular U.S. efforts to enhance the security of ports of entry through the deployment of programs such as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), and US-VISIT.

Transportation security grants - Lieberman recommends that the port and transit (which includes rail) security grant programs each receive at least the same level Congress appropriated for FY 2009.

Rail and transit security - Lieberman states that as the President's recent FY 2010 budget proposal makes clear, DHS must ramp up its efforts to assist state, local and private operators in safeguarding the Nation's rail and public transportation systems.

Lieberman's letter outlining his FY 2010 homeland security budget priorities available at http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=6ff2d9fb-7065-4510-80bb-8346961a2087&Month=3&Year=2009&Affiliation=C.