http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07732722.htm

US Senate sends Bush $31 bln security bill
07 Oct 2005 15:26:49 GMT

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Friday passed and sent to President George W. Bush a $30.8 billion bill to fund domestic security programs including airport screenings and tighter border controls.

The Senate's voice-vote approval of the fiscal 2006 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security came a day after the House of Representatives passed the compromise bill worked out between the two chambers.

The legislation would provide $1.1 billion more than the previous year and $1.2 billion more than Bush requested.

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the measure was a vast improvement over what President George W. Bush had proposed but it still shortchanged domestic emergency preparedness and response.

"Sometimes, I say to the White House, you have to spend money to save lives, and you do have to spend it here, in this country, in America," Byrd said.

Byrd noted that emergency funds approved by Congress following Hurricane Katrina were double the budget of entire Homeland Security Department.

"And yet in this bill we fail to make the investments to help us avoid future $60 billion supplementals. We should be increasing pre-disaster mitigation efforts," Byrd said.

The legislation provides $2.6 billion for the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency's response and recovery activities.

FEMA was widely criticized in Congress for a slow and ineffective reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly in Louisiana.

The bill passed by the Senate on Friday would also fund the hiring of 1,000 more border patrol agents and the construction of more border detention facilities.