TWIC Program Act

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5855, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, it was 68 years ago today that more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed and wounded during the D-day invasion in Normandy, France. That courageous operation, as well as the sacrifice of so many brave individuals, serves as a sobering reminder that freedom and security are not free. It is with this solemn commitment to both freedom and security that I respectfully present to the people's House the FY 2013 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

Similar to our committee's work over the past 2 fiscal years, this bill demonstrates how we can sufficiently fund vital security programs while also at the same time reducing discretionary spending overall. This bill does not represent a false choice between fiscal responsibility and our Nation's security. Both are national security priorities and both are vigorously addressed in this bill by focusing upon four key priorities:

First, fiscal discipline. This bill reduces spending below the FY12- enacted level;

Second, oversight. This bill continues and strengthens the subcommittee's long bipartisan tradition of strict accountability;

Third, support for frontline operations. This bill sustains and it actually even increases operational programs, including border and maritime security, immigration enforcement, investigations, targeted aviation security activities, disaster relief, and also cybersecurity;

Fourth, preparedness and innovation. Despite the bill's overall reduction in spending, investments and preparedness grants and science and technology are substantially increased above FY12 levels.

In sum, I believe this to be a very strong bill that incorporates considerable input from nearly 200 Members, including members of the authorizing committees, and also along with the Appropriations Committee, which meets our Nation's pressing needs for both security and fiscal restraint.

I would like to go into a few details on fiscal discipline and spending that are included in this legislation.

The bill before us today provides $39.1 billion in base discretionary funding, which is nearly a half billion dollars below the FY12-enacted level, and it is almost $400 million below the President's own request. There are no earmarks in this bill or the accompanying report.

The bill cuts the Department's bureaucratic overhead and headquarters functions by nearly 18 percent below the request and 7 percent below last year's level. Also, the bill substantially reduces the administrative overhead of the Department of Homeland Security component agencies, including a $61 million reduction to TSA's administrative functions and a reallocation of TSA's resources to increase privatized screening and canine enforcement teams. In fact, TSA is cut overall by some $422 million below last year's level.

As I noted, this bill puts priority funding on frontline personnel, such as the Border Patrol, CBP officers, Coast Guard military personnel, and law enforcement agents. It supports the largest immigration detention capacity in the history of ICE, and it sustains high-risk aviation security. It fully funds the known requirement for disaster relief; supports long overdue initiatives in cybersecurity; and robustly supports intelligence, watch-listing, threat-targeting systems, preparedness grants, and science and technology programs, including the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility.

In addition, this bill reforms the way the Coast Guard acquires its costly operational assets and responsibly funds much-needed cutters and aviation assets, those essential tools that will keep our coastlines safe and secure our maritime approaches against the plague of illegal drugs.

This bill also provides funding where the administration utterly failed. This bill makes up for the $115 million shortfall that was handed to us by the Department through phony, unauthorized fee collections, as well as the $110 million shortfall resulting from OMB's failure to properly access CBP's fee collections. The administration may be able to rely on some of these fee gimmicks in the President's budget, but here in the House and in the subcommittee we do not have that luxury.

With respect to oversight, our subcommittee has a bipartisan tradition of insisting upon results for each and every taxpayer dollar that it appropriates. Therefore, the bill includes robust oversight by way of intensified spend plan requirements, reporting requirements, a full accounting of disaster relief costs, and operational requirements to include Border Patrol staffing levels and ICE's detention capacity.

However, I must note that the Department of Homeland Security did an unacceptably poor job at complying with the statutory requirements that were enacted in FY12. Those failures are assertively addressed in this bill and the report, and we address this through sizable cuts and withholdings to the Department.

Furthermore, this bill holds the administration's feet to the fire when it comes to enforcing our Nation's immigration laws. In response to the administration's repeated attempts to water down enforcement, this bill directs ICE to maintain 34,000 detention beds and continue funding 287(g) and worksite enforcement at the FY 2012 levels. It is the prerogative of Congress to set such priorities, and I stand by this direction in the bill.

Our subcommittee is serious about compelling the Department to not only enforce the law, but to comply with the law as well, and we cannot tolerate further failures in this regard.

Finally, on preparedness and innovation. The bill increases preparedness grants by nearly 17 percent and science and technology programs by nearly 24 percent above last year's levels. Committee members and our authorizing members have provided considerable input on these programs, and I'm committed to leveraging technology and well- justified investments to sustain our Nation's preparedness as well as spur innovation and foster an environment for job growth.

In closing my comments this afternoon, I would like to thank Ranking Member David Price. He has been a statesman and a real partner during this process as we have moved this bill forward over the last several months. I do want to thank him for his dedicated professionalism and also his dedicated staff that have acted in a tremendously professional manner, for their input and contributions that they have made to this bill.

Let me recognize and thank the members of the Appropriations Committee and also many of the members of the authorizing committee, for their input and their vital oversight work over the past few months as well, as we have moved forward in the producing of this bill.

I'd like to thank the dedicated staff for the Department of Homeland Security that I work with on a day-by-day basis as we move this bill forward: the clerk, Ben Nicholson; Jeff Ashford; Kris Mallard; Kathy Kraninger; Miles Taylor; Cornell Teague; and Joe Croce, as well as in my own office, in my personal office who worked on this bill, Brian Rell and Mark Dawson and, of course, on the minority side, Stephanie Gupta, who did a tremendous job in a professional manner on the minority side.

Finally, I do want to thank the distinguished chairman and the ranking member of the overall Appropriations Committee, Chairman Hal Rogers and Ranking Member Norm Dicks. As much as we had to make difficult choices and tradeoffs at the subcommittee level, I know they had to make much more difficult choices across all 12 subcommittees.

So I sincerely believe, Mr. Chairman, that this bill reflects our best efforts to address our Nation's most urgent needs for security and also to address fiscal discipline. I would urge my colleagues in the House to support this measure.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Homeland Security authorizing committee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Peter King.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, the hardworking chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee, who has also been on the floor this week with his legislation, Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), who is the chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the vice-chairman of our Subcommittee on Homeland Security, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a hardworking member of our Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), who is the subcommittee chairman on the authorizing Homeland Security Subcommittee and chairing the Transportation Security Subcommittee.

We have no further requests for time.

As I had mentioned earlier in my opening comments, I do believe this bill is a good bill. It reflects our best efforts to try to address our Nation's most urgent needs: of course, first of all, security, and second of all, fiscal discipline. Both of those are very important in this age in which we live.

So I would urge my colleagues to support this measure as it moves to the floor.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill and yield myself such time as I may utilize.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased we're considering the fiscal year 2013 Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill in a timely fashion and under an open rule. Chairman Aderholt has been collaborative and collegial in the drafting of this bill, and I appreciate his willingness to include input from our side all along the way.

I'm generally supportive of the funding levels provided in the bill. The fact remains, however, that our subcommittee was forced to accept a reduced allocation for the Department of Homeland Security when Republicans unilaterally cast aside the spending agreement we reached last August, forcing the Appropriations Committee to absorb $19 billion in reductions below the Budget Control Act levels.

Largely because the majority broke that agreement, DHS is funded at 1 percent below the requested level, continuing a downward funding trend for

this agency over the past few years. The bill does retain the disaster cap adjustment included in the Budget Control Act agreement.

Mr. Chairman, fortunately, despite these circumstances, the bill before us provides adequate funding for DHS front-line employees so that they can continue to conduct critical operations along our borders, to protect our Nation's airports and seaports, to disrupt the latest plots against the United States and our citizens, and to respond to the spate of natural disasters our country has experienced.

I'm also pleased that the bill significantly increases funding for critical grant programs, in marked contrast to the current year's inadequate levels. The bill also rejects the administration's poorly articulated changes to the grant structure, changes that have not been authorized.

Specifically, funding for FEMA's State and local grants is $413 million above the fiscal year 2012 level, and both fire grants and emergency management performance grants are funded at the levels requested by the administration.

Equally important, the bill provides improved funding for research and developments efforts. The bill contains sufficient resources for the Science and Technology Directorate to fund all high-priority research efforts and some new projects as well.

Unfortunately, while the bill appears to fully fund the administration's request for science and technology, in reality it includes $75 million for construction of the National Bio and Agro- defense Facility, NBAF, which the administration did not request, in effect reducing funds for research and development efforts.

Now, I support the eventual construction of this facility, but I must question the inclusion of $75 million in limited resources for a project that the President did not request, that remains under review by two National Academy of Science panels, and that already has unobligated prior-year appropriations that it can draw upon.

The bill also increases funding for critical Coast Guard, as well as Air and Marine, acquisitions, to recapitalize aging assets while also bringing the latest aviation and vessel technologies online to ensure our personnel can operate more effectively.

And, finally, the bill includes a substantial increase for cybersecurity protective efforts to continuously monitor and detect intrusions to our Federal networks from foreign espionage and cyberattacks.

Mr. Chairman, the bill does contain some ill-advised immigration provisions. Unnecessary and wasteful statutory floors are set for a variety of programs, such as an arbitrary minimum of 34,000 detention beds, a required level of spending for the seriously flawed 287(g) program, and an inflexible amount for work-site enforcement. Including these types of spending floors and mandates in bill language limits the Department's flexibility to respond decisively to immigration challenges and is likely to waste taxpayer dollars for no good reason.

I also object to the three abortion general provisions that were added in full committee. Now, we all know, Mr. Chairman, abortion is a politically charged subject. Numerous restrictions in law have already conditioned and qualified reproductive freedom in practice. Among those are prohibitions on the use of Federal funds for abortion procedures, which are specifically applied to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security by the President's Executive Order 13535, issued on March 24, 2010.

Until now, our bill has never touched on the topic of abortion because it's not relevant to the Department of Homeland Security, and it falls far outside the lines of jurisdiction of this subcommittee. So these provisions are redundant. They will accomplish nothing. They make no change whatsoever in current law or procedures.

They seem designed mainly for political effect; but I tell you, political effect cuts both ways. These abortion riders, while unnecessary, are inflammatory. They're divisive. They should not be included in the final bill.

Finally, I also strongly disagree with provisions that withhold the following: 60 percent of all funding provided to the Secretary, Under Secretary, Chief Financial Officer; 10 percent of all funding for salaries and expenses at Customs and Border Protection personnel; about 37 percent for Coast Guard Headquarters Directorate until they submit numerous reports required by statute.

Even more egregiously, these withholdings are coupled with a provision that prevents the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the commandant of our Coast Guard, and the vice commandant from using their aircraft until certain key reports are received by the committee. These constraints are excessive. They will prevent Department and Coast Guard leadership from effectively doing their jobs.

I support efforts to hold the Department accountable; and, in fact, we included carefully calibrated and targeted withholdings in this bill when I was chairman. But excessive and unrealistic limitations, frankly, detract from this subcommittee's credibility, and they're likely to be counterproductive.

Mr. Chairman, I will close by thanking the hardworking professional staff which has helped craft this bill and has assisted the subcommittee in a bipartisan manner over the course of the year. I want to thank, as the chairman did, Ben Nicholson, Kathy Kraninger, Jeff Ashford, Kris Mallard, Joe Croce, Miles Taylor, and Cornell Teague on the majority side and, of course, Stephanie Gupta on our side of the aisle and Justin Wein from my office.

Again, I want to reiterate my appreciation to the chairman for his efforts to work with us on so many issues and to sustain our front-line Federal homeland security operations.

With that, Mr. Chairman I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 3 minutes to an outstanding member of our subcommittee, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), a leading member of our full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am privileged to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi, the outstanding ranking member of the authorizing committee, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from Mississippi.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, does the majority have any further requests for time?

Mr. Chairman, I will conclude by again commending the chairman and our whole subcommittee. We have a good active group of members, and virtually all had positive input into this legislation. I appreciate the spirit in which the chairman has made an honest effort to accommodate constructive input from all sources.

There's much to commend about this bill, starting with the support of frontline operations, but also some improvements from the funding situation we're

dealing with this year with respect to State and local FEMA grants, for example, and with respect to science and technology investments. There are funding shortfalls in this bill with respect to the headquarters' needs at St. Elizabeth's, with respect to certain administrative needs of the Department, and others that we could name. But under the constraints of the budget allocation there is a good balance in this bill, I think, and one that has required a great deal of accommodation and a great deal of hard work.

I have already said that I think there are some extraneous elements of this bill that are not so constructive: the immigration provisions, the abortion provisions, and some excessive withholding provisions. I sincerely hope that in the debate to come we will not compound that problem.

We know we're going to be dealing with dozens of amendments. We're going to be dealing with additional proposed riders, ill-advised for the most part. We're going to be dealing with some tempting spending provisions that will cannibalize those front office expenses or the science and technology expenses or other accounts in this bill for the sake of amendments that may sound good but really could upset some of the delicate balances that this bill has struck.

So we're going to have, I hope and believe, a probably lengthy and also constructive process of discussion and amendment under the open rule, and I very much hope that the end result of that process will be a bill that can claim broad support. We're going to have a few hours until that process begins, but I look forward to getting on with this and at the end of the week producing a Homeland Security appropriations bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4251, the SMART Port Security Act, and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I'm pleased that the House is meeting today to consider H.R. 4251, the SMART Port Security Act. This bill includes a number of Democratic-sponsored provisions aimed at improving our Nation's maritime security.

Representative Loretta Sanchez authored a provision to strengthen the integrity of the TWIC program. Representative Laura Richardson authored language to allow port operators to use their grant funds for security provided by local law enforcement. Representative Clarke of Michigan authored a provision relating to northern border security.

H.R. 4251 also includes language modeled after a bill I introduced, H.R. 1105, to relieve the Nation's port and transportation workers from the hassle and expense of renewing their 5-year TWIC cards, given that DHS has not done its job to fully implement this security program.

Specifically, section 206 of this bill will relieve current TWIC holders, the men and women who work in our ports, from being required to secure new identification cards beginning in October 2012, given that DHS has not even issued a draft rule for biometric readers.

For the full security potential of the TWIC program to be realized, there must be readers installed at ports to match the biometric cards with the individuals presenting them. Since 2007, over 2.1 million longshoremen, truckers, merchant mariners, and rail and vessel crew members have undergone extensive homeland security and criminal background checks and paid a $132.50 fee to secure TWICs.

Since H.R. 4251 was considered by the full committee, DHS has taken positive steps to address the upcoming TWIC renewal predicament. Specifically, DHS recently announced that, starting this August, workers will be eligible for a 3-year TWIC renewal card at a discounted rate and with fewer visits to the enrollment center. While this is a positive development, more must be done.

The bill before us today allows workers to continue to use their TWICs for the next 2 years, while providing an incentive for DHS to move forward on readers as soon as possible.

I insert into the Record a letter we received today from Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, expressing their support for this bill and the provisions making commonsense changes to the TWIC program.

Transportation Trades

Department, AFL-CIO,

Washington, DC, June 26, 2012.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the Transportation Trades

Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), I write to express our support for

H.R. 4251, the SMART Port Security Act, offered by Rep.

Candice Miller (R-MI), which will be voted under suspension

later today.

The SMART Port Security Act, among other things, makes

needed reforms to the Transportation Worker Identification

Credential (TWIC) program enrollment, activation, issuance

and renewal process. Specifically, this legislation postpones

the requirement of workers to renew TWIC cards in the absence

of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) final regulations

mandating biometric card readers.

Since the TWIC program began, over two million workers have

fulfilled their obligation to enroll in the TWIC program,

incurring the significant cost and time commitment to comply

with the program. However, DHS has yet to issue a final rule

on the biometric readers, rendering the expensive biometric

component of the TWIC cards virtually useless. Despite the

readers not being in place, workers will have to renew their

TWIC cards beginning in October, 2012. This legislation would

spare workers the financial and procedural burden of renewing

their application until DHS puts the infrastructure in place

to make the program fully functional.

This legislation also includes language which ensures that

workers are only required to make one in-person visit to an

enrollment center either for a first enrollment

or a renewal. This will lift a logistical burden for workers,

many of whom may be hundreds of miles away from a TWIC

enrollment facility while on the job.

Transportation workers have been asked for too long to bear

the financial burden of supporting a program that is

incomplete and ineffective. I urge all Members to vote for

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Richardson).

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I am prepared to close.

I would note that my support for the SMART Port Security Act is rooted in not only the improvements in the TWIC Program but also in what it seeks to do in order to improve the coordination and cooperation between DHS's maritime components and strengthened procurement practices. This bill is the result of a bipartisan effort to strengthen the security of America's ports and waterways and to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security's maritime security efforts are as effective and efficient as practicable.

With that, Madam Speaker, I urge the passage of H.R. 4251, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

I certainly want to thank the chairman for his support of the bill, and I thank the gentleman for yielding the time as well.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4251. I'm absolutely convinced that the bill before the House today, the SMART Port Act, will tangibly enhance the Nation's maritime security.

We spend a lot of time, as a Nation, and as a Congress, focusing on security threats at the southern border and on the northern border, but sometimes we also need to remember that we have a very long maritime border that deserves our attention as well.

A major disruption at one of the Nation's ports, especially a terrorist attack, is a high-consequence event that has the potential to cripple the global supply chain and could severely damage our economy. We simply cannot afford to ignore threats to our Nation's maritime security.

To that end, SMART Port builds on the work of the 2006 SAFE Port Act to enhance risk-based security measures overseas before the threat reaches our shore. It emphasizes a stronger collaborative environment between the Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard in sharing port security duties, and it leverages the maritime security work of our trusted allies.

If we learned anything after 9/11, it's that we need to move from the need-to-know information to the need-to-share information. The Department of Homeland Security components with shared jurisdiction must cooperate in maritime operations and form partnerships with State and local law enforcement agencies in order to improve the Nation's maritime security.

What happens in our waterways and ports affects the entire Nation, so it is incumbent on us to realize that maritime security is not the province simply of the government alone. Leveraging partnerships with private industry, as well as our international partners, is common sense; and trusted-shippers programs, like the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or the C-T PAT, where companies who make significant investments in their security, reduces the amount of resources that CBP needs to spend on looking at cargo shipments that we know the least about.

Our trusted allies, like Canada and the European Union, have programs similar to C-T PAT in place, and this bill supports the concept of mutual recognition where the Secretary can accept other countries' trusted-shipper programs when they provide an equal level of security. And not only does this save CBP inspectors from the added burden of having to verify companies who participate in both programs. It also really expedites commerce across our borders, and we really need to do that because of limited use of taxpayer dollars, certainly. And so it makes fiscal sense, as well, to do that.

The American port worker, truck driver, and others who make port operations run smoothly are another critical maritime security layer. They're all required to obtain the TWIC cards that the ranking member just mentioned here, and the chairman as well. These individuals have complied with the law. They've done their part. They've purchased a TWIC card. In many cases they've traveled long distances to go to the enrollment center, maybe not once but twice, and undergone the background check. But the problem is that the United States Government has not done its part.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet to release the TWIC reader rule, meaning that the biometric information embedded on the card validating the worker's identity just isn't being confirmed. And in reality, because of that, the TWIC card has become little more than an expensive ``flash pass.''

This bill will extend the validity of TWIC cards until the government upholds its end of the bargain and puts out a reader rule. The Coast Guard and TSA must produce the TWIC reader rule which is necessary to give American workers and port facilities certainty after years of delay.

As well, we should be cognizant of the fact that CBP and the United States Coast Guard cannot intrusively scan every truck, every cargo container or bulk shipment that comes into American ports. It's certainly cost prohibitive, but it would also cripple the just-in-time delivery system that the industry relies on to keep American commerce running.

Instead, I believe that the security of the supply chain is maximized through the use of a risk-based methodology, which is a key element in this bill. Smart, cost effective choices have to be made that maximize our resources while ensuring the security of our ports and, by that, our extension of our way of life.

This bill, Madam Speaker, is a step toward smarter security that encourages DHS to become more efficient, better integrated, and more closely coordinated amongst its component industry and international partners.

Again, I want to thank the chairman, Chairman King, for his support of this bill, and Ranking Member Thompson of the full committee, and certainly my counterpart on the subcommittee as well, Ranking Member Cuellar.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the SMART Port Security Act, H.R. 4251. I'm a proud cosponsor of Chairwoman Miller's legislation and commend her for her efforts on this important issue to our Nation.

At a time when media reports assume that Congress doesn't work together, I'm pleased to note that I've been able to work with Chairwoman Miller and the committee in a bipartisan fashion to have two of my bills incorporated into the SMART Port Security Act.

As the senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, and the Representative of a district neighboring the ports of both Long Beach and Los Angeles, the largest in this country, I have made port security a priority of mine.

Ports are the first line of defense at our sea borders and serve vital national interests by supporting the mobilization and deployment of U.S. troops, facilitating the flow of trade, and supporting our economy. Ninety-five percent of all goods entering or exiting our country go through our Nation's ports, and 45 percent of those actually go through the community I represent.

In the next 20 years, U.S. overseas trade is expected to double; and in light of the terrorist attacks on September 11 in 2001, heightened awareness about the vulnerability of all modes of transportation to terrorist acts are a priority of us on this committee.

Included in the SMART Port Security Act are two pieces of legislation I authored, Port Security Boots on the Ground Act and the Port Security Equipment Improvement Act. Both of these bills involve the use of existing port security grant funds.

The Port Security Grant Program provides funding to port authorities, facility operators, and State and local government agencies so that they can provide security services to our ports. However, prior to my introduced legislation, port security grant funds could not be used to fund statutorily mandated personnel costs.

My Port Security Boots on the Ground Act, which was incorporated into H.R. 4251, corrects this inconsistency between Port Security Grant programs and other grant funding programs. To prevent the possibility of waste, fraud and abuse, the amount of security personnel costs awarded are limited to 50 percent of the total grant amount in any fiscal year.

The Maritime Transportation Security Act and the SAFE Port Act authorize funds to identify vulnerabilities in port security and to ensure compliance with mandated port security

plans. My legislation made these funds workable and removed government red tape from State, local, and government entities.

I thank Chairwoman Miller for including my Port Security Boots on the Ground Act in this important legislation.

The second inclusion that also should be highlighted is the Port Security Equipment Improvement Act, which was accepted by unanimous consent as an amendment to H.R. 4251 during the full committee markup. The Port Security Equipment Improvement Act gives recipients of Port Security Grant Program funds the flexibility in determining whether it is more cost effective to repair or replace security equipment.

I have personally heard from many port authorities in my district and from those surrounding my area about their frustrations of not being given the opportunity to purchase newer and improved security equipment. This will give the recipients of the Port Security Grant Program funds the ability to fix or replace defective security equipment, thereby making the best use of limited resources.

I appreciate Congresswoman Candice Miller for working with me and for having both of my bills, the Port Security Boots on the Ground Act and the Port Security Equipment Improvement Act, included in the SMART Port Security Act legislation before us today. I look forward to continuing to work with the chairwoman, the committee and staff on protecting our ports. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in supporting the SMART Port Security Act.