Judd Gregg: “I appreciate the very concise and accurate summation of this amendment, its purposes, and how it would affect spending…”

“I appreciate the very concise and accurate summation of this amendment, its purposes, and how it would affect spending by the Senator from Tennessee. I do think it is appropriate to respond even a little further on this issue. The purpose of this amendment is to basically give the people who are defending us on our borders--the border security agents, the Customs agents, the Coast Guard--the tools they need to do their job right, which includes the airplanes, the unmanned vehicles, the boats, the cars, and the helicopters. That is clearly a critical element of our national defense in the fight in the war on terrorism. It has to be done. It has to be done now. For example, the Senator from Tennessee noted that the one unmanned vehicle on the southwest border crashed--it is fairly ironic it would crash this week, but it crashed this week--so we now have none. We need to replace that. We not only need to replace it, we have to add about three or four more. It costs money, and this amendment would accomplish that. We know that has to be done if we are going to get the borders under control. With the proper capital support, with the proper technical support, and with the proper number of people on the border, we can bring the border under control. We are on a path to do that. We added 1,500 agents. We are going to add another 1,500 agents this year. We are adding them as fast as we can hire them.…”