Cord Byrd: “on Tuesday, September 10, 2002, the Attorney General announced an increase in the national threat level to the ``High…”

“on Tuesday, September 10, 2002, the Attorney General announced an increase in the national threat level to the ``High Risk'' level. The President accepted the recommendation based on what the Attorney General described as specific intelligence received and analyzed by the full intelligence community and corroborated by multiple intelligence sources. The Attorney General indicated that the likely targets include the transportation and energy sectors and symbols of American power such as U.S. embassies, U.S. military facilities and national monuments. I intend to offer an amendment to the Interior bill for $937 million of supplemental funding. The package includes $647 million of homeland security funding that draws from the $5.1 billion emergency contingency fund that the President rejected those items that are most directly related to the increased threat. In addition, the amendment includes $200 million for international AIDS programs as was approved by the Senate 79-14 when Senator Frist offered the amendment last June. The amendment also includes $90 million that the Congress had previously approved for providing long-term health screening and examinations for the emergency personnel who responded to the attack at the World Trade Center.”