Mark Souder: “I rise for a different reason in opposition to this rule. We have been battling with the Coast Guard and their budget…”

“I rise for a different reason in opposition to this rule. We have been battling with the Coast Guard and their budget submissions from OMB as to why narcotics are not considered part of their terrorism mission. We have made some progress with that, but I had an amendment submitted to reflect that drug interdiction is a homeland security mission as required under the Homeland Security Act. I do not understand why jurisdictional disputes would have stopped this. Both committees, Transportation and Homeland Security, should agree that it's part of terrorism, and both committees need to work on narcotics and make sure, because smugglers are smugglers, whether they're smuggling people or whether they're smuggling contraband. And if we get this mission separated, since every single person in the Coast Guard says their first concern is homeland security, what we wind up is neglecting the narcotics mission. My friend from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and I have worked on the narcotics issue for a long time. And I would hope that petty jurisdictions in the House wouldn't stop us from moving ahead in a bipartisan way to make sure that narcotics are part of the terrorism mission.”