Mark Souder: “Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make sure that Members understood there was one program we have not talked about at all today…”

“Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make sure that Members understood there was one program we have not talked about at all today which is CTAC, the Counter-Drug Technology Assessment Center, which has a technology transfer program that is so important to so many of our local and State programs; 5,356 local and State agencies across the United States have tapped into this technology. I also wanted to point out for those who are somewhat confused about HIDTAs that, for example, in New York City, Detroit and Los Angeles, over half of the members of that HIDTA are local law enforcement and two-thirds are State and local law enforcement. This was a program that said rather than just have Federal law enforcement, let us build and leverage the resources of the State and local communities by working together. If we do not adequately fund this program, every city has pretty much told us that they will pull out because they have to use their State and local dollars to join with these HIDTAs, and it is a very marginal decision to do so, but they believe putting two-thirds of the officers in has been beneficial in reducing crime in their area. In New York City, the HIDTA there is referred to as the U.N. of law enforcement because after 9/11, they have consolidated not only the narcotics, but the anti-terrorism efforts to make sure that New York remains safe because it has been on orange alert since 9/11.”