Judd Gregg: “Thank you. Amendments Nos. 1189 and 1190 Mr. President, as to the two proposals by the Senator from New York, I am going…”

“Thank you. Amendments Nos. 1189 and 1190 Mr. President, as to the two proposals by the Senator from New York, I am going to make a point of order that both proposals exceed the budget allocation which we received. Obviously, they are well- intentioned, and they are reasonably confined compared to some of the other proposals we have received this morning in the billions of dollars. These are in the hundreds of millions--in one case even under $100 million. The fact is, in both instances, the Department does not believe it is necessary to do this at this time. They believe they have proposals in the pipeline which will address air cargo, and they have proposals in the pipeline which will deal with hazardous material shipments. But as of right now, they are not ready to deal with these additional dollars in a way that will use them constructively. So the Department opposes both of these proposals based essentially on the fact that they are pilot programs, and their initiatives in these areas are not ripe enough, are not at the level of capacity yet to handle these types of dollars. As the Senator from New York has noted, this is really a question for us, as a Congress, and for the Homeland Security agency, as an agency, to allocate resources where they can get the most return and the most effective use.…”