Melvin Watt: “a real problem I have with this bill has been illustrated by the last amendment which was adopted, and that is the…”

“a real problem I have with this bill has been illustrated by the last amendment which was adopted, and that is the question of how the bill is drafted. It leaves the field wide open for interpretation of about anything at the local level to be eligible for funding under this bill. The particular place which this amendment is designed to address is throughout the bill where amounts are to be paid to units of local government for improving public safety. There is no definition in the bill for what improving public safety means. In my congressional district there are some cities is that when we talk about public safety the first thing that they go to is not crime in the neighborhoods, police on the streets, or something of that kind, but public safety has the connotation of increased traffic, roads, streets, something that will help to improve the flow of traffic in and around the city. Let me make it clear that I do not have any problem with improving subject safety by building more streets or improving highways or improving roads, but in this particular bill, which is a crime bill, there should be no question that these funds should not be eligible for being used in that way. So I thought we better have something in the bill that gave some definition to this concept of improving public safety.”