Frank Pallone: “the Republican leadership today is bringing up a spending bill primarily to pay for the war, and I certainly understand…”

“the Republican leadership today is bringing up a spending bill primarily to pay for the war, and I certainly understand it and will support it; but they have precluded the Democrats from adding and actually addressing in a better way the issue of homeland security. We know that after 9-11 we have to do a lot more to protect problems at home, whether it be water utilities or railroad opportunities or our ports and cargo coming into ports. And what the Democrats have been saying over and over again is that this bill that comes up today, and basically the Republican leadership in general are not doing enough to look at the problem of homeland security. We were told that we could not bring up an amendment that would have added money to pay for these various functions here at home. They should have allowed us here to do this. It is not fair to not let the Democrats who are a minority, but not a minority by much, to have the opportunity to debate and bring up a bill that would put more money to address these problems whether it is tunnels, whether it is your local water supply, whether it is helping with grants for local firefighters or police so that they can better respond and understand what to do in case of a biological or chemical attack. This is what my constituents are telling me that they are very concerned about. Of course they are concerned about the war, and we have to finance the war operations against Iraq.”