Watson Coleman: “I thank my colleagues, the chairman from Maine and the ranking member from Connecticut, for the hard work they have done…”

“I thank my colleagues, the chairman from Maine and the ranking member from Connecticut, for the hard work they have done in working in a bipartisan way and coming up with important, practical, commonsense ways to deal with the threats to homeland security that deal with the threats to major urban centers, that deal with the opportunity--I want to talk about this a little bit today--and the importance of working on a regional basis. As a Senator from Minnesota, I represent the Twin Cities. I will talk a little bit about the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, the experience they had dealing with the urban area security initiatives under the present system. The system needs improvement. I rise today to offer my support for the bipartisan amendment offered by Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman that will streamline and rationalize the State homeland security grant process. My State has a wide range of homeland security interests. We share an international border with Canada. We have two major cities in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We have two nuclear reactors in Red Wing and Monticello. We have a major port in the city of Duluth on Lake Superior, connected through the Great Lakes system to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, Minnesota witnessed an average 48-percent reduction in the allocation of Federal homeland security dollars for this year.…”