Lizzie Fletcher: “As it stands right now, we have had a program similar to this instituted; it has been through the appropriations. We…”

“As it stands right now, we have had a program similar to this instituted; it has been through the appropriations. We have never had it fully authorized. We passed a bill similar to this or it was passed in Congress before I was here, at least on the House but never on the Senate side. So we are hoping very much that we can get this bill fully authorized, fully passed to authorize this program with the appropriate changes that have been made here. First of all, it allocates $2 billion a year for the fiscal years 2001 through 2005. We also understand as far as the improvements, they have already been mentioned, these as far as providing block grants back to local law enforcement agencies, it ensures that those communities, those poor communities that are not able to meet that match requirement previously will not be precluded from getting these block grants because of a waiver that we have instituted. I know this is going to be particularly helpful for our State of Kentucky.”