Patrick Leahy: “So Members will know, this amendment adds $1.3 billion in emergency funding for National Guard equipment to the…”

“So Members will know, this amendment adds $1.3 billion in emergency funding for National Guard equipment to the supplemental portion of the fiscal year 2006 Defense appropriations bill. The funding is set aside for the National Guard to buy much needed items for homeland security and natural disaster response. Hurricane Katrina exposed glaring deficiencies in the equipment available for the National Guard to respond to such disasters. After Hurricane Katrina, we had barely sufficient levels of trucks, tractors, communication, and miscellaneous equipment that is necessary to respond to the overwhelming scale of this storm. If we have another hurricane or, God forbid, a large-scale terrorist attack, our National Guard is not going to have the basic level of resources to do the job right. As we know, in every one of our 50 States, we have seen in our career times where the National Guard was called upon to help. The National Guard Chief, LTG Steven Blum, recently noted that the Guard has only about 35 percent of what is officially required to respond to hurricanes, natural disasters, or possible terrorist attacks at home. Yesterday, in an appearance in the House of Representatives, General Blum noted that Guard members responded to this disaster with insufficient and outdated communications.…”