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Senate Restores Grant Money To Help States Fight Meth

Thursday, September 15, 2005

POST-DISPATCH
By Ben Roberts

WASHINGTON The Senate on Wednesday restored anti-drug spending that law enforcement officials in Missouri and Illinois said was critical to halt the spread of methamphetamine.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., joined a bipartisan group in legislation seeking to save the Byrne grant program, which has been slated for elimination by the Bush administration.

The amendment, co-authored by Sens. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., would increase the program's funding from $625 million to $900 million over the next fiscal year.

"This extra funding will ensure that meth task forces across Illinois have the manpower and infrastructure they need to keep this drug off our streets and out of our schools," Obama said in a statement.


In June, the House passed a plan that would fund the program at $366.4 million, an amount Obama called "woefully short" of what was needed.

John Nowacki, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the department still supported the Bush administration's budget, which this year called for elimination of the program. The administration has questioned the accountability of the program at local levels.

Without the funding provided by the grants, Illinois law enforcement officials would lose about $14.3 million; Missouri would lose $9 million.

Another program used by state and local officials to fight meth, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, was also tapped for elimination by the administration, but the Senate voted unanimously to restore its funding in July.

Maj. James Keathley, commander of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Missouri Highway Patrol, said the Bush administration "obviously didn't understand" the impact meth was having in the region.

Without the grants, Keathley said, it would be impossible for Missouri law enforcement officials to adequately combat the meth problem.

"If we lost the Byrne grants, then our drug task forces would slowly dry up and wither away within about a year's time," he said.