Vermont Victories In Homeland Security Budget Bill –

President Signs Bill With Leahy’s Measure
To Delay Border-Crossing ID Requirements
Until Bush Administration Certifies
Better Coordination And Preparation

Leahy Also Beats Back Bid
To Curb First-Responder Grants
To Vermont And Other Smaller States

WASHINGTON (Wednesday, Oct. 4) – President Bush Wednesday signed into law a homeland security funding bill that includes two significant policy wins for Vermont, engineered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Leahy’s legislation in the bill will buy more time to improve implementation of the controversial PASS Card system for border crossings – a system that will require new identity cards and methods for crossing U.S. borders, including the Northern Border with Canada.  Leahy was joined by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in writing and offering the amendment, which would postpone implementation of the PASS Card system – part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) -- for 17 months, until June 1, 2009, or earlier, if the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State certify to Congress that several standards in the amendment are met before the program moves forward.

The final version of the bill also continues Leahy’s all-state minimum formula for the basic first-responder grant program, which has brought more than $70 million to Vermont’s fire, police and rescue agencies in the last four years.  Leahy also had successfully led the effort to beat back an attempt to weaken the funding formula during earlier Senate debate on the bill.  Under the final version of the bill, Vermont’s first responders will receive a minimum total of $6.75 million in grants over the next year, Leahy noted.

Leahy is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and of its Homeland Security Subcommittee, which handled the Senate’s work in drafting the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security.  Leahy was also a leading Senate conferee on the bill. 

Leahy says the lack of sufficient coordination on the PASS Card system between DHS and State, and between the Bush Administration and the Government of Canada, has spelled trouble for the system, unless its problems are corrected.

"This buys time to fix the flaws in this new ID system for our borders,” said Leahy.  “Poor planning and lack of coordination by federal agencies have been spelling disaster for this plan, and a bad plan would clog our borders while making us less secure.”

The certification requirements in Leahy’s WHTI amendment will require the two departments to:

1.)  Ensure that the technology for any Passport Card (PASS Card) meets certain security  
            standards – and that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology certify the
            technology chosen by DHS and State.

2.)  Share the technology with the governments of Canada and Mexico.

3.)  Justify the fee set for the PASS Card.  

4.)  Develop an alternative procedure for groups of children traveling across the border under adult supervision with parental consent.

5.)  Install all necessary technological infrastructure at the ports of entry to process the cards and train U.S. agents at the border crossings in all aspects of the new technology.

6.)  Make the PASS Card available for international land and sea travel between the United States and Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda.

7.)  Establish a unified implementation date for all sea and land borders. 

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