Washington, DC – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) joined Congressional Democrats today in issuing a plan that would dramatically improve homeland security and prevent the threat of terrorism in the future.  

The 90-page document includes over 100 specific recommendations for ensuring that the United States wins the war against terrorism.  These recommendations include increasing the number of FBI agents by 50%; securing all unprotected nuclear material worldwide and destroying all chemical weapons by 2010; and hiring and training an additional 500 Arabic speakers at the State Department over the next 3 years. The plan would also double the number of exchange program visitors from the Arab-Muslim world and would increase the Peace Corps to 25,000 volunteers.

The plan is especially strong on port security measures where the Bush Administration continues to underfund the most basic needs of our ports. The Coast Guard has estimated that ports need to spend $1.1 billion this year and $5.4 billion over ten years to meet security standards set by the Coast Guard as instructed by Congress.  Since 9/11, the Administration has requested only $46 million for port security and even though Congress has provided more funding, there remains a $566 million funding gap for this year alone.

The Democratic plan calls for screening 100% of the 7 million cargo containers entering America for nuclear materials, instead of the small percentage that are presently inspected. The report also calls for the establishment of security standards for container seals, as well as beefed-up security in foreign ports to examine U.S.-bound ships.  The U.S. presently has less than 100 inspectors currently assigned to foreign ports under the Container Security Initiative.

“Our plan puts in place the sort of real homeland security measures that President Bush and the Congressional Republicans have refused to fund all along,” said Lee.  “By waging an unjust war in Iraq and squandering billions of dollars on the war and hundreds of billions of dollars on tax cuts, this Administration has been unable to fund first responders and homeland security here at home. That’s unacceptable.”

 

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