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HOLT AND PALLONE ANNOUNCE FUNDS FOR DEFENSE PROJECTS AT FORT MONMOUTH, MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY
House Appropriations Committee approves $2 million for Fort Monmouth, $1 million for defense project at Monmouth University |
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Washington, D.C . --- New Jersey Representatives Rush Holt (NJ-12th) and Frank Pallone (NJ-6th) announced today that the U.S. House of Representatives approved two key projects when it passed a Defense spending bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 yesterday. The two Congressmen requested the projects in a letter to the subcommittee’ s ranking member, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), in March. Holt and Pallone vowed to work to ensure the funds remain intact as the FY 2005 Defense Appropriations bill works its way through the process this summer.
$2 million for modernization of telecommunications infrastructure at Fort Monmouth. Fort Monmouth, home to the Army ’s Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM), is the leading facility for the development of advanced telecommunications and digitized war-fighting. The explosive growth in digital requirements has made modernization of the telecommunications infrastructure necessary in order to keep pace with the ever-growing demand for bandwidth digital services. These new services rely on strict compliance with complex engineering standards that support convergence of voice, data, video, and multimedia services that are key to the digital battlefield.
" Fort Monmouth is the nation’s leader in high-tech, communications-based warfare, and these funds will help it remain the leader," said Rep. Holt. "This telecommunication upgrade will enable Fort Monmouth to continue developing, testing, and delivering the equipment and information that our soldiers need in the field."
"These funds, along with the $5 million appropriated to the Fort over the last two years, will ensure that Fort Monmouth has the most up to date, state of the art, telecommunications backbone in the military," Pallone added. "Fort Monmouth is on the cutting edge of communications software and hardware development. This allocation will allow them to continue to develop items that will keep our military safe both home and abroad."
$1 million for Monmouth University Rapid Response Center. This Center will spearhead the development, integration, and mining of database systems to allow the rapid detection and identification of a covert bio-terror attack. The Center will focus on the critical central region of New Jersey, and is expected to enable federal, state and local law enforcement and security agencies to more effectively identify and assemble regional resource personnel and critically needed databases; develop clear, organized deployment/utilization strategies for these systems during core events; ensure that the appropriate software components have been integrated into the database system; and ensure that maximum coordination of information sharing is undertaken at all levels.
" Monmouth University, through the leadership of Admiral Paul Gaffney, has developed a Center for Rapid Response Database Systems that will help New Jersey immediately identify biological or chemical homeland security attacks," Pallone said. "I am excited that my House colleagues recognized the importance of this program and the good work that Monmouth University is doing in these areas."
" Unfortunately, bio-terrorism is no longer merely hypothetical," said Holt, whose Congressional office in Washington, D.C. was infected with anthrax in 2001. "These funds will enable Monmouth University to help protect central New Jersey by quickly identifying biological agents in the event of an attack, and setting in motion a rapid, organized, and effective response."
Now that the 2005 Defense Appropriations bill has passed the House, it goes to the Senate for its review later this summer. |
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