Speech by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire), April 13, 2000

Speech by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire), April 13, 2000
FIGHTING DRUGS IN THE UNITED STATES (Senate - April 13, 2000)

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Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the issue of how we are fighting drugs in this country--specifically, the President's initiative relative to the country of Colombia in relation to our own initiatives on the southern border of our country.

I have the privilege to chair the committee that funds the INS, which includes the Border Patrol, DEA, the department of drug enforcement; and the judiciary. All three agencies, of course, of our Government have a significant role in the issue of drug enforcement and especially as it affects our southern border.

The President has asked for $1.6 billion of new money--he has asked for it in an emergency format--to be sent to the country of Colombia, in order for Colombia to fight drugs and the production of drugs. That may well be a reasonable request. I have reservations on its substance, but I also have serious reservations as to its appropriateness in the context of the drug war that we as a Nation face. The reason is simple. When the President sent a budget up to address the agencies that are responsible in our Government to fight drugs, he did not fully fund their needs. He underfunded the needs of the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA; he underfunded the needs of the INS and Border Patrol; he underfunded the needs of the judiciary, which enforces the law.

I have made a little chart here that reflects a comparison. The unfunded capital--I am talking about capital needs, one-time items, which involve the construction or technology and needs of these different agencies, the INS, DEA, and the judiciary. The unfunded requests of these agencies represented about $1.8 billion--a little bit more than $1.8 billion. Compare that with the fact that the President is willing to fund almost $800 million--million, not billion--of capital needs for Colombia.

Let's do a little review of this because I think it is important for people to understand what happened. Essentially, what the President is saying is that the capital needs of Colombia are more important than the needs of our own drug enforcement agencies here in the United States. For example, the President has requested 15 Huey helicopters for Colombia and 30 Blackhawk helicopters. They are the most advanced helicopters we have in our fleet. Thirty Blackhawk helicopters will cost approximately $388 million. Let me tell you, those 30 helicopters, along with the 15 Hueys, are going to go to Colombia.

Let me tell you what the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Border Patrol have to fly on our borders in order to interdict drugs. They fly old Vietnam-era helicopters. They aren't safe. In fact, many of them have been grounded. The Army, in fact, grounded almost all of its Hueys. But that is what we are left with.

DEA and INS have both requested aircraft in order to patrol the borders. Those requests were not funded by this administration. Yet the administration turns around and is willing to give 30 Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia. Who knows what will happen to those helicopters. Who knows how they will be used. But I can assure you that the first call, I believe, on new helicopters for the purposes of the drug war should have gone to the departments which fight the drug war in the United States and which need them.

Another example: Night vision goggles. We are going to send $2 million to Colombia to buy night vision goggles. Yet here in the United States, the Border Patrol and DEA are short on those materials. In fact, the Border Patrol is woefully short on night vision goggles, on pocket scopes, on fiber-optic scopes, on hand-held searchlights--all of these items the Border Patrol asked for and were not funded in this budget by the President.

Yet the President has been willing to find the money, or suggested that we should find the money, to send not only night vision goggles but ground-based radar systems, secure communications systems, signal intelligence gathering systems, computers, and installation of sensor sights for aircraft. All of these items they have suggested we send to Colombia.

In addition, they have suggested that we actually construct facilities for Colombia to the tune of approximately $49 million--physical buildings.

Let me tell you, both the INS and the DEA need physical facilities. In fact, the Border Patrol is functioning out of extraordinarily crowded facilities. Many of the Border Patrol stations are grossly overcrowded. There is one site which is designed for 5 people with 125 people working out of it. There is another site where the Border Patrol is working out of an old Tastee Freeze building. I guess you can use an old Tastee Freeze building. It is sort of hard to handcuff a drug dealer to a Tastee Freeze machine.

The fact is we do not have the facilities which we need in order to adequately enforce our laws relative to drug dealers coming across the borders and drugs coming across the borders. We don't have the facilities to detain those people.

There is a detention need of approximately $406 million. In other words, we need $406 million of construction in order to meet the potential detention needs for people illegally coming across the border, many of them drug dealers.

The judiciary has the same problem. There is a massive increase in the amount of caseload which the judiciary along the southern border has to handle. Five district courts on the southwest border now handle 26 percent of all the Federal criminal activity--26 percent of all the Federal criminal activity--and a great deal of that is drug related.

To put that in perspective, the remainder of the criminal activity in this country is handled by 89 other district courts. Five are handling 26 percent and 89 handle the rest. You can see how overworked those five courts are.

The border courts' basic caseload is four times that of the national average. Yet did the administration put money in to try to increase the capacity of those court systems to handle this wave of crime that is coming across the border, much of it drug-related? Absolutely not. There are no physical facilities in that area.

I put up another chart which is a little more stark

explanation of some specific accounts.

For example, the aircraft needs along the southwest border, this is what was unfunded. This bar chart shows the unfunded needs for aircraft along our southwest border. This shows how much the administration is willing to spend for aircraft for Colombia. They are willing to spend three times what it would take in order to adequately monitor our own border with aircraft. They are willing to spend it in Colombia.

I have to say that I really doubt that aircraft in Colombia is going to end up doing the job. I do not know how it is going to be used. But I strongly suspect it is not going to be used very effectively if we look at the history of what has happened with our efforts outside this country in the area of crime enforcement. I suspect what we will end up with is some company in America making a heck of a lot of money because somebody will buy 30 Blackhawk helicopters and ship them to Colombia. That will be the end of it. That will be the last we hear of them.

But if the administration is willing to pay for the aircraft along the border, the use of those aircraft would be accountable to the American people. We would know whether those aircraft were being used correctly in law enforcement and drug enforcement. I can assure you that my experience with the Border Patrol and the DEA is they would be used correctly, and we would get a return for the dollars that are being spent.

It is not only in the capital areas that this administration has acted, in my opinion, with gross irresponsibility in their obligations to fight the drug war here in the United States, by funding the Colombian request but not funding the American needs, but more importantly, in the area of personnel and initiatives, it is really unbelievable. This administration is willing to spend $1.6 billion in Colombia, but they spent absolutely nothing in their budget on the methamphetamine initiative of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Nothing. The methamphetamine initiatives of DEA have been some of the most successful initiatives they have undertaken.

Talk to people in Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, and all along the southwest border. They will tell you methamphetamine is the drug that is growing most rampantly. It is growing at the most dramatic rate. Its production is growing at the most dramatic rate.

Two years ago, the Congress set up 10 initiatives in the area of methamphetamine. They have been successful. Yet this administration has zeroed out for all intents and purposes any new initiative in methamphetamine, even though the DEA specifically requested of OMB--part of the administration--and said they needed 10 more initiatives in the area of methamphetamine. I think it was 10. But that was zeroed out by the White House while at the same time they are willing to spend $1.6 billion to buy planes for Colombia. It makes no sense.

We know that 85 percent of the methamphetamine that is being sold in Minnesota is smuggled in from Mexico. We know that. We know, if we are going to stop that smuggling, that we are going to have to have a border enforcement capability that can identify it, track it, arrest it, and then prosecute it. But you can't do that if you are going to underfund the DEA, the INS, and the judiciary to such dramatic levels. But the White House has done exactly that. But who have they been willing to fund for initiatives in Colombia? That is not the only instance.

The Border Patrol was supposed to receive an increase of 1,000 people a year for 3 years. That is what the Congress asked this administration to do. That is what we actually funded--1,000 people for 3 years. This administration has refused to fill those slots. The administration has basically refused to fulfill its obligation to fill those slots. So the Border Patrol goes undermanned and in many instances underpaid. As I have already pointed out, the facilities and equipment it has are woefully inadequate.

The Border Patrol, obviously, does things other than just drug enforcement, but because the Mexican border is the primary vehicle and the Mexican cartels are the primary force behind the drug flow into the United States, the Border Patrol is constantly being drawn into the drug fight. Therefore, adequately funding the Border Patrol is critical to having an adequate drug enforcement policy in this country.

My point is simple and obvious. Before we send $1.6 billion to Colombia, before we send this money down there so they can have more planes, goggles, and radar sensors, how about funding the American needs in the area of drug enforcement? How about funding our own law enforcement community and our Judiciary so we can act adequately, interdict and fight drugs in the United States.

I believe this administration's priorities are skewed. I think this Congress has an obligation to take a hard look at the Colombian drug proposal when it comes here. In my opinion, we should reallocate significant amounts of those funds so we can appropriately fund and support DEA, INS, and the Judiciary.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Under the previous order, the time between 11 o'clock and 11:30 shall be under the control of the Senator from New Hampshire or his designee.

The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.

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