Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

Ms. HOCHUL. My amendment will very simply help the intelligence community prioritize its funding and ensure that we direct it toward securing our borders from many threats--terrorists as well as drug dealers.

I want to be clear that support for my simple amendment, which is a statement of our priorities, will ensure that our intelligence community cooperates fully to protect our borders against terrorists as well as the scourge of drug dealers. If support for my amendment is passed, we can also vote on the underlying bill immediately following. So my amendment does not harm the bill, and I want to make that very clear.

Last night, as we sat in this Chamber, we all became aware of the continued threat that we all face as intelligence reports were coming out about unspecified threats in New York City and in Washington, perhaps putting us in danger. And while the President so eloquently laid out his comments on how we need to get our country back to work and people off the unemployment lines, I will tell you today there are groups of individuals I'd like to see on the unemployment lines--the terrorists and the drug dealers, who are trying to do harm to this country. My amendment is simply a statement of our priorities.

Just 2 days ago in my district in Upstate New York, we had the largest drug bust come over from Canada in our history. It equated to 9 million doses of cocaine that was going to be spread through our community.

Mr. Speaker, that is intolerable. We have got to do more to secure our borders, and we can work harder with our intelligence community and their resources to secure our borders, and that's exactly what my amendment would do.

It is not just the northern border; we all know what's occurring on the southern border. Military operations are being conducted in our country by Mexican drug cartels even as we speak. We have to do more to protect our borders.

The murder capital of the world is not in some Far Eastern country, Middle East. It is miles away from the U.S. border near El Paso, Texas. I have a real problem with that as an American citizen. We need to do more to protect our borders.

As the President spoke last night, we have to do so much more to get our economy going again. Has anyone ever calculated the true cost to our economy of what the drug problem is doing, this illegal drug trafficking that's coming through our borders, what it's doing to our communities on the southern border and on the northern border?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have got to do much more, and my amendment is simply an opportunity. If you support this, it is a statement of saying the intelligence community will make a
higher priority of protecting our borders from the drug dealers and terrorists and drug dealers who want to do us harm.

I think this is a simple amendment. Again, support for this will not hurt the underlying bill. We can vote on this amendment and immediately support the bill following.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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