CONGRESS PASSES HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS

On October 30, 2009, Congress passed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act
for Fiscal 2010, making it only the fourth fiscal 2010 spending measure to reach the president’s
desk.  The bill provides significant funding to vital state and local first responder grant programs to
assist them in their emergency preparedness, counterterrorism and national security efforts. 

For the major state and local first responder grant programs, the Homeland Security spending bill
appropriates: $950 million for the State Homeland Security Grant program (SHSGP) to assist states
plan, equip and train local first responders to respond to terrorist attacks and catastrophic incidents;
$887 million for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) to help high-risk urban communities
prevent, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks;  approximately $459 million for the Law
Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP); $300 million for Transit grants to protect
critical transit infrastructure in high-threat areas; and $50 million for interoperable communications
grants.

Additionally, the Homeland Security spending bill  reauthorizes the E-Verify program for three
years.  E-Verify gives employers the ability to verify the immigration status of new hires.  The bill
also provides $1.5 billion to  Immigration and Customs Enforcement for identifying and removing
from the United States criminal aliens once an immigration judge has ordered them deported.

NAPO continues its efforts to ensure that these important homeland security grant programs are
properly supported and funded and we thank lawmakers for recognizing the importance of these
funds to helping state and local law enforcement keep our nation’s communities safe from threats at
home and abroad.

JUSTICE APPROPRIATIONS STALLED IN SENATE

On June 18, 2009, the House passed the fiscal 2010 Commerce, Justice, Science (C-J-S)
Appropriations Act, H.R. 2847.  After substituting its own language into the bill, the Senate took up
H.R. 2847 on October 13, 2009, only to have debate over the bill stalled by partisan tactics.  As
Congress was unable to pass all fiscal 2010appropriations bills by September 30, 2009, the federal
government and its programs are currently being funded under a continuing resolution that expires
on October 31st
.   

The House has passed all twelve spending bills,  while the Senate has completed only seven. 
Congress will have to pass another short-term spending measure to fund the government in order to
give lawmakers more time to complete the fiscal 2010 appropriations process.  It is uncertain whether Congress
will be able to pass each of the remaining bills individually or if lawmakers will  eventually have to combine them
into an omnibus spending package before they adjurn in December. 

The Senate is looking to pass the C-J-S appropriations bill by the first week of November.  NAPO is
following the process closely and working with lawmakers to ensure that Justice Department state
and local law enforcement programs, particularly the COPS hiring program and Byrne-JAG, receive
significant levels of funding.   

BILL TO IMPROVE MISSING PERSONS DATABASES INTRODUCED IN HOUSE

On October 1, 2009, Congressman Christopher Murphy (D-CT) and Ted Poe (R-TX) introduced the
“Help Find the Missing Act (Billy’s Law),” H.R. 3695, a bill that would address and fix the gaps in
our nation’s missing persons systems.  

While federal law mandates state and local law enforcement report missing children, there are no
such requirements for adults or  unidentified bodies.  Compounding this problem is the fact that
local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners and coroners often do not have the resources,
personnel or training to voluntarily report these cases.  Furthermore, even when missing adults and
remains are reported, finding a match can be a significant challenge because existing federal, state,
local and non-profit databases for missing and unidentified bodies are not connected. 

H.R. 3695 would address these issues by authorizing the Department of Justice’s National Missing
Persons and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)  and connecting it to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s Crime Information Center (NCIC).  This would make missing persons and
unidentified remains databases more comprehensive as well as streamline the reporting process for
local law enforcement.  Additionally, the legislation provides incentive grants to assist state and
local law enforcement report missing persons and unidentified remains to NCIC, NamUs, and the
National DNA Index System (NDIS).  These provisions not only increase accessibility to NamUs,
but also facilitate data sharing between NamUs and NCIC.

NAPO supports H.R. 3695 and looks forward to working with Congressmen Murphy and Poe to
fight for its passage.

NAPO OPPOSES EXCISE TAX ON EMPLOYER-PROVIDED HEALTHCARE

On October 14, 2009, NAPO sent a  letter to Senate leadership  regarding our concerns over the
provision in the "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009," S. 1796, that would impose a 40 percent
excise tax on health insurance companies, administrators, and self-insured employers that offer and
administer high-cost health plans.

The health care plans of state and local public safety officers are not extravagant “Cadillac” plans
that are filled with superfluous medical benefits.  They are the good, comprehensive health benefit
plans that Congress and the Administration are working to make accessible to all Americans. 
Despite the recognition in the legislation that the health care plans of public safety and other high risk
professions are more costly than the average health care plan, NAPO believes that this tax
would threaten the stability and security of these plans.  The congressional Joint Committee on
Taxation estimates that the excise tax proposed  by the “America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009”
would hit approximately 40 percent of all plans – individual and family plans - in ten years.  

The threshold for the excise tax is $8,000 for single coverage and $21,000 for family coverage. 
This threshold increases to $9,850 for single coverage and $26,000 for family coverage for retirees
over 55 years of age or individuals engaged in high-risk professions, including law enforcement,
EMS, and fire fighters.

As the tax is based on the total cost of health care plans regardless of what it covers or why it costs
so much, it will not only hit luxury health care plans, but also comprehensive plans and plans that
cover predominantly public safety officers, older workers and women.  NAPO is concerned that
public safety employees will be forced to pay the excise tax in the form of wage cuts, higher
premiums, increased out-of-pocket costs, and lower benefits, all of which go against the purpose of
health care reform: making good health care more accessible and affordable to the American
people.

This excise tax is only proposed in the legislation that passed the Senate Finance Committee on
October 19, and not in the healthcare reform bill that passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions (HELP) Committee in July, the “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” S. 1679.  
Senate leadership is currently working on combining the two healthcare reform bills into one piece
of legislation for the Senate to vote on.  NAPO is urging Senate leadership to look at and recognize
the adverse consequences the excise tax would have on the health care plans of a significant number
of our nation's workers.

There is strong opposition to the excise tax provision, as passed in S. 1796, in both the House and
Senate.  Several Senators, including Senator John Kerry (D-MA), have stated that they are
preparing to introduce amendments to the final Senate healthcare overhaul bill if it does include the
excise tax.   157 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi opposing the
excise tax.  Additionally, NAPO is joined by  other organizations representing state and local
government employees in opposition to the excise  tax, including the International Association of
Fire Fighters, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the
National Education Association.

HOUSE & SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEES TAKE UP PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees are pursuing legislation that would reauthorize and
limit certain provisions of the anti-terrorism law, the Patriot Act.  On October 20, 2009, House
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a bill, H.R. 3845, which would reauthorize
two of the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and allow a third provision to expire at the end of
this year.  The two provisions  that would be reauthorized for four years under H.R. 3845 permit
roving wiretaps of terrorist suspects and court approved searches of business records in terrorism
cases.   The third provision set to expire allows law enforcement to seek warrants from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court against “lone wolf” terrorists not connected to a foreign group or
power.
The legislation proposed by Senate Judiciary  Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senate
Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), S. 1692, on the other hand, would reauthorize
all three provisions until the end of 2013.

Both H.R. 3845 and S. 1692 would create a 2013 sunset on the government’s use of national
security letters in counterterrorism investigations and would impose new restrictions on how the
government can use those letters.  H.R. 3845, however, goes further in limiting the government’s
anti-terrorism authorities than the Senate bill.    Both bills are awaiting committee action.  The
administration has stated that it wants Congress to reauthorize all three provisions and that it
opposes any significant new restrictions on national security letters.

NAPO supported the Patriot Act when it was first passed in 2001 and again when it was
reauthorized in 2006.  NAPO supports the temporary reauthorization of these three provisions in
order that law enforcement can retain the necessary tools to continue fighting terrorism while
ensuring civil liberties are not permanently weakened. 

BILL PASSED REQUIRING NOTICE OF EXPOSURE TO INFECTIOUS DISEASES

On October 21, 2009, Congress passed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of
2009, which includes a provision that protects emergency responders from occupational exposure to
communicable diseases.  The bill requires emergency response employers (i.e. fire departments,
police departments, emergency medical services providers) to have a Designated Officer to field
calls from employees regarding exposures to communicable diseases.  The Designated Officer must
collect the facts of the circumstances surrounding how the employee may have been exposed to an
infectious disease and obtain the disease status of the victim that was attended, treated, assisted or
transported by the employee from the medical facility providing treatment to that patient. 
Additionally, under the legislation, if the medical facility discovers that the patient has an infectious
disease, it must notify the Designated Officer of the disease and the date which the victim was
transported by emergency response employees to the medical facility. 

The legislation, S. 1793, became Public Law 111-087 on October 30, 2009.

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