DGS 2012 budgetObama asks for $43.8 billion for DHS -- 2 percent increase over 2011

Published 16 February 2011

TSA hopes to buy more full-body scanners; already TSA has deployed nearly 500 of the scanners at 78 airports, and Obama’s budget proposed having as many as 1,275 installed by the end of 2012; the proposed budget also includes additional funds, about $3 billion, better to protect against a chemical, biological, nuclear, or radiological attack as well as critical infrastructure like power grids

Rendering of a Fast-Response Cutter (FRC) under way // Source: dodlive.mil

The Obama administration on Monday proposed a nearly 2 percent increase for the U.S. homeland security budget for 2012, one the few areas of the budget that will likely see a boost as the White House battles a ballooning deficit.


Its 2012 budget proposal requests $43.8 billion to spend on homeland security across the entire federal government, excluding the Defense Department, up $800 million from 2011 (and $3.4 billion, or 9 percent, from the 2010 spending levels).The request for the increase comes as militant groups like the al Qaeda wing based in Yemen have increased their efforts to strike the United States, including plots to blow up bombs on airplanes or in major city centers.


Bloomberg reports that DHS alone would see its budget grow to more than $37 billion, up almost 3 percent over the 2011 budget level, and includes a 4 percent bump up for increasing transportation and border security.


While the 2012 budget proposal called protecting the American people President Barack Obama’s “highest priority,” administration officials will likely face close scrutiny by Congress about where and how they spend the money.


Republicans, who now control the U.S. House of Representatives, have criticized the failure by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to detect several recent attacks, including attempts by the al Qaeda group in Yemen to blow up U.S. passenger and cargo planes.


The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration hopes to buy more full-body scanners to detect explosives and other weapons potential attackers may hide on their bodies that cannot be detected by traditional metal detectors.


Already TSA has deployed nearly 500 of the scanners at 78 airports, about half made by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL.N), and Obama’s budget proposed having as many as 1,275 installed by the end of 2012.


The proposed budget also includes additional funds, about $3 billion, better to protect against a chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological attack as well as critical infrastructure like power grids.


The White House sought a 30 percent boost to a $41.7 million program to aid the FBI adapt and conduct surveillance on rapidly changing technologies like smart phones.


As for incarcerating terrorism suspects like those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Justice Department officials said they hoped Congress would approve Obama’s request last year to acquire a prison in Thomson, Illinois, but so far bipartisan opposition has blocked it.


The 2012 budget requested $67 million to renovate the Illinois prison to house high security inmates regardless of whether they include the Guantanamo detainees, because they need the space for prisoners.


There’s an enormous amount of overcrowding right now,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole told reporters.


The Justice Department’s proposed budget included numerous cuts, like $39 million for Drug Enforcement Administration’s mobile enforcement units and $19.3 million from the National Drug Intelligence Center.


Some of the budget highlights:



  • The 2012 proposal includes money for 21,370 Border Patrol agents and 300 new Customs and Border Protection officers for cargo and passenger screening. The department would get an additional 275 airport screening machines that use advanced imagery technology, devices that civil liberties groups have said violate privacy.

  • The department’s budget, part of the government’s national security spending, has largely been shielded from proposed cuts in the debate over the ballooning federal deficit. Still, the budget would trim $450 million for consulting contracts, travel, printing and supplies.

  • Spending on the Coast Guard would rise to $8.7 billion from $8.6 billion in 2010, with $358 million to construct six fast- response cutters and $130 million to build two patrol aircraft. The request comes in the aftermath of the Coast Guard’s response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Obama also would provide $459 million for the department’s cyber-security unit.

  • Obama would more than double the airline security fee to $5.50 per flight in 2014 from $2.50 now. With the increase, which would raise $587 million in 2012 and $2.4 billion in 2014, the fees would account for 80 percent of aviation security spending, up from 41 percent. Airlines have opposed such increases in the past, and their allies in Congress have defeated those proposed by the Bush and Obama administrations.