SUPPORTING VICTIMS OF CRIME

The World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania tragedies were moments of indefinable horror and grief for this Nation. Although no amount of assistance can ever begin to compensate the surviving victims of the September 11th tragedies or the families and loved ones, the Department is committed to using the resources available to help victims and families of those who were physically injured or killed as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. While we can never undo the damage that has been done, this fund will assist thousands of individuals and families in rebuilding lives that were shattered by the indiscriminate evil of terrorism.

Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act (Act). The Act established the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 (Fund) to provide a permanent and indefinite appropriation for making payments on approved claims to personal representatives of deceased individuals and those physically injured as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes that day. The value of approved claims, through 2004, is estimated at $5.4 billion. Our fiscal year 2003 budget reflects the $2.7 billion in estimated payments for Victim Compensation payments. In addition, the Department's budget includes a total of $41 million for the administrative costs of the Fund's Special Master.

For the Department's Crime Victims Fund, we are seeking $50 million to fully fund the Emergency Terrorism Reserve and to provide $25 million in additional assistance for the states. The Emergency Terrorism Reserve may be used by the Department to respond to incidents of terrorism and mass violence by providing supplemental grants to states for victim compensation and victim assistance and by providing direct compensation to victims of international terrorism occurring abroad.

IMPROVING MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRATION SERVICES AND ENFORCEMENT

The Administration is committed to building and strengthening an immigration services system that ensures integrity, provides services accurately and efficiently, and emphasizes a culture of respect. The INS is tasked with upholding this commitment and ensuring that resources are used effectively to manage and deliver immigration services. Our restructuring plan for INS will create the organizational structure to support the President's goal of achieving a 6-month average processing time for all applications. Mr. Chairman, I am personally committed to working with you and the Members of the Subcommittee on the INS restructuring proposal so that we may improve benefits processing and strengthen enforcement of our immigration laws. For fiscal year 2003, our budget request seeks $40 million to begin implementation of the Administration's comprehensive restructuring of the INS. To attain the President's goal of a six-month processing time for all applications, we are also seeking an additional $50.5 million from fee collections. An additional $1.5 million is sought to enhance the statistical capabilities of INS' Office of Policy and Planning and to expand the successful Alternatives to Detention program.

For the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the fiscal year 2003 budget seeks an additional $10 million, including $800,000 in redirected resources, to coordinate with INS initiatives, which are anticipated to increase the Immigration Judge caseload and the Board of Immigration Appeals caseload by 27,800 cases.

MANAGING INCREASED FEDERAL DETENTION AND INCARCERATION CAPACITY

The Department of Justice is charged with the safe, secure, and humane confinement of detained persons awaiting trial, sentencing, immigration proceedings or removal from the United States. The need for federal detention bed space has more than doubled in the last five years, from 32,000 detainees in 1996 to 67,000 detainees in 2001. This dramatic increase has resulted in greater dependence on state and local governments and private contractors to provide bed space for federal detainees. Currently, the INS, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons are responsible for detaining prisoners. To enhance coordination, manage the rising detainee population, and exercise financial control and efficiency in federal detention operations, the Office of the Detention Trustee was created in the Department of Justice. For fiscal year 2003, our budget proposes to consolidate $1.4 billion under the Detention Trustee to provide bed space for the anticipated detainee population in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and the INS. Our budget seeks an increase of $95.6 million for the Department's detention programs. Total funding includes resources to accommodate detention space for housing INS detainees, to house U.S.

Marshal detainees, and to fund the increase in the oversight capabilities of the Office of the Detention Trustee.

For the Bureau of Prisons, our fiscal year 2003 budget seeks $348.3 million for additional prison activation and completion of previously authorized construction projects. Specifically, $206 million is included to continue construction of a medium security facility, a secure female facility, and to expand three other facilities. For additional prison activations and an institutional population adjustment, $142.3 million is included in our fiscal year 2003 budget. This additional funding will provide resources to activate four new facilities, including Federal Correctional Institution (FCI)—Glenville, West Virginia, United States Penitentiary (USP)—Big Sandy, Kentucky, USP-McCreary County, Kentucky, and USP-Victorville, California, and to expand USP Marion, Illinois and FCI Safford, Arizona. These facilities will add over 5,000 critically needed beds to reduce overcrowding.

REDUCING THE AVAILABILITY OF ILLEGAL DRUGS AND SUPPORTING PROVEN PROGRAMS AIMED AT REDUCING DRUG USE

Today, more than ever, drug enforcement can play a critical role in protecting our national security by starving the financial base of criminal organizations and depriving them of the drug proceeds that may be used to fund terrorist activities. Drugs not only weaken the fabric of our society, but also threaten our national security. The recent attacks perpetrated on our Nation illustrate the connection between drug trafficking and terrorist attacks. In Afghanistan, the Taliban, which controlled opium production and directly taxed the drug trade, opened its doors to Osama Bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization. Drug trafficking provides terrorists a steady source of resources to finance their operations. Our budget includes a $17.4 million resource reprogramming proposal, utilizing prior year resources available to DEA, to implement an Afghanistan Initiative, Operation Containment, that will employ a multi-faceted approach to identify, target, investigate, disrupt and dismantle transnational heroin trafficking organizations in Central Asia. The established link between the proceeds generated from the sale of Afghan heroin and terrorist activities makes combating heroin production in Central Asia critical to the security of the United States.

The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program is the centerpiece of the Department's drug strategy to reduce the availability of drugs. OCDETF combines the talent of experienced federal agents and prosecutors with support from state and local law enforcement, thereby uniquely positioning OCDETF to conduct multiple coordinated investigations across the country to root out and eliminate all pieces of major drug organizations. For fiscal year 2003, our budget seeks an increase of $14.8 million through OCDETF to provide field support for DEA's Special Operations Division coordinated investigations. This funding will enhance OCDETF's ability to conduct complex, multi-district investigations developed from Special Operations Division intelligence and coordination. These resources will be used by DEA and the Department's Criminal Division; and will also be used to fund state and local overtime.

DEA conducts financial investigations to detect and disrupt the international and domestic flow of illicit money. To support these financial investigations and enhance regulatory and cooperative and public-private efforts to prevent money laundering, our fiscal year 2003 budget proposes a program improvement of $4.1 million. For fiscal year 2003, we are also seeking $24.6 million for DEA's Diversion Control program. These resources will be used to strengthen DEA's enforcement capabilities to prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of controlled substances, particularly OxyContinR. Increasing abuse of OxyContin® has led to an increase of associated criminal activity.

The Department's fiscal year 2003 budget also seeks $13 million for drug abuse and crime programs under the Office of Justice Programs. Specifically, we are seeking $4 million to expand the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program to 10 additional sites. The ADAM program is the only federally funded drug use prevalence program that directly addresses the relationship between illicit drug use and criminal behavior. ADAM data assist practitioners and policy makers in understanding, anticipating and responding to their community's changing drug problems. Our budget also includes $52 million for the Drug Courts Program, a $2 million increase, and $77 million in funding for the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program, a 10 percent increase in funding over fiscal year 2002.

ADVANCING CIVIL RIGHTS

Essential to our republic is the right of every citizen, from every walk of life, to be treated equally under the law. This includes every citizen's right to vote. The

Federal Government has become an active participant in establishing rules for the conduct of elections on matters ranging from voter registration to protection against discrimination.

In fiscal year 2003, the Department requests $400 million for a new three-year program (totaling $1.2 billion) to improve state and local jurisdiction's voting technologies and administration, including voting machines, registration systems, voter education, and poll worker training. This new program will provide states with matching grants for election reform. This proposal is consistent with the recommendations of the National Commission on Federal Electoral Reform headed by former Presidents Ford and Carter. The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) will have primary responsibility for administering the program, in consultation with the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, which will provide expertise on voluntary technical standards.

Our budget seeks $2.8 million to promote effective investigation, prosecution, and response to hate crimes. This amount includes $1.5 million to study the effect of hate crime legislation by examining 6 sites that have hate crime laws and 8 with little or no such legislation; and $1.3 million to develop and provide hate crimes awareness training and technical assistance, and to disseminate successful program strategies. Our fiscal year 2003 budget also seeks $3 million for the Office of the Inspector General to address a statutory requirement in the USA PATRIOT Act requiring the review of complaints alleging abuses of civil rights and liberties, and to provide audit oversight for the Department's counterterrorism programs.

ENHANCING THE DEPARTMENT'S LEGAL ACTIVITIES

The Department of Justice is often described as the largest law office in the Nation. We serve as counsel for the citizens of this Nation and represent them in enforcing the law in the public interest. For fiscal year 2003, our budget seeks $32.5 million for the Civil Division to increase its use of automated litigation support (ALS) services to successfully resolve extraordinarily large and document-intensive cases. ALS is an indispensable method of managing millions of pages of documents, performing electronic discovery, executing court-ordered trial presentation systems, and generating real-time transcripts. In addition, to address the burgeoning defensive docket in United States Attorneys Offices, our budget seeks an additional $2 million. These resources are necessary to adequately defend the government from unwarranted claims and to fairly resolve meritorious claims. Our budget requests an additional $11 million to complete the third and final phase of the overall telecommunications convergence initiative in United States Attorneys Offices throughout the Nation: implementing Internet Protocol telephony. This convergence will enable the U.S. Attorneys to encrypt all transmissions, share resources and use telecommunications bandwidth more effectively, and reduce overall operating and maintenance by establishing a common, standardized telecommunications infrastructure. For the United States Trustee Program (USTP), we are proposing an additional $6.3 million from fee collections. Specifically, our budget requests $5.8 million to enable USTP to develop systems to more effectively uncover material misstatements in bankruptcy schedules and statements of financial affairs. An increase of $500,000 is requested to establish a pilot program and curriculum to provide personal financial management instructions.

STREAMLINING ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE TO STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

The fiscal year 2003 budget proposes a refocusing of spending directed toward state and local assistance. This budget refocuses and redirects funding toward core Federal counterterrorism prevention and investigations. Between last year's appropriation and next year's budget proposal, discretionary spending on Federal law enforcement grows almost 19 percent. Meanwhile, the Administration also refocuses and redirects state and local assistance; although funding through the Department of Justice decreases, the President's budget includes new funding for first responder preparedness through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

For fiscal year 2003, we propose a new $800 million program, the Justice Assistance Grants Program (JAGP), that consolidates the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant (LLEBG) and the Byrne Formula Grant Program into a single grant program under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. Consequently, we are proposing to eliminate the LLEBG and Byrne Programs in their current form. The consolidation of these two programs should result in a simplified application process for participating state and local governments, and greater flexibility for local law enforcement agencies in the use of block grant funds. States may use these resources for statewide initiatives, technical assistance and training, and support for rural jurisdictions in the areas of enforcement, prosecution and court programs, pre

vention programs, corrections programs and treatment programs. Local funding may also be used for these purposes and can be combined with funding from other jurisdictions to form regional projects. This program also includes $15 million to facilitate the USA Freedom Corps by encouraging citizen participation in law enforcement, community safety and terrorism preparedness; and $60 million for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Also, within COPSS, we are seeking $65.6 million in targeted assistance to police departments. This amount includes an increase of $15.6 million for the Police Corps, a scholarship and training program designed to improve local police response to violent crime by increasing the number of officers on the beat with advanced education and training. It also includes a total of $50 million for COPS Technology Grants. To improve the mechanisms for ensuring state court-based data are properly transferred to the criminal record, we are seeking an additional $25 million. These resources will enhance the capability of the FBI's National Instant Check System to provide immediate feedback. Our budget also seeks an increase of $6.1 million to expand the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program by establishing a regional task force in at least 40 states and expanding capacity-building activities through research, training and technical assistance.

The fiscal year 2003 budget provides over $3.2 billion for state and local law enforcement grant programs. However, it also prioritizes scarce federal resources and includes proposed reductions and eliminations of some of the current grant programs. Reductions are made primarily in the following areas: (1) Byrne Discretionary and Formula grants; (2) Local Law Enforcement Block Grant; and (3) State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

OTHER IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES

Our budget seeks $48.5 million to enhance several items of critical importance to the Department. Specifically, we are seeking $36.5 million to enhance various FBI data management and warehousing techniques and to provide new administrative support and financial systems. Additionally, $10 million is sought to begin planning and initial deployment of a new Departmental Financial Management System. This funding will provide much needed resources to address financial system material weaknesses cited by the Department's auditors. For the FBI, our budget also seeks $867,000 for the Federal Convicted Offender Program to manage and type federal convicted offender DNA samples, purchase equipment, and fund miscellaneous expenses related to this effort. The DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 authorizes the FBI to collect DNA samples from individuals convicted of qualifying offenses. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 expands the list of qualifying offenses to include terrorism-related offenses and other crimes of violence.

CONCLUSION

Chairman Hollings, Senator Gregg, Members of the Subcommittee, I have outlined for you today the principal focus of President Bush's fiscal year 2003 budget request for the Department of Justice. I look forward to working with you on this budget proposal and other issues.

Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.

Senator HOLLINGS. I thank you, General Ashcroft, for the outstanding work you have been doing on counterterrorism. I think the committee will want to help you continue your progress. I want to get into a couple of things there.

I think being hardfast on law enforcement is not inappropriate when the enemy has infiltrated you, you do not know who they are and everything else like that. You have got to be on the side of extreme care.

NEED FOR SPECIAL COUNSEL IN ENRON CASE

Let me ask about the Enron matter now. I commend you. You have recused yourself, not that there is a conflict of interest but there could be a conflict of interest, and I understand the same with your chief of staff and even the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District down there in Texas. They have had to set themselves aside due to all kinds of contacts.

Now the case is in the hands of our friend Larry Thompson. On that score, I am worried about it for the simple reason that he has been deputized and continues to be the Deputy Attorney General in charge of counterterrorism in the Department of Justice, which is a full-time job. Credit goes to our distinguished ranking member who was there and chairman this time last year for having the first real full hearing of the entire Cabinet on counterterrorism. The fact was, on September 11, that is what we were debating, this subcommittee's appropriations on counterterrorism.

But right to the point, you do not want the Department of Justice to go all the way through with this case, whatever the result is and say, well, wait a minute, the fellow that was in charge, he was for 20 years working with the law office that represented Enron and Arthur Andersen, so he does not have a conflict of interest but the appearance of a conflict of interest is still there, just like with yourself.

I do not see how these are not extraordinary circumstances-you have got chief executives committing suicide, you have got all the evidence being shredded over 12 months and everything else of that kind, all of them taking the Fifth Amendment and what have you. You do have extraordinary circumstances so you have got to use the highest care to make sure of the impartiality. And like I said, there is no use to come to the end of the investigation and then say, well, wait a minute, this is a gentleman who worked in that law office, as you well know, for some 20 years.

There should not be the least appearance of a conflict. It ought to be Archibald Cox or some individual of your own choosing, and under the law, you can appoint a Special Counsel and that would end any misgiving that anybody could have about the final report. What is your comment?

Attorney General ASHCROFT. When presented with these issues, I have given my duty to carry out the responsibilities that have been entrusted to me very careful consideration. I have had a very, very careful awareness of and adherence to the Government-wide regulations and rules regarding conflicts of interest and these rules set forth various relevant factors, including financial and personal relationships, and any decision on these matters, obviously, is very fact-specific.

Based on the careful review of the applicable laws and regulations that apply to all Government workers and in light of the totality of all the circumstances, I believe that it was my responsibility to recuse myself.

Senator HOLLINGS. Right.

Attorney General ASHCROFT. Once I recuse myself, I do not make further judgments about the case. I do not involve myself in the

case.

Senator HOLLINGS. No, but you know your Deputy Attorney General intimately and you work closely together. You still do, I take it, I hope so, on counterterrorism. You have testified very strongly here this morning about the efforts made in the Department of Justice on counterterrorism and the officer in charge under the law right now is that same Larry Thompson. So, I mean, you recused yourself, but you are working with him closely.