A 10-year-old controversy over how to reinforce a dilapidated border
fence between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego ended with a little
noticed clause Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., inserted into the
Real ID Act last spring.
The clause allowed the Department of Homeland Security to proceed
with upgrades without fear of lawsuits from environmental organizations.
Sensenbrenner said gaps in the fence were a homeland security threat.
U.S. Navy facilities in San Diego sit six miles north of the border,
he noted. Congress approved the upgrades in the mid-1990s, but litigation
halted progress. Environmentalists said plans to fill in a wide
gully known as Smuggler’s Gulch would choke the local watershed
with sediment. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced plans to
proceed with the upgrades in September.
Reps. Bob Filner and Susan Davis, Democrats whose districts include
the San Diego border area, asked for mediation from the U.S. Institute
for Environmental Conflict Resolution, but Chertoff’s announcement
ended the possibility of any further legal disputes. Chertoff told
the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October that upgrades
will proceed. “We listened to Congress and moved forward in
an effort to strengthen border protection in the San Diego area.”
The 2006 Homeland Security budget bill President Bush signed into
law in October added the $35 million necessary to complete the upgrades.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection plan envisions an impregnable
security zone that includes high-resolution cameras , “stadium
style lighting,” and two access roads allowing Border Patrol
vehicles to travel at high speeds.
Chertoff said every effort would be made to protect the local environment.
A stronger fence would prevent would-be border crossers from trampling
vegetation and dumping garbage, he added.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has asked the federal government to
cut red tape preventing cross-state, city-to-city mutual assistance
agreements in the event of natural or man-made disasters.
At issue is the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, or EMAC,
a state-to-state agreement that slowed the response to Hurricane
Katrina, said mayors at the organization’s annual conference.
The compact protects emergency responders from lawsuits and allows
state or local governments to apply for reimbursement from the federal
government.
John Robert Smith, mayor of Meridian, Miss., said the evening after
Katrina hit, Davenport, Iowa, authorities e-mailed his office and
offered the use of 40 emergency services personnel who were prepared
that night to travel south, but the EMAC process caused a seven-day
delay. Allowing cities to respond within 24 hours is crucial, Smith
said. “It’s lifesaving and preserves communities.”
Martin O’Malley, co-chair of the conference’s homeland
security committee and mayor of Baltimore, said Maryland cities
can call on each other in times of need, but others must first go
through their own state’s EMAC bureaucracy, as well as the
state where the assistance is needed. “What we’re talking
about is executing agreements … with Richmond, [Va.], so if
Baltimore needs Richmond, Richmond comes,” O’Malley
said.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged
in a one-hour closed door meeting with the mayors that EMAC was
“too cumbersome,” according to those attending the meeting.