The President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget proposal is delivered to the Senate Budget Committee and distributed to staff, in Washington DC on April 10, 2013. UPI/Molly Riey |
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WASHINGTON, April 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Homeland Security Department's $39 billion budget maintains a commitment to functions such as border and cybersecurity, the White House said.
The amount provided to the Homeland Security Department in President Obama's 2014 budget unveiled Wednesday is about $625 million less than the 2012 enacted level, the White House said.
The budget document said the department would save about $1.3 billion through reducing administrative costs and streamlining professional services.
Among other things, the Homeland Security budget would:
-- Provide $221 million for 1,600 new Customs and Border Protection officers and equipment that will mean faster processing and inspection of passengers and cargo at ports of entry.
-- Invest $714 million in a state-of-the-art lab to develop countermeasures for diseases originating in large animals that can be transmitted to humans.
-- Allocate $44 million in new funding to support expansion of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Five to develop a comprehensive, coordinated system that fosters information-sharing across government agencies while protecting privacy and civil liberties.
-- Eliminate duplicative, stand-alone Federal Emergency Management Agency grant programs, consolidating them into a new grant program.
-- Focuses immigration detention resources on priority aliens such as criminals, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants and immigration fugitives while expanding resources for electronic monitoring and supervision.
-- Provide $114 million for support and expansion of the e-Verify system.
-- Provide $494 million to fund research and development in cybersecurity, explosives detection and chemical/biological response systems.