22 July 1999
(Embassy security) (390) HOUSE VOTES SHARP INCREASE IN FUNDING FOR EMBASSY SECURITY The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to spend some $1,400 million next year -- more than four times the amount requested by the Clinton administration -- to rebuild or remodel U.S. embassies around the world to increase their security. The funding measure, "The American Embassy Security Act," was approved by voice vote July 21, without audible opposition. Concerns that many embassies could be vulnerable to attack grew after the simultaneous car bombings in August 1998 of U.S. facilities in two African nations, Kenya and Tanzania . At least 226 persons were killed and thousands more injured in the attacks. The bill's authors included language declaring security inadequate at half of the 250 U.S. facilities abroad. Representative Benjamin Gilman, a New York Republican who chairs the House International Relations Committee, told his colleagues on the House floor that "American facilities abroad are under threat as they never have been before." Unfortunately, he said, "it took a catastrophic double bombing in East Africa to teach us that lesson." The measure passed by the House also contains another $750 million for refugee relief operations and some $250 million for other State Department programs and international agencies. The bill includes security-related provisions such as one that would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to lease aircraft immediately to dispatch agents to the site of an embassy attack. Critics noted that that process took more than 13 hours after the car bombings in Africa. The administration had requested $300 million for enhancing embassy security in the fiscal year 2000, which starts this coming October 1 -- part of a five-year total of $3,000 million . A bill already passed by the Senate provides FY 2000 funding at just the administration-sought level. A Senate-House conference committee will have to work out that and other differences between the two versions. The House bill follows a formula recommended by a commission headed by retired Admiral William Crowe, which recommended spending $1,400 million on embassy security each year for the next decade. State Department officials, while supporting massive funding for security improvements, have expressed concerns that Congress would take the money from other foreign affairs programs, already cut in recent years.