July 13, 2017

A House subcommittee has approved draft legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2018, and the full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the bill on July 18.

While draft bill text is publicly available, the draft committee report is not, and the transportation programs in the Homeland bill are usually opaque on details until you see the report language. (99 percent of the Transportation Security Administration budget, in the new format, is now in one big account that is not broken down in bill text.)

The draft bill does reject the Trump Administration proposal for an increase in aviation security fees, instead relying on the $2.47 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that current fee levels will produce in 2018. Gross funding for TSA is $160 million below last year’s level, a 2.2 percent reduction.

Coast Guard funding is mostly flat overall, with a $71 million cut in procurement and a $18 million cut in R&D offsetting an $84 million increase in Operations.

The House bill maintains port and transit security grants at their recent levels.