"Most meth lab seizures are in small towns and rural communities with limited resources to deal with this problem. Yet, this summer the Justice Department distributed extra dollars provided by Congress for meth lab clean-up to big cities like Dallas and Minneapolis, where the total number of meth lab seizures is a small fraction of those in Iowa and Missouri," the senators said today.
In 1997, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized a total of 421 clandestine laboratories in Missouri, over 200 more labs than in any other state. In 1997, the DEA seized 22 meth labs in Iowa. Altogether, 63 meth labs were located and dismantled in Iowa in 1997. Already in 1998, 111 meth labs have been found in Iowa. In sharp contrast, last year, DEA seized just 25 labs in all of Texas and 14 meth labs in Minnesota.
"DEA seizure statistics reveal that some of the cities awarded grants through the COPs program for meth lab clean-up are not where the greatest number of meth labs have been found," Grassley and Bond wrote in a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno. "Whatever criteria were used to make these decision, the result was exclusion of rural areas with a demonstrable need for clean-up assistance." Grassley and Bond asked Reno to explain how the funding decisions were made. They wrote, "Why were rural areas and states with major lab clean-up problems excluded from the program, while areas with a less intense problem received federal funds?"
For fiscal 1998, Congress appropriated $34 million to fight the methamphetamine problem. Of that, $5 million was provided for support by the DEA to state and local law enforcement for the clean-up and disposal of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories. Grassley and Bond said today that because of large number of illegal meth labs in rural areas, Congress intended for rural areas to receive some funding. Senate staff met earlier this year with officials from the COPs program to reiterate the need for assistance in rural areas of the country. Yet, Grassley said that despite a commitment made by COPs officials in Washington to report back to Senate staff on consideration of grant awards for rural states, no response was provided and information about the final decisions was obtained from news reports.
Grassley and Bond asked Reno for an immediate response to their questions about the rationale used in allocating the $5 million in federal funds for meth lab clean-up.