Trying to figure out how to respond to both the international and domestic challenge of drug trafficking and use has been a focus for each of us for many years. The problem of trafficking for rural states and rural communities is a serious one that needs serious attention. As the witnesses here today know only too well drug use and drug trafficking are not just big city problems. Rural and mid-size communities across the country have major problems with drug use and trafficking every bit as bad as our major urban centers. What they don't often have is the resources or the attention to cope with those problems.
That is one of the reasons I offered the Rural Methamphetamine Use Response Act of 1999. The traffic, use, and production of meth hit my state of Iowa particularly hard. As numerous hearings before this committee and in others both here and in the House have made clear, most of the meth consumed in my state and others was brought there and marketed by major international criminal syndicates. That has meant that local sheriffs and police chiefs across the country have found themselves confronting directly some of the most ruthless and well-financed of international thugs. As we will hear this afternoon from the witnesses, small local sheriff and police departments with small local budgets and staffs do not have the resources to respond to this level of threat. But that is not all.
In addition, many users of meth have gone into local production. This means local labs. We find these all across Iowa and the Midwest. These labs are toxic waste dumps and biohazardous clean-up disasters waiting to happen. This is apart from the damage that meth use itself causes. Many rural communities lack the resources, trained manpower, or biohazardous equipment to deal with the threat. That is why many of us here have worked to ensure that the federal government provides grant assistance to help state and local police organizations deal with major international drug thugs and local use and production problems.
I want to thank both Administrator Hutchinson and Major General Rees of the National Guard Bureau for the support you have provided in this regard. I hope, Asa, that you will have good news for us in terms of continued support for meth clean-up and MET Team support. And General Rees, I look forward to your remarks. As you know, I, along with Senator Harkin, am interested in seeing a Guard-supported law enforcement training center for the Midwest and the northwest established in Iowa. We have offered legislation to do that. I hope you have some good news for us. I am concerned that the Department of Defense does seem to think the Guard's counter drug mission figures very highly in their efforts. I hope we will see that attitude changed.
I also want to welcome to the hearing today Sheriff Gary Anderson from Appanoose County, Iowa. Sheriff Anderson's testimony bears eloquent witness to the problems I have mentioned. But it does something more, it also speaks eloquently of the dedication and bravery of the men and women at the local level who must deal with these problems. Sheriff, and the other witnesses, I salute your sense of purpose and work you do for all of us.