"Camp Dodge in Iowa is the perfect place for this training center to be located not only from a geographic standpoint but also based on the quality of the facility and its commitment to making this kind of a regional center a successful component of our national effort to combat meth and other illegal drugs," Grassley said.
"Senator Grassley and I recognized the need for an additional center in the Midwest to help state and local law enforcement in their efforts to reduce the supply and demand of methamphetamine and other dangerous drugs," Harkin said.
The Iowa senators' bill authorizes $25 million for the National Guard Bureau to operate the four counter-drug schools that already exist in located in California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Mississippi, and to create a fifth counter-drug school located in Iowa that would serve 18 states Midwestern and Northwestern states.
The Camp Dodge school would serve as a narcotics investigation and enforcement training center for state and local law enforcement agencies. The National Guard estimates that $3 million will be needed in fiscal year 2002 for start-up expenses, with $5 million to be provided yearly after that to support additional training.
The $25 million needed for all of these schools would not come out of National Guard counter-drug state plans appropriations. Instead, it would be incorporated in both appropriations and authorizations language in fiscal year 2002, with directions to the Department of Defense that this level of funding, plus inflation costs, should be part of the President's annual budget in the following years.
Grassley is chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Harkin is senior member of the Appropriations Committee.