BILL CUTS ANTI-METH FUNDING

WASHINGTON -- Congress is headed toward short-changing law enforcers in
Arkansas and elsewhere who need government help to clean up
methamphetamine lab sites, according to Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

Lincoln, D-Ark., joined 16 other rural-state senators this week to
request Senate leaders restore $20 million in anti-meth funding that
has been cut from a Justice Department spending bill.

The money reimburses the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for
what it spends to help state and local police forces remove and
dispose of toxic chemicals found at methamphetamine labs.

=93Without this federal funding, our financially strapped states will be
forced to take money out of other tight law enforcement budgets to
cover these costs,=94 the senators said in a letter sent Tuesday to
Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.

Gregg and Hollings are leaders of the Senate subcommittee that writes
the annual bill that funds programs for the Justice, Commerce and
State departments.

Senate aides who wrote the Justice Department spending bill were
unavailable Wednesday to discuss the issue, according to a
receptionist for the Appropriations Committee. A committee spokeswoman
also was unavailable.

State and local leaders have described methamphetamine production and
use as an epidemic in Arkansas and other rural states. According to
DEA figures, 955 meth labs were confiscated in Arkansas in 2002, and
953 have been shut down through September of this year.

The cost to decontaminate a meth lab site can range from $3,000 to
$90,000, according to Lincoln and others.

A corresponding House bill funds the reimbursement program, so a
House-Senate conference committee could end up making a final decision
on the legislation later this year, according to Lincoln aides.