Trump budget would eliminate bomb dogs at busy travel hubs, warns Schumer

'Canine teams are not a luxury. In New York City, canine dog teams can mean life or death'

Senator Chuck Schumer says Donald Trump’s federal budget may result in a reduction in bomb sniffing dogs in airports and train stations.

Mr Trump’s 2021 budget includes the elimination of a $59m program that deploys bomb sniffing dogs to find explosives in crowded travel hubs across the country.

The Trump administration has defended the move as essentially a redundancy elimination, arguing that state and local law enforcement agencies have their own monitoring methods.

“As state and local law enforcement agencies already monitor and maintain jurisdiction in these areas, the VIPR Teams’ efforts are duplicative and unnecessary,” the White House wrote in a statement. “In addition, VIPR Team performance measures fail to articulate program effectiveness, and lack demonstrable results.”

VIPR stands for “visible intermodal prevention and response.”

But Mr Schumer argued against total reliance on state and local authorities, suggesting federal dog teams were a superior alternative.

“None of them are as good as these, none of them are as mobile as these, “ Mr Schumer said. “These are the most highly trained dogs, and they’re the best.”

However the TSA says Mr Schumer's statement is inaccurate, and that proposed budget plans will not affect total TSA K9 numbers.

Mr Schumer added: “If the White House had its way, the K-9 teams that protect all of our transit hubs would be no more. Right now, the White House is putting forth a dangerous proposal to totally eliminate these VIPR K-9 teams,” he said. “And any security expert will tell you that they’re needed and they’re unique, and obviously, they’re mobile.”

Without the VIPR teams, the cost of securing busy travel hubs would fall onto the cities and states where the hubs are located, hoisting the cost fully onto the municipalities.

“This is just pushing the cost from the feds to the city, any city. But terror threats are of national concern, and New York, other big cities and transit hubs should not be shouldering the brunt of these security costs,” Mr Schumer said.

Mr Schumer made the same warnings two years ago when the Trump administration tried to eliminate the program from the Transportation Safety Administration’s 2019 budget.

Back then he described the situation as “life or death.”

“Canine teams are not a luxury. In New York City, canine dog teams can mean life or death,” Mr Schumer said.

A 2018 Inspector General’s report included an examination of the VIPR program that suggested the VIPR teams weren’t especially effective.

“Despite dedicating approximately $272m to ground-based activities, including VIPR operations, FAMS could not demonstrate how these activities contributed to TSA’s mission,” the report stated.