AGA Today
Anti-Terror Funding Cut In D.C. and New York - Homeland Security
Criticized Over Grants
By
Dan Eggen and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 1, 2006; A01
The Department of Homeland Security yesterday slashed anti-terrorism
money for Washington and New York, part of an immediately controversial
decision to reduce grant funds for major urban areas in the Northeast
while providing more to mid-size cities from Jacksonville to Sacramento.
The announcement that the two cities targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, would
suffer 40 percent reductions in urban security funds prompted outrage
from lawmakers and local officials in both areas, who questioned the
wisdom of cutting funds so deeply for cities widely recognized as prime
terrorist targets. The decision came less than five months after
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff unveiled changes in the
grants plan intended to focus funding on areas facing the gravest risk
of attack.
Potential targets outside the Northeast also took painful hits,
including New Orleans, San Diego and Phoenix. New Orleans's grants for
security and disaster preparedness were cut in half even as it struggles
to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
In
Washington, where the funding dropped from about $77 million to about
$46 million, Mayor Anthony A. Williams called the decision
"shortsighted."
New York's grant plummeted from about $207 million to $124 million. A
DHS risk scorecard for the city asserted that the home of the Empire
State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or
icons.
"As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security and the
administration have declared war on New York," Rep. Peter T. King
(R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the
Associated Press. "It's a knife in the back to New York, and I'm going
to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."
Homeland Security's grant programs have drawn criticism from cities both
large and small; many have felt slighted by what they maintained was a
haphazard and unfair distribution plan. This year's round of grants was
supposed to ensure that enough money goes to areas at highest risk of
terrorist attack by employing risk scores, effectiveness tests and 17
"peer review" panels consisting of homeland security professionals from
47 states.
But department officials struggled yesterday to defend the latest
outcome even as lawmakers in both parties denounced them. Most experts
and many government officials had expected that the new review process
would lead to more money, rather than less, for major terrorist targets
such as Washington and New York.
Tracy A. Henke, assistant secretary for grants and training, told
reporters that the new funding distribution was the result of a better
review process and does not indicate lesser risk for cities such as
Washington or New York. Officials noted that Congress had cut the
program by about $125 million in 2006, to $711 million, and that New
York, Washington and other major cities still would receive the largest
shares.
"We have to understand that there is risk throughout the nation," Henke
said. "We worked very hard to make sure that there was fairness in the
process."
The department refused to release the names of panel members or other
details about the review boards.
I.
Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Homeland Safety and
Security at the University of Maryland, said the plan doesn't pass the
common-sense test.
"It's completely inconsistent," Greenberger said. "Where are our
priorities? . . . There can be no doubt that Washington and New York are
the biggest potential ground zeroes for any future attack."
The Urban Areas Security Initiative provides money to 46 metropolitan
areas. It is part of a broader $1.7 billion grant program at DHS, most
of which attracted little controversy because it is divided evenly among
states and territories.
In
addition to Washington and New York, the grant decisions included a 46
percent drop for San Diego, where several of the Sept. 11 hijackers
lived; a 61 percent decrease for Phoenix, where an FBI agent suspected
that terrorists were taking flight training; and a 30 percent reduction
for Boston, the point of origin of the two jetliners that crashed into
the World Trade Center.
Phoenix Mayor Phillip Gordon called the grant reduction from $10 million
to $3.9 million "outrageous." He said that Phoenix, the nation's
fifth-largest city, includes a network of dams, a nuclear power plant
and numerous other potential targets.
"Shame on them," Gordon said. "They are literally stripping the ability
to protect this area by actions that are incomprehensible."
Winners included Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as smaller
cities such as Louisville (up 70 percent), Charlotte (64 percent) and
St. Louis (31 percent). The only notable gain in the Northeast was in
the Jersey City-Newark area, where the grant rose from $19 million to
$34 million.
Louisville's funding increased from $5 million to $8.5 million, and
Mayor Jerry Abramson said the money will be used primarily on a project
to improve communications between emergency responders. "A lot of this
is about logistical issues that are very important if something were to
happen," he said.
Undersecretary for Preparedness George Foresman told reporters that
although the program was formed with anti-terrorism objectives in mind,
the money is meant to improve readiness for "an act of terrorism or an
act of Mother Nature."
Yet one of the big losers was hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, whose grant
award dropped from $9.3 million to $4.6 million.
The national capital region, which includes Washington and its suburbs
in Maryland and Northern Virginia, had requested $190 million in urban
security funds for 2006 -- an optimistic figure that would have
represented an enormous increase over the $77 million the region
received last year.
Washington's deputy mayor for public safety, Edward D. Reiskin, said
possible cutbacks will include $25 million planned for communications
infrastructure and $10 million for "mass care shelters" to house people
displaced from their homes.
"I
think it's shortsighted for the federal government to cut funds this
way," Williams said at his weekly news briefing. "We remain a target
area."
Montgomery County's homeland security director, Gordon Aoyagi, said he
was stunned by the news, and predicted "a substantive reduction in a
number of regional efforts." Robert Crouch, homeland security adviser to
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D), said that "there will be some shakeout"
because of the cuts.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) scoffed at the grant decision.
"When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their
pocket," he said. "They don't have a map of any of the other 45 places."
Staff writers Lori Montgomery in Washington and Michael Powell in New
York and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
©
2006 The Washington Post Company