State may gain anti-terrorism funds

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Feb 16, 2005 | by By Ian Hoffman

For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration is proposing to spend most anti-terrorism grant dollars where terrorists are thought likeliest to attack -- in urban states.

The move is widely expected to bolster domestic preparedness efforts in more populous states such as California and New York, with less money going to smaller and rural states that were crucial to the president's re-election.

For two years, senators of those states blocked efforts to steer more anti-terror money to high-threat areas, arguing the entire nation needed domestic defenses because terrorists eventually would attack the weakest places.

Yet homeland-security officials are optimistic that this year, Congress will approve a risk-based funding strategy for 2006.

"If we know that a threat exists, we have an obligation to focus our resources on those areas," said Matt Mayer, acting executive director of the Department of Homeland Security office in charge of grant funding.

Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the change "a very positive step in the right direction, away from pork-barrel politics."

"There's a huge constituency to do the right thing outside of the Senate, and I think the Homeland Security Department senses this," he said.

Congress rejected a move to risk-based funding last year, despite a strong push from Cox and his committee and endorsement by the 9/ 11 Commission.

"Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities," the commission said in its final report. "Federal homeland security assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing ... Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel."

House lawmakers approved Cox legislation calling for all anti- terrorism funds to be awarded on analysis of the nation's valuable assets, vulnerabilities and intelligence on terrorists' intentions and capabilities.

But Senate negotiators held their ground, and Congress last year preserved large minimum grant awards for all states, with the remainder doled out by population. In a nod to risk-based funding, lawmakers agreed on a non-binding "sense of Congress" that the grants should be awarded based on risk.

If approved by Congress, the change could bring tens of millions of dollars more for homeland security to coastal and border states where federal anti-terror officials see a wealth of targets and high risk of attacks.

"No matter what risk factors they use, California's going to come out pretty well," said Gary Winuk, deputy director of the governor's Office of Homeland Security. "We have ports, we have borders, we have mass transit, and we have plenty of threat."

California's combined share of anti-terror grants for states and cities could rise from about 10 percent to nearly 20 percent of the national total, for the first time topping the state's proportion of the U.S. population.

"California's total dollar return might be apt to increase by more than $50 million a year," said Tim Ransdell, executive director of the California Institute for Federal Policy Research, where he tracks federal receipts and spending in the state.

Like their counterparts in California, New York officials said it was too early too tell how much more money would be available and whether it would be enough to gird against attacks.

"But there's more money in the high-threat areas, and that's a positive step," said a spokesman for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, recently re-introduced a bill preserving the minimum state grants, saying it "guarantees that rural states will receive their fair share of federal homeland security dollars. Every state has vulnerabilities and each should be ensured a baseline level of homeland security funding to assure preparedness."

But it will harder for the Senate to fend off the president's proposal this year without House approval, Cox said. Rural areas still will see homeland-security funding, but more of the money will go toward limiting mass casualties and destruction of critical assets that are concentrated in larger states.

"It won't be too everybody's liking," Cox said, "but it will be handled more like a national-security issue."

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com .