New York congressmen Nita Lowey and Steve Israel have differing views from the Department of Homeland Security on what constitutes an at-risk urban area.
Lowey and Israel introduced a bill last month limiting the number of cities eligible for Urban Area Security Initiatives grants to 25 from the 64 currently eligible cities. Originally, their idea was proposed as an amendment to the federal budget bill. When it failed to become law in that form, the pair reintroduced the concept as a separate bill, now in the House Committee of Homeland Security.
“There were originally seven eligible highly populated areas,” said Elizabeth Stanley, Congresswoman Lowey’s press secretary. “Over time unfortunately, the Department of Homeland security has increased the number of cities that are eligible.”
“What we are trying to do is preserve adequate resources for cities at the top of that list, and we know that New York is at the top of that list.”
Since 2007, FEMA has added 19 cities to the grant list. Urban Area Security Initiative grants can be used by these cities from Omaha to New York to help with preparedness efforts unique to the threats faced by highly populated areas, including planning, organization, equipment and training.
The money for these programs is split between cities based on different risks .
According to a FEMA official, the Department of Homeland Security focuses the majority of the UASI grants “based upon ongoing intelligence analysis and extensive security reviews” and risk analyses. Risk analyses takes into account threat, vulnerability and consequences.
Israel said that this formula leads to an overabundance of grant opportunities for localities.
“Federal homeland security formulas give too much to localities that don’t need it and too little to those that are true targets,” said Israel in a statement. “The legislation Nita Lowey and I are proposing corrects that and ensures the continued safety of New York and other top targets for terrorism.”
But while the graph provided by the Governor of Omaha’s office illustrates New York’s dominance over the UASI’s grant money, other players in the national security field are worried more about the trend Lowey and Israel’s suggested cuts follows.
“It’s part of a general cutback on preparedness,” said Barry Kellman, Director of the International Weapons Control Center at the DePaul University College of Law. “Whether that number can be 25 or 64, reasonable minds can differ…But it’s indicative of a larger phenomenon that’s frankly very troubling.”
Kellman says the trend shows Congress and the Obama administration placing less of an emphasis on preparedness as they try to handle budget cuts throughout the government.
“A lot of those allocations were like military bases. Everybody got some, and that built political support,” Kellman said, and that process produced some waste.
But to Kellman, the significant trend of cutting back on preparedness spending is “sort of a backwards concept of what preparedness means.”
The trend troubling Kellman may be what prompted the bill in the first place. In her press statement regarding this bill, Lowey said that “at a time when the pool of resources is shrinking, we cannot afford to divert resources that could be used to address real – not imagined – risks.”
The goal of this legislation may not be any more complicated than New York’s Representatives trying to preserve their piece of the pie.
“There are other homeland security grants and programs that those communities are eligible for,” said Stanley. “It’s not like we are leaving them high and dry.”
