First Responder Aid And The All-State Minimum:
The Menendez Amendment Takes Aim At The Wrong Target

FEDERAL DIRECTIVES, FEDERAL PARTNERSHIP.  Since 9/11 the federal government has asked all states to improve their preparedness, adding to the responsibilities and risks of first responders across the nation.  The federal government has several first-responder grant programs that are predicated on the federal responsibility in this partnership.  Some of these grant programs are directed exclusively at the needs of high-risk areas and urban areas.  ONLY TWO OUT OF EIGHT of these programs include an all-state minimum, and this formula applies only to 40 percent of those programs’ funds.

ALL-STATE MINIMUM.  The all-state minimum applies only to two of the federal government’s first-responder grant programs – the State Homeland Security Grant Program and the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program – and it applies only to 40 percent of both programs.  The remaining 60 percent of the programs’ funds are subject to discretionary decisions by DHS.  The all-state minimum simply ensures that each state receives at least 0.75 percent of the national allotment of that 40 percent segment of the programs’ funds, recognizing that every state is being asked to improve its preparedness and security efforts.  Without this partnership help, smaller states, in particular, would find it difficult to fulfill these added duties.  Without this minimum, there is no assurance that any state will receive ANY grant support for the preparedness and security efforts of its first responders.

PITTING STATES AGAINST STATES.  All states have basic preparedness needs, and high-density urban areas and high-risk centers have even greater needs.  All of these needs deserve and need to be met.  The Administration has tried to shift the blame it deserves for its chronic underfunding of all first-responder grant programs by instead pitting states against states for scarce grant dollars.

Pitting states against each other ignores the real problem:  The Administration has failed to make first-responders a high enough priority.  Congress instead should be looking to increase the overall federal commitment to the nation’s first responders.

Over the last four years, the President and a compliant Congress have cut state and local first-responder formula grants in the Homeland Security Department by 59 percent – from $2.3 billion in 2003, to $941 million in 2006.  These cuts will affect each state, regardless of size or population.

WRONG TARGET.  The reduction in first-responder grant aid this year to high-risk areas like New York City and Washington, D.C., involves Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discretionary decisions on grants from an entirely different grant program – NOT from the programs that include the all-state minimum.  Nor does the DHS Inspector General’s report this week on the Homeland Security Terrorist Database have anything to do with the all-state minimum. 

CRIPPLING BLOW TO SMALL- AND MEDIUM-SIZE STATES.  Not only would this change in the formula result in the loss of millions in homeland security funding for the fire, police and rescue departments in small- and medium-sized states; it also would deal a crippling blow to their efforts to launch federally mandated multi-year plans to build and sustain their terrorism preparedness.

The federal government should ensure that adequate, basic support and resources are provided for police, fire and EMS services in every state if we expect them to continue protecting us from terrorists or responding to terrorist attacks.

# # # # #