Homeland fund reform bill derailed for now

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A bill changing the way that billions of federal dollars are channeled to first responders and local governments around the country has been delayed amid a last-minute row about the way it doles out the cash.

The House GOP leadership had planned to move the bill next week.

"There's been a change of plan," Ken Johnson, spokesman for the bill's sponsor, Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., told United Press International Sunday.

The bill -- dubbed the "Faster and Smarter Funding for First Responders Act" -- had been slated for passage the day after the House returns on Tuesday by the GOP leadership. House Republicans have faced election season criticism for not moving forward as fast as their Senate counterparts on the reforms proposed by the Sept. 11 commission, and are keen to show they are taking homeland security seriously.

"The leadership had told us to be ready to go on Wednesday," Johnson said, adding that "concerns brought to us (by New York City) at the last minute" had derailed that timetable for the moment.

The bill seeks to base cash distribution on terrorist threats and vulnerability, instead of the current practice of doling out grants according to a politically convenient population-based formula. It has been mired for months in delicate negotiations.

Changing the way $3 billion in federal largesse is divided was never going to be easy, and in the run-up to an election, when many lawmakers feel pressured to deliver for their districts, it has proved harder still.

"It's never fun to deal with this kind of legislation," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a co-sponsor of the bill, told UPI recently, "and this is not the best time to do it."

Friday, it became clear that the terms of the final deal on the legislation might not garner the crucial support of New York City's GOP Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the state's large congressional delegation.

"We have concerns about the way the bill distributes the money," confirmed one city official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the delicacy of ongoing negotiations. "We are working with Chairman Cox to try and resolve them."

Johnson said that Bloomberg and Cox planned to speak Tuesday. If their talks go well, he added, "We could still get the bill to the floor this week."

But that may be easier said than done.

New York City officials say they have become increasingly uneasy about the concessions made by Cox and his co-sponsors -- including the House homeland security committee's senior Democrat, Rep. Jim Turner, D.-Texas -- to secure the bill's passage.

Earlier this summer, Bloomberg told the Sept. 11 commission that the way the money is currently distributed is "pork-barrel politics at its worst."

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y, put it more pungently. The grant process administered by the Department for Homeland Security is "flawed, counterintuitive (and) counterproductive."

"We treated it like Congress kinda treats everything," he told a House panel earlier this year, "and that's, 'I gotta make sure I bring something home.'"

As a result, the money tends to go to "whoever can holler the loudest," Turner said.

Most lawmakers, federal officials and state and local government representatives agree that the current system -- which allocates 10 times more cash per capita to American Samoa than to New York state -- is broken.

The Cox-Turner bill originally sought to abolish both the population-based distribution formula and the state and territory minimums that explain the high totals for American Samoa.

Instead, it would have allocated funds solely based on the potential terrorist targets in a given state, intelligence about the threats to those targets and the level of preparedness of the first responders who would have to deal with the aftermath of any attack.

But, House aides say, Cox and his supporters had to agree to preserve the state minimum -- albeit at a lower level -- to win over representatives of the sparsely populated and rural states that would lose out, and to overcome the objections of powerful House committee chairmen like Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

"A compromise was reached," said Johnson.

Under the terms of the deal, the state minimum -- previously three-quarters of one percent of the total grant program funds -- would be slashed to one quarter of one percent, except for states with land borders, which would get a minimum of just under half a percent.

But the bill also abolishes the Urban Areas Security Initiatives fund -- a special allocation of cash for cities under high threat -- and folds the funds into the main grant program. Some critics judge that the net effect in dollar terms for small rural states and others without any real terror targets is negligible -- they will continue to get more or less the same as they do under the current system. Moreover, they say, New York could end up getting less money than at present.

Other provisions of the bill also concern city officials.

New York City has spent billions of dollars equipping and training its first responders and building an emergency management system widely believed to one of the best in the country. Because the bill's funding distribution is designed to raise the levels of preparedness across the country, jurisdictions without the plans or capacity for an effective response may get more money than those like New York, which are already prepared for the worst.

But supporters say that the bill would be a big step forward. "Areas which are most at risk will be first in line for the money," said Johnson, adding the legislation "will end the practice of distributing first responder grants based on a political formula."

"Until the homeland security grant board (that will allocate the funds according to the bill's criteria) is set up, it is premature even to speculate" about the amount New York would get, said Johnson, adding that the city's concerns were "based on assumptions not on facts."

"If New York has more vulnerabilities than other places, they will get more money under this bill," said Johnson.

Committee officials say that, although the state minimum will remain, no money will be allocated except in response to a risk or vulnerability assessment. In other words, American Samoa will have to show that the cash it receives will be used to reduce a real vulnerability to terrorist attack.