Garrett Offers 3 Amendments to Redirect Homeland Security Dollars
North Jersey Could Gain Under Garrett's Amendments
Washington,
Jun 12, 2007 -
Congressman Scott Garrett today joined with colleagues, Joe Crowley (D-NY), Vito Fossella (R-NY), and Doris Matsui (D-CA), to offer an amendment to increase risk-based homeland security funding for Fiscal Year 2008 by $50 million.
"The unraveled plot to blow up the jet fuel artery feeding JFK Airport stands as a stark reminder not only that the terrorists are still plotting against us," said Garrett, "but also that some Americans are at greater risk than others. Some regions are just richer targets for terrorists who are hungry for a big kill and big publicity. Our homeland security funding should reflect that reality."
The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 includes $800 million in funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), distributed to 46 metropolitan areas across the nation based on vulnerability to and risk of terrorist attack. Two of those regions, the Northern New Jersey/Newark region and New York region, include North Jersey counties. Garrett’s amendment will boost FY08 funding to $850 million. Funding in FY07 was $770 million.
Garrett has been a consistent and forceful advocate for fixing the fundamentally flawed homeland security funding formulae so that more funds are allocated based on risk, rather than geography. While the UASI funds are distributed based on a risk-based formula – the method advocated by the 9/11 Commission – other homeland security funds are distributed based on a formula that continues to funnel funds away from those at risk and into regions that pack no punch for the terrorists.
Garrett’s other two amendments would (1) transfer funds from the geographic distribution formula-driven grants program to the risk-based UASI grants and (2) change the formulae used for the geographic distribution so that more funds would go to high-risk areas in each year to follow.
"Terrorists are not egalitarian, and we shouldn’t be either when it comes to distributing these funds," said Garrett. "Homeland Security funds are about protecting people’s lives and property, preserving our economic and physical infrastructure, and thwarting terrorist attack. Distributing funds to every state in the nation simply to ensure that every state gets a piece of the pie is misguided and must be changed."
