Security grants cut, relief funds boosted

WASHINGTON -- The Republican House majority pushed ahead Tuesday with deep cuts in homeland security grants for cities, ports and transit in next year's budget while adding an amendment that boosts natural disaster relief funding by $1 billion.

The GOP's proposed $40.6-billion budget for the Department of Homeland Security -- which cuts homeland security grants more than half, from $2.2 billion to $1 billion -- won approval in the House Appropriations Committee on a 27-20 party-line vote.

The Republicans rejected Democratic proposals to keep the homeland security grant funding at this year's level, to maintain the flow of funds to help state and local police, firefighters and other emergency workers with training and equipment such as radios.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who oversaw the homeland security appropriations bill, said that even if money became available he would seek the deep cuts to grants.

Grant recipients can't measure improvements to security, and he said they haven't spent $13 billion of the $38 billion awarded over the past decade.

"These cuts will not be easy, but they are overdue," he said.

In response, Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) called the cuts "one of the worst decisions" because it hurts first responders who are the first line of defense. "I cannot conceive of any defensible argument for cuts of this magnitude."

While advocating grant cuts, Aderholt cited flooding in his state and in the Midwest to urge the committee to approve an emergency supplemental spending bill for $1 billion for natural disaster relief. His amendment passed without opposition.

But that measure showed a regional strain growing in the already partisan debate over homeland security funding.

Some New York lawmakers said the GOP's priority of disaster funding over security grants showed regional bias, putting natural disasters in rural areas over cities facing high risk of a terrorist attack after Osama bin Laden's death.

"Homeland security is important to our urban areas as disaster relief is to our rural areas," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). "It shows a bias against New York and all of our urban areas to use a meat axe on homeland security while at the same time willingly spending an extra billion on needed disaster assistance."

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said he's begun to hear from some House colleagues that homeland security money is a New York program. "That's definitely out there," he said, saying some of them ask him, "how much money do you guys want?"

King said he would hold hearings in the House Homeland Security Committee about the use of the security grants in the next four to five weeks, as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, urged in a letter Tuesday.