By James DeWeese
“They turned the funding process on homeland security into a pork pull,” said U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) in a Monday phone interview with the TimesLedger. “They decided there was a whole barrel of money to try to spread out to as many people to get money back into districts regardless of threat.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) threw his support behind an amended House bill that would accomplish much the same thing by consolidating homeland security funds and readjusting the distribution formula to account for threat level rather than population or infrastructure.
One of the defeated amendments, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Sweeney (R-New York), would have taken $446 million from a domestic security fund destined to first responders in all 50 states and moved it into a fund that supplies grants to emergency officials in high-risk areas.
Sweeney's amendment to the House of Representatives' $32 billion Homeland Security Department appropriations bill was defeated 171-237 in a vote that broke along regional not party lines. The negative vote came just after midnight June 18 after hours of debate on the House floor.
“The defeat of the Sweeney amendment is a huge defeat for New York,” U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) said. “City firefighters will meet the terror threat first, but they are being thought of last when it comes to homeland security funds from Washington.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg also denounced the vote, calling it pork barrel politics. News reports indicated that in a high-profile break with fellow Republicans, Bloomberg asked an Ohio representative who voted against the funds not to attend a fund-raising luncheon at the mayoral mansion. Republican leaders later canceled the lunch entirely.
Crowley said the funding formula should have been altered “to ensure that Wyoming does not receive a disproportionate amount more of money per person than New York City does.”
Under the current funding scheme, New York receives only $5 per person per year in federal anti-terrorism funds, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) said. Wyoming, she said, receives $38 per person annually.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” Maloney said. “They have more cattle than people.”
Meanwhile, Maloney introduced an amendment to the appropriations bill that would have capped the number of high-risk areas eligible for funds at their current level.
Because the number of targets labeled as high-risk by the federal government has risen from seven in 2003 to 80 in the current fiscal year, Maloney said, New York has seen an increasingly smaller share of the money. Between 2003 and 2004, New York's piece of the domestic security pie shrunk by 69 percent, she said.
Maloney's amendment was defeated in a 113-292 vote before the House went on to approve the Homeland Security appropriations bill 400-5.
Weiner's proposal would take things a step further by limiting the total number of high-risk areas able to draw on special funds to 15, press secretary Anson Kaye said.
Weiner introduced an amendment to the Faster and Smarter Funding for First Responders Act of 2004 that would require funds to be distributed based on threat. The bill, which would place all domestic security funds in one pot, will be voted on later in the legislative term.
“For too long New York City has been on the wrong end of the Department of Homeland Security's terror funding formula,” Weiner said. “The result has been ever-shrinking federal dollars. Threat funds should go where the threat is.”
Reach reporter James DeWeese by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
