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33-785 2007

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

PREPAREDNESS GRANTS: RISK BASED OR GUESS

WORK?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 21, 2006

Serial No. 109-86

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

PETER T. KING, New York, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

TOM DAVIS, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

CHARLIE DENT, Pennsylvania 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

(II) 
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representativein Congress From the State 

of New York, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security .................... 1

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 3

The Honorable Charlie Dent, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Pennsylvania .................................................................................................... 68

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 30

The Honorable Vito Fossella, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York .......................................................................................................... 4

The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Nevada .............................................................................................................. 38

The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 45

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 78

The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York .......................................................................................................... 35

The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California ................................................................................................ 64

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas ....................................................................................................... 44

The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Representative in Congress From 

the District of Columbia ...................................................................................... 40

The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New Jersey ............................................................................................. 49

The Honorable Dave G. Reichert, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 47

The Honorable Christopher Shays, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Connecticut ............................................................................................. 27

The Honorable Rob Simmons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Connecticut ....................................................................................................... 32

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York, New York: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 5

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8

Acccompanied by: 

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly ........................................................... 20

The Honorable Anthony Williams, Mayor, City of Washington, District of 

Columbia: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 14

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 17

Accompanied by: 

Deputy Mayor Ed Reiskin ................................................................................... 28

Police Chief Charles Ramsey .............................................................................. 22

Mike Smith, Director Sacramento Regional Office of Homeland Security: 

Prepared Statement for the Record .................................................................... 26
Page

IV

The Honorable George Foresman, Under Secretary for Preparedness, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 51

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 54

APPENDIX 

Questions and Responses: 

Under Secretary George Foresman Responses to the Honorable Bennie G. 

Thompson Questions ............................................................................................ 83
(1)

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

PREPAREDNESS GRANTS: RISK BASED OR 

GUESS WORK? 

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 311, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Peter King [chairman of the 

committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives King, Shays, Linder, Lungren, Gibbons, 

Simmons, Rogers, Reichert, McCaul, Dent, Brown-Waite, Thompson, Sanchez, Markey, Dicks, Harman, Lowey, Norton, Zofgren, 

Jackson Lee, Pascrell, Christensen, Etheridge, and Langevin. 

Also Present: Representatives Fossella, Crowley, and Weiner. 

Chairman KING. Morning. The Committee on Homeland Security 

will come to order. The committee is meeting today to hear testimony on the reduction of terrorism preparedness grants and its potential effects on New York City, the National Capital Region, and 

our Nation. 

I will make a brief opening statement then I will ask the Ranking Member, Mr. Thompson, to make a statement and then we will 

proceed immediately to our witnesses on the first panel. 

I think this morning’s hearing is as important as any hearing 

this committee is going to have, because to me it goes right to the 

heart of what the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security 

is and whether or not the Department of Homeland Security is 

equipped to meet the threats which face our Nation today. 

I happen to be from New York, and I actually have a very personal interest in what happens to the city of New York, but this 

goes far beyond New York City, it goes far beyond Washington, 

D.C., which is obviously where I also spend a good deal of time, 

and where I am also a very close neighbor of Mayor Williams. But 

it goes beyond all this personal—it involves the country as a whole, 

because on September 11 and since then, the city of New York and 

Washington, D.C. have symbolized the very essence of threat and 

risk in our Nation. New York City has been attacked twice, and 

New York City, as Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly will 

point out, a series of at least 18 attacks or threats against the City 

of New York over the last decade. This indicates to me and indicates to any rational person that New York City is clearly the number one city at risk in our Nation today. And yet this year the Department of Homeland Security, in making its grants, its homeland 
2

security funding, cut the city of New York by 40%. I said then and 

I say now, this is a stab in the back to the city of New York. It 

is indefensible. It was indefensible. It was disgraceful. And to me 

it raises very, very real questions about the competency of this Department in determining how it is going to protect America. 

We have heard one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different explanations, maybe more than that I lost count at seven—as to why 

the funding was reduced. The bottom line is when you have a city 

which by the Department’s own accounts is the number one city at 

risk in the Nation today, and then you cut that funding by 40%, 

that is indefensible. 

The Department is entrusted with finding a way to secure the 

lives of Americans who are most at risk, and when they acknowledge that New York City is the most at risk and then can’t find 

a way to get funding to that city, to me that is a failure and an 

abdication of responsibility, especially since the city of New York 

is acknowledged to have one of the foremost police departments in 

the world, one of the foremost fire departments in the world. 

As the Mayor will point out, in the city of New York, we have 

police officers and Federal officers from all over the country coming 

to the NYPD for training and counterterrorism. In spite of that, the 

applications of the city, the fire department, the police department, 

were ranked almost near the bottom, and yet these are two departments which by all accounts should be at the top, or very near the 

top in my mind. They are clearly at the top, in deference to Chief 

Ramsey. 

I am not going to pursue the point, but the fact is NYPD and 

FDNY are certainly examples to the entire world. I know this past 

January a number of us traveled to Europe, going to London, to 

Rome, to Madrid. All of the homeland security officials we met with 

in those countries pointed to New York as the example of what 

they look for as finding ways to cope with the terrorism. And when 

I think of all of the money, all of the effort that New York City 

puts in, day after day after day, and to see them cut by 40%, I have 

said then and I say now, this is to me a dark day in the Department of Homeland Security. It is one from which I am not certain 

the current leadership can recover. I think it is, just again, totally 

indefensible. 

So I look forward to the hearing today because Mayor Bloomberg 

accompanied by Commissioner Kelly, and Mayor Williams accompanied by Chief Ramsey, will lay out exactly what the cities have 

gone through, what their cities are doing in an attempt to stave off 

threat of international terrorism, and how as a result of this arbitrary and wrong decision by the Department of Homeland Security 

they are going to be impacted both this year and over the next several years. So I look forward to the testimony. 

I really thank Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Williams for being 

here. Chief Ramsey, Commissioner Kelly, thank you for what you 

are doing to protect the citizens that you represent. And, again, I 

want you to know that you have very, very strong support from, 

I believe it is fair to say, a majority of members of this committee 

and even in the United States Congress as to what happened last 

month when those funding cuts were enacted. 
3

And with that, I will now recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, the Ranking Member of the full committee, Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. King. And I welcome 

the witnesses to this very important hearing today. Mr. Chairman, 

ever since its inception, the Department of Homeland Security has 

been tinkering with the formula it uses to dole out homeland security dollars, hoping to get it right. Unfortunately, as this hearing 

will demonstrate, the Department has not yet gotten it right. 

Mr. Chairman, America can’t wait for the Department to use a 

‘‘try and try again’’ approach to homeland security. This is especially true in the grant-making process. Many of us knew that the 

Department was on the road to failing again when it announced 

the cities eligible for the Urban Areas Security Initiative program. 

Large, high-risk cities such as Las Vegas and San Diego were not 

among the top 35 cities eligible. With everything we have heard 

from this administration about the terrorists, how they hate the 

United States for our values and they want to pick targets that are 

of symbolic value, you would think that Las Vegas, the entertainment capital of our country, would at least make the top 35. 

With all the recent talk coming from many in this House about 

security risks we face on illegal immigrants coming across our 

southern border, you would think that San Diego, 20 miles from 

the world’s busiest port of entry, would make the top 35. 

One excuse that Secretary Chertoff has used for explaining the 

cuts is to blame Congress. Now, George Washington Carver once 

said that 99 percent of the failures come from people who have a 

habit of making excuses. The Department probably is to blame for 

99 percent of the Washington grant fiasco, but I think Congress 

has some responsibility here too. The Urban Areas Security Initiative program was cut by $120 million in fiscal year 2006. The State 

Homeland Security Grant program was slashed by $550 million. It 

seems to me that regardless of what formula we use, if we don’t 

properly fund these programs, our first responders are not going to 

have what they need to do their job. 

Finally, I think the Department’s blunders are completely out of 

control and growing. Last week, Mr. Chairman, I requested that 

Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Jackson be called before this committee to explain the massive waste, fraud, and abuse and incompetence at the 

Department. I want to repeat that request today. They should not 

be allowed a free pass when lower-level officials, both political and 

career, are put on the hot seat. Just last week we have seen the 

Department claim that a letter didn’t exist, only to find the letter 

Friday afternoon after Congress had adjourned. 

We have seen a Department tepidly defend itself against the 

findings of a GAO report which said that there were many excesses 

of $100 billion in individual assistance fraud in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Rita. This report did not include the hundreds 

of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts the Department gave to its 

friends. And now the Department is defending a process which 

challenges conventional wisdom. 

Given the factors of the Department’s poor track record, this 

committee must conduct aggressive oversight and bring the leadership responsible for the Department’s problem before us. Other-
4

wise, it will look like the Department is just doing bad business, 

as usual. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I look forward to the speakers, 

but I also look forward to having our Secretary and/or his deputy 

before this committee to answer some questions. And I yield back. 

Chairman KING. I thank you, Mr. Thompson, and I would assure 

you that we will be calling Secretary Chertoff before this committee 

for a number of issues, including Shirlington Limousine which is 

a separate issue, but you and I have discussed it, and I believe it 

is a very, very significant issue. 

Chairman KING. I would now like to ask the gentleman from 

Staten Island, Brooklyn, Congressman Fossella, to introduce Mayor 

Bloomberg. 

Mr. FOSSELLA. Thank you, Chairman King and Ranking Member 

Thompson, all members of the Homeland Security Committee. 

First, let me thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Chairman, you have been a great spokesperson and a great leader on all 

issues relating to homeland security, especially the recent debacle 

as has been referenced in terms of homeland security funding. 

It is my pleasure to introduce to the committee the Mayor of the 

city of New York, the Honorable Michael Bloomberg. Mayor 

Bloomberg is a tireless advocate for New York City and has done 

a tremendous job ensuring New Yorkers can go about their daily 

lives without living under the constant fear of another terrorist attack. Mayor Bloomberg’s vigilance has been confirmed in the recent 

conviction of the Herald Square bombing plot. Furthermore, the 

Mayor has been a leader in the struggle for more rational distribution of homeland security funds since day one. He, working with 

the entire New York delegation and others, helped get the Urban 

Security Initiative program started to begin with. 

I know the Mayor has come to Washington many times to meet 

with both Congress and the executive branch to push for risk-based 

homeland security funding because lives are truly at risk; not just 

the millions of people who live in New York City, but the many, 

many more millions who come and visit on an annual basis. I am 

confident the testimony today will bring light for the committee 

and for the country, while New York deserves its full and fair 

share of homeland security funding. 

Also, I would like to introduce Commissioner Ray Kelly, the Police Commissioner of the City of New York, as someone who represents, as you mentioned Staten Island and Brooklyn, home to 

thousands of police officers, the greatest in the country. I know 

that Mayor Kelly—Commissioner Kelly has done an outstanding 

job standing side by side with Mayor Bloomberg. Appointed by 

Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly is the first person to hold 

the post for the second separate tenure. Among his many duties, 

Commissioner Kelly oversees the police department’s antiterrorism 

efforts through both the counterterrorism unit and intelligence unit 

of the New York City Police Department. 

Among many operations and exercises, Operation Atlas enables 

the police department to mount a coordinated defense of the city. 

I applaud his efforts in leading New York City Police Department 

to be recognized as the best antiterror police force in the country, 

and, I would say, the world. No city faces the risk that New York 
5

City does. The Mayor and Police Commissioner deserve our thanks 

for creating innovative strategies to prevent terrorist attacks, to 

keeping the boots on the ground, and I look forward to their testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Congressman Fossella. 

Chairman KING. I will now recognize Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor 

Bloomberg, we generally have a 5-minute rule here, but I have discussed this with the Ranking Member, and due to the importance 

of this topic, you and Mayor Williams will allow—it is your discretion as to how long you wish to testify. And then we will proceed 

to ask you questions. 

Anyway, the Chair is now privileged to recognize Michael 

Bloomberg. The Mayor of the city of New York is recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR, 

CITY OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Chairman King and Congressman Thompson, members of the committee, thank you and good morning. I 

promise I won’t talk for more than an hour and a half. 

One thing that Congressman Fossella failed to mention when he 

described Police Commissioner Kelly’s experience, he not only has 

been the Commissioner of the NYPD twice, he has held every single rank in the New York City Police Department, starting out as 

a cop on the beat and working his way up. So certainly his experience in how to provide the kind of security the city needs is without parallel. 

Let me thank you, Chairman King, for calling this hearing. It is 

more evidence, I think, of your long standing principled determination to make risk and threat the basis for homeland security funding. Today’s hearing is entitled, ‘‘DHS Preparedness Grants: RiskBased or Guess-Work?’’ That question I think certainly captures 

the sense of bafflement produced by DHS’s recent allocation of 

Urban Areas Security Initiative funds, or AISI funds, for fiscal year 

2006. 

New York City and Washington, D.C, represented this morning 

by my colleague and copanelist and friend, Mayor Anthony Williams, have been and continue to be the Nation’s prime targets for 

terrorist attack. New York is the Nation’s financial capital, its 

media center, and the headquarters of the United Nations, for 

which the NYPD provides security and for which services our city 

is currently owed some $75 million by the U.S. State Department. 

This is debt that has accumulated over the years. Perhaps this is 

what the critics of the United Nations are referring to when they 

rile against deadbeats at the United Nations. 

Our prominence explains why the streets of lower Manhattan 

were the first battleground, and the war on terror and New York 

City and the Nation’s Capital remain the only American cities to 

have sustained terrorist attacks originating from overseas. 

The written testimony that I am submitting to the committee 

discusses 18 separate planned, attempted, or successful attacks in 

New York City, 18 in our city’s history with terrorism. They go 

back to 1990, and include al Qaeda’s abortive plot, according to recent reports, to release deadly cyanide gas in our subway system 

in early 2003. 
6

Yet, despite this history, DHS’s grant allocation reduces Federal 

support for vital antiterrorist activities in New York City by 40 

percent. This is $83 million less than we received from DHS last 

year. The logic of that is, to borrow the words of Winston Churchill, 

truly a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. That is not 

because there has been any shortage of explanations from DHS. On 

the contrary, we have heard an abundance of them. But none has 

satisfactorily answered the question: How could a rational process 

produce such a dysfunctional conclusion? 

The Department of Homeland Security was created in November 

2002. From the outset, New York City has energetically taken the 

lead before Congress, at the White House, and in testimony to the 

9/11 Commission. In arguing DHS grants, the localities should be 

allocated solely on the basis of threat and risk. Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge repeatedly told us that those were the criteria he 

would apply to local funding if he were freed from congressional restrictions, that DHS funds be allocated using a per capita formula. 

In response to our arguments, the UASI program was established in fiscal year 2003. It has always been intended for highthreat cities. New York City and Washington, D.C. were originally 

on a list of just seven such high-risk cities. But in typical fashion, 

that number subsequently ballooned to 50, and, in this fiscal year, 

stands at 46. Is this the spirit of high-threat allocation? No. Instead, it makes the program the exact kind of political pork barrel 

it was specifically designed to avoid, contributing to the preposterous underfunding of homeland security in New York City for the 

current fiscal year. 

It is a typical example of say one thing for the press avail and 

do something quite different. And it makes the fiscal year 2005 Department Secretary’s discretion to avoid 60 percent of homeland security block grant money based on risk a sad joke. This was to be 

a step forward, although we continue to believe that all homeland 

security grants should be based solely on risk, but the redefining 

of risk to include something for everyone leads us right back where 

we started. 

Now, I applaud this committee’s decision to review the entire decision-making process and methodology used by DHS in awarding 

its grants, because it is a process that appears to be fundamentally 

broken. I suggest you take a wide-ranging approach to reassess the 

example for—to reassess, for example, the role of the peer review 

panels that evaluated funding applications. I urge you to ask if by 

reviewing requests to protect more than a quarter million critical 

infrastructure facilities across the Nation, the DHS committed the 

classic error of losing sight of the forest for all those trees. Just because a facility is critical doesn’t make it a likely target, and that 

is the test that ought to be met in allocating high-risk funds. 

I also hope you will also revisit Congress’s prohibition on using 

DHS funds for so-called target-hardening construction projects that 

would make infrastructure installations less vulnerable to attack. 

Isn’t prevention what we should be striving for in response to a 

fallback position? 

I would especially ask you to focus on DHS’s clearly and frequently stated predisposition against providing grants to support 

recurring costs, what they choose to call supplanting local effort. 
7

For New York City, this is really the heart of the matter. This bias 

on the part of DHS penalizes us for our aggressiveness and diligence in protecting our city. To better protect New York City, we 

will invest close to a billion dollars over the next 4 years in 

counterterrorism initiatives. From hardening our bridges and upgrading our communications infrastructure to implementing a comprehensive security plan for the lower Manhattan financial district, 

these projects are crucial to protecting all New Yorkers. 

In addition, to guard our city against terrorist attacks, we al- ready spend more than $250 million per year of our taxpayers’ 

money in annual operating expenses. In the face of such substantial needs, DHS’s refusal to pay recurring costs puts unnecessary 

burdens on our city. 

After 9/11, for example, New York City very sensibly increased 

aerial surveillance of our watershed reservoirs, but DHS has denied requests for funds to support this program on the grounds 

that since New York City has been covering the costs ourselves, we 

can just continue to do so. Under that reasoning, if we had been 

negligent and had not stepped up these surveillance flights, than 

we would now be eligible for Federal funds to start them, a prime 

example of dysfunctional bureaucratic logic. 

As I have said repeatedly, we will do everything possible to protect our city and then find a way to pay for it. But having the Federal Government penalize us for doing what is right is hardly a 

sensible national policy. DHS’s bias against supporting recurring 

local costs punishes New York City for the effectiveness of all of 

our locally funded counterterrorism and intelligence activities, efforts which have been deemed models for the Nation by former Secretary Ridge, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and other leaders in the 

counterterrorism community, both inside and outside of government. I would argue that they are better qualified to judge the effectiveness of our efforts than are members of a peer review panel 

who may not live in major urban areas. 

In particular, consider two of the NYPD’s key initiatives. First, 

its Counterterrorism Bureau, which is so highly regarded that it 

has provided training to more than 800 Federal employees including employees of the Department of Homeland Security. And second, there is Operation Atlas, which deploys specifically trained 

and specially equipped patrol units to protect the city’s landmarks 

and critical transportation and financial infrastructure. 

The effectiveness of such security was demonstrated in 2003. 

After repeated reconnaissance, an al Qaeda operative called off the 

attempted sabotage of the Brooklyn Bridge, telling his controllers 

that ‘‘the weather is too hot,’’ a coded reference to the intense security on the bridge and in the waters of the East River. That plot 

was not foiled by satellite-guided technology or other high-tech 

equipment. What protected our city was good old-fashioned boots 

on the ground. And that is precisely why we continue to assign approximately 1,000 of NYPD’s best officers to the Department’s 

counterterrorism and insurance—intelligence divisions. 

This year we asked DHS to support both the Counterterrorism 

Bureau and Operation Atlas, but unfortunately we have been told 

that the Department does not intend to help cover such day-to-day 

personal expenses. Members of the committee, I hardly know 
8

where to begin in stating my disagreement. But essentially the 

question is whether you think, as we do, that investment in people 

is as valuable as purchases of hardware and protecting our country. There is no doubt in my mind what the answer is. Nor is there 

doubt in the minds of Commissioner Kelly or other experts in the 

realm of counterterrorism and counterintelligence or terrorism, or 

in the minds of the American people. The only doubt seems to arise 

from the bureaucratic ‘‘group think’’ at DHS which has produced 

such a nonsensical conclusion. Time and again, human intelligence 

has disrupted terrorism planning from a plot to bomb a major subway station in our city during the 2004 National Republican Convention to the conspiracy revealed earlier this month to attack targets in Ontario, Canada. 

To make the most of human intelligence, we must train police officers throughout their careers how to contend with emerging 

threats and how to use the equipment that Federal funds may purchase, and we need ongoing Federal partnership in that effort. 

It is clear to me that we are still too slow in learning the most 

basic lesson of 9/11, that we now live in a fundamentally altered 

world, one requiring that we think anew and act anew. In the area 

of homeland security, that means establishing a dynamic partnership for the long haul between Federal and local authorities. We 

must, for example, recognize that the ongoing and painstaking 

work of training intelligence analysts in the NYPD is a shared responsibility, one vital to all Americans. 

Over the years, we have fought long and hard for the rational allocation of homeland security funds on the basis of risk. Now, 

sadly, we are losing the ground that we had gained. I hope this 

hearing begins the process of setting things right again. Thank you 

very much. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg. 

[The statement of Mayor Bloomberg follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG

Chairman King; Congressman Thompson; members of the committee: Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you, and let me introduce to the 

members of the committee New York City’s Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly. 

I want to thank you, Chairman King, for calling this hearing. It’s more evidence 

of your longstanding, principled determination to make risk and threat the basis for 

Homeland Security funding. 

Today’s hearing is entitled ′′DHS Preparedness Grants: Risk-Based or Guesswork?′′ That question certainly captures the sense of bafflement produced by DHS’s 

recent allocation of Urban Area Security Initiative, or ′′UASI,′′ funds for Fiscal Year 

2006. 

New York City and Washington DC-represented this morning by my colleague 

and co-panelist, Mayor Anthony Williams-have been, and continue to be, the nation’s prime targets for terrorist attack. 

New York is the nation’s financial capital. its media center. and the headquarters 

city of the United Nations, for which the NYPD provides security, and for which 

services our city is currently owed some $75 million by the U.S. State Department. 

This is debt that has accumulated for years; talk about ′′deadbeats′′ at the UN! 

Our prominence explains why the streets of Lower Manhattan were the first battleground in the war on terror. And New York City and the nation’s capital remain 

the only American cities to have sustained terrorist attack originating from overseas. 

The written testimony that I am submitting to the committee discusses 18 separate planned, attempted, or successful attacks in New York City-18 chapters in our 

city’s history with terrorism. They go back to 1990, and include al-Qaeda’s aborted 
9

plot-according to recent reports-to release deadly cyanide gas in our subway system 

in early 2003. 

Yet despite this history, DHS’s grant allocation reduces Federal support for vital anti-terrorist activities in New York City by 40%. This is $83 million less than we 

received from DHS last year. 

The logic of that is, to borrow the words of Winston Churchill, truly ′′a riddle, 

wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.′′ That’s not because there has been any shortage of explanations from DHS; on the 

contrary, we’ve heard an abundance of them. But none has satisfactorily answered 

the question: ′′How could a rational process produce such a dysfunctional conclusion?′′ The Department of Homeland Security was created in November, 2002. From the 

outset, New York City has energetically taken the lead-before Congress, at the 

White House, and in testimony to the 9/11 Commission-in arguing that DHS grants 

to localities should be allocated solely on the basis of risk and threat. 

Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge repeatedly told us that those were the criteria 

he would apply to local funding if he were freed from Congressional restrictions that 

DHS funds be allocated using a per capita formula. 

In response to our arguments, the UASI program was established in Fiscal Year 

2003. It has always been intended for ′′high-threat′′ cities. New York City and Washington DC were originally on a list of just seven such high-risk cities. 

But, in typical fashion, that number subsequently ballooned to 50, and, in this fiscal year stands at 46. Is this the spirit of ′′high-threat′′ allocation? No! Instead, it 

makes the program the kind of political pork barrel it was specifically designed to 

avoid, contributing to the preposterous under-funding of Homeland Security in New 

York City for the current fiscal year. 

Also because of our efforts, in Fiscal Year 2005, the Department’s Secretary was 

given discretion to award 60% of Homeland Security block-grant money based on 

risk. This was a step forward, although we continue to believe that all Homeland 

Security grants should be based solely on risk. 

I applaud this committee’s decision to review the entire decision-making procedure and methodology used by DHS in awarding its grants, because it is a process 

that appears to be fundamentally broken. 

I suggest you take a wide-ranging approach-to reassess, for example, the role of 

the peer review panels that evaluated funding applications. 

I hope you will also revisit Congress’s prohibition on using DHS funds for socalled ′′target hardening′′ construction projects that would make infrastructure installations less vulnerable to attack. 

I urge you to ask if, by reviewing requests to protect more than a quarter-million ′′critical′′ infrastructure facilities across the nation, DHS committed the classic error 

of losing sight of the forest for all those trees. Just because a facility is ′′critical′′

doesn’t make it a likely target-and that’s the test that ought to be met in allocating 

′′high-threat′′ funds. 

I would especially ask you to focus on DHS’s clearly and frequently stated predisposition against providing grants to support recurring costs-what they choose to 

call ′′supplanting′′ local effort. 

For New York City, this is the heart of the matter. This bias on the part of DHS 

penalizes us for our aggressiveness and diligence in protecting our city. 

To guard our city against terrorist attack, we spend more than $250 million per 

year of our taxpayers’ money in annual operating expenses. In addition, to better 

protect New York City, we need to invest close to $1 billion over the next four years 

in counter-terrorism initiatives. From hardening our bridges and upgrading our 

communications infrastructure to implementing a comprehensive security plan for 

the Lower Manhattan financial district, these projects are crucial to protecting all 

New Yorkers. 

In the face of such substantial needs, DHS’s refusal to pay recurring costs puts 

unnecessary burdens on our city. After 9/11, for example, New York City very sensibly increased aerial surveillance of our watershed reservoirs. But DHS has denied 

requests for funds to support this program on the grounds that, since New York 

City has been covering the costs ourselves, we can just continue to do so. 

Under that reasoning, if we’d been negligent, and not stepped up these surveillance flights, then we’d now be eligible for Federal funds to start them-a prime example of dysfunctional bureaucratic logic. 

DHS’s bias against supporting recurring local costs punishes New York City for 

the effectiveness of all our locally funded counter-terrorism and intelligence 

activitiesEfforts which have been deemed models for the nation by former Secretary Ridge, 

FBI Director Robert Mueller, and other leaders in the counter-terrorism community, 
10

both inside and outside of government. I would argue that they’re better qualified 

to judge the effectiveness of our efforts than are members of a peer review panel 

who may not live in major urban areas. 

In particular, consider two of the NYPD’s key initiatives: First, its Counter-Terrorism Bureau, which is so highly regarded that it has provided training to more 

than 800 Federal employees-including employees in the Department of Homeland 

Security. 

And second, there is Operation Atlas, which deploys specially trained and 

equipped patrol units to protect the city’s landmarks and critical transportation and 

financial infrastructure. 

The effectiveness of such security was demonstrated in 2003. After repeated reconnaissance, an al-Qaeda operative called off the attempted sabotage of the Brooklyn Bridge, telling his controllers that ′′the weather is too hot′′-a coded reference to 

the intense security on the bridge and in the waters of the East River. 

That plot was not foiled by satellite-guided technology or other high-tech equipment; what protected our city was good old-fashioned ′′boots on the ground.′′ And 

that is precisely why we continue to assign approximately 1,000 of the NYPD’s best 

officers to the department’s counter-terrorism and intelligence divisions. 

This year, we asked DHS to support both the Counter-Terrorism Bureau and Operation Atlas. But unfortunately, we have been told that the Department does not 

intend to help cover such day-to-day personnel expenses. 

Members of the committee, I hardly know where to begin in stating my disagreement. But essentially, the question is whether you think, as we do, that investments 

in people are as valuable as purchases of hardware in protecting our country. 

There is no doubt in my mind what the answer is. Nor is there doubt in the minds 

of Commissioner Kelly, or other experts in the realm of counter-intelligence and terrorism, or in the minds of the American people. The only doubt seems to arise from 

the bureaucratic ′′group think′′ at DHS, which has produced such a nonsensical conclusion. 

Time and again, human intelligence has disrupted terrorist planning, from the 

plot to bomb a major subway station in our city during the 2004 Republican National Convention, to the conspiracy revealed earlier this month to attack targets 

in Ontario, Canada. 

To make the most of human intelligence, we must train police officers throughout 

their careers in how to contend with emerging threats, and how to use the equipment that Federal funds may purchase. And we need ongoing Federal partnership 

in that effort. 

It’s clear to me that we are still too slow in learning the most basic lesson of 9/

11: That we now live in a fundamentally altered world, one requiring that we think 

anew and act anew. 

In the area of Homeland Security, that means establishing a dynamic partnership, for the long haul, between Federal and local authorities. We must, for example, recognize that the ongoing and painstaking work of training intelligence analysts in the NYPD is a shared responsibility-one vital to all Americans. 

Over the years, we have fought long and hard for the rational allocation of Homeland Security funds on the basis of risk. Now, sadly, we are losing ground we have 

gained. I hope that this hearing begins the process of setting things right.

ATTACHMENT 1

History of New York City and Terrorist Activities 

New York City’s recent history with terror threats and attacks, as summarized 

below, belies any thought that the time has come to reduce our vigilance: 

1. November 5, 1990: El Sayyid Nosair shot JDL leader Meir Kahane in front of 

the Marriot East Side Hotel in Manhattan. Nosair would later become a co-conspirator with blind sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman in a plot to destroy New York City 

tunnels and bridges. 

2. February 26, 1993: New York City sustained the first terrorist attack on the 

World Trade Center, in which six innocent people were killed. 

3. In the same year, 1993, an al Qaeda plot to destroy the Holland and Lincoln 

tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, and United Nations Headquarters was uncovered, and the plotters successfully prosecuted. 

4. March 1, 1994: Rashid Baz, a Palestinian angered by an Orthodox Jew’s attack 

on a Muslim holy site, drove his livery cab to the Brooklyn Bridge where he opened 

fire on a van occupied by Hassidic students, killing one of them - 16-year-old Ari 

Halberstam. 

5. February 23, 1997: Abu Kamel, a Palestinian residing in Florida, selected the 

Empire State Building to carry out his intent of ′′annihilating′′ perceived enemies. 
11

He went to the observation deck on the 86th floor and shot seven people, including 

a Danish tourist who was killed. Kamel then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. 

6. July 31, 1997: the New York City Police Department stopped a plot at the last 

minute to bomb the subway complex at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The bombers 

were assembling the devices when police officers entered their apartment and shot 

and wounded them before they could detonate the bombs. 

7. September 11, 2001: The World Trade Center was destroyed by al Qaeda with 

the loss of 2,700 lives. 

8. October 2001: In the space of a week, employees and visitors of the New York 

Post, NBC, CBS, and ABC News in New York City fall victim to anthrax attacks. 

Later the same month a New York City woman died of inhalation anthrax because 

of cross contamination of mail she handled at work with that of the targeted media. 

9. June 2002: Security personnel from Iran’s Mission to the United Nations were 

observed by NYPD videotaping landmarks and infrastructure. They were expelled 

from the United States by the State Department because of their suspicious activities. 

10. Late 2002 and early 2003: Al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris, on orders from 

his handlers overseas, twice examined the Brooklyn Bridge to evaluate the feasibility of destroying it. 

11. Early 2003: According to published reports, United State authorities were concerned that Al Qaeda operatives had made plans to carry out a chemical attack on 

the New York City subway system, but American intelligence authorities concluded 

that the plot ultimately had been abandoned. The alleged attack called for using an 

improvised device to release cyanide into subway cars or other public spaces. 

12. November 2003: Two more security personnel assigned to Iran’s Mission to the 

United Nations were caught by the NYPD video taping tracks and tunnel of the 

Number 7 subway line as it entered the tunnel under the East River. They returned 

to Iran soon after the incident. 

13. April 10, 2004: Al Qaeda operative Mohammad Babar was arrested by NYPD 

detectives and FBI agents in Queens, New York for his role in a plot to bomb pubs, 

restaurants and train stations in London. 

14. June 2004: Once again, two more security personnel from Iran’s Mission to 

the United Nations were caught - this time by the FBI - videotaping sensitive locations in New York. Suspected of conducting reconnaissance of New York City landmarks and infrastructure, they were again expelled by the State Department. 

15. July 2004: A laptop computer of an al Qaeda operative overseas is recovered. 

On it are detailed reconnaissance plans that show al Qaeda operatives had been in 

New York City to plan an attack on the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup headquarters in mid-town Manhattan and the Prudential building across the river in 

Newark. 

16. August 2004: A week before the convening of the Republican National Convention two Islamic radicals from Brooklyn were arrested in a plot to bomb the Herald 

Square subway station. One pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigation. 

The other was convicted in Federal court earlier this month. He was found guilty 

on all four counts. 

17. November 2005: Uzair Paracha, a Pakistani-born resident of New York City, 

was convicted of providing material support to al Qaeda. While residing in New 

York, Uzair posed as an al Qaeda operative who wanted to disguise the fact that 

he had entered Pakistan illegally. Paracha’s father, who had met Osama Bin Laden, 

was part owner in a Manhattan garment district business. It was suspected that 

Paracha’s ultimate goal was to use that business’s shipping containers to smuggle 

weapons and explosives into New York City 

18. And finally only a few weks ago, on June 6: Syed Hashmi, a Queens resident 

active in the New York City chapter of a radical Islamic group known as alMujairoun, was arrested in London where he was engaged in providing material 

support for al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. 
12

ATTACHMENT 2

Urban Area 2006 2005 Percentage

Change 

Phoenix $3,920,000 $9,996,463 -60.79%

Anaheim/Santa Ana* 11,980,000 19,825,462 -39.40

Bay Area, CA* 28,320,000 33,226,729 -14.50

Los Angeles/Long Beach 80,610,000 69,235,692 13.80

Sacramento 7,390,000 6,085,663 17.30

San Diego 7,990,000 14,784,191 -46

Denver 4,380,000 8,718,395 -49.75

National Capital Region—DC 46,470,000 77,500,000 -40.20

Ft. Lauderdale 9,980,000 N/A ..............................................

Jacksonville 9,270,000 6,882,493 26

Miami 15,980,000 15,828,322 0.95

Orlando 9,440,000 N/A ..............................................

Tampa 8,800,000 7,772,791 11.50

Atlanta 18,660,000 13,117,499 29.60

Honolulu 4,760,000 6,454,763 -26.47

Chicago 52,260,000 45,000,000 13.80

Indianapolis 4,370,000 5,664,822 -13.10

Louisville 8,520,000 5,000,000 41.20

Baton Rouge 3,740,000 5,226,495 -28.57

New Orleans 4,690,000 9,305,180 -49.50

Boston 18,210,000 26,000,000 -28.57

Baltimore 9,670,000 11,305,357 -14.53

Detroit 18,630,000 17,068,580 8.26

Twin Cities 4,310,000 5,763,411 -25.37

Kansas City 9,240,000 8,213,126 11.50

St. Louis 9,200,000 7,040,739 23.66

Charlotte 8,970,000 5,479,243 39.02

Omaha 8,330,000 5,148,300 38.27

Jersey City/Newark* 34,330,000 19,172,120 44.13

Las Vegas 7,750,000 8,456,728 -8.26
13

Urban Area 2006 2005 Percentage

Change 

Buffalo 3,710,000 7,207,995 -48.45

New York City 124,450,000 207,563,211 -40.12

Cincinnati 4,660,000 5,866,214 -20.63

Cleveland 4,730,000 7,385,100 -35.90

Columbus 4,320,000 7,573,005 -42.86

Toledo 3,850,000 5,307,598 -27.54

Oklahoma City 4,102,000 5,570,181 -26.47

Portland 9,360,000 10,391,037 -9.90

Philadelphia 19,520,000 22,818,091 -14.53

Pittsburgh 4,870,000 9,635,991 -49.50

Memphis 4,200,000 N/A ..............................................

Dallas/Ft. Worth* 13,830,000 19,283,018 *-28.06

Houston 16,670,000 18,570,464 -9.90

San Antonio 4,460,000 5,973,524 -25.37

Seattle 9,150,000 11,840,034 -22.49

Milwaukee 8,570,000 6,325,872 25.93

$710,622,000 $824,583,899

*Urban areas were combined in FY06, 

but were funded individually in FY05.

ATTACHMENT 3

New York City UASI Application Summary 

In December of 2005, OMB sent a memorandum to the affected City agencies explaining a new competitive process that was required by DHS for Federal Fiscal 

Year 2006 Homeland Security grant funding. Each agency conducted a comprehensive survey of the counter terrorism needs for their department, and prepared a submission. 

After receiving input from the agencies, NYC OMB prepared a total of 15 proposed ′′investments,′′ the term used by DHS to describe the initiatives for which 

funding is sought. The City’s application sought a total of $458.8 million. The categories of investments were:

$81.5 million for the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative; 

$100 million for the Counter Terrorism Bureau and Operation Atlas; and 

$38.2 million for Counter Terrorism equipment and training. 

$27.4 million for FDNY Tiered Response Matrix for response to CBRNE and other 

disasters 

$13 million to Continue FDNY implementation of NIMS and the National Response Plan 

$5.5 million for FDNY Critical Resource Logistics and Grant Program Management 

$7.7 million for FDNY Critical Infrastructure Protection and Recovery 

$6 million for FDNY Strategic Management and Planning 
14

$12 million for FDNY: Protection of the Waterfront (Critical Infrastructure Protection) 

$82 million for Interoperable Communications 

$40 million for DOT East River Bridge Hazard Mitigation Program 

$21.3 million for DoHMH: Enhance Public Health Response Capacity 

$10.8 million for NYC HHC: Public Hospital Preparedness and NIMS Training 

$8.5 million for NYC DEP: Critical Infrastructure Protection and HazMat 

$3.8 million for NYC OEM Citizen Preparedness and Public Outreach 

Upon receipt of the City’s grant application, the State Office of Homeland Security 

forwarded the application to DHS properly and on time.

Chairman KING. I now will recognize the gentlelady from the 

District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, to introduce my 

friend and neighbor, Mayor Williams. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mayor Tony 

Williams was the appointed Chief Financial Officer before he was 

elected Mayor of the District of Columbia almost 8 years ago. That 

is not the usual job track to become mayor of a city like this. Mayor 

Williams intends to leave office this year, and he is going to leave 

office on the same high note he entered office, a high note of success, deciding not to run for a third term. He lives with a remarkably memorable record. There will be lots to remember him by in 

this city, and Members, I am not just talking about the Nationals 

or the new baseball stadium. 

Mayor Williams is going to be remembered as the mayor who 

was the chief actor in the city’s rise from the virtual dust to become 

one of the hottest cities to live in and to do business in. And he 

will certainly be remembered as the 9/11 mayor for his strong leadership when the National Capital Region was attacked and for his 

work in helping to secure this city and this region. 

So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting Mayor Williams to 

offer what is surely a unique perspective on the issues before us 

today. 

Chairman KING. Mayor Williams, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ANTHONY WILLIAMS, MAYOR, CITY 

OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity 

to testify. Thank you for your work in this city. I have gotten to 

know you, as you say, as a friend and neighbor, admire your work, 

and certainly thank you for this opportunity. 

Ranking Member Thompson, thank you as well for your leadership on the committee, and certainly I want to thank my own Congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, for her work in this Congress 

where I think she does a fantastic job for our city, even though she 

is denied a voting role in the Congress. 

I am joined today by Ed Reiskin, my Deputy Mayor For Public 

Safety and Justice as well as Chief Charles Ramsey of the Metropolitan Police Department. The three of us will be available to answer your questions. I also want to recognize my colleague and 

friend, Mayor Bloomberg, as well as Commissioner Kelly, and, as 

I always do in whatever setting, whether I am in front of him or 

not, commend Mayor Bloomberg for the fantastic job I think he has 

done in New York City. He really is an example for all of us as 

mayors, what we can do with our cities. So thank you, Mayor, for 

the leadership you are providing in this area, in the area of public 
15

safety, a couple weeks ago with gun violence, and in so many different areas. 

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, as you have remarked and Congresswoman Norton has remarked, September 11, 2001 really did signify a new day, and with that new day came a requirement for a 

significantly heightened level of capability to respond to disasters 

and major events. This requirement was especially true here in the 

region where one of the hijacked planes struck its intended target 

in the Pentagon and here in the District where the fourth plane 

was heading. Soon thereafter, the targeting of the Nation’s capital 

via the anthrax attack further demonstrated the risk faced by the 

Nation’s capital; indeed, by the U.S. Capitol complex. 

We responded quickly and aggressively in the District, aided by $169 million in Federal funds. We enhanced existing systems and 

developed new capabilities to respond and to prevent terrorist attacks. We upgraded our operation centers and response plans. We 

purchased equipment for and provided training to our first responders. We expanded our radio network coverage so it would 

work throughout the District, including inside of buildings and 

even underground in the Metro system. 

In the region, I joined with the Governors of Maryland and Virginia in developing and signing a joint statement to pursue ‘‘Eight 

Commitments to Action,’’ we called it, to improve the coordination 

in preventing, preparing for, and responding to a terrorist attack. 

The significant local and Federal funds that have enabled us to 

build and sustain capability might beg the question of whether 

more resources are needed. I think the answer to that question is 

clearly and emphatically a yes. Preparedness, as we have heard 

from Mayor Bloomberg and as I think this committee knows, is an 

ongoing dynamic and complex process. We have some of the most 

experienced professionals in the District and the region working 

every day to improve our safety and security, and their efforts 

should give comfort to those who live, who work, and who visit 

here, but we remain, and I emphasize this—we remain a high-risk 

area, and we have significant unmet needs. 

Much of the post-9/11 activity focused on response, but the recent 

arrests in Canada—and that is just one example—demonstrate the 

importance of prevention. And I think as Mayor Bloomberg has 

pointed out the importance of prevention on a human scale, involving real people and intelligence, I think demonstrates that. And I 

think the current state of the city of New Orleans demonstrates the 

importance of recovery and the need to address systems and operations people and process there. 

In developing, in fact in defending our application for the fiscal 

year 2006 Homeland Security Grant program, the District identified over $37 million in needs including incident response, critical 

infrastructure protection, and interoperable communications and 

mass care. 

For the region, we identified more than $250 million in needs, 

which brings us to the question of risk and effectiveness in this 

process. The process we undertook to develop our application was 

defined by a new approach to homeland security funding developed 

by the Department of Homeland Security. That process was firmly 

grounded in the national preparedness goal, and it used what was 
16

called a risk-based approach to allocate funds, which all of us in 

the abstract strongly support. 

Who wouldn’t support a risk-based approach as opposed to a 

pork-barrel approach—door number A, risk approach; door number 

B, pork barrel objective risk approach, who wouldn’t? But while we 

understood that fewer funds were available, we assumed that with 

a publicly stated commitment to a more risk-based approach, the 

District and the National Capital Region would receive a higher 

proportion, if not the amount of the funds than we had in previous 

fiscal years due to the clearly high level of risk that we face, which 

brings us to funding allocation results. 

We were therefore surprised, to say the least, to learn 2 weeks 

ago that the awards to the District and the region were 40 percent 

less than the previous year. In the District, we received 53.5 percent less in the main State program, the State Homeland Security 

Grant program, compared to the program’s national decline of 50.3 

percent. For the District of Columbia, seat of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court, the FBI Headquarters, Homeland Security Operations Center, the Washington Monument—and I could go 

on and on and on—and countless other key national installations, 

national icons, critical Federal functions, the Department determined that we faced less risk than 75 percent of the Nation’s 

States and territories. Further, they found that our proposal was 

in the bottom 50 percent in terms of effectiveness. 

To me, the effectiveness assessments are puzzling for two main 

reasons. First, for both the District and the region, the information 

provided by the Department of Homeland Security showed almost 

every element of the proposals to be at or above average. And a 

senior Homeland Security official told a congressional committee 

last week emphatically and repeatedly that our proposal was 

sound. 

Second and more noteworthy, the experts who provided the analysis which led to the development of the application and who provided the content for it are among the most experienced managers, 

planners, and responders in the country. These experts—and I 

want to emphasize this—these experts have responded successfully 

to many incidents despite the complex nature of our governance 

and operation structure here in the National Capital Region due to 

their high-level of expertise and professionalism and to the extensive coordination and collaboration that occurs here every day. 

My conclusion, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, is 

that we fully support the intent of the Department to a more objective, transparent and risk-based approach to the allocation of 

scarce resources. However, we question two fundamental aspects of 

the process. First, is a risk analysis used by the Department of 

Homeland Security adequately assessing the relative risks faced by 

cities and States of our country?. When analysis finds the District 

of Columbia to be of low risk, which I find astounding, which results in less funding than provided to any other State in the Union, 

including less populous ones, to me the viability of analysis is questionable. 

Second, if the area is high risk but the approach in this proposal 

was found to be less effective, would the Federal Government not 

better advance the security of the homeland by working with the 
17

area to improve its approach than by reducing its funding? So I 

will close with these two points. 

First, the National Capital Region will not be less safe and secure and will not face more risk as a result of funding levels considerably lower than last year. We had capabilities in place prior 

to 9/11 and we have built significant additional capabilities since. 

Generally speaking, those capabilities are in place and will not—

and will not diminish. But second, with the announced funding 

award, we will not be able to continue to improve our capability 

and therefore our preparedness, our prevention, as much or as 

quickly or as necessarily as we had expected. 

Regardless of how much funding we receive, we are going to do 

our best to provide the most professional and expert response possible, and we will continue to endeavor daily to safeguard and secure the National Capital and the region. But I must say the 

amount of funding announced compared to what we had previously 

received certainly challenges us at a very, very high level, an unnecessary level, to do just that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I look 

forward, with the Chief and with Mr. Reiskin, to answer any questions you may have. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Mayor Williams. 

[The statement of Mayor Williams follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MAYOR ANTHONY WILLIAMS

Good morning Chairperson King, Ranking Member Thompson, members of the 

Committee, staff, and members of the public. I am Anthony A. Williams, Mayor of 

the District of Columbia. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the subject of federal homeland security grants, a topic that is of vital importance to the 

District of Columbia. 

In order to discuss the allocation of federal homeland security grants, it is important to understand the context in which they are used. Prior to September 11,2001, 

we had responded to disasters and supported major events within the District of Columbia and throughout our metropolitan region, known as the National Capital Region. But like it did for everyone else in America and in much of the rest of the 

world, 911 signified a new day, and with that new day came a requirement for a 

new and significantly heightened level of capability. This requirement was especially true here in the region, where one of the hijacked planes struck its intended 

target; and here in the District, where the fourth plane was likely heading. Soon 

thereafter, the targeting of the nation’s capital via anthrax attacks further demonstrated the risk faced by the District of Columbia. 

We responded quickly and aggressively. In the District, aided by $168.8 million 

in Congressionally appropriated funds, we enhanced existing and developed new capabilities to respond to terrorist attacks. We upgraded our operations centers and 

response plans; we established new emergency functions for law enforcement, fire 

and rescue, and health; we purchased equipment for and provided training to our 

first responders; we expanded our radio network coverage so that it would work inside of buildings and underground in the Metro system stations and tunnels. 

In the region, I joined with the governors of Maryland and Virginia in developing 

and signing a joint statement to pursue Eight Commitments to Action to improve 

coordination in preventing, preparing for and responding to a terrorist incident. By 

endorsing the Eight Commitments, we established a Senior Policy Group to provide 

policy and executive level focus to the region’s homeland security concerns and to 

ensure full integration of regional activities with statewide efforts in the District, 

Virginia, and Maryland. This group was given the collective mandate to determine 

priority actions for increasing regional preparedness and response capabilities and 

reducing vulnerability to terrorist attacks. 

The District as a city and state, and as part of the National Capital Region, has 

since been steadily building capability to help us prevent, protect against, respond 

to, and recover from a terrorist attack or natural disaster. We have had opportunity 

to put that capability to the test many times since, via planned events such as the 
18

Presidential Inauguration, State of the Union addresses, World Bank/IMF meetings, 

as well as via unplanned events, such as Hurricane Isabel and the sniper attacks.

Department of Homeland Security Grant Funds 

The Department of Homeland Security, since its inception in 2003, has aided us 

in improving our preparedness in the District and in the region, including through 

the allocation of grant funds. The following table summarizes the grants awarded.

District of Columbia National Capital Region 

Award Percent of total Award Percent of 

total 

FY 2003 $17.9M O.9% $60.5M 10.3%

FY 2004 18.8M 0.9% 31.9M 4.7%

FY 2005 12.5M 0.9% 77.5M 9.1%

FY 2006 7.4M 0.8% 46.5M 6.3%

Total 56.7M 0.9% 216.4M 7.6%

These funds, which represent significant amounts to be sure, have helped and will 

continue to help the District and the region enhance preparedness. In the District, 

the funds have supported training and exercising for numerous disaster scenarios, 

specialized response vehicles and equipment, and the development of a dedicated, 

secure, wireless data network. In the region, the funds have supported citizen preparedness education, the development of a syndromic surveillance system to monitor 

disease in illness, hospital surge beds and equipment, protective gear for first responders, virtual linkage of operations centers, public alert systems, and the development of a regional dedicated, secure, robust interoperable data communications 

system. 

The foregoing examples of how we have invested federal funds to advance preparedness demonstrate the tangible gains the funds have provided. But it is important to note that the lion’s share of homeland security funding is provided by us 

at the state and local level. Local funds primarily support the first responders in 

the region and their basic equipment. Local funds primarily support the management infrastructure that plans and implements homeland security policy and operations. Local funds primarily support the basic infrastructure upon which all preparedness functions reside. While federal funds provide the critical resources to enhance capabilities, local funds provide their foundation. 

The significant local and federal funds that have enabled us to build and sustain 

capability might beg the question of whether more resources are needed. The answer to that question is clearly yes. Preparedness is a dynamic and complex process. 

We have some of the most experienced professionals in the District and the region 

working every day to improve our safety and security and their efforts should give 

comfort to those who live, work, or visit here. But we remain a high-risk area and 

we have significant unmet needs across all four mission areas of preparedness: prevention, protection, response, and recovery. Much of the post-911 1 activity focused 

on response, but the recent alleged terrorist arrests in Canada demonstrate the importance of prevention and the current state of New Orleans demonstrates the importance of recovery. We remain a high risk city and region and we consequently 

have significant unmet need.

Homeland Security Need 

We have worked to assess our level of preparedness in a number of ways so that 

we can continue to improve and enhance the safety and security of the nation’s capital. Last year we undertook strategic planning process for both the District and the 

region to bring together stakeholders from all levels of government and from the private and nonprofit sectors to chart the course for future preparedness. As part of 

the grant application process, we evaluated ourselves with respect to over a dozen 

of the Target Capabilities defined in the National Preparedness Goal. Although the 

District of Columbia was among the first jurisdictions in the country to receive accreditation as part of the Emergency Management Assessment Process, the entire 

region recently underwent the assessment process to identify inter-jurisdictional 

gaps. And both the District and the region participated in the National Plan Review, 

the results of which were announced just last week, to guide improvements to catastrophic planning capability. As a result of all of these activities, we have identified 

significant areas of need to make the District and the region safer and more secure. 

It is within that larger context that we developed our applications for the FY 2006 

Homeland Security Grant Program. We undertook comprehensive, exhaustive processes involving expert practitioners from across the District and region to articulate 
19

the priority needs to safeguard and secure us all. These stakeholders included police 

chiefs, fire chiefs, transportation directors, hospital managers, emergency management experts from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and others from all levels of government. Many of these stakeholders are the same people that responded 

to the 911 1 attack on the Pentagon, to the anthrax and sniper attacks, and to Hurricane Isabel. They are the people in whom the country places its trust for the protection of major national events, such as State Funerals and State of the Union Addresses. The effort and expertise we exerted to develop our applications were significant. 

In the District, we identified over $37 million in need across nine investment 

areas asfollows.

Investment Area Allocation 

Incident Response ......................................................................................................................... $2.65M 

Citizen Preparedness .................................................................................................................... 1.85M 

Critical Infrastructure Protection .................................................................................................. 1.05M 

Information Sharing ...................................................................................................................... 3.57M 

Law Enforcement Investigation & Operations .............................................................................. 6.43M 

Mass Care ..................................................................................................................................... 0.97M 

Medical Surge and Mass Prophylaxis ........................................................................................... 0.63M 

Planning ........................................................................................................................................ 2.15M 

Total ..................................................................................................................................... $21.82M 

Specific projects within those investment areas included the following. 

Homeland Security official told a Congressional committee last week emphatically 

and repeatedly that our proposal was sound. Second, and more noteworthy, the experts who provided the analysis that led to the development of the application and 

who provided the content for it are among the most experienced managers, planners, and responders in the country: As I previously stated, these are the people 

who responded to the 911 attack on the Pentagon, to the anthrax and sniper attacks, and to Hurricane Isabel. These experts have responded successfully in these 

and many other incidents despite the complex nature of the National Capital Region 

due to their high level of expertise and professionalism and to the extensive coordination and collaboration that occurs here every day. That their peers from across 

the country couId find our application lacking in terms of effectiveness is therefore 

perplexing.

Conclusions 

We fully support the intent of the Department of Homeland Security to move to 

a more objective, transparent, and risk-based approach to the allocation of scarce 

resources to protect our homeland. The outcomes from this year’s process, however, 

call the Department’s success in meeting its intent into question. Specifically, we 

have to question two fundamental aspects of the process that led to the allocations 

that served as the impetus for the hearing.First, is the risk analysis used by the 

Department of Homeland Security adequately assessing the relative risks faced by 

the cities and states of our country? When analysis finds the District of Columbia 

to be low risk, which results in less funding than provided to any other state in the 

union, including less populous ones, the viability of the analysis is questionable. 

Second, is a peer-review process to determine effectiveness an appropriate basis 

for the allocation of funds to secure our homeland? Put simply, if an area is high 

risk, but the approach in its proposal was found to be less than effective; would the 

federal government not better advance the security of the homeland by working 

with the area to improve its approach than by reducing its funding? 

I will close by making two important points about the impact of the recently announced homeland security grant awards for the District of Columbia and the National Capital Region. First, the region will not be less safe and secure, and will 

not face more risk as a result of funding levels considerably lower than last year. 

We had capabilities in place prior to 9111 and have built significant additional capabilities since. Generally speaking, those capabilities are in place and will not diminish. But second, with the announced funding award, we will not be able to continue 

to improve our capability, and therefore our preparedness, as much or as quickly 

as we had expected. Certain priority improvements, such as many of those listed 

earlier in this testimony, will not get done, at least not as soon as we would have 

liked. 

Regardless of how much funding we receive, we will provide the best and most 

professional response possible and will continue to endeavor daily to safeguard and 

secure the region. The amount of funding announced compared to what we have previously received merely challenges our ability to do so.
20

Chairman KING. I have questions for the panel, and I am sure 

all of our members here today do as well. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG, following up on something that Mayor Williams just said as far as the Department working with the cities 

prior to the 40 percent cut being announced, had anyone at the Department of Homeland Security contacted you and offered to work 

with you to resolve the issue? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Maybe they contacted somebody else, but I 

have not heard that they did. And when I have talked to the Secretary a number of times over the last year, I tried to make the 

case of just how expensive it was to provide the level of security 

that we think is appropriate, and there is nothing I have seen that 

says that the threat level is going down. Quite the contrary. You 

pick up the newspapers every day, and there is cause to worry. 

And what I counsel the people who live in New York City is to 

leave it to the professionals. They should go about their business, 

and they are safe, but they are safe only because we have 40,000 

police officers out there pounding the beat every day, thinking, listening, looking. And then we take the kind of actions in advance 

that one would expect to scare off anybody who might think about 

attacking our city. 

Chairman KING. On the note, Commissioner, as far as entrusting 

professionals, did anyone in the Department contact you and tell 

you that the applications are being rejected and a 40 percent cut 

was coming? 

Commissioner KELLY. No, we had no contact. 

Chairman KING. None whatsoever? 

Commissioner KELLY. We were surprised. Perhaps someone else 

in the city government; certainly not the Police Department. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Mr. Chairman, let me just point out, that is 

what our submission was, 200 pages done by the greatest group of 

experts I think anybody has ever put together. Let me also point 

out that the application process should not be a test for who can 

write the best term paper for their college class. The application 

process should be to present the facts as to what is needed to keep 

this country safe. 

Chairman KING. To put a human face on this, you mentioned 18 

terrorist attacks or threats in recent years. Can you or Commissioner Kelly detail some of those to show how serious they were; 

and also, Commissioner Kelly, can you describe any program that 

was denied to you in these applications such as the ring of steel 

in lower Manhattan? 

Commissioner KELLY. Well, the 18 events start in 1990, but I can 

talk to you about cases since September 11. One you mentioned, or 

the Mayor mentioned in his prepared remarks, the arrest of two individuals plotting to blow up the Harold Square subway station. 

We arrested them 1 week before the Republican National Convention. 

Just 3 weeks ago the second individual—the first individual 

pleaded guilty. The second individual was found guilty on all four 

counts in Federal court. That was a case that was done by the New 

York City Intelligence Division. 

We had another case, gentleman named Mr. Paracha, Uzair 

Paracha, where he was convicted of material support to al Qaeda 
21

for planning to use his father’s garment business, garment district 

business, to bring in explosives into the United States. Again, this 

is another—another conviction. 

If you recall, Mr. Chairman, the so-called al-Hindi case that was 

in July of 2004 where very detailed reconnaissance information of 

New York City, of the New York Stock Exchange, of Citicorp, and 

of the World Bank in Washington, it was discovered on a laptop of 

an individual in the U.K. Again, a series of investigations that 

are—that are out there in the public domain. 

There are other investigations that are ongoing, of course, that 

we can’t talk about here. But we have a very robust program. As 

the Mayor mentioned, our Atlas Program involves uniformed police 

officers being deployed to our sensitive locations throughout the 

city. We do it every day. We mobilize officers both on day tour and 

in our evening tours. We have a Counterterrorism Division that 

works closely with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, with the FBI, 

and I would say our cooperation with the FBI is better now than 

it has ever been. We are working more closely than ever. 

But we have increased our Joint Terrorist Task Force component 

from 17 on September 11, 2001, to 120 investigators today. We 

have a language program. We have identified 670 uniformed officers with language skills and languages that we think are particularly appropriate these days: Arabic, Hindi Pashtu, Farsi. They are 

used in our investigations. 

Another plot, of course, that was mentioned but I think it is significant because it involves a bridge, and Homeland Security just 

categorized the Brooklyn Bridge being just another bridge. The 

Mayor mentioned the case in 2003 when Ayman Ferris was arrested, taken into custody, subsequently convicted, and in jail for 

20 years for plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. So it is certainly not just another bridge. No other bridge in America has this 

track record of being in al Qaeda cross-hairs and having someone 

arrested for that. 

But these programs cost money, there is no question about it. 

Our head count has been reduced because of the impact on our 

budget as a result of 9/11, and we have to use overtime to a certain 

extent to put the boots on the ground, as the Mayor said. If not, 

an inexpensive program grants it. When you have to look at the 

consequences of—God forbid there is another attack in New York 

City. So we have I think a very comprehensive counterterrorism 

program that has received praise from both national and international counterterrorism experts. 

Chairman KING. Yeah. For some reason, the Department ranked 

your application second from the bottom, which to me says a lot 

about the Department. 

I recognize the Ranking Member Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much. In line with the Chairman’s question, Mayor Williams, to your knowledge, was the District of Columbia put on any notice of a reduction in funds or anything of that nature? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Congressman Thompson, just as a summary, 

we were notified. We weren’t really consulted. We were notified—

I think it was in a 24-hour time cycle before it was publicly an-
22

nounced. There really wasn’t any opportunity to interchange, any 

opportunity to improve the work product. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG, there was some concern that New York’s application was too personnel-heavy versus equipment? Is it your 

opinion that separating the distinction limits one’s ability to effectively plan by saying, we will buy one but we won’t buy the other? 

And if you have any thoughts on it, I would appreciate hearing 

them. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congressman Thompson, I think I speak for 

the police commissioner but also for any expert in counterterrorism 

or in an attempt to control a scourge of crime in our country. The 

world is not what you see on CSI. The world is not where technology is the key component. The real ways that you stop the bad 

guys is by having well-trained, highly motivated people who go 

among the community, and who pay attention to what is going on 

and look for abnormalities. It is as personal a business as anybody 

could possibly find. 

And you keep hearing stories, even from small towns throughout 

America: Homeland Security gave us some money to buy a piece 

of equipment; I don’t know what I am going to do with the piece 

of equipment. 

Now, you know, I am sure that sheriff or local police officer probably would prefer to have a couple of more sheriffs or cops going 

out there, walking the streets, or driving around town, depending 

on what their location is, rather than a piece of fancy equipment. 

But the fact of the matter is, fancy equipment gets you a photoop and once it arrives, the real problem is who is going to man it 

and how do you train and how do you keep it up to date? 

I think some—unfortunately, some of these recipients of the Federal—or just in terms of giving technology to understand once they 

get it, the cost of maintenance which is equal to or greater than 

the cost of acquiring the device is invariably going to be something 

that they have got to pay for. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Chief Ramsey, can you give me your experience with the Department? When you have had differences of opinion as to applications 

or the technical aspects of an application, have you been able to 

work them out? 

Chief RAMSEY. Well, I have not been aware of problems. We certainly were tasked with putting together the application, expressing what our needs—following the format and so forth. But the assistance, if you will, that we got from Homeland Security was more 

explaining the process as opposed to commenting and providing 

some input or feedback on the application itself. 

So we as an agency provided information and filled out certain 

portions of the application at the direction of the deputy mayor and 

other agencies, of the city government did the same thing. But it 

was not a give-and-take, back-and-forth type exchange with the Department. We were totally surprised when we got word that these 

cuts were taking place to the extent that they were. We felt then 

and feel now that we have put together an application that met the 

needs of the District of Columbia. It was a good application, and 

certainly when you look at the State total, as the Mayor mentioned, 
23

certainly not one that should put us in the bottom 25 percent of 

all States and territories. Common sense alone would tell you that 

that is a flawed process, if that was the outcome. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have two letters 

from Congressman—Congresswoman Matsui and Congresswoman 

Slaughter, and I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter 

them into the record. 

Chairman KING. Without objection, they will be entered into the 

record. 

[The information follows:]

FOR THE RECORD

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, DC, June 21, 2006

Hon. BENNIE THOMPSON, 

Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security, 

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR RANKING MEMBER THOMPSON: 

As you are aware, this is the first year that the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) used a risk- and need-based program to determine both eligibility and grant 

funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI). The Committee on Homeland 

Security’s hearing today is an opportunity for Members of the Committee to assert 

their oversight responsibility and ask questions regarding all parts of the new UASI 

assessment process, including the scope of its new risk standards. While this hearing will focus entirely on the investment justification part of the grant process for 

New York and Washington, D.C. only, there are other aspects of this grant that 

raise concern. In particular, whether DHS’s criteria and process for determining eligibility for the UASI grant accurately takes into account the risks faced by urban 

areas. 

The new risk- and need-based grant process puts our nation’s security at risk. As 

such, I have worked closely with our local first responders and law enforcement to 

determine the effect that this may have on the security of Sacramento.I have collaborated extensively with the Director of Sacramento Regional Office of Homeland 

Security, Mike Smith. Mr. Smith is a true asset to our community, whose experience 

includes twenty-nine years in law enforcement, where he retired as the Assistant 

Sheriff of Sacramento County. Mr. Smith is also a retired Colonel from the California Army National Guard. For several decades, Mr. Smith has been working on 

behalf of the people of this nation and is an expert on safety and homeland security 

needs. Therefore, I respectfully request that you submit this letter along with the 

attached statement from Mr. Smith, for the official record for the June 21,2006, 

hearing on UASI. 

Sincerely,

DORIS MATSUI, 

Member of Congress

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Washington, DC, June 21, 2006

Hon.BENNIE THOMPSON, 

Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security, 

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR RANKING MEMBER THOMPSON: 

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to highlight my concerns with 

theDepartment of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to severely cut homeland 

securityfunding for the Buffalo-Niagara region. 

According to a new report issued by DHS last week, most urban areas are as 

unpreparedfor a catastrophe today as they were on September 11 th. This is unacceptable and mustbe rectified immediately. A good place to start would be to make 

sure that the UrbanAreas Security Initiative (UASI) program actually serves the cities most vulnerable toterrorism. 

In January, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, rolled-out the 

agency’s revamped UASI grant program by declaring, ′′[DHS] is investing federal 
24

funding into our communities facing the greatest risk and demonstrating the greatest need in order to receive the highest return in our nation’s security.′′

Many applauded this move away from awarding grants based solely on population 

statistics and toward a risk-based approach. Unfortunately, it has become clear six 

months later that the risk-based framework adopted by DHS is deeply flawed and 

in need of an overhaul. There is no better explanation for how Columbus, Ohio and 

Louisville, Kentucky have suddenly jumped to the top of the threat list while the 

Buffalo-Niagara region is now considered the least vulnerable to an attack out of 

46 major U.S. urban areas. UASI funding to Buffalo-Niagara was cut ffom $7.2 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 to FY$3.7 million in 2006. DHS has also made clear 

that Buffalo-Niagara will likely lose all UASI funding FY 2007. 

I agree that the UASI system must be predicated on a risk-based system. The cities most vulnerable to terrorism ought to be the first in the nation to receive the 

resources necessary to safeguard their communities. However, I am convinced that 

the Department’s risk-based formula does not adequately take the Buffalo region’s 

threats and high-risk assets into consideration. Had these assets been factored into 

the UASI equation, it would have been obvious to DHS that Buffalo should not see 

their UASI finding severely cut. 

The Buffalo-Niagara region sits on an international border and is a major gateway for international tourism and commerce. The region is home to four international bridges and two international railroad bridges. This includes the Peace 

Bridge in Buffalo, which is the nation’s second busiest northern border crossing; 

$160 million in trade and 20,000 vehicles cross the Peace Bridge each day. Niagara 

County also hosts one of the northeast’s largest producers of electricity, the Niagara 

Power Project, as well as a nuclear landfill that contains half of the world’s radium. 

In addition, Niagara Falls is a world-renowned tourist destination that welcomes 

thousands of visitors each year. 

Accordingly, it is astounding that any objective model for assessing risk would fail 

to conclude that Buffalo-Niagara deserves a fair share of UASI funding. DHS’ decision to cut Buffalo-Niagara’s funding means that the region will have to reduce critical security efforts, including plans better secure the Niagara Power Project and 

develop an interagency cornmunications system. 

I have been concerned with the new UASI process and its consequences on Buffalo’s preparedness since DHS first announced the changes in January. At the time, 

DHS declared that it was revamping the UASI grant process and limiting awards 

to 35 pre- determined cities that they deemed most at risk. Surprisingly, the Buffalo-Niagara region did not fall into the top 35 cities, meaning that they were only 

eligible to receive sustainment-funding for FY 2006. In addition, DHS redefined the 

Buffalo-Niagara eligible area to be just Buffalo and a 10-mile buffer around the city. 

I contacted DHS to inquire how they developed the list of cities most at risk, and 

why they redefined the eligible area for Buffalo-Niagara. I was told that the riskassessment for the 35 city list was classified and that no information could be provided. Lacking information to the contrary, it appears that DHS arbitrarily created 

the 10 mile buffer without any empirical data to justify it. The redeffition of the 

Buffalo urban area removed key assets fiom being factored into the risk-based assessment, including the Niagara Power Project, 600 chemical and hazardous material facilities, and the Lewiston- Queenston bridge. 

Understanding that sensitive security information went into the development of 

the UASI process, I asked DHS in May for a classified briefing on Buffalo-Niagara’s 

score on the UASI risk-assessment. Despite the seriousness of the issue, this request has gone unanswered. The first-responders and elected officials in Buffalo 

have similarly run into a brick-wall when asking DHS for explanations on their 

score. 

DHS’ refusal to brief Members of Congress or local officials is unacceptable and 

suggests that they cannot justify their new UASI formula. DHS cannot expect Members of Congress or localities to embrace their new UASI system if they refuse to 

provide substantive information on the risk-based model and peer review process. 

It is imperative that DHS re-evaluate their formula and factor in critical infrastructure and assets in Buffalo-Niagara. At the same time, Congress has a responsibility to ensure that DHS has the federal dollars needed to safeguard the country’s 

major urban areas. Let us not forget that Congress voted last year to decrease UASI 

funding by more than 14 percent, despite the fact that most cities remain woellly 

unprepared to respond to a catastrophe. Unless DHS retools their UASI formula, 

Buffalo-Niagara will be left without the critical resources needed to safeguard the 

region against new and emerging threats.
25

I look forward to DHS explaining its new UASI system, as well as their reasoning 

for the new risk-based formula. Thank you again, Congressman Thompson, for allowing me to share my concerns with the Committee. 

Sincerely. 

LOUISE SLAUGHTER, 

Member of Congress 

FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MIKE SMITH, DIRECTOR SACRAMENTO REGIONAL OFFICE OF

HOMELAND SECURITY

On December 2, 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the 

FY06 Homeland Security Grant Program, Program Guidance and Application Kit, 

and distributed it via the internet. In the FY06 Guidance, DHS substantially 

changed the methodology of allocating funds from previous years. Specifically DHS 

wrote they were adopting a ′′common risk and need based approach to allocating 

funds′′.’ ′′For the purposes of analysis, risk is defined as the product of three principal variables: the consequence of a specified attack to a particular asset, the vulnerability of that asset to that particular threat, and the degree of threat of that 

particular attack threat to that specific asset. 

The ′′need′′ would be assessed through a Program and Capability Enhancement 

Plan and through the submissions of Investment Justifications. Supplemental guidance was issued by DHS throughout December 2005, on the mechanics of completing the documentation. A deadline of March 2,2006 was established for electronically filing the State Enhancement Plan and Investment Justifications for States, 

Temtories and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) jurisdictions. Notwithstanding 

the statement, ′′DHS will release the list of UASI candidates shortly after this release of the FY 2006 HSGP pidancem4, UASI applicants were not identified until 

Office and Grants and Training published Infonnation Bulletin No. 200 on January 

3,2006. 

With regard to UASI jurisdictions, DHS abandoned the previously approved UASI 

jurisdiction and geographical definitions. In lieu of the previously agreed upon 

UASI’s, the new eligibility for inclusion consisted of ′′cities with a opulation great 

than 100,000 and any city with reported threat data during the past year.′′ In a follow up meeting with Office of Grants and Training (OGT) representatives, they addressed the exclusion of large urban unincorporated counties. The rationale was 

that since there are not counties throughout the United States, they excluded these 

population centers from the computations. 

With regard to risk, DHS attempted to evaluate asset-based risk and geographically based risk. In assessing asset based risk, DHS drew a ′′10 mile buffer...from 

the border of thatcity or combined entity to establish the geographical area in which 

data was evaluated′′ and inventoried up to 38 Asset Types.′′ The way of validating 

data were, (1) using assets submitted in July 2004 data call and (2) accessing 40,000 

assets collected from various public data bases. DHS also used a number of proprietary databases for an additional 100,000 assets8 In the follow up meeting with 

OGT representatives, the question posed was why DHS was looking backwards a 

year and half and not using their approved Automated Critical Assessment Management System (ACAMS) as the approved data base. Even though California had updated the database, it was not used because not all States and Territories are 

inputting into the system. During the meeting OGT representatives could not provide transparency on how the assets were validated. Because of outsourcing to nongovernment agencies under contractual relationships, OGT representatives could 

not provide any backup data on the validity of the assets counted. During the process of assessing critical infrastructure no one from DHS contacted the Sacramento 

UASI to reconcile critical infrastructure. 

In assessing asset risk, DHS made 8 assumptions to be used in risk calculations. 

Of particular note are two assumptions: ′′3. Functional andlor spatial dependencies 

andlor interdependencies do not affect risk. [This is clearly a false assumption, but 

necessary because the methodology for including it has yet to be developed.] and 4. 

Simultaneous or sequential attacks on more than one target do not affect risk. 

[Again, clearly false, but necessary until reasonable methodologies can be developed 

to incorporate such m0des.1′′ ’The failure of DHS to assess interdependency and cascading affects is not’realistic and flaws their justification of objective decisions based 

on 3.2 billion calculations. In essence the numbers of calculations are not relevant 

if the data points are not valid or incomplete. 

In meeting with OGT representatives, they were unable to articulate the threat 

component of the grant calculations. The key points discussed were that they rely 
26

on data from the other communities to populate the data. The issue of opening 

threat cases versus cases that have resulted in indictments, deportation or convictions and if there was a weighting factor was unsatisfactorily answered. What was 

determined is that threat data only looked at the previous fiscal year (October 

1,2004-September 30,2005) for open cases, 1-94 immigration form destination cities 

and other investigations. No trend analysis was evaluated and there was clearly no 

transparency to understanding the information. It is my opinion that there exists 

an internal disconnect within DHS between Information and Analysis and The Directorate of Preparedness Risk Management Division. Until threat data is suitably 

evaluated and articulated, the information provided in the UASI assessment is just 

a black hole from which no reasonable conclusion can be forecasted. 

For the ′′need′′ assessment, each State, Territory and UASI were allowed to submit up to15 Investment Justifications for the remainder of non Patriot Act base distributed funds. This was to be a competitive process for the balance of State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) and Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention 

Program (LETPP) funds. On February 8,2006, DHS Grants and Training published 

Information Bulletin 202, which discussed the review and scoring of Investment 

Justifications. Investment Justifications were broken into four functional areas, 

background, regionalization, impact and funding and implementation plan. Within 

those functional areas, there were several dialogue boxes to be filled out. Bulletin 

202 provided the criteria for filling out the boxes. This was significant, as discussed 

infra, in the evaluation and scoring process during the peer review process. 

In completing the Investment Justifications there was confusion between instructions and the actual ability to upload information into the grant management tool. 

If applicants did get the email of late February 2006, then they would not have understood that only the text that would actually print out would be seen by the reviewer. In the peer review investments that I scored, several dialogue boxes exceeded the allowable word count and were adversely scored because the information they 

thought to be inputted was not seen by the reviewer. 

My opinion is that the Investment Justifications process needs to be revamped to 

more accurately assess need. I participated in the Peer Review and provided these 

comments, along with others, to the OGT representative. 

The mechanics of the Investment Justification forms were not user friendly and 

the guidance was inadequate. Examples are the word count and the narrative boxes 

would continue to accept comments well after the cut off. Several Investments I 

scored had exceeded the allotted space thereby making them difficult to score. My 

UASI found out this error when we printed our drafts and we made the appropriate 

changes prior to submission. 

In reviewing the Investment Justifications, the guidelines and narratives did not 

encourage nor direct respondents to talk about investments over a time continuum. 

In almost every Investment reviewed, our group was unable to ascertain what had 

been accomplished to date with Homeland Security funds from FY03, FY04 and 

W05. In essence the application process became a stop the clock and a one time assessment. 

Without more specific delineation in the narrative, it was extremely difficult to 

ascertain the appropriateness of the ′′Investment Funding Plan′′. Again, there was 

no beginning, middle or end to clearly correlate the FY06 request to what has been 

undertaken in FY03, FY04 and FY05. 

My overall comment was that I felt Investment Justifications and the scoring 

process were weighted more to grant writing than actual need assessment. If Investment Justifications are to be used in FY07, I encourage DHS to constitute a working 

group of practitioners to help revamp the process. 

In conclusion my opinion is that risk was not reasonable assessed, notwithstanding the number of calcuiations and that ′′need′′ was also not reasonably assessed through the FY06 Homeland Security Grant Program.

Mr. THOMPSON. And I yield back. 

Chairman KING. Gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays. 

Mr. SHAYS. Mayors, thank you for being here. I happen to think 

both of you are extraordinary mayors. And Mayor Williams, you 

will be missed. I have appreciated, as a temporary resident in 

Washington, the competence with which you have done your job. 

And Mayor Bloomberg, I just think you are an extraordinary man 

in terms of what you have accomplished in your life, and I am just 

very grateful that you were willing to serve in public life, given 

that you have been so successful in the private sector. 
27

I chaired a committee that looked at the terrorist threat before 

September 11, and we all were warned about what was going to 

happen. Basically we had three commissions that said we have a 

terrorist threat, we need to assess the terrorist threat, we need to 

have a strategy to deal with it, and then we need to reorganize our 

government to implement the strategy. 

I was a strong supporter, and am, of having a Department of 

Homeland Security, and I am not bitterly disappointed—but close 

to it—in terms of its effectiveness to date. 

I would like to know what your sense is about—and then let me 

say, the two places I am told to say if you want to help the Department run better, have them meet with people in D.C, but—no disrespect to D.C., but particularly Washington—particularly New 

York City. That if we only learn from what all of you do in New 

York City, we would have a much better Department. 

So I guess what I first want to know is, what kind of interaction 

do both of your cities have with the Department? What kind of contribution is the Department and Washington making to D.C. and 

to New York? Is there a constant interaction? Or is it, you know, 

not much at all? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. I would like to ask Deputy Mayor Reiskin to 

talk about our interaction, because he has really been involved 

with the Department in the grant formulation process. 

Mr. SHAYS. Not just in terms of the grants, in terms of just in 

general. Are they providing advice to you? Are they a value added? 

I am not trying to put you in a position where you get scored badly 

next year but I would like to know candidly if there is good dialogue. 

We are going down the ranks here, from mayor to chief to bureaucrat. 

Mr. REISKIN. Good morning, Chairman King, Congressman 

Shays. To answer your question, there are different types of interaction we have with the Department. In terms of the grant process 

they set this up to be a competitive process, so this was not about 

trying to help one city or State, regardless of their risk, fare better 

in that process. 

We are fortunate here in the National Capital Region. We are 

the only region in the country to have an office within the Department of Homeland Security specifically in place to help coordinate 

between the Department, the rest of the Federal Government, and 

the National Capital Region. So through that office we do get some 

assistance. We get some coordination within the Department and 

across the various entities, and I think generally the national preparedness goal that the Department has created for everyone to lay 

out a framework for how cities and States should prepare has been 

helpful. 

There was not any kind of coaching or assistance in saying, District of Columbia National Capital Region, you are one of the highest risks in the Nation, let’s work together to build an application. 

That was not part of that. 

Mr. SHAYS. So that is clear. I am just curious as to the outside 

application. Mayor or Commissioner? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Well, the Secretary always takes my call and 

we periodically do touch base. I think what is important to realize 
28

here is that for big cities they fundamentally have to have the ability to protect themselves and to respond, in the case of a tragedy, 

the day it happens. The Federal Government’s role is to give them 

the wherewithal so that they can in advance prepare and then perhaps later on provide moneys to help them recover. 

But if we have learned anything, particularly from the great 

tragedy in New Orleans, each city has just got to have on the 

ground, ready to go, the kind of preparedness personnel, and mainly where they can respond the day the event happens. Washington 

is not really structured to come in with the kind of—as fast as we 

would need to take care of the people. So we look to Homeland Security for longer-term funding, letting us go and keep the level of 

preparedness that we think is appropriate affordable. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SHAYS. Commissioner. 

Commissioner KELLY. We have an excellent working relationship 

with the operational agencies of Homeland Security and that is on 

a daily basis. We work closely with the Secret Service, with Customs and Border Protection, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And we have now a good working relationship with the 

intelligence components of Homeland Security after somewhat of a 

rough road when we raised our response to a threat that existed 

against our subway system in October of last year. We sort of 

worked through that. So operationally, on a day-to-day basis, I 

think we are working well. 

Mr. SHAYS. Where is not it working well? 

Commissioner KELLY. Sir? 

Mr. SHAYS. Where is it not working well? 

Commissioner KELLY. I think, obviously, at the headquarters 

level, you might say. We were surprised by this reduction. Nobody 

coached us how to change our application or, in fact, that it was 

necessary. 

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just quickly get to the area that also concerns 

me. The Cold War strategy of contain, react, and mutually assured 

destruction went out the window. It has been replaced by detect 

and prevent. Obviously you don’t want to deal with the consequences of the tragedy. You want to protect it. 

And it is my understanding that New York City has got to spend 

a fortune in intelligence work, that you have to because you want 

to detect and prevent it. You do not want to have to deal with the 

consequence. 

I am just curious, if that kind of cost ever gets reflected in the 

grants, that application for it being risk-based—in other words, 

risk-based, you have got all these targets out there that are tempting; but it seems to me that in order to succeed, you have had to 

spend a great deal on detect and prevent, not react. Would you 

speak to that? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congressman, to put it in perspective, New 

York city taxpayers spend $5-1/2 billion a year on our police department; well over another $1-1/2 billion a year on our fire department. They also fund a very extensive and very competent Department of Health and Mental Hygiene which is our first defense 

against bioterrorism. We have an Office of Emergency Management 

that has provided very valuable coordination. 
29

So what we are doing is we are trying to keep our city as safe 

as we possibly can, but at the same time we also have to prepare 

for what happens if the first responders have to respond. That is 

our default position. The 1,000 police officers that Commissioner 

Kelly has devoted to intelligence and counterterrorism, the police 

officers that he has put in major capitals around the world so that 

we can see firsthand what terrorists are doing elsewhere, and 

make sure that we understand that, and that our kind of preparedness and prevention are appropriate, those are things that the taxpayers of the city of New York have to fund every day. And it just 

means that there is less money to do other things that we would 

like to do. 

Commissioner, do you want to add anything? 

Commissioner KELLY. To answer your question directly, sir, we 

spend about anywhere from—depending on the year—from 170- to 

$200 million a year on our counterterrorism issues and our intelligence initiatives; and, no, we do not get compensated for that. 

There was an effort to get that in our application this year and 

that was in essence rejected by Homeland Security when we were 

given some indication that they were open to funding the programs 

that were shut off. So, no, we do not get that reimbursed. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. I want to welcome our witnesses. And Mayor Williams, I have lived in the District of Columbia for 38 years. I think 

you’ve been a good mayor. And my father was from New York City, 

so I have a great sense of feeling for New York City. 

Let me ask you, there is something that just jumps out at me 

when you look at these Urban Area Security Initiative numbers. 

First of all, even with this amount of money, this $124 million, 

New York will have received 19 percent of the entire amount of 

money that has gone out between 03 and 06. Let me go back 

through these numbers because I think they are interesting. 

In 2003 the city of New York got $149 million. In 2004 they got 

47 million, a big decline. I don’t remember all this concern being 

expressed then. And then back in 2005 you upped to $207.5 million. That has got to be an enormous increase. And then back in 

2006 it drops back to 124.4 million. 

Let me ask you a couple of questions. Have you used all of this 

money and can you give us generally what you are using this $528 

million we are talking about? What do you use it for? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Number one, yes, we have used all money. 

We have not necessarily written checks. We do not do that until 

the equipment is delivered or the training is completed or whatever. 

Mr. DICKS. So you have obligated the money. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. We have obligated the money, and I think 

there is a feeling among a lot people that when you get federal 

moneys you just get it and you might as well spend it. It is free 

money. I don’t view those moneys that way. Those are the moneys 

of the taxpayers of this country, including the people in New York 

City, and we take our responsibility to do it prudently and effectively and efficiently and very seriously. 
30

Whether or not 19 percent is—it is an interesting number, but 

the real question is what is the percentage of the target or a riskweighted target list, if you will. It is probably true. I think most 

people would agree that when you talk to somebody from overseas 

and you say, ‘‘Quickly, think about America; what are you picturing?’’ They picture the New York City skyline or Washington 

skyline. 

Mr. DICKS. I think New York is the number one target, there is 

no question about it. I served for 8 years on the Intelligence Committee. There is no question about that. But what are you spending 

this money on? What are you using it for? Can the Chief tell us? 

Commissioner KELLY. We have in the police Department received 

$280 million out of the money that you mentioned; $115 million of 

that was spent on overtime, which was the result of the heightened 

alert levels put in place by Homeland Security. When you go to an 

orange level, we get 15 percent reimbursements, 10 percent at yellow level, but these are alert levels that are generated by the Federal Government. We spent about another $100 million of that for 

equipment, and the remaining money was spent for training. 

And, again, some of the training costs are generated by overtime 

as well, because we have to continue to police the city. 

Mr. DICKS. I want to move on to the District, but let me say one 

thing. We have been told in previous testimony that one of the reasons you did not score as well is because you are using a lot of 

money for personnel and overtime and not for equipment that could 

be used into the future. And I think you have answered that question about why you believe your strategy is the right one. 

Let me ask Mayor Williams, let me go through the numbers for 

the District of Columbia. In 2003 you got $60.4 million. In 2004 

you got $21.9 million, another major decline. In 2005 you are back 

up to $77.5 million; and in 2006 you got 46.4, a decline but not as 

severe as the decline between 2003 and 2004. 

Again, maybe you can explain, have you utilized this $167 million? I am not talking about 2006 now, but for the 3 previous years, 

have you obligated that money and can you tell us what you have 

used it for? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Congressman in terms of the obligation of 

money, I could not agree more with Mayor Bloomberg that our job 

is not simply to write checks. We want to make sure that the 

money is going to an intended purpose and that purpose is achieving real results in terms of whether it is detection, prevention, 

mitigation, recovery, whatever; and that in fact if you look at fiscal 

year 2003, all the money has been spent by the District; fiscal year 

2004, 90 percent has been spent; 7 percent of that has been obligated, so most of that was either spent or obligated. 

Mr. DICKS. What was the consequence of that major drop? You 

went from 60 down to 29. Did that cause a lot of disruption because 

you did not get as much money as you did in 2003? 

Chief RAMSEY. Congressman, the biggest problem with that is 

that it just slows us down. It delays a lot of the things that we 

want to do. That is one of the consequences of the current drop. We 

are making efforts now to become a tier 1 city in terms of our capability, which is required by Homeland Security Presidential Direc-
31

tive 5. That slows us down in terms of reaching that goal and all 

the areas that we are supposed to. 

So you simply cut back. And that is what we did then, and that 

is what we are in the process of doing now, going back over those 

requests, reprioritizing, understanding now that it is going to take 

us longer to get to where we want to be. We should be there today, 

right now, in every single area; but, unfortunately, because of the 

way in which the funding comes in, you really do not know until 

the last minute what you are going to get, your priorities have to 

constantly shift. And it does cause problems, not just in police, but 

all the other areas of the government that are relying on this 

money for support. 

Mr. DICKS. Now, these are not the only funds that New York and 

Washington—you get other funds from other programs within 

Homeland Security; isn’t that correct? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. There are other things. In New York City’s 

case, the vast bulk of the moneys we spend, it is the New York City 

taxpayer that comes up with that $5-1/2 billion, but moneys at the 

margin do matter, particularly in tough fiscal times, which I think 

every city is going through. There is an enormous demand to provide services, and the risks that we think we face from overseas, 

which is something local police departments pre-9/11 probably 

never thought about, those are very expensive. And we have 8.1 

million people to protect. We have an enormous number of iconic 

structures. To say the Brooklyn Bridge is just a bridge is pretty ridiculous. It is to try to define away the Empire State Building as 

just a building, as the Statue of Liberty as not belonging to New 

York City. Yes, it does not, but I would probably—that it is probably the NYPD and FDNY that would respond if there was a problem. 

Commissioner KELLY. I would simply add that other grants that 

we have gotten before have been eliminated. The COPS grant and 

the COPS program and the Byrne grants have been eliminated as 

well. So money that you might think as coming to the Department 

in other ways simply has dried up. 

Chairman KING. If I could be presumptuous enough for the 

Mayor and the Commissioner, I would invite the gentleman from 

Washington and other members of the committee to visit Commissioner Kelly’s terrorism division and also his intelligence unit in 

New York to see just how some of this money is being spent and 

how effectively it is being spent. 

Mr. DICKS. We have had some good briefings and we have had 

a lot of good information. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I thank the Chair for holding this very important 

hearing. As Representative from Connecticut, I will simply say that 

we lost many constituents on 9/11. My daughter is a resident of 

New York City, now living in Brooklyn, because her apartment was 

so damaged by that attack she could never return. And to Mayor 

Williams, my wife and I have lived two blocks from here for 20 

years, so we thank you both for your service to your wonderful cities. 

Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, Connecticut received $10 million in 

fiscal year 04 under the Urban Areas Security Initiative, was 
32

defunded in 2005 and 2006; and under recent program guidance, 

any urban area not identified as eligible through the risk analysis 

process for 2 consecutive years will not be eligible for continued 

funding under this program. This is crazy. The terrorism target is 

a moving target. And to defund a regional State like Connecticut 

and then to say ‘‘no future funding,’’ does not make any sense to 

me. 

And I would ask unanimous consent that this letter from our 

Governor, Governor Jodi Rell, be inserted in the record. We need 

to take a serious look at that program’s guidance. I do not think 

it makes any logic. 

Chairman KING. Without objection, the letter is made part of the 

record. 

[The information follows:]

FOR THE RECORD

June 19, 2006

Dear Members of the Homeland Security Committee, 

As you know, the National Strategy for Homeland Security provides the framework to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism in our nation. State public agencies 

play a vital role in securing our country and U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Urban Areas Security Initiatives (UASI) provides the vital funding necessary for combating terrorism. The UASl has recently changed the manner in 

which it evaluates the likelihood of terrorism, and those changes are detrimental 

to Connecticut. 

In FY2004, Connecticut was deemed eligible for funding by the DHS. The City 

of New Haven and its six contiguous towns (Orange, North Haven, West Haven, 

East Haven, Hamden and Woodbridge) were awarded $10,371,407 to enhance the 

area’s ability to prevent, respond to, and recover from threats or acts of terrorism. 

Funding was determined by a formula using a combination of current threat estimates, population density, transit system ridership and total route miles. 

In FY2005, the funding criteria changed to include credible threat, presence of 

critical infrastructure, vulnerability, population, population density, law enforcement activity, and the existence of formal mutual aid agreements. Surprisingly, the 

DHS determined that New Haven was no longer eligible for the grant program despite its strategic location between New York and Boston, and its critical infrastructure which includes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in New Haven harbor. 

In January 2006, DHS again denied Connecticut access to the UASl program. The 

FY2006 funding formula changed yet again with eligibility determined by a population cap of 100,000 and risk and need analysis. Connecticut with all of its vital 

assets (ports, industries, financial institutions, nuclear facilities and transportation 

services) and vulnerabilities was denied federal assistance, not only in FY2006, but 

potentially on a permanent basis. 

The UASl program guidance now states per DHS, Office of Grants and Training 

Bulletin No. 200, that ′′any Urban Area not identified as eligible through the risk 

analysis process for two consecutive years will not be eligible for continued funding 

under the UASl program.′′ If Connecticut is denied the opportunity to participate 

in UASl in FY2007, it will be permanently eliminated based on the aforementioned 

policy. It is imperative that this feature of the UASl program be reexamined to assure that limited federal resources are most appropriately allocated and that potential recipients, including regions like the New Haven area, are given a fair chance 

to compete for funding.

Sincerely, 

M. JODI RELL

Governor

Mr. SIMMONS. Moving quickly to New York and the District of 

Columbia, clearly key target areas. Reduced funding does not meet 

the commonsense test for me or for most Americans. I do not see 

the threat reduced. I see the vulnerability still there. I do not see 

any lessened risk. 
33

And I would like to focus a little bit on the issue of human intelligence and police on the ground. I was a CIO officer for a decade. 

Human intelligence is critically, critically important when it comes 

to terrorism, especially when you have got Union Station, Penn 

Station, Grand Central Station, very large areas that proposes millions of people almost on a daily basis. You know, you cannot just 

put a camera on the wall and say the problem is solved. 

And so the idea that we are going to degrade or some how reduce 

the priority for shoes on the street and increase the priority for surveillance cameras, which you may not even have enough people to 

monitor the surveillance camera, this does not make any sense to 

me when it comes to securing the urban areas against the terrorist 

threats. 

And I would like to have our witnesses elaborate a little bit on 

that aspect of this program. This seems to be an aspect of the program that does not make sense to me. Are we providing the wrong 

weight when it comes to these applications and when it comes specifically to funding human resources, which I consider to be critically important in this war on terrorism? 

Commissioner KELLY. Obviously, in our application, we looked 

for significant amounts of money for the human investment that 

we have made. That is both uniformed officers, boots on the 

ground, as the Mayor said, but also our intelligence division, our 

counterterrorism operation. 

We talked about the conviction we received just 3 weeks ago in 

Federal court. That was a result of, I think, a very well conducted 

investigation by our intelligence division in conjunction with Federal authorities of these two individuals who not only plotted to 

blow up the Helsway Subway Station, but made maps of three police stations in Staten Island and Fort Wadsworth. 

That investigation was aided by a confidential informant with an 

undercover police officer. This is open information. This officer was 

born in Bangladesh. He came here when he was 7 years of age. He 

did an outstanding job in this investigation, but it takes that sort 

of focus for the Department, I think, to protect, obviously in our 

five boroughs, what we see as an ongoing threat. 

So we are looking for resources to enable us to continue this program, to also fund, I think, a very sophisticated civilian analyst 

program that we have instituted. We have analysts from the top 

schools in the country: The Columbia School of International Studies, the Fletcher School of Diplomacy; from our service academies. 

They have done an outstanding job. 

Under the formula that was put out by Homeland Security, we 

cannot get Homeland Security funds for these individuals because 

we have already done this. We have already started this. So if we 

were to pay them under Homeland Security funds, it would be supplanting. 

But we are able to hire new analysts, and that is true throughout the country. So it gets back to what the Mayor said, the whole 

notion of supplanting; we need these civilian analysts who are 

doing an outstanding job, but we are being penalized because we 

started this program in 2002. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I would assume the same is true for the District 

of Columbia. 
34

Mayor WILLIAMS. Congressman, I think technology gets overbilled, the hardware/software technology. I think history will show 

you far more examples of people, where they have been properly 

supported and motivated, have done extraordinary jobs, even if 

they did not have the latest technology. And there are probably 

many more examples of where you have had great technology but 

you have it invested on the ground, in people, and it has been a 

tremendous flop. 

I think that this overweight on technology, not enough on people 

on the ground who are going to be doing the journeyman work, is 

a mistake. And I think the Chief could attest to that. 

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, sir, Congressman. I also think one of the 

things that I think gets overlooked oftentimes is the fact that dayto-day crime fighting has to continue to take place, and you are 

drawing resources from that effort when you do not get the kind 

of support from Homeland Security that we ought to be getting. 

There is a lot of talk about people. Well, we need people. 9/11 

changed policing dramatically. Prior to 9/11, even though I was the 

Chief here in Washington, D.C. I was not getting regular classified 

briefings. I was not concerned about homeland security. I was concerned about day-to-day street crime primarily. That was my 

world. That is what I did every day. Occasionally a threat would 

come in or something would come in I had to deal with, but it was 

not constant like it is now. Yet we have to deal with this issue and 

we have to be effective at both. 

I have got 76 homicides so far this year in the District of Columbia; al Qaeda did not commit one of them. For the average citizen 

living in our District, the threat is street crime, yet we have to 

broaden our perspective and deal with both street crime and 

threats abroad and threats elsewhere. That is the real problem, is 

balancing the resources, and that is what is not taken into account 

here. So we have to be able to do both and we can only do both 

with constant support from the Federal Government. 

We can reach the level of a tier 1 city, but then you have to 

maintain your ability to be a tier 1 city. You have to upgrade technology. Certain equipment has a shelf life. We bought personal protective equipment for all of our officers and civilian personnel. Fiveyear shelf life. You have got to be able to replace that stuff. Where 

is that money going to come from? If it comes from the local budget, you are taking away from some of the efforts that could be performed out there in our communities. 

We need intel analysts. I also need crime analysts. It should not 

be an either/or proposition. It should be something that we are able 

to do both, and do both well. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I hope you take to 

heart what we have just heard. On the Armed Services Committee, 

when a four-star general asks for troops, we do not give him cameras. I yield back.. 

Chairman KING. I thank the gentleman for his usually pithy insights. 

The gentlewoman from New York who is so committed on this 

issue, Mrs. Lowey. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Thank you, Chairman King, for holding this hearing and I want to join my colleagues in welcoming Mayor 
35

Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly. As a New Yorker, I want to 

tell you that I am so pleased and proud that you are representing 

us and you are in charge of the security in our city. I personally 

thank you. I welcome Mayor Williams. We spent some time here, 

too, and we really appreciate your leadership. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG, I think you, Chairman King, and I understand exactly why New York was so shortchanged in its grant allocations this year. So I really thank you for being here today, for 

discussing the impact of these cuts and our joint efforts to fight for 

adequate funds to protect the number one terrorist target in the 

Nation: New York. 

But let’s be very clear here: First and foremost, this administration has led the effort to slash funding for the largest homeland security grants. The State Homeland Security Grant program, Law 

Enforcement Terrorist Prevention program, Urban Area Security 

Initiative. In fiscal year 05, the President requested $2.45 billion 

for the three programs; lowered it to 2.04 billion in fiscal year 06. 

Then, again, reduced the request to 1.47 billion in fiscal year 07; 

a 60 percent overall cut in the pot before you even started divvying 

out the money. And each time Congress made some adjustment, 

but has failed to restore the damaging cuts to these programs. 

Frankly, this is an unacceptable insult to every official and first 

responder working day in and day out to protect New York. 

I am also pleased to be joined by Joe Crowley, who I am sure 

will associate himself with my remarks, from Queens County. 

I offered a motion when the bill came to the floor to recommit 

the fiscal year 07 spending bill to require that States receive no 

less in fiscal year 07 than the higher of the amounts received in 

fiscal year 05 and fiscal year 06. Unfortunately, this amendment 

failed. Some people like Chairman King supported it, but this 

amendment failed overwhelmingly. 

The buck stops with the President, and we need you to join us 

in pushing the President to insist that the Republican majority in 

the House and Senate restore these funds in the fiscal year 07 

DHS appropriations bill before it completes the process. It has to 

go to the Senate, then it goes to conference. We cannot just say, 

okay, that is it. We have to push the White House. We have to 

push the majority in the House and Senate to get this done, because the safety of my kids, your kids, and all our neighbors are 

at stake. 

Now we know New York took its greatest hit in the UASI program. It was designed to help the top urban high-risk areas, because it has been stretched too thin. New York is protecting its citizens from cyanide bombs in the subway. Columbus, Ohio is buying 

bulletproof vests for the police dogs with Federal grant funds. Since 

fiscal year 03 the number of recipients for UASI has increased from 

seven cities, as you mentioned, Mayor Bloomberg, to 46 regions 

comprising 53 cities. Seven cities to 46 regions, 53 cities. 

This year the original seven UASI cities will receive only 50 percent of total funding. New York will receive, as you mentioned, 40 

percent less than last year and its share of UASI has been cut by 

30 percent. 

In addition, DHS’s efforts to base funding for all the grants on 

risk just frankly failed. They created a confusing process that, 
36

among other things, poorly categorized critical infrastructure, evaluated assets that pose little to no risk of being attacked, and lack 

common sense. You referred to the Statue of Liberty. You referred 

to the Brooklyn Bridge. Just another bridge, just another asset. 

DHS. The Department of Homeland Security’s assessment 

deemed New York Police Department’s counterterrorism program, 

which has been touted by FBI Director Mueller and former Secretary Ridge ineffective. Ineffective. Now, I remember when the 

Chairman and I went down to meet with you, Commissioner Kelly, 

and we were impressed. You were doing counterterrorism when the 

CIA was still trying to get its act together, so we thank you for 

that. One thing is certain frankly, though; programs that go unfunded certainly will not be effective. 

So, as you can see, some of us get a little upset about this. We 

live in New York, we love New York, we care about New York. If 

New York is the number one threat and Washington is right there, 

too, it seems to me they should be getting the greatest share of the 

money and they should not be cutting back on the money that you 

have already gotten in the past. 

So, Mr. Mayor, Commissioner Kelly, Mayor Williams, can you 

work with us to get this change before the process is completed? 

We need you to talk to the President. We need you to talk to the 

Senate. We need you to talk to the House. They all happen to be 

of the same party. And if we can get this done, then you can do 

the job. Can you work with us, Mr. Mayor? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congresswoman, one of the things that our 

administration has tried to do is to work with all branches of government at every level and all parties. We believe that if everybody 

works together we can improve this country and improve the level 

of protection. I think that there are certainly enough ways to improve the system that everybody can participate, and I would urge 

everybody to understand what the real risks are here. This is not 

a partisan thing. This is not a geographical thing. It is true that 

New York and Washington are far and away the most likely targets; but remember, if there is an attack on either of those two cities, it is all the people of this country that suffer. Even if they 

might not suffer physical damage, the economic damage and the 

ability for them to have a better life for their children is certainly 

impaired. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Mayor, in closing I just want to make it clear 

this committee, led by Chairman King, has operated in a bipartisan 

way. Our delegation has operated in a bipartisan way. We are continuing to push for the funds in a bipartisan way. I also want to 

make it clear it is not strange, it is not coincidental that New York 

was cut 40 percent. The request from the White House was cut 60 

percent. So the committees are working with less money. 

So if we are going to make a change to this process before it is 

over—this bill passed the House and Chairman King certainly supported the motion to recommit to get the money resubstituted—if 

we are going to make a change, and I feel it is a life-or-death issue, 

we have to address the White House, we have to address the House 

and the Senate, because the process is not over. 
37

So I hope, Mr. Mayors and Police Commissioners, that you will 

work with us to push as hard as we can. It is a life-or-death issue 

in a bipartisan way with our Chairman to get this done. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congresswoman, let me say when I hear you 

or the Chairman or the President all say that these moneys should 

be distributed on the basis of threat and risk, that puts a smile on 

my face and I think the three of you are absolutely correct. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Mayor, I just want to say one other point and 

make it again. We have the bill to distribute the money based on 

risk for all of these programs passed in the House three times. It 

has not passed the Senate. We are pleased that they will use a 

risk-based formula. But if you are dealing with a cup of sugar and 

the recipe calls for six cups of sugar, you cannot get the six cups 

of sugar out of the one cup of sugar. So we have got to increase 

the pot. And before the process is over, I hope you will all work 

with us because I know how hard you are working in New York 

and in Washington to get the President, the House and the Senate 

to acknowledge that if we are putting, as my colleague from Connecticut said, billions of dollars into Iraq and we both vote for it, 

we cannot cut back on homeland security dollars because the implication is clear. 

And I thank you and I thank the chairman, and I hope we can 

all work together in a bipartisan way, Mr. Mayors, to get that 

money back. Thank you. 

Mayor WILLIAMS. You would certainly have my commitment, 

Congresswoman, to work with you on that basis with the chairman 

and Congresswoman Norton on a bipartisan basis to work on not 

only increasing the pot of sugar but the allocation for the pot of 

sugar. 

Chairman KING. I would just say for the record that I only allowed the gentlewoman to go so far over her time because she was 

saying such good things about me. 

Mrs. LOWEY. We are a good team. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman, 

thank you for your presence here today. To the Mayors, of course, 

thank you for your work in our communities around this country. 

This is a very complex formula, no doubt about it, whether you are 

looking at the funding grants or the discretionary grants. 

My first question to Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Williams, do you 

fully understand the complexities of the funding formula so that 

you know and you are comfortable with your applications that they 

are meeting the needs and the expectations of those people in the 

Department of Homeland Security when they issued those grants? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. I didn’t personally write most of the 200-

page report. I have read most of it. I cannot tell you that I remember every single line or every single number. This is a compilation 

of work from the heads of the Police Department, the Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management, which pulled it together 

and all the other city agencies. 

New York City and Washington, D.C. really are different in the 

sense of the complexity, and I think one of the problems that some 

big cities always have is that if you try to write a request for a proposal or whatever that applies to everybody, it really winds up ap-
38

plying to nobody or certainly not applying to those that are different. New York city’s police department is bigger than the next 

four police departments in the country added together. That is not 

to say that the other police departments, even some very small 

ones, are not very competent. Every city adjusts the size of their 

police department to what they think is appropriate to protect the 

people. Commissioner Kelly and I are very proud of the job that we 

have done in New York City. We have brought crime down dramatically in the last 4 years and it is a process that sadly we have 

to continue. We will always be faced with that. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Excuse me for interrupting. I think you made a 

very important point and I only have a very limited time to ask 

these questions. I think the issue is that in order to meet the expectations of the Department of Homeland Security in issuing 

these grants and their formula, which are very complex and according to the Department of Homeland Security, that the understanding of your communities, whether it is Washington, D.C., New 

York City or Las Vegas, Nevada are different in what our needs 

are. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Yes, Congressman, I would argue that if 

Homeland Security’s obligation is to try to find how to distribute 

the funds in the most effective way to protect this country, to say 

that we are going to have a process and if you don’t like it, tough 

luck, that is not their objective. It shouldn’t be their objective. 

Their objective should be to get the best compromise possible. We 

have limited dollars and some things are subjective. 

Mr. GIBBONS. That is why the formula is so difficult for anybody 

to understand. Because what would be important for New York 

City or for Washington, D.C. or Las Vegas, Nevada might not be 

the same requirement for Portland, Oregon, or for Omaha, Nebraska, which makes me wonder how the formula can be set in 

stone or determined on the homeland security basis to meet the 

needs of New York, Washington, Las Vegas, Omaha, Nebraska, 

wherever. That was my question. My question was do you feel comfortable you know what they expect out of you to get the right determination for getting that grant? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Well, the chief can amplify what I am saying, 

Congressman, but I wouldn’t be sitting here if I really knew what 

the risk assessment was or what the process was or what the allocation was. 

Mr. GIBBONS. So we have to invent the wheel every time we 

apply for a grant? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. It should be an objective, transparent process 

and it isn’t, I don’t think. 

Chief RAMSEY. Congressman, the formula no doubt is complicated and probably has a little bit of everything in it with the 

exception of common sense. That is the one thing that is missing. 

The other things I would say is that I am very pleased that we 

dropped to the bottom 25 percent in threat. I feel real good about 

that, but I never got a classified or unclassified briefing to tell me 

why. How could we possibly fall that far that quickly? Now maybe 

someone is just pulling my leg because I am constantly getting 

phone calls. I have a briefing tomorrow at the FBI about different 
39

investigations and so forth. I have not seen anything that would 

make us fall that far. It makes absolutely no sense. 

So whatever formula they came up with they need to rethink it 

because it will not get you to the Moon. It won’t get you off the 

ground in the way in which they have calculated it right now. If 

the threat is expanded for other cities, then guess what, put more 

money in the pot and give them what they need, because unless we 

have an umbrella protection around this country, then we are not 

safe. And if one of us is not safe, none of us are safe. 

And I think the last thing we should do is get involved in who 

got how much money and start fighting amongst ourselves because 

the whole goal has to be homeland security, from coast to coast, 

from sea to sea. It has to be, and that is exactly what is failing in 

this entire process. The funding strength should be multiple years, 

not just one year. It should not be, guess what you get behind door 

three next year. 

What is wrong with having a spending plan that gives you a 3-

year projection so you can plan accordingly and make sure that you 

have got what you need. These are the kinds of things that are 

missing. 

But I do not want to take anything away from the master’s degrees and doctorates and all the folks that had all these degrees 

that put together this formula. But they are missing something 

here. The cake is just not being baked properly. It is just one of 

those that just will not rise. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Well, I know the frustrations are out there. Even 

in Nevada when you deal with Las Vegas and the fact that Las 

Vegas, the information that was presented to Homeland Security 

obviously did not make it into the, whatever you turn the cake mix 

with to make it work, because Las Vegas got taken off but when 

you look at their criteria for what they consider to be the requirements for getting this and the information was given to me, somehow it is not getting through the system. Whether the screen is too 

fine and the information that has got to go through that screen 

does not get there, something is wrong with the formula. And Mr. 

Chairman, I hope at some point we get an answer as to how the 

formula is actually constructed. 

Thank you. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mayor 

Bloomberg, everybody seeks to identify with New York in some 

way. I do want to say at the outset that I am a native Washingtonian who also loves New York, and I have a lot of reasons for 

that. Both of my kids were born at Mount Sinai Hospital. I was an 

appointed commissioner in the New York City government. So I 

feel your pain in lots of ways along with our own. 

In fact, the question I am going to ask is based on something 

from the Mayor’s testimony but it is really a question for you both 

because as we search and we scratched our heads, I am on another 

committee that also has raised the same question about Washington and New York. The Mayor says in his testimony at page 7 

that we are not going to face more risk but we will not be able essentially to make the improvements we should make. 
40

Now, of course, we can argue about that. That is really not the 

point of my question. 

The police chief has already talked about equipment that has a 

shelf life. Everybody knows we have got to be better off than we 

were when the Pentagon was hit and when the World Trade Center 

was hit. 

But then he says the problem is we have to improve our capacity 

and that the items he listed in his testimony would not allow us 

to get it done ‘‘at least as soon as we would have liked.’’ Now I am 

really, this is the basis for my question, and it is a question for 

New York as well. I am asking a question essentially trying to look 

at a way to revise this formula, this cockeyed formula which may 

keep giving us the same results. 

Mayor WILLIAMS, you referred among these items, and I can 

choose any one, to explosive device response as the ones among the 

areas you identify. The fact is that we have eight bomb squads in 

this region and not one of them meets part one of the FEMA requirements. They all go out. They get it done. But they are not top, 

not one of them are a top bomb squad. So over time we will get 

it done. Or let’s look at WMD hazardous—let’s look at interoperability communications. This is a region unlike most areas. We are 

really talking about three States here. So the notion that something happens, half the Federal presence is in Virginia and Maryland, that there would not be instant communications, that would 

make everybody’s hair stand on end. 

So in trying to figure out if these are the two top targets of alQaeda and there is this kind of unfinished business, should not another element of risk be the urgency of eliminating at least certain 

kinds of vulnerabilities. That is to say, what is the cost of delay, 

what is the cost of delay here as opposed to other places when you 

are talking about WMD hazardous materials response, Mr. Mayor. 

And we are talking about all the Federal workers getting here 

using WMATA and WMATA subway tunnels, and we not being 

prepared to deal with biological or chemical attack there. 

So my question really goes to not really only over time if we keep 

giving money will these vulnerabilities be shored up. It is whether 

or not the highest targeted places can afford to do anything but 

have the most rapid elimination of certain vulnerabilities in order 

to ensure their security, and I just would like you to speak to the 

notion of timing of what gets delayed and what your view is of 

delay when it comes to the places where al-Qaeda and other terrorists are most fixed upon. 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Congresswoman, I didn’t mean to insinuate by 

saying that we are going to do the best we can in a difficult situation to imply that we are fine, do not worry about it. In fact, where 

the threat is at the same or increasing, if you are not improving 

your situation is deteriorating. And I think the chief can point out 

some specific instances for you. 

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, ma’am. I mentioned earlier that a lot of what 

we had planned to do would be delayed. For example, an intelligence fusion center. We have a command center and operation 

center but it cannot receive certain classified information right 

now. It is not networked with other fusion centers in the region to 

a point where the kind of interoperability that exists for sharing 
41

information is there. We have people in the different fusion centers, 

we do a lot by telephone. We meet on a regular basis and all that. 

But electronically this money would have allowed us to be able to 

have that interoperability quicker that is going to be delayed. 

Interoperable communications, we are talking data, video, we are 

talking about the Mayor’s Command Center upgrades, mobile communications, chemical, biological, our CBRNE response capabilities. It is not that we do not have this but certainly to try to raise 

to a tier one as you mentioned earlier—I mean, we have a very, 

very good, capable bomb squad, but there are certain requirements 

to be considered tier one that need to be met and that process gets 

delayed. And again that is not an overnight deal. A lot of training 

goes into an individual being qualified to work in a unit like that. 

A lot of equipment is needed. That equipment and technology constantly changes and you need to upgrade and you need to make 

sure that you have state of the art equipment. 

Our investigative response, whether it is from our emergency response team, our harbor branch, air support, whatever it might be. 

That is a constant effort. And one of the downsides of the fact that 

there hasn’t been another attack since September 11 is that it becomes more and more difficult to keep officers focused on this aspect of police work. So you have to have constant training, constant 

exercises, things of that nature, so people stay sharp and that is 

one of the things that all of us have to guard against. And I think 

that that somehow sometimes gets lost. 

So the training, the exercises, all those kinds of things, can we 

do it with what we have got? We can do it but to a lesser degree. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congresswoman, I think when you talk 

about spending money for security, there is no question that if we 

had a police officer in every block and a firehouse on every block 

the public would be safer. But in the real world you obviously cannot do that. So there is a judgmental component of what is an appropriate level of resources to devote to prevention and to training 

for response. In our city what I have said repeatedly to the public 

is we will do everything that the police commissioner and the fire 

commissioner and the other commissioners tell me we absolutely 

have to do to keep our city safe, and I will then go and worry about 

how to pay for it elsewhere. 

When you ask what have we done without because we do not get 

a particular grant, let’s say from Homeland Security, the answer 

really is found in our school system, in our libraries, in our cultural 

institutions, in helping those who are less fortunate because in the 

end there is only so much money that we have. All of these moneys 

are fungible and if you say your number one priority is security, 

which I think it has to be, then everything else suffers. 

But we have, for example, spent the money to make our radios 

interoperable. That has become a buzz phrase. Our police department and fire department are able to communicate electronically. 

What is more important is they spend the money and we spend the 

moneys to get them to train together all the time so they know 

each other and their interoperability is at the level on the scene 

where the ranking police officer and the ranking fire officer make 

those life saving decisions that only people with experience and 
42

training and knowledge of what is going on right then and there 

can do. 

We still have a long ways to go. We would like to have more communications to share data as well as voice, but in the end the answer to your question is that we have to go, and I think Mayor Williams said it very well, if you do not constantly train and improve 

you fall back because the enemy is constantly changing and going 

about things in ways that they do not repeat the things of the past. 

They know we will be ready for them. The problem is we have got 

to be ready for something we have never seen before. 

Commissioner. 

Commissioner KELLY. One program that certainly is on hold and 

we were led to believe that we were going to receive funding for 

is our Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. We are putting, or at 

least our plan is to put increased security in Manhattan below 

Canal Street. It is an area of course that has had two successful 

terrorist attacks. New York is still the financial capital of the 

world. In that area we are going to have the Freedom Tower constructed, we are going to have the Goldman Sacks Tower constructed, the New York Stock Exchange is there. The American 

Stock Change is there. The World Financial Center is there, and 

there is a lot of construction planned for that area. 

We had requested moneys for that program. It would have involved additional cameras. There are 535 intersections in that 

area. We wanted to have cameras at half of those intersections. We 

wanted to put in license plate readers, physical barriers that would 

enable us to cut off that area if necessary and a coordination center 

where public and private stakeholders would man a coordination 

center 24 hours a day. We believe that is a very important initiative. That is now put on hold as a result of the funding that we 

have received from Homeland Security in 2006. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. I just want to say, my point here was, 

and I think you have responded, is factoring in the cost of delay 

as a cost in security. And there are certain things that high targeted cities like New York and Washington would hate to get 

caught not done. And it does seem to me that Homeland Security 

figured whatever else you do, we agree that those things must be 

done, the tunnels, for example, or the interoperability. And I think 

you made it clear that there would be some, there would be some 

advantage in it. And instead of just looking at these things as a 

list and figuring out these things, if you do not do them now maybe 

it will not matter at all. So let’s at least get those things done. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. Commissioner Kelly, the project you are referring to is similar to what 

is in the City of London, right, the Ring of Steel? 

Commissioner KELLY. Yes, it has similarities and we of course 

consult with them. They call it the Ring of Steel. We also want to 

enlist and bring together the private security personnel, particularly in that area. We are doing it generally throughout the city, 

but particularly in that area. So yes, it is roughly similar to the 

so-called Ring of Steel in London. 

Chairman KING. Recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 

McCaul, who was the chairman of the Investigation Subcommittee 
43

and former member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Mr. 

McCaul. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. It is good to see you all here again. I 

think I was just as shocked as the chairman was when we got the 

news that funding was cut nearly in half not only for New York, 

Washington, but my home State of Texas. Let me get your comment. One thing I heard is that landmarks were not considered 

targeted assets. I used to work at counterterrorism in the Justice 

Department. I recall in 1995 that Ramzi Yousef, who was the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center met with a guy named 

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was his uncle in Pakistan, and discussed with him the idea of flying airplanes into buildings, including landmarks, and that was the specific language of the reporting 

I saw, including landmarks, because of the high psychological significance of hitting a landmark. Like the Statue of Liberty, like the 

Washington Monument or like the United States Capitol. And of 

course we know Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the mastermind behind September 11. 

So I am just baffled and I wanted to get your feedback as to why 

a landmark of that magnitude is not considered to be a targeted 

asset, at least your understanding of talking with DHS. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. I do not think any of us can give you a good 

answer to this. I think it goes back to what we talked about before 

where it seems to me that Homeland Security’s job and what this 

committee should be ensuring that they do, and do well, is to figure 

out where the moneys should be spent, rather than setting up a 

competition and seeing who can write a better report or a report 

that pleases them or defining things one way or another. 

If you went to the private sector, to the insurance companies and 

said where is the risk, I do not think anybody doubts what they 

would say. It would not have New York and Washington way down, 

quite the contrary. It would have the two of them up there and 

there would be three or four other cities, maybe you get to seven, 

some number like that, and then there would be a gap. Because 

while there are clearly things throughout this country that are critical to the infrastructure, to the survival of this country, to our 

economy and our ability to live our lives, those tend not to be, most 

of them, targets. And what you are trying to do is to prevent an 

attack and so if the critical item is not a target, having Homeland 

Security moneys to protect that does not make a lot of sense, particularly in a world where we will never have enough money. Even 

Washington does not have enough money to do everything. 

What this is about is setting priorities and when you set priorities the easiest way is to say, well, everybody gets something because then nobody gets disappointed and nobody has to go home 

and explain why for this particular program they didn’t get any 

money. 

Now nobody has asked me in a long time nor have I come to 

Washington to argue that New York should have more money than 

the next agriculture bill, but nevertheless I think it is very similar. 

There are places that deserve agriculture money because they have 

agriculture. There are places that should get the most of the Homeland Security money because they have targets. And the questions 

that you are asking us, how the structure, the application process 
44

is, seems to me you should ask them. And their obligation is to 

have an applications process that produces the results that are in 

the country’s interest. Not to say, well, here is our process and if 

you do not pass, so what? The question of the applicability of their 

process is what you should be talking about. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Chairman, I think this is the clarion call to 

have the faster and smarter funding bill passed out of the Senate. 

It has been sitting over there. It is the reason why we have this 

result today, and it is time for this to pass. 

And if I could just ask one last question. $5 billion in the pipeline, unspent money in, do you understand why that money is 

being held up and why it is not being allocated to the States and 

locals? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. I have no idea, Congressman, and I would just 

echo what Mayor Bloomberg is saying. I think there is a risk assessment which I would question and then there is the process 

used to allocate based on that risk, and both are problematic. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman KING. The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

thank you and the ranking member for what I think is a provocative, a vital, crucial statement being made by this Congress and the 

responsibility that we have of oversight. 

I make a simple point and I hope that it is one that resonates 

with the Department of Homeland Security and also that fighting 

terrorism is not business as usual. And frankly, if we were to be 

truthful in the process, I think the simple questions of the applicants should be how do we protect the homeland from terrorism in 

the homeland? That is one question. And how do we fight the terrorists? And if cities who are at risk with targets can enunciate 

and detail those particular questions, which I think is what we are 

asking you to do, then my question to DHS in a very fair and hopeful objective and factual seeking manner is why. 

I noticed that there was quite an array that fall on this list and 

they are all attractive cities, and I might say that Houston is included. And so I certainly would not want to pull any off the list 

and give any commentary about whether they need more agricultural money, but I might agree with you, Mayor Bloomberg, that 

some of these might be more apt to get more funding in agriculture. And this is not to denigrate the interest of cities across 

America. 

As I speak about where we are and whether we need the furtherance of the many legislation that my good friend has spoken about 

that has stalled in the Senate, I have to admit that all we need 

to do is take the backdrop of 9/11. It is sad that sometimes our 

memory fades. The absolute horror and fear that struck America 

and certainly struck all of us as we watched our cities, New York 

and Washington and other cities whose names were floating 

around. I recalled standing on the grassy knoll of the Capitol 

watching the Pentagon, phones jammed but rumors floating. Commissioner Kelly your predecessor Lee Brown was the Mayor of 

Houston at that time. We were very fortunate, and finding out or 

thinking or getting a rumor that planes also were headed to Hous-
45

ton, Texas. Why? Because it is noted as the energy capital of the 

world. 

But as I look at my own set of circumstances I find that even 

though we might be in the mix, we were subjected to, Houston, a 

10 percent decrease in funding and if you compared our 2006 funding to our 2005, we actually got in 2005, 2006 dollars, $3 million 

less. And these are cities I think that clearly speak to the question 

or the, I think, formula that you have utilized, Mayor Bloomberg, 

which is threat and risk as I understand it. And I think your point 

was just because there are critical sites does not make it a risk and 

we should combine threat and risk together. And I think both you 

and Mayor Williams are clearly in that vein. 

Let me cite for you a process utilized by the DHS, and I would 

welcome your comments. Information Bulletin 99 said, essentially 

it told the State and local governments that DHS could not answer 

questions about the application process. The bottom line, DHS was 

not going to provide guidance but only directives. 

So you could not engage, as I understand, to even find out 

whether you were off the beaten path. And let me add this point 

and I yield to you for questions. When I look at the language that 

is used for these grants, again, I said simply how do we fight terrorists on our soil, I see these words, ‘‘relevance, the relationship 

of the investment to the tenets of the interim national preparedness goal.’’ Commissioner Kelly, I guess you have to spend some 

time trying to understand what that is all about. 

Regionalization, which I think ‘‘communications’’ would have 

been a good word, ‘‘sustainability,’’ ‘‘implementation approach,’’ 

‘‘impact,’’ and then they go down to say ‘‘the peer review committee.’’ ‘‘Relevance to interim national preparedness goal implementation.’’ ‘‘Connection to the enhancement plan.’’ ‘‘Complete picture.’’ ‘‘Innovativeness, feasibility and reasonableness.’’

My question to you is if we are in the business of fighting terrorism that raises its ugly head every day, can you instruct us on 

what you would think would be the fine points that we need to ask 

as the bureaucrats of DHS are doing the best they can do to get 

to the crux of the problem in terms of providing dollars where they 

need to go? 

Now you made the general statement about risk and threat, but 

if we wanted to be fair and say there was a criteria what should 

it be, putting aside the fact of course that you have talked about 

the needs, and I will start with you, Mayor Williams, the needs 

that you have before general crime fighting? And I am sorry we cut 

the COPS program and a number of other programs that would 

help you. What would be something that we could point out and 

give directive as we write legislation as it makes its way back to 

the House. 

Chairman KING. If the gentlelady would yield, I was going to say 

Mayor Bloomberg has to leave in about 15, 20 minutes. I would ask 

the witnesses to limit the answers to 30 seconds, and each of the 

other questioners to stay within the 5-minute limit so we can get 

as many people to question Mayor Bloomberg, and then any followup we can give you in writing. 

Mayor WILLIAMS. I would just say, again, and I will be brief, recognizing that Mayor Bloomberg has got a tight schedule. Again, 
46

you have got risk out there in terms of, you know, the probability 

of something happening, the severity of something that happens, it 

is not based on area. It is not based on the quality of someone’s 

application. If I get a lower SAT score than Mayor Bloomberg, so 

what? Because the country is advancing, because of a higher SAT 

score people are moving forward. This isn’t like that. 

Let’s assume my application wasn’t written well, and you step in 

there, and you fix the problem because again the risk is based on 

locality. That is the number one consideration. 

Chairman KING. Mayor Bloomberg. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Number one, let me thank the people of 

Houston for everything you have done for the people of New Orleans. You are a role model, and I was lucky enough to have the 

Mayor of Houston Bill White as our guest to look at how we are 

doing, building affordable housing. And I think Mayor Williams 

said it exactly right. This is not a competition of who gets the highest SAT scores. This is a competition of who needs something and 

it is the Department of Homeland Security’s obligation to help 

them write an application that presents the facts, not to put them 

in the competition. They just seem to have the objective wrong 

here. 

Chairman KING. Gentleman from the State of Washington, who 

is the chairman of the Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee and 

former sheriff of King County, Mr. Reichert. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I can certainly identify with the chief and the commissioner on managing 

your resources on much smaller scale, as sheriff in Seattle with 

1,100 employees, not 40,000, but still struggling with the same sort 

of issues. And Seattle is one of those cities that has been identified 

as a risk in this Nation, and we have had several instances that 

have occurred within our region. And we took a 24 percent cut in 

our grant funds. 

But I wanted to just focus on—everyone on the panel today has 

made similar comments in that we are in a new world, that we 

need to think anew, and recognize and realize that the attack on 

September 11 changed the world and changed this Nation, and we 

should be focused on protecting our country and those cities that 

are most vulnerable, and threat and risk is the way that we need 

to move. There are some questions about grant moneys, and I 

wanted to just ask—I have a list here of moneys. First, responder 

funding. Both cities receive first responder funding, funding from 

DHS? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Sure. 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Sure. 

Mr. REICHERT. Do you know the amount? 

Commissioner KELLY. I don’t know if you break it down into first 

responders. It would depend on what category you are talking 

about. As far as the police department is concerned, I mentioned 

before we had received a total since fiscal year 2002 of $280 million. Obviously we are first responders. Fire department has received over a $100 million in New York City. 

Mr. REICHERT. These are grant categories. You want to receive 

moneys. That is certainly why we are here today, State Homeland 
47

Security Grant Program, moneys from that. Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention grants, Port Security grants. 

Commissioner KELLY. Yes. Yeah. We received, I think, $28 million of that. That program, by the way, is being eliminated, I believe, the Terrorist Prevention Program next fiscal year. 

Mr. REICHERT. Firefighter assistance grants, those are all—I just 

wonder, how much money—first to Mayor Williams. How much 

money does the City of Washington, D.C., get in Federal grants to 

assist them in their efforts to protect? 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Yeah, comprehensively—

Mr. REISKIN. Congressman, the State this year—as a State, the District of Columbia is getting about $7.5 million from the Department of Homeland Security outside of the UASI process. That is 

the State Homeland Security Program, Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, and $165,000 for Citizen Corps. That 

is what we get as a State. There is no separate first responder program that I am aware of. 

Mr. REICHERT. What is the total Federal grant moneys to the fire 

department, police department, emergency management, Mr. 

Mayor? Would you know? 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. This year, under the proposed budget we will get $124 million. As I pointed out earlier, our budget, if you add 

$5.5 billion annually for the police department, which doesn’t count 

our capital budget, if you add another billion and a half or so for 

our fire department, which doesn’t count our capital budget, so a 

lot of things in homeland security where they give you money for 

capital items, that is just a whole separate thing for us and then 

all of these other agencies. The problem is that sometimes the ways 

that Homeland Security divides out, and I understand they are trying to craft something that applies nationwide. I tried to make the 

point before that as the old joke about clothing, one size fits all, 

fits nobody. 

Mr. REICHERT. Yes. The $250 million that you say you spend, 

that comes directly out of the police department’s budget? Or does 

the city increase the police department’s budget to accomplish that? 

Do you have to remove personnel from the streets from other assignments, sir? 

Commissioner KELLY. The $280 million we receive—

Mr. REICHERT. The Mayor mentioned the $250 million a year figure you spend in the police department. 

Commissioner KELLY. Yes. Right. Again, it fluctuates from year 

to year depending on the threat to a certain extent, but it comes 

through the police department budget, yes, sir. 

Mr. REICHERT. Since September 11, you have received Federal 

grant moneys and you have purchased some equipment in both cities and also accomplished some training. What are some of the 

things that you see? First to Mayor Williams, what are the 

things—specific things today that you need to spend some of your 

money on as far as equipment and training? Does the chief—

Mayor WILLIAMS. Yeah. The chief in an answer to a previous 

question, Congressman, mentioned the need for training, mentioned the need for enhancement of intelligence analysis, which 

asks that it be based on the ground level. 

Mr. REICHERT. The fusion center. 
48

Mayor WILLIAMS. Exactly, yes. Fusion center process. And in response to another part of your question, talked about in terms of 

the impact, not only are we failing to keep up with an ever changing and increasing threat, which is serious in and of itself as to the 

terrorism aspect of this, there is a back felt aspect of this, other 

consequence of this, which is resources you are putting here, right. 

Mayor Bloomberg alluded to this. You only have a limited number 

of funds. If you say that anti-terrorism, counterterrorism is your 

number one priority, then those are funds that would have been 

going into your neighborhoods, would have been going into better 

health care, would have been going into other things that a city 

necessarily has to do. 

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congressman, a lot of times people ask the 

question, well, you got this money last year. Why do you need more 

money? And the truth of the matter is virtually everything that we 

do to provide homeland security for our homeland is a recurring expense, the moneys we spend with police on the ground, we are 

going to have to have people next year. The training, every year 

there is turnover but there is also new things to learn and there 

is refresher stuff. Equipment, it all has service lives, it all requires 

maintenance. You buy a computer, the software—ongoing maintenance and software costs more than the computer every single 

year. So this argument that we gave you some money at one point 

in time, therefore, you should be protected forever, just isn’t very 

realistic. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. REICHERT. May I make one comment, Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman KING. Of course. 

Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Mayor, you just made my point for me. Thank 

you very much. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentleman has expired. I would 

advise the committee we will have to end this first panel at 12:15 

and then 15-minute recess, we will go to the second panel. 

The gentleman from Paterson, New Jersey, my good friend, Mr. 

Pascrell. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Who has been patiently waiting. 

Mr. PASCRELL. It is good to talk and listen to fellow Mayors. 

There is only 26 of us here, you know. That is part of the problem. 

This is a sham, not this hearing, but this whole operation, and we 

blame the folks that come before us in Homeland Security because 

we look for scapegoats, but you know better, let’s be honest. Your 

funding—each of you in your cities, Mayor Williams, Mayor 

Bloomberg—was cut 50 percent in areas that we haven’t even 

talked about. State homeland security money, yours was cut 50 

percent, yours was cut 50 percent, Mayor, so when we talk about 

the urban part of this, the urban side of this, which both of you 

were devastated, unless you understand the day-to-day operations 

of the community, small or large in this country, you have no idea. 

So the pressures that are placed on both of you in terms of—you 

have heard it mentioned on both sides of the aisle, of the COPS 

program being decimated, the administration attempting to cut by 

35 percent the fire grant dollars that puts more pressure on you 

to get the job done on a day-to-day basis. So there is bipartisanship 
49

here, but when we leave this room, it is not bipartisanship. I don’t 

mean the people in this room. I am talking about what is happening here and across the street. So we are going to have Homeland Security come after you, and they have to bear the brunt. 

They have to protect the folks down the street that have given us 

a budget that literally cut your funding for the whole country by 

$1.4 billion. So the pie got smaller, and we have decided to cut it 

up in a different way. So that is where we are in this moment of 

time. 

The per capita even makes it look worse, makes it look worse. 

So what you brought up weeks and months and months ago, Mayor 

Bloomberg, about the per capita was not just a sidebar, it goes to 

the very, very heart of the matter, of what you need to do day to 

day. I asked Governor Ridge when he was in charge of this monstrosity that we put together, I asked him, did you ever see the terror on people’s faces in neighborhoods that don’t know whether 

their kids are going to come back from school? You ever see that 

terror? How do we respond to that terror? We respond by putting 

uniformed police officers, as we have done since 1993, out in the 

street. Of course if they are there, we can do that in community 

policing. What has that got to do with terror? It has a lot to do 

with what you have to deal with day in and day out. And frankly, 

I don’t know how the hell you do it. 

I am being honest with you. I have got a question for both of you. 

Much has been said about the massive $83 million cut in New 

York City. Much has been said about the $31 million cut in the 

UASI money imposed on Washington, D.C. These are obviously significant sums of money, but I think that sometimes we all lose 

sight of the real significance of these cuts when we just speak in 

terms of dollars. Can either of you or your chiefs respectively in 

their areas, can you speak about how these cuts will impact your 

daily operations? What happens to New York and Washington, 

D.C., when we have to increase the alert? Does it cost you anything? If we understand your plight, we don’t make these dumb 

moves that we are making in this budget. Either one of you or all—

Mayor BLOOMBERG. Congressman, I think, you know, Mayors—

I probably speak for all the Mayors of small towns and big cities. 

We have budgets that we have to live within. The public wants 

more services and doesn’t want to pay any more local taxes. We 

have to make decisions, allocations, pick and choose, cut back and 

increase depending on what there has—what the needs of the day 

are. But what we can’t do is we can’t adjust our security kinds of 

activities every day or every year based on funding. We have to 

hire people and train them, we have to build buildings, we have to 

buy equipment, we have to train, and those are—as Chief Ramsey 

said, those are long-term commitments that require a consistent 

funding stream, and that is one of the things that makes dealing 

with this so difficult. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Mayor Williams. 

Mayor WILLIAMS. Congressman, again there is two parts to this. 

I keep saying there is a risk assessment and then there is a funding. Now, based on the risk assessment, really we shouldn’t have 

any problem because I am going to expect to see 80 percent fewer 

requests for aid over the next year because apparently everything 
50

is fixed. Now, that is not going to happen. We know that. Look at 

the presidential inauguration, an unprecedented level and show of 

force at the presidential inauguration, recognizing that like New 

York the financial center of the world, Washington is the political 

center of the world, right? How has that changed? I can’t even fathom that. And the chief can talk to you, as he has in our previous 

answers to questions, the impact material, substantive impact this 

has in trying to make the city work, as you suggest, Mr. Congressman. 

Mr. PASCRELL. And Mr. Chairman, in New Jersey—and we responded together, as you well know, in New Jersey. What happens 

to New York impacts us across the river appreciably, and we are 

here to tell you that we are going to do everything in our power 

to get the Homeland Security Department—I have given up on the 

folks down the street. I don’t know what party they belong to, to 

be very honest with you, but I am trying to get the Homeland Security Department to understand your plight every day and to give 

us a real simple explanation about what effectiveness means. Of 

course you have high risk and yet you weren’t very effective in your 

application. Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentleman has expired. Chief 

Ramsey and then we will close the panel. 

Chief RAMSEY. Just a real quick response because there is a hidden cost in what you are saying. We get—does not cause the alert 

level to go up. If the alert level goes to orange, we can seek reimbursement. It stays at yellow yet the information coming in is no 

less important that would be actionable for us at a local level, 

which cost us resources. I am sure it happens in New York all the 

time. It certainly happens in Washington all the time. There is no 

reimbursement for that, but it causes you to have to extend hours, 

call people in especially to handle a particular situation, or what 

have you, and those are the kinds of hidden costs that are incurred. 

Chairman KING. I would like to thank our panel. Mayor Williams, Chief Ramsey, Deputy Mayor Reiskin, Mayor Bloomberg, of 

course Commissioner Kelly. I excuse the first panel. I thank them 

for their testimony. They are excused, and the committee will stand 

in recess until approximately 12:30. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman KING. The committee will come to order. First of all, 

Secretary Foresman, I deeply regret keeping you waiting and I do 

appreciate your coming back before the committee. I know we had 

a classified meeting with you several weeks ago, and you and I 

have had a number of personal conversations and what we will do 

in the next session since—Chairman Lungren, you can begin the 

next session since you were here first. And with that, recognizing 

Secretary Foresman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. GEORGE FORESMAN, UNDER

SECRETARY FOR PREPAREDNESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. FORESMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Thompson and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss the 2006 Homeland Security 
51

Grant Program and specifically their Urban Areas Security Initiative. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I will say I 

both appreciate and acknowledge the perspectives offered by Mayors Bloomberg and Williams. I consider Ray Kelly and Chuck 

Ramsey to be two of the best police professionals in America and 

I think it was a good discussion. And I will note that both Mayors 

are forceful advocates for New York City and Washington. Their 

communities are well served by their leadership. 

But Mr. Chairman, just as the Mayors are advocates for their 

communities and their individual ability to ready for the risk of 

terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security must do the same 

for our entire Nation. These are not competing goals. They are 

complementary, albeit from different vantage points. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be clear with several facts. Number one, New York City has the highest risk from terrorism. Their 

ranking in this year’s analysis did not change. It is the highest 

funded city in the UASI program, $124 million this year and that 

is $44 million higher than the next urban area on the ranking list. 

In fact since the inception of the UASI program in 2003, New York 

City has received $525 million, more than twice the amount of any 

other city in the Nation. 

The National Capital Region also ranks among the top six urban areas and ranks third in total UASI funding, having received $167 

million since the start of the program. 

Two, the changes in allocated funds for New York City and the 

National Capital Region were primarily driven by two key factors. 

First, there was less money available this year for UASI, specifically, 14 percent less or a total reduction of $125 million. Secondly, 

we have a better understanding of the risk in the other urban 

areas that comprise the UASI program. It is not that New York 

City’s or the National Capital Region’s risk is less. It is because the 

measure of risk in other areas outside of New York and the National Capital Region has increased. Forty-four of the 46 urban 

areas saw their relative risk measure rise this year, in some cases 

by three or fourfold. Why? Because we are improving in our ability 

to measure urban risk beyond the borders of New York City and 

Washington. Until now, there was little data available to support 

an analysis on a nationwide level outside of these two metropolitan 

areas. 

In fact, Chicago, Newark, Jersey City, L.A., Long Beach, Houston 

and San Francisco required an additional $53 million to address 

their increased risk rankings relative to New York City. 

Incidentally, after considering the 14 percent across the board reduction in UASI funding, this corresponds about approximately to 

the change to New York City. 

Risk does not equal threat, and this is my point number three. 

In conducting our risk analysis, we considered population, population density, critical assets, threats based on law enforcement 

and intelligence data, vulnerability and consequences among other 

factors. Threat is one element of risk analysis. For instance, last 

year 11,300 critical facilities nationwide were factored into our risk 

analysis. This year there were more than 260,000. These are facilities that if attacked could cause grave impacts on those who live 

and work inside or nearby or could cause a national level impact 
52

similar to what Mayor Bloomberg described an attack on New York 

City doing. 

New York City had the highest risk ranking. New York City received the highest amount of funding. I have personally looked at 

the classified threat summaries over the last several days. We have 

all seen public reports in the media about arrests, investigations 

and the like. Commissioner Kelly underscored many of these. New 

York City and the National Capital Region are the most discussed, 

but there are threat concerns across our entire country. 

Point number four, the investment justification and effectiveness 

of the review process was not—and I repeat, was not a measure of 

grant writing skills or how well programs in a particular community were performing. It was simply an analysis of how a particular 

urban area was tying its use of Federal funds to previously developed local, State and national strategies as well as program guidelines. It also assessed the ability of the community to ensure sustained commitment of effort beyond the availability of Federal 

funds. Each community can pursue any or all investment justifications with their funding that they do receive this year as long as 

it is not prohibitive by program regulations. My point being that 

the City of New York will not have to stop doing any of its programs if it chooses to apply all of its funding against those areas 

that it applied for funding for. None of those are exclusively prohibited. 

Five, there have also been innuendos that contractors providing 

routine and administrative support to the effectiveness review process may have played a role in the allocation decisions. Let me be 

clear. All policy development and decision making during the fiscal 

year 2006 Homeland Security Grant Program, UASI allocation 

process was initiated and approved by Federal staff, specifically 

staff from the Department of Homeland Security. Contract staff is 

routinely used throughout the Federal Government to provide administrative support for everything from grant management to top 

secret weapons system design. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, what the facts 

demonstrate are this: New York City and the National Capital Region only received less money this year because Congress provided 

less money to give out this year and because we understand that 

other urban areas had higher risk than previously understood in 

previous years. New York and Washington, the National Capital 

Region are still the most at-risk cities in the Nation, and that is 

why they are both receiving the vast majority of grant money this 

year. 

That being said, Mr. Chairman, and members in the committee, 

we at the Department of Homeland Security have a responsibility 

to look at the risk for the entire Nation, not just the risk for one 

or two select cities across the country. We remain committed in 

that effort to providing flexibility in how we assess risk and how 

we apply resources. 

The process this year represents the lessons of 9/11. As a nation, 

we must understand the methods terrorists may use to kill and injure and to inflict pain on our Nation. New York City and the National Capital Region were the targets of the last attack, and they 

will likely be target of future attacks. But they are not alone. The 
53

risks they face are shared by every State and every community to 

some degree. We at the Department of Homeland Security are 

charged with America’s safety and security, and that is what drives 

the allocation of our UASI resources. 

DHS continues to balance the need for maximum transparency 

in the funding processes with the need to avoid publicly giving our 

enemies a roadmap to our national vulnerabilities. We will continue to work closely with our partners at the State and local level, 

with Congress to ensure that we protect the entire Nation and that 

we provide a clear understanding of the progress we are making 

in reducing America’s risk from terrorism. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, and 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Foresman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GEORGE W. FORESMAN

Introduction 

Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson and Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Homeland 

Security Grant Program and specifically, concerns raised about the allocation process for the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) funds. 

There has been much debate and discussion during the past several weeks. Some 

of the information presented in public has been accurate and some has not. The debate itself is positive - it is welcome and necessary for us to be engaged in discussion 

over homeland security priorities and funding. 

One thing however is very clear: the discussion on funding should not be an issue 

of placing the safety and security of any one person, community or State in America 

ahead of another. This is very much about making our entire nation safer and more 

secure by managing risk in a way that lessens the vulnerability of the entire country. 

The safety and security of each and every American lies at the core of the mission 

of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and it is a mission that the men 

and women of the Department take seriously. 

However, a safer and more secure America is not an exclusive mission of the Department of Homeland Security. America’s safety and security is a shared national 

responsibility. It is a mission that is shared among local, State and Federal agencies, the public and private sectors and the American people. In the context of terrorism, it requires an unprecedented mix of efforts - border and immigration controls, security in our ports, and airports and protection of critical assets and infrastructure, including transportation, communication, financial and energy. Homeland 

security is about managing risk for the entire nation based on a comprehensive national approach; it is about applying limited resources most effectively based on our 

understanding of America’s overall risk. 

Let me be very clear, there is a critical distinction to be made: Threat is not synonymous with risk, nor is risk analysis synonymous with risk management, as I will 

discuss later. 

There are many tools employed every day and in every way to keep our nation 

safer and more secure from the threat of terrorism and a host of other hazards and 

threats that comprise our national risk continuum. Today, I would like to focus on 

the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). 

The HSGP is the Department’s primary means of homeland security assistance 

to the states and local communities, and it includes the State Homeland Security 

Program (SHSP), the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP), 

and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), along with the Metropolitan Medical Response System and Citizen Corps Programs. As such, HSGP is one of the Department’s most important and visible mechanisms to manage national strategic 

risk. 

Today’s testimony will focus on the method DHS utilized to evaluate the risk of 

terrorism to States, territories, and Urban Areas; the peer review process we employed to determine the expected effectiveness of proposed solutions, and ultimately, 

the risk management techniques we used to determine allocations for Fiscal Year 

(FY) 2006. I will go into great detail regarding how the Department strived to employ an objective, comprehensive, and fair process for allocating FY2006 HSGP 

grants to improve nationwide terrorism preparedness. 
54

The debate about ′′who got how much′′ has overshadowed the more important discussion about the best way to use limited financial resources to increase America’s 

security. We used an approach this year that expands our understanding of what 

constitutes risk while taking into account Congressional guidance encouraging our 

nation to move away from ′′reaction′′ to ′′strategic preparation.′′ As Secretary Chertoff said in recent remarks pertaining to this program,

′′We cannot protect every single person at every moment in every place against every 

threat. What we have to do is manage the risk, and that means we have to evaluate 

consequence, vulnerability, and threat in order to determine what is the most costeffective way of maximizing security.′′

The Department’s grants programs have traditionally provided financial assistance to all 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 

and the U.S. Territories. By the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, states and localities 

will have received from DHS over $18 billion in assistance and direct support from 

the Department of Homeland Security since September 11, 2001. This does not account for the additional billions made available from the Departments of Health and 

Human Services and Justice. 

The Department is making significant, important, and vital changes to HSGP, 

both with the analytic capabilities that support the program and the management 

techniques we use to determine allocations. And, as we have all seen from the reaction to our FY 2006 allocations, implementation of risk management will not necessarily be an easy or a popular shift. However, it is an important shift and one 

that we take seriously. We have and will continue to solicit feedback on our processes and are willing to listen to criticism and suggestions for improving our processes. With billions of dollars being allocated each year, this is a serious business—

and we believe that healthy debate about risk management principles will only 

make these processes better and more transparent. Despite recent successes globally 

in the war on terror, America’s security will be a marathon and not a sprint. We 

need an objective funding process that will sustain improvements for the longterm. 

Today, I hope to articulate the following policy considerations:

1) The objectives of the Homeland Security Grants are to enhance capabilities to 

prevent, deter, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism, to be allocated based 

on risks, threats, vulnerabilities, and unmet target capabilities. It is long-standing 

Administration policy that the limited pool of Federal grant resources should be primarily used to improve long-term capabilities that provide a maximum return on 

investment, instead of to finance day-to-day occurring local personnel operational 

costs. 

2) The new DHS risk assessment process incorporates the tremendous increase 

in relevant individual risk of urban communities, this risk in relation to other communities,and the distribution of risk across our entire nation. 

3) In applying risk assessments to the grant process, DHS has emphasized the 

principle of risk reduction, including the peer-review assessment. This includes the 

likelihood that Federal resources can help reduce long-term risk and address short 

falls in capability. The new allocation formula, based on risk and effectiveness, 

strives to provide an objective process that is flexible to account for improved information on a national scale.

FY 2006–A Transition Year 

In past years, DHS’ risk analysis was largely driven by both population size and 

density. But over time we have been able to develop enhanced techniques to analyze 

risk. In FY 2006, the risk analysis considered three primary components: Threat, 

Vulnerability, and Consequence. The Threat component represents an adversary’s 

intent to attack a specific target and its potential capability to execute the attack; 

the Vulnerability component embodies the susceptibility to an adversary’s attack 

and the likelihood that it will achieve an impact; and the Consequence component 

measures the possible impact from such an attack. 

With the enhanced methodology and broader set of data inputs, we were able to 

capture a truer estimation of relative risk for all urban areas. The footprint used 

to analyze the risk to both assets as well as geographic areas and populations was 

adjusted this year. This adjustment more accurately reflects the regional context in 

which these jurisdictions operate and the critical infrastructure that provides higher 

potential targets and requires protecting. There is better data better data about not 

just New York City and NCR, but about the entire country and across a broader 

range of sectors. As a result of these improvements, many areas’ risk scores changed 

significantly, a reflection of an enhanced analytical approach to gauging the risk 

urban areas face relative to one another. 

It is important to understand the downstream impact of these changes in relative 

risk. New York City and NCR do not suddenly have less risk in an absolute sense. 
55

New York City and NCR continue to be among the highest risk Urban Areas. However, the relative values for virtually all other candidates increased this year due 

to our better understanding of their risk and its analysis. The relative differences 

among the higher risk candidates is what changed from last year to this year. Indeed, Urban Areas such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston saw their share of 

national risk relative to New York City and NCR increase considerably, in some 

cases doubling or tripling compared to previous analysis. These changes in relative 

risk were key drivers in the changes in funding allocations. 

FY 2006 also marks the first HSGP grant cycle in which the Interim National 

Preparedness Goal is in place to identify National Priorities and help focus local and 

state expenditures. This common planning framework, and the tools that support 

it, allows us individually as communities and states and collectively as a Nation to 

better understand how prepared we are, how prepared we need to be, and how we 

prioritize efforts to close the gap. The absence of this type of consistent preparedness target is at the forefront of many of our national shortcomings over the past 

25 years. The Interim National Preparedness Goal demands that we focus attention 

on ′′raising the bar′′ of preparedness across the country to establish minimum capabilities and be prepared for the risks we face. This, along with measurement of risk, 

gives us an important management consideration for our grant programs. 

Accordingly, the Department of Homeland Security has been aggressive in:

1) improving the risk analysis tools used to determine a National risk profile, so 

that we can target funding at higher risk locations, and 

2) clarifying the risk management objectives for the HSGP, within the context of 

the Interim National Preparedness Goal 

This year we have also implemented another significant change in how funds 

under the HSGP are allocated. In previous years, States and Urban Areas knew 

their funding allocations prior to submitting grant applications. Based on substantial input from the national preparedness community Congress, and our focus on 

risk management, Department has moved towards a risk-based approach that incorporates a competitive analysis element, to allocating funds for HSGP. This is a critical step in achieving a Homeland Security Grants Program that emphasizes riskinformed grant making, increased accountability and is focused on maximizing the 

return on investment of federal grant funds. 

Risk-Based Analysis and Management 

I would like to explain how we analyzed risk for determining the 2006 grant funding.The Department of Homeland Security has many risk management resources at 

its disposal people, technology, and funding are just a few. The HSGP is among the 

most valuable of these tools because it allows us to partner with our States, Territories and Urban Areas and First Responder communities, and support national preparedness goals. 

The Administration, Congress, State and Local stakeholders, first responder organizations, and industry groups have called for more risk management approaches 

to inform homeland security grant allocations. There has been a clear recognition 

that our national approach requires that we apply federal funding resources in a 

way that maximizes resources to benefit all Americans. 

Key to this year’s process is a much better understanding of our national risk.In 

our effort to improve our methods for risk management of the terrorist threat we 

considered several key factors. 

1. Ultimately, it is the States, Urban Areas and Territories that own the risk in 

their respective areas, and they must make investments locally that will build needed capabilities and address identified risk. DHS’s risk management job is to provide 

them guidance, and within available resources, financial assistance to make these 

investments. In this program, we have been directed to invest in initiatives that 

promote unity of effort at the community, regional, state, and national levels. They 

must continue to provide tangible benefits beyond the flow of Federal dollars. 

2. When managing risks, we must rely on analysis of risk to inform our management process, but be cognizant of the inherent uncertainty of this analysis. Consider 

this definition of risk analysis from the Society for Risk Analysis:

′′Risk analysis uses observations about what we know, to make predictions about 

what we don’t know.′′

I think this sums up risk analysis in the context of homeland security quite nicely. We have carefully considered the factors that experts believe lead to risk, and 

we have confidence in our approach. But we are realists and we understand that 

risk in the terrorist context is new, constantly changing, and lacks the measuring 

history of data flow found in other hazards. 

Terrorist threat cannot be predicted with the reliability of hurricanes or floods, 

or mechanical failures. No matter how much we invest in scientists and algorithms, 
56

we cannot measure terrorism risk in an absolute sense. Therefore, we emphasize 

building capabilities to manage risk nationwide based on the best estimations possible. Our profile is built on an analysis of relative risk based on what is known. 

3. Risk Analysis DOES NOT EQUAL Risk Management. In fact, the Society for 

Risk Analysis definition makes this point better than I can:

Risk analysis seeks to inform, not to dictate, the complex and difficult choices 

among possible measures to mitigate risks.

As this indicates, the risk analysis is only one input to the risk management process that should be considered for Homeland Security. In any risk context, risk management typically involves considerations beyond the quantifiable analysis. Risk 

management includes many other considerations such as management objectives, 

fiscal constraints, one’s ability to actually impact the risks one faces, and the strategy that best serves our overall national interests. The primary risk management 

objective of the HSGP is to: raise the bar of preparedness across the at-risk states, 

territories and Urban Areas as part of an interdependent national effort by directing 

funds to areas of greatest risk and need. 

These two objectives announced by Congress require the Department to balance 

the desire to focus resources on areas at relatively greater risk, with the desire 

topromote use of federal resources for strong solutions that ′′raise the bar′′ of national preparedness and address national risk. 

Thus, common sense dictates that managing risk through the HSGP program involves much more than just distributing dollars in proportion to the relative risk 

data that we generate each year. Rather, it is viewed as a means for reducing risk 

and promoting national objectives. 

As previously noted, DHS defines risk by three principal variables: Threat, or the 

likelihood of a type of attack that might be attempted, vulnerability, or the likelihood that an attacker would succeed with a particular attack type, and consequence, 

or the potential impact of a particular attack. The risk model used as input to the 

HSGP process includes both asset-based and geographically-based terrorist risk calculations. DHS combines these complementary risk calculations to produce an estimate of the relative risk of terrorism faced by a given area. 

Our enemies still wish to inflict both physical and economic harm on the United 

States. Recognition of this threat is underscored by both the Administration’s and 

Congress’s desire to assess and categorize our national assets - things such as key 

transportation hubs, financial processing sites, nuclear power and chemical plants, 

priority communication and energy systems. These are sites that, if attacked, would 

have an extraordinary impact not only on the surrounding population and community, but in some cases, the nation as a whole. In the first year of this grant program we had categorized approximately 200 sites, in 2004 some 1700, in 2005 approximately 11,300. This year, we further expanded the number of sites to include 

many considered to be ‘high risk’ by the surrounding state and local jurisdiction, 

which brought the total number of sites in the analysis to over 260,000 sites. 

This asset-based approach uses strategic threat estimates from the Intelligence 

Community of an adversary’s intent and capability to attack different types of assets 

(such as chemical plants, stadiums, and commercial airports) using different attack 

methods. DHS analyzes the vulnerability of each asset type relative to each attack 

method to determine the forms of attack most likely to be successful. Additionally, 

DHS estimates the consequences that a successful attack would have on each asset 

type, including human health, economic, strategic mission, and psychological impacts. This analysis yields a relative risk estimate for each asset type, which DHS 

applies to a given demographic area, based on the number of each asset type 

present within that area. 

The geographic-based approach allows DHS to consider general characteristics of 

a geographic area mostly independent of the assets that exist within that area. 

First, DHS evaluates reported threats, law enforcement activity, and suspicious incidents reported during the evaluation period. 

Next, DHS considers vulnerability factors for each geographic area, such as the 

area’s proximity to international border. 

Lastly, DHS estimates the potential consequences of an attack on that area, including human health, economy, strategic mission, and psychological impacts. 

DHS’s ability to analyze risks to the Nation is improving each year in both 

breadth and sophistication. Despite the known limitations of the Department’s analysis, the results confirm two fairly intuitive points: 

1) The majority of the risk is contained in a handful of locations throughout the 

country. This is the argument so strenuously made by that handful of localities. 

However, 
57

2) There are risks to other urban areas that we have begun to assess more accurately. These areas have previously received relatively small amounts of grant funding. The HSGP risk analysis considered much more than the final number of cities 

that made the Urban Area list. Those that made the list did so because they had 

a level of risk. In this case, the urban areas under UASI contain 85% of our national 

urban area risk. Attachment A reflects both the funding and risk curve and you can 

see these correspond. 

Given these two results, and drawing on intuition and common sense, it seems 

reasonable that while we must fortify higher-risk locations, we cannot ignore the 

risks in the other locations.

Effectiveness 

For FY 2006, States and Urban Areas submitted grant applications, called Investment Justifications, to formally request FY 2006 HSGP funding in support of their 

strategies and related program planning documents. These applications were reviewed through an intensive peer review process. The FY 2006, competitive grant 

process to allocate funds to States and Urban Areas was based on two factors:

1) The relative risk to assets and populations within the eligible applicant’s geographic area, and 

2) The anticipated effectiveness of the individual investments comprising the Investment Justification, in aligning to the Interim National Preparedness Goal and 

addressing the identified homeland security needs of each applicant. 

Finding the right balance between these two factors is the central risk management challenge. It requires us to conduct extensive analysis of relative need and 

risk, thoroughly review applications, and rigorously analyze the potential effectiveness of the grant funds. The Department of Homeland Security conducted an unprecedented amount of analysis to arrive at decisions about grants funding. We took 

into consideration alignment with other national policy initiatives and statute objectives, as well as ensuring consistency of approach both over time and between the 

HSGP programs. 

The major considerations of project requests were the following:

Relevance—Connection to the National Priorities, Target Capabilities List, State/

Urban Area Homeland Security Strategy goals and objectives, and the Enhancement 

Plan. 

Regionalization—Coordination of preparedness activities across jurisdictional 

boundaries by spreading costs, pooling resources, sharing risk, and increasing the 

value of their preparedness investments. 

Impact—The effect that the investment will have on addressing threats, 

vulnerabilities, and/or consequences of catastrophic events. 

Sustainability—The ability to sustain a target capability once the benefits of an 

investment are achieved through identification of funding sources that can be used 

beyond the current grant period. 

Implementation Approach—The appropriate resources and tools are (or will be) in 

place to manage the Investment, address priorities, and deliver results.

States and Urban areas each submitted up to 15 investments for consideration. 

These investments were submitted with an Investment Justification, which allowed 

them to describe specific funding and implementation approaches that would help 

achieve initiatives outlined in the Statewide Program and Capability Enhancement 

Plan. This plan developed in the Fall of 2005 establishes how Urban Areas and 

States will work to develop their individual capabilities as part of a broader national 

effort. The Investment Justification allowed the States and Urban Areas to request 

funding for allocation to their near-term priorities, consistent with the National Priorities articulated in the Interim National Preparedness Goal. 

The effectiveness review is a method to evaluate a state or Urban Area proposal 

in relation to others submitted and against the grant program criteria provided. It 

is not, I repeat it is not an evaluation of how well an initiative is or is not performing in a particular State or Urban Area. This element, added with Congressional direction and support, is designed to encourage uses of funds in accordance 

with pre-announced program guidelines and that will both enhance community, 

state and national preparedness beyond a grant period.

Peer Review Process 

As we are not allocating funding to specific investments, our risk management objective was to determine the ′′anticipated effectiveness′′ of the investments contained 

in the Investment Justification. To do this, DHS convened a panel of a cross section 

of representatives from States, Territories, and Urban Areas, and from a variety of 

Homeland Security and Emergency Management disciplines. 

States and Urban Areas sent high ranking officials to be reviewers; for example, 

three States sent their most senior Homeland Security Directors. From the Fire and 
58

Rescue community, an Assistant Deputy Fire Chief, Battalion Chief, Fire Operations Chief, and a Fire Emergency Management and Communications Chief participated, from Law Enforcement, an Assistant Chief of Police, Captain of a Sheriff’s 

Department, Commander of a Special Response Team, and a Lieutenant from a 

Homeland Security and Tactical Operations. All used their knowledge and experience to evaluate the anticipated effectiveness of proposed solutions from their peers. 

These examples are only a subset of the vast experience of peer reviewers who participated in the HSGP process. 

Peer review panels were made up of reviewers from varied backgrounds and experience—and to avoid potential conflicts of interest—diversity was emphasized. Each 

panel included a balance of representation from each region (Eastern, Central, and 

Western). The peer review panels reviewed and scored each individual Investment 

included in the Investment Justification as well as the Investment Justification submission in its entirety. The peer review panels also reviewed the Enhancement Plan 

to ensure alignment among Initiatives from the Enhancement Plan with proposed 

Investments. 

As expected, the scores for the individual investments followed a distribution from 

very low to very high, with the majority of scores falling in the mid-range. 

The peer review process provides a significant incentive for States and Urban 

Areas to spend the limited pool of Federal resources on projects that will provide 

a meaningful return on investment and a lasting impact on reducing the risks of 

terrorism.

HSGP Guidance to All Communities 

Prior to the release of the HSGP guidance, DHS provided extensive assistance to 

States and local governments in their development of updated Homeland Security 

Strategies and the Capability Enhancement Plans, which link investment planning 

to the National Priorities outlined in the Interim National Preparedness Goal. This 

guidance for the development of Enhancement Plans was a critical precursor to the 

development of successful Investment Justifications that meet the criteria assessed 

by the Peer Review Panel during the HSGP application process. 

Between the time that the FY2006 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) 

guidance was released on December 2, 2005, and the application due date of March 

2, 2006, the DHS Grants and Training (G&T) Preparedness Officers for both the 

State of New York (NY) and the District of Columbia (DC) had frequent contact 

with NY and its Urban Areas, and DC and the National Capital Region (NCR) 

Urban Area. The officers were available to answer technical questions regarding the 

process. Due to the competitive nature of the application process, G&T staff members were not able to discuss or offer advice regarding specific program or budget 

proposals that may unfairly benefit one application over another. 

G&T provided technical assistance to assist with the Program and Capability Review (PCR), which was the core planning process each State was required to conduct 

prior to submitting proposals. The PCR justified how any FY 2006 funds would be 

invested. Approximately 34 representatives from NY State, to include representatives from both the New York City and Buffalo Urban Areas, participated in the 

PCR technical assistance on November 30, 2005. Approximately 65 representatives 

from DC and the NCR Urban Area participated in their PCR technical assistance 

on January 5, 2006. Both of these sessions stressed the need to emphasize broad 

regionalization and include additional stakeholders, such as other local regions and 

the private sector, in the program planning process. 

In addition to the formal PCR technical assistance deliveries, G&T Preparedness 

Officers had frequent, often daily, contact with the NY and NCR Urban Areas. As 

an example, the New York Preparedness Officer attended the NYC Urban Area 

Working Group meetings on a monthly basis, and a special meeting regarding the 

PCR process was held on November 28, 2005, for the NCR Urban Area Senior Policy 

Group. Representatives from DC and the NCR participated in the pilot development 

of the PCR technical assistance program on November 4, 2005, and served on the 

pilot working group to assist in shaping the PCR technical assistance offering. Feedback provided during the pilot was used to refine the design and materials prior 

to deployment to States and Territories across the Nation.

Allocation 

To support the management objectives of HSGP, we investigated several allocation techniques, and ultimately arrived at two management decisions. First, we gave 

particular attention to the analysis for New York City and the National Capital Region to ensure that the allocation process optimally accounts for their risk information and infrastructure assets. In addition, we selected a two-by-two matrix approach that allows us to evaluate Investment Justifications based on the Relative 
59

Risk to the Applicant vs. the anticipated Effectiveness of the Investment Justification submitted by that applicant. 

This two-by-two matrix approach provided us with the following benefits: 

It allowed us to assemble a picture of the challenge recognizing that the two factors we value: Relative Risk and anticipated Effectiveness are distinct and not inherently correlated 

It gave us a relatively simple lens through which to view the decision space as 

policy makers, while still allowing a known model to drive final allocations. 

To generate final HSGP allocations, we assembled two of these matrices: one for 

States and Territories subject to SHSP and LETPP dollars, and one for Urban Areas 

subject to UASI dollars. The matrices worked the same. Each applicant was plotted 

in the matrix by using their relative risk score and their Investment Justification 

Effectiveness rating. 

Once plotted in the matrix, each applicant fell into one of four quadrants:

Quadrant 1: higher relative risk/higher anticipated effectiveness 

Quadrant 2: higher relative risk/lower anticipated effectiveness 

Quadrant 3: lower relative risk/higher anticipated effectiveness 

Quadrant 4: lower relative risk/lower anticipated effectiveness

Once allocations were determined for each of the four quadrants, final dollar allocations were determined. For that, Relative Risk was weighted two-thirds and anticipated effectiveness was weighted one-third to emphasize the risk-based nature 

of the programs while recognizing strong program solutions. Using our analytic 

model, we generated the final allocation results you have seen, and which are illustrated by the chart below.
60
61
62

The allocation process used this year to distribute the nearly $711 million in 

UASI funding, $125 million less than FY 2005 (overall HSGP funding was reduced 

$343 million below the President’s request), to 46 metropolitan areas was structured 

to take into account both the risk and effectiveness of the proposed investments.

New York City 

NYC remains the highest-ranked city for relative risk; of the more than 260,000 

assets considered in the risk analysis process, nearly 7,000 came from New York 

City alone. However, due to the increase in information in our analysis and our better understanding of risk in regional areas, the ′′lead′′ that NYC had over other 

urban areas is smaller than it has been in past years. In simple practical terms, 

this means that there are very large UASI areas out there whose relative level of 

risk has ′′gotten closer′′ to that of NYC. 

Since the creation of the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) program, New 

York City has received approximately 19% of the program’s total grant funding, or 

more than twice the amount of the second largest recipient, even though the program now covers dozens of American cities. The next largest recipient, Los Angeles, 

has received approximately 8% of the funds awarded through the program.

National Capital Region 

The National Capital Region has received, on average, approximately 8 percent 

of all funding through the Urban Areas Security Initiative since the program’s inception, and has received almost $214 million overall from the UASI program since 

2003. Over that period, the NCR urban area has received third highest amount of 

grant funding from the UASI program, behind only New York City and Los Angeles/

Long Beach Urban Areas. 

The relatively high risk ranking played a major factor in the NCR receiving 7 percent of the total UASI funds available this year, nearly $46.5 million, and the allocation is clearly consistent with previous, annual allocation percentages. 

As we look at investing Federal dollars, within the National Capital Region or 

elsewhere, we are seeking investments that promise to increase the overall capability of a region through funding such things as equipment and specialized training. Washington, DC, and its partners have worked hard in this area. However, we 

must also ensure that resources are also available to enable other at-risk communities to enhance their preparedness. 

We must also consider the unique resources available to the National Capital Region through the permanent station of Federal operational resources that supplement what is being done by local and state officials. This includes air patrols, Federal law enforcement agents and other specialized federal response teams whose vigilance and capability may not be quickly available to other American urban areas. 

Together, these assets contribute to an integrated network that protects the National Capital Region.

Conclusion 

Mr. Chairman it is essential to recognize the distinction between risk and threat. 

Although threat is a large component of risk, risk does not equal threat, but considers it along with vulnerability and consequences. Likewise, risk analysis informs, 

but does not equal risk management. We now have a much better understanding 

of nationwide risk then we have in the past, along with the ability to evaluate risk 

mitigation strategies. As a result we now have a dynamic process for managing risk 

that reflects the Nation’s priorities. We have come a long way in our understanding 

of risk and as we learn we will continue to improve this still evolving process. 

Managing risk is a national responsibility. We would not be acting responsibly if 

we simply looked at each individual state or Urban Area as its own entity in making 

risk-based decisions. America’s security requires a comprehensive approach and the 

federal government has an obligation to protect the entire nation. We must take 

steps necessary to ensure that all of our high risk areas increase their levels of capability. The grants allocation process is not about making Omaha, or Chicago, or 

Washington D.C. safe and secure it’s about making America safe and secure. 

Providing grants to the states and Urban Areas is just one aspect of managing 

risk. Whether it’s through border security, ensuring the security of nuclear plants, 

food storage facilities, financial centers across the country or cracking down on illegal immigrants, what we do in one area of the country will make a difference everywhere else. 

Terrorists are working hard to exploit gaps in our efforts and the American people 

deserve no less than our very best effort to thwart those who would do us harm. 

I am confident in our ability to work together to do just that. 

I would like to thank the committee for its time today and I appreciate this opportunity to bring further transparency on this process.
63

Chairman KING. Thank you, Mr. Foresman. Gentleman from 

California, Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t 

know. I have a whole lot of questions. I had questions for the other 

panel as well. I am one of those committed to a risk-based assessment. I had some concerns with the Department’s database in the 

formulas that you use because I was informed that, for instance, 

in the Sacramento region while it goes up this year, it falls off the 

table next year. San Diego goes down somewhat—actually substantially this year and then drops off the table next year. So that 

brought me to a question of questioning what the data is and the 

way you formulate it. 

I have a lot of other questions based on what was said in the 

prior panel. The Mayor of New York told us that most of these are 

recurring costs, which suggests that this is a permanent program 

that ought to be funded by the Federal Government. And then 

there was a suggestion at least by one member of the panel that 

somehow this wraps into the COPS program, which was a program 

initially started, as you may recall, in a previous administration 

with the promise that the government would pay, the Federal Government, 100 percent the first year, 75 percent the second year, 50 

percent the third year, 25 percent the fourth year, and nothing the 

fifth year, and it became a permanent program here on the Federal 

level where all of a sudden we on the Federal level are given the 

responsibility of funding essential services at the local level, which 

is what I thought law enforcement was. And the Mayor made a 

statement which is very similar to what I hear from local officials 

in my area, which is look, I have got constituents who don’t want 

to raise taxes or who don’t want to have taxes raised on them. It 

is almost like there is one animal called the local taxpayer and 

there is another animal called the State taxpayer and there is another animal called the Federal taxpayer and we are on the far end 

of the food chain and therefore we can either tax or go into debt 

and it doesn’t affect anybody, but what it gets down to is certain 

priorities. 

I think that is what we are all about here, and I have a fundamental question about the way you have assessed the data that 

you bring to bear because we have heard the bragging, frankly, by 

your Department by now you have billions of data points instead 

of tens or hundreds, and yet when I see those data points brought 

together, you have a phenomena and I hate to change the focus of 

this place to the other side of the country, but let’s take San Diego, 

which last time I checked was near an international boundary, has 

military installations there, has a nuclear facility within 10 miles, 

has a lot of foreign visitors, is vulnerable from any number of 

standpoints. Yet it falls off the table when it would seem that with 

the additional data points suggested by your Department and the 

different formulation that that would actually have a community 

like that move up. 

So I guess what I am saying is, I don’t have all of the deep analysis into the formula that you have used, but that doesn’t seem to 

pass the reasonable test to me. Am I that far off base? Or does the 

Department acknowledge that there needs to be some refinements 
64

of a substantial nature to take into account some of these things 

that don’t otherwise seem to be explainable? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, let me see if I can give you three 

short answers on that. First with regards to the infrastructure discussion. Mayor Bloomberg brought up the discussion of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there has been a lot of discussion. We counted the 

Statue of Liberty as we did the analysis. We counted the Brooklyn 

Bridge, the Empire State Building. They were grouped into categories that get a higher score, if you will, but you know the bottom line is we have got to make sure the data set is correct. We 

have had cases out in California with dams, for instance, that were 

not counted that I think as we go back and look we are looking to 

make sure we are going through a process to do quality control on 

the data sets and to make sure they are accurate with regard to 

the UASI program, both Buffalo and San Diego fall into the same 

category that we previously when we did the UASI program didn’t 

consider proximity to the border in terms of doing that piece of risk 

analysis for the urban areas, and I think, Congressman, that part 

of where we are at, is we did not have a risk assessment process 

in this country for doing terrorism prior to 9/11. We had plenty of 

risk assessment processes for doing natural disasters because we 

have decades of history dealing with natural disasters. So we were 

charged with creating a process and it continues to move forward. 

To the degree that one draws kind of a straight conclusion, if the 

information had presented to us that New York City was not at the 

top of our risk chart and had it indicated to us that New York City 

should not have received the lion’s share of dollars then I would 

have been much—I would have been exceptionally concerned, but 

what is key to understand, and I believe you all have the handout, 

is if you look at the risk curve and funding allocations they pretty 

closely track one another. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me one minute 

to ask a follow-up. 

We have all heard risk has been there. People were penalized because they didn’t do a good job of grant writing, and therefore we 

ought to get better grant writers and that, boy, if that is the case 

we are really missing the boat. Do you take into account things like 

moneys already allocated and therefore expended—do you take a 

look back, so to speak, to say how effectively moneys that have already gone through a program are expended or is that not part of 

your determination? 

Mr. FORESMAN. No, Congressman, that is actually a phenomenally good example and part of the justification process is to take 

into account dollars that are being committed locally or that are 

provided to urban areas by a State as well as those that will be 

committed if the Federal funds are not forthcoming and will it be 

sustained over the longer term, and the effectiveness justification 

certainly serves as the basis for the allocation piece of it, but it is 

not a factor of bad grant writing skills or bad programs. They were 

just simply a measure of how the communities were articulating 

the cost effectiveness of these solutions. I will tell you I think we 

have got to do a lot of work on the terminology that we use to describe these things because that has contributed to the confusion. 
65

Chairman KING. Gentleman from Mississippi, the ranking member. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, could I have a colloquy with the 

gentleman from California for a second? 

Chairman KING. If the gentleman from Mississippi would yield 

for a second? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I will yield. 

Mr. PASCRELL. I am concerned about what I just heard and I 

want to make sure I heard it correctly. You are talking about the 

possibility—correct me if I am wrong. You were asking questions 

of the Secretary—that this may become a permanent program, and 

you used in your analogy the COPS program. If you know what the 

conditions are of the COPS program, universal COPS program 

started in 1993 to put close to 100,000 police officers on the streets 

in an effort to demonstrate how effective community policing would 

be, and it did. It was a tremendous reduction in crime based partially on the number of police officers. But you could not simply 

have people leave your department and then replace them through 

the COPS program. You had to add and there had to be a deficiency within the department. There were very strict qualifications 

here. 

Chairman KING. If I could ask the gentleman to—

Mr. PASCRELL. And I don’t want this analogy that he has made 

to stand. 

Chairman KING. Gentleman can address that in his own time. 

Secretary Foresman is here to testify. 

Mr. PASCRELL. This is something that has been said, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. I know. But Secretary Foresman is here to testify. Ranking Member from Mississippi. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much. Mr. Foresman, you were 

talking about effectiveness and the overall rating. As you know—

do we have a tracking system to find out how these communities 

have spent their money, whether they bought it correctly? And how 

does that system follow into the next year? Sort of in line with 

what Mr. Lungren was talking about. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Congressman, we had a very rudimentary 

approach to it, as I would offer, and we have been focused in the 

Department on product, sometimes to the extent of process, but as 

a good example the question was raised earlier just how much of 

the urban area security dollars had been spent either in the New 

York or the Washington region, for instance. And you know the 

best data that we have inside the Department is probably two or 

three weeks old. They have clearly obligated 100 percent of their 

money. They have great projects that they are working on, but to 

date they have drawn down about 41—between 41 and 45 percent 

of the dollars they have available to them. So the next question becomes, how have those dollars been applied and do we have a backend process that goes on to it? And Congressman, the reason we 

have dedicated to these urban areas and to these States a full-time 

individual who does nothing but work with them on the grants is 

to provide that level of back-end auditing, if you will, program compliance piece of it. It is also one of the reasons why we had to do 

the investment justifications on the front end so that we have an 
66

idea of being able to say this is what the urban area said they were 

going to spend their dollars on, and when we go back in afterwards, we need to have some basis by which to check against that. 

Mr. THOMPSON. So your testimony is we have a tracking system 

that you are comfortable with? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, Congressman, I am not comfortable with. 

And I am going to offer to you I am not going to be comfortable 

with it until we have realtime visibility among the State, local and 

Federal partners in terms of where we are with dollar utilization 

and until we have stronger auditing processes in place because you 

know I feel bad when we get into a situation where a community 

misuses or abuses a program and it lessens the funding that is 

available for a place like the National Capital Region or New York. 

Mr. THOMPSON. So have you requested or recommended a tracking system to get you to where you want to be? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir, Congressman. We are looking at a 

grants management system in just tailoring some of the existing 

grants management systems that we use for the fire grants, for instance, to help us do this, but this is more process and we are redeploying personnel to provide for this, and I will tell you that I think 

within the space of about 90 to 120 days I will be able to sit in 

front of you and say I feel 100 percent comfortable. I feel 80 percent comfortable today, but not 100 percent. 

Mr. THOMPSON. So you are going to use personnel rather than 

technology? 

Mr. FORESMAN. In the case of it, it is a combination but a large 

part of it is personnel. I mean, it is having someone who can work 

with the States and the communities on program eligibility and 

how they are applying their dollars. 

Mr. THOMPSON. So the system you are using now, can you tell 

me what the tracking information has brought back to you? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, there is very little tracking information. 

We actually right now have to use the Department of Justice’s financial management system, and we are migrating so that that is 

a DHS-driven activity but basically all that tells us is that we have 

obligated dollars to a particular community, that they have obligated those dollars and we know what the drawdown is against 

those dollars, but we don’t have a significant amount of detail in 

terms of, you know, if you have drawn down $20 million what was 

it drawn down to be used for. It is getting that greater level of visibility into an electronic system as well as by putting people in the 

communities, working with New York City and Washington, D.C., 

and other places, and this is why we want to have people with 

them all the time. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, but that seems to be an archaic method of 

tracking rather than a state-of-the-art system. 

Mr. FORESMAN. And Congressman, let me offer it this way, I believe in technology. I think we will harness technology but technology empowers good business processes, we need to make sure 

we have the good business processes inside the Department, inside 

our grants and training shop, and once we have got those solid 

business processes in place then we can overlay the technology to 

empower it to be more efficient and more effective. But right now, 
67

Assistant Secretary Henke and myself are focused on making sure 

our core business processes are sound and good. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Sir, at what point will you be able to do the technology part? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I actually would hope that we 

would be there by the end of the calendar year if not before. Frankly, all of the business processes are in place. They are just not 

amalgamated and pulled together. We have a terrific example with 

the fire grant program that has served us well over the last several 

years and we are building off of that. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Ranking Member. The gentleman 

from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent. 

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. 

This hearing of course is focused on the UASI allocations. What I 

am trying to understand is, well, this year we are talking about 

New York City losing about $83 million in UASI funding from the 

previous year. I also notice too that in 2003 to 2004 New York City 

took about a $100 million hit. In other words, if I look at this from 

fiscal year 2003, New York took in about $150 million through 

UASI, then in 2004 they took in about $247 million. What was the 

cause of the substantial reduction in that fiscal year? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, Congressman, I was not in the Department 

in the context of that fiscal year, and I was actually serving in my 

other job as a State homeland security official, and a large part of 

this was I think just driven by frankly the absence of having a very 

empirically driven analytically based ability to be able to allocate 

dollars and, frankly, I would be more than happy to go back and 

get some additional detail for you and find out what drove it. 

Mr. DENT. And also I think you provided this chart, this pie 

chart. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DENT. Where it says New York City is receiving about 18 

percent of the 2006 UASI allocation. What percentage—I guess we 

will move it back up. We are talking about UASI and allocation. 

You also have—you have the State and local law enforcement 

grants. Are there other dollars New York City may be receiving beyond those terrorism preparedness grants that I am not aware of 

or that I am not very familiar with? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, yes, they are, and for instance we 

have limited this discussion to the UASI program and the State 

Homeland Security Grant Program, including those dollars that go 

down to New York City. Overall New York State has received a little over $1.1 billion in terms of the State Homeland Security Grant 

Program Urban Areas Security Initiative, port security grants, 

transit grants and the share of New York City is about $666 million, give or take a couple of dollars there. That is outside of dollars 

that may have come down through the Department of Health and 

Human Services for their bioterrorism program and these types of 

things. 

Mr. DENT. Well, I am just trying to get a sense of the total 

amount of homeland security spending that New York and the capital region are receiving. Clearly they deserve a great deal of funding because they are such likely targets but for example, you are 
68

showing here New York City is getting 18 percent of the UASI allocation in 2006. I would be curious to see that in 2005 and 2004. 

Mr. FORESMAN. If you look at it over the life of the program, they 

have received about 18 percent over the life of the program. The 

same being true for the National Capital Region, I believe is the 

same. They have received about 7 percent, 8 percent. They have received about equal over the life of the program. 

Mr. DENT. I would also be curious in seeing the total New York 

City is receiving. I am assuming, for example, they may be receiving some port security funds, maybe more this year than they did 

in a previous year, the same for their very fine intelligence unit 

and counterterrorism. I would like to see the totality of funding to 

New York because many communities don’t have as sophisticated 

an operation as the City of New York does. I would just like to get 

a better sense of this so I can explain this program better to my 

constituents. I don’t know if you have any of that information here 

today. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, we will get you a written response 

to that and I just want to go on record I agree with what Commissioner Kelly said, the importance of human intelligence. We understand that but we also recognize that some of the personnel limitations, the ability to pay for personnel costs is in part driven by 

what congressional direction is provided to the Department. But I 

will tell you the one thing that we have pushed real hard, considering what Commissioner Kelly has been able to do, we have given 

them the approval to use a limited amount of their dollars for intel 

analysts in New York City. So we are trying to be as flexible as 

we can within program guidelines and within the guidelines that 

are provided to us as a result of congressional direction. 

Mr. DENT. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman KING. Gentlelady from Texas recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank the Chairman. I thank the ranking 

member. Secretary Foresman, let me congratulate you on your appointment and as I indicated to you earlier, we are looking for 

stick-to-itness and of course consistency in this Department. Your 

addition will be I think a great asset. I am going to start—I wanted 

to put in the record the impact on Houston, which was considered 

among the top 50 percent of all urban areas based on the fiscal 

year 2006 DHS comparative risk analysis and among the top 25 

percent of all urban areas in effectiveness proposed solutions subjected to a more than 10 percent decrease in funding by UASI, and 

moreover my State of Texas faced even more severe cuts in 53 percent of funding from the State Homeland Security Grant Program 

and 29 percent in UASI funding. I say that because I am not afraid 

to hold this chart up, and I think you all provided this so that you 

could—we could get the impact of how large a segment of the moneys went to New York and that 50 some percent was left on half 

the area in the other major cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. 

And I hope that the political forces will not undermine you because 

you made a very important point. You are suffering from a 14 percent cut rather than the administration going upwards or Congress’ 

funding going upwards. Unfortunately it went down, and therefore 

you were obviously operating with a smaller pot. And for us to be 

truthful in how do we reform this process, we need to at least give 
69

you that measure of fact, and that is you were operating with a 

much smaller pot. And might I also say since I incorporated my remarks and in his absence, I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for 

his kind remarks about Houston because we were talking about 

these kinds of grants dealing with security. We of course almost a 

year ago faced an enormous influx of evacuees that needed a lot of, 

if you will, impact money and how could we be expected to respond 

to the Federal Government’s failure by taking evacuees and not 

have those dollars that are necessary. 

So this spreads across a number of issues and a number of areas, 

but I think it is our job as members of the Homeland Security 

Committee, in fact, to be problem solvers. So I want to juxtapose 

your needs against comments that were made because I made the 

comments about the COPS program has been cut, the State Byrne 

program has been cut, the local government law enforcement block 

grants have been cut. And the question is whether we make them 

permanent. The American people want them to be permanent, law 

enforcement wanted them to be permanent. Coming from your position in State government, I know you utilize those programs very 

effectively. We know that because we got the return on it and we 

saw the decrease in crime. So it makes no sense for us to cut programs like this program because the American people want to be 

secure. So I would ask you to follow me on these questions. 

You had a statement in your—a quote in your testimony that 

brings to mind the nightmares of philosophical gobbledy-gook, for 

lack of a better word. This analysis seeks to inform, not to dictate, 

the complex and difficult choices among possible measures to mitigate risk. I only say that because we have got to get down to the 

nuts and bolts of how you get these grants to the right places. Tell 

me, did you vet the methodology with experts like yourself in local 

and State government before you utilized this risk criteria? And 

what did—again, you are now telling me that you have after the 

fact and you are right. Will you vet that criteria with experts in 

the field? And do you know whether DHS did that? 

My second question is more pointed. I am told that State and 

local officials are still trying to get transit port security grants that 

are not out yet and they can’t get any answers from the Department. If the goal of the Department is to quickly get funding to 

those on the ground that need it and given the fact that we are 

two-thirds through the fiscal year, when do you think that funding 

might occur? But how do we solve this in terms of getting the right 

kind of parameters to give to the experts on the ground? The firefighter, the police officer, the commissioner, the police chief, the 

mayors have no time for theological philosophical grant making. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, thank you for that question, 

and let me address it two ways. One, when I came into this position I had conversations with both Congressman Thompson, Chairman King and others and said that we wanted to improve the level 

of communication with the Congress. And we have had our focus 

up here briefing on this risk assessment process. We have had our 

folks briefing and interacting with State and local officials on this 

risk assessment process, but it had no meaning to everybody until 

they saw dollars attached to it and I completely understand that. 

Everything looks fine in the theoretical form. What does it mean 
70

to my community in terms of dollars and resources? So yes, we 

were engaging the State and local community. Yes, we were engaging primarily through the staff in the discussions but we will—I 

am absolutely committed and I talked to the staff about this, we 

were already scheduled to bring the State and local stakeholders 

together in July for a meeting after action, if you will, on this 

year’s grant cycle. I have told the staff I want them within a couple 

of weeks to schedule the next session of how do we look forward 

to next year and take some of the lesson from this year and apply 

it to our grant process next year. 

With regard to the trends in port security, Congresswoman, I 

will tell you that I have personally read through all of those grant 

packages, each one of them, more than five times and they are not 

leaving the office until they are easily understood and they make 

sense and it is not because our team did a bad job putting them 

together. It is simply because a whole bunch of people helped to 

put them together and we just needed to go through a real strong 

process. Having said that, we are days away and this goes to an 

issue that I discussed with Chairman King when the announcements came out on this. We are constrained by not being able to 

tell a wide range of stakeholders how much money they are going 

to get because we have a congressional requirement, and I think 

it is a reasonable requirement, that we notify you all on the Hill 

about allocations, that we notify the appropriators and so frankly, 

you know, this all looked fine on paper, but when people saw the 

dollars, it had a different effect on them and I think there is a good 

lesson on that and we have to find a way to be able to characterize—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Before you finish your sentence, will you reconfigure the formula? Will you work internally to make the formula more understandable and more relevant to what we are trying to do, which is to secure the homeland? 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. Secretary 

Foresman, just answer the question. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, without a doubt. And let me 

make this perfectly clear, I don’t like the situation we all collectively find ourselves in in terms of this discussion and a lot of it 

goes back to we need to do a better job in terms of communicating 

with all the stakeholders. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you. I will ask further in the direct 

conversation with you. Thank the Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Secretary Foresman, let me again thank you for 

the time you have put in here today. I am sure it wasn’t a totally 

pleasant experience listening to the first panel. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, if you might, it was actually a 

phenomenally positive experience from our standpoint because the 

opportunity we—Secretary Chertoff and I have had good conversations with Mayor Bloomberg. Of course I see Mayor Williams and 

Chief Ramsey on a regular basis, and this is how we are going to 

get better because we are starting here, we are trying to create 

something new and we are very much committed to that. 

Chairman KING. Let me just ask some brief questions, try to find 

some meeting of the minds here. New York was number one in 

risk, and as we saw from the briefing, their application ranked 
71

somewhat near the bottom. Allowing for all limited amounts of 

money and the fact that other cities have acquired risk, if the New 

York application had been in the top one, two or three, is it fair 

to say New York would have gotten significantly more money? 

Mr. FORESMAN. No, sir, it is not fair to say they would have gotten significantly more money. In total it might have represented 

somewhere between a 5 percent and 8 percent increase, but we can 

run the exact numbers as it relates to New York, Mr. Chairman, 

and provide that to you. 

Chairman KING. So then even if they had used the money for 

capital, even if they had used the money for equipment or technology, as the Department is suggesting, they still would not have 

gotten a considerable amount of money more, more amount of 

money? 

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct. 

Chairman KING. And yet we find other cities did go up significantly. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. And there are a couple 

of examples of percentage increases but places like Omaha where 

we have a phenomenal better understanding of the risk, a much 

clearer understanding of the risk and remember risk is two-thirds 

of it, that is 66 percent of the total allocation process is based on 

that. It had those types of effects on it, if you will, when you have 

got outside of New York City. You and I both know that New York 

City and Washington are the two areas we understood the risk the 

best even on 9/11, and over the last several years, and we are just 

now beginning to get the visibility outside of those two regions. 

Chairman KING. Yes. Part of my point is though it is not just a 

question of New York is number one and other cities are three, four 

and five, without going into all the details of the classified briefing, 

there is really a tremendous gap between New York and number 

one, the second city. It was basically New York, maybe number two 

and three, and then maybe all the rest of the cities. So it was almost in a rating by itself, no one else being close to it, and based 

on that, and even if they had submitted a proper application it is 

hard to say how we could have justified making the cut. But I 

guess we can go back and forth on it. 

Let me ask you another question. Assuming that there is more 

than enough money next year, and you continue to have the problems as far as the effectiveness of the applications, can you recommend a way that someone at your level or somebody at a decision making level could deal with somebody at a decision making 

level in the city or—I mean, to me it is really wrong that Commissioner Kelly, who is leading the largest police department in the 

country with all the counterterrorism, basically he found out about 

the cuts from me after I found out from you. I am not into that 

whole thing. That didn’t bother me. I am just saying, Commissioner Kelly, he had no advanced notice at all that his 

counterterrorism, his intelligence communities units, all of that effort he had put in, he had no inkling whatsoever that that was at 

risk or that was being threatened. And it would seem to me it 

would make more sense if somehow you would have sat down with 

him and made it work. I mean, if they are number one risk and 

they are doing the best job, there should be some way to match the 
72

two rather than just after the fact the commissioner to find out 

there was some defect in the application. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, first, two things. Their application 

was not incorrect. Had their application been incorrect, they 

wouldn’t have been considered. I guess what I would offer to you 

is the effectiveness score is not a report card on how well Ray 

Kelly—and he is doing a fabulous job with the Mayor in New York 

City. It is not a report card on what they are doing, and you know 

I have had the discussions with the management and budget folks 

since the conversation between Secretary Chertoff and Mayor 

Bloomberg. Those discussions also continue, but I think you make 

a very legitimate point and it is part of that after action review. 

This is the first year we have used a new review process. We are 

going to learn from this process and one of the chief things we are 

going to learn from this process is to make sure we are very wellconnected at the right levels, and frankly, it is going to be a little 

bit of a wake-up call to make sure that you know when these 

things are submitted for hundreds of millions of dollars that they 

have passed off. 

I lived in State government in Virginia and frequently State 

agencies would submit an application without any level of oversight 

and that was not a good way to do because on behalf of a Governor 

we had a perspective that we needed to provide. So I think we can 

certainly look at the process. 

Chairman KING. I will close on this. Leaving New York aside, I 

would hate to find out a particular city did not get the funding it 

needed, was entitled to, because they applied for the wrong program or they weren’t doing it in the right way and no one in the 

Department sat down with them before the deadline to tell them 

that, to somehow work it out. That is all I would ask. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am in line with that. I would 

not want any American in any American city to be at greater risk 

because we didn’t have a discussion that we could very easily have. 

Chairman KING. Thank you. Gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. 

Pascrell. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Secretary, I know what you don’t want but 

I can tell you that what you have done to New York City does put 

them in greater risk, in my estimation, in every area, whether you 

are talking about the UASI allocation, which you explained in a 

forthright manner as you always have, whether you are talking 

about the State homeland security programs, or whether you are 

talking about the LETPP. Every one of those programs, New York 

got less money. And one could conclude from that that either there 

are less vulnerabilities in New York or they plugged it up, which 

you know is not the case. We have not done the job, the Federal 

Government. And this is a Federal responsibility. I am sorry I have 

to go back to the gentleman before from California. This is a Federal responsibility. That doesn’t mean that local governments don’t 

have responsibility. That doesn’t mean that we are not in partnership. But the Federal Government has the primary responsibility 

of protecting our borders. We may need the backup, the local folks 

in doing that. They have the primary responsibility of providing the 

intelligence—God bless you—the police department in New Jersey 

have a great intelligence program, no one mentioned it this morn-
73

ing. It doesn’t run on hot air. It is effective. It has even gotten the 

feds ticked off at it. Well, New York said we are going to protect 

ourselves. This is what we need to do. That costs money. In every 

one of these areas, New York got less money. And there is absolutely no rationale behind it because when we go to what you say—

remember those columns we saw that one day in this highly classified meeting? We need this to be transparent, my friend, please. 

America, the public has a right to know what we saw that day. I 

don’t know what the big secret is about that, to be very frank with 

you. I didn’t see anything in there that I haven’t partially read in 

Newsweek or Time Magazine or the New York Post or The New 

York Daily News. And when I look at what your criteria is, the 

breakdown—not your criteria, but the Department’s criteria, of the 

effective column, remember we saw a big drop in that area, and 

when you are talking about implementation, what you are implementing within the Department, within the city, and the sustainability of the investment—in other words, if the Federal Government is going to make—this is a real laugher. If the Federal Government is going to be making an investment in your 

counterterrorism activities, we want to know what is sustainable, 

what is not sustainable, and the relevance of the goals in the first 

place. I mean, we could learn a lot from New York City Police Department, and we could learn a lot from New York City in terms 

of how we protect our neighborhoods and our children, etc., etc. So 

in that light, I want to ask you some questions. 

Mr. SIMMONS. You didn’t ask him any questions? 

Mr. PASCRELL. Not yet. Do you think the Department of Homeland Security risk methodology vetted with experts in the risk field 

before it was given approval by the Department leadership to be 

used, was this risk methodology vetted with the experts? And was 

it vetted with the local people who are there geographically, psychologically in every one of these cities, and particularly now we 

are talking about D.C. and New York. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, with respect to the methodology 

process, we used the national labs, the same national labs that 

help the Department of Defense do threat assessment and develop 

risk methodology that is used every day by our Defense Department for a wide range of activities. So we had a wide range of additions and practitioners that were involved in it, folks from the intelligence community, folks from the law enforcement community. 

To the degree that we did the briefings with the State and local 

officials, I think it was probably more of an after briefing, after the 

methodology was put together. But it brings up the issue of being 

able to bring them in on the front end and have that—

Mr. PASCRELL. Right. And I think you are being very honest 

about this. Peer review. We have peer review in the FIRE Act. We 

have had that from the very beginning. A very competitive process. 

The folks in the field are going to make a decision about whether 

this application is meaningful and relevant. How come we have 

this problem here? Why? Because it was imposed from the top 

down. It makes no sense. The people who have to implement this, 

the people who have to deal with the services within New York 

City and Washington, D.C., who are on the front lines day in and 

day out, unlike you and unlike me, they weren’t involved from the 
74

very get-go on this situation. Peer review has worked out very well 

in the FIRE Act. Competitors have worked out very, very well. The 

money goes directly to the community, doesn’t even go through the 

State. So we have another component here. Not only should it be 

based—all the money should be based on risk, it should be based 

directly—the money should go directly to the community and directly to the service so we can look at the accountability here. 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentleman is expired. Gentleman 

from Connecticut, Mr. Shays. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Foresman, many people I respect say you are a very capable man, and so they tell me 

that we should be grateful you are there. And I just want to put 

that on the record. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. SHAYS. And I appreciate your candidness at the closed hearing that we had, and your approach at this hearing. Now, having 

said that, I would like to focus in on what I wrestle with. I was 

willing to see Connecticut cut if I felt everything was based on risk. 

And we said 60 percent would be based on risk, the Senate wanted 

more of it to be based on population. We had a compromise. I don’t 

think it should just be 60 percent. I think it should be based on 

risk. Now, any community needs the money but it should still be 

based on risk. What I wrestle with is that I feel the Department 

did something that it was not authorized to do unless I am just 

misreading it. You did two-thirds risk and one-third effectiveness. 

Now, I will change it to say whether it is—how it scores in terms 

of whether it is a good grant or not. I am using the word effectiveness, but it seems to me if the grant reached a certain threshold 

they got a passing grade, then it should have been based on what 

the Congress wanted, which was totally, completely based on risk. 

So walk me through why effectiveness took one-third of the score. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, let me address this in two parts. 

First with regard—we have always got to be careful to keep the 

programs separate, the State Homeland Security Grant Program, 

which every State receives a base minimum 0.75 percent and the 

remainder of it based on risk, which would be the type of program 

that would support the State of Connecticut versus the Urban 

Areas Security Initiative program, which is two-thirds based on 

risk and one-third based on the effectiveness. In the context of the 

effectiveness score, it was designed to make sure that we were improving capabilities, and the congressional direction that we have 

gotten out of the appropriations act was twofold: One, to move towards a risk-based approach and, second, to make sure we were 

building sustainable capabilities. The process that we chose to do 

that was a peer review process, and to work to ensure that it was 

targeted against the local and the State strategies, which Congress 

had directed us to make sure that communities and States were developing. So it was an approach that was identified as being reasonable. 

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. Let me just say to you, though, when I looked 

at what we did last week and the week before and now here, if 

New York gets a score of the highest risk, I do agree with the 

chairman that the next highest risk isn’t even the second, third, 

fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth. I think 50 per-
75

cent of the risk frankly is in New York City, and it just seems to 

me that even when you count it as scoring number one, it still gets 

cheated. And I would like you to tell me how I am not seeing this 

the way I should see it. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I think that you have come up 

with a conundrum that we wrestle with from a policy standpoint 

every day. How do you come up with a process that is both a fair 

and equitable process that doesn’t penalize the most at-risk or the 

least at-risk. In a process that ensures that it is not—

Mr. SHAYS. Not the least at-risk. I want them to not get any 

money. 

Mr. FORESMAN. When I say the least at-risk of these 46 urban 

areas, what is important to understand of these 46 urban areas, 

they represent 45 percent of the Nation’s urban risk that we are 

able to mitigate through the efforts as we understand that risk. So 

I cannot sit here with 100 percent surety. 

Mr. SHAYS. The fact is though that when you did do this, whoever became second in the—you didn’t have gaps. You didn’t decide 

this—that New York is the primary target, is the secondary target, 

is the third target or fourth or fifth, you had one and then you just 

moved every one right up behind it, correct? 

Mr. FORESMAN. I think that is a fair statement, Congressman. 

Mr. SHAYS. And it seems to me there has got to be a way to 

equate the risk so the number is not based on rank but based on 

something where you see the gap. I mean, I have been in this—

I have been doing terrorist hearings since 1988, since 1998 as 

chairman of the National Security Subcommittee of Government 

Reform, and there is no question in my mind that all of us have 

a belief that New York City is always going to be the target and 

that everyone else, you know, may be. 

Mr. FORESMAN. But Congressman, and I want to be very clear 

with this, I would agree based on my work prior to coming into this 

position on a national commission, and we looked at the same 

issues, but again, we don’t want to get caught up in one of the 

things that we had criticized, the Federal Government was criticized, about a failure in imagination, and we are trying to find the 

right balance of looking at the reasonable and likely threats 

against—

Mr. SHAYS. I made my point. You have made your point. Let me 

just say Mr. Simmons is next, and he and I both have the same 

concerns about an urban State, Connecticut, given we don’t have 

a large population—our largest city is 140,000, but we represent 

collectively a large population, and we hope we are not getting 

screwed. 

Mr. FORESMAN. I would like to continue this conversation with 

you. 

Mr. SHAYS. Do it with him. 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentleman has expired. The other 

gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just follow on 

that thought. When we first got briefed on that formula on how the 

formula was going to work, I had a concern that reflects my concern whenever Connecticut is confronted with a Federal formula 

program. Unlike most States in the country, we do not have coun-
76

ty-based government. It is an anachronism perhaps, but we like it. 

We call it home rule. We have 169 small towns. Looking specifically at New London County, we have the City of New London, adjacent is Waterford, the town of Groton, City of Groton, and the 

town of Ledyard. Now, within these five municipalities you have 

three nuclear power plants, the New London Submarine Base, 

Electric Boat, which is the premiere design construction facility for 

nuclear subs, Amtrak main line, I-95, Pfizer, Dow Chemical and a 

variety of other infrastructures, and yet when you look at these entities separately they don’t add up. In fact, some would say when 

you look at them in the aggregate they don’t add up. Now, in 2004, 

for whatever reason, New Haven added up. In 2005 and 2006, New 

Haven didn’t add up and under the regs New Haven will no longer 

be considered for the UASI. And I just think that is an arbitrary 

standard at some future date based on changing realities, changing 

threat, changing information that some of those municipalities that 

were dropped under UASI may if reconsidered fall back within that 

domain, and so I would hope that these formulas are not so arbitrary that human intellectual intervention is not a possibility. And 

I think that is the point I would like to make, but you can comment 

on that if you wish. 

But before you do, I would like to get back to the issue of a 

human intelligence, and what I thought I heard you say earlier 

was that Congress directed that the money for human resources be 

spent in a certain way and that other dollars be spent for equipment, which I understand. But you know, when you are allocating 

dollars for human resources and it is going to a municipality, if it 

is going to a meter maid, if it is going to somebody who performs, 

I don’t know, traffic duties, I understand why the Federal Government does not have an interest in necessarily funding that through 

this program. They can do it through COPS or some other program. 

But when we are trying to train and resource these departments 

now to engage in the intelligence mission and when we have the 

responsibility under the Constitution, we the Federal Government, 

to provide for the common defense, which we do, Article I, Section 

8, and when we consider we are engaged in a global war on terrorism and that is certainly what we debated last week, then I 

think the Federal Government has to be much more judicious in 

how it considers those requests for funding for humans because as 

the preceding panel made very clear, yeah, they have standard law 

enforcement missions and they are trying to accomplish them, but 

this terrorism thing is totally new and they are being held accountable for it and they need the assistance of the Federal Government 

on that, so are you saying this committee or this Congress did not 

allow human resource investment for intelligence and 

counterterrorism purposes. Is that your feeling? 

Mr. FORESMAN. No, Congressman. That is not what I am saying. 

Let me address the first part of your statement with regard to infrastructure. You are right on point with the fact that we—our understanding of risk in a particular regional area changes and, for 

instance, if you all were to go back on the UASI list that would 

mean that we would have to apportion that limited pool of dollars 

even further than it has apportioned now. So we would be back 

here for another hearing. I will just let you know that but as long 
77

as we understand that going into it. A good example being down 

in Houston last year, the day before Hurricane Katrina went 

through Louisiana, Houston had 25 percent of the Nation’s petroleum production. The day after Hurricane Katrina, it owned 45 

percent of the Nation’s petroleum production, which meant that the 

relative risk of Houston both as a target, inviting target and the 

potential impact on the Nation had potentially doubled overnight 

and so, yes, it is dynamic and jurisdictions that may be off at one 

point as a result of change of risk specific threat information could 

come back on. 

To the second part of your question with regard to funding, my 

point was this—intelligence analysts are the one area that we have 

been able to get an exception for being able to use a limited 

amount of these dollars for personnel costs. As I have noted, we 

have provided some additional flexibility to New York City prior to 

even this announcement. That was something that Commissioner 

Kelly had made a very articulate case about and we have provided 

that level of flexibility, but generally speaking, the guidance that 

has gone out to communities in terms of the cap, the total amount 

of money that they can use for overtime costs or personnel costs or 

those categories for personnel costs is limited, and that has been 

further reinforced by language in the appropriations act that has 

provided guidance to us. 

So we are in a situation where, yes, we can do a little more in 

the intel world, particularly in the analyst world, not necessarily 

for the big cop out on the street who may be collecting intelligence, 

but if you were talking about a SWAT team member or something 

of that nature, no, we don’t have that level of flexibility. 

Mr. SIMMONS. So as I understand it, it is not necessarily the authorizing committees that are providing these limitations. It is the 

appropriations committees, and I think that, Mr. Chairman, that 

might be fertile ground for us to take a brief look. 

Chairman KING. Thank you. I thank the gentleman. Ranking 

Member. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would 

like unanimous consent to get into the record a statement from 

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. 

Chairman KING. Without objection, it is made part of the record. 

[The statement of Ms. Jackson-Lee follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CONGRESSWOMAN SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, I would like to thank you for 

having this hearing today, which is essential to the exercise of our oversight responsibility over the Department of Homeland Security and critical in ensuring our great 

nation’s preparation for future terrorist threats. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the honorable individuals serving as witnesses today: Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Anthony Williams, and Under Secretary George Foresman. 

This hearing today is intended to investigate how the Department of Homeland 

Security explains and attempts to justify why New York City and Washington, D.C., 

the two areas targeted by the terrorists on 9/11, and which remain the two most 

at-risk jurisdictions in our nation, received an approximately 40% cut in fbnding 

fiom the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) for FY 2006, despite the fact the 

Department broadened its new allocation process for FY 2006 to include both risk 

and need. In addition, New York City and Washington, D.C., are not the only high 

risk cities to be subjected to the Department’s maldistribution of homeland security 

dollars.@Iy own district of Houston, which is among the top 50% of all Urban Areas 

based on the FY 2006 DHS comparative risk analysis and among the top 25% of 
78

all Urban Areas in effectiveness of proposed solutions, was subjected to a more than 

10% decrease in funding by UASI. Moreover, my state of Texas faced even more severe cuts of 53% in funding from the State Homeland Security Grant Program 

(SHSGP) and 29% in UASI funding)Accordingly, this hearing is crucial in highlighting the Department’s ongoing failure on a wide range of issues including its inability to cogently articulate the distribution of its homeland security dollars. Moreover, the Department’s ineptitude in the grants allocation process is emblematic of 

its handling of issues vital to our nation’s security, such as disaster response, FEMA 

assistance, port and rail security, and contracting. 

As we proceed with the hearing today, I have serious concerns regarding the inadequacy of funding faced by DHS due to drastic cuts orchestrated by this Administration and Congress. One of the main reasons high risk cities have seen a cut in FY 

2006 grant funding is because hding for the UASI program was cut by $120 million, 

the SHSGP was decimated by the 50% cut of $550 million, and the Administration 

has twice attempted to eliminate the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP). 

As we struggle to ameliorate the prudence and effectiveness of the Department’s 

new allocation process, which determines the allocation of funding based on a combination of risk and anticipated effectiveness of the proposed solutions to reduce 

such risk, it is imperative that the Department work closely with these high risk 

cities and states to improve their plans to utilize DHS funds rather than simply penalizing them for the quality of their applications. 

I eagerly look forward to the testimony and discussion today, and once again, I 

appreciate all of the witnesses for appearing today. I thank the Chairman, and I 

yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. THOMPSON. I don’t have any further questions. I think Mr. 

Pascrell has some questions for the second round. 

Chairman KING. Sure, he does. Mr. Pascrell. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. Secretary, why did the administration propose cutting the entire Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, which is a 

third major area where New York and the other cities get a lot of 

money? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I will be more than happy to provide you a written response for the record, but I will tell you those 

were decisions that preceded my arrival here in this position. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Yes, because that would be quite an amount of money, too. It would be $26 million less for New York, $7 million 

less for New Jersey, and about $1.5 million less for Connecticut. 

Excuse me. Yeah. Connecticut was getting $5 million in a program. 

Now it is only getting $1 million this year. 

Many local and State officials continue complaining that they are 

kept in the dark. You have heard some comments about that today, 

Mr. Secretary, about the decisions that are made at the Department and decisions that impact upon their communities. Do you 

think—what is your opinion about this, do you think the creation 

of a first responder advisory group that could advise the Department on grants that could advise the Department on a national response plan and other issues would be useful or is that something 

that would be superfluous in your mind? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, my best guidance after having 

been brought to Washington over 25 years for discussion is whether we have a statutorily created or regulatory created group is not 

as important as whether we are having ongoing regular dialogue 

with our State and local partners. And I think the major measure 

of our success is the degree to [which this] we can get beyond reacting to the moment and sitting down and having frank discussions, 

nationwide plan review being a good example. When we released 

that information a number of folks said, gosh, it was a peer review, 
79

we understand, but you all are putting it out. Give us as much detail as you can on the front end. And that went better than this 

grant rollout, but it did not go as well as it could and it underscores the premium of that ongoing collaboration. 

Protecting America is a national effort, local, State public sector, 

private sector, and that is who needs to be at the table. 

Mr. PASCRELL. In our haste to try to demonstrate to the American people that we are doing something, that we are really protecting—helping to protect communities throughout the United 

States, I think many times we rush into those decisions and don’t 

take into account what is happening in the local level. 

They have a different approach in London. When we went—the 

chairman mentioned a little while ago—they have a different approach. This is always a bottom-up situation that I noticed in London, a very different approach to protecting their people than we 

have. We expect somebody up here is going to make all the decisions, slide them down the pole and then everybody is going to be 

protected. And that is not how it worked out at all. It is a very 

eerie feeling we have about that process, and I would ask that you 

take—at least consider that possibility of what I have just recommended and call it as you see it. 

If the goal of the Department is to quickly get the funding money 

to those on the ground that need it, and given the fact that we are 

two-thirds through this fiscal year, when do we think the funding 

is going to be released? 

Mr. FORESMAN. The funding—the UASI and the State homeland 

security grant funding? 

Mr. PASCRELL. Yes. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I don’t have a specific date but let 

me provide you a written response by the close of business tomorrow. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Well, we are two-thirds the way through the year. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PASCRELL. How did the Department of Homeland Security 

find the District of Columbia—if I am not clear on the question, 

please tell me—to be in the bottom 25 percent in terms of risk for 

the State homeland security grant program when the entire District falls within the borders of the National Capital Region which 

is deemed to be in the top 25 percent for risk as part of the UASI 

program? How did you do that? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, that points to the abnormality of 

the process. The fact that the District is considered both—

Mr. PASCRELL. The abnormality of the process? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Of a process. Let me explain to you. D.C. is the 

one city that also has State status, if you will, under these programs. So when they are competing and the reference you made is 

with regard to the State homeland security grant program. When 

they are competing, they are competing against 50 other States as 

it relates to population, population density, number of critical assets, these types of things. 

Also, remember that a large portion of this is based on the 0.75 

percent figure and 60 percent of it based on risk. So it is a simple 

fact that you are comparing a city to 50 States and six territories, 

which probably is not the best thing in the world unless you are 
80

the city here in the District of Columbia because you get to draw 

dollars both from UASI and the State homeland security grant program. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentleman has expired. You 

may ask one question. 

Mr. PASCRELL. We plebeians have a difficult time understanding 

those contradictions and those abnormalities. Really, we need to 

take a careful look at this. You have to admit, Mr. Secretary, 

through all the discussions that we have had—it is not meant to 

embarrass the Department—we have to have answers when people 

ask us about these inconsistencies. When you have a high risk but 

your program that you submitted does not show enough effectiveness, and then when we go into the effectiveness, you know, you 

are spinning. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, you make a very valid point. And 

our job, our collective job between the legislative and the executive, 

between all levels of government is to reassure the American public 

that we are doing everything we can to secure the Nation and keep 

them safe. 

Having said that, we have to make sure that the discussions that 

we have about UASI and SHSGP reflect how can we fix those 

things that are unintended consequences of our rush to put programs together several years ago, and separate what is a discussion of a communication from where we may have good things 

about programs or where we may have things about programs we 

need to fix, and we are very much committed to doing that, sir. 

Chairman KING. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Secretary, I have 

one final question. On the peer review panels, were they given access to classified intelligence to show, for instance, why a city may 

have been pursuing a specific application? In other words, were 

they able to put the application against the backdrop of specific 

threats or intelligence involving a specific city or region? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me provide a very detailed 

written response to that. But I want to give you the broad brush. 

A large part of what we asked them to do was to take the original 

strategy that was developed by the region, or in this case New 

York City, and by the State. And those strategies developed by 

those local officials and those State officials were based on their 

understanding of the threat and the risk. And so the peer review 

was assessing the investment justifications against how were they 

going to accomplish the strategies that prior to the application 

process they said they needed to do. 

So I will provide you a detailed written response, but I do not 

believe that we provided threat information and risk ranking because we simply wanted the peer review panels to look at these objectively in the context of do they make the case about how these 

dollars are going to address the strategy and reduce their risk. 

Chairman KING. The reason I ask the question—and I will be 

careful how I phrase this—there are a number of situations that 

I am aware of in New York where the police have a particular response which in the abstract may not make sense but against the 

nature of the threat that they perceive it makes a lot of sense. That 

is why I asked the question. 
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Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, I might mention, I think we 

would do well—we are asking for a nationwide threat map, a visual 

showing the more serious threats that we have experienced over 

the course of the last several years. I think this is something that 

we probably do want to get back together and show it to you all, 

not that it is going to measurably change other than to underscore 

that threats are not limited to New York City and the National 

Capital Region. 

Chairman KING. I would also say on at least one of these threats, 

it may be a threat that, at least in the eyes of New Yorkers, is not 

fully appreciated by the Federal Government but the NYPD would 

have a very good case to make why—at least in their eyes why 

they perceive it to be a threat and why certain methods are being 

used. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I might. This goes to the earlier 

question that you raised and I think Commissioner Kelly outlined 

the fact that our operational components work very closely with the 

City of New York. Our grants folks work very closely with the folks 

who do the preparation of the grant packages. We are at the stage 

where we need to make sure that the operational folks and the 

grant folks at local level, at the State level and the Federal level 

are all sitting in the rooms at the same time for these discussions. 

We are doing better. We could do much better. I want to get to the 

point where these type of discussions can occur before we get into 

the decision process. 

Chairman KING. Well, on that grand note of harmony, why don’t 

we end the hearing. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. I thank you for your testimony, and the hearing 

is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

UNDER SECRETARY GEORGE FORESMAN RESPONSES

TO THE HONORABLE BENNIE G. THOMPSON QUESTIONS

1. The ′′low-risk′′ status of some urban areas and the potential to make them ineligible for next year’s UASI (UASI) 

funding have raised what appear to be legitimate concerns 

about the underlying risk assessment. Common sense suggests that places like San Diego and Las Vegas should be eligible for some funding. For example, we understand that an 

urban area’s proximity to an international border and the 

partnership between federal, state, and local law enforcement was not a consideration, although it was for Statelevel risk. We also understand that the Department of 

Homeland Security did not consult with the Department of 

Defense to distinguish the scale, scope or value among military installations, or the municipal services that support the 

military presence, so a relatively remote National Guard 

outpost received the same weight as the nuclear ships in the 

Port of San Diego. 

Is the Department considering modifications to the risk 

assessment for next year that take such factors into account? 

Response: 

The Department will both consider the presence of international 

borders and include more Department of Defense (DoD) data into 

the risk analysis for next year. Inclusion of international borders 

will be considered as a potential factor in the formulation of Fiscal 

Year (FY) 2007 Urban Areas Security Initiative calculations. With 

respect to military installations, initial discussions were held with 

DoD prior to the calculation of the FY 2006 analysis. While these 

conversations proved useful, they were not meant to be all-inclusive or final. Discussions with DoD are continuing and some important data has already been shared by them. This new data will be 

used in the upcoming analysis. However, it must be understood 

that these anticipated modifications must be approved by DHS senior leadership prior to the final calculations, and must be consistent with the Congressional Appropriations language funding 

these grants. Rest assured we will consider the full range of valuable input presented this year.

2. Why did the Department of Homeland Security decide 

to redefine the Buffalo-Niagara UASI region to the just be 

the City of Buffalo and a ten mile buffer around the city? 

Response: 
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In order to determine eligibility for participating in the Fiscal 

Year (FY) 2006 Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), DHS identified all cities with a population greater than 100,000 and any city 

with reported threat data during the past year. Cities on that list 

with shared city boundaries were combined into a single entity for 

data count purposes. A 10-mile buffer was then drawn from the 

border of that city or combined entity to establish the geographical 

area in which data was evaluated. This enhanced approach included a broader footprint for the data analysis than previous fiscal 

years under the UASI program when only data within the city limits was captured and evaluated. In this case, Buffalo does not share 

a border with a city that has a population of over 100,000 residents. 

However, the geographical area used to determine eligibility and 

the geographical area in which the UASI program is actually implemented at the local level are two separate issues for consideration. Jurisdictions participating in the Urban Areas Security Initiative have been and continue to be responsible for defining the 

actual geographic region in which the program will be implemented. At a minimum, those areas have included a core city and 

the county in which that city was located. Many urban areas have 

expanded the region covered under program implementation to include additional cities and counties, something the City of Buffalo 

has the opportunity to do. The UASI program has historically afforded flexibility to each Urban Area to determine implementation 

structures that are sensible both programmatically and operationally. This was done in recognition of the fact that each Urban Area 

is unique and that no single structure or approach can effectively 

apply to all participants in the program nationwide. However, for 

the purpose of eligibility, DHS developed a definition of a geographic area which it believes to be fair, and which was applied 

consistently across the country.

3. Has the Department of Homeland Security declined to 

provide either unclassified or classified briefings on the 

UASI awards process to Buffalo-Niagara officials and representative from other urban areas? If not, what has been 

the delay in meeting with many of them to discuss their 

area’s risk assessment? 

Response: 

The Department has not declined unclassified or classified briefings to Buffalo-Niagara officials or representatives from other 

areas. Rather, the Department has encouraged jurisdictions to wait 

until all explanatory materials are released on the Homeland Security Grant Program allocation process to see if these materials address their questions or concerns. 

Additionally, the Department’s regionally-assigned Protective Security Advisor recently met with the Buffalo Urban Area working 

group and has begun to work with them on their concerns related 

to the Urban Areas Security Initiative program and the area’s risk 

assessment. The Department is currently working with Representative Slaughter’s office to schedule a briefing for the Buffalo delegation. Additionally, I have personally traveled to Buffalo to meet 

with area officials about their concerns.
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4. In January, the Department of Homeland Security announced that 11 urban areas did not fall within the top 35 

urban areas most in need of UASI funding. These 11 cities 

were told that they could apply for ′′sustainment funding′′ to 

allow for continuity in ongoing projects, but Buffalo-Niagara officials were given the impression that they would receive much less than FY 2005. While Buffalo did in fact receive a 48 percent cut in UASI dollars, other sustainment 

areas -- Tampa, Louisville, Sacramento, and Omaha -- received significant increases in funding. 

Can you explain why certain sustainment areas got cut 

whiles others did much better than past years? 

Response: 

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, DHS introduced a new allocation methodology for evaluating applications under the Homeland Security 

Grant Program (HSGP), including the Urban Areas Security Initiative program. The new methodology is representative of a broader 

trend within DHS to prioritize homeland security resources on the 

basis of objective measures of risk. For the first time, DHS is able 

to align HSGP resources with the National Priorities and target capabilities established by the National Preparedness Goal as well as 

jurisdictional specific strategies. 

The methodology bases HSGP allocations primarily on two factors: 

1. An analysis of relative risk to assets as well as risk to populations and geographic areas. 

2. The anticipated effectiveness of State and Urban Area grant 

proposals in addressing their identified homeland security needs. 

DHS targeted resources so as to balance protection of the areas 

of our Nation at greatest risk with support for applicants who have 

undertaken significant efforts to present effective solutions. The applications were reviewed and scored by teams of peer reviewers 

from States and Urban Areas across the Nation, who evaluated 

each applicant’s submission based on a standard set of criteria to 

determine the final effectiveness score. 

Ultimately, each applicant’s final funding allocation was determined using a combination of risk and effectiveness scores. The relative risk ranking for each Urban Area, including sustainment 

areas, may have driven part of the change. This is especially so 

when considering that the Department’s information regarding risk 

across the entire nation was far greater in FY 2006 than in prior 

years. Additionally, in FY 2006, with the introduction of investment justifications into the allocation process, Urban Areas receiving higher effectiveness scores based on the peer-review evaluation 

may have also received a larger allocation.

5. How does the Department of Homeland Security account for the fact that in some areas of the United States 

there are extremely large urban unincorporated areas or 

cities that are very large geographically? 

Response: 

In order to analyze relative risk of candidate Urban Areas and 

determine eligibility for the Urban Areas Security Initiative program, DHS utilized a multi-tier analysis which was applied consistently and uniformly across the nation. 
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This analysis began by identifying all cities with a population 

greater than 100,000 and any city with reported threat data during 

the past year. Cities on this list with shared city boundaries were 

combined into a single entity for data count purposes. A 10-mile 

buffer was then drawn from the border of that city or combined entity to establish the geographical area in which data was evaluated. 

Unincorporated areas are captured through the 10-mile buffer.

6. Does the risk analysis process take into account that 

damage to critical infrastructure outside the arbitrary 10 

mile radius can have a devastating effect on an Urban Area? 

Response: 

The risk analysis used in Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 did not take into 

account specific cascading effects based on analysis regardless of 

distance from the Urban Area or its core city. Such effects are the 

primary topic of study by the National Infrastructure Analysis and 

Simulation Center (NISAC)., Directed by the DHS Risk Management Division, NISAC is a collaborative effort between Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. NISAC 

analyses are extremely complex and require a great deal of data 

from the private sector. Partnerships with private entities and 

their sharing of data are an ongoing challenge, but are, in part, 

being addressed by the Preparedness Directorate’s Risk Analysis 

Method for Critical Asset Protection (RAMCAP) efforts. Planning 

for the FY 2007 Homeland Security Grant Program includes incorporating at least some aspects of cascading effects. However, as 

Hurricane Katrina clearly demonstrated, some limits must be 

placed on whatever data is used for such an analysis as the possibilities for data inclusion on interdependencies are potentially endless.

7. The Department of Homeland Security noted in a written response to a letter from Representative Doris O. Matsui 

(CA-05) that, ′′The Department is continuing to develop a 

more robust risk model as it gains the capabilities to increase its knowledge of interdependencies, cascading effects 

and refine data sets.′′

Since the Department of Homeland Security will begin 

evaluating risk to determine grant eligibility for the FY 2007 

program in the next few months, how does the Department 

of Homeland Security plan on creating a more robust risk 

model that takes into account interdependencies, cascading 

effects and refined data sets? 

Response: 

The Office of Grants and Training held an After Action Report 

conference in San Diego on July 11-12, which included a three-part 

session on the DHS risk analysis methodology and means to improve it. The feedback at that conference, which includes suggestions and recommendations for the grant programs, is in the process of being consolidated. Both the interdependencies and data 

quality and review by local entities were included as issues for the 

Department to address.

8. Which data and timeframe was used to evaluate threats 

to a specific urban area or state? Did the Department of 
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Homeland Security make any attempt to validate or reconcile the types of FBI investigations? 

Response: 

There were three factors used in quantifying the threats to urban 

areas and states: Intelligence Community Reporting, Suspicious 

Activity Reports, and law enforcement activity. The Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC) performed 

the analysis and had no visibility into the specifics of any law enforcement data received from the FBI, beyond the fact there was 

a terrorism nexus, however, only Full-Field Investigations were utilized. The evaluation of both the reports and law enforcement activity data covered October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005.

9. Does the Department of Homeland Security give greater 

credence and weight in the analysis model to critical infrastructure than to population and population density? 

Response: 

Neither data have greater credence. Population and population 

density are factors in what is termed the ′′geographic risk′′, and infrastructures are factors in what is termed the ′′asset risk′′. Additionally, within the consequences portion of the asset risk, human 

casualties are the most heavily weighted.

10. After all the state and urban area totals were computed, did the Department of Homeland Security take a step 

back from the empirical data and see if the resultant analysis could pass a reasonableness test? 

Response: 

In past years, DHS’ risk analysis was largely driven by both population size and density. But over time DHS has been able to develop enhanced techniques to analyze risk. In Fiscal Year 2006, the 

risk analysis considered three primary components: threat, vulnerability, and consequence. With the enhanced methodology and 

broader set of data inputs, we were able to capture a truer estimation of relative risk for all urban areas. The footprint used to 

analyze the risk to both assets as well as geographic areas and 

populations was adjusted this year. This adjustment more accurately reflects the regional context in which these jurisdictions operate and the critical infrastructure that provides higher potential 

targets and requires protecting. 

The new DHS risk analysis process incorporates the ability to assess the increase in relevant individual risk of urban communities, 

this risk in relation to other communities, and the distribution of 

risk across our entire nation. As a result of these improvements, 

many areas’ risk scores changed significantly, a reflection of an enhanced analytical approach to gauging the risk urban areas face 

relative to one another. DHS is confident the results of the analysis 

are reasonable and more accurate than prior years. We will, however, maintain a constant evaluation process to ensure results remain reasonable.

11. How does past performance in accomplishing the 

Homeland Security Grant program preparedness objectives 

influence future awards? 

Response: 
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Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 marks the first year in which states and 

urban areas applied for funding under the Homeland Security 

Grant Program by submitting an investment justification for evaluation through a peer review process. Included in those submissions was information about regionalization, impact, and the overall implementation approach for each proposed investment. Peer 

reviewers evaluated each individual investment as well as the overall portfolio of investments against specific criteria. In future years, 

DHS will look to include past performance as an element for consideration in the peer review process, allowing reviewers to evaluate the performance of investments from the FY 2006 process in 

order to better understand the scope and feasibility of related proposed investments in future years. 

12. As the Department of Homeland Security works with 

the private sector it is equally important for local authorities to play a part in any discussion on infrastructure protection and preparedness.

What is the Department of Homeland Security doing to incorporate local authorities in partnerships with private sector owners of infrastructure? 

Response: 

DHS has provided both strategic direction and programmatic 

support to encourage the coordination of State and local homeland 

security and critical infrastructure protection efforts with the private sector. This is especially evident with the release of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and the National Priorities in the National Preparedness Goal, particularly those parts 

of the goal titled Expand Regional Collaboration and Implement 

the NIPP. The NIPP, in particular, provides the unifying structure 

for the integration of existing and future critical infrastructure protection efforts and delineates roles and responsibilities for security 

partners in carrying out implementation activities. 

Further, the Department’s Infrastructure Protection Program 

grants provide a means by which State and local governments and 

private sector owners and operators can collaborate on targeted security enhancements for critical infrastructure at the local level. 

For example, port security grants, which emphasize prevention and 

detection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs), facilitate collaboration among government officials and private owners and operators on proposals for and implementation of specific projects 

that enhance security at the highest risk port areas. Similarly, in 

the case of buffer-zone protection grants, responsible local jurisdictions review and assess ways in which they can work with relevant 

Federal, State, local, tribal, and private sector agencies to coordinate their prevention and protection activities. Additionally, jurisdictions responsible for the protection of identified high priority assets and the development of the Buffer Zone Plans are required to 

coordinate their activities with the private sector, including asset 

owners and operators. 

Lastly, the Business Executives for National Security (BENS), in 

partnership with DHS’ Office of Grants & Training, have developed 

and implemented BENS Business Force Teams across the country. 

BENS Business Force Teams help build public-private partnerships 

in selected regions across the nation by connecting businesses and 
89

government officials in order to mutually support and strengthen 

homeland security efforts in the region. Each partnership is directed by its region’s government and business leaders; has membership that cuts across industry sectors and all levels of government; and implements multiple initiatives that improve prevention, 

protection, response and recovery capabilities - addressing both national and regional priorities. The BENS Business Force partnerships help fill key gaps in security by taking on initiatives that include: Business Response Network; Biological Event Preparation; 

Intelligence/Information Sharing; and Critical Infrastructure Risk 

Assessment.

13. We have heard complaints from state and local officials that the Transit and Port Security grants still aren’t 

out yet and they are not getting answers from the Department. 

If the goal of the Department is to quickly get the funding 

money to those on the ground that need it and given the 

fact that we are 2/3 through the fiscal year, when do you 

think the funding will be released? 

Response: 

Funding for these programs was announced on July 6, 2006. Applicants will have through August 4, 2006, to submit applications, 

and awards will be made no later than September 30, 2006.

14. What effort is your office making to track and monitor 

the delivery federal homeland security funds to tribal governments? What outreach efforts have your office developed 

to communicate to tribal nations about availability of homeland security grants? 

Response: 

Based on the Homeland Security Grant Program guidance, all 

state and local programs and expenditures are subject to review, 

monitoring and audit at all times. The Office of Grants and 

Training’s (G&T) preparedness officers aggressively manage the 

programs and monitor the spending of all 56 states and territories. 

All state investments and spending plans are reported to the Department through initial Investment Justification reports and monitored through biannual financial progress reports. 

G&T has a preparedness officer assigned to coordinate and liaise 

with tribal governments and communities in an effort to ensure the 

effective delivery of Homeland Security programs, technical assistance support and funds to tribal communities. To ensure full recognition of tribal needs the tribal liaison works directly with the 

assigned State preparedness officers as well as State, local and 

tribal governments to ensure the threats and risks faced by tribal 

communities are reduced and that State, regional and tribal jurisdictions are fully collaborative and coordinated. 

In addition to the appointment of a tribal liaison, the state preparedness officers conduct regular financial and programmatic reviews through frequent program office monitoring efforts and site 

visits to ensure Native American communities are equitably targeted for funding and support appropriate for the identified threats 

and risks. The preparedness officers coordinate directly with senior 

state officials to address questions or concerns when they arise. 
90

Regarding the outreach efforts, the Native American liaison has 

attended several tribal training events, conferences and focused 

meetings at every opportunity. State preparedness officers have 

also met with Tribal governments and representatives throughout 

the Country and provided focused communication dedicated to tribal leaders. G&T also reaches out to Tribal leaders and encourages 

their full participation in available conferences and training opportunities. G&T included a Tribal representative as a subject matter 

expert on Tribal issues at the FY 2006 HSGP peer review session.

15. Although many cities including New York have discussed the value of their 3-1-1 non-emergency numbers during disasters, the Department of Homeland Security has 

deemed that 3-1-1 systems were not eligible for homeland security grants. 

Can you please provide the legal or administrative basis 

for the decision? Is the Department willing to review its position on 3-1-1? 

Response: 

Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) funds are appropriated for the purpose of assisting State and local governments in 

building their capacities to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover 

from major events including acts of terrorism. In Fiscal Year (FY) 

2006, DHS has allowed grantees to leverage HSGP funds to address an ′′all-hazards′′ approach to emergency planning, response, 

and recovery. 

3-1-1 systems provide access to non-emergency services, and are 

intended to help divert routine inquiries and non-emergency concerns or complaints from the public away from the 9-1-1 emergency 

system. Examples of calls intended for 3-1-1 systems include issues 

such as debris in roadway, noise complaints, non-working street 

lights, etc. DHS continues to believe that purchase of such systems 

is considered to be outside the scope of the Homeland Security 

Grant Program as it does not enhance a jurisdiction’s ability to 

carry out any of the mission areas for which the HSGP funding is 

provided.

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