IB 
Union Calendar No. 32 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1544 
[Report No. 109–65] 
To provide faster and smarter funding for first responders, and for other 
purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 12, 2005 
Mr. COX (for himself, Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. YOUNG of Alaska, 
Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of Cali-
fornia, Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. SHAYS, Mr. 
DICKS, Mr. KING of New York, Ms. HARMAN, Mr. LINDER, Mrs. LOWEY, 
Mr. SOUDER, Ms. NORTON, Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia, Ms. ZOE 
LOFGREN of California, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Ms. 
JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. GIBBONS, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. SIM-
MONS, Mr. ETHERIDGE, Mr. ROGERS of Alabama, Mr. LANGEVIN, Mr. 
PEARCE, Mr. MEEK
of Florida, Ms. HARRIS, Mr. JINDAL, Mr. 
REICHERT, Mr. MCCAUL of Texas, Mr. DENT, and Mr. DEFAZIO) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Home-
land Security 
APRIL 28, 2005 
Additional sponsors: Mr. PRICE of Georgia, Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN, Mr. 
OWENS, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. BISHOP of Geor-
gia, Mr. BERMAN, and Mr. WEXLER, 
APRIL 28, 2005 
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic] 
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on April 12, 2005] 
A BILL 
To provide faster and smarter funding for first responders, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Faster and Smarter 
Funding for First Responders Act of 2005’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) In order to achieve its objective of preventing, 
minimizing the damage from, and assisting in the re-
covery from terrorist attacks, the Department of 
Homeland Security must play a leading role in as-
sisting communities to reach the level of preparedness 
they need to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack. 
(2) First responder funding is not reaching the 
men and women of our Nation’s first response teams 
quickly enough, and sometimes not at all. 
(3) To reform the current bureaucratic process so 
that homeland security dollars reach the first respond-
ers who need it most, it is necessary to clarify and
consolidate the authority and procedures of the De-
partment of Homeland Security that support first re-
sponders. 
(4) Ensuring adequate resources for the new na-
tional mission of homeland security, without degrad-
ing the ability to address effectively other types of 
major disasters and emergencies, requires a discrete 
and separate grant making process for homeland se-
curity funds for first response to terrorist acts, on the 
one hand, and for first responder programs designed 
to meet pre-September 11 priorities, on the other. 
(5) While a discrete homeland security grant 
making process is necessary to ensure proper focus on 
the unique aspects of terrorism preparedness, it is es-
sential that State and local strategies for utilizing 
such grants be integrated, to the greatest extent prac-
ticable, with existing State and local emergency man-
agement plans. 
(6) Homeland security grants to first responders 
must be based on the best intelligence concerning the 
capabilities and intentions of our terrorist enemies, 
and that intelligence must be used to target resources 
to the Nation’s greatest threats, vulnerabilities, and 
consequences.
(7) The Nation’s first response capabilities will 
be improved by sharing resources, training, planning, 
personnel, and equipment among neighboring juris-
dictions through mutual aid agreements and regional 
cooperation. Such regional cooperation should be sup-
ported, where appropriate, through direct grants from 
the Department of Homeland Security. 
(8) An essential prerequisite to achieving the Na-
tion’s homeland security objectives for first responders 
is the establishment of well-defined national goals for 
terrorism preparedness. These goals should delineate 
the essential capabilities that every jurisdiction in the 
United States should possess or to which it should 
have access. 
(9) A national determination of essential capa-
bilities is needed to identify levels of State and local 
government terrorism preparedness, to determine the 
nature and extent of State and local first responder 
needs, to identify the human and financial resources 
required to fulfill them, to direct funding to meet 
those needs, and to measure preparedness levels on a 
national scale. 
(10) To facilitate progress in achieving, main-
taining, and enhancing essential capabilities for 
State and local first responders, the Department of
Homeland Security should seek to allocate homeland 
security funding for first responders to meet nation-
wide needs. 
(11) Private sector resources and citizen volun-
teers can perform critical functions in assisting in 
preventing and responding to terrorist attacks, and 
should be integrated into State and local planning ef-
forts to ensure that their capabilities and roles are 
understood, so as to provide enhanced State and local 
operational capability and surge capacity. 
(12) Public-private partnerships, such as the 
partnerships between the Business Executives for Na-
tional Security and the States of New Jersey and 
Georgia, can be useful to identify and coordinate pri-
vate sector support for State and local first respond-
ers. Such models should be expanded to cover all 
States and territories. 
(13) An important aspect of terrorism prepared-
ness is measurability, so that it is possible to deter-
mine how prepared a State or local government is 
now, and what additional steps it needs to take, in 
order to prevent, prepare for, respond to, mitigate 
against, and recover from acts of terrorism. 
(14) The Department of Homeland Security 
should establish, publish, and regularly update na-
tional voluntary consensus standards for both equip-
ment and training, in cooperation with both public 
and private sector standard setting organizations, to 
assist State and local governments in obtaining the 
equipment and training to attain the essential capa-
bilities for first response to acts of terrorism, and to 
ensure that first responder funds are spent wisely. 
SEC. 3. FASTER AND SMARTER FUNDING FOR FIRST RE-
SPONDERS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Homeland Security Act of 
2002 (Public Law 107–296; 6 U.S.C. 361 et seq.) is amend-
ed— 
(1) in section 1(b) in the table of contents by 
adding at the end the following: 
‘‘TITLE XVIII—FUNDING FOR FIRST RESPONDERS 
‘‘Sec. 1801. Definitions. 
‘‘Sec. 1802. Faster and Smarter Funding for First Responders. 
‘‘Sec. 1803. Covered grant eligibility and criteria. 
‘‘Sec. 1804. Risk-based evaluation and prioritization. 
‘‘Sec. 1805. Task Force on Terrorism Preparedness for First Responders. 
‘‘Sec. 1806. Use of funds and accountability requirements. 
‘‘Sec. 1807. National standards for first responder equipment and training.’’ 
(2) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘TITLE XVIII—FUNDING FOR 
FIRST RESPONDERS 
‘‘SEC. 1801. DEFINITIONS. 
‘‘In this title: