Congress has enacted legislation and appropriated grant funding to states and localities for homeland security purposes since 1996. One of the first programs to provide this type of funding was the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Program which was established by Congress in the 1996 Department of Defense Reauthorization Act and provided assistance to over 150 cities for biological, chemical, and nuclear security. Providing homeland security assistance to states and localities was arguably spurred by the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress increased focus on state and local homeland security assistance by, among other things, establishing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and authorizing DHS to administer federal homeland security grant programs. This report focuses on the department's homeland security assistance programs for states and localities, but not the department as a whole. With the increase of international and domestic terrorist threats and attacks against the United States following the end of the Cold War, and the termination of the old federal civil defense programs, a number of policy questions arose regarding homeland security assistance programs. The majority of these questions have not been completely addressed, even though Congress has debated and enacted legislation that provides homeland security assistance to states and localities since 1996. The number and purpose of programs, their administration, and funding levels have evolved over the past 20 years. These programs are intended to enhance and maintain state, local, and nonfederal or nongovernmental entity homeland security and emergency management capabilities. These grants were administered by numerous offices and agencies and include the Office for Domestic Preparedness which was within the Border and Transportation Security Directorate; Office for State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness which was within the Office of the Secretary; Office for Grants and Training which was within the Preparedness Directorate; and Grants Programs Directorate within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Over the course of DHS's administration of the preparedness grant programs, the programs' eligible uses also evolved. Initially, DHS preparedness grant program funding could not be used for state and local law enforcement personnel costs such as overtime, but for the past couple of fiscal years, states and localities can fund law enforcement personnel overtime using this money. This guidance change is a combination of DHS's evaluation of risks and threats and at the request of states and localities. The 'high-water' amount of funding peaked in approximately FY2009, with the following fiscal years seeing a slight but consistent decline in program funding that may be attributed to the policy concept of only needing to maintain previously established state and local homeland security capabilities. This report provides a brief summary of the development of DHS's role in providing homeland security assistance, a summary of the current homeland security programs managed by DHS, and a discussion of the following policy questions: (1) the purpose and number of programs; (2) the use of homeland security assistance program funding; and (3) the funding amounts for the programs. In 1996, Congress enacted the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act (known as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act). This law, among other things, established the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Program (NLD) and was intended to provide financial assistance to major U.S. metropolitan statistical areas. This assistance, with the Oklahoma City bombing being the primary catalyst, was focused on assisting first responders to prepare for, prevent, and respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Initially, the Department of Defense (DOD) was responsible for administering NLD, but, in 1998, NLD was transferred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) which then established the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP) to administer NLD, and other activities that enhanced state and local emergency response capabilities. Initially, forty cities had received funding by 1998, and by 2001, 120 cities had received assistance. The NLD ended in 2001 with a total of 157 cities receiving training and funding for personal protective equipment. ODP was transferred to DHS with enactment of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Initially, ODP and its terrorism preparedness programs were administered by the Border and Transportation Security Directorate, and all-hazard preparedness programs were in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). ODP and all preparedness assistance programs were transferred to the Office of the Secretary in DHS in 2004. After investigations into the problematic response to Hurricane Katrina, the programs were transferred to the National Preparedness Directorate. Currently all programs and activities are administered by the Grants Program Directorate (GPD) within FEMA. Figure 1 provides a graphical representation of the historical development of the administration of federal homeland security assistance from 1996 to present. Since the establishment of DHS, the department has not only been responsible for preparing for and responding to terrorist attacks, it is also the lead agency for preparing for, responding to, and recovering from any accidental man-made or natural disasters. P.L. 110-53 , Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, authorized a number of the DHS grants and mandated some of their allocation methodologies. This legislation was a result of numerous years of debate on how DHS should allocate homeland security assistance funding to states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. insular areas. In FY2003, DHS administered 8 homeland security grant programs, and there are now 10 in FY2016. DHS administered as many as 15 programs in FY2010. The following section summarizes the 10 programs and activities that are currently administered by DHS. This report uses DHS documents to summarize the programs. This report is not intended to provide in-depth information on these grants. For detailed information on individual grant programs, see the cited sources. All 10 programs administered by FEMA's Grants Program Directorate (GPD) are preparedness (non-disaster) grants. These programs specifically "provide state and local governments with preparedness program funding in the form of non-disaster grants to enhance the capacity of state and local emergency responders to prevent, respond to, and recover from a weapons of mass destruction terrorism incident involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive devices, and cyber-attacks." EMPG is intended to provide federal funds to states to assist state, local, territorial, and tribal governments in preparing for all hazards. These funds are to provide a system of emergency preparedness for the "protection of life and property in the United States from hazards and to vest responsibility for emergency preparedness jointly in the Federal Government, states, and their political subdivisions." The EMPG's priority is to support the implementation of the National Preparedness System. HSGP supports state and local activities to prevent terrorism and other catastrophic events and to prepare for threats and hazards that pose the "greatest" risk to the nation's security. HSGP is comprised of three grant programs—State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSP), Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), and Operation Stonegarden (OPSG). SHSP assists state, tribal, and local governments with preparedness activities that address high-priority preparedness gaps across all preparedness core capabilities where a nexus to terrorism exists. Jurisdictions need core capabilities that are "flexible" and determine how to apply resources to prepare to respond to specific threats to specific jurisdictions. Communities need preparedness capabilities to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk. All federal investments are based on capability targets and gaps identified during the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) process, and assessed in the State Preparedness Report (SPR). THIRA is a four-step common risk assessment process that assists individuals, businesses, faith-based organizations, nonprofit groups, schools and academia, and all levels of government to understand its risks and estimate capability requirements. SPR is a self-assessment of a jurisdiction's current capability levels against the capability targets identified in its THIRA. UASI assists high-threat, high-density urban areas to build and sustain the capabilities necessary to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks. Federal UASI investments are based on UASI recipients' THIRA. OPSG supports enhanced cooperation and coordination among Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), and local, tribal, territorial, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. OPSG provides funding for investments in joint efforts to secure the nation's borders along routes of ingress from international borders to include travel corridors in states bordering Mexico and Canada, as well as states and territories with international water borders. IBSGP supports transportation infrastructure security activities that strengthen against risks associated with potential terrorist attacks. Federal funding for IBSGP supports critical infrastructure hardening and other physical security enhancements to intercity bus operators serving the nation's highest-risk metropolitan areas. IPR supports the nation's rail system by providing funds for activities that prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks. Examples of this support are building and sustaining emergency management capabilities, protection of high-risk and high-consequence underwater and underground rail assets, and emergency preparedness drills and exercises. NSGP provides funding support for target hardening and other physical security enhancements to non-profit organizations that are at high risk of a terrorist attack and located within one of the FY2015 UASI-designated urban areas. The program intends to promote emergency preparedness coordination and collaboration activities between public and private community representatives as well as state and local government agencies. PSGP supports efforts to build and sustain National Preparedness Goal core capabilities across the Goal's mission areas, with specific focus on addressing the nation's maritime ports' security needs.