By Laura DeKoven Waxman
March 5, 2012

“The FY 2012 homeland security grants are focused on mitigating and responding to the evolving threats we face while beginning to transition to the new vision set forth in the President’s FY 2013 Budget focused on building and sustaining the core capabilities outlined in the National Preparedness Goal,” commented Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in her Department’s February 17 release of its FY 2012 grant guidance and application kits.

Napolitano was referring to the proposal in the President’s Budget to consolidate and restructure what it calls “duplicative” FEMA Grant Programs and accelerate expenditures of already-awarded grants. The budget proposes a total of $2.9 billion for state and local program, nearly $500 million more than is available this year, to be distributed on the basis of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. Within this, $1.54 billion would go to a new National Preparedness Grant Program, $670 million would go to firefighter assistance grants, and $350 million would go to Emergency Management Performance Grants.

The new National Preparedness Grant Program would be a mix of formula grants to the states intended to sustain current activities including some Urban Area Security Initiative grants, and competitive grants to states and regions for specific policy areas, including critical infrastructure, counterterrorism, and transportation. The proposal, which would require legislation, would eliminate current separate programs including state homeland security grants, UASI, transportation and infrastructure protection (rail, port, bus), urban search and rescue, medical surge grants (MMRS), citizen corps, Operation StoneGarden, and the pre-disaster mitigation fund. There would be no requirement in the formula grants program that states pass through a portion of the funds to local governments.

Funding for the various DHS preparedness grant programs included in this year’s guidance totals $1.37 billion, nearly $1 billion less than was available last year. “Given the significant reduction in grant funding this year, we are maximizing limited grant dollars by setting clear priorities and focusing on the areas that face the greatest risk,” Napolitano explained.

Following are DHS’s brief description of each program and its allocation:

• Homeland Security Grant Program – $830 million for states and urban areas to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism and other threats.

• State Homeland Security Program – $294 million to support the implementation of state homeland security strategies to build and strengthen preparedness capabilities at all levels, with at least. 25 percent of the funds dedicated to law enforcement terrorism prevention activities.

• Urban Areas Security Initiative – more than $490 million to enhance regional preparedness and capabilities in 31 high-threat, high-density areas, with at least. 25 percent of the funds dedicated to law enforcement terrorism prevention activities.

• Operation Stonegarden – more than $46 million to enhance cooperation and coordination among federal, state, territorial, tribal and local law enforcement agencies to jointly enhance security along the United States land and water borders.

• Emergency Management Performance Grants Program – more than $339 million to assist state and local governments in enhancing and sustaining all-hazards emergency management capabilities.

• Nonprofit Security Grant Program – $10 million to support target hardening and other physical security enhancements for nonprofit organizations determined to be at high risk of a terrorist attack and located within one of the FY 2012 UASI-eligible urban areas.

• Intercity Passenger Rail (Amtrak) Program – $10 million to protect critical surface transportation infrastructure and the traveling public from terrorism and increase the resilience of the Amtrak rail system.

• Port Security Grant Program – more than $97 million to help protect critical port infrastructure from terrorism, enhance maritime domain awareness and strengthen risk management capabilities in order to protect against improvised explosive devices and other non-conventional weapons.

• Transit Security Grant Program – more than $87 million to owners and operators of transit systems to protect critical surface transportation and the traveling public from acts of terrorism and to increase the resilience of transit infrastructure.

All preparedness grant applications are due no later than May 4. Information, which includes specific state and local allocations, is at http://www.fema.gov/pdf/government/grant/2012/fy12_overview.pdf.