By Laura DeKoven Waxman
June 4, 2012

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have reported out FY 2013 homeland security spending bills that reject, at least for next year, FEMA’s proposal to scrap all of the existing homeland security grant programs and replace them with a new state-centric National Preparedness Grant Program. The Senate committee reported out its bill May 22; the House committee did so on May 16. The House bill is expected to be considered on the floor in June.

The Conference of Mayors strongly opposed the National Preparedness Grant Program proposal. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, Chair of the Conference’s Criminal and Social Justice Committee, led a March 19 conference call with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in which she, Conference Vice President Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Conference Second Vice President Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, and CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran raised concerns with the proposal. The next day Mayor Nutter testified in opposition to the proposal before the House Homeland Security Committee. Conference staff participated in numerous meetings on the subject and helped to spearhead a joint effort challenging the proposal by 12 national groups representing local elected officials, emergency managers, major city police chiefs, sheriffs, and the major fire service organizations.

The Senate Committee report states that "the reform proposal in the budget leaves key questions unanswered such as, how risk assessments will be used in determining the distribution of resources, and to whom Federal resources will be allocated." It directs the Secretary of Homeland Security and FEMA Administrator "to refine the proposal and include enough detail for the appropriate committees of jurisdiction and the general public to understand: how funds will be allocated; to whom; and for what purpose" in time to be considered as part of the FY 2014 budget process. During the subcommittee markup Subcommittee Chairman Mary Landrieu (LA) referred to a letter from the 12 national organizations expressing concern with the proposal.

The House Committee report similarly denies the proposal "due to the lack of Congressional authorization and the lack of the necessary details that are required for the initiation of a new program to include grant guidance and implementation plans." It instructs the Department to "work with the appropriate committees of jurisdiction to obtain the necessary authorizing legislation and to clearly define the Federal role and reassess the most effective delivery of support and resources to sustain and improve homeland security capabilities prior to submitting a budget request for such a program. Additionally, the draft report comments that the Committee "met with and heard testimony from numerous stakeholders that expressed concern not just with the grant proposal but also with the lack of stakeholder outreach prior to the program’s introduction."

For the current fiscal year Congress provided the Department of Homeland Security $1.04 billion to allocate among the various homeland security grant programs according to threat, vulnerability, and consequence. The House bill would continue providing that discretion to the Secretary; the Senate bill would make specific allocations among the programs. The House bill would provide a total of $1.53 billion for these programs; the Senate bill would provide $1.41 billion. The table below shows the funding level (in millions of dollars) for key state and local homeland security programs. DHS’s allocations among the programs this year are shown in parenthesis.