U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) praised the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for linking federal grant money to risk and threat assessments. Earlier this morning, the DHS announced that $765 million in funding for high threat urban areas as part of the fiscal year 2006 Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) would be made available to help cities and communities prepare for the possibility of a terrorist attack. The initiative will provide funds for equipment, training, and exercises for higher threat areas.
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) praised the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for linking federal grant money to risk and threat assessments. Earlier this morning, the DHS announced that $765 million in funding for high threat urban areas as part of the fiscal year 2006 Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) would be made available to help cities and communities prepare for the possibility of a terrorist attack. The initiative will provide funds for equipment, training, and exercises for higher threat areas.
As the Dean of the New Jersey Congressional Delegation, Smith has helped lead the effort to ensure that the DHS awards homeland security grants to states and first responders based on the assets, threat assessments and the risks citizens and visitors face. In 2003, when DHS released its first round of grants from its Urban Area Security Initiative, which was supposed to be based purely on risk assessment, New Jersey was cut out because that formula did not account for areas other than cities. Smith arranged a full delegation meeting with then Undersecretary of Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson, the New Jersey consolidated metropolitan area – including Newark, Jersey City and six contiguous counties – was created.
“We have consistently argued that the Department of Homeland Security’s grant system was flawed and needed to focus on critical infrastructure and risk rather than a simple population count, so Secretary Chertoff’s announcement is a big step in the right direction, said Smith.
“Finally, more homeland security funding will be made available to the people who need it most, those facing the highest risk.”
The September 11
th Commission recommended in its final report that all funding be made risk based, and Smith noted that the House of Representatives quickly passed a separate bill (HR 1544) that would have followed that guidance. “Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities,” concluded the Commission. Unfortunately, the House passed bill – which would have greatly benefited New Jersey – died in the Senate.
“Today’s announcement sends a message to all of my colleagues in Congress that homeland security is a top priority and must not be turned into pork barrel projects,” Smith said.
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, and faces substantial risks different from most other states:
- It is home to at least a dozen of the nation’s sites that have already been placed on the FBI’s “National Critical Infrastructure Site” list.
- New Jersey has an unparalleled collection of infrastructure of all types located within densely populated areas, including facilities (chemical plants and transportation nodes) that have been documented by intelligence gained from al Qaeda operatives as compelling targets. The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that New Jersey has 11 separate sites where a chemical release could poison more than 1 million people.
- Wall Street and other financial services firms have offices throughout Newark, Jersey City and Hoboken.
- Atlantic City has the second highest concentration of casinos in the country.
- New Jersey has long been a corridor for terrorist activity and critical threats remain: The plot to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 was hatched in New Jersey by terrorists who lived here and purchased their lethal chemicals here. Islamic radicals who later targeted the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, Federal Plaza, and the United Nations resided in New Jersey and were busted (many now serving life sentences) by members of a New Jersey/New York joint terrorism task force. Thirteen of the nineteen September 11th hijackers passed through New Jersey prior to the attacks. Members of the terrorist cell that hijacked American Airlines Flight #77 resided in New Jersey for several months before the attacks. According to the FBI, a number of the hijackers obtained identification documentation in New Jersey, had bank accounts here, and held their planning meetings in our state.
- The anthrax attacks, which terrorized the nation and closed the post office in Hamilton, were launched in New Jersey.
- The security and safety of New York City, New Jersey and the nation are inextricably intertwined. Our first responders (fire, EMT and police) have had a mutual aid pact with their counterparts in New York City since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Parts of New Jersey are closer to Ground Zero than are some parts of the city itself and the two states are connected by roads, tunnels, bridges, ferries, trains, seaports, and airports. Overall there are 450,000 people who commute to lower Manhattan each day. Each year, 212 million vehicles traverse our states' tunnels, bridges and ferries which must be protected by both New Jersey and New York.
- Of the three area airports, the busiest by far is Newark International Airport -- in New Jersey. Nearly 60 percent of all containerized maritime cargo handled by all North Atlantic ports goes through the Port of New York/New Jersey and the vast majority of the cargo flows through New Jersey's docks and onto our rails and roads.
- In the summer of 2004, Newark was one of three locations (New York City and Washington, DC) that was placed on Orange Alert for a possible terrorist attack after the Department of Homeland Security announced that intelligence suggested that the Prudential building in downtown Newark could be a target.