U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) is optimistic that the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act – which passed the House of Representatives on Thursday night – will benefit New Jersey by allowing a more risk based spending formula. The bill, which provides homeland security funding for fiscal year 2006, will for the first time allow the Bush Administration – namely Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff – to distribute the majority of first responder grants based on the risk of terrorism. 

    Smith said that the bill will provide a total of $3.3 billion to first responders and $1.715 billion in grants. He noted that while the mandated minimum amount of grants that each state will receive remains the same as previous years (.75 percent of total dollars, or $370.5 million), it gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Secretary Chertoff the authority to distribute the remaining amount of first responder funds based on the risk, including terrorism ($1.445 billion). In this formula, the amount of funding based on risk would account for 78.4 of the total allocation.

    “New Jersey’s delegation has consistently argued that the Department of Homeland Security’s first responder grant system was flawed and needed to focus on critical infrastructure and risk rather than a simple population count,” said Smith. “This bill finally begins to move more homeland security funding to the first responders and people who need it most, those facing the highest risk.” 

    The September 11 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 (H.R. 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. 

    On November 17, the General Accountability Office will report the risk criteria used by DHS to Congress, at which time New Jersey’s assessment should become more evident. Smith noted that in the interim, it is essential to make clear to DHS the significant risks that New Jersey faces and urge DHS to attribute significant value to known targets, and ongoing surveillance and investigations in a given area.

    “It is critical for the safety of the people of New Jersey and the United States that the Department of Homeland Security thoroughly and accurately evaluates the risks that New Jersey faces and assesses it properly,” said Smith. “We are requesting that Secretary Chertoff meet with us to ensure that DHS fully considers and accesses the multitude of real and known threats within our state. The federal government has a responsibility to help the state as it works to secure points of vulnerability.”

    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 11^th 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.