Fiscal Year 2005 Homeland Security Grant Program: State Allocations and Issues for Congressional Oversight

Publication Date: April 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

The Office for Domestic Preparedness, within the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for directing and supervising federal terrorism preparedness grants for states and localities. Prior to FY2005, the Office for Domestic Preparedness offered that assistance through six separate grant programs. Some state and local officials, however, criticized the fragmentation of homeland security assistance and recommended streamlining the grant process. Subsequently, the Office for Domestic Preparedness recommended and — pursuant to Section 872 of the Homeland Security Act (P.L. 107-296), which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security Secretary "to allocate, reallocate, and consolidate functions and organization units within the Department" — former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge approved consolidating the separate programs into a single Homeland Security Grant Program. Within the consolidated program, however, the six types of assistance continue to have their separate identities and funding allocations as "sub-grants." As a whole, the Homeland Security Grant Program provides assistance for a wide range of eligible activities, among which are planning, training, equipment acquisition, and exercises. To fund the program, Congress appropriated approximately $2.5 billion for FY2005, roughly $600,000 less than for the programs in FY2004.

This CRS report, which will be updated, summarizes key provisions of the FY2005 program guidance, with special attention to differences from the FY2003 and FY2004 editions. Among those differences are the following: consolidation of previously separate grant programs; specific application requirements for the Homeland Security Grant Program sub-grants; provisions for citizen and private sector involvement; authorization of operational overtime costs associated with Homeland Security Advisory System threat levels; guidance for critical infrastructure protection and border security; and streamlined grant administration based on recommendations of the Department of Homeland Security Task Force on State and Local Homeland Security Funding.

This report also discusses issues regarding methods used to allocate federal homeland security assistance and authorized expenditures of homeland security assistance programs, and it analyzes options Congress might consider for resolving those issues. Tables included in the report present comparative data on federal homeland security assistance to states and localities.