Risk-Based Funding in Homeland Security Grant Legislation: Analysis of Issues for the 109th Congress
Publication Date: August 2005
Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
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Research Area: Government
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Abstract:
Conferees are expected to meet in late August or early September to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of H.R. 2360, making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the fiscal year FY2006. The House version would appropriate $2.365 billion for state and local homeland security assistance programs in FY2006; the Senate version would appropriate $2.283 billion. The House and Senate also take different approaches to allocating homeland security grants to states and territories. The House version is silent on the matter, although another House-passed bill proposes a risk-based method for allocating grants. The Senate version would provide a base to each state and territory, with the remainder of appropriations allocated based on risk. This CRS report does not address House and Senate differences in the amounts that would be appropriated for homeland security grants; it addresses selected policy questions raised by the grant allocation methods proposed in the two chambers.
Since FY2003, DHS has not allocated any federal homeland security assistance to states and localities based on risk, other than the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) program allocations. In the FY2005 DHS appropriations (P.L. 108-334), Congress directed DHS's Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP) to allocate funding for the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP), the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP), the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program (EMPG), and Citizen Corps Programs (CCP) in the same manner as the FY2004 allocations. In the absence of statutory or other congressional guidance, DHS allocated the remaining FY2005 homeland security assistance funding in direct proportion to the ratio of each state's population to the total national population.
This CRS report addresses the following three policy questions that may confront the conferees as they consider how homeland security funds are to be allocated to the states.