Senate showdown looms over first-responder funding

A showdown is developing in the Senate between urban and rural lawmakers who disagree over the federal government's funding formula for firefighters and other first responders.

During debate Monday on the $30.8 billion Homeland Security spending measure for fiscal 2006, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., offered legislation to revamp the formula as an amendment to the spending measure.

Collins said she was offering the legislation as an amendment because there were "no assurances" that the Senate would take it up as a standalone measure this year. Collins' panel approved her bill in April.

While Senate rules prohibit lawmakers from attaching authorizing legislation to spending measures, Collins contended the action is permitted if the House "opened the door" by authorizing the program through its spending measure. The House in May passed its spending measure for the department, which included policy provisions for the first-responder grant program.

Collins' and Lieberman's strategy prompted urban lawmakers to draft their own amendments in opposition to the proposal.

And Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., offered a CRS document showing the Collins-Lieberman bill would take more money from higher-risk states than changes to the current formula included in the spending bill.

Under the Collins-Lieberman proposal, CRS found states would receive $763 million in guaranteed funding, while the department would dole out the remaining $1.2 billion on the basis of risk and vulnerability. Under the appropriations bill, each state would receive $579 million in guaranteed funding and $1.3 billion would be allocated on the basis of risk and vulnerability.

The Bush administration earlier this year proposed an even lower minimum percentage; CRS said that formula would allocate $251 million to each state and $1.7 billion for higher risk areas.

Collins and Lieberman argued that their bill strikes a balance between providing more funding to larger, densely populated areas that are at greater risk and giving each state an adequate amount of money to prepare, prevent and respond to a terrorist attack.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., along with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Lautenberg, offered an amendment to counter the Collins-Lieberman proposal that reflects the Bush proposal. It would guarantee 0.25 percent of the $1.9 billion in homeland security funding to each state.

Currently, each state receives 0.75 percent of the funding, a formula that has been widely criticized over the last two years for allocating too much money to less-populated rural areas. The issue has prompted fiery debates between rural and urban legislators.

"Unfortunately, nearly half of this money -- bares little relation to need, vulnerability or threat," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., about the estimated $14 billion that Congress has allocated since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Senate is expected to vote on the amendments Tuesday. Several other amendments to increase funding for rail and transit security in the wake of the London bombings last week also are expected.

The White House said it supports passage of the spending measure, but warned Monday that a $257 million reduction of the Transportation Security Administration's budget would require eliminating 6,000 federal airport screeners from the payroll.