DHS chief defends level of federal support for firefighting

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday defended how much funding the Bush administration provides firefighters and first responders across the country, saying the fires in California show the need to be prepared for all hazards.

"We live in tough budget times," Chertoff told a conference of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Washington. Chertoff was responding to a question from the former chief of the association, John Buckman, who asked why the administration has not increased firefighter assistance grants in recent years.

Chertoff said fire departments can tap money from other grant programs, such as the state homeland security grant program.

"While I understand that sometimes these grant levels aren't even, what I encourage fire departments to do is to look at the whole range of grants," Chertoff said. "Don't assume that you're only eligible for or limited to the assistance for firefighter grants, although those are obviously dedicated. There are a wide range of grants."

Buckman told CongressDaily that fire grants are the only direct grants that fire departments can use to buy safety equipment and firefighting apparatus. "The homeland security grants are highly restrictive in what you can buy," he said. "I understand we're at war," Buckman added, but he said fire departments do not have as much funding from the federal government as they need.

The Bush administration and Congress have fought a pitched battle for years over funding for firefighter assistance grants. For at least two years in a row, the Bush administration requested $300 million for the grant program, most recently in its fiscal 2008 budget request.

Congress is poised to increase that, as the House version of the fiscal 2008 Homeland Security appropriations bill would allocate $800 million for the program and the Senate version would provide $700 million. Bush has threatened a veto if either bill reaches his desk, saying their overall spending levels are too high.

In his remarks Friday, Chertoff said the federal government has provided about $2.4 billion to first responders, including fire departments, since 2000. He said the outbreak of fires in California show that first responders need to be prepared to respond to all types of hazards.

"Look at the fires we're fighting right now. Some of them are natural in origin. Some of them appear to be man-made in origin," he told the association. "You know the truth is, the fire burns just as hot and the deaths are just as real whether or not an individual started the fire or whether a downed power line from a lightening strike started the fire. And the response is pretty much the same. So we have to look across the entire spectrum and not be divided among ourselves depending on whether something is a terrorist act or criminal act or act of God."

He said his department recently issued a draft national response framework to give public officials across the country "a unified command system and incident management system" to deal with 15 different crises scenarios. "We have to have to have the ability to adjust, adapt, prepare and train and exercise for any one of the whole hosts of incidents," he said.