Homeland Security chief defends timing of communications grants

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday defended the government's timeframe for issuing nearly $1 billion in grants to bolster emergency communications.

"We've been funding these kinds of things for years," Chertoff said, noting that federal money has been flowing to build a system that can communicate across jurisdictions since 2002, one year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. "I think it would be wrong to suggest that somehow we've been sitting on our hands for five years when we've built an awful lot of this system already."

Chertoff spoke at a news conference with 11 emergency responders in the background. Under the federal program, mandated by a 2005 budget law, grants worth $968 million would be available to all states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and four U.S. territories.

"The 10 major cities do have basic interoperability," he said, noting that the national capital region already has upgraded its capabilities. Nevertheless, he conceded that the nation has not reached "perfection."

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said "billions" already have been spent, "so it's not as though this is the first time we're investing."

In an interview, Charles Werner, chief of the Charlottesville, Va., fire department, said the grants are a good start but complained that they should have been available earlier.

"You've had 9/11 occur. You've had [Hurricane] Katrina occur," Werner said. "How much more reinforcement do we need to move forward with these efforts?" He emphasized that a billion dollars "doesn't go very far" when spread across 60,000 public-safety agencies.

In a Wednesday letter to Chertoff, the National Governors Association said additional money is necessary to secure the homeland. "Unfortunately, administration budget requests and annual appropriations for core federal-state programs such as the state homeland security grant program have decreased precipitously," the governors wrote.

They urged him to support increased funding in the fiscal 2009 federal budget for the initiative, which funds equipment, exercises, planning and training. During a separate afternoon briefing, Chertoff announced $1.7 billion in additional grants, including a little more than a half-billion dollars for the state program.

John Kneuer, chief of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said the $968 million would help states achieve a "baseline" level of interoperability. Gutierrez said the resources would enable state and local safety agencies to "fill interoperability gaps."

States and cities will use the funds to retrofit existing equipment, acquire new devices and conduct training for the nation's 2.5 million emergency responders about the frequencies, codes, terms and language to use during emergencies.

Chertoff said both departments have been working extensively with state authorities to identify equipment shortfalls and other problems. By the end of 2008, he predicted, "there is no reason that every major city in every state should not be at baseline or better interoperability."