WASHINGTON-Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and 14 other senators sent a letter Monday to the Senate Budget Committee urging that it not agree with the Bush administration to cut first-responder funding.
“We urge you to continue providing each state with a minimum level of funding and reject proposals to decrease funding,” reads the letter. “The administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2006 would provide the combined State Homeland Security Grant program and the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program with only $1.02 billion, almost one-third less than last year.”
Collins has consistently called for states to receive sufficient funding for first responders. “While many large cities receive supplemental homeland-security funding,” she wrote, “most states and communities receive funding only through these important programs.”
In January, Collins introduced a bill that hopes to streamline homeland-security grants and ensure that rural states get sufficient funding.
Similar legislation was passed as an amendment to last year’s intelligence-reform bill but was stripped in the conference committee.
The bill requires states to distribute 80 percent of the money awarded within 45 days to local agencies and allows for greater flexibility to transfer the money between training, planning and equipment.
Collins also highlighted the importance of first-responder funding at a hearing Monday on the nomination of Michael Jackson to be deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
“The administration’s budget would reduce funding for our first responders to inadequate levels,” said Collins.
