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Legislation & Politics | ||
AFSCME's Position – Homeland SecurityBACKGROUND Since September 11, state and local governments have incurred substantial costs to protect the public against terrorist attacks and to safeguard the nation’s infrastructure. New security needs have compelled state and local governments to invest in equipment and training to increase the capacity of first responders to prevent and respond to terrorist events and to expand and intensify the deployment of law enforcement personnel to safeguard critical infrastructure, including water supplies, power plants, airports, seaports, mass transit, railways and roadways. While improvements have been made in shoring up the nation’s capacity to respond to threats, our communities continue to be ill-prepared. Strong and sustained federal support is necessary to reduce our vulnerabilities and to provide the resources that first responders need to do their work effectively and safely. Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed that the nation is also ill-prepared to respond to large scale natural disasters. Four years after 9/11 demonstrated the need for interoperable communications equipment, police, fire, emergency medical workers and other disaster workers in the Gulf experienced a breakdown in communications similar to that experienced at Ground Zero. Years of downsizing government and the more recent effort to downgrade the federal role in disaster management caused state and local governments to be overwhelmed and the federal government to be inadequate in its response to Katrina. SUMMARY OF LEGISLATION Compared with the need, the federal government has made only modest investments in homeland security and disaster preparedness since September 11. Spending to safeguard critical infrastructure has also been inadequate, especially with respect to mass transit, on which 14 million Americans rely each day for transportation needs. A 2003 report by the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that federal, state and local spending on critical emergency responder and public health needs should be increased by $98.4 billion over five years in order to protect the public. Such an increase requires large and sustained federal increases in funding to state and local governments. In the years immediately following 9/11, modest increases were made in homeland security. However, more recently the President and congressional leaders have cut first responder grants. Funding for state and local first responders for the fiscal year that began October 1, 2006 was $750 million less than the amount of funding provided three years ago. Despite the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the London subway bombings, the President and his allies in Congress continue to resist dedicating the resources needed to make the public safe. AFSCME POSITION AFSCME believes state and local governments need substantial assistance to meet the challenges of homeland security and disaster preparedness and that federal funding for first responders must be substantially increased, not cut. WHAT YOU CAN DO Contact your Senators and Representative and let them know you support additional assistance to meet the challenges of homeland security. Tell them that Congress must increase grants to provide equipment and training to first responders and to help pay for increased costs related to safeguarding critical infrastructure. Department of Legislation October 2006 |
Raymond Summers
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