D.C., New York Get Biggest Increases in Counterterrorism Aid

In New York, funding increased $10 million, to $134 million, yet remained 37 percent below its 2005 peak, prompting renewed complaints from lawmakers. Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) called the process "indefensible" and said "vulnerabilities exist everywhere, but real threats do not." Like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R), she urged Congress to endorse strictly risk-based funding.

Chertoff responded in the interview that "for the people who say, 'No, you should move more money around the pie,' I want them to tell me what cities to cut. . . . Maybe Congress wants to go down that road and say, 'We're going to put it all in six cities.' I think that would be a mistake."

Chertoff noted that terrorists in last month's failed car-bomb attacks in Britain targeted not just London but also much smaller Glasgow, Scotland. He also cited the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the disrupted millennium bomb plot against Los Angeles International Airport, and recent arrests in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami and Trenton, N.J., as examples of terrorist plotting outside of cities attacked on Sept. 11.

"People say, 'Well isn't most of the threat, all the threat in New York?' . . . The answer is no, it's not," Chertoff said. "If we put all the money there, we'd be inviting people to attack second-level cities."

The DHS grants are meant to be used to buy equipment for first responders, improve detection systems, and pay for planning, training and exercises. DHS has been keen to finance fusion centers and an expanded surveillance camera program in New York that is similar to ones in Chicago and Washington.

Separately, DHS and the Commerce Department announced $1 billion in grants yesterday to fix longtime emergency communication problems underscored by troubled responses to the 2001 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The District will receive about $12 million; Virginia, $25 million; and Maryland, $23 million.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairman of a House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, called the dispersal of such communications grants "totally unacceptable" and said they should be focused on a few at-risk areas. Other critics noted that the Bush administration had financed these grants by reducing other homeland security grants.

"Scattering these grants around the country . . . may help some jurisdictions buy a few new radios. It may thus make good politics. But it will not cover the targeted investments required for true national interoperability," she said.

DHS officials said that they also expect to award most of $255 million for new transit, ports and catastrophe planning, and that the grants will be financed by supplemental or other budget legislation to be allocated to Washington and other high-risk areas.

Under a separate $509 million awarded yesterday through the State Homeland Security Grant Program, the District will receive $6 million; Maryland, $12 million; and Virginia, $14 million, each an increase of about 50 percent.