Outside the Beltway

TERRORISM MONEY FUNDS PET PROJECTS

James Joyner · Sunday, November 23, 2003 · 2 comments

I’m no longer shocked by these stories, but it’s still amazing: WaPo

Two years after Congress approved a massive infusion of cash to help gird the Washington area against terrorism, much of the $324 million remains unspent or is funding projects with questionable connections to homeland security.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, lawmakers doled out the money quickly, with few restrictions and vague guidelines. Left to interpret needs on their own — and with little regional coordination — cash-strapped local and state officials plugged budget holes, spent millions on pet projects and steered contracts to political allies.

The District funded a politically popular jobs program, outfitted police with leather jackets and assessed environmental problems on property prime for redevelopment. In Maryland, the money is buying Prince George’s County prosecutors an office security system. In Virginia, a small volunteer fire department spent $350,000 on a custom-made fire boat. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments used some of the money for janitorial services.

The Washington Post traced the path of the region’s first wave of homeland security aid from its distribution through its final use, a trail that has been largely unexamined by federal regulators. The analysis included a review of contracts, grant proposals and purchasing databases obtained through open records laws as well as more than 100 interviews.

This is just another example of how randomly throwing money at problems is rather inefficient. While a lot of this money has indeed helped improve security, much it it has gone for things that should be funded entirely by localities.

Police, firefighters and public health workers have undergone disaster training and are better equipped to handle conventional attacks and weapons of mass destruction. They have more gear to protect them, more ambulances and firetrucks and more heavy equipment to defuse bombs or locate victims buried beneath rubble. Local governments have at their disposal new blueprints on how to respond to a terrorist attack.

But critical needs remain unaddressed, according to federal assessments and interviews. Many of the region’s hospitals are already strained and, without adding beds and personnel, would be overwhelmed if thousands needed medical attention in an emergency. In the District, hospital officials estimate that just 400 beds could be freed in a disaster.

Some police officers are still waiting for basic protective gear. Public health labs swamped by the anthrax attacks of 2001 have no additional capacity today. Most local governments have no efficient way to give instructions to residents shut off from radio and television, such as a “reverse 911” system that automatically telephones people at home. There is no comprehensive plan to unite families separated in a disaster.

And, of course, one can’t take the politics out of politics:

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, lawmakers settled on money for New York, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania not just because of their proximity to the crash sites, but also because their representatives in Congress sat on the appropriations committees. Members made their own deals and in some cases inserted projects that did not fit into a larger, regional plan.

The politically active Bethesda-Chevy Chase Fire Squad lobbied Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) for protective clothing and equipment above that given to other Montgomery County stations — and got it.

“Frankly, the county was surprised at some of the political maneuvering we were able to do,” Chief Ned Sherburne proudly said of the squad’s lobbying effort.

Since the original allotment, Congress has handed out emergency aid in keeping with another time-honored political tradition: Every member’s district gets something.

While experts including Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge say more money ought to go where the threat is greatest, Congress this year forced Ridge’s agency to dole out the majority of the funds based on a population formula that gives such states as Kentucky and North Dakota more money than the nation’s capital.

States and local governments are taking a similar approach. The District of Columbia Hospital Association chose a formula that guaranteed every city hospital a share of an $8 million grant. That meant that the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, a small, private hospital, received money to buy security cameras for its wards, a new van and a garage gate that officials say will help keep out illegal parkers from nearby American University.

This approach won’t work in the war on terrorism, said Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican who is pushing legislation that would direct money based only on threat and risk assessments. “If we were talking about equipment and training for our armed forces, we wouldn’t make the argument that it had to be done on a pork-barrel basis,” he said. “The danger is that you solve a political problem but fail to achieve the homeland security mission because you are sending money to the wrong places for the wrong things.”

Political considerations also played a role when it came time to award homeland security contracts. In the District, for instance, contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars went to a former mayor and to a close confidant of Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).