From AP Wire:

King to question Chertoff on Homeland Security grants

By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press Writer

The chairman of a House committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security says he intends to question department officials including chief Michael Chertoff about the decision to cut New York's federal anti-terror dollars by 40 percent.

Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, said Saturday that he will question Chertoff at hearings within a month. Officials from New York City, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, will be invited to attend along with their counterparts from Washington, where funding was also cut, he said.

King said he will ask the department to explain its funding formula.

"Who made the decisions? Did Chertoff personally sign off on it? When did he know and did he advise the president?" King said Saturday in a telephone interview.

Chertoff's agency announced Wednesday that New York's anti-terror dollars would be reduced by about $83 million from the $207 million it received in 2005. As part of its analysis for the funding allocations, DHS determined that the city has no national monuments or icons.

The agency said in an email that many New York landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge were considered and put in other categories that actually resulted in higher ratings for the city's allocation evaluation.

King asked DHS officials Friday to provide reams of technical data detailing exactly how they made their conclusions.

"To see a department run by my own party make these cuts is very galling," he said.

The DHS allocation has left New York lawmakers from both parties fuming and even united on an issue during an election year.

On Saturday, King held a joint news conference with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"I wanted to emphasize that this is bipartisan," he said by phone. "It's not about Republicans or Democrats, it's about security in America and New York."

Clinton has also called on the Senate to hold hearings.

"Secretary Chertoff has a lot of explaining to do," Clinton said in a statement released after the event with King. "We need answers as to how a funding program based on risk has resulted in the current deep cuts to New York, a state that has tragically been more affected by terrorism than any other."

A DHS spokesman said that Chertoff wrote to members of the New York congressional delegation Friday expressing a willingness to discuss their decision.

"We have been very clear that we are willing to meet with the members of the New York delegation and present the facts," said spokesman Russ Knocke.

King also said that he would grill department officials at separate hearings probing a $21 million DHS contract with a company involved in a bribery scandal.

The company, Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., is cooperating in a federal investigation into whether a defense contractor provided prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites to a California lawmaker, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to accepting bribes last year.

"The hearings will put the heat on them and raise a lot of questions about their judgment," King said.

Knocke said that DHS was willing to talk to King about "the facts related to the grant program or the Sherlington contract, or any other Department activities."