We were pleased to hear your announcement that you would be including a $3.5 billion homeland security proposal in your FY03 budget request targeted to meet the needs of our nations communities and first responders through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) similar to what we proposed last year in HR 3161. While we know you still have many details to work out in the proposal before you submit your budget request officially to Congress, we applaud your initiative and hope you will consider some small suggestions we think are of considerable importance to the community leaders and first responders we represent.

First, we are very pleased to see that you have included $2 billion to provide equipment and $1.1 billion to provide special training for first responders in your proposal. However, one of the most important provisions of the grants we proposed in HR 3161 waived the local matching fund requirements that exist with most of the programs currently in place to disburse these types of grants, such as the Community Oriented Policing Services program (COPS) and the Firefighter Assistance Program. It became clear to us after numerous meetings with our community leaders and first responders that the threat to our communities is now, and we cannot give those at war with the United States the opportunity to strike while our communities spend years saving enough money to pay the local match for federal grants to provide the training and equipment necessary to safeguard the American people today. We hope that when you submit your final FY03 budget request to Congress that you would consider eliminating the matching local grant requirements for these proposed programs.

Second, we are pleased to see that you have included $105 million to support state and local governments in developing comprehensive strategic plans to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks. While this proposal recognizes the need for this type of planning to occur, we believe this funding level is inadequate to comprehensively address the needs of our communities. Our proposal in HR 3161 included $1 billion to begin this process, and from the response to the proposal and from discussions since then with community leaders, it is clear that even at this proposed level would only begin to address the planning and coordination needs of our communities.

To name just a few of the major issues our community leaders are being asked to address in developing comprehensive strategic preparation and response plans, our communities will be responsible to conduct local threat assessments, coordinate interdepartmental, interagency, and multi-jurisdictional operational agreements, and work to develop and procure systems to provide a common communications platform between emergency first responders. As this coordinated planning will be necessary to take advantage of the additional training and equipment first responders will be able to provide to the community, we strongly encourage you to include a more robust funding level for the community planning portion of the initiative.

Finally, preparation and response planning must be developed from the bottom up, and as you prepare your FY03 budget request for submission to Congress we respectfully request that you to work to ensure that the majority of planning funds proposed in this initiative go directly to local communities including cities, counties, towns, boroughs, tribes, or other recognized municipalities or consortias of local governments, in any state or territory of the United States.

We appreciate your initiative on this issue, and we stand ready to work with you in Congress as this proposal moves forward. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,

JOHN B. LARSON
Member of Congress

JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI
Member of Congress