Mayors Ask Homeland Security Chief for Additional Support

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. mayors yesterday met for the first time with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, asking him to provide more funding for chemical- and biological-agent detection in public transportation systems and to address a host of disaster-response concerns (see GSN, Oct. 20).

In what they described as the first in a series of meetings, the mayors gave Chertoff 10 pages of requests for improvements in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster response, military involvement in local response efforts, communications interoperability, transportation security and emergency-response funding.

“After seeing firsthand the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana and the Gulf Coast area and talking to mayors from this region, we recognize more than ever that much more work is needed in the federal-local partnership on disaster preparedness and emergency response,” U.S. Conference of Mayors President Beverly O’Neill told reporters after a group of the conference’s members met with Chertoff.

“He gave us assurances that we’re going to work together,” said O’Neill, the mayor of Long Beach, Calif.

The mayors portrayed federal aid for public-transportation security as dramatically under funded. They said Washington has provided $400 million in funds for the purpose since the al-Qaeda attacks of 2001, compared with $6 billion in needs identified by transit agencies around the country.

The federal government should fund “permanent chemical, biological and explosive detection systems” and other security equipment in public transportation systems, as well as cameras and other security equipment in ports, the mayors said. They asked that local officials be notified whenever hazardous materials are transported by rail through their jurisdictions.

The mayors asked for greater city autonomy and more direct federal-city interaction on security matters, which they said are now mainly handled between the federal government and state governments. They stressed the effectiveness of direct city-to-city help in disasters, an approach they said is hampered by current federal reimbursement practices.

In particular, the mayors cited problems with the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a federally endorsed agreement under which disaster-hit states can receive direct help from other states. When the compact is invoked, a state receiving aid is responsible for reimbursing states that provide aid, and Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster aid is often provided in turn to the disaster-affected state.

The mayors said that during Hurricane Katrina, the system’s state-to-state setup acted as a brake on aid delivery, with waits for approvals under the compact often delaying city-to-city help by days.

Under the dominant EMAC system, aid from one city to another must go through state channels, which can lead to a delay.

“The help we were asking for is that this be blessed … so that we can get reimbursement without first having to beg for forgiveness,” Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley said.

Meridian, Miss., Mayor John Robert Smith said Davenport, Ala., was ready to send response help to his Katrina-hit city immediately after the storm made landfall but that the process was lengthened from one to seven days by the compact’s processes.

“The most critical partnerships in the first 72 hours already exist,” Smith said, “and that’s city to city and mayor to mayor.”

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