Washington Grinds — Law Enforcement Waits
April 1, 2011
As a nasty battle over the federal budget rages on, law enforcement analysts and others say the specter of possible cuts in domestic spending could affect a range of training initiatives for local police officers and emergency responders.
The issue recalls an African proverb about how grass gets trampled when elephants fight.
At issue is money that was originally distributed, under the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, for training in both the art of detecting nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical threats — as well as for responding to calamities involving such agents. Specifically, under the continuing appropriations that are emanating from Washington, the cash for some of the programs has already been diminished.
As lawmakers home in on an agreement to finish the fiscal year — and as the April 8 cutoff for federal spending approaches — there is growing concern that the cuts, to $114 million a year from $164.5 million, will become permanent going forward
And, many say, the timing could not be worse, considering heightened concern over the safety of nuclear reactors, in light of the crisis in Japan.
“The preventive training in key cities would probably be cut in half,” said one person who is involved in training efforts reliant on the federal flow of money. “The New York City area will not be affected as much, regarding the prevent mission, because it has separate funding for the ‘Securing the Cities,’ initiative. But New York City would still be affected on the response mission, which is important.”
To analysts in the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who have been studying the issue, the cuts in the spending bill passed by the House of Representatives would result in more than 46,000 first responders around the nation missing out on training on how to react to a weapon of mass destruction.
“The House proposal to cut terrorist-related first-responder training is another example of how extreme this budget proposal is,” Mr. Schumer said on Wednesday. “It would cut training for first responders to the bone, leaving major gaps in our preparedness for a terrorist attack.”
Inspector Stuart K. Cameron, the commanding officer of the Suffolk County Police Department’s special patrol bureau, said the loss of life from a dirty bomb attack or nuclear improvised device would likely outpace any catastrophe to date.
And the training the department has been getting under the federal program has vastly increased the department’s capabilities, he said.
“I am concerned about not having adequate amounts of training,” Inspector Cameron said. “Without that training, we would be nowhere near where we are today.”
He said that everyone in the 1,500-member patrol force has received at least “awareness-level” training in radiation. There are about 50 additional officers, in an elite unit, who have received higher levels of training. He said hundreds of officers each day are out on patrol, equipped with radiation detection devices, on the lookout for potentially harmful radiation sources such as a dirty bombs or nuclear weapons.
The federal money streams out to more than a half-dozen institutions around the country.
Each is an expert in various cataclysms — from traditional explosives threats to bioterrorism and radiological and nuclear incidents. They are organized under the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, an alliance of professional groups that is sponsored through the Federal Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.
According to Jim P. Fernandez, the chairman of the consortium, there is still optimism that lawmakers “are going to come to some compromise and we won’t get a cut, or it is going to be a minimal cut.”
He said steep cuts would affect how well first responders are trained, and that the “preparedness of the country” was at stake.
Mr. Fernandez said that “we are usually fully funded at the end of the budget process.” But this year the budget battle has dragged out a lot longer, “and the program is more at risk.”
“It’s getting down to the nitty-gritty now,” said Mr. Fernandez, who is based at Louisiana State University, where he is executive director of the National Center for Security Research and Training.