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Grant Funding Formula Disregards All-Hazards Threats |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
Oklahama particularly feels shortchanged by DHS grant allocations due to emphasis on international terrorism
Several states recently have expressed reservations about the risk calculation formula used by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to award grants, specifically noting that the threat assessment portion of the equation deals solely with international terrorism and not domestic or all-hazards threats.
"Our funding levels would improve or go higher if true all hazards were considered," Kerry Pettingill, director of the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security, told HSToday.us.
Oklahama City, the state's capital, was the site of the nation's largest domestic terrorism attack in 1995 with the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building--an attack that killed 168 people.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) Friday released an analysis of the risk calculation formula, however, finding its criteria "reasonable." The formula is represented as risk equals threat times the combination of vulnerability and consequence (R=T*(V&C))
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awards funds under the formula, but FEMA relies on input from the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS. Threat assessment accounts for 20 percent of the risk score, while vulnerability and consequences account for 80 percent. (However, DHS assigns all states and urban areas a vulnerability value of 1.0, leaving the consequences value as the major determinant). Consequences of a serious terrorist attack are measured by a population index, an economic index, a national infrastructure index and a national security index.
"DHS's approach to calculating threat, which accounts for the remaining 20 percent of the model, also represents a measure of the model's overall reasonableness," GAO found. "DHS uses analytical judgments to categorize urban areas' threat, which ultimately determines the relative threat for each state and urban area.
"The criteria are focused on threats from international terrorism derived from data on credible plots, planning, and threats from international terrorist networks, their affiliates, and those inspired by such networks," the report added.
In conducting the threat analysis, DHS considers intelligence derived from reports on targets of international terrorists. Pettingill concedes that the volume of such reports on Oklahoma may be low, but the population and infrastructure of the state face greater threats from domestic terrorism or natural disasters--factors that should be considered in grant allocation.
In addition to the state's experience with the Murrah bombing, for instance, Oklahoma suffered several deaths and extensive loss of electricity and other infrastructure in the days following severe tornadoes in May.
Pettingill, a former bomb technician, did applaud a DHS mandate to dedicate 25 percent of grant funds to response, protection, prevention, education and training for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), particularly as the Murrah Building was attacked with a vehicle-borne IED. He contends Oklahoma would have more money to dedicate to mitigating IEDs if all hazards were considered, however.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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