Homeland Security Watch

The Heritage Foundation published a piece today, co-authored by Heritage’s Jim Carafano and Jamie Metzl from the Partnership for a Secure America, on Congress’s inaction in making the homeland security grant system risk-based. The article provides a good history of this debate, and offers two recommendations for Congress:

Require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, just as the Department of Defense is required to conduct its Quadrennial Defense Review, and

Reform homeland security grants by eliminat­ing the minimum-grant formula to allow for pure risk-based funding.

And two recommendations for DHS:

Continue to update the formula for homeland security grant allocation to reflect risk, threat, and vulnerability, and

Create regional offices to coordinate disaster preparedness and response, as mandated by HSPD-8 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Overall, a solid piece on this important issue.