Official seeks transfer of first responder grant office

A top Homeland Security Department official wants the grant office that provides funding for first responders placed under the agency's preparedness and response division.

"I've floated the proposal in the [Homeland Security] Department," Michael Brown, the undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, said Monday.

He said he proposed the idea several times. "It really makes sense when you think about it," Brown said. "You can't separate preparedness from response."

Brown said he has been awaiting the arrival of incoming Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to make his case. The Senate is expected to approve Chertoff's nomination Tuesday.

But a spokeswoman for the secretary's office said officials are not considering the shift.

Currently, the office of state and local domestic coordination and preparedness is located within the secretary's office, serving as a public outreach office between the secretary and state and local offices. If Brown's plan were implemented, the office would move away from secretary's office and placed under Brown's authority -- giving him power over billions of dollars in first responder grants.

One administration source said other department officials want to keep the office within reach of the secretary to give Chertoff immediate access to the funds and allow it to retain its high profile within the department. House Homeland Security Chairman Chris Cox, R-Calif., whose panel proposed the shift last year, said Friday that is a "political decision." Cox added, "The secretary is a political appointee and is surrounded by political appointees. ... Individual grant decisions should not be made at the apex of the third largest Cabinet office."

Cox last year faced several opponents, mostly lawmakers from rural states, over his efforts to revamp the formula process to allocate funding based on risk and vulnerabilities rather than other factors such as population. Rural lawmakers last year successfully beat back efforts by Cox and urban lawmakers to give their high-risk areas a larger piece of the pie.

Cox said Friday the department last year resisted his proposal to put the grant office under the emergency preparedness and response wing to avoid the political jockeying for money.

"If the department moves in that direction, we'll be vindicated in our judgment," Cox said. "It was the view of [the Homeland Security Committee] that first responder grant making belongs with emergency preparedness and response because that's exactly what emergency preparedness is all about."

Cox's Senate counterpart, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Friday she plans to review all the department's programs this year, including its grant-making functions. Collins has argued that every state must receive adequate funding to prepare and prevent a terrorist attack.