Weighing the risk

THE ODOR OF PORK in homeland security funding has diminished since the first distribution to states and localities. Three years ago, much was rightly made of the fact that the least per capita homeland security funding went to California ($1.33) and New York ($1.38), while Vice President Dick Cheney’s home state

of Wyoming got $9.78. This illogical disparity has shrunk, but it’s not gone.

The bombings in London drive home the point: It isn’t charming villages in Britain’s Lake District that are at risk, nor the ranch towns of the U.S. Plains states. Terrorists are surely aware that they could only make Americans furious, not afraid, by blowing up a chunk of South Dakota’s Mt. Rushmore.

The chief underfunded risks are obvious. Start with the nation’s largest ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach (port security initiatives, including overseas cargo checks, are lagging for lack of funds). Then there are major components of urban infrastructure, including transit hubs, freeway interchanges and waterworks. And financial centers and chemical or nuclear plants.

Airports remain vulnerable, but they already get the lion’s share of funding and attention from the federal Transportation Security Administration.

This year’s $32-billion Homeland Security appropriations bill, with about 10% of the total directed to state and local programs (not enough, but that’s another issue), is scheduled for debate and a vote this week in the Senate. The bill still requires that 30% of homeland security grants to states and localities be distributed by a formula that grants a minimum to each state, no matter how small its risk. An amendment by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) would require better risk assessment and cut grants based on anything else by almost two-thirds. This is preferable to another amendment by Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), which also focuses on risk assessment but may actually end up increasing distributions to small states (like Maine).

The 9/11 commission, in its comprehensive report, was clear about basing protection on risk. “Resources must be allocated according to vulnerabilities,” it said, calling for security experts, not Congress, to determine vulnerability benchmarks.

There is no such thing as complete protection against terrorism, especially in a society that wants to remain free. That means playing the odds and being smart.

Small-state senators won’t happily give up homeland security funds. But before they vote down the Feinstein-Cornyn amendment, we hope they’ll give a thought to what happened in London. And last year in Madrid. And in the cities that bore the awful burdens of 9/11.