Defense of the Homeland Comes With Hefty Price Tag

First came nuclear power plants.

Then, Congress turned its attention to dams, the electricity grid, oil pipelines, transit lines, drinking water systems and sewage treatment plants.

In the coming weeks, the spotlight shifts to national monuments and sports venues.

For Congress in the post-Sept. 11 era, anything and everything that could be a target of a terrorist attack is grist for public hand-wringing and private worry.

But lawmakers concede that the sheer size of the task leaves them awe-struck. More monumental than the effort to prevent a Y2K computer meltdown at the turn of the 21st century, the new danger could pose shearing dilemmas for lawmakers, particularly local officials who may find themselves having to choose between school textbooks and firefighter gas masks.

“Every department and agency is coming to us telling us that they need a lot more money because of the extra security precautions they have to take,” Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House subcommittee on water resources and environment, said during a hearing last week on the safety of water supplies.

Defense of the homeland could cost $1.5 trillion over the next five years, according to one estimate circulating on Capitol Hill.

In one proposal alone, lawmakers are looking at more than $1 billion to protect government computers from cyber-attack and $30 million to safeguard the national monuments in Washington.

Almost every day, new measures are introduced to safeguard the nation. On Friday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers urged President Bush to provide funding for assessing the vulnerability of water supplies. And Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) proposed spending more than $1 billion next year to guard against agro-terrorism, an effort to protect the nation’s food supply. This week, Republican leaders on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will introduce a bill that seeks to beef up aviation security but also deals with other modes of transportation.

Bills moving through Congress also would increase the penalties for attempted sabotage at nuclear power plants. Now, saboteurs could get a maximum $10,000 fine and 10 years in prison. Under the new bills, the fine would go to a maximum of $1 million and a life sentence without parole.

Government agencies and industry groups are seeking money for a wide range of security measures, from high-tech biometric systems that would identify port workers with access to secure areas using such techniques as retinal scans, to the decidedly low-tech, such as more bomb-sniffing dogs at Amtrak stations.

There are proposals for everything from hand-held explosive detection devices to truck-size X-ray machines that scan cargo containers. Transit agencies want to install chemical-biological-radiological detection systems. Operators of power plants, refineries and oil pipelines want U.S. authorities to conduct background checks of applicants for sensitive jobs.

The highway lobby is pushing for $5 billion in spending for roads and bridges, largely intended as an economic stimulus. But the lobbyists also point out that more and better roads would provide the added benefit of improved escape and emergency routes in case of further attacks.

“‘Whenever you look at any kind of military campaign, one of the first things that are attacked are the infrastructure of the enemy,” said William D. Fay, president and chief executive of the American Highway Users Alliance. “We’ve got to be pretty vigilant about our entire infrastructure, whether it’s water mains, subways, highways or bridges.”

Not all of the proposals cost money. Industry-sought legislation moving through Congress would limit public access to certain information, such as the location of pipelines. “I can’t imagine that the public needs to know the exact longitude and latitude of the location of our nuclear plants,” Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) said.

But money will be needed for most of the proposals. And still to be determined is who will pay.

“Industry has an obligation to provide security, but there’s sufficient evidence that the federal government should make additional and significant contributions to this effort, not only for the people’s safety in communities, but also for the safety of our economy, which . . . has its foundation on a reliable, steady source of energy for this nation,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said during a hearing last week.

Some costs might be passed on to customers.

A Senate-approved air security bill, which would create a force of more than 18,000 federal workers to screen passengers and baggage, provides for a passenger surcharge of $2.50 to fund the improvements.

Murkowski cautioned against expecting too much from the federal government.

“The FBI and our intelligence agencies will play key roles, but we can’t station federal troops along every mile of pipeline or in front of every refinery,” he said. “State and local police will remain the front-line law enforcement agency, and the industries will have primary responsibility for security at these facilities.”

The public may be expecting more.

“Sept. 11 changed everybody’s thinking,” said Wallace Renfro, spokesman for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn., expected to testify soon at a House hearing on security at sports venues.

*

Times staff writer Marlene Cimons contributed to this report.