Security Clash May Be Brewing in Congress

The terrorist attacks in London have brought new pressure from Republicans and Democrats for a substantial boost in federal spending on mass transit security. But when Congress returns from its Fourth of July break next week, those demands may produce a clash with President Bush’s secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, who has made clear he has other priorities.

Chertoff, who took over the Department of Homeland Security in February, has conducted an exhaustive review of his agency’s spending and structure.

And he, like many outside experts, apparently has concluded that the government should focus its spending on such potentially catastrophic threats as nuclear or biological attacks.

Asked whether the London subway and bus attacks had changed his thinking on funding for transit security, Chertoff said Thursday, “I wouldn’t make a policy decision driven by a single event.”

In addition to focusing spending more tightly, he wants congressional support for restructuring the department -- a huge and hastily assembled amalgam of disparate agencies, such as the Customs Service and the Coast Guard, that were scattered among other departments before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Reorganizations are politically sensitive because they often involve changing the jurisdiction and power of congressional committees.

The looming tension between Chertoff and Congress members -- particularly those representing urban areas with substantial mass transit systems -- reflects the federal government’s persistent division, almost four years after Sept. 11, over how to secure the country, especially in an era of limited budgetary resources.

The debate moves to center stage next week when the Senate meets to discuss Homeland Security funding for the coming fiscal year and Chertoff presents his plans to restructure his department and its priorities.

“The environment’s changed from a month ago,” said James Jay Carafano, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an author of a paper widely seen as a blueprint for the Homeland Security chief.

“Chertoff could have come out and done any reorganization he wanted to and everyone would have said OK. Now the whole political calculus has changed.

“The good news is he has everyone’s attention,” Carafano said. “The bad news is that everyone wants to play in the sandbox.”

Congressional staffs are looking at rewriting a Homeland Security bill to provide more money for bus and rail security. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to advocate doubling the $100 million proposed for mass transit and rail security in the Senate version of a fiscal 2005 appropriations bill. The House-approved version would provide $150 million for rail security.

Schumer also wants to double funding for bus security, to $20 million.

On Capitol Hill on Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a statement that Congress’ “first order of business” next week must be transit security legislation. Nine Senate Democrats, including Barbara Boxer of California and Schumer and Hillary Clinton of New York, sent a letter to Chertoff calling on him to release transit security funding approved last year but not yet sent to states.

Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said the senators’ letter ignored about $8 billion in grants to urban areas that were not specifically earmarked for rail security but could be used for that purpose.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), head of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, said the rail system was underfunded. “I think we have dedicated a relatively large amount of funding to protect the aviation system and not enough for other important sectors, such as the rail system,” Collins said

Money for rail security has been a lower-tier priority since commercial airliners were used in the Sept. 11 attacks. The House Transportation Committee said in a report last year that in fiscal 2002 and 2003, the federal government provided $11 billion for aviation security, an average of $9.16 per passenger. In fiscal 2003 and 2004, $115 million was provided for transit security grants, an average of six-tenths of a penny per passenger, the report said.

The attacks in Madrid in spring 2004 and the bombings in London have focused concerns on transit security, but that is a far more difficult challenge to address than aviation safety, experts agree. Airports force travelers to pass through focused security systems, but the open nature of mass transit systems makes securing them almost impossible.

“The cost of guarding every bus, train and subway from every eventuality would sure make them safe -- because no one could afford to ride them anymore,” said Stuart Roy, a former House Republican leadership aide.

Carafano said such an effort to secure mass transit would not be very useful. “The irony is that if you throw more money at rail security, you’re making the nation less safe,” he said. “You can spend billions of dollars and years hardening something, and at the end of day, the terrorist can just choose to hit something else.

“It’s spending time and energy on something that doesn’t yield much benefit, that could cripple the system and inhibit rights of customers to travel freely.”

What analysts seldom state directly is that casualties in bus or train attacks would probably be far fewer than those from a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. But such thinking is believed to underlie Chertoff’s approach.

Overhauling the Homeland Security Department is a massive project. Chertoff inherited a staff of about 180,000 in a department cobbled together in March 2003 from 22 agencies.

The secretary made it clear, soon after settling into his office, that he intended to thoroughly evaluate his department.

In a speech at George Washington University, he signaled that nothing was sacrosanct when he told the crowd that “bureaucratic structures ... exist to serve our mission, not to drive it.” And he emphasized that in his view, the key to securing the United States was to adopt a “risk-based approach in our operations and our philosophy” -- accepting the fact that some risk was unavoidable.

“We cannot protect every person in every place at every moment,” he said.

Chertoff has indicated that he intends to focus more resources on potentially devastating threats like radioactive “dirty” bombs or nuclear attack and on intelligence to prevent attacks.

Analysts who follow the Homeland Security Department said one agency almost certain to be slated for change was the one responsible for aviation and transit security, the Transportation Security Administration.

“It’s more than just saying we’ll concentrate on the catastrophic stuff,” Carafano said. “The knee-jerk response to London is ‘Let’s harden everything,’ but the best way to deal with the car bombings is to keep them from happening in the first place -- more of an emphasis on prevention and less of an emphasis on protection.”

When Chertoff and members of Congress meet next week to discuss the department’s priorities, the core issue will be money, Hill staffers said. If mass transit gains, something else will almost certainly lose.

“What are you going to cut? You’re going to cut aviation security? Are you going to cut port security?” asked Bill Ghent, a spokesman for Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who favors increased funding for rail security. “We’re in a very tight budget, and [rail security] competes against programs that also are very much a high priority, and no one wants to cut them.”

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Times staff writer Mary Curtius contributed to this report.