• Homeland Security appropriations bill passes Senate subcommittee

    The bill provides $45.2 billion in discretionary spending — $1 billion below fiscal year 2012; , among the measure’s highlights: $8.9 billion in discretionary spending for the Coast Guard, $6.1 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), and $16.9 million for cyber education; it also includes a provision adjusting the criteria used to determine whether Community Disaster Loans provided after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are eligible for cancellation

  • Budget pressures lead Nevada to reduces state’s anti-terrorism programs

    The Nevada Homeland Security Commission, faced with a 60 percent cut in federal homeland security funds, drastically reduced the state’s anti-terrorism programs; six programs eliminated, while remaining programs will have to manage with less

  • DHS cuts grants to states, emphasizes maintenance

    Over the past few years, DHS has been cutting funding for grants to state and emergency response agencies; the billions of dollars given to states after 2011 have been used to buy many pieces of first-response and law-enforcement equipment, and DHS now emphasizes the maintenance of that equipment

  • Brown graduate students help bankrupt city create disaster plan

    To help the cash-stricken city of Central Falls, Rhode Island, thirty graduate students from Brown University have banded together to help create a disaster preparedness plan

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  • Tornadoes will not deplete FEMA disaster fund

    The latest series of tornadoes that raged across the Midwest and South will not deplete the U.S. disaster fund, which was only recently reloaded by Congress last year, officials said

  • Public health expert: budget cuts will erode response capabilities

    Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene K. Chow recently got the opportunity to speak with Dr. John R. Finnegan, the dean of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health; in their interview, Dr. Finnegan discusses the devastating effects of proposed budget cuts on the U.S. public health system, why it was a wise decision to censor the release of H5N1 flu research; and the creation of a medical reserve corps at universities

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  • National Weather Service budget cuts threaten poor IT infrastructure

    The Obama administration has proposed cutting more than $39 million from the National Weather Service’s (NWS) budget, particularly from its IT department, and critics worry that the cuts could cause the agency’s already crippling infrastructure problems to grow worse

  • Proposed EPA budget cuts funding from clean air and water grants

    President Obama’s latest proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 cuts $105 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget, primarily from funds aimed at treating wastewater and drinking water

  • CBP overtime costs soar, agency seeks solutions

    Over the past six years U.S. Border Patrol agents have accrued more and more overtime pay at the same time that the number of arrests for illegal crossers has fallen to record lows; the cost of overtime has rocketed from roughly $156 million in 2006 to more than $331 million in 2011, with DHS spending more than $1.4 billion total during that time period

  • Fort Wayne Mayor dissolves joint homeland security department

    After six years of operation, the joint Fort Wayne-Allen County Homeland Security Department has been dissolved; last week Tom Henry, the Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana sent a letter to county officials notifying them of the city’s plans to end its agreement to share in the costs of the local homeland security department

  • DHS IG: Cook County communications program botched

    On Monday the DHS Inspector General blasted officials in Cook County, Illinois for mishandling a $45 million federally funded project to upgrade communications equipment for first responders; the Inspector General said the Cook County program, dubbed Project Shield, was fraught with trouble from the start, resulted in equipment that did not work, and potentially wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars

  • Record high police fatalities, second year in a row

    For the second year in a row, a record number of law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty; the chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund blamed the recent spate of law enforcement deaths on budget cuts

  • New DHS headquarters delayed 5 years and $500 million over

    The latest Congressionally-approved budget for DHS will delay the building of the agency’s new headquarters by at least five years and cost an additional $500 million

  • Budget cuts hamper U.S. response to biological attack

    A recently released report charges that state and federal budget cuts have weakened U.S. bioterrorism response capabilities

  • NY counties receive money to prepare for emergencies

    The magnitude of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee posed serious communications challenges to the response and recovery efforts among many New York counties; these counties are now receiving $20 million in funding to help localities better respond to emergency situations