London attacks put focus on U.S. transit systems

Lawmakers, administration likely to clash over priorities

? 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 July 4 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 homeland security spending and his department’s structure. And he, like many outside experts, apparently has concluded that the government should focus its spending priorities on combating potentially catastrophic threats such 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 priorities more tightly, he also wants congressional support for restructuring the department – a huge and hastily consolidated amalgam of agencies from the Customs Service to the Coast Guard that were scattered through other departments before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Reorganization plans are politically sensitive because they often involve changing the jurisdiction and power of congressional committees.

The looming tension between Chertoff and members of Congress, especially those representing urban areas with substantial mass transit systems, reflects the fact that four years after Sept. 11, the federal government is still divided over how to allocate resources to secure the country, especially in an era of limited budgets.

Changing political landscape

Metropolitan Transit Police of the Special Response Unit, Brad Hanna, left, and Sgt. Mitch Dowdy, examine metro cars as they prepare to move through a station in the nation's capital Friday. Security has been enhanced in Washington following a series of explosions on the London transit systems that resulted in at least 49 deaths.

The debate will move to center stage next week when the Senate meets to discuss homeland security funding for the coming fiscal year and Chertoff presents his long-awaited plans to restructure his department and rearrange its priorities.

“The environment’s changed from a month ago,” says James Jay Carafano, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an author of a paper that is widely seen as a blueprint for Chertoff’s reform plans. “Chertoff could have come out and done any reorganization he wanted to and every one would have said OK. Now the whole political calculus has changed.

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

Funding discussions

Congressional staffs already are looking at rewriting a homeland security funding bill to provide more money for bus and rail security. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to push to double the $100 million proposed for mass transit and rail security in the Senate version of a fiscal 2005 appropriations bill. The House-approved version of the bill would provide $150 million for mass transit.

Schumer also wants to double funding for bus security, raising it from $10 million to $20 million.

On Capitol Hill Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement that “as its first order of business next week, Congress must address bipartisan transit security legislation.” Nine Senate Democrats, including California Sen. Barbara Boxer and New York Sens. Schumer and Hillary Clinton, 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 some $8 billion in grants to urban areas that are 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 had been 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,” said Collins.

Planes and trains

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, Spain, in spring 2004 and the bombings in London have focused concerns on transit security, but that is far more difficult challenge to address than aviation safety, experts agree. While airports force travelers to pass through focused security systems, the open nature of mass transit systems make 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 argues that the effort it would take to secure mass transit that way would not yield much benefit. “The irony is that if you throw more money at rail security, you’re making the nation less safe,” he says. “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.”

Bombs and intelligence

Chertoff has indicated that he intends to focus greater resources on potentially devastating threats like dirty bombs or nuclear attack and on intelligence that can help prevent attacks. And analysts who follow DHS say that the one bureaucratic entity almost certainly slated for change will be the Transportation Security Administration, the body responsible for aviation and transit security.

“It’s more than just saying we’ll concentrate on the catastrophic stuff,” says Carafano. “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 first place, more of an emphasis on prevention and less of an emphasis on protection.”

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

“What are you going cut? You’re going to cut aviation security? Are you going to cut port security?” asks Bill Ghent, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. “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.”