Lawmakers ask Chertoff to explain anti-terror cuts

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) Angry lawmakers from New York and the Washington, DC, area urged Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff today to reconsider anti-terror funding cuts to their cities and said they would call him to testify before Congress.

Two days after the Homeland Security Department said it would slash 2006 counterterrorism funding by 40 percent for the two cities hit in the September 11 attacks, lawmakers continued to press Chertoff for an explanation.

''We are dismayed and frustrated that a region which by all measurements is at the top of the list of potential terrorist targets will experience such a dramatic reduction to our public safety resources,'' nine Republican and Democratic House members representing Washington and area suburbs wrote in a letter to Chertoff.

New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton and Republican Rep. Pete King urged their constituents to send Chertoff postcards showing prominent landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge to counter a Homeland Security report that said New York had no national icons or monuments.

New York will receive 124.45 million dollar under the Urban Area Security Initiative this year, still the largest amount of any city but a sharp decrease from its 2005 grant of 207.6 million dollar.

The Washington area will get about .5 million, down from .5 million last year.

Louisville, Kentucky; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Omaha, Nebraska, will receive the largest increases.

Chertoff likely will be summoned to explain the cuts to the Homeland Security Committee, which King chairs, and the House Government Reform Committee, which is led by Virginia Republican Tom Davis, aides said. Davis and King and represent districts just outside Washington and New York City, respectively.

A staffer for the Senate committee that oversees Homeland Security said a decision has not been reached on whether to ask Chertoff to testify.

New York's other senator, Democrat Charles Schumer, sent a letter asking for a classified briefing to explain the cuts.

The Homeland Security Department adopted a new way of allocating funding for certain programs based on risk and effectiveness of the cities' plans for the money.

Chertoff has defended the program's funding, pointing out that the 2005 funding levels were artificially elevated from low figures the year before.

''As we improve security, we ought to have the ability to begin to manage the risk by looking to communities that haven't gotten the help,'' he said on Thursday night in an interview on ''The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.'' ''And if we make the process political, if we start to make it personal, we're actually going to frustrate good public policy.

''I think they (New York and Washington) got a very fair shake,'' he said.

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