DHS issues port security grant guidelines

DHS issues port security grant guidelines The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released grant-making guidelines for critical infrastructure protection, including $201 million for port facilities.
      Under a risk-based distribution model, eight port areas will receive 60 percent, $120 million, of the total in port security grants. The port security grant amount is $33 million higher than in fiscal 2006, according to DHS. Congress appropriated $210 million for port security grants this year and the remainder will go to administering the program.
   Top recipients are:
   * Port of New York-New Jersey, $27.1 million.
   * Port of New Orleans, $17.3 million.
   * Houston and Galveston, $15.7 million.
   * Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach, $14.7 million.
   * Port of Seattle-Tacoma, $12.2 million.
   * Delaware Bay area (Wilmington, Del. and southern New Jersey), $11.3 million.
   * Port of Oakland and Richmond (San Francisco Bay), $11.2 million.
   * Port Arthur-Beaumont, Texas, $10.9 million.
   The remaining U.S. ports are included within three additional risk tiers, and will compete for the additional 40 percent of available funds. Grant funding priorities include training, exercises, activities to mitigate the risk of improvised explosive devices, and employee credentials and access controls.
   DHS expanded upon last year's process of clustering individual ports that are part of a region into a single funding area, to reflect the geographic proximity of the assets, the shared risk and the shared waterways.
   Under the program, individual port facilities must submit an application, which will be reviewed and scored by subject matter experts to make sure the project meets eligibility criteria and that the money will be well spent, said DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff during a news conference. DHS will work with applicants to strengthen their plans rather than simply issue 'pass/fail' decisions, he said.
   Those receiving grants will have up to 36 months to complete their projects, which is six months longer than allowed under the 2006 grants.
   The American Association of Port Authorities welcomed the new grants, but said it regretted that Congress didn't fund the program to the $400 million level authorized in the SAFE Port Act.
   DHS also said it will issue grants totaling $11.6 million for the Trucking Security Grant program, which trains truck drivers to call a designated hotline to report suspicious activity on the road or in transportation hubs. The program is managed by the American Trucking Associations.
   Chertoff said the department would soon release security plans for industry sectors as part of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.