Homeland security cuts peak at $1M in Maine Emergency response units likely to be affected

AUGUSTA – Maine has lost a million dollars in federal bioterror and public health funding this year, and state officials worry the cuts could be deeper next year and be expanded to other homeland security-related funding.

“We currently receive between $10 [million] and $11 million a year in what are called federal bioterror or public health emergency funds,” Dr. Dora Mills, director of the Maine Bureau of Health, said last week. “We were told we are going to lose a million in those funds, or about 10 percent of our grant.”

Mills said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson ordered that funds, which had been earmarked for state efforts at preparing for a potential terrorist attack with chemical or biological weapons, be redirected to several of the nation’s largest cities.

“These funds are to be used to build systems to help us address any type of public health emergency, such as a bioterrorism attack or an ice storm or tornado,” she said. “These types of emergencies know no border. Rural states are just as at risk for them as cities.”

If terrorists attacked Boston or New York City with smallpox as the weapon, Mills said, it would be only days or hours before Maine could be affected. She said while Maine is better prepared now than it was after the 2001 terrorist attacks, much still needs to be done throughout the state.

“We are looking at cutting back on major investments that we just started to make last year,” she said.” These are systems we will need in the event of a major public health emergency or a terrorist attack.”

What has Mills and Maine Emergency Management Agency Director Art Cleaves most concerned about is the proposal for further cuts next year. They say it is part of a policy shift by the Bush administration to provide additional funds to urban areas at the expense of other regions.

“Any cuts in the public health funding affect us,” Cleaves said last week. “While we have different funding sources, we work together to make sure we use the funds wisely. We are very concerned about the proposal that would reduce our funding from DHS [Department of Homeland Security] next year.”

He said the state is still using federal grants to purchase needed equipment for first responders as well as to provide training. He said both would be cut under the budget proposal for next year.

“We are just catching up to where we need to be and we are looking at cuts,” he said. “Rural areas need funding just as much as the cities.”

Sen. Susan Collins chairs the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that has oversight over homeland security issues. She is not pleased with Secretary Thompson’s administrative redirection of bioterror funds.

“Under current law, he only had to notify the appropriators that he was reallocating these funds, “she said last week.” I am going to support an effort to block that in the future.”

Collins agrees with Thompson that many cities do need additional funds to prepare for a public health emergency, including a terrorist attack. But, she said he is wrong to take the money from existing appropriations that states were counting on to implement plans that were approved by HHS.

“The reallocation has very important public policy concerns,” she said. “I don’t think it should be done by the administration alone.”

Collins shares Mills and Cleaves’ concerns that funding next year could be significantly decreased. She said there is an effort by some House and Senate members, as well as some members of the Bush administration, to significantly reduce the base funding for smaller states.

“Population does not equal threat risk or vulnerability,” she said. “We know from our experience in Maine where two of the September 11 hijackers started their trip in Portland.”

Collins said all states should receive a basic allocation because on a per-capita basis it is more expensive to respond to a terrorist attack in a rural area than in a large city. If large urban areas need additional funding and some do, she said, it should be provided but not at the expense of other areas of the country.

Mills said the cuts would affect a number of programs. For example, the state recently allocated about $1 million in federal funds to the development of three regional response units, one each at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

“Those efforts, and others, will be slowed down by the cuts,” she said.

At the same time Thompson was cutting funds to rural states, the Senate was passing a major expansion of the public heath emergency program. The measure would spend $5.6 billion over 10 years for to speed development of vaccines and antidotes to help protect in a bioterrorist attack.

The measure would cover threats such as anthrax, smallpox, botulism and plague as well as the results of radiation poisoning from a so-called “dirty” nuclear weapon.

The new vaccines and antidotes would be stockpiled in regional centers and flown to areas where they are needed. Key to using the new treatments will be state and local emergency medical response teams, which are facing cuts in rural areas of the country under Bush administration plans.