The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced that the Los Angeles Urban Area, anchored by the City of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Los Angeles County and 26 adjacent cities in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, was awarded $80.6 million in Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant funds to boost local efforts to better prevent, prepare, respond and recover from acts of terrorism or mass disaster. The amount awarded represents a significant increase over last year's funding level and places the Los Angeles Urban Area second only to New York in total award during this round of funding.

The UASI program is the largest source of federal funding for local homeland security efforts. The Los Angeles Area's success is especially noteworthy given the overall drop in federal funding allocated to the program this year when compared to the prior year.

This year, federal funding for the UASI program nationwide totaled $710 million, down from $855 million in 2005. Despite the 17% overall drop in available funds and the merging of the Los Angeles and Long Beach Urban Areas into a single "area", the combined L.A/Long Beach area saw an 14% increase in its award.

"This is great news for the City of Los Angeles and our entire region and a testament to the hard work of our entire Congressional delegation, especially Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, Jane Harman and Senator Diane Feinstein," said Mayor Villaraigosa. "Without a doubt, our efforts to lobby the federal government to award funds based on risk, rather than population have paid off for the people of Los Angeles. Our successful grant application was the result of an unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration among local public safety agencies coupled with determined leadership and lobbying by local officials and our allies in Congress."

"Los Angeles has been and remains an attractive terrorist target, and local law enforcement is the first line of defense to prevent or respond to an attack. These grant funds will help provide better training and more coordination among the many jurisdictions that could disrupt an attack or save lives in an emergency," said Councilmember Jack Weiss who chairs the Public Safety Committee and co-chairs the Mayor's Homeland Security Advisors.

Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security since 2003, has been instrumental in ensuring that the formula used to calculate homeland security grant allocations reflects the high risks faced by areas such as Los Angeles.

"The significant increase in funds to $80.6 million is a testament to the effective planning and collaboration by the county and City of Los Angeles, and the more than 20 cities in the region who work together to protect us from terrorist threat," said Congresswoman Robal-Allard. "I applaud Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for his outstanding leadership on this issue both here at home and in Washington D.C. I also thank Congressman Hal Rogers, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, for his efforts to ensure that high risk areas, such as Los Angeles, receive the funding necessary to safeguard their communities."

The regional application for homeland security funding proposed investments in regional planning, training, and exercises; community preparedness; communications interoperability; intelligence gathering and analysis; terrorism detection and response; emergency medical services; and critical infrastructure protection.

The application was developed collaboratively through a 5-week series of planning meetings involving nearly 400 stakeholders from approximately 100 jurisdictions and agencies in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. This process produced a detailed list of recommended security initiatives. Final review and approval of the projects, priorities and funding were made by an 18-member working group and 11-member Approval Authority. This same group will determine the final list of projects for funding, in line with the $80.6 million award.

Under the grant, the LA Urban Area has 30 days to submit a detailed implementation plan to the Governor's Office of Homeland Security describing how it will spend the $80.6 million with the 24-month performance period.

Following is a summary of funding allocations by the Department of Homeland Security since initiation of the Urban Areas Security Funding Initiative:

Funding History

Grant                      National Funding     California Funds     LA Urban Area
UASI 03 Part I      $96.3 million              $22.6 million                 $12.4 million
UASI 03 Part II    $500 million               $62.2 million                  $18.9 million
UASI 04                $675 million               $135.7 million                $28.1 million
UASI 05                $854.7 million            $148.3 million                $55.9 million
UASI 06                $740 million               $136.9 million                $80.6 million

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