Reuters: Lawmakers ask Chertoff to explain anti-terror cuts

Lawmakers ask Chertoff to explain anti-terror cuts
Fri Jun 2, 2006 3:01pm ET

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Angry lawmakers from New York and the Washington, D.C., area
urged Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday 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.

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.