WASHINGTON -- Baltimore has come out a loser in this year's competition for federal port security funds.
Designated a second-tier port by the Department of Homeland Security, Baltimore will get $1.9 million, a cut of 60 percent from the current year, according to members of the Maryland congressional delegation and a Homeland Security official.
Baltimore ranked 33rd in the latest round of port grants, according to government figures to be made public today. All eight Tier I port areas, such as the New York/New Jersey port, which received $27.3 million, got much larger grants, as did most other Tier II port areas, such as Pittsburgh and Hampton Roads, Va., and several lower-risk Tier III ports, including San Juan, Puerto Rico, which received $4.7 million.
Ports have long been considered a prime target for terrorists, said Stephen Flynn, a security specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. But nearly six years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government lacks a national plan to ensure a minimum level of security at America's ports.
"If we look at the two key components of what terrorists are about," Flynn said, they want "mass casualties and mass disruptions. You can do both those things in most of our seaports."
By ranking ports largely according to the potential damage that would be caused by a terrorist strike, Washington intended to take politics out of the funding process. But that didn't stop Maryland politicians from criticizing this year's allocations.
Gov. Martin O'Malley called the total "appalling" and "demoralizing." Although Baltimore is the nearest deep-water port to Washington, he said, only about 6 percent of the cargo containers it processes are given any kind of inspection.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore compared the $870 million he said the Department of Homeland Security had divided among the nation's 361 seaports through the end of 2006 with the $20 billion he said the Transportation Security Administration has dedicated to aviation security from 2004 through 2007, and said that security at the nation's shipping centers is not being funded adequately.
A Homeland Security official said yesterday that the main reason for the drop in funding to Baltimore was that two of the projects proposed by local agencies failed to win federal approval.
One was deemed to be outside the scope of the grant program, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Another was seen as unlikely to be effective at countering terrorist threats.
