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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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April
2004
Volume 6
- Number 3 |
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Related Sites:
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My perception of the
Terrorism Risk By Lorenda Ward There has been plenty of
discussion on
the types of terrorism threats versus little discussion on terrorism
risk. A whole new agency, the Department
of
Homeland Security (DHS), was stood up to prevent and/or respond to any
future
terrorist threats or attacks. Recognizing
that there was the potential for another
terrorist event to
occur, DHS created an alert system to communicate to the American
people what
the terrorist threat level was. Terrorism
risk was partially addressed by President Bush
signing into
law the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, which established an
insurance
program for businesses and individuals who experienced losses
associated with a
terrorist attack(s). The risk a country faces
trying to
fight terrorism is that it sets itself up for exposure for another
attack. President Bush has to figure out a
way to
maintain the support for the war on terrorism without losing support
for his
campaign. Hard decisions have to be
made. How far do you go in fighting the
war on terrorism? Acknowledging that a
terrorist threat
exists what are we, the American people, willing to risk?
Are we comfortable with the subtle erosion
of the non-security related federal agencies (NSRFA)?
Since this is an article on my perception,
I’m taking liberties and creating my own acronyms.
It comes down to simple math. In
theory, there is a finite amount of money
to spread amongst the different federal agencies. That
money is collected from taxes. Of course,
no one likes to pay taxes. If you have a
program that supports cutting
taxes while creating/building a whole new federal agency the financial
support
for that new agency comes from the marrow of the other federal agencies. The NSRFA agendas or
missions are not
seen as being as important as the protection of America.
But part of protecting America, is
maintaining an appropriate level of support to the NSRFA.
If the NSRFA have political appointed
positions, these positions may remain unfilled for a long time while
more plum
positions are being filled. Budgets
don’t get approved on time and continuing resolutions are put in place. Monies are shifted from the NSRFA to DHS. So while the DHS budget continues to grow,
the NSRFA budgets shrink. A smaller
budget results in NSRFA cutting training programs, technological
advancements,
advocacy and promotions. NSRFA resources
will start to leave to find better opportunities either with DHS or
with the
private sector. As these resources
leave, the budget is not there for them to be replaced with experienced
personnel, creating a gap. All of the
aforementioned issues affect the quality of service that a NSRFA can
give. Are we willing to sacrifice the
NSFRA to
support security or are we willing to fund the NSFRA with tax increases? |