Review – HR 6507 Introduced - DHS Grants Accountability Act

Last month Rep Kennedy (D,NY) introduced HR 6507, the DHS Grants Accountability Act. The bill would require DHS to award homeland security grants, and revise deadlines and application requirements for those grants. No new funding is authorized.

The covered grant programs would include:

Urban Area Security Initiative,

State Homeland Security Grant Program, and

Nonprofit Security Grant Program

Public Transportation Grants,

Railroad Security Assistance,

Over-The-Road Bus Security Assistance, and

Port Security Grants.

Moving Forward

Both Kennedy and his sole cosponsor, Rep Thompson (D,MS) are members of the House Homeland Security Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there could be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. Unfortunately, this bill was crafted to prevent the current Administration from withholding grant funding as was done last year. This means that the current leadership is unlikely to allow the bill to be considered. If it were to be considered, I suspect that there would be some level of bipartisan support for the bill. Whether it would be sufficient to allow the bill to be taken up by the full House under the suspension of the rules process.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-6507-introduced-dhs-grants-accountability - subscription required.