U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) has home-state support in his quest to provide constituents in southern New Jersey with proper federal funding for emergency preparedness.
Rep. MacArthur, along with U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ), recently urged U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to change the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) to ensure their southern New Jersey districts in Burlington and Camden counties receive their fair shares of emergency funds.
“In Fiscal Year 2017, the Philadelphia metropolitan area, an area comprised of counties within Pennsylvania and New Jersey, received a total of $17,763,000. However, despite New Jersey’s high population density, risk of terror threat, designation as an evacuation area, and exposure to hurricanes our state has received none of this funding,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent this month. Rep. MacArthur sent a similar letter to Secretary Nielsen on March 9.
The congressmen have asked that the funds be allotted to each of the counties in each UASI zone to ensure the counties may be better prepared.
“If Philadelphia were to be evacuated, municipalities in New Jersey are marked as major evacuation zones and all first responders from the Delaware River to the Atlantic Ocean will be connected to South Jersey’s emergency telecommunication network,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is hard to imagine giving the region such a large responsibility to provide aid and failing to provide the resources necessary to upgrade critical infrastructure.”
For instance, Rep. MacArthur said in a May 30 statement, if a major event unfolded in Philadelphia, then the town of Mount Laurel, located in his district, is a designated evacuation zone, while the Burlington County Public Safety telecommunications towers would be utilized by first responders.
“These funds from the federal government should be disbursed throughout the areas that will be responsible for assisting with a response to a major event,” he said.
Burlington County Freeholder Director Kate Gibbs called it “outrageous” that the county lies within a UASI security zone, but “the City of Philadelphia is not sharing any of the millions of dollars it receives every year with us or other counties in South Jersey.”
“This important emergency preparedness funding could be used to help offset the costs to our taxpayers of our $40 million public safety communications upgrade project,” which is mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, she said.
The lawmakers requested in their letter that the DHS Secretary work to reform the UASI program so that all high-risk areas receive necessary resources “to provide aid in the event of an emergency.”