The nation isn’t doing a good job of assessing its vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, and “rickety” funding formulas and fragmented grants assistance are exacerbating the situation, congressional and homeland security experts told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee yesterday. Such persistent problems nearly two years after the terrorist attacks doesn’t bode well for first responders, who still must deal with inadequate training, a lack of interoperable communications, protective gear and other equipment, and poor information sharing, the bipartisan panel said. A Council of Foreign Relations report, called “Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared,” said the country may have to spend more than $100 billion to meet first-responder needs over the next five years. Despite the assessment, former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman, who co-authored the report, said that the figure is just a guess. “Nobody knows what the number is,” he said. Full Story
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