WASHINGTON(AP) -- Communities facing budget woes and growing national security demands want more details about terrorism risks so they can better tailor their responses to the nation's new color-coded alert system.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a House committee Thursday that state and local officials want to know if an increased security threat is targeted at specific areas of the country or types of targets, such as bridges.
"Every community cannot be equally vulnerable at the same time to terrorism," said Romney, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
He and other emergency services officials told the hearing that they have learned to handle each higher alert differently.
For instance, Romney said, when the country went to orange alert at the start of the Iraq war, Massachusetts beefed up security; but with the more recent higher alert, "the threat was more generic and we took less aggressive action."
Lawmakers on the panel agreed that when the nation goes to a heightened -- or orange -- alert, the risks may not be the same in all parts of the country.
"We need to revise the early warning system and reform it to identify threats by region and by critical infrastructure," said Rep. Jim Turner, D-Tx.
The alert level has been increased to orange four times since the system began earlier this year.
Police and fire officials at the hearing said moving up to orange alert costs them a lot of money and resources, and the federal government should pay for it.
"Somebody else is determining the heightened alert, shouldn't somebody else be determining the cost?" said George Jaramillo, assistant sheriff in Orange County, Calif. "If they're calling the shots at the federal level, they have to come up with the money."
While money was a key issue during the hearing, there was disagreement over how much control states should have on the homeland security funding that flows to local communities.
Romney repeatedly called for greater state and regional oversight in order to better coordinate needs and resources. For example, he said, two division of the Massachusetts Port Authority requested federal funding for equipment that was not compatible. Officials reviewing the purchases caught the problem in time.
Others said such control creates delays in getting money to where it's needed most.
"We've been listening too much to the bureaucrats at the top and not enough to the first responders," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. "States siphon off money for bureaucracy."
Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Ca., said he and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, are drafting a bill that will address problems with how the money is distributed. The grants, he said, should be based on the threat assessment of each community and not on "political formulas."
The legislation, Cox said, would allocate money based on risk, streamline the application process, and address the need for more detailed information about the increased threat levels.
"We have this massive infusion of funds," he said, "and it's not reaching the first responders fast enough, and sometimes not at all."
New Rochelle, N.Y., Fire Commissioner Ray Kiernan, whose firefighters responded to the World Trade Center attacks, said his department has yet to see a dime of the new homeland security money.
"We've seen no money, no guidance, no standards," he said. "When all these plans don't work -- we're the guys that inherit the mess."
