State Receives Five Homeland Security Grants
July 24, 2007

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and Congressman Zach Wamp, who serve on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, today announced an award of more than $20 million for Tennessee as part of the Fiscal Year 2007 Homeland Security Grant Program

"This is very good news as it represents a $6.3 million increase to Tennessee from the more than $13 million the state received last year in the Homeland Security Department's grant program," said Alexander. "This $20 million will mean better equipment, planning, and training for first responders and law enforcement officers across Tennessee and help them keep our citizens safe and secure.”

"Congress appropriated less money nationwide for the 2007 fiscal year than for the year before, yet Tennessee received a substantial increase in our share of the funding," said Congressman Wamp. "In the middle of a flat funding year, the increase will help Tennessee be better prepared for any major incident whether natural or man-made."

Tennessee will receive $20,034,000 in grants from five U.S. Department of Homeland Security programs:

• $8.25 million from the State Homeland Security Program, which funds activities to build capability to prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events.

• $5.89 million from the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, which focuses on law enforcement and public safety activities to prevent terrorist attacks through such activities as intelligence gathering, information sharing and target hardening.

• $4.58 million from the Urban Areas Security Initiative, which is designed to fund designated high-threat, high-density urban areas against acts of terrorism.

• $1.032 million from the Metropolitan Medical Response System, which plans and prepares for a large-scale medical response.

• $282,236 from the Citizens Corps Program, which promotes citizen preparedness and engages citizens in all-hazards prevention, protection, response and recovery.