The Obama administration’s total budget authority request for homeland security-related funding in FY ’13 is $68.9 billion, barely half of which is for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the second largest allocation slotted for the Defense Department, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says in a report.
DHS accounts for $35.5 billion of the requested budget authority, just under 52 percent of the total request, says the report, The Proposed Homeland Security Budget for 2013. And of the proposed DHS budget, only 60 percent of the requested monies are actually for homeland security activities, which excludes things such as response to natural disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and search and rescue operations by the Coast Guard, CBO says.
The report says that since 2004 DHS has never accounted for more than 52 percent of the total annual funding for homeland security.
The administration is seeking $18 billion in DoD funds that are for homeland security purposes, 26 percent of the overall homeland security-related monies, the report says, yet just 3 percent of the entire budget request by the Pentagon.
The next two major recipients of homeland security funding are the Departments of Health and Human Services, and Justice, accounting for $4.1 billion and $4 billion, respectively, of the FY ’13 request.
The administration has six mission areas related to achieving its homeland security goals, with border and transportation security receiving the most money here, 36 percent of the request. The next mission area, protecting critical infrastructure and key assets, has 29 percent of the request.
Emergency preparedness and response, and domestic counter-terrorism make up 8 percent respectively of the total request by mission area with defending against catastrophic threats accounting for 7 percent and intelligence and warning 1 percent.