“the current system of federal funding promotes insular planning for the various homeland
security disciplines,...and these programs are creating ‘stovepipe’ environments in the states that
promote less integration of resources and efforts...”.
32
The challenge of appropriate assignment
of roles and responsibilities among the fragmented and multiple jurisdictions typical of state and
local government is no doubt great, but Caruson and MacManus in their essay review factors that
contribute to improved levels of regional cooperation and homeland security preparedness in
Florida.
Two other reports merit attention. First, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport
Rescue and Firefighting Requirements Working Group determined that “...federal standards for
airport fire departments are inadequate.”
33
The Working Group pointed to an insufficient
number of firefighters and fire trucks at airports and recommended the adoption of more
stringent international standards for the minimum number of fire trucks and the amount of foam
carried on the trucks. Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit organization headed by former
U.S. Senator Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., conducted a study of bioterrorism readiness that “...found
only six states are adequately prepared to distribute vaccines and antidotes in an emergency.”
34
States were evaluated on ten criteria such as the amount of state expenditures and federal aid
devoted to public health, the number of scientists and laboratories available to test for anthrax or
plague, local concurrence with the state’s bioterror preparedness plan, a disease tracking system
in daily operational use via the Internet, legal authority to quarantine, a 2002 to 2003 increase in
flu vaccination rates for senior citizens, and a pandemic flu plan.
35
Only Florida and North
Carolina met nine of the ten assessment criteria, most states met five or six, and Alaska and
Massachusetts met only three criteria. The report observed that the decrease in FY 2004 federal
bioterrorism aid to state governments creates unacceptable problems. The on-going state fiscal
crisis also contributed to a drop in state dollars for public health in about one-third of the states.
Convention