WHEREAS, the events of September 11, 2001 greatly heightened the need for America’s public safety forces to prevent, deter, and detect possible terrorism incidents on America’s soil, in addition to addressing all aspects of preparedness; and

WHEREAS, law enforcement’s mission entails the unique requirement to prevent, detect, and deter terrorism, in addition to response preparedness; and

WHEREAS, the Congress of the United States recognized this unique prevention role of law enforcement with the creation of the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP) within the Department of Homeland Security funding for 2004 and 2005; and

WHEREAS, Representative Christopher Cox, Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security recognized law enforcement’s unique prevention role when he commented in a February 2005 television interview that, “preventing terrorism equates to intelligence” (e. g., information sharing); and

WHEREAS, according to past practice by domestic and foreign terrorists, the planning and gathering of resources for a terrorist act will most likely occur within the counties, cities, villages, and townships outside of Urban Area Security Initiatives (UASI) designated, metropolitan areas; and

WHEREAS, the administration’s proposed 2006 budget to Congress has eliminated funding for LETPP from the 2004 levels of $500 million and the 2005 funding level of $400 million; and

WHEREAS, the Byrne Memorial Funding Program and Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program have been merged into the Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) programs; and

WHEREAS, the proposed 2006 budget to Congress has eliminated funding for JAG from the 2004 level of $588.2 million and the 2005 funding level of $495.5 million; and

WHEREAS, the national shared mission of preventing terrorism requires the recognition that there exists unique local issues, situations, and forces that dictate the need to permit state and local law enforcement and homeland security planning agencies the flexibility to allow for degrees of variation in the use of all homeland security funding; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) urges the Congress of the United States to restore the LETPP program in 2006 to the 2005 levels of funding; restore the JAG program in 2006 to the 2004 levels of funding; and respectfully request that any restrictions on the use of law enforcement prevention funding be removed and not restricted to formula, percentage funding, as is currently proposed.