FEDERAL FUNDING for counterterrorism operations in the Bay Area remains in limbo, but a portion of the disputed money was released last week as a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues.
San Francisco was repaid more than $400,000 in funding allocated to fight nuclear and radiological attacks. It is still seeking the remainder of its expected $1.2 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The grants were authorized by Congress in 2018 as part of the “Securing the Cities” program and go to urban areas that are deemed to be at high risk for terrorism attacks, including those potentially involving nuclear materials. The grants focus on procuring detection equipment, training and related costs to the targeted operations.
The city and several other jurisdictions around the nation joined a lawsuit first filed by the city of Chicago in May after reimbursement requests made in April were met with a letter from DHS saying the grants were paused indefinitely because of what DHS said were federal spending constraints, according to the civil complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Illinois, Eastern Division.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement Wednesday that the reimbursement requests for previously spent money were finally fulfilled. But DHS said future spending under the grant program will remain paused, despite the funding having already been authorized by Congress as part of the 2018 Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Act. The act was signed into law by President Donald Trump during his first term.
The money is used to procure equipment to detect and prevent radiological and nuclear terrorist attacks, acquire expertise, and conduct specialized training, according to the City Attorney’s Office.
“I appreciate we were finally reimbursed for funds that will help prevent terrorist and nuclear attacks, but it shouldn’t take a lawsuit for the federal administration to follow the law,” Chiu said. “This counterterrorism funding should never have been frozen in the first place.”
San Francisco formed a regional partnership in 2020 called the Securing the Cities San Francisco Bay Area Program that is administered by the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative (BAUASI). The program grew out of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and aimed to coordinate terrorism prevention and responses in urban areas deemed to be at high risk of a terrorist attack. It includes 17 counties in California, the cities of Oakland and San Jose, and one county in Nevada.
“This counterterrorism funding should never have been frozen in the first place.”
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu
The federal grants are administered through the city and county of San Francisco. In 2020, Congress re-authorized funding for the Securing the Cities program through 2029 and allocated over $10 million to the BAUASI. The program was affirmed and strengthened just this year following the January attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in which a vehicle rammed into pedestrians.
The lawsuit the city joined accuses DHS of violating the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, which specifies that Congress has the power to allocate money, not the president, and the Administrative Procedure Act, a 1946 law that governs how federal agencies make rules. Chiu pointed to the high-profile sporting events scheduled to be hosted in the Bay Area over the next few years, including the Super Bowl in 2026 and the FIFA World Cup in 2028.
Mary Ellen Carroll, Executive Director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, said in a statement that it was “critical” that the money remain available.
“The Securing the Cities grant funding is essential to ensuring that our first responders are properly trained and equipped to address radiological or nuclear threats,” Carroll said.