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Uncle Sugar Announces Federal Grant Opportunities

Show me the money!

The race is on for the FFY21 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding. See this article: "DHS Announces Funding Opportunity for $1.87 Billion in Preparedness Grants."

Just a quick note, back in 2003 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks this number was well over $3 billion. 

Along with all the different pots of money, we have been blessed with a new acronym (new to me anyway): Domestic Violent Extremist (DVE). Be sure to sprinkle that into the language in all your grant applications. For the first time since the Oklahoma City Bombing first shone a light on right-wing extremism, the topic is back on the funding table in a major way. Thank you Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

You can poke through all the different pots of funding. I'm thinking they are a bit like the "old time" candy jars displayed in stores of olden days, except in this case they're different pots of money displayed and wide-eyed first responders eying which ones they would like to have.

I'll have more on "Federal Mind Control" in my April International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) column that appears in the monthly Bulletin. I'll call out just one of the new priority areas that is getting more money than in the past — cybersecurity:

"With today’s grant awards, I am also directing additional grant funding to support cybersecurity efforts. As we have seen in recent events, attacks on our cyber networks can have devastating effects. Accordingly, I have required that SHSP and UASI recipients spend at least 7.5 percent of their grant awards to enhance their cybersecurity posture. With this funding, state and local grant recipients can conduct cybersecurity risk assessments, strengthen their ‘dot gov’ internet domains, improve the cybersecurity of their critical infrastructure, and conduct additional cybersecurity training and planning."

It is an area that needs more attention by emergency management. We can't just say that we do "consequence management" after everything fails. Let's just imagine that the Texas power failure came not from cold weather, but from a cyberattack on their interconnected grid. You can see the problems that event caused and it is easily imaginable that our grid can be disabled by any number of worthy adversaries — whenever they want to pull the plug. 

So, get the application forms out. Look for the formal NOFO and get cracking on those applications!

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.