By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the Department of Homeland Security to restore more than $56 million in anti-terror funding to the city.
In a letter to department secretary Janet Napolitano dated May 9, Schumer urged the department to boost New York's share of "Urban Area Security Initiative" funding to its former levels to avert disaster.
In the past five years, the city's share of the UASI fund has shrunk from 25 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2010 — a loss of more than $56 million.
"The failed attempt last weekend to detonate a bomb in Times Square was a disturbing reminder that, nearly a decade after the attacks of September 11th 2001, New York City remains the single greatest target for terrorist attacks in the United States," Schumer wrote.
The UASI program provides terrorism prevention funding to 64 urban areas around the country that are deemed to be at highest risk for attack, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency website.
This year, New York is slated to pocket $151 million of the total $832 million pot, Schumer's letter said.
But the senator said New York needs more than that to expand surveillance in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, including installing thousands of new security cameras, 100 license plate readers and new radiation detectors around Times Square.
“The bottom line," Schumer said in a public statement, is that "New York City continues to be the number one target for terrorism in the United States and federal anti-terror funding needs to reflect that reality.
"It’s imperative the Department of Homeland Security provide appropriate levels of funding so that the NYPD can do everything possible to make New York safe and secure,” the statement read.
This is not Schumer's first call for more cash. Last week, the senator joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg in urging the Obama administration to return funding for the separate “Securing the Cities” program, which was developed to pay for tools to protect the city from radiological — or "dirty" — bombs.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return calls for comment.
