Senator Hillary Clinton is concerned about the Department of Homeland Security’s increasingly inadequate funding for New York State. So she took these concerns right to the source – Secretary Michael Chertoff, who faced her displeasure about this year’s anticipated funds head on when they met last Thursday.

Reports indicate that the New York metropolitan area (New York City plus Nassau and Suffolk counties) will receive $134 million for 2007, slightly more than the amount granted in 2006, but far less than in 2005.

Clinton and Congressman Peter King forced the Department to reverse last year’s massive cuts to New York security. The senator’s letter to the secretary used terms such as "absurd" and "disturbing" to describe the Department’s reasoning for cuts after 2005: that first, New York’s application was flawed, and second, the state lacks significant "national monuments or icons."

Clinton says that, according to Chertoff’s own previous statements, funding should go to the most at-risk areas, as per the 9/11 Commission. So why, she asks, is the allocation of funds to New York so disproportionate to New York’s risk?