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Budget Cuts Series: National Urban Security Technology Laboratory
In Smart Dissent's Budget Cuts Series, we are detailing as many of the White House proposed budget cuts as we can keep up with. We seek to learn and share what's hidden beneath the surface which are so many programs, facilities, and people that will never be reported by most media.
Today, we note the cuts to the Department of Homeland Security will cause the closure of Manhattan's National Urban Security Technology Laboratory. Why does this matter? What does this lab do to help this country and keep us safe? So much that it's embarrassing and ignorant to close it at a time it should be receiving more funding.
The Department of Homeland Security will be closing its city-based National Urban Security Technology Laboratory which services the NYPD and the FDNY radiation-detection equipment used to detect an improvised nuclear device or a so-called dirty bomb.... providing technical support to the city’s first-responders, the lab, under the post-9/11 Securing the Cities program, provides similar assistance to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as well as local departments across the region.
“The [New York] Fire Department has called upon NUSTL expertise on numerous occasions to assist in developing the department’s radiological programs—which are widely considered national standards for first-responders.”
Adam R. Hutter, the NUSTL’s director, wrote to the lab’s Securing the Cities partners that to satisfy cuts required by President Trump’s proposed budget for the Federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 the DHS will close the facility that helps “to detect and protect against radiological and nuclear threats by conducting functional tests of law enforcement radiation detection equipment for Securing the Cities (STC), through an agreement with the New York City Police Department.”
“NUSTL is honored to have tested nearly 20,000 units in support of the homeland security enterprise,” Mr. Hutter wrote. “Please be assured that we will continue to provide you with testing and support services until NUSTL’s closure is finalized.”
https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/national-urban-security-technology-laboratory