Rep. Julia Brownley announced Friday that more than $900,000 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been secured to fund security at the Port of Hueneme.
The port applied for the funds and Brownley, D-Westlake Village, sent a letter to the department in support of the application, according to her spokesman Jason Pitt.
The Port of Hueneme will receive $904,035 through the Fiscal Year 2013 Port Security Grant Program to help protect infrastructure from terrorism, enhance maritime domain awareness, improve portwide maritime security risk management and maintain or re-establish maritime security mitigation protocols that support port recovery and resiliency capabilities.
Calling the port an important economic driver here, Brownley said ensuring local safety and security means providing the port with related resources.
The port last year didn’t get anything for the first time in almost a decade, so port officials went to Washington in March and met with members of Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure their application was polished.
“This is really a fantastic number for us,” said Jason Hodge, who sits as president of the Oxnard Harbor District, which presides over the port. District officials asked for more than $1 million. Hodge said he feels they’ve been successful.
“This is strictly for security issues,” he said. “We have a unique situation in that we share so much of our property with the military that we have additional problems and concerns other ports don’t have. So this funding helps fill that gap.”
Also, Brownley recently included an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014 to fund the port security grant program at $97.5 million. Brownley’s amendment passed with broad bipartisan support, her office said.
Issues: 113th Congress, Defense, Jobs, Economy, and Small Business