WHAT, EXACTLY, are federal "first responder" grants supposed to do? Are they intended to give extra financial help to firefighters and police officers who work in places where the risk of a terrorist attack is highest? Or are they meant to spread federal pork evenly around the country? The former answer is obviously the right one, but over the past three years, Congress hasn't always behaved as if that were so. On the contrary, thanks to rules that have mandated a minimum amount of spending in each state, Wyoming has so far enjoyed the highest per capita homeland security funding. That's because the rules, until now, have called for every state -- no matter what its location, population, size or significance to terrorists -- to receive 0.75 percent of the funding. This has meant that more than a third of homeland security funds were distributed automatically, before any risk analysis was done.

Legislation before Congress would improve the formula for fund distribution, if not eliminate the pork altogether. Last week, the House passed its version of a new first responders' formula, which would reduce the amount of grant money "automatically" allotted to each state from 0.75 percent to 0.25 percent of the total, with the limit raised for border states. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has passed a version of the bill, which also reduces the allocation, but only to 0.55 percent, and that limit can be raised in the case of states with a higher population. A third bill, introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and co-sponsored, perhaps not coincidentally, by a clutch of other big-state senators, has laid out a 0.25 percent minimum with no exceptions.

In the best of all possible worlds, Congress would distribute no "automatic" homeland security funding at all. In its report last year, the Sept. 11 commission itself argued that there was no reason to give states any money that had not been specifically called for by a neutral risk analyst, and we see no reason to disagree. Although risk analysis will never be a perfect science, it is surely a better way to spend money than any formula that simply aims to ensure that police in Alaska or South Dakota get a little something, just because everybody else is getting a little something. But in the absence of a perfect, pork-free bill, we hope that both houses of Congress will choose the lowest possible mandatory spending formula, so that the smallest possible amount of homeland security money is wasted.