NEW YORK - Six years after hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States remains dangerously vulnerable to terrorism, with glaring deficiencies in first-response and aviation security, said Sen. Charles Schumer, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies.

“Progress that this administration has made in securing our country is shameful,” Schumer said Sunday. “Despite new threats materializing every day, the Department of Homeland Security has remained remarkably stagnant, leaving gaping holes open for years. The department's stubbornness and incompetence has made us still too vulnerable to terrorist attack.”

In a statement timed to Tuesday's anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Schumer issued an annual report card giving DHS an overall grade of C, which he called “only a slight improvement” from last year's C-minus.

“That's not a grade we can be proud of,” Schumer told a sidewalk news conference outside Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan. “It's not a failing grade, but when your kid comes home with a C, you say, ‘Can't you do better?”'

Schumer's remarks were interrupted by public address warnings to travelers to let only authorized redcaps handle their luggage, a precaution that is part of the government's effort to improve transportation security.

On Schumer's report card, the highest grade was a B-minus for nuclear, chemical and biological security, and the lowest was an F, a failing grade for emergency preparedness and response.

Regarding the latter, Schumer cited a recent General Accountability Office study saying that DHS had “not met five specific performance goals” to assure that first responders - fire and police agencies - have reliable and interoperable communications, which were disastrously lacking on Sept. 11, 2001.

“It shouldn't take six years for a fire department to be able to talk to a police department in another jurisdiction,” he said.

Schumer said aviation security fell from last year's B-minus to a C-plus because of recently discovered FBI omissions of suspects from terrorist watch lists and DHS's failure to toughen screening procedures for air cargo on passenger planes.

Other grades were C for border security, C-minus for port security and D-pluses for mass transit and truck security and grant funding for first responders.

Schumer, who has pushed for tighter transportation security and more anti-terrorism funding for New York, praised the Democrat-led Congress for adopting measures recommended by the 9/11 Commission to improve security.

But he described the Department of Homeland Security, which was designed to consolidate many security-related functions under one roof, as “a shambles,” with agencies “bouncing from issue to issue.”

The U.S. Coast Guard, for one, should not be part of DHS, he said.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said it was “disingenuous” for Schumer to criticize DHS “without addressing the core, unimplemented recommendation of the 9/11 Commission to streamline congressional oversight of the department.”

He said there are 90 Senate and House committees and subcommittees with “claimed jurisdiction” in homeland security matters.

“That is a staggering number of reports, briefings and questions for the department to deal with,” Knocke said. “It is a tremendous burden for the department to be constantly responding to these requests, and it is one thing that Senator Schumer and his colleagues could do something about.”