Congress / Budget
Capitol Hill: Congresswoman questions security of re-sale of federal agency data tapes
February 4th, 2008
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate potential security breaches that might occur through a program under which federal agencies resell used magnetic data tapes. The congresswoman questioned findings cited in an earlier GAO review, requested by the Department of Homeland Security, which concluded that the tapes were wiped of any information before being offered for sale to the general public. She cited a test of such tapes, conducted by Imation, the Oakdale, MN, specialist in removable data storage (one of whose best known brands is Memorex). The test, done over a 36-hour period, using a standard PC and well-known forensics techniques, yielded a treasure trove of sensitive data, including bank account numbers, personal information on government employees and a variety of financial documents.
Capitol Hill: Rep. King backs effort to reduce DHS committee red tape
January 28th, 2008
Congressman Peter King (R-NY) the ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has publicly applauded DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff’s call for Congress to consolidate its DHS oversight committees. King said failure to reduce the number of committees and subcommittees could harm the nation’s homeland security posture. "Make no mistake, this is severely detrimental to our national security," King said. "The more opposing directives they’re given and the more time department heads spend testifying before Congress, the less time they can spend actually implementing and improving domestic security measures."
Congresswoman Jackson Lee calls for tighter pipeline security
January 18th, 2008
When you first lay eyes on Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a stout, matronly black congresswoman from Houston, TX, you might not expect her to display an insider’s knowledge of the U.S. energy industry.
Capitol Hill: Heritage Foundation to Congress: Reform DHS funding process
January 18th, 2008
The Heritage Foundation is urging Congress to streamline its DHS budget-making process, by moving towards adoption of a single DHS appropriation bill. "Broad homeland security policy issues would be better addressed in an authorization bill than by a patchwork of legislation," the conservative think tank advised in a recent white paper. It added that a single authorization bill "would allow the authorizing committees to exercise more stringent oversight of the Department of Homeland Security." The report, authored by Senior Policy Analyst Mackenzie Eaglen, suggested that the streamlined process would also allow Congress to address the many homeland security issues that individual pieces of legislation have not covered, while reducing "reactive stand-alone legislation that is inevitably proposed after the latest threat or incident and directed at ever-changing security concerns."
Capitol Hill: DHS Science & Technology gets money – with strings
January 11th, 2008
Congress is asserting its role as the holder of the nation’s purse-strings, as it examines FY2008 DHS agency budgets. A case in point: The House Science and Technology Committee voted to give the DHS Science and Technology Directorate $850 million to invest in various technologies in the coming year, but congressmen on both sides of the aisle have been pressing DHS S&T for more accountability regarding how the money is spent. A bill sponsored by Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) the Science and Technology Committee‘s ranking member, would require the directorate to clearly define the cost and operational requirements of its key portfolio budgets. More significantly, the legislation would extend through 2012 the life of the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee, an interdisciplinary body of 20 experts who advise S&T Directorate executives. The move could mandate DHS S&T shift funds to more long-term security goals.
Capitol Hill: Senate passes Coast Guard "Deepwater" bill
January 7th, 2008
Senate passage of the Deepwater reform bill (S.924) just prior to Christmas recess paves the way for the U.S. Coast Guard to move forward with reforms urged by Congress and the Government Accountability Office. Chief among the bill’s provisions is that the Coast Guard assumes hands-on management of the troubled $24 billion, 25-year Deepwater modernization program. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) led the legislative fight for reform of the program. The Senate now awaits passage of similar legislation in the House of Representatives (HR 2830), which will determine Coast Guard funding in FY 2008, before a House-Senate conference can frame legislation for presidential signature.
Holding steady in 2007…
December 28th, 2007
It seems to me that 2007 was a year in which "homeland security" found itself in a holding pattern.
The Department of Homeland Security, which took such a battering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, managed to hang onto the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in the face of some angry members of Congress who had recommended dramatic organizational changes.
Perhaps more importantly, the threats to the nation’s domestic security, while worrisome, never materialized in a bloody way in the U.S. itself, even as they emerged in deadly ways throughout the world.
With the transfer of power on Capitol Hill from Republicans to Democrats, the tone of the dialogue about homeland security certainly shifted. Where Republicans Chris Cox of California and Peter King of New York had used their chairmanships of the House Homeland Security Committee largely to defend the Bush administration, the ascendancy of Rep. Bennie Thompson, a veteran Democrat from Mississippi, to the same committee chairmanship, brought a relentlessly critical voice to the debate about homeland security priorities and funding levels.
Capitol Hill: Leahy bill kills WHTI passport requirement
December 28th, 2007
Legislation authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) that would prevent implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requirement that passports be presented at the northern border has been included in a multi-agency budget bill headed for the president’s desk. George Bush is expected to sign the bill, despite administration opposition to the Leahy provisions. The Leahy bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), delays implementation of the land-crossing phase of WHTI until June 2009, and lays down seven conditions which must be remedied before passport requirements can be applied.
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