Homeland Security Testimony -7-July 3, 200207/03/02July 3, 200207/03/02June 24, 2002 border security reorganization over six months ago, only to be shot down by his If the president's proposal for a new department becomes a reality, this brief history suggests that the new 800-pound gorilla will be a mighty adversary of the OHS and its director. The president will have to fully back his OHS director and the interagency process run by that office, but that may be difficult if this means opposing the very department and secretary his own efforts helped create. (Nor is the record here very encouraging. During the first eight months of its operation, Bush did not adequately support Ridge and the OHS against criticism and attack from within the administration.) If the Office of Homeland Security is to stand any chance of performing its vital coordinating functions successfully, then Congress may need to step in by giving the homeland security office, council, and director a status in law. There is ample precedent for this. The National Security Council was created by an act of Congress, and numerous other entities within the Executive Office of the President (from the drug czar and OMB to USTR and the Council of Economic Advisors) have statutory authority. Moreover, if the OHS and its director are to continue to have a major role in drawing up an integrated homeland security budget (as was the case for the FY2003 request), it is absolutely critical that the director not only have statutory authority but be accountable and answerable to Congress. The Way Ahead The president's proposal for creating a Department of Homeland Security is impressively ambitious. Congress should move with deliberate speed to review the proposal and decide on how best to proceed. There appears to be widespread agreement that parts of the president's proposal are both worthwhile and deserving of support. Merging the border and transportation security agencies (including consular affairs, as well as TSA, the Coast Guard, INS, Customs, and APHIS) with those agencies responsible for protecting the country's critical infrastructure is one such proposal. Creating a Cabinet-level agency composed of just these dozen or so agencies would represent a huge step forward-one Congress can, and probably should, take sooner rather than later. Other elements of the president's proposal deserve more detailed study and consideration. For now, FEMA is likely to operate and contribute to the terrorist response effort more effectively if it remains outside the new department. The threat of terrorism employing weapons of mass destruction is deserving of a concerted and Homeland Security Testimony -8-July 3, 200207/03/02July 3, 200207/03/02June 24, 2002 vigorous national response, but one that goes well beyond the limited consolidation of R&D tasks that the administration proposes for this department. And while the fusion of international and domestic intelligence and law enforcement information is clearly needed, how best to accomplish this result is something that ought to be considered on the basis of the outcome of ongoing investigations by the intelligence committees on the Hill and an independent commission that still must be appointed. The urgency of the threat counsels against delaying reorganization efforts-and it is a refrain the president and his supporters keep on repeating. But what good does it do to reorganize quickly if the end result is a government structure no better-and possibly even worse than that exists today? Meanwhile, all of us have a job to do, which is to make every effort to make our country more secure against terrorist attack. In the absence of any reorganization, it falls to Tom Ridge and his staff to take the lead in this effort. Unfortunately, the president has appointed Ridge to lead the effort on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to get his proposal turned into reality. But what about Ridge's day job—which is to lead, coordinate and mobilize the U.S. government in the effort to secure our nation against attack? If Ridge is going to focus on the legislative campaign, the president should immediately appoint another senior person with stature to head the Office of Homeland Security. We cannot afford to let down our guard even for one moment. Reorganization is important—but so is the ongoing effort to ensure we do everything possible to prevent another attack. STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY RICHARD J. DAVIS BEFORE THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARING ON PROTECTING THE HOMELAND: THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL FOR REORGANIZING OUR HOMELAND DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE JUNE 25, 2002 I am pleased to submit this statement in support of the creation of a Department of Homeland Security as contemplated by bills pending in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as by the President's June 6th proposal. The creation of such a department is critical to improving coordination of the mass of agencies with some domestic defense responsibilities, as well as to creating an entity with sufficient authority so that it will be fair to hold it accountable for how it performs. Creating such a department also provides more than a short-term solution to an immediate crisis; it creates a structure that can serve our country's long-term need to have a government effectively organized to protect security at home. At the same time, as I will discuss below, it always is important to remember that while organizational change can serve as a critical building block of a domestic defense strategy, it obviously can never be viewed as the entirety of all that must be done as part of such a strategy. While over the years I have had a variety of law enforcement responsibilities, my views on this legislation largely derive from my experiences during the Carter Administration as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement and Operations, where I dealt with terrorism related issues, as well as Customs, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, and my service as one of a panel of experts convened by the Departments of Justice and Treasury to make forward looking recommendations in the aftermath of the disastrous events at Waco in 1993. The number of discrete agencies that have responsibilities related to domestic security and counter-terrorism efforts is truly extraordinary. The FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, the Marshalls' Service, Customs, INS, the Commerce Department's Export Control Administration, the Agriculture Department, Transportation Security Agency, FAA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, the Energy Department, Capitol Police, State Department Security, GSA and National Park Police represents only a partial list of those federal agencies that have some homeland security responsibilities. Add to this the thousands of state and local police authorities which might have jurisdiction over particular incidents and the dimensions of the organizational problem becomes apparent. It would neither be realistic, nor sound policy, to try to put all these agencies in one department. Such a department would be bureaucratically unwieldy, combining too many agencies with too many disparate functions. What is needed is to bring together in one department agencies with core domestic defense functions, and whose missions are sufficiently aligned that they can be effectively managed. At the same time as this criteria is applied to determine what should be in this new department, either that department and/or a White House based office must have the power to coordinate the manner in which other relevant agencies, as well as state and local governments, are meeting their responsibilities. Applying these general principles, I suggest that you consider the following as you make the judgments about how to structure this new department: 1. The Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service should not be transferred in their entirety to the Department of Homeland Security. While it may initially be simpler to make such a wholesale transfer, over the long term I do not believe this is desirable. Both of these agencies contain important functions that either are not central to the domestic defense function and/or more appropriately belong in the departments where they now are located. Customs, for example, is a multifaceted agency with a large number of tariff, international trade and revenue responsibilities that are unrelated to the mission of the new department. Rather than simply transfer Customs as a whole, it would be feasible to transfer the Customs patrol and inspection functions - the functions most relevant to domestic defense -- to the new department and merge them with the Border Patrol and the inspection functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (or the somewhat broader grouping of INS functions being moved to the Department of Homeland Security under various of the pending legislative proposals). The rationale for the extensive resources put into the Customs inspection and patrol functions has primarily been to deal with non revenue related law enforcement priorities, particularly drug enforcement. These |