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Homeland Security Still Working on Recommendations By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — The U.S. Homeland Security Department (DHS) and its component agencies had as of last month implemented fewer than half of the most important recommendations made by the investigative arm of Congress, the latter said Friday in a report. The review came ahead of a hearing today at which the House Select Committee on Homeland Security is to take up the first authorization bill for the young department. The Government Accountability Office, which was known until July 7 as the General Accounting Office, described Homeland Security successes in endeavors such as bolstering security at a research center in the state of New York that houses dangerous pathogens. The office also listed dozens of actions yet to be completed, including the installation of radiation detectors at ports (see GSN, May 21) and improvements in protection of chemical facilities (see GSN, June 1). The top Democrat on the House committee, Jim Turner (Texas), commissioned the report. “We need to regain our sense of urgency and implement the remaining recommendations now to strengthen our borders and ports and make our communities safer from terrorist attack,” Turner said Friday in a statement. As of June 28, Homeland Security and the agencies it absorbed in March 2003 had implemented 40 of 104 “key recommendations” made since 1997. Homeland Security told the office it was addressing 63 of the 64 remaining recommendations, and the office said it closed the final recommendation in 2001 even though customs officials “did not fully address the intent of the recommendation.” “The recommendations discussed in this report,” GAO Homeland Security Managing Director Randall Yim wrote in introducing the report, “focus on homeland security issues that are key to DHS’s ability to effectively fulfill its homeland security mission. Therefore, we believe implementation of these recommendations will help reduce current vulnerabilities in areas such as passenger screening, border security and ports of entry.” “DHS’s efforts to address the key recommendations have generated positive results toward improved mission effectiveness,” Yim wrote. He added that Homeland Security described “specific actions taken … to implement 55 of the 63 remaining key recommendations” but also indicated “challenges related to 24 of these recommendations, such as funding and other resource constraints.” In a June 29 letter to Yim, Homeland Security Chief Financial Officer Andrew Maner described the totality of the office’s recommendations to the department as a “crushing workload.” Maner called it “important to remember that standing up a new department from a myriad of previous organizational configurations is challenging.” In particular, he said, “It is extremely difficult for current DHS personnel to assure implementation for recommendations associated with legacy departments.” Homeland Security’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate had the worst record among department components, implementing none of the 12 recommendations that affected it. In particular, the researchers said the directorate is still working on a number of recommendations related to chemical security. Homeland Security said it faced no special barriers to development of a recommended national chemical security strategy, citing plans to produce the plan by year’s end as required under a related presidential directive. The Border and Transportation Security Directorate, which was the subject of most of the office’s recommendations, had carried out 27 of 60 recommendations. Among difficulties faced by the directorate were “funding and deployment support challenges” related to expansion of the use of radiation detectors at U.S. ports, the researchers said. The Science and Technology Directorate had implemented nine of 19 recommendations, with all the completed actions related to security at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, off Long Island, N.Y. As a result, the research office said, “Unauthorized access to pathogens has been reduced, and security over the facility that houses these pathogens has been strengthened” (see GSN, July 16). Obstacles encountered at the disease center, according to the report, included a lack of access to an FBI database needed to perform employee background checks, as well as difficulties in establishing arrangements for cooperating with local police.
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