Security At Any Price?
Homeland protection isn't just Job 1 in Washington; it's more like a big old government ATM
Critics have also raised questions about Centers of Excellence, educational consortiums pursuing research relevant to DHS, which have received lucrative seed grants. Texas A&M University, for instance, hosts the Homeland Security National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, which studies things like avian influenza and vaccines for diseases passed from animal to man. For this work, DHS gave Texas A&M and its partners a three-year grant. Value: $18 million.
Texas lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to earmark funds for the program at Texas A&M during negotiations over the creation of DHS. When the school won the grant through a competition two years later, critics complained, saying the wording of DHS's proposal for the research center precluded broad competition. "As a student of the arts," says an education lobbyist, "I would say the whole thing was very artfully done." Neville Clarke, the director of the new center at Texas A&M, concedes that the actions of the state's congressional delegation created an appearance of bias, but he says his school--a longtime agricultural leader--earned the center "fair and square."
As questions about DHS expenditures have mounted, several efforts have been made to change the agency's procedures and formulas, increase oversight, and improve the way it does business. For now, however, the fate of these initiatives remains uncertain. Congress, for instance, is debating whether to change DHS funding formulas. Representative Cox has proposed allocating 90 percent of the grant money by using formulas that give priority to high-risk areas. Under his plan, every state would still receive at least 0.25 percent of the grant money. This month, Cox's plan passed handily in the House, but it's headed toward a collision in the Senate, where Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut have sponsored a bill that would guarantee that every state receive at least 0.55 percent of the DHS grants. The bill, however, would double the funds going to high-risk states. "It is important first responders in all states receive the proper equipment and training to be prepared for all attacks," says Collins. "It's well known that the 9/11 attackers trained and hid in small towns."
The 0.25 percent minimum allocation has been supported by the new homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, a no-nonsense former U.S. attorney and head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division who has come out of the blocks making no bones about his intention to shake things up. "We cannot protect every single person at every moment in every single place," Chertoff said in his first major policy address--and he hasn't stopped since. Chertoff has urged his department's inspector general to take a hard look at big-dollar contracts and repeatedly pointed out the silliness--in his view--of spending money to protect the two-lane bridge down the street from his home. A terrorist attack on the bridge, he said, would have "a relatively low consequence compared to an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge."
Bridges are hardly the only things Chertoff is pondering these days. Currently, he's in the midst of a massive review of his entire 180,000-person department--a process he said could result in changes in its organization and mission. Sources close to the review say the secretary plans to look closely at the agency's role in gathering intelligence and that he most likely will create a new high-level position within DHS specifically to oversee all policy matters. "Old categories, old jurisdiction, old turf," Chertoff warned, "will not define our objectives or the measure of our achievements."
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