GovernmentExecutive.com

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee introduced a bill late Thursday that would affect the Homeland Security Department's plans to reorganize.

The legislation would prevent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from limiting the Federal Emergency Management Agency's responsibilities as proposed in his July "second stage review." The bill also recommends that Chertoff merge the department's border enforcement and inspection bureaus, which are slated to remain separate under his restructuring plan.

Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., introduced the bill as stand-alone legislation. Its fate remains unclear, however, as Democrats introduced several stand-alone bills under former ranking member Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, that the committee never acted on.

"This bill provides guidance and direction to many of the administration's ill-defined plans for departmental reorganization," said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science and Technology. "We know full-well that DHS needs structural overhaul. It has become clear that it will be up to Congress--and our committee in particular--to make sure it's done right. That is why this legislation is so critical."

The Democrats' measure would stop Chertoff from splitting off FEMA's preparedness operations and folding them into a new Preparedness Directorate. The secretary's plan would leave FEMA to focus on its traditional response and recovery mission.

"We have seen how American lives are saved or lost depending on how well FEMA is able to prepare for disasters," Thompson said. "It would be foolish to consider stripping this crucial agency of its preparedness mission even after seeing what happened during Hurricane Katrina."

The legislation would keep FEMA intact as part of a "strong Directorate of Preparedness and Response," and would require the agency to have a director and deputy director with extensive backgrounds in emergency or disaster-related management. The deputy director would have to be a career federal employee.

The bill "expresses the sense of Congress" that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection bureaus should be merged "in order to eliminate inefficiencies and a lack of coordination created by these two agencies' separation."

The Democrats also outlined responsibilities for the department's new chief intelligence officer, chief medical officer, and assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications. Their measure grants the chief privacy officer the power to access all records for an investigation, subpoena documents from the private sector and obtain sworn testimony.

The bill would strengthen whistleblower protections by allowing DHS employees, contractors and subcontractors, and employees "of other companies working in homeland security areas," to file complaints at the Labor Department if they feel they are retaliated against for reporting "a national security concern."

If Labor fails to act on a complaint within six months, protected employees would be able to take their case to district court and would be entitled to such reinstatement, back pay, legal fees and punitive damages. Retaliation against whistleblowers would become a crime punishable by 10 years in prison.

COMMENTS

• Congress has finally woken up, and is attempting to fix the enormous mistake that was made when DHS was created, by splitting its uniformed officers into CBP and its investigators into ICE. No good reason has ever been put forward for this action, which cannot by justified by any means. It has only resulted in duplication of effort, bureaucratic roadblocks, confusion, poor morale, and the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars. This artificial separation of CBP and ICE has actually hindered rather than helped in accomplishing this department's missions (whatever they are, but that's another story, as is the questionable need to create DHS in the first place). The reasons for the proposed merger are many, and have been well articulated in previous GovExec.com and other media articles, as well as in the draft report recently prepared by the DHS OIG, while Mr. Chertoff's reasons for not merging CBP and ICE are weak, and not supported by the facts. While a merger won't solve all of the many problems confronting DHS, CBP and ICE, at least it represents the first step in what will hopefully be the right direction for this department. This is not a partisan political issue between Republicans and Democrats, but a matter of applying common sense to an issue that affects national security. It needs to be addressed immediately by the Administration and Congress, because too much time has been wasted already. GovExec.com reader Posted October 7, 2005 5:04 PM
• If the vote today for Julie Myers is any indication, the Democrats' bill doesn't stand a chance for passage (or even to make it out of committee, for that matter). Despite a concurrent hearing scheduled for Myers by the Judiciary Committee, her nomination seems all but assured (along party lines, of course). Worse for ICE, so many have bad mouthed Myers, even within her "kingdom to be," that her tenure as assistant secretary is sure to be tense and unproductive (sure doesn't help that Matt Issman pretty much slammed Myers in his public comments as ICE's FLEOA representative). Thus, effectively, Myers, for all her connections and "experience," comes into an agency sorely in need of leadership at a crucial time in its young history as damaged goods. So the bailout which began in earnest after Chertoff's infamous "Second Stage Review" address in early July now threatens to turn into a full scale bleedout: eligibles retiring by the droves daily, young agents looking elsewhere to sow their fortunes (as they see absolutely no future with ICE), and the middle-aged, 40-something agents clicking on the Internet all day, requesting "permission" for a second career, so they can escape, even if for a few hours a day, from this nightmare born of good intent, but mismanaged from the start. Pathetic, shameful and thoroughly disgraceful. GovExec.com reader Posted October 7, 2005 5:59 PM
• If it is the "sense of Congress" that ICE and CBP be merged, why did they not act when this publicity stunt agency was first formed? Instead, they listened to the entreaties of the FBI, who did not want an "investigative" agency formed that would be larger than the bureau and still block any attempts to change the name of ICE. Political turf battles killed any chance at success this agency ever had at the start and I don't see that changing. As an investigator in ICE, I see it every day. At the employee level, we depend upon relationships forged in the pre-DHS days to get the job done, but at an official level, we are just two competing agencies. Good luck, Ms. Myers. GovExec.com reader Posted October 10, 2005 10:59 AM