Homeland Security organized along administration’s proposal

The Homeland Security Department approved by Congress this week looks much like the department President Bush proposed five months ago.

The new department will merge at least 170,000 federal employees from 22 agencies who perform a vast array of missions, from agricultural research to port security to disaster assistance. Under H.R. 5005, the Homeland Security Department would include the Transportation Security Administration, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Secret Service, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agencies will be reorganized into four directorates within the department: Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, Science and Technology, Border and Transportation Security, and Emergency Preparedness and Response.

The information analysis unit would absorb all of the functions of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, the Defense Department's National Communications System, the Commerce Department's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, the Energy Department's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, and the General Services Administration's Federal Computer Incident Response Center.

The Border and Transportation Security Directorate would have jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, TSA, Customs, Border Patrol, Federal Protective Service and Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. It would also include a new Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to handle visa applications, and absorb up to 3,200 agriculture inspectors and other employees of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service from the Agriculture Department. The Treasury Department would keep the portion of Customs that deals with trade and revenue collection.

In a departure from the Bush proposal, the Justice Department's Office of Domestic Preparedness and FEMA's Office of National Preparedness will move to the Border and Transportation Directorate. The White House would have put these offices in the Emergency Preparedness Division of the Homeland Security Department.

Agriculture's Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Defense's National Bioweapons Defense Analysis Center would all move to the Science and Technology Directorate, which would focus on developing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures. This division would also create several research labs to develop homeland security technologies.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would lose its Integrated Hazard Information System to the Emergency Preparedness Division of the new department. The Federal Emergency Management Agency; the FBI's National Domestic Preparedness Office; and the Health and Human Services Department's National Disaster Medical System, Metropolitan Medical Response System and Office of Emergency Preparedness would also transfer to this division, along with the Justice Department's Domestic Emergency Support Teams.

The Secret Service would be an autonomous agency within the department, falling under none of the four directorates.

The new department will include an undersecretary for management; chiefs of information, human capital, finance and civil rights; and an inspector general.

The bill aims for the new department to be up and running within a year after it becomes law, but critics say it will likely take much longer to get the department on its feet.