Committee seeks changes in color-coded alert system

The House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee Wednesday approved a bill designed to overhaul the nation's color-coded threat alert system and improve information sharing with state and local governments, tribal officials and the private sector.

The bill, which passed by voice vote and now goes to the full committee, also would reorganize the Homeland Security Department's intelligence operations.

"What we're doing here today is historic because we are working to create and strengthen a new intelligence capability for the U.S. government," said Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman Rob Simmons, R-Conn.

Intelligence Subcommittee ranking member Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Simmons, added that much work still needed to be done. "I think we need to press for progress when it comes to the information-sharing environment, not just internally in the department but among all the various agencies," she said.

The bill would require the department to implement a new homeland security advisory system to disseminate information on threats and appropriate protective measures to state, local and tribal officials, and the private sector. The bill says the department should not use color designations as the exclusive means of communicating alerts and, when possible, issue alerts only for a specific region or economic sector believed to be at risk.

State, local and private sector officials have criticized the five-color alert system currently used by the department, saying it is vague and confusing.

The bill would establish the Homeland Security Department as the primary executive branch agency responsible for disseminating homeland security-related terrorist threat information.

Confusion arose in the past over which federal officials and agencies were responsible for communicating such information, especially in 2003 and 2004 when Tom Ridge, then the Homeland Security secretary, and John Ashcroft, then attorney general, sometimes offered conflicting explanations for changes in alert status.