Lawmakers jockey for Homeland Security regional offices

As the Homeland Security Department decides how many regional offices to open and where to put them, officials are preparing for high stakes lobbying from lawmakers who want the offices-and the jobs-in their districts.

While final decisions about the regional headquarters are not expected until late this year, some of the jockeying already is under way.

"We haven't come to any conclusions about numbers of locations, but we expect a lot of pressure," from legislators who want new regional offices and from those who do not want to lose existing regional offices of agencies and departments that have been rolled into Homeland Security, a Homeland Security official told CongressDaily.

"Chances are every member of Congress will want one in their district," added Michael Scardaville of the Heritage Foundation, who sees the regional office system as "an important component of the Department of Homeland Security achieving its mission." He said the regional staffers would become "[Homeland Security Secretary] Tom Ridge's ambassadors to the states and communities."

While congressional pressure will add an element of politics to the selection process, Scardaville said Ridge needs to choose office locations on merit and go to Congress with a specific plan and a solid rationale to justify his choices. "We'll see what wins out," he said, "the politics of it or the merits."

The congressional delegation from Louisiana made its pitch for a regional office, believed to be the first, during a March meeting with Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that the state's ports and chemical, oil and gas industries make the state a natural choice for a regional office.

But politics could also put Louisiana, with two Democratic senators, in competition for a regional office with Texas, which has two Republican senators and has a former governor, George W. Bush, in the White House.

Earlier this month, Ridge told the House Homeland Security Committee that the regional offices would provide a "direct point of contact" for governors, mayors and other officials. Scardaville predicted that interaction would help provide coordinated responses to threats and generate increased public confidence in the government's handling of homeland security issues.