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Release Date: 05/06/04 00:00:00
May 6, 2004
Remarks as Prepared
Chairman Cox, Ranking Member Turner, distinguished members of the Committee:
I am pleased to appear at this hearing of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security appreciates the support we have received from this Committee as we have worked with you to establish and refine this Department in support of our unified national effort to prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the nation.
I would also like to acknowledge the tremendous work of the Department's management team and their dedicated staff in keeping DHS on track and focused on our ultimate goal of transforming a formerly disparate set of organizations into a cohesive 21st century Department.
This reorganization of government has presented the biggest "change management" challenge of all time. Never before have we witnessed a full-scale government divestiture, merger, acquisition and startup all coming together at once - certainly not on this scale. Neither have we seen a consolidation of this size occur with such national importance and urgency and in such a short amount of time.
Our biggest challenge was to establish the Department, transfer her employees in from other agencies, and establish a working organizational environment while making sure that we did not lose a step in accomplishing all of the critical missions with which we were charged.
This reorganization and transition required looking beyond old agendas, missions, cultures, histories and processes, and coming together as one holistic enterprise. It required - and finally enabled - employees from many different organizations to rally around a single mission: to deter and prevent terrorist attacks, to protect our people and infrastructure and respond to threats and hazards to our nation in a way that is respectful of individual privacy and civil liberties, ultimately, to secure borders, but also keep open the doors so characteristic of, and essential to, this welcoming and economically thriving country.
In the post 9/11 world, our employees renewed their respect for the importance of their jobs and recognized the need to do them differently and better. And so our charge was to unify that sense of purpose and mission. Our charge was to make it easier for them to do their jobs and, as a nation, approach the protection of our people and our way of life in a smarter, more effective and more efficient way.
When the President laid out his direction and the Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, the expectations were clear that this Department be unlike any other within the federal government. At the core of these expectations was the priority of developing a model agency for the new century that supports in an effective, efficient and rational manner the unified national effort to secure America.
In order to respond to new and different 21st century threats, this Department's organizational identity must incorporate the characteristics of flexibility, innovation, efficiency and responsiveness. The Department's ability to become a modern, agile, and integrated organization is essential to adequately support this Department in its efforts to confront the challenges of the new century in a bold way.
The definition of a 21st century Department is a consolidated and focused Department that seeks to integrate, with laser-like precision, the various resources and efforts across the federal government in order to prevent, protect against and respond to terrorist attacks that threaten the American way of life. Inherent in this definition of a 21st century Department is the need for DHS to be organized and to be able to provide the highest quality of support service for the men and women on the front lines in the war on terrorism. Just as this Department was created to execute a mission unlike any other agency in government, so should the delivery of service be as unique in supporting this critically important mission.
The Department of Homeland Security has made great organizational strides during the first year of operations. Nearly 180,000 employees and a budget of $31.2 billion were brought under DHS a little more than a year ago.
At the same time, from the start, we also had to remain focused on our operational activities -- that is, while we worked swiftly to get servers up, systems consolidated, a stapler on every desk - we had to be squarely focused on the protection of the country.
Operationally, one of the top priorities achieved by the Department was to integrate specific departmental functions to enhance efficiencies and create greater accountability in one seamless border service. For the first time in the country's history, all agencies of the United States Government with significant border responsibilities have been unified into one agency of our government, Customs and Border Protection (CBP); one agency, one face, to manage and secure the Nation's borders.
The Department's first high-level Strategic Plan was released in February. This Strategic Plan sets forth the vision and mission statements, core values, guiding principles and strategic goals and objectives that provide the framework to guide the actions that make up the daily operations of the Department. The full breadth of our activities is guided by the high-level goals of: Awareness, Prevention, Protection, Response, Recovery, Service, and Organizational Excellence.
The Department's Strategic Plan reflects the determination of our nation to prevail against terror, to protect our homeland and to improve the way we serve our diverse customers. Describing who we are and what we do, it conveys the beliefs and values that govern our conduct. It outlines what we will accomplish. This document provides the vision and direction, as well as the goals and objectives for the Department while our detailed budget plan describes how we will achieve those results. Each program in the budget plan will be linked to our goals and objectives and will have timelines and ownership associated with specific performance.
One of the biggest strategic challenges currently facing DHS is the need to consolidate the Department's headquarters operations in one location. This collocation will significantly improve the communications, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Department's management and day-to-day direction. Without Congressional approval, however DHS cannot fully move into its preferred headquarters -- the Nebraska Avenue Complex (NAC), which is currently an active military base. DHS, the Navy, and the General Services Administration have jointly submitted a legislative proposal to establish the DHS headquarters at the NAC. We believe Congress should pass this legislation as a stand-alone bill so that the Department can consolidate its headquarters as soon as possible. Every day that DHS fails to consolidate its operations, the Department is hobbled in achieving its ultimate goal of protecting the American people and the homeland.
Equally important to this Department is sensible financial management and sensible financial management requires informed financial and management decisions. To ensure policy decisions are made based on sound rationale, such as a program's contribution to our strategic goals and measurable results, DHS has put in place a comprehensive planning, evaluation, and investment review process.
At the core of this process is the Future Years Homeland Security Program -- FYHSP. Section 874 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, requires the Department to prepare the FYHSP. The FYHSP process will help ensure that current and out year program requirements are properly identified, planned, and aligned with DHS goals and priorities and have measurable meaningful performance outcomes. The Department's first FYHSP is expected to be provided to Congress this month.
In the past year, an Investment Review Board (IRB) and Joint Requirements Council (JRC) were established. The JRC identifies crosscutting opportunities and common requirements among DHS Organizational Elements for investments and aids in determining how best to ensure that the Department uses its resources wisely and in the best interest of the American public. The IRB is an executive committee that reviews high-level investments for formal entry into the annual budget process and also serves as a forum for discussing investment issues and resolving problems requiring senior management attention. Specifically, the IRB and JRC review major capital investments to:
Over the past year, DHS has streamlined the number of financial management service providers in the Department from nineteen to ten with a continual focus on further consolidations. We are implementing a consolidated bankcard program that is reducing the significant number of bankcard programs for purchase, travel, and fleet throughout the Department among the 22 legacy entities to three. We developed and delivered to Congress on time, the Department's FY 2005 President's Budget and accompanying Congressional Justifications. We subjected ourselves to, and successfully completed, an audit of our consolidated FY 2003 financial statements. We have also made strides in our attempt to build one financial system for the Department. Most importantly, all of this has been accomplished with no negative impact on mission operations.
Essential to sound financial management is a sound and robust financial management system. When DHS was created, we inherited over 100 resource management systems from the 22 organizations that were merged to create DHS. Few of these systems are integrated, several are outdated and many have limited functionality. To address this problem, the Department has undertaken a resource transformation initiative entitled eMerge2. The goal of eMerge2, which stands for "electronically Managing enterprise resources for government effectiveness and efficiency", is to improve resource management and enable the bureaus to move "Back Office" effectiveness and efficiency to "Front Line" Operations.
eMerge2 is a business-focused program that seeks to consolidate and integrate the Department's budget, accounting and reporting, cost management, asset management, and acquisitions and grants functions. Once procured and developed, the solution will be rolled out in several phases focusing first on those organizations most in need of improved basic financial management services. eMerge2 is currently in the midst of an exhaustive requirements definition and design phase, which is expected to evolve into a solutions acquisition phase this summer. As eMerge2 is implemented over the next few years, it will greatly enhance Departmental visibility, oversight and accountability of component operations and financial management.
Holding managers accountable for achieving established goals and results is integral to DHS's financial management and planning. Towards this end, the performance budget forges a strong link between resources and performance, shows what is being accomplished with the money being spent, and establishes accountability for the levels of performance achieved. The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) complements the performance budget by providing the Department an objective means of assessing the value and contribution of individual programs to achieving the Department's objectives. It also provides a tool for assessing how the program is being managed.
In July 2003 an integrated project team was established to realign and transform support services for the 68,000 mission delivery employees assigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). This was especially difficult because ICE was highly decentralized, and CBP was highly centralized. The team was to develop a basis for shared services, consolidate services where appropriate to realize economies of scale, and ensure accountability. The result was that CIS, ICE, and CBP each became primary service providers for selected services. For example, CBP provides facilities acquisition and management, ICE provides supervisory leadership training, and CIS provides records management. For some services, however, the three components remain self-supporting. Those services include procurement, personal property, budget, and labor and employee relations. This effort within the Department is referred to as the "Tri-Bureau" effort.
On March 1, 2003, DHS faced the daunting task of supporting 22 different components receiving services from nine different parent agencies. To provide continuity of service, DHS signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with each of the parent agencies to continue that support. Then, on May 1, the Under Secretary for Management established a transition team to consolidate support services throughout the department. The team identified 255 unique services in the 22 components and DHS headquarters resulting in 3,457 separate services requirements. The services were catalogued under eight lines of business: administrative services, human resources, information technology, procurement, financial management, civil rights, legal, and security. By October 2003, the department was supporting 1463 of the 3457 services, and it is the expectation that most of the services will be provided by DHS by the end of FY 2004.
The Department's Office of Administrative Services has been able to consolidate 35% of Administrative Services functions through the Tri-Bureau effort. Additionally, DHS has consolidated 22 different personal property management systems down to 3 and will utilize one, single property management system with implementation of the emerge2 initiative.
The Department has also managed to consolidate 22 different processes for each administrative support service across the Department, such as mail, printing, vehicles, etc., down to 8 processes. Further implementation of the shared services strategy utilized under the Tri-Bureau effort will allow even further consolidation of these processes to occur.
The consolidation of processes and systems supports the DHS goal of being a 21st century Department. Above all, supporting the DHS organizational elements in their mission is the top priority. The use of national standards, proven management controls, and a practice of continuously improving program performance are enabling the Office of Administrative Services to effectively develop and implement a consolidated approach for the management of DHS safety, environmental management, records and publications, real property, personal property, and mail operations.
For example, asset management and mail management consolidation studies are currently underway within the Department. The intent of the real property consolidation studies, as part of our overall asset management plan, is to assess and analyze the Department's real property portfolio to develop the most effective and efficient profile that best supports the organizational mission.
The Asset Management Board is responsible for coordinating and reviewing the policies, procedures and utilization of the physical assets of the Department including real and personal property. The board ensures consistent priorities for capital improvement projects at all levels. In addition, the Board oversees a system of asset program councils that bring together program experts and users to define guidance, metrics and requirements. These councils serve multiple roles: program management oversight and control, strategic sourcing initiatives, and development of new joint requirements.
Additionally, integrated and standardized mail handing and management processes are currently under development to improve the security, movement, and delivery of mail across DHS, and the development of consolidated mail facilities are already improving the productivity and safety of the DHS mail operations.
Within the procurement and acquisition arenas, the Department has consolidated acquisition support for the 22 legacy agencies within 8 major procurement programs within DHS. Acquisition support for S&T, IAIP, CIS, ODP, the Office of the Secretary and Under Secretary for Management, as well as other headquarters customers has been consolidated within one major acquisition program.
DHS is currently managing several complex enterprise-wide acquisition programs. The U.S. Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater System (IDS) Program, for example, is one of the largest performance-based acquisition programs in the United States. The Coast Guard, one of the nation's five armed services, is a military, multi-mission, and maritime service within the Department of Homeland Security. This service is responsible for the protection of the public, the environment, and U.S. economic and security interests in the maritime domain -- including America's coasts, ports and inland waterways as well as international waters.
In order to meet America's 21st-century maritime threats and challenges, the Coast Guard initiated the Integrated Deepwater System (IDS) Program in the late 1990s. The Deepwater Program is intended to provide the capability and capacity for the Coast Guard to meet all maritime missions legislatively mandated in the Homeland Security Act. Deepwater assets are needed to perform missions in ports, waterways, coastal areas, and extending seaward to anywhere the Coast Guard needs to take appropriate action and respond 24 hours a day, every day, in various environments from Arctic to tropical and equatorial climates throughout the world. The Deepwater Program will recapitalize and transform the Coast Guard to ensure it has the necessary platforms and systems to continue to meet these and future missions and sustain its operational excellence well into the 21st century.
The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) has created a robust and innovative outreach program for its constituency. Outreach includes counseling on how to market to DHS and its buying activities and provides opportunities for these small businesses to engage both federal government employees and large business concerns that may be interested in the supplies or services these firms offer. The OSDBU has conducted extensive outreach to the Department's business partners and has assisted in the development of a website designed to assist the private sector in realizing business opportunities with the Department.
DHS has also implemented new and consolidated acquisition policies and procedures (Homeland Security Acquisition Regulations and Homeland Security Acquisition Manual) that are among the most flexible in the entire federal government. Under them, simplified selection procedures are authorized for "commercial item" purchases of $7.5 million or less -- that's 50 percent higher than most agencies -- and red tape can be slashed altogether for so-called "micro-purchases" under $7,500, triple the normal amount. Publication of this regulation and guidance was another major step in combining the cultures of 22 disparate agencies by ensuring that these organizational elements now operate under a single, DHS-wide program regulation.
We've also established a department-wide program for strategic sourcing and supply chain management. Specifically, DHS has initiated 14 cross-functional commodity councils tasked with creating sourcing strategies for goods and services acquired throughout the Department. Councils govern a wide range of requirements, from simple items such as office supplies, to more sophisticated requirements, such as boats and their maintenance, or complex IT infrastructure needs. Accrued savings in excess of $1M is expected for consolidation of handgun testing requirements. Combining office supply needs will result in realized savings of 55 percent off retail pricing arrangements. For DHS Headquarters alone, approximately $750,000 was saved over a six month period. Significant savings have been realized in the early stages of this initiative -- for FY 05, a total of $100 million is expected to be realized.
In February of 2004, DHS announced its partnership with the Department of Defense's EMALL program, which is an internet-based marketplace that allows purchasers to access DoD's wide variety of vendors and catalogs and enhances DHS' ability to provide a one-stop shopping experience to acquire the goods and services needed to support DHS' mission. The partnership with DOD EMALL enables DHS to participate in one of the largest existing government-to-business exchanges and will result in a projected savings for the Department in FY 05 of $8 million.
In the area of human capital, we have made tremendous strides towards organizational efficiency and unified policy. The Department has managed to consolidate the 22 different human resource servicing centers that existed and reduced the number down to seven with the goal of consolidating down to three or fewer of these centers. Additionally, the eight different payroll systems have been consolidated down to three, with the goal of utilizing one, single payroll provider for the entire Department by Spring 2005.
Our Human Capital office has also established unified policies on performance management and Senior Executive Service performance appraisals.
As the Congress recognized with the passage of the Homeland Security Act, DHS has been given a critical responsibility. Our mission is to protect the country from terrorists and keep terrorists' weapons from entering the country. We can't afford to fail. We need the ability to act swiftly and decisively in response to critical homeland security threats and other mission needs. It is essential that we continue to attract and retain highly talented and motivated employees who are committed to excellence -- the most dedicated and skilled people our country has to offer. The current system is too cumbersome to achieve this goal.
The existing system was designed for a different time. The world has changed, jobs have changed, missions have changed -- and our HR systems need to change as well to support this new environment. The current system, while it has many positive features, is insufficient to meet our needs.
The Department, in conjunction with OPM, had an historic opportunity to design a system that meets our critical mission requirements and is responsive to DHS employees. We understood Congress' desire to allow employees to participate in a meaningful way in the creation of a new system. With OPM Director James' support and leadership, we engaged in an unprecedented collaborative effort to create the new system. Over 80 DHS employees, supervisors, union representatives and OPM staff were appointed to a Design Team. During the spring of 2003, that team conducted 64 nationwide town hall and focus group meetings to gain input from employees in all major DHS components. They also contacted over 65 public and private sector organizations and human resource experts as part of their research. The Secretary appointed a Senior Review Committee to guide the work of the Design Team and to review all the options developed by the Team. The Committee included both DHS and OPM leaders and the three Union Presidents from the largest DHS unions.
In developing these proposals for a new human resource management system, the Secretary and the Director accepted the guiding principles developed by the Senior Review Committee and the Design Team. These principles state that the Department of Homeland Security must ensure, first and foremost, that such systems are mission-centered. Such systems must be performance-focused, contemporary, and excellent. They must generate respect and trust; they must be based on the principles of merit and fairness embodied in the statutory merit system principles; and they must comply with all other applicable provisions of law. We have worked hard to solicit the input of our employees and their representatives, the general public, and other interested parties during the thirty day public comment period.
We are proposing a system that has a stronger correlation between performance and pay and greater consideration of local market conditions. Our proposal contains three major changes to the current General Schedule pay structure: first, we have proposed open pay ranges eliminating the "step increases" in the current system which are tied to longevity; second, we are proposing that pay would be adjusted by job type in each market not across all job types in each market; and third, we are proposing to create performance pay pools where all employees who meet performance expectations will receive performance based increases.
The proposals for performance management are designed to foster high levels of performance and to ensure that good performance is recognized, rewarded, and reinforced. The system will be designed to make meaningful distinctions in performance and to hold employees accountable at all levels. We are proposing to phase in the performance management system before making any adjustments to pay based on that system. We are fully cognizant that this is one of the biggest challenges that lies ahead and that there is detailed work that must be done before we can implement the new system.
Our proposed labor relations construct meets our operational needs while providing for collective bargaining and encouraging consultation with employee representatives. One of the most significant changes which we have proposed is the scope of bargaining over management rights. In the face of a committed and unpredictable enemy, the Department must have the authority to move employees quickly when circumstances demand; it must be able to develop and rapidly deploy new technology to confront threats to national security; and it must be able to act without delay to properly secure the Nation's borders and ports of entry. We propose that the Department not be required to bargain over the exercise of these rights. Our proposal provides for consultation with employee representatives both before and after implementation when circumstances permit. We have proposed to retain the same bargaining obligations as we have today concerning the exercise of the remaining management rights.
We recognize that these are significant changes. They are necessary for the Department to carry out its mission and fulfill the requirements of the Homeland Security Act to create a 21st century system that is flexible and contemporary while protecting fundamental employee rights. We have developed these proposals with extensive input from our employees and their representatives. And we continue to encourage a dialogue as we proceed through the regulatory process.
The comment period for the proposed regulations closed on March 22nd -- there are approximately 3,500 comments in the public docket including comments from members of Congress, the unions representing DHS employees, other employee groups, individual employees, and members of the general public. Those comments are being analyzed at this time.
As required by the Homeland Security Act, DHS and OPM are reviewing all the recommendations from employee representatives and will prepare, after full and fair consideration of those recommendations, a Congressional notification which highlights those recommendations which have been accepted and those which have not been accepted.
DHS and OPM have worked with the Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to draft procedures to govern the legislatively-mandated "meet and confer" process -- we will be reaching out to employee representatives who commented on the proposed regulations to include them in this process as appropriate. Additionally, DHS and OPM have continued to have discussions with the three major unions representing DHS employees -- to ensure a clear understanding of their joint comments and to agree on the process going forward.
We hope to issue final regulations later this year after the meet and confer process has concluded -- and to begin, as indicated in the preamble to the proposed regulations, a phased approach to implement the regulations across DHS. We have asked for over $100 million to support the implementation of the regulations including monies to support training of our managers in the new system -- implementation will continue throughout the next two fiscal years.
In the interim, our employees continue to do outstanding work on behalf of the American people. We are proud of all we have accomplished in our first year. And, we are especially proud of the employees who have made it possible.
Information technology will provide the Department of Homeland Security a competitive edge as it transforms into a 21st century agency. There is no mission endeavor that will not benefit by exploiting information technology to prevent terrorism, or to facilitate the movement of goods and people. Whether it is sharing the latest geo-spatial data with our federal, state, local, and tribal partners, or processing immigration benefits, information technology will enable smarter, more customer friendly solutions for America. Further, modern back-office systems to provide a responsible accounting of the taxpayers' funds and to manage a highly motivated workforce must be deployed quickly and cost effectively to manage our 180,000 employee workforce.
Merging 22 agencies, also presents information technology challenges for our 21st century agency. Rationalizing disparate technologies with conflicting business rules, consolidating data centers and networks, getting the right information to border agents, preventing cyber attacks against our mission critical systems, or even having a common email system must be achieved to help detect and deter future terrorist attacks.
The challenge facing the IT function of DHS is very complex. For example, to accomplish its dual mission of border security and trade facilitation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is modernizing its operational processes and the information technology that supports them. As an integral component of "Smart Borders," the web-based Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) will provide CBP officers with the state-of-the-art tools and enhanced information they need to decide -- before a container or other cargo reaches the border -- what should be targeted because it is high risk, and what should be expedited because it complies with U.S. laws. The burden of paper-intensive manual processing of goods will be significantly reduced, facilitating the movement of commerce, and reducing costs for both government and the private sector. The ACE will provide a single, centralized, on-line access point to connect CBP and the trade community, enabling businesses and their CBP account managers to have a national account view of their trade activity. Through the creation of a shared data warehouse, ACE will enable border enforcement agencies access to a large volume of information, streamlined data collection, and a significantly enhanced capability to share and analyze information. The ACE will ultimately be delivered to all ports, locations, and transportation modes.
Ultimately, there are three major areas of focus with regard to information technology within the Department. The first is to ensure that the men and women on the front lines of the Department have all the IT enabled solutions, tools, and training they need to safeguard the United States and to deliver the Department's safety and service related missions. We must deliver new mission solutions with quality and speed, in a secure and cost-effective manner.
The second area of challenge addresses the integration of existing IT enabled solutions. Guided by our Enterprise Architecture, the Department is identifying opportunities to consolidate and rationalize mission solutions. For example, in mission areas like threat identification and management, identity credentialing and collaboration, we have identified multiple solutions in use within the various organizational elements of the Department. The IT role is to facilitate the operators and subject matter experts in our agencies in determining the optimal number and nature of mission solutions needed.
Finally, the third area of challenge is to realize efficiencies and economies of scale that the President and Congress desired by creating DHS. We must rapidly identify and eliminate overlap and redundancy within the IT infrastructure, as well as in key IT support programs including Information Security. At the same time, we must ensure that we maintain mission operations while we restructure, integrate, and consolidate our IT infrastructure.
In his proposal for creating the Department nearly two years ago, the President highlighted the use of enterprise architecture techniques to improve both the sharing and use of information. The President stated that the "development of a single enterprise architecture for the department would result in elimination of the sub-optimized, duplicative, and poorly coordinated systems, and processes, that are prevalent in government today. There would be rational prioritization of projects necessary to fund homeland security missions based on an overall assessment of requirements rather than a tendency to fund all good ideas beneficial to a separate unit's individual needs even if similar systems are already in place elsewhere."
The Department's leadership has discussed the vision and strategy of DHS and how that strategy must fulfill the President's vision; additionally, that vision must be supported by a disciplined capital planning and investment control process that is guided by business-driven enterprise architecture. Version 1 of the enterprise architecture describes a target information management infrastructure that will be dramatically different from the one DHS has today. One that will provide timely, accurate, useful and actionable information to all individuals who require it all the time. We believe this effort was truly unique in the federal government in that we delivered a comprehensive and immediately useful target enterprise architecture in less than four months.
Version 1 of the Homeland Security Enterprise Architecture (HLS EA) defines the enterprise architecture at a conceptual level and outlines a general transition strategy that must be broken down further for the architecture to be implemented.
Version 2 is currently on track for completion early in the 4th quarter, FY04. Along with continuing the hard work of developing greater detail, we will continue reaching deeper to find more opportunities for consolidation and opportunities to develop new and improved mission support capabilities enabled by information technology. Version 2 of the enterprise architecture, together with the associated transition plan, will serve as the basis for further improving DHS mission performance and facilitating IT alignment, integration, and consolidation.
By creating the Department, the Congress took a great step toward bringing together many of the Federal agencies involved in homeland security - - Customs, INS, FEMA, and others. We've put significant efforts into integrating these functions, both at the level of technology and at the level of operational processes. We've built and continue to optimize a single DHS wide-area network, and we've established a common e-mail domain and Department-wide collaboration capabilities.
Under the direction of Secretary Ridge, the Department was tasked with the creation of an integrated information technology (IT) infrastructure that supports the missions of the Department and is accessible by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. To carry out that activity, the DHS CIO, with representation from every major DHS directorate and key agency/bureau, established the goal of "One Network" by December 2004 and "One Infrastructure" by December 2005.
The DHS IT Infrastructure Roadmap, completed in FY 2003, delineates the integration, consolidation, and transformation of existing DHS infrastructures into a single world-class IT infrastructure capable of supporting real-time information flow throughout DHS. The Roadmap focuses on centralizing development of standards and protocols, improving transportation of information, and streamlining processes and procedures, to achieve a centrally managed, homogeneous IT infrastructure with an integrated network, consolidated data centers, and standardized collaboration and desktop environments.
Immediately after the Department's formation last Spring, the key Federal agency partners laid the policy basis for information sharing in a Memorandum of Understanding that gives priority to preventing terrorism and mandates faster and broader exchange of law-enforcement and intelligence data. Additional MOUs and operating agreements implementing this policy have been developed around specific needs.
In May, the President establish the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), and DHS immediately assigned staff on site to coordinate information exchange, while technical staff have been working closely to establish secure communications for automated operations.
Following issuance of HSPD-6, Secretary Ridge, Attorney General Ashcroft, Director of Central Intelligence Tenet and Secretary Powell established a framework for interagency cooperation to set up the Terrorist Screening Center for initial operations on December 1. DHS, FBI, and State Department staff have moved into this joint operations center, and have established the secure communications and systems to create a consolidated Watch List for use by all key agencies. At the same time, the agencies are planning for a 2004 milestone to further automate the distribution of these data by establishing direct system-to-system links, based on a common data format.
Agreed standards for data exchange are a key enabler for integrated computer systems. DHS is leveraging work already under way in the Department of Justice through its GLOBAL Information Sharing Initiative and the Intelligence Community's Metadata Working Group. Our goal is maximum use of common data formats so that Federal and local partners can build systems that will immediately interoperate with others, without expensive customization.
In March, Secretary Ridge announced the initial deployment of the first component of the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). This component, based on software adapted from the Department of Defense, will provide secure communications between DHS and 100-plus sites in all 50 states and major cities. Additional capabilities will be added to the HSIN framework, which is designed to create a shared collaboration space among all Federal, State, and local entities partnering in the homeland-security mission.
Whether fighting a fire or responding to a terrorist attack, efficient and effective emergency response requires coordination, communication, and the sharing of vital information and equipment among numerous public safety and security agencies. As the National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets makes clear, "systems supporting emergency response personnel, however, have been specifically developed and implemented with respect to the unique needs of each agency. Such specification complicates interoperability, thereby hindering the ability of various first responder organizations to communicate and coordinate resources during crisis situations."
In line with the needs of emergency response providers and the National Strategy cited above, DHS has developed intradepartmental program offices to address several key homeland security priorities. Accordingly, DHS is establishing a program office to significantly improve interoperability, allowing firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel to communicate and share equipment with each other during a major disaster. The Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) within DHS has been tasked to lead the planning and implementation of the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) in coordination with other DHS programs. By coordinating and leveraging the vast efforts spread across the federal government, OIC will reduce unnecessary duplication in programs and spending, identify and promote best practices, and coordinate federal activities related to research and development, testing and evaluation, standards, technical assistance, training, and grant funding related to interoperability.
In a related vein, the Department has announced the formation of a Federal Advisory Committee on Data Integrity, Privacy and Interoperability to advise the Secretary and the Chief Privacy on programmatic, policy, operational, administrative and technological issues within the Department that concern privacy, data integrity and data interoperability. This Advisory Committee will serve an important function to ensure that DHS decision-makers have available the expertise of leading authorities on these matters as policies concerning data sharing are developed and implemented.
There has been a tremendous amount accomplished since this Department was created, and we are fully cognizant that much more work remains to be done. We must also focus on further refining ourselves and our identity both operationally and organizationally. Some of these steps to accomplish this objective have been laid out for you today. We look forward to continuing to work with the Committee and the Congress in furthering our national goal of ensuring the security of this great nation.
This page was last modified on 05/06/04 00:00:00