The Unified Security Budget and Homeland Security
For the past four years, I have served on the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States, with specific responsibility for developing the homeland security component of the group’s annual report. That report attempts to bring together all of the major components of national security spending (including “offense,” mostly composed of Department of Defense military programs; “prevention,” primarily diplomatic, foreign assistance and non-proliferation activities; and “defense,” which is where homeland security efforts are placed) into one “budget,” where consideration can be given to the optimal mix of tools for achieving our national security goals.
In the homeland security arena, our attention has shifted over the years from primarily focusing on areas that we felt needed additional resources (for example, in the FY 2008 report, we recommended approximately $15 billion in additions to the Bush Administration’s request for homeland security programs, with most of the proposed additions coming in the areas of public health, first responder grants and rail and transit security) to, in our most recent analysis, calling for improvements in priority-setting and accountability. As was noted in the FY 2010 Unified Security Budget, “The consensus judgment on the country’s homeland security mission has been clear for several years: that this new, urgent priority, thrust upon the government and cobbled together in an atmosphere of post-9/11 anxiety has become a sprawling, poorly coordinated set of tasks and bureaucracies in dire need of clear priorities and targeted funding increases.”
Under these circumstances, and in light of the nation’s serious budgetary problems, the Task Force deferred most homeland security funding questions for FY 2010 until completion of the first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) mandated by the Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (PL 110-53).
On February 1 of this year, DHS issued the first QHSR. Several independent analysts have praised the document as representing a significant advance in DHS’ approach to homeland security planning, with particular improvements in its recognition of the need to enhance the coordination and effectiveness of the overall “homeland security enterprise” (including federal state, local and non-governmental partners), and its promotion of local capacity and preparedness for coping with disasters.
Citing the statutory directives that the QHSR was to define the strategy, set priorities, and determine organizational and budgetary requirements for the national homeland security program, the Unified Security Budget for FY 2010 recommended that the report “focus on essential, big-picture issues, including clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of federal, state, local, and private stakeholders within the national homeland security program; addressing how federal risk management efforts will be improved; specifying how security will be integrated with other national priorities (including privacy and commerce); and detailing how homeland security programs are to be financed and sustained over time.”
Clearly, those objectives were not met in the recently released document, whose Preface indicates, “The report is not a resource prioritization document, although in identifying key mission areas for priority focus, it is highly indicative of where those priorities should lie. Nor does the QHSR detail the roles and responsibilities of Federal or other institutions for each mission area.”
This brings to mind the comments made over four years ago by the 9/11 Public Discourse Project (the successor to the 9/11 Commission) in assigning a grade of “D” to an earlier homeland security strategy document: “A draft National Infrastructure Protection Plan (November 2005) spells out a methodology and process for critical infrastructure assessments… [but] no national priorities [are] established; no recommendations made on allocation of scarce resources…It is time we stop talking about setting priorities and actually set some.”
The more detailed guidance called for by the Unified Security Budget will presumably have to await upcoming DHS reviews, including “an analysis of roles and responsibilities across the homeland security missions [that] would help resolve gaps or unnecessary redundancies between departments and agencies,” and a “comprehensive examination of the Department’s activities and resources” that will “systematically link strategy to program to budget.” Secretary Napolitano has indicated that the organizational assessment of DHS is underway and should be transmitted to Congress later in the year, and the “comprehensive examination” (also termed the “bottom-up review”) is also due for completion in 2010.
With the likelihood that the overall budget-crunch will (and should) increasingly demand more rigorous justifications of proposed homeland security expenditures, it is probable that the next Unified Security Budget will hone in even more on the need to improve accountability, performance measurement and priority-setting with respect to homeland security. It is to be hoped that the upcoming DHS reports, as well as ongoing Congressional oversight, will provide a more solid basis for such improvements.
William served on the staff of the 9/11 Commission after working for over 20 years as Legislative Director for U.S. Senators Wyche Fowler (D-GA) and Max Cleland (D-GA). William is the author of “9/11 and the Future of Transportation Security” (2006) and “Bioterror: Anthrax, Influenza, and the Future of Public Health Security” (2008).
Related posts: