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INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISITION

CHALLENGES AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

Serial No. 111–60

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

——— ———

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

DIANE E. WATSON, California, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

JACKIE SPEIER, California

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

BERT HAMMOND, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 15, 2009 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Duke, Elaine C., Deputy Under Secretary for Management, Department

of Homeland Security; James L. Taylor, Deputy Inspector General,

Department of Homeland Security; and Randolph C. Hite, Director,

Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues, Government

Accountability Office, accompanied by John Hutton ................................. 5

Duke, Elaine C. ......................................................................................... 5

Hite, Randolph ........................................................................................... 28

Taylor, James L. ........................................................................................ 17

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Duke, Elaine C., Deputy Under Secretary for Management, Department

of Homeland Security, prepared statement of ............................................ 7

Hite, Randolph C., Director, Information Technology Architecture and

Systems Issues, Government Accountability Office, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 30

Taylor, James L., Deputy Inspector General, Department of Homeland

Security, prepared statement of .................................................................. 19

(1)

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISITION CHALLENGES AT THE DEPARTMENT

OF HOMELAND SECURITY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Diane E. Watson

(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Watson, Connolly, Cuellar, Bilbray, and

Leutkemeyer.

Staff present: Bert Hammond, staff director; Adam Bordes and

Deborah Mack, professional staff; Valerie Van Buren, clerk; Dan

Blankenburg, minority director of outreach and senior advisor;

Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison; Steven

Castor; minority senior counsel; and Ashley Callen, minority counsel.

Ms. WATSON. The Subcommittee on Government Management,

Organization, and Procurement of the Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform will now come to order. And I would like to

introduce our newest member, and it is Representative Blaine

Luetkemeyer from Missouri. Welcome.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Ms. WATSON. Today’s hearing will examine the state of investment management and acquisition oversight practices for major information technology programs at the Department of Homeland Security. And the hearing will also serve as an opportunity for DHS

leadership to explain their plans for strengthening agency oversight, mechanisms governing both current investments and future

acquisitions.

Without objection, the Chair and ranking member will have 5

minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who seeks recognition.

Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for

the record.

I would like to wish a good morning to all of our witnesses, staff,

and all those out in the audience. And as I mentioned, the subcommittee hearing on investment management stewardship and acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:00 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57625.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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quisition strategies for major information technology or IT programs at the Department of Homeland Security will be examined.

I welcome our distinguished panelists and look forward to hearing

their testimony.

Now, today’s hearing by our subcommittee is the first look into

the oversight mechanisms used by DHS for governing its portfolio

of agency acquisition while examining some of the particulars associated with a number of high-risk IT investment in development

that are critical for achieving many of their missions. In fact,

roughly $6.6 billion will be spent this year by DHS on technologyspecific programs deemed necessary for both administrative and

programmatic functions.

According to the GAO, the DHS investment review process is inadequate and has resulted in a number of poorly performing or

failed investments. In fact, nearly all the programs achieved in

GAO’s most recent work were proceeding without adequate oversight from stakeholder leaders or detailed budget justifications for

their funding. These factors contribute to excessive costoverruns,

extended project delays and projects that are simply ill-conceived

from the outset. The inspector general of DHS offered similar observations and findings in his previous work as well.

It goes without saying that funding dedicated to DHS investments will require stout internal controls and planning processes

in order to be successful. We know that previous high-profile investments such as the eMerge financial management systems program failed due to significant deficiencies in the agency’s investment planning and contract oversight practices.

I think it is imperative today that the DHS provide us some specifics about the lessons learned from previous failed programs and

how we can be assured that such costly failures will be avoided in

the near future.

As part of the prior administration, I hope Ms. Duke can explain

how exactly we got to this point and whether current circumstances merit moving forward with programs that are extensively flawed. To be fair, I know this is a tall order for her and

other DHS leaders to undertake alone. And I implore the administration to become more engaged on these issues by finally appointing someone to head the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at

OMB.

And today I am hoping that our witnesses will provide us an updated snapshot of where DHS is by providing specifics about some

of those programs deemed most at risk or in a poorly performing

state. Hopefully this will provide us a way forward for remedying

those issues as the subcommittee continues in its oversight of DHS

in this Congress.

And with that, I want to thank our panels for joining us today,

and we look forward to their testimony.

I would now like to give time to Mr. Bilbray, our ranking member.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, first of

all, I ask for unanimous consent that a text of my opening statement be included in the record.

Ms. WATSON. Without objection, so ordered.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Madam Chair, I thank you very much for holding

this hearing. I appreciate the witnesses for being here. I think that

in the short span that DHS has been in existence, I remember the

scramble to restructure our system after 9/11. We have just passed

8 years, and I think it’s a great time to reflect on our successes and

our failures. The concerns that we have, obviously, are always

tending to focus on the negative, especially in this committee, because that’s our responsibility. We tend to be the bean counters for

the Congress in a lot of ways, but mostly not deciding who gets the

beans but where the beans went. And right now there’s a lot of this

that does not look very effective.

I got to tell you, the emergency response and the capabilities of

the Federal Government to respond to certain threats are obviously

one of the highest priorities constitutionally we bear. We do a lot

of things and talk about a lot of things that are not constitutionally

mandated. But when it comes to securing our borders, securing our

neighborhoods, protecting our community at large for the common

good, that’s definitely one of the major focuses of our Constitution.

And you may not know, I was born and raised on the border with

Mexico down in the San Diego region. My district is very close to

the largest port of entry in the world, land port of entry. And a lot

of people forget that. And we have seen a lot of mistakes on here.

I think that one of the frustrations is the half implementation of

the VISIT system. I think it’s got some great potentials.

I would love to be able to talk about the great potentials of getting the biometrics of everyone who comes into this country legally

and being able to use that, but also the frustration of not being

able to implement in, what, 12 years—how many years has it

been—the Exit program on the VISIT system. So we don’t know

who is left.

And I think at the same time, when we talk about that we see

the failure of the border security system. And frankly I am very interested in seeing how much of that was wishful thinking or a

snake oil salesman showing up and saying, I’ve got technology that

will eliminate the need for building a fence. We have agents that

are being killed down at the border by people who are able to cross

over, drive trucks and then drive over agents. We can detect them

but we can’t stop them. A lot of that, though, is: Was that some

kind of response to political pressure against building structures

that, don’t worry, we don’t have to build a fence and do a structure

that somebody may take offense to; we can do it all with technology.

A lot of that kind of question comes out to how much political

pressure drove people into an assumption that technology could

solve the problem when in fact it was grossly deficient.

The fact that we’re going to address this in many different ways

I think should be open and frank about it. But I think that we have

some successes we can look at, but we also have some great failures. And I just wonder how many of those are people overselling

technology or those going to technology to avoid political heat for

other tactics that would have been more successful. And I look forward to opening that discussion up.

So thank you very much, Madam Chair, I appreciate holding this

hearing, again, and thank you for the testimony of the witnesses.

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Luetkemeyer, would you like to make an opening statement.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. No.

Ms. WATSON. OK. We’re now going to proceed to our first panel.

It is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to swear in all witnesses today before they testify. And I

would like to ask all of you to please stand and raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. I will now introduce our panelists. And first I would like to start with Ms.

Elaine C. Duke. She’s the Under Secretary for Management at the

Department of Homeland Security. She oversees the management

of the Department’s finance, human capital and contracting programs, including the design and implementation of all major investments and acquisitions. Prior to her appointment as Under

Secretary for Management, she served as Deputy Under Secretary

for Management and as the Department’s Chief Procurement Officer.

Mr. James L. Taylor is the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security where he has participated in multiple audits and examinations of DHS investment management

policies and acquisition programs. Prior to joining DHS, Mr. Taylor

served in senior financial management roles at both the Department of Commerce and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Mr. Taylor has been the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding professional accomplishments, including the Presidential

Rank Award for Distinguished Executive and the Donald T.

Scatterberry Memorial Award for Excellence in Financial Management. Welcome.

Mr. Randolph Hite is the Director of Information Technology, Architecture and Systems issues at the Government Accountability

Office. During his career with GAO he has directed reviews of

major Federal investments in information technology and major

business systems modernization efforts. Mr. Hite is a principal author of several information technology management guides such as

GAO’s Guide on System Testing, the Federal CIO Council Guide on

Enterprise Architectures and GAO’s Enterprise and Architecture

Management Maturity Framework.

And I understand that you’re accompanied by Mr. Hutton of

GAO’s Acquisition and Sourcing Management division.

I welcome you. And I ask that each one of the witnesses now give

a brief summary of their testimony, and to keep this summary

under 5 minutes in duration. Your complete written statements

will be included in the hearing record.

And we recognize our member, Mr. Cuellar, and thank you for

being with us this morning.

OK. I would like to ask Ms. Duke to please proceed.

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STATEMENTS OF ELAINE C. DUKE, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND

SECURITY; JAMES L. TAYLOR, DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; AND RANDOLPH C. HITE, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN HUTTON

STATEMENT OF ELAINE C. DUKE

Ms. DUKE. Good morning Chairwoman Watson, Ranking Member

Bilbray and members of the subcommittee. I really appreciate the

opportunity to come before you today and talk about this very important topic not only to the Department of Homeland Security but

also to our country. And we do indeed, Madam Chairwoman, have

lessons learned. And I would like to look forward to talking to you

about how DHS is strengthening its oversight of all its acquisition

programs, including its information technology programs.

In talking with you this morning I would like to talk about

where we were, where we are, and where we’re going. In the aftermath of September 11th, Congress created DHS to provide a central point of command for securing our country and citizens. In

March 2003, we opened our doors and combined the efforts of

180,000 people from 22 agencies and several newly established offices in the DHS headquarters. In March 2003, the IT infrastructure for DHS included multiple wide-area networks with overlapping and redundant system circuitry, each with its own network

operation center and security operation center. The infrastructure

had 24 different data centers and multiple independently operated

e-mail systems with multiple address lists and help desk services.

There are multiple sign-on systems in policy and no secure data

transmission capability.

This non-unified networking made communication and information exchange across Department enterprise arduous and costly

and inhibited our mission success and timeline. We are focused on

this operational area in unifying, consolidating and modernizing.

However, we understand that this is more than connecting servers and running cables. It is also accomplished through good management and acquisition oversight. To strengthen the institutional

approach to acquisition and IT investment management, DHS established the Acquisition Program Management Division. This office is responsible for the overall coordination of acquisition oversight and policy within the Department, with a DHS Chief Information Officer providing the leadership in the oversight of the information technology programs.

We have dramatically increased the formal acquisition review

boards we hold in the Department. In fiscal year 2008 we held

eight formal board meetings, in fiscal year 2009 to date, we have

already held 28, including 8 specifically focused on American Reinvestment and Recovery Act spending. We will also ensure our IT

programs are developed in accordance with the Office of Management and Budget’s Federal enterprise architecture guidelines

through our Enterprise Architecture Board [EAB]. This EAB assesses each IT program and its contribution in alignment with the

Homeland Security mission. Additionally, our CIO reviews all acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:00 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57625.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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quisitions, purchase requests for any IT investment over $21⁄2 million.

We have made major strides in cost estimating and analysis, one

of the root causes of the weakness in many of our IT programs. We

have established a cost estimating division which is part of each acquisition review, and have also provided cost estimating assistance

to over a dozen programs. We have assessed the risk of all 79 of

our major IT programs and have posted the results on the OMB

information technology dashboard.

This year we have conducted seven portfolio reviews encompassing 61 programs. That is one of the recommendations of GAO that

we have recently addressed. And in July 2009, we have reissued

the information Technology Management Governance Process Catalog providing clear guidance to the Department of how we’re overseeing our IT programs.

Additionally, we have provided updates to many of our existing

guidance created in the initial startup of the Department.

Also, we have updated existing guidance in terms of our acquisition review and have issued the management directive 102–1 that

governs acquisition oversight and policy for the entire Department.

And we have revised how we’re tracking action items coming out

of our reviews in formal acquisition decision memorandum that

have specific due-outs and tracking system.

DHS will continue consolidation and oversight of these programs

toward the Secretary’s goal of one DHS, one enterprise, a shared

vision and integrated results-based operations.

Our future efforts in the IT area include completing the Homeland Security data network, primary migration and also fully realizing our OneNet vision, finalizing our data center consolidation,

and creating a more efficient and effective IT environment and

greater level of information technology security to address our

cyber threat.

It is important to note that DHS developed and implemented all

initiatives I’ve outlined above while simultaneously managing an

existing information technology program that has grown to nearly

$7 billion within the 6 years of the Department. While we have

strengthened many aspects of our IT acquisition program, we will

continue to seek improvements in our processes and provide our

professionals the tools they need to meet both our mission objectives and achieve IT oversight.

I am happy to note that the Department has brought on the new

administration’s full-time Chief Information Officer, Richard

Spires. Mr. Spires and I have discussed his goals and he is leading

the Department in the right direction. His focus is on a sound approach to conducting systematic reviews of major IT investments,

and he recognizes the importance of his leadership as the Department’s CIO.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and members of the subcommittee for your interest in this very important topic. I look forward to talking to you about where DHS is, the lessons we have

learned, and how weplan on moving forward.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you Ms. Duke.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Duke follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Mr. Taylor, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JAMES L. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, Ranking Member

Bilbray, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the DHS Office of Inspector General. My testimony today will focus on the progress in IT

acquisition management DHS has made over the past several

years, as well as the challenges the Department and its components face going forward. Specifically, I will discuss our work related to the establishment of institutional and investment management capabilities for delivering major information technology systems at DHS.

As required by the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, each year

the OIG updates our assessment of the major management challenges facing the Department. Given the past concerns we in GAO

have raised and the fact that contracting for goods and services

consumes nearly 40 percent of the Department’s annual budget and

is critical to achieving its mission acquisition management, it has

consistently remained at the top of that list.

DHS spends over $6 billion a year for IT systems and infrastructure to support its mission. The Department’s components rely extensively on information technology to perform mission operations,

including immigration benefits processing, border security, the execution of response and recovery operations and many others.

Given the size and significance of DHS’s IT investments, effective

management of the Department-wide IT expenditures is absolutely

critical. In the past we identified the need for the Department’s

Chief Information Officer to have greater authority to become a

more effective steward of IT funds. The Department has responded

by strengthening the CIO’s role for centralized management of IT,

providing the CIO the authority to guide IT investments and ensure a unified strategy across DHS components.

Additionally, the CIO has gained greater authority over component level IT budgets and oversight of IT acquisitions. This has resulted from the establishment of new policies in IT investment governance functions and a defined IT acquisition review process.

However, in 2007 only 57 percent of the estimated $5.6 billion IT

budget was evaluated through this process. The Department officials stated that there have been a lack of sufficient DHS and component CIO staff to effectively execute the ITAR process.

In 2004, around 75 percent of the Federal positions within the

CIO’s office were filled. By 2007, that number had dropped to only

64 percent. Unable to obtain and keep full-time Federal employees,

the CIO has depended heavily on contractor support. During that

same timeframe from 2004 to 2007, the number of contractors increased from 121 to 550. A combination of factors have contributed

to the low staffing numbers, including the complex and lengthy hiring process, and includes background checks that you have heard

as a familiar refrain. Once the CIO positions are filled, many employees have become burned out from working long hours and end

up leaving for positions in the private sector.

To address the staffing issues, we recommended that the Department improve the CIO staffing plan to include specific actions and

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milestones for recruiting and retaining full-time employees. The

Department has since developed a revised staffing plan to increase

Federal positions and to augment overall staff by 236, by 2011.

This increase is necessary to address the complex IT challenges facing DHS.

An example of major IT challenges, OneNet, an initiative aimed

at consolidating existing IT infrastructures into a wide-area network. DHS began working on OneNet in 2005 and envisions it will

provide the components with secure data voice and video communications. Specifically, DHS is experiencing delays in meeting its

schedule completion date. Some components were reluctant to migrate to OneNet and have insisted instead on maintaining their

own Internet gateways. As a result, DHS may not be able to reach

its ultimate goal of consolidating and modernizing its existing infrastructure and achieve cost savings originally estimated at nearly

$900 million.

Concluding, CIOs also face significant challenges in their efforts

to improve IT management in budgeting, planning and investment.

Because programs are often funded through direct appropriations

or other sources investment decisions may reside outside the component CIO’s purview. In these cases, offices and divisions maintain separate budgets that are independent of the CIO. Insufficient

staff, ineffective IT budget controls and fragmented IT management have been longstanding issues for several DHS components.

For example, in November 2006, reporting the results of a followup audit of USCIS’s transformation program, we noted that although CIS had taken steps to address recommendations in our

2005 report, the component had yet to finalize its transformation

of implementation approach. Subsequently, we found in 2009 that

the large-scale CIS transformation program is being managed outside the CIO’s Office of Information Technology.

The CIO identified the autonomy of CIS’s transformation program IT efforts and the program’s exemption from normal CIS controls as an emerging internal control deficiency. In addition, we reported that the continuation of decentralized fragmented IT program efforts has led to a growing number of local systems that are

beyond the CIO’s current budget or staffing level to manage effectively. Although the total number of locally funded IT systems is

unknown CIS field offices have reported thousands of applications

that were created in-house.

To summarize, Ms. Chairwoman, our work with the Department

has shown that there is a recognition of the weaknesses in IT acquisition in governance processes in the Department, and there has

been progress in addressing these weaknesses. However, there remains structural and resource constraints that limit the Department’s ability to properly plan, acquire, and oversee critical information technology projects.

Thank you for this opportunity, and I welcome any questions

from you or members of the subcommittee.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much Mr. Taylor.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. And Mr. Hite you may now proceed.

STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH HITE

Mr. HITE. Thank you. On behalf of Mr. Hutton and myself, let

me begin by saying that it was about 31⁄2 years ago that I sat before this subcommittee and I testified on where DHS stood in managing large-scale IT system acquisitions. Noting that while it had

made progress since it was formed in establishing this range of institutional management controls needed to successfully deliver

these systems, it was not where it needed to be.

Today, 3 years later, further progress has been made, most notably in the last year. However, more needs to be done on a number

of fronts to define and implement the range of controls needed so

that the Department can successfully deliver these systems on a repeatable basis.

Now, what are these institutional management controls that I

am talking about? One is having and using enterprise architecture

which can be viewed as an institutional blueprint to guide and constrain the structure and the content of what these systems are.

Another is having acquisition investment management structures, policies, and procedures that decisionmaking bodies can then

use to make informed decisions not only about programs, but portfolios of programs, decisions around their selection and the control.

So they are managed in a way to maximize benefits, minimize costs

and mitigate risks.

A third is having a defined system life cycle methodology that is

used to govern how systems are defined, designed, developed, tested, integrated, deployed, operated and maintained all through their

life cycle.

And a fourth is having the people that you need in order to execute all these things.

How does the Department stack up today against these management controls? The answer is mixed. For example, it has recently

strengthened its acquisition investment management approach and

has in the last year possibly conducted as many formal oversight

reviews of major system acquisition programs as it did in the prior

5 years combined. However, its new approach is still missing key

aspects, such as criteria for prioritizing and selecting among competing investment options and procedures governing oversight reviews.

Also, while the Department has recently created a system life

cycle methodology, the scope of this methodology does not yet address important topics such as key practices associated with acquiring COTS or commercialoff-the-shelf solutions.

Further, while it has undertaken a number of initiatives to expand its acquisition work force, particularly contract specialists, it

has made very little progress in adopting and implementing a strategic and proactive approach to managing its IT work force. Over

the last 31⁄2 years, DHS has similarly made mixed, or had similarly

mixed success when it comes to implementing these controls on

large-scale IT programs.

Specifically, our work has shown that programs have been allowed to begin and proceed, sometimes for several years, without

sufficient management, discipline and rigor. And as a result they’ve

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fallen short of cost scheduling performance expectations, assuming

in some cases that expectations were even set for these programs.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that when we have reported on these weaknesses, the Department has acted to correct them and bring the

program back on track. This means that programs like Secure

Flight, for example, which is the prescreening of passengers on

commercial flights, matching their names against a watch list, is

now being managed effectively. But to get to that point, these programs had to overcome several years of poor program management

and oversight.

To give you a flavor for the kind of program-specific management

control weaknesses that we have seen repeat themselves on these

key programs and that have been addressed to varying degrees

across the programs, let me cite a few programs. They include poor

requirements, development and management, inadequate testing,

unreliable cost and schedule estimates, insufficient program office

staffing, inadequate risk management, limited information security

management and poor performance measurement.

So, having said all this, what needs to be done? What needs to

change? The bottom line is that DHS must effectively manage and

oversee its newly starting IT programs, like TASC. TASC is the follow-on program to the eMerge2 that the chairwoman mentioned in

her opening remarks. That was a failed acquisition. It needs to

start managing these acquisitions properly, right out of the gate.

And for those programs that are ongoing but have not yet turned

the corner, like the SBInet virtual fence, it needs to bring them in

line quickly.

In my view, the recommendations that we have made to the Department provide a comprehensive framework for doing this. And

to DHS’s credit it has agreed with these recommendations, and we

are committed to working with the Department constructively to

ensure that they are implemented.

This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any

questions that you have at this time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hite follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Well, I would like to thank all of you for your testimony. And we are now going to move to the question period. And

we will all proceed under the 5-minute rule.

And I am going to first start with Ms. Duke and some of the

points you brought out in your opening testimony, but I want you

to consolidate them and be more specific. DHS has been operating

for more than 6 years, during which you have played a key leadership role in shaping how it requires and acquires and manages

large-scale IT programs. It would certainly seem that 6 years is a

sufficient amount of time for the Department to become a mature

and capable acquirer and manager of IT.

How would you characterize where the Department stands in its

capacity to acquire and manage major IT instruments? And please

describe how DHS matured in developing better capabilities for

managing its investment portfolios.

Ms. DUKE. I think it is important to note that we have three

roles. We’re both providing the services in many cases to DHS

headquarters, we’re building the policies and procedures and then

we’re doing the oversight.

Both the GAO and the IG have talked about resource constraints. We are hoping this month to reach 100 people in the

CIO’s office. So I think when we think about all three roles, which

is doing the IT operations, building, writing the policies, putting

the procedures in place and then actually performing the oversight,

I think that puts in perspective how much we really accomplished

in 6 years.

So what have we done that specifically, I think, is going to make

a difference now in going forward in the iterations of policies we

have done? One is we have strengthened the role of the CIO. Mr.

Spires is the Chief Information Officer for the Department and has

all the authorities of Clinger-Cohen plus. He has authority not only

over IT investments but over IT portions of non-IT investments.

And we have integrated the IT oversight into our major acquisition

program so that there’s a consolidated look at acquisition for our

senior leadership.

Our new deputy secretary Jane Holl Lute, chairs our acquisition

review board and she is personally looking at the IT and non-IT

investments. And that’s one of the reasons we have had such an

increase in our number of board reviews.

The other thing that we’re doing that may sound simple but is

really making a difference is each one of these review meetings we

used to document having the reports and give recommendations.

What we have switched to is we have precise action items that are

tracked. And so for each one of these meetings we say what the

program needs to do for its next stage of maturation, and we’re

tracking on those. And that is reported to me biweekly.

And the final thing I will say is we have a new on-line system

for our leadership called NPRS that gives the state of affairs for

each program in terms of cost, schedule and performance. And that

is going to give visibility continually, not only as we have these

board meetings, but in between those, in terms of the performance

of each of the acquisition programs.

Ms. WATSON. That probably answers the next question I was

going to ask. That you assure our subcommittee that all IT proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:00 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57625.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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grams are being reviewed at least once a year for all major development milestones. And I think that’s what you’re describing.

Ms. DUKE. Yes ma’am.

Ms. WATSON. What does the new DHS leadership have to say

about the deficient processes in place for overseeing agency investments, and have they established a long-term blueprint for

strengthening the investment management process? And if so, how

does it differ from the prior administration?

Ms. DUKE. I think the new Secretary, Secretary Napolitano, she

came in with not only a knowledge of the mission from her leading

in the State of Arizona, a border State, a lot of DHS-type activity.

But I think from being a Governor and being in the role of managing a bureaucracy, she also came in with a very, very strong understanding of how management has to effectively work not only the

CIO, but the personnel piece, the financial piece. So she immediately considered me and the management staff as a key partner,

considering how we’re doing, not only meeting the mission but effectively and efficiently meeting the mission, including IT. So I

think that her work as Governor came in with a presumption that

we would do everything not just to meet mission, but with good

business sense. And that really has put management, I think, on

the front burner for each of our mission decisions and has really

bolstered our visibility in the Department.

Ms. WATSON. I understand that DHS is in its planning stages of

developing its new headquarters.

Ms. DUKE. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. Here in D.C., which will consolidate a significant

number of legacy operations and sites into one campus. What assurances can you offer us that a multibillion-dollar investment like

this, with so many major program and infrastructure components

as part of its nerve center, has been designed with effective capabilities and requirements for meeting the mission and the needs of

DHS for decades into the future? And do you have specific programmatic life cycle cost estimates and benchmarks for delivering

that you can share with our committee today?

Ms. DUKE. There’s actually three pieces of our headquarters consolidation. There’s the St. Elizabeth Campus, which has gotten the

most visibility, and that is going to be where the Secretary and the

senior leadership are. Additionally, we will keep about four of our

existing facilities, including the Secret Service Building and a few

others. And, additionally, we will be consolidating the remaining 40

or so leases from the National Capital Region into about 1.2 million

square feet, so we will actually end up with about five to eight facilities.

The way we’re managing that project is through management of

the Chief Administrative Officer. We were given 20 positions to

manage that project in DHS. We got them in fiscal year 2009,

which is really a recognition of our appropriators that you do need

the staff to manage that appropriately. Additionally, with leasing,

because this is a GSA site, we are using GSA as our execution

agent. So we are using our 20 assets to determine the requirements

to make sure we have a stable program that meets DHS’s headquarter’s needs. All the work is being executed through GSA. They

are awarding the contracts and they are managing the contracts.

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And they have the expertise and the bandwidth to actually do

those programs.

So I think the fact that we have a program office fully dedicated

to this, in addition to DHS’s expertise in facilities, will help ensure

this project goes forward.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank you, Ms. Duke.

And I now recognize our ranking minority member, Mr. Bilbray,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me just say to

our witnesses, as I ask questions to one Member, if there is anything you want to add to it, this is a dialog, we’re trying to get into

it.

Ms. Duke, I’ll start with you. Where was—let me just say, where

was the Department coming from—and I know it predated the Department to some degree and got into it—but this whole issue of

the virtual fence that technology could replace structures and then

have Boeing walk in and say basically, We can handle all of this,

you don’t need to do this, you don’t need to do that. How did that

evolve?

I mean how does a—I mean, I think all of us here kind of trust

our lives to Boeing every couple of weeks, but I am not so sure I

would choose Boeing to be a security force for the national frontiers. How did that evolve into such a bet on technology that ended

up going—you know, basically going bust?

Ms. DUKE. Well, I think that our approach to the southwest border started with looking at what mix of solutions do we need to appropriately secure the border. We call it an alternatives analysis.

What mixture of people, Border Patrol, tactical infrastructure—

which includes fence and roads—and technology do we need based

on the geography and topography of especially the southwest border? And we started doing a very systematic look.

I think that the deviations in the program from taking a really

bottoms-up look ended up by the urgency—or driven by the urgency of protecting the southwest border. So I believe if there is

one fault that I can point to to be kind of a root cause, it would

be instead of completing the analysis of alternatives and looking at

what are the operational requirements of the Border Patrol to secure the border, and building up to what we buy, because of the

urgency there was a predisposition to jump to solutions, to jump

to technology, whether it be tactical infrastructure or technology,

but not really take the time——

Mr. BILBRAY. Looking for a silver bullet.

Ms. DUKE. Looking for a silver bullet, or jumping to fix this rather than looking at the needs.

Mr. BILBRAY. Did anybody take the time to go down and look at

the terrain, to look at the operation? I mean, the fact is I am not

against the IT application there. But anybody who has ever been

there realizes that jersey walls across the canyons were going to do

a lot more a lot quicker than putting up towers with sensors and

whatever.

I hate to say this. I am a history major. It reminds me so much

of what happened after World War II when the Air Force came in

and said, we don’t need the Army, we don’t need the Navy; you

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know, with Atomic Age, all you need is airplanes that can drop

bombs and all we other services should be abandoned, so bet on us.

And Korea—and we were actually moving toward that. Korea

taught us real quick what a failed concept that was based on that.

That seemed like this element. But to be fair with you and with

the agency, I would ask the question how much politics goes into

it, too, with people not liking the concept or the message sent by

putting barriers up at the border, and how much of that influenced

it? And then how did Boeing end up with this thing?

Ms. DUKE. I believe that Boeing was—Boeing was selected because what the acquisition strategy, what we were looking for, it

was a major systems integrator. And Boeing brought both the ability to help DHS in determining what mixture of technologies and

infrastructure go at the border and the capability to perform.

I think in terms of the tactical infrastructure, that was our first

focus, the fence. In terms of technology we are moving forward very

carefully and we are doing capabilities demonstration to see what

benefit technology can bring.

But I think in going to Mr. Taylor’s comment that we should

move carefully, and Mr. Hite’s new programs, we are not wholesale

just deploying technology across the border. We are doing two

small test projects in Tucson and Aho and seeing does this technology help the Border Patrol.

Mr. BILBRAY. And let me just say I have seen technology work

right. We were actually back in the seventies, using ground sensors

that had been developed during Vietnam. And the Border Patrol

were using them back then. There were all kinds of technologies.

They’re still using those. You don’t drive a road in the border region without our guys knowing that a car has passed.

What about the VISIT system? One of the great successes is the

fact that we now have the data base and biometrics on everybody

that comes into this country legally. And a lot of people forget that

40 percent of the people who are illegally in this country are

overstays and would fall in that category. That’s been a great success.

But what’s happened over a decade of waiting for the Exit program? And I know my time has expired. But that’s very important.

How can we move that agenda? And it appears that no matter who

is the administration, this issue is being avoided, and that’s the

Exit part of the VISIT program, so we know who is left, which

makes it a lot easier to know who is left in.

Ms. DUKE. I think the policy decision on Exit has not been made.

In terms of management of my controls, what we’re making sure

is we’re not spending money on a contractor until that policy decision is made. And so I do believe, Mr. Bilbray, that is one where

we have not made progress on it.

The good news from the management perspective is we’re not

just out there kind of doing things while a policy decision is made.

So I think that’s the approach that this administration is taking,

is to decide what Exit is.

Mr. BILBRAY. I appreciate that. And let me just close by saying

this. I thought the policy decision was made by Congress when we

passed a law that says this program will be plugged in. Now, I appreciate you get the political pressure. You got people that say it

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is more important for people to freely pass back and forth across

that Tijuana crossing every day; that commerce being able to come

into our ports is more important than securing and making sure

that only good things get across; that the implementation of the

law is secondary to political pressure by business and political

groups. So I think that a lot of these problems are based on politics, not on policy, as you said, or technology. But we need to separate those two and make sure that we take care of the politics and

you take care of the technology.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.

Ms. WATSON. We now yield to the distinguished gentleman from

Texas, Mr. Cuellar.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for holding

this meeting. And I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I

guess March 2003 is when we had the reorganization, 22 different

agencies. And I know from that time there’s been a lot of good

progress that Homeland has done, and I appreciate all the work

that the men and women have provided.

At the same time, there have been some issues, some of the

issues that the gentleman just brought up, talking about the border

fence or the technology. Since I live in Laredo, I am very familiar

with it, extremely familiar with it. And I’ve always wondered why

we always try to reinvent the wheel. I am very familiar with the

SBI part of the other committee, Homeland. My understanding is

that the Department of Defense has already done a couple of pilot

programs and done a briefing on them, where the sensors and the

cameras are at a fraction of the cost of what you all have invested

already. So if it has worked for the military, why do we have to

go out there and reinvent the wheel where it has been already tested? It is proven technology at a much cheaper price. And here we

are spending billions of dollars, No. 1, on technology.

And I know one of the excuses was, oh, we’re still working on it,

but don’t worry we’re going to bring team A now to work on the

issues. This is one of the things.

So I wondered, you know, so what was this, team B, team C, and

now we’re bringing team A in. And, oh, we didn’t know it was going

to be that hot on the border. I mean, there were a lot of things that

came up on that.

But I would ask you to look at the proven technology. And if you

all haven’t sat down with the Department of Defense, with the specific agency, and said to the Department, I’ll be happy to sit down

with you, I think it will save you probably billions of dollars.

The other thing is if you look at it, it took us less time to win

World War II than what we have been trying to organize, reorganize. And I saw your testimony and you’re saying GAO is looking

backward. We need to look forward. But we still have to look backward to see what the problems are.

We still know Homeland Security, what, had morale issues.

There was, what, one of the last ones, or had one of the biggest morale issues of any agencies that were surveyed. On top of that, we

have looked at some of the issues that we have here. I can give you

specific issues as to how you all contract and how you do this, and

I can give you examples what’s happened in my hometown without

going into much specifics. But one of the things that I really would

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like to see is your performance measures. I have a list of questions,

Madam Chair, that I would provide to the clerk.

Ms. WATSON. You still have time.

Mr. CUELLAR. And I would like to request that we can submit

this for the record.

Ms. WATSON. Without objection.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. And ask you to go

ahead and bring them in. But I want to know how do you measure

the work that you’re doing, what sort of indicators do you have,

performance measures that you have, how do you indicate success?

I mean, if you can’t tell us what we’re doing, then we don’t know

if we’re rewarding success or failure. So I would ask you to—and,

I don’t know, Madam Chair, 2 weeks, is that sufficient time?

Ms. WATSON. I would think so.

Mr. CUELLAR. I would ask you if you can submit this to the committee within 2 weeks to the list of questions that I have.

So I guess my statement now, or my question is: When you hear

from the GAO or the inspector general, what do you do with the

recommendations, what actually—what’s the thought process? Because they’ve given some recommendations and you’re considered

an at-risk agency, which means vulnerable to fraud, waste, mismanagement, etc. What actually goes through a thought process?

When GAO gives you a report, what do you all do? Look at it, put

it upside down and say, OK, let’s move on? What’s the thought

process?

Ms. DUKE. We take the reviews of the IG and the GAO very seriously, in addition to the oversight provided to us by Congress. Most

of the issues, it’s very rarely that we nonconcur with any of the

findings. We might nonconcur on a specific fact. And I think that

when you look at the reports, generally they’re saying we’re moving

in the right direction, we just have gaps still in the effectiveness

of what we’re doing.

So what I look at, No. 1, are there any indications that we’re

going in the wrong direction; are our practices not best practices;

do our policies have areas that GAO or the IG are saying are

wrong or not good for the Department? So the first thing I look at

is a systems look of are we going in the right direction? And then

the second thing I look at is what specifically is called out on a program. Is that a system vulnerability? So if they review one program, like SBInet, does that same vulnerability—for instance, cost

estimating is one. We feel that even though the GAO or IG might

call that out as a vulnerability on one program, we think that’s a

systemic vulnerability or we see it coming up, so we address those

first.

Mr. CUELLAR. When you get a report, do you sit down with a follow-up with GAO and say, We got your recommendations, do you

have any suggestions on how we can implement this because of

cost or whatever the factors might come in?

Ms. DUKE. Yes. We sit down with them on specific reports. We

also sit down with them just regularly, both with the IT group and

there’s an acquisition group, and just look at overall. We have also

used some of their best practices. We’re using GAO’s cost estimating best practices as part of our policy, so we leverage wherever we

can.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Chair, can I just ask GAO, do they followup? I mean what happens afterwards? I know my time is up. But

I am kind of curious on—there’s a report that’s given; then what

happens after that?

Mr. HITE. We have interaction on a continuous basis with the

Department to ensure that the recommendations are implemented.

Within 60 days after the report, they have to report formally to the

Congress on what they intend to do to address those recommendations. Every year we followup on the status of our recommendations and work with the Department to find out where those things

stand. If it deals with major programs like SBInet or US-VISIT, we

have work that is going on continuously, so it is part of that engagement with the agency. We’re constantly looking to see what’s

happening. And believe me, we’re encouraging and urging faster

action on some of these things.

Sometimes there’s some misunderstanding in the communication.

Sometimes when we write a recommendation, we think it’s abundantly clear to anybody, exactly what we meant. But sometimes it

calls for some clarification down the road, and we have worked to

do that.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. I would like now to yield to Mr.

Luetkemeyer, the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Hite, do you

have any private sector experience?

Mr. HITE. No sir.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You have worked for the GAO all your——

Mr. HITE. I worked for GAO for 32 years, except for my details

to the Hill.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. Very good.

Ms. Duke, in the report that I’ve got here of the summary of

some of the reports that were done, back in November 2008 it says

that the agency concurred with all seven recommendations but appears that they have only implemented two of the recommendations. Can you explain that?

Ms. DUKE. I am not sure exactly what report you’re referring to,

which GAO report.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. It’s a 2007 DHS report where it obligated $12

billion for acquisitions. GAO recommended certain steps by DHS

that would take more thorough—could take to more thoroughly implement the following investment review process. And in here it

says the agency concurred with all recommendations, but appears

that they have only implemented two of the recommendations.

So I was just curious why we didn’t implement the rest or what’s

the problem? Are we getting on it?

Ms. DUKE. Did you want to say something?

Mr. HUTTON. If I may. I am John Hutton with GAO. I was one

of the authors of that report. And as Randy said, Mr. Hite said, we

do followup on our recommendations. But what we won’t do initially is close the recommendation if we haven’t seen something executed a little bit further down the line toward fruition.

I share what Ms. Duke has said, that they have taken several

steps that get right at the specifics of our recommendation. But we

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portance of looking back. We feel that the work that we have done

where we have looked at the execution of their investment reviews

through 2004 through March 2010—or 2008—it just was not being

executed. And we came up—we identified several reasons why. So

we think it is important that you look back, find out why it hasn’t

worked in the past. But to me, execution—follow through to the

end is what’s important here before we’re going to consider it a recommendation fully met.

Ms. DUKE. And that report, now that I understood it a little more

fully, we were moving in that direction. But again the GAO

thought we weren’t making enough progress. So some of the specific recommendations was we’re not holding enough board meetings, we’re not documenting it properly.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You’re not having enough meetings?

Ms. DUKE. Enough board meetings, yes. They looked at how

many acquisition review board meetings we were having, the documentation of them, the followup and those type of things. I think

we have corrected that. At this point the recommendations are still

open because they want us to demonstrate sustained performance

in actually keeping the system going. But, yes, a lot of it was

counting the number of review board meetings we had and the documentation of them.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Not to be argumentative, but having a meeting doesn’t mean anything unless you do something in the meeting.

You can have a meeting every day, but if you don’t do something

in a meeting it’s wasting everybody’s time. Also, with regard to this

report it says that they found 14 major investments that experienced cost growth, schedule slips or performance shortfalls. Have

those problems that caused those things to happen, have they been

fixed?

Ms. DUKE. We have programs that are——

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Or did we have more meetings to discuss it?

Ms. DUKE. The way we’re fixing the problems of those type are

to have putting in place what’s called an acquisition program baseline that sets cost.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Why was it not put in place to begin with?

Ms. DUKE. The programs were active when they came to the Department and they were not in place. So we’re going back and we’re

fixing the programs that came into the Department. Those programs, we only have a few new-start programs since the Department stood up. SBInet, CIS transmission, most of those programs

existed in legacy agencies, and we’re trying to build a structure

around them without stopping them, and balancing, building the

controls while they’re still performing. So, yes, it is a going-back exercise.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Sir.

Mr. HUTTON. Sir, I would like to continue the discussion a little

bit on the question about what steps have been taken. And Ms.

Duke mentioned one of our points was about the meetings. But I

want to add some context to that. What we are talking about is

that we looked at—I believe it was 48 major investments over almost a 4-year period. And there was already a process in place at

the time. If it was applied with discipline and, for example, the programs had mission need statements that were approved, if they

85

had operational requirement documents that were approved, if they

had acquisition program baselines that were approved, and DHS

was actually involved in holding a meeting, although I think it’s

more than just a meeting, it’s getting Department-level approval of

that investment as it moves forward, that’s the key.

But some of our other recommendations were that two of the

components didn’t have their own process that they’re supposed to

have that’s consistent with the departmental process. That’s just

another example.

So we have several recommendations that I think get at the core

of some of the problems that we saw. And I think that while they

have taken some steps—and I would agree with Ms. Duke—I didn’t

want to leave the impression that it was just having a meeting.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. Thank you. I see my time has expired.

Thank you Madam Chair, or ranking member.

Mr. BILBRAY [presiding]. I want to follow back up, Ms. Duke. I

don’t mean to be picking on you. But the issue of policy with the

VISIT system, was it the policy of the Bush administration that the

Exit part of the VISIT system was not going to be implemented at

that time?

Ms. DUKE. Mr. Bilbray, I honestly don’t have firsthand knowledge of that because I wasn’t involved in the policy decisions. My

role was more do we have an actual requirement to execute? So I

honestly can’t answer that question.

Mr. BILBRAY. I am trying to remember, but I remember pretty

closely when the VISIT system was being pushed by Lamar Smith

and Chairman Sensenbrenner. And as far as I know, that was not

a voluntary authorization, it was a mandatory implementation.

And I still have a problem with why it hasn’t been implemented,

unless they’re still using the excuse that the technology doesn’t

exist to monitor those who are leaving the country. Or if the executive branch claims the authority to veto the legislative intent with

the fact that we feel that it’s inappropriate at this time to implement the legislative mandate. And you have no recollection where

the justification was that was outside of your realm?

Ms. DUKE. No, I have never heard any discussions that the issue

was technology. It’s more what the Exit solution would look like,

the specifics. And if you would like, I can get back to you for the

record on where we currently stand with the Exit solution implementation. But it is not a technology issue, it was just more—and

it wasn’t even an issue of whether we are going to do Exit or not.

It was going to be what precisely is Exit going to look like.

Mr. BILBRAY. I am kind of interested to see what decade we come

to that conclusion, what it’s going to look like. Because it is one of

those situations that after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about how

terrible it was that the bureaucracy wasn’t doing the commonsense

things and implementing and overlooking and avoiding things. And

that is State and Federal bureaucracy. But now after all this time,

to go back and say we’re still trying to figure out what we want

this to look like. At a time—and let me just say this—at a time

that our neighbors to the south are stopping traffic and going

through traffic as it comes south, we are worried about if somebody

may have to slow down for a monitor to pick it up. And how many

of us drive through toll booths that electronically pick up our data?

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And it seems like if it’s to raise money, if it seems like it’s to generate revenue, the technology is there and implementation is OK.

But if it is to regulate the Federal constitutional mandate of immigration and border security that the Federal Government has, we

just don’t know how to implement it.

And maybe what we ought to be talking about is just going to

the State agencies that are handling toll roads and saying, You

know, maybe we want to contract with you guys to do it, because

they seem to do it pretty well. I mean I avoid the toll road, the Dulles toll road, like the plague. But I drive next to it every day that

I drive south—and south meaning southwest. And they sure seem

to be able to get that technology working there.

So I want to leave an open invitation that, please, if there’s political barriers to the implementation of the law, we need to know

about it. And frankly, I think that’s one of those things that we

need to address.

The other issue that the gentleman from Texas brought up, I

want an open invitation of how we can do it better, where you see

the system needing to be improved. Because we’re going to be following up on why are we reinventing the wheel. When we have

sensors and technology that’s been used by our military and our

clandestine services for decades, why aren’t those technologies

being looked at further rather than what appears to be last?

And a lot of this is politics. Look, I have been in the game since

I was 25 years old. I know how much influence of the politics is.

And politics can be good or bad. Let’s thank God that somebody

was willing to stand up and tell the bureaucracy that we can’t do

all observations from outer space; we are going to try this little remote-control airplane called the Predator, which has been one of

the greatest success of military application within decades.

But the politics of the lobbyists here pushing us to go use technology unproven, the silver bullet that looks so great when someone is selling here in Washington, I think those are things we are

going to address. And I leave you an open invitation, as much as

you can within the law and protocol, to work with us so that we’re

not just digging through your records, you’re able to participate

with us so we address the issue and serve the community we’re

sworn to serve, and that is the American people.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Go ahead. Mr. Hite.

Mr. HITE. Yes, sir. Just a couple thoughts concerning US-VISIT

Exit. I can’t comment to the extent it was a policy or political decision. I’m not aware of that. The real challenge with dealing with

US-VISIT Exit is that the physical infrastructure was never there

to screen people as they were leaving this country. It has always

been there to screen people as they come in, and there are extraordinary physical space limitations for land-based borders as well as

in airports and seaports, too.

So the real issue, the real challenge that is trying to be dealt

with now with respect to US-VISIT is not technology, it is operationally how are we going to implement this? How are we going

to implement the technology? Who is going to do what? Is TSA

going to do it at the checkpoint? Is CBP going to do it at the gate

for land borders? How are we going to expand the physical lanes

87

in a very constricted environment in some of these urban ports of

entry? So, that is the nature of the challenge that is being dealt

with now.

Mr. BILBRAY. Let me just say this: The largest land port of entry

in the world is being rebuilt today. My question to you is as we’re

rebuilding that whole structure, putting diagonal lanes, increase,

double them up on there, are we engineering and designing into

that new system the Exit system? Is that being engineered in

there? Do you know?

Mr. HITE. I can’t tell you that, but that is an excellent question,

and that is what should be dealt with when you look at a portfolio

of investments and say, we invest in physical infrastructure here;

how does that relate to what we want to accomplish through technology, through the US-VISIT program? So let us make sure they

work in lockstep.

Mr. BILBRAY. Let me tell you as someone who has worked on border issues since the 1970’s, the political pressure is to get people

into this country and back and forth as quickly as possible, and security is way down the list. And the trouble is we don’t have that

kind of lobby and political pressure on the bureaucracy to implement the law as we do as to make sure that commerce is never obstructed to any degree.

And frankly, as you said, the infrastructure, if we were charging

at the border, you darn well say that infrastructure would be there

like that. But when it comes to securing and implementing the requirements of the representatives of the people of the United

States, it has been put off for a decade.

So I guess that is one of those things we need to make a priority,

and my staff will be checking with the millions that are going into

redesigning and rebuilding the border crossing at Tijuana, let us

see if the Exit part of it is being executed. Let us see if the administration is following the law or responding to the political pressure.

Thank you very much.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Bilbray, we intend to hold a series of these

hearings and make recommendations. Since we have a new administration, it is just mind-blowing. When we put the Department of

Homeland Security together, we brought over 750,000 people from

various agencies and departments who had their own budgets, and

we have to see that this Department functions for its intended purposes. And we might quote a number of years, but still we have the

kinks to work out. And so have faith that when we gather all the

information, we will make the kind of recommendation so Homeland Security will indeed secure our homeland.

I would like to go on now to Mr. Taylor. And your testimony cites

the explosive growth of contractor support in the CIO’s office at

DHS since 2007. And what are the causes of the staffing shortages,

and is it a cultural or due to ineffective management? I know we

threw all of it together; that is why I made that comment. And we

just want to know, has DHS made the significant alterations to its

staffing plans since your recommendations were made to do so?

And you can chime in, Ms. Duke.

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure. In response to the recommendations, the Department has put together a plan to significantly increase the

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CIO’s office, and I think Ms. Duke mentioned that they’re going to

hit 100. The total that they plan to do by 2011 was something like

236, I believe. So they have responded to that.

To answer your question about why it got to where it is, I think

there were—we identified just a number of potential reasons. There

has been a push historically to reduce the number of permanent,

full-time Federal employees anyway and rely more on contractors

in the past. Also the IT area is one of these areas where we all sitting at this table and in the Federal Government have had a heck

of a time hiring qualified people. So it is tough to start with because we have trouble competing with the private sector, and there

are barriers still in the hiring process to make it frustrating for

someone to try to come from the private sector and get into the

government if they’re not experienced with the process. There is

background checks. Sometimes it takes months to get someone in.

They get frustrated. They have another offer, they move on.

Ms. WATSON. With the job loss and the situation is now, do we

see more people out there that would be eligible?

Ms. Duke.

Ms. DUKE. We see some increase in—especially at the lower—excuse me, the higher grades, so people coming out of industry with

pay parity, kind of the 14, 15 and above levels. Our biggest challenge in recruiting is at the journeyman level, the high working

level, the GS–12s and 13s, and we’re not seeing too much of an increase in those, but we’re starting to see.

Additionally we’re working on some with Mr. Berry, who is now

running the Office of Personnel Management, on getting some flexibilities with hiring.

And the third thing we’re doing, because you specifically mentioned contractors, is not only in the CIO’s office, but across DHS,

we’re looking at the balance of our work force. Within CIO we have

adjusted our work force to—we were going to just about 200

through contractor conversions of essential functions; our goal now

to be at about 325 Federal employees by 2011. We think we can

do that with the existing budget by making core functions of Federal employees. It is going to be a human resources challenge to

recruit that many people for DHS, though.

Ms. WATSON. Let me move on. We’re losing a lot of our time. Let

me address this to Mr. Hite and Mr. Hutton. I want to begin with

a very general question. And how would you characterize the success of DHS in delivering large-scale systems that are on time,

under budget, and that meet preestablished requirements? And let

me go, I guess, to Mr. Hite.

Mr. HITE. A very general question like that, overall I would say

the success has been poor in doing that. What we have seen is a

pattern of programs—as I mentioned in my oral remarks, a pattern

of programs getting started and allowing to proceed for many

years, where they’re rudderless basically. And then when these

problems come to the attention of certain principals, then they get

acted on, and, through many years of efforts, the programs begin

to be brought back on track. That, to me, is not an indication of

a successful program.

To measure success, and success can be anywhere on the continuum from achieving everything we possibly hoped of to achieving

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nothing, you need to establish what it is you’re trying to deliver,

and you need to make that commitment, and you need to measure

yourself against it. Time and time again on some of these programs

I’ve seen where they get started, and they’re allowed to proceed in

the absence of any commitments, without defining what is going to

be done by when to deliver what kind of capabilities to produce

what kind of value. If if you don’t have those commitments, it is

hard to judge success. You can proceed for a while and deliver

some capability and declare success.

One of the things we have pushed for in our reports, and one of

the things I would emphasize, is that when programs start, they

need to be grounded in clear expectations surrounding what are we

going to get at the end of the day, and what is it going to cost us?

And then you need to measure yourself against that.

Ms. WATSON. In 1996, Congress attempted to strengthen the IT

investment management oversight process through new requirements for capital planning and investment that we use at agencies.

Both agency procurement and information officers were charged

with overseeing the following activities.

Would it be fair to say that ineffective review processes are the

cause of wasted investments like the eMerge program, and is the

investment review process at DHS broken? If so, how much of it

is due to inadequate attention from agency leaders? And we will

start with you, Ms. Duke.

Ms. DUKE. I think that we have a ways to go to deliver the robust acquisition review program that this country deserves, but I

don’t think it is because of a lack of attention. I really think that,

right or wrong, when the Department was formed, it didn’t exist.

So the programs existed, the $6 billion worth of IT investments existed, and the things that GAO and the IG are saying we should

have didn’t. And so programs came into the Department, and they

didn’t have cost scheduling and performance metrics.

So what we’ve had to do in setting up the program is go back

and put those in place and then start measuring against them. So

the result is that things have taken time because we can’t measure

performance until we actually put performance metrics into place.

And so in a lot of the first years of the Department, we’ve been

in a remedial mode. We’ve been putting things into place. And now

as we put them in place, we can measure against them and track

performance. But we’ve been—I think that some people erroneously

believe that we started out kind of zero, we start out in a hole. And

I think we’ve dug ourselves out of the hole, but we’re not to the

preciseness that this country deserves yet.

Ms. WATSON. I understand that Senator Carper has introduced

legislation that would make significant alterations to the IT investment management process, including increased requirements for

budget justifications and transparency during the development life

cycle. And should we be using firm financial benchmarks at DHS

for determining when to pull the plug on programs with cost overruns or deficiencies beyond certain thresholds? And are there statutory changes that could be made to strengthen the oversight processes in place at DHS, or are there problems more related to the

execution of current processes in place? And let me just start with

the GAO, and then we will go on to the IG.

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Mr. HITE. Madam Chair, my position on that is you shouldn’t

have to legislate good management.

Ms. WATSON. That is true.

Mr. HITE. And, in fact, legislating good management can sometimes be a dangerous thing to do, can sometimes have unintended

consequences. What I believe is that the mechanisms are in place,

they’re understood. The issue comes in execution and implementation. And in the absence of implementation, it doesn’t matter how

great a process or a review board set-up that you have, you have

to execute it.

So I would go back to something I’ve said many times is that for

a program of this kind of magnitude to be successful, there are literally 100 stars that need to align, and any one of those stars can

have a major impact on that program. So there are a lot of things

that have to be done right, and oversight is one of those variables,

but there are a whole lot of others in the equation that need to be

done right. And the reason that some of these programs have fallen

on hard times over the years is through a combination of these

things.

And to Ms. Dukes’s point about the fact that they inherited these

agencies, these component agencies, and inherited their programs,

and hence the Department didn’t have its own institutional ways

of overseeing, that is true. The components should have had their

own, and the components should have been paying attention to

them, and the components should have been doing those programs

correctly, and that wasn’t happening.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would like to back us up. I think the most valuable service that a procurement office performs is helping management determine what its the requirements are in the first place.

What we’ve seen over time is a lack of firm, measurable requirements, that what is it we’re trying to accomplish with this technology application, what is it we’re trying to achieve? And we start

with those kinds of problems, that and the constant pressure to respond, respond in terms of disasters, respond in terms of crisis at

the border. We need to do something quickly, so we don’t have time

to really work through all of our requirements, and so the requirements change, and whenever that happens, you have serious problems with oversight.

You also have a problem where it’s not so much that the Department doesn’t have the infrastructure identified as being able to

staff it as we’ve talked about, but it is also being able to followup

and manage at the component level. So we need to focus the kinds

of authorities we have in the CIO at the Department level on the

component CIOs and have them responsible for identifying and

managing IT budgets and staying on top of IT projects.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

And, Ms. Duke, would you like to add to that?

Ms. DUKE. I agree with both the GAO and the IG. I guess in

terms of what the GAO said about how it should be, I agree totally.

Unfortunately as the execution person, I have to deal with reality

and what is, not what should be and trying to get to what should

be.

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I think that we do—visibility into the budget by the CIO is very

important, and we have instituted that through our performance

review process. And I think that we have to put the performance

measures in place, hold the program managers accountable and the

components.

And I think also we have to have the discipline to be nimble and

quick because our enemy is nimble and quick, but have the discipline to not just do things fast. One of the earlier cultural pressures on DHS was to do it fast, and that seemed to be the measure.

And we’re trying to right now hold the line at doing it fast enough

to meet our threat, but do it well enough, and that is a tradeoff

between cost, schedule and performance. And that is one of the biggest cultural changes we’re in the midst of right now.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Madam Chair, I’m going to yield my time to the

Chair. I just want to say in all defense, we’ve gone through 8 years

without another major attack, so I think we can say to DHS, congratulations, but at the same time understanding there are huge

amounts of waste of resources, effort, critical resources that could

be used in other locations.

So we’ve been successful. We don’t know if that success is

through accomplishment or dumb luck. But we will take it whatever, but let’s move on and not depend on—let’s make sure in the

future that dumb luck is not what we’re depending on. We have a

responsibility to straighten this out and try to get into it and make

it as effective as possible so we can move on from there.

And I yield to the Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much.

Let me move on, and this will be our last item of questioning and

information.

I would like to hear something about a detailed assessment on

the lessons learned from the failed eMerge program and how we

can be assured that its offspring, the transformation and systems

consolidation, referred to as TASC program, will not become another abandoned project that wastes over $50 million. So where is

DHS in developing the necessary requirements for TASC? Has the

TASC program been reviewed by the appropriate investment review boards and developed the appropriate justifications for funding and mission needs? And how did and why did we wait so long

before terminating the original eMerge program, and what information was missing to determine that it would not be effective?

And what are your life-cycle cost estimates for this program and

estimated date of completion?

So any of you can jump in, but I would like to start with Ms.

Duke.

Ms. DUKE. Regarding eMerge, the two biggest lessons learned

from the original program that was done within the first year of

the Department was, one, it was a noble objective. We have severe

weaknesses in financial systems in many of our components to the

point where we cannot get to a clean financial audit with the current systems. That has to be corrected.

Second, we learned from industry that a single—or a shared financial system is essential to an effective merger, and so we need

some type of communication between our financial systems to be

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the mature Department that this committee and the country wants

us be to.

What we did in the initial eMerge was I’ll say two lessons

learned. One, we took what we call the nuclear approach. We said

we’re starting over. Give us a brand new system that’s the utopic

system, one system deployed quickly within months in the Department, and it is too complicated to do effectively in that type of

wholesale just quick-hit approach.

The second thing we learned from it is that we’re relying too

much on industry for the solution. So it’s good to rely on industry

to deliver the solution and work out the specific ways of delivering,

but we hadn’t come up with our requirements well enough. And so

then you’re at the mercy of industry to deliver whatever solution.

And so our regrouping and our time has mostly been focused on the

requirements.

The current program, TASC, that is being overseen by leadership

in significant detail. The RFP is out on the street. There will be

another acquisition review board this calendar year to look at the

next date.

I’ll have to get back to you on life-cycle cost estimate, but it’s a

multibillion-dollar program if executed throughout the Department.

But it does allow for a more staggered approach so that we really

balance risk. So it is really a total revision of the approach to financial system management.

Ms. WATSON. Yes. Mr. Hite, please.

Mr. HITE. Just a quick thought on that. We have ongoing work

looking at the TASC program for the House Homeland Security

Committee and for the House Appropriations Committee. I believe

it is scheduled to be issued this fall, so it is coming to a conclusion.

And what it’s doing is looking at the six recommendations that we

had made relative to moving forward on the son of eMerge2. And

so we will be able to speak to what the Department is doing relative to defining a strategy for the program, developing a concept

of operations, putting in place the means by which the processes—

by which they’re going to manage it, etc.

Ms. WATSON. I’m just going to throw out some of the other programs, too, and you can just across the board just comment on

them. The Automated Commercial Environment Program, and it

did not meet its cost schedule or commitments, and the costs went

up. And then another program, Rescue 21, is plagued by cost overruns and so on. So can you comment on what happened with those?

Ms. DUKE. Before I comment, I would also offer to brief you or

your staff on specific programs at their convenience so they can get

a——

Ms. WATSON. And I just want you to know we’re holding these

hearings so we can fix what went wrong and how—we’re putting

together this humongous DHS. We want to get it right. So what

we want to find out is how we—and I don’t think it has been been

mentioned—do it through legislation. We just hope that the leadership in the various agencies and departments will be able to improve.

Ms. DUKE. Automated commercial environment, ACE, we just

held an acquisition review of that. Probably the fundamental or

baseline problem of ACE has been evolving requirements. It’s a

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major system, and we keep finding new ways to work with the

shippers. And so that is OK, it’s OK for a program to evolve over

time. What we’re trying to do now is be more disciplined about

making the cost schedule tradeoffs rather than just adding requirements. And so right now we’re in a period where we’re having ACE

reassess its requirements, its cost estimate and its program metrics

before proceeding forth with any of the planned enhancements.

In Rescue 21, one of the fundamental problems with the initial

part of Rescue 21 is there were some COTS solutions, as this committee has talked about, to the control system, and the initial way

we moved forward with Rescue 21 was to develop a unique developmental control system. And so one of the things we’ve learned on

Rescue 21 to get that back on track is we’ve gone away from that

developmental system similar to the approach we talked about on

SBInet. And that change in strategy, which I think is good for the

program in the long run to have a commercial system, did cause

some cost increases.

Ms. WATSON. And I would like to have GAO comment on the

SBInet and where you see it.

Mr. HITE. It was about 8, 10 months ago we reported on where

SBInet was at that time. And our message then, it was unclear

what was going to be delivered by when, at what cost, to what locations. It was constantly shifting. What it was going to be was

shrinking without becoming more specific. When it was going to be

delivered was moving further out to right on the timeline, and the

costs were a veritable unknown at that time.

In addition to that, there were issues surrounding the ambiguity

of the requirements. If you have unclear requirements, it is a recipe for failure, because what you’ll learn over time is it is very difficult to design and develop a system to a requirement that’s not

clear. And then if you learn about those kind of things downstream

after you, in fact, have developed software or integrated commercial products, and you’re trying to test them to see whether they

meet the requirements, it is a whole lot more expensive to fix them

then than it would have been at the beginning.

There were issues associated with the testing at that time. Component tests were occurring on individual parts of SBInet—or, I’m

sorry, had not occurred yet. Tests were occurring on the integration

of components, which is kind of out of order. So there was a range

of program management weaknesses associated with it at the time,

and it headed on a track for just flat out not being successful.

We raised these risks to the Department. As part of our recommendations we wanted the then IRB, Investment Review Board,

now the Acquisition Review Board, to get involved and conduct

oversight of it. I’m happy to say that has occurred to a considerable

extent. The IRB has looked at it. The IRB as issued directives, decision directives, to the program on what it needs to do in order

to bring itself back. There has been a wholesale change in that program in terms of the leadership on it. The new program director

for that is an exceptionally qualified individual.

So I think we’re moving in the right direction there. We have ongoing work looking at the extent to which the very specific program

weaknesses that we identified in terms of being able to put together a good estimate of what it is going to cost, a good schedule

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of what’s going to get done when, and to do good requirements,

management, good testing. We have work going on now for the

House Homeland Security on all of those fronts. We’re probably

about 3 or 4 months away from reporting on that, and because of

our protocols with the Congress, I can’t disclose what the results

of that work is right now. We will be exiting with the Department

and sharing the results of that work in the next probably 30 to 60

days. And so when we’re in a position to, I will be happy to share

that information with the committee as well.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. I have no questions.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Taylor, would you like to comment? One of the

questions that is still rolling around among us is that when do we

pull the plug on programs with cost overruns or deficiencies beyond

certain thresholds?

Mr. TAYLOR. That’s an excellent question. The problem we run

into in some of these programs, and you’ve seen it at DHS and

other places, I’m sure, but at DHS we have had a problem because

we don’t know what the definition of what we’re asking for in the

first place is. We know we have an operational requirement we

need to support, but we haven’t defined what it is we’re trying to

use that application for and what we’re trying to achieve.

So we keep evolving the requirement, and things change as we’re

going along, and the costs add up over time. You saw it with some

of the other projects. You saw it with the original Pearson contract

before DHS’s time, the original Pearson contract with TSA to train

TSA screeners. You saw it with Deepwater. You see these things

evolving. We’re concerned about the financial system for those

kinds of reasons and other projects.

You have to require a real definition of requirements. You have

to have those requirements in place so that you know what you’re

getting so you can measure those costs against it, and that’s the

biggest weakness right now.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Connolly, is there a question or statement

you’d like to make at this point? And welcome.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chair, and and thank you for

holding this hearing. Forgive me for being late. I had a caucus

meeting, and then I gave a 5-minute on the floor, so I’m just coming back from the floor. I do have a prepared statement I would

be glad to enter into the record.

Ms. WATSON. You can submit it for the record.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And just welcome, folks, here. Obviously the

whole question of the deployment of technology in our Federal Government is very critical moving forward both to this committee and

certainly in my district. So I’m going to be very interested in looking at the testimony and following this issue, and I again thank

you for holding this hearing.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Let us now conclude with Ms. Duke. You’ve heard the input from

not only questions we asked, but from the GAO and the IG. What

would your overall view be of the progress we’ve made at DHS?

And where do we have to go? You only have an hour to tell us.

Ms. DUKE. I think my assessment of the progress varies from day

to day. I think when we look at the limited resources we’ve had,

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the challenges we faced, I’m very proud and amazed at the

progress we made.

Ms. WATSON. Let me just say this: This new administration has

been accused of growing government, and I really don’t know what

that means, because here is a prime example of why we want to

grow government for homeland security. It just makes sense to me.

I come from Los Angeles, and you really need to get there 2 hours

in advance because you’ve got to go through security. And I look

back at the line, just to get up to the sensors, there must have been

300 people in three lines side by side, and we were there very

early. We get the 7:40 flight out.

And so I’m saying you should upload the first team at each one

of the security gates so that you can process these people for their

flights. They had to come through and say, is anyone leaving on

the 7:05 a.m. flight? And we stood there long enough for the crew

to change. Then it went faster.

I said, if you got all these people in line, then we ought to put

the security force—really double it on the early morning flights.

And these are the things that have to work down through the system. We’re talking about investments for the most part.

But there are a lot of things that need to be done to make this

a true working Department that secures our homeland. So we’re

not trying to throw all of this and get questions for you at one time.

Where do we need to go? And that might have been minor, my experiences, but we do it every single week. And I’m saying by now,

we should have figured this out. So I understand it takes time, it

takes money, and when we talk about growing government, we

have to be sure that we use taxpayers’ dollars wisely.

So we want you to tell us how to use those dollars wisely.

Ms. DUKE. One of the things we’re working on is rightsizing our

work force and the balance between Federal and contractor employees. Our Senate Homeland Security Committee, this was a bipartisan issue since the last Congress, and we’ve identified positions in

DHS that would be more appropriately done by Federal employees.

That’s going to be huge in delivering the mission effectively. And

it’s not big government, it’s doing the right thing and having our

core capabilities done by Federal employees.

I think the thing we have to do in acquisition and management

is sustain the discipline and the tenacity to go through this. What

we learn as children is that decisions have consequences, and we

have to be good and disciplined after we put the fundamentals in

place about making the cost schedule and performance tradeoffs so

that we have a disciplined approach, and if it means slowing down

a program, then that is the right decision, and that we have the

ability and the data to stand up and say we’re purposely slowing

it down or whatever, we’re doing it to make the right decision.

I think that we have the building blocks in place, and I think we

have a great Federal work force in at DHS. I was a career Fed for

26 years before my appointment, and we have some of the finest

people. And I think we have the people to do it. We have the leadership in place that will support them. And I think that we do have

the oversight of our committees that help, because it helps us keep

the focus on it.

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So my personal opinion after being in the Department is the

building blocks are in place, and the proof is in, as both GAO and

the IG have said, in the doing and the discipline to keep it up, and

have the discipline to make the hard decisions when they need to

be made.

Ms. WATSON. We’re going to send out to you the questions that

were raised by Mr. Cuellar, and we would appreciate the answers.

And if any other members of the committee would like to have any

concerns or questions answered, we will send them out to you.

Yes, Mr. Connolly.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Madam Chairman, we will, with your consent,

submit some written questions for the record.

Can I add one little thing since you’re describing your experience

at LAX?

Ms. WATSON. Please do.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I would just plead with DHS, it may seem like

a small thing, but every time I’ve traveled, I’ve been impressed

with sort of an unevenness about the training of handling the public by security personnel. It’s just as easy, maybe even easier, to

get compliance with hard-pressed travelers waiting in long lines,

understanding that security is an issue, when there is a ‘‘please’’

affixed to the request. I’ve been stunned at how many airports I go

through where TSA folks act in ways that are profoundly disrespectful to the public, where they were barking orders and making demands, and it is, frankly, just lack of training. And the public is not the adversary. The public is, in fact, just as much concerned about security as TSA and wants to be cooperative. But it

makes it a little harder, and gets people’s back up, and creates

needless stress when, frankly, we don’t treat the public with the respect they deserve. We’re serving that public.

And so I would plead with the DHS, it may seem like a little

thing, but I don’t think it is. I think if you want the public’s full

cooperation, support and sympathy for the mission, then treat

them with the respect they deserve. And I would plead with you

to start to try to have that ethos better imbued in the training programs and in the mentality of some of the folks who serve the public. Some are great and try to use good humor and treat people

with respectm. But all too many do not. And this is the United

States of America. The public is in charge.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. I have to followup on that, too, because that’s what

I was referring to. The TSA has to do a better job in selecting the

people that work at first contact. You go, you get your ticket, and

then you get in that line. So they really are the first contact, as

far as I’m concerned.

They yell continuously at people, rather than saying, ‘‘Take your

shoes off and place them on the belt.’’ That’s what we have to do

in L.A. Here you can put them in the bin. And it changes every

airport you go in, and I can understand that.

But you really need to treat the public a little differently than

we get treated. We travel twice a week, 5 hours and 15 minutes

for me. And I said to them yesterday, you know, I’m going to see

what we can do about making the process more useful and smoother and not as antagonistic as it appears to be. That really irks me,

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someone who flies all the time. That’s minor, but it means a lot to

the passengers.

And one of the things that annoys me is the personal conversation among the employees when there could be someone there who

really needs to be checked out. And I don’t need to hear about what

you did last night, and your personal problems, and who is saying

what, and that’s the conversation you have to stand and listen to.

So we need more focus. We need more, shall I say, accuracy, and

we need more detection. And not everyone is an intended terrorist,

but that’s the way we’re treated. However, that is rather minor,

but it is an important issue to start thinking about.

I want to say to the panel that we appreciate your input, and

this is a hearing to gather information to make this particular

service to the people, DHS, the best ever, because you’ve heard the

complaints out there in the streets. And it’s like we’re the biggest,

shall I say, interfering Big Brother into people’s business. We’re

growing government, and we’re endangerering people’s future, their

children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren. We’re destroying our Nation. That is not our intent. Our intent is to build

the Department of Homeland Security to be the best in the world

and to protect our country, and that’s the reason why we’re holding

these hearings.

I appreciate your input. And just know we’re here to get the information that you need. And if we have to do it through policy,

we’ll do it that way. But I think these hearings will help us to give

the information out to you and let you handle it the best way. And

I know we’re driving the CIO crazy, but we appreciate your feedback to us so we can manage the public’s dollars better and have

better results.

And with that, if there are no more questions, then we will adjourn this meeting, and thank you so much.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

Æ