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REVIEW OF PROGRESS BY THE 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

October 27, 2015 

Serial No. 114–45 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

October 27, 2015 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Witnesses: 

The Honorable Reginald Brothers, Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 27 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

The Honorable Reginald Brothers, Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security ........................................................ 48 

(1) 

A REVIEW OF PROGRESS BY THE 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

(DHS), 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith 

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
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Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

Welcome to today’s hearing titled ‘‘A Review of Progress by the 

Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.’’ 

I’ll recognize myself for five minutes and then the Ranking Member. 

Ongoing, productive research and development is crucial to protect our country and its people. Whether terrorists, cyber criminals, 

or drug or people smugglers, our adversaries are relentless and 

constantly adjust their tactics. In order to meet evolving risks and 

threats, we must continuously invest in R&D. Just as important, 

taxpayers’ dollars committed to R&D must have a high return on 

investment. 

Today, the Committee will continue its review of the Department 

of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and its 

important work. 

In July 2014, the Committee held a hearing on technologies that 

would help secure our borders. Then in the following September, 

we held a joint subcommittee oversight hearing with the Homeland 

Security Committee itself. The two witnesses at the September 

hearing were the Director of Homeland Security and Justice at the 

Government Accounting Office and the Department of Homeland 

Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Dr. Reggie 

Brothers. The witnesses and our Committee members focused on a 

series of GAO reviews that found serious problems with management and coordination of R&D within the Department of Homeland 

Security. 

The GAO found the DHS’s research and development efforts to 

be ‘‘fragmented and overlapping.’’ GAO also found hundreds of millions of dollars spent in previous years on duplicative R&D projects 

by other offices within the Department. GAO recommended that 

the Science and Technology Directorate develop stronger policies 

and guidance to define, oversee, coordinate, and track R&D across 

the Department. 

America’s economy and security are threatened every day by 

cyber criminals and hackers. Unfriendly foreign governments 

launch regular cyber-attacks to undermine our national security 

and steal military and technological secrets. Cyber-attacks against 

U.S. government and private sector networks continue to grow at 

an alarming rate. But with each new breach of private and public 

electronic networks, it’s clear the full scope of the threat we face 

has yet to be realized. 

At a subcommittee hearing last week, members of our Committee 

heard about the threat of cyber-attacks to the power grid. If just 

one major city were attacked in this way, the economic and societal 

consequences would be devastating. 

The House Science Committee approved the only cyber legislation in the last Congress, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 

2014, which was signed into law. 

Another area of particular concern is our government’s failure to 

control our country’s borders. Unsecure physical and virtual bor-
9 

ders threaten our national and economic security. A country that 

has lost control of its borders has lost control of its future. 

The magnitude of these and other homeland security challenges 

require constant advances to our technological capabilities. For instance, about 12 million containers arrive in the United States 

every year, which must be screened by DHS. More than two million 

passengers fly domestically every day, who must be screened by the 

Transportation Security Administration. Nearly 100 million international air service passengers must be screened by Customs and 

the Border Patrol. And the annual number of land travelers to the 

United States who must be processed by our Border Patrol is approaching 250 million people. 

There are not enough agents and screeners available to do this 

work. Instead, we must adapt, invent and, when necessary, create 

better technological solutions that are smarter, faster, less expensive, and more effective. 

This morning, we will hear from Dr. Brothers on the progress 

made in the implementation of the GAO’s recommendations. He 

also will update us on the S&T Directorate’s initiatives to help 

DHS component agencies meet the full spectrum of threats. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Ongoing, productive research and development (R&D) is crucial to protect our 

country and its people. Whether terrorists, cyber criminals, or drug or people smugglers, our adversaries are relentless and constantly adjust their tactics. 

In order to meet evolving risks and threats, we must continuously invest in R&D. 

Just as important, taxpayers’ dollars committed to R&D must have a high return 

on investment. 

Today, the Committee will continue its review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and its important work. In July 2014, 

the Committee held a hearing on technologies that would help secure our borders. 

Then in September, we held a joint subcommittee oversight hearing with the Homeland Security Committee. 

The two witnesses at the September hearing were the Director of Homeland Security and Justice at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary for Science and Technology, Dr. Reggie 

Brothers. The witnesses and our Committee members focused on a series of GAO 

reviews that found serious problems with management and coordination of R&D 

within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

The GAO found the DHS’s research and development efforts to be ‘‘fragmented 

and overlapping.’’ GAO also found hundreds of millions of dollars spent in previous 

years on duplicative R&D projects by other offices within the Department. GAO recommended that the Science and Technology Directorate develop stronger policies 

and guidance to define, oversee, coordinate and track R&D across the Department. 

America’s economy and security are threatened every day by cyber criminals and 

hackers. Unfriendly foreign governments launch regular cyber-attacks to undermine 

our national security and steal military and technological secrets. 

Cyber-attacks against U.S. government and private sector networks continue to 

grow at an alarming rate. But with each new breach of private and public electronic 

networks, it’s clear the full scope of the threat we face has yet to be realized. 

At a subcommittee hearing last week, members of our Committee heard about the 

threat of cyber-attacks to the power grid. If just one major city were attacked in 

this way, the economic and societal consequences would be devastating. 

The House Science Committee approved the only cyber legislation in the last Congress, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014, which was signed into 

law.Another area of particular concern is our government’s failure to control our 

country’s borders. 

Unsecure physical and virtual borders threaten our national and economic security. A country that has lost control of its border has lost control of its future. The 
10 

magnitude of these and other homeland security challenges require constant advances to our technological capabilities. For instance: 

• About 12 million containers arrive in the US every year which must be screened 

by DHS; 

• More than two million passengers fly domestically every day who must be 

screened by the Transportation Security Administration; 

• Nearly 100 million international air service passengers must be screened by 

Customs and the Border Patrol; and 

• The annual number of land travelers to the United States who must be processed by our Border Patrol is approaching 250 million. 

There are not enough agents and screeners available to do this work. Instead, we 

must adapt, invent and, when necessary, create better technological solutions that 

are smarter, faster, less expensive, and more effective. 

This morning, we will hear from Dr. Brothers on the progress made in the implementation of the GAO’s recommendations. He also will update us on the S&T Directorate’s initiatives to help DHS component agencies meet the full spectrum of 

threats. 

Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement, and the 

Ranking Member, Mrs. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the gentlewoman 

from Texas, is recognized for her opening statement. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I am pleased to welcome Under Secretary Brothers back to the 

Committee. The last time you testified with us, you only had been 

in the job 5 months. I look forward to hearing your testimony about 

the changes you’ve implemented in the last year, and your 

thoughts on what this Committee can do in reauthorization to support your efforts in strengthening the security and resiliency of the 

United States through science and technology. 

We’ve previously heard testimony about GAO’s 2012 recommendation that DHS develop policies and guidance for defining, 

overseeing, coordinating, and tracking R&D activities across the 

department, and that S&T establish time frames and milestones 

for collecting and evaluating feedback from its customers. We have 

also heard criticism of test and evaluation procedures, the quality 

of external input, relationship with the operational components of 

DHS and other customers, and employees’ morale. 

Under Dr. Brothers’ leadership, the S&T Directorate has defined 

R&D, published a strategic plan, undertaken a major overhaul of 

the S&T Advisory Committee, and developed several program and 

management initiatives to strengthen the work of the S&T Directorate and make it a more effective partner for DHS. 

While I’m sure it was not easy, Dr. Brothers, you may look back 

at the development of the strategic plan as being the easy part of 

the job. Now you need to implement and institutionalize your vision. 

As you know, you are not the first Under Secretary to inherit an 

extremely challenged S&T Directorate, nor the first to undertake 

major reforms in an effort to right the ship. The constant change 

with every new leader has surely contributed to the challenges facing the S&T Directorate, as well as to very low employee morale. 

In your written testimony, you spelled out five priorities for your 

tenure as Under Secretary. I’d like to hear from you what you hope 

S&T will look like when it comes time to hand it over to your successor. 

This is meant to be a legislative hearing, so I hope that some of 

the discussion today will help guide our thinking about reauthor-
11 

ization of the S&T Directorate. The Committee on Homeland Security has already reported out a bipartisan reauthorization bill. That 

bill does a good job of addressing many of the challenges that have 

been identified over time. As I understand it, the Department provided significant technical assistance in the drafting of that bill, 

and some of the Department’s own priorities for reauthorization 

are reflected. If there are any remaining concerns or requests for 

reauthorization provisions, now is the time for Members of this 

Committee to hear directly from the Under Secretary. 

I hope, Dr. Brothers, that you—that we can be a partner with 

you and unintentionally—not unintentionally place any obstacles in 

your way as you work hard to build a better and more effective 

S&T Directorate. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to welcome Under Secretary Brothers 

back to the Committee. The last time you testified for us, you had only been in the 

job for 5 months. I look forward to hearing your testimony about the changes you’ve 

implemented in the last year, and your thoughts on what this Committee can do 

in a reauthorization bill to support your efforts to strengthen the security and resiliency of the United States through science and technology. 

We’ve previously heard testimony about GAO’s 2012 recommendation that ‘‘DHS 

develop policies and guidance for defining, overseeing, coordinating, and tracking 

R&D activities across the department, and that S&T establish time frames and 

milestones for collecting and evaluating feedback from its customers.’’ We have also 

heard criticism of test and evaluation procedures, the quality of external input, relationship with the operational components of DHS and other customers, and employee morale. Under Dr. Brothers’ leadership, the S&T Directorate has defined 

R&D, published a strategic plan, undertaken a major overhaul of the S&T Advisory 

Committee, and developed several program and management initiatives to strengthen the work of the S&T Directorate and make it a more effective partner to the rest 

of DHS. 

While I’m sure it was not easy, Dr. Brothers, you may look back at the development of the strategic plan as being the easy part of the job. Now you need to implement and institutionalize your vision. As you know, you are not the first Under Secretary to inherit an extremely challenged S&T Directorate, nor the first to undertake major reforms in an effort to right the ship. The constant change with every 

new leader has surely contributed to the challenges facing the S&T Directorate, as 

well as to very low employee morale. In your written testimony you spelled out five 

priorities for your tenure as Under Secretary. I’d like to hear from you what you 

hope S&T will look like when it comes time to hand it over to your successor. 

This is meant to be a legislative hearing, so I hope that some of the discussion 

today will help guide our thinking about a reauthorization of the S&T Directorate. 

The Committee on Homeland Security has already reported out a bipartisan reauthorization bill. That bill does a good job of addressing many of the challenges that 

have been identified over time. As I understand it, the Department provided significant technical assistance in the drafting of that bill, and some of the Department’s 

own priorities for reauthorization are reflected. If there are any remaining concerns 

or requests for reauthorization provisions, now is the time for Members of this Committee to hear directly from the Under Secretary. I hope, Dr. Brothers, that we can 

be a partner with you and not unintentionally place any obstacles in your way as 

you work hard to build a better and more effective S&T Directorate. 

Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. 

And I’ll introduce our witness. Our witness today is Dr. Reggie 

Brothers, the Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the 

Department of Homeland Security. In this position, Dr. Brothers 
12 

serves as the Science Advisor to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and 

is responsible for DHS research and development. 

Before his Senate confirmation in April 2014, Dr. Brothers was 

Director of Mission Applications at BAE Systems. He also has 

served as the Defense Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Research and as a Program Manager at DOD’s Defense 

Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. 

Dr. Brothers earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, his master’s in electrical engineering 

from Southern Methodist University, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. 

Dr. Brothers, we welcome you and look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. REGINALD BROTHERS, 

UNDER SECRETARY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you, and good morning. 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and distinguished 

Members of the Committee, good morning, and thank you for this 

opportunity to discuss the role the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, or S&T. I’m grateful for 

the Committee’s longstanding interest and support for the Directorate and the Department. 

A year and a half ago, I joined the Department with five priorities for the Directorate: develop visionary goals, produce an actionable strategy, foster an empowered workforce, deliver force-multiplying solutions, and energize a Homeland Security Industrial 

Base. These were based on feedback from S&T staff, from inside 

the Department, and from outside stakeholders including Congress. 

I’m proud to say that as an organization we’ve enjoyed remarkable 

success in each of these five areas. I believe S&T is emerging as 

a federal R&D organization tailor-made for today’s fast-changing 

homeland threats. 

To begin with, last year we published Visionary Goals for S&T 

with an updated S&T Strategic Plan. The plan includes technology 

roadmaps for each of our major R&D investment areas, and we 

don’t anticipate this being once every four years type of product. 

We’ve already updated once, and we’re looking at interactive webbased capability moving forward. This is a tool not only to focus 

our internal energy and resources but to engage people and industry and organizations outside S&T to ensure progress towards common Homeland Security goals. 

We reduced the overall number of programs to make room for 

fewer, more impactful projects, and reprioritized our funding 

around the most pressing national, departmental and Congressional priorities. Reprioritization allowed S&T to put resources towards urgent areas of need such as unmanned aerial systems and 

to invest in ambitious new apex projects to tackle future challenges 

in areas like aviation screening and border situational awareness. 

In reshaping our R&D portfolio, we also recognize technical requirements and core competencies in areas like data analytics, 

identity management that are common across numerous projects 

regardless of specific subject areas. As a result, to avoid rein-
13 

venting the wheel with each new project, our portfolio includes a 

new category of projects called engines that help us realize efficiencies compared to previous S&T approaches. These projects represent a novel approach in S&T and benefit from the diverse, 

broad-ranging expertise within the Directorate. As today’s innovational research becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, the value of 

an engine for promoting efficient collaboration and cross-pollenization within the Directorate only increases. 

We’ve taken numerous steps to empower the workforce, 

incentivize collaboration in the organization, and boost morale. I’m 

proud to say that initiatives like S&T’s new employee council, a 

concerted effort to better connect leadership and staff, is beginning 

to be reflected in S&T’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey scores. 

In the most recent survey, we saw significant gains of 10 points or 

higher on questions related to workforce recognition—workplace 

recognition, leadership, and innovation. I’m encouraged to see the 

Directorate working together and rallying around each other but I 

know our work isn’t complete. We’ll continue building on our positive momentum. 

Some of the most beneficial changes at S&T involve how we partner with components, draw the requirements for our projects, and 

coordinate R&D across the Department. In an austere fiscal environment, and at the same time, a time of increasing threats, we 

must be strategic about our R&D work and how we prioritize our 

investments to make the largest impact in securing our country. 

By emphasizing cross-cutting solutions with greater reach in the 

most pressing Homeland Security challenge areas, we avoid being 

overly internally driven or too focused on highly specific end-user 

requests. 

As part of the Secretary’s Unity of Effort initiative, S&T has relaunched departmental Integrated Product Teams as a formal 

mechanism for identifying technology capability gaps across the 

Department’s mission areas. Though the Secretary only approved 

S&T’s approach in August, we have already chartered and convened two of the five initial IPTs with two more expected by the 

end of this month. The IPTs are boosted by S&T initiatives like the 

Innovation Centers and the Pioneer program that embed S&T staff 

directly with components, and that’ll facilitate better connection 

and better understanding of operational environments, tactics, 

techniques, and procedures. 

Finally, perhaps most importantly, S&T is making great strides 

in broadening the community of problem solvers and technologists 

that make up the Homeland Security industrial base. We launched 

prize competitions and accelerators to connect with startups and 

small businesses who may never have considered government as a 

partner. Our pilot effort for Homeland Security focus accelerators 

was particularly successful in demonstrating not only startup community interests in participating but also our ability to successfully 

spur products and companies to attract private investment and simultaneously meet the needs of Homeland Security operators. 

In the last year, we also opened three new university-based Centers of Excellence. We broke ground on construction for the cuttingedge Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. We expanded with our international partners including innovative public-private partnership 
14 

with Israel. We’ve established a presence in Silicon Valley to expand our day-to-day, face-to-face contact with major innovations 

hubs outside the beltway. If we succeed with our expanded Silicon 

Valley presence, we look forward to using a similar outreach model 

in Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, and other hubs 

around the country. 

We’re clearly trying a lot of new things at S&T. I’ve asked the 

directorate to be experimental, to try new things and think differently about processes. When it doesn’t work, we scrap it. When 

it does, we expand it. As more of these experiments work, we are 

expecting to reap the benefits inside the Directorate, across the Department and with a growing group of stakeholders. 

I look forward to your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Brothers follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Brothers, and I’ll recognize myself for questions. 

My first question is a lookback earlier this year at the perhaps 

as many 25 million federal employees who had their computers 

hacked. Almost all of them had applied for security clearances, so 

this was sensitive information that presumably was accessed. 

What are you all doing to prevent another such cyber-attack on 

federal employees? 

Dr. BROTHERS. That’s a good question, sir. We have a robust 

cyber strategy, cyber research and development strategy. We look 

at how can we protect infrastructure. We look at a variety of different technologies and techniques to secure this infrastructure. We 

work—— 

Chairman SMITH. What tangible steps, though, have you all 

taken to try to prevent this from occurring again, not just strategies, but what have you actually implemented? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I understand. I understand, sir. So I can go back 

to—so right now, because of—right now we’re working with NPPD. 

We are working with the Secret Service. We’re working with the 

stakeholders to actually understand their systems, to understand 

where we can actually make some improvements. So I can say 

based on—we have some cyber technologies, some enhancements 

that I can talk about that we’ve done in the past. 

Regarding your current question, I can look to the types of things 

we’re doing. We are doing research and cybersecurity research for 

the infrastructure. We’re looking at software assurance. For example, when folks make—when software designers develop software, 

we’ve developed a research credibility so they can more—so they’re 

able to actually determine whether or not their software is valid or 

not, and whether it has coding problems. 

Chairman SMITH. Is it fair to summarize what you’re saying by 

noting that you’re still studying the problem as opposed to having 

taken any specific preventative measures? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So we have continuously since 2003 or so been 

working in cyberspace, and we have had a number of successes 

over the time. We’ve had something like 35 successful transitions 

of cyber technology into industry and into our stakeholders. The 

particular problems that you’re talking about now working with 

government, we have been working, but we are now working to develop an enhanced strategy given some of the newer technologies. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, it does sound like you haven’t taken any 

specific, tangible steps. When you do, would you let us know? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Absolutely. 

Chairman SMITH. And I hope it’s sooner rather than later. It 

seems like by now there would have been some tangible steps 

taken. 

Dr. BROTHERS. I think—I’ll be glad to come back with a classified 

briefing on the work we’re doing. 

Chairman SMITH. That’s a fair response. Thank you. 

Next question is this, and this is something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and I think I’m grateful that it hasn’t 

occurred yet, but what specifically is Homeland Security doing to 

prevent, say, a terrorist, would-be terrorist, from flying a small 

drone over a packed stadium of 60,000 people perhaps watching a 
28 

pro football game and having this drone release anthrax and killing 

most of the people who are present? What are we doing to prevent 

that kind of physical attack? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So your first question involves technology that, as 

you know, is rapidly changing. So the threats are changing with respect to cyber, with respect to the small drones, and the technology 

capabilities are changing rapidly as well. 

In order to address those, we are doing a lot to understand what 

the capabilities are, what the potential threats are. We have taken 

the lead in the interagency to look at the whole community response because there are a number of interrelated issues here with 

the drone problem. One is, how does a community actually respond, 

how do first responders respond. The other issue is, what technologies can we use to effectively detect, track, classify—— 

Chairman SMITH. I assume DHS is working with the FAA on 

various rules that would govern the flights of—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. We are absolutely working with the FAA. We’ve 

got briefings with the entire Department of Transportation. The 

Secretary has convened a meeting of stakeholders across the government to discuss this issue. I think it’s safe to say that we have 

already done a data call across the interagency to look at what capabilities not only do we have but the Department of Defense and 

others have to mitigate this threat, and we are moving forward 

with both these areas of, how does the whole community with respect to policy procedures and how to respond with technology. 

Chairman SMITH. And that may be a subject of a classified hearing or discussion as well. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Absolutely. 

Chairman SMITH. Last question is this. We have something on 

the order of 250,000 criminal immigrants at large in the United 

States. Clearly, these individuals are not supposed to be here, and 

just as clearly, they will commit many more crimes while they are 

present in the United States. A significant fraction will go on to be 

re-arrested. What is your S&T Directorate doing to assure realtime identification of illegal immigrants while they are still in custody? 

Dr. BROTHERS. We have a three-prong strategy in our Borders 

and Maritime Division. The strategy includes securing the land, 

maritime borders as well as cargo security. If I can talk about one 

of our programs when we look at land crossings, we’re actually trying to combine information that can be shared by federal, state and 

local first responders. We’re also developing—— 

Chairman SMITH. But I’m talking about criminal aliens, criminal 

immigrants who are actually in custody, and the identification 

problem we have with them. Do you have any progress reports on 

that? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I, sir, do not have progress reports on that. Again, 

as a science advisor, we are dealing mostly with how we protect 

and secure the borders, not necessarily some of the issues that 

you’re dealing with. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Brothers. I appreciate it. 

And the gentlewoman from Texas is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
29 

Mr. Under Secretary, you’re not the first Under Secretary to 

completely reorganize the Directorate in an effort to make things 

work better. What steps are you taking to try to institutionalize 

your reforms or at least those that show early success? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you for the question. Let me—if you don’t 

mind, let me talk about some of those areas. 

I think one of the challenges that I saw coming into the Department was how do we prioritize what do we do with respect to our 

investments because if you look at the QHSR, Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, for example, there’s a tremendously broad 

set of challenges that we face, but yet we have a—we’re resourcelimited like all organizations. As such, the question becomes, what 

do—we should—how do we prioritize these investments. We’ve 

looked at then this Integrated Product Team that I mentioned in 

my opening statements. These teams are cross-departmental 

teams. They’re made up of actually operational component leads. 

They’re chaired by the component leads, and their charter, if you 

will, is to develop capability gaps the Department has in terms of 

what we can do. I think the chairman mentioned the challenge that 

we have on the border with respect to, they can’t necessarily be 

solved just with more people, and this is where we really do expect 

to make a—we do plan to make a difference. So we have set up a 

set of five different Integrated Product Teams that are new. 

Getting to your point, how do we make sure this doesn’t go away, 

we put—the Secretary signed a memo instituting these Integrated 

Product Teams. Part of that memo had to do with how we impact 

acquisition as well. So one of the comments earlier that I think you 

made, ma’am, was on test and evaluation, and one of the challenges that major acquisition programs have is that they tend to 

fail if you only do rigorous test and evaluation from rejected source 

at the endpoint, at operational test and evaluation point, you may 

not catch some of the issues in the beginning. So what we’re doing 

now is, we’re going in the early part for developmental test and engineering. So that’s another area that we’re looking for codification 

of what we’re trying to do as well as the work that we’re doing in 

system engineering at the front end of the acquisition work. 

So I think what some of the changes I’ve made and I made a 

point when I first came into the office was to say form follows function. My goal wasn’t to do some kind of overall very disruptive type 

of reorganization, just for the sake of reorganization, but to really 

look at what do we need to do to be more effective and impactful 

organization. And I think the ability to reprioritize—not—but the 

ability to properly prioritize, the ability to track R&D because, as 

you may know, the Secretary has also signed out a list of R&D criteria. So how do we actually determine what R&D is within the 

Department compared to what our investments are? That will help 

us—getting to your point about the GAO report, that will help us 

actually define what R&D spends across the Department. Then 

using the IPT process, we’re able to prioritize what kind of research and development we’re doing. 

Ms. JOHNSON. The Homeland Security Science and Technology 

Advisory Committee, or HSSTAC, has some concerns of feeling underutilized. Have you attempted to include them? 
30 

Dr. BROTHERS. Again, thank you for the question. Yes, we have. 

So what I’ve taken, I’ve taken the model from the size of the Defense Science Board, quite frankly, has been trying to reinvigorate 

the committee. I realize that our problems aren’t just only science 

and technical based in the Department—the Directorate. What we 

really need is strategy and management help as well. 

So what I’ve asked for is to increase the number of members of 

that Science and Technology Board so that part of that board, half 

the board, roughly, will be science technologists. The other half 

roughly will be folks from management and strategic and strategy 

communities. The sense—you know, my goal is to have a diverse 

set of thought leaders to help us in all these areas that we face 

across the Directorate. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, is recognized for his 

questions. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Dr. Brothers. Good to see you again. I appreciate 

your work, and I’m glad you’re here with us today. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I can say that we all do appreciate the opportunity to be able to hear about ways that we can help the Department of Homeland Security better align its Science and Technology 

Directorates certainly to better serve our dedicated Homeland Security professionals but ultimately to keep our constituents safe. 

I see technology as a force multiplier that can keep our Homeland Security professionals safe by avoiding unnecessary danger 

while also giving them a reach that if we do our job is unmatched 

by our adversaries. 

I also applaud your goals of energizing a Homeland Security industrial base and producing an actionable strategy based on visionary goals. 

The last time you were here before us, I asked you a number of 

questions on our technology transfer capabilities and the disconnect 

that sometimes exists between our end-users and those who are 

charged with developing new technologies. At our previous hearings with Mr. Mower regarding your Directorate, I discussed how 

DHS is utilizing our other assets outside of your agency. 

Today I’d like to ask some questions about how DHS is best utilizing and perhaps investing in the numerous federal research assets we have available to meet your goals. To me, this is really 

about deriving a maximum efficiency from our taxpayer dollars. It’s 

my understanding that DHS primarily interacts with DOE through 

a modified work for others process, or WFO process. Is this still a 

satisfactory process, and are there other forms of agreement such 

as the cooperative research and development agreement, or 

CRADAs, or agreements to commercialize technology which may 

better serve your agency while emerging your industrial base? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I think that we have a very strong relationship 

with the DOE laboratories. I think that because of the way the relationship between us is structured, I think we’re able to leverage 

that relationship effectively and efficiently. 
31 

You brought up other issues including how do we reach out to 

industry, and you brought up CRADAs. I think CRADAs is a way 

that we can talk to industrial partners effectively. I think OTA— 

other transaction authority—is also an effective way that we can 

actually deal with our industrial partners in this as well. 

Mr. HULTGREN. So you think there are some opportunities to use 

some of these other forms and that just sticking with the work for 

others, modified work for others process maybe isn’t sufficient, that 

there needs to be some other things as well. 

Dr. BROTHERS. I think that we have a number of potential vehicles at our disposal. I think a challenge is determining where 

they’re best used and using them as such. I think sometimes we 

don’t necessarily use all of them as effectively as we could, and I’ve 

been pushing to do that. I can mention the OTAs as well as the 

Prize Challenge Authority. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Let me move on. In your written testimony, you 

highlighted your need to screen cargo with a minimal impact to the 

pace of travel and speed of commerce. I wondered how familiar 

your agency is with the capabilities at the DOE National Labs. In 

particularly, DHS works extensively with a few of the larger multipurpose labs but it is familiar with the equally important and 

unique capabilities that reside at single-purpose labs. One I have 

special interest in is Fermilab, which is a leader in accelerator 

technologies that I believe could be applied for these cargo screening missions. How familiar is the lab with these unique and individually focused labs? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So I can’t speak to all of our leadership. I do 

know that we have had many visits to all the laboratories. I know 

that in our Transportation Security Laboratory, for example, that 

we are demonstrating prototypes of screening technology from the 

DOE laboratories, so we make a point of actually going to laboratories, understanding what they have. For example, our Director of 

HSARP is taking a tour through DOE laboratories. This is important because one of the major things that we can do as an organization is to understand what the state of art is across what I like 

to call the S&T ecosystem. That ecosystem is our laboratories, our 

industry, et cetera. And so that is a charge I’ve given to our leadership and it was taken very seriously and very passionately. 

Mr. HULTGREN. And I would hope you look again at these unique 

labs, as I mentioned, Fermilab. I think there could be some real 

synergy there that would make some sense. I wonder, would DHS 

be willing to invest in infrastructure at the national labs, whether 

lab space or specialized equipment, to advance the Homeland Security mission. DOE or other national labs cannot always afford to 

maintain the types of capabilities needed for a broad variety of national security missions. 

Dr. BROTHERS. I think we’re always interested and determined to 

give the best technical solutions to our stakeholders, and we do 

what is needed to make that happen, whether it’s investing in 

grants for universities or contracts for laboratories, what have you. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I do think the labs are a perfect spot. I talk 

about the ecosystem of science as well. But it might take some investments, you know, certainly on the infrastructure side of things, 
32 

but I think the payoff could be huge again for those that we’re 

called to serve. 

My time is expired. I yield back, Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized for his 

questions. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Brothers, thank you for being with us. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. 

Mr. BEYER. I’ve always felt that one of the most important jobs 

of the leader is to create a culture where workers are happy, motivated, filled with passion for the mission, and yet poor Homeland 

Security tends to rank last in the federal employee viewpoint. But 

you’ve taken the step——[audio lost for 3 minutes and 12 seconds]. 

Dr. BROTHERS. I have to have flex capacity, so as such, from a 

research perspective, we develop these Integrated Product Teams 

but we’ve also developed a set of priorities based on Presidential 

priorities, Congressional priorities, Secretarial priorities and some 

of my own priorities that go into the same mix of how we prioritize 

all these things. 

So for example, the Chairman mentioned UAVs, small drones. 

That’s part of the Secretary’s priorities. Countervailing extremism 

is another one of those as part of the Secretary’s priorities. 

So the way this all works is we have these Integrated Product 

Teams across the areas—aviation security, cybersecurity, border 

security, counterterrorism and biosecurity. I might say we also 

have work on our first responders as well. That information—they 

come up with capability gaps working with the components heads. 

That information is flowed up to what we call the senior research 

council chaired by my deputy. That senior research council then 

prioritizes all of those lists. To that are added these pop-up things 

that we were talking about because, again, I’ve got to have flex capacity to deal with some of these pop-ups that we didn’t anticipate, 

so-called black swan events. So that’s how we’re actually 

prioritizing these kinds of things. 

Mr. BEYER. Okay. Quickly, you’re the fourth Under Secretary for 

S&T. You’ve reorganized. I love your five Visionary Goals. But from 

a Congressional perspective, it looks like every time we get a new 

Under Secretary, everything gets reorganized and new goals. 

Should we institutionalize this Congressionally, or how do you give 

us some sense of stability and long-term action? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So I think there’s always this tradeoff between 

how much do you codify versus how much flexibility do you give an 

incoming Under Secretary. My goal was not to do a tremendous reorganization. In fact, it’s not so much—I’ve actually maybe pointed 

in what I consider a more focused way. I’ve tried to actually align 

our resources towards these Visionary Goals with a five-year strategy and with given realistic prioritization based on the IPTs. 

I think it’s important that we move—we continue to have IPTs, 

that we continue S&T’s involvement in the acquisition process in 

the front end, not just the back end. I think these things are important. I think in terms of specific areas, the specific ways the organization is structured, because of the fluid nature of the threat, and 

we discussed cyber, we discussed UAVs because the fluid nature of 
33 

the threat, I would hate to hamstring the next Under Secretary’s 

hands by being overly prescriptive in the actual structure of S&T, 

but there’s certain aspects of it, like I said, IPTs, the importance 

of us being involved in the front end of acquisition that I think are 

really important to be ongoing. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, is recognized. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Brothers, for being here this morning. 

I want to ask you about an audit from the Office of Inspector 

General regarding a contract with NVS dealing with technology 

that the Chairman mentioned in regard to a biothreat. According 

to OIG, S&T may have wasted $23 million without getting adequate deliverables. One of the things that the OIG report found 

was that you had a lot of employee turnover in the program management. Is that an issue? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So right now I don’t see that as being an issue. 

I think that we have new controls that we put on that the report 

recommended that we take three types of actions. 

Mr. PALMER. Right. 

Dr. BROTHERS. We’ve taken those actions. We’re developing a 

program tracking. We’ve improved our program management 

guide. So I think that we have responded to the GAO in kind. I 

would mention, though, that this program was stopped after four 

years, and while the way it was stopped may not have been optimal, which is we actually went to the IG ourselves, technology 

changes over four years, and I mentioned earlier how quickly technology changes. There’s another case of rapid technology change in 

the capability of industry as well. 

Mr. PALMER. I think in your response to OIG, you said that 

there’s still a need for this technology. Is that being pursued 

through other contracts? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Quite honestly, because it’s ongoing litigation, I 

can’t get into a lot of details of this right now. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. I have a couple other questions too for you, 

Dr. Brothers. 

The President’s budget requests a substantial cut to S&T Directorate’s budget compared to fiscal year 2015. How do you account 

for this? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question, please? 

Mr. PALMER. The President’s budget requests a substantial cut 

to the S&T Directorate budget compared to fiscal year 2015, and 

I’m just asking, how do you respond to that reduction? 

Dr. BROTHERS. We support the President’s budget. I think this 

is something that we have to deal with within our capabilities. This 

gets back to how we prioritize the type of investments we have and 

why we can’t respond to all threats across the entire domain of impact versus probability of occurrence. 

Mr. PALMER. And then my last question is, a 2012 report by the 

GAO recommended that S&T develop policies and guidance for reporting R&D activities across the Department, nothing that DHS 

didn’t even know the total amount being spent on R&D at DHS. 

Has Science and Technology developed these policies? 
34 

Dr. BROTHERS. So yes, and so that’s what I was mentioning earlier, that part of the problem we had when that report came out 

was, there wasn’t a definition of R&D. So when folks were reporting the R&D, they didn’t necessarily have the same guidelines for 

what R&D was. The Secretary has signed a definition of research 

and development, which is—which goes along with what the Department of Defense and NASA has as well, and now we’re working 

on a directive to do a data call based on those—based on that criteria. 

Mr. PALMER. And lastly, so are you confident that S&T has a 

clear idea of all the research and development that’s being done at 

DHS? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I’m confident that we now have the structures to 

figure that out. 

Mr. PALMER. Are you looking at overlaps, duplications? 

Dr. BROTHERS. We are. So we’re going to start having annual reviews. When I was at the Department of Defense, I was part of a 

team that set up annual reviews of the Service’s research and development budgets across the Department. That is something that 

we will be doing in DHS as well. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, obviously we need metrics to show how effective S&T has been. So how would you recommend Congress measure return on the investments in regard to appropriations to S&T? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So we have a portfolio review process. That portfolio review process has a variety of metrics in it. I’d be happy to 

come and brief you on that process. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you very much. 

I yield the balance of time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Palmer. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Dr. Brothers. 

In your discussion with Congressman Palmer, you talked about 

employee turnover. How many employees is in your organization? 

Dr. BROTHERS. We have, I think, on the order of 400 civilian federal workers. 

Mr. WEBER. Four hundred? 

Dr. BROTHERS. It’s on that order. 

Mr. WEBER. And you talked about turnover, and you said you 

didn’t see it as an issue, and you’ve been there since 2014. Is that 

right? 

Dr. BROTHERS. 2013. 

Mr. WEBER. 2013. Okay. What was the rate of turnover before 

you got there? Are you able to look at those two comparison numbers? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I can. I don’t have the numbers off the top of my 

head. I’ll be glad to get them back to you, though. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. So have you taken a look at what they were 

historically before you got there than what you got there and compared those to other agencies? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I don’t have the—we have. I don’t have those 

numbers. I do know that since I’ve been there, the turnover has 

dropped. We can get to you those numbers, though. 

Mr. WEBER. Either that’s a good thing or you’ve made it a lot 

easier on them. I’m not sure, so—— 
35 

And do you categorize—in your—well, let me do it this way. The 

mission statement says that you all’s mission is to improve Homeland Security by working with partners to provide state-of-the-art 

technology and solutions that help them to achieve their missions, 

quote, unquote. Have you taken a look at that statement and decided in your matrix a measurable matrix to, number one, improve, 

number two, who all your partners are, number three, what is 

state-of-the-art technology and solutions, number four, what are 

their missions, and number five, what it doesn’t say is, do you have 

a way to measure your success in those four areas? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So I think from my time in industry, from my 

time in Department of Defense and here, there’s always of a challenge for research and development to quantify a return on investment. That said, I understand the need for the Committee to understand what kind of metrics we can have for success. I do understand that. 

I think that we have done a—now with the processes that I 

talked about with respect to these IPTs, we will have agreed-upon 

priorities across the Department. We will be developing a research 

and development plan that was signed out by the Secretary. So the 

Department will agree on a research and development plan. Then 

the question is, how do we actually achieve that—achieve those solutions. So I think that then you start measuring our success based 

on how we start closing those gaps that will determine the capabilities from the IPTs. 

Mr. WEBER. You mentioned, talking about the IPTs, and I forgot 

who it was in dialog with, that there were four priorities. You call 

them Presidential, Congressional, Secretary, and then your own. 

Would you take those four mission statements, again, improving 

Homeland Security, helping your partners, state-of-the-art technology, and their missions—are you able to integrate those into the 

four? I mean, because those are four priorities that actually in 

those four areas, there would be some overlap. Some things would 

happen in the Presidential realm that wouldn’t happen in the Congressional realm and vice versa. 

Dr. BROTHERS. That’s absolutely true. 

Mr. WEBER. How do you make those priorities? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So these are—so those priorities are really made 

in discussions and conversations with leadership. 

Mr. WEBER. Do you have a team that’s designated to Congressional priorities and a team that’s designated to President and Secretarial and then your own, to use your words? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So I can’t say there’s a team right now. This is 

a work in progress. We just started this based on input that we’ve 

gotten from our working with staff members, with Hill members. 

I’m trying to understand what Congressional priorities are as well 

as working directly with the Secretary but we’re working on formalizing this process. A question came up earlier, how—you know, 

how do we codify these things. This is one of the things again that 

has to be more formal. 

Mr. WEBER. What do you see as Homeland Security threats? And 

I’ve just listed a few—drugs. I mean, you talk about drones, terrorists, weapons of mass destruction. Do you categorize and prioritize 

those threats? 
36 

Dr. BROTHERS. So the—yes and yes. The IPTs are where you’re 

categorizing the threats based on QHSR, again, aviation security, 

border security, these kinds of things, and then those threats, 

based on capability gaps, are prioritized through the IPT process 

and they’re prioritized through discussions in partnership with our 

operational components. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Well, obviously, we wish you all the success 

and we want to, you know, make sure that you get your job done. 

Is is there a mechanism in place where in the process of achieving 

that success you can share that with states, especially and particularly the border states? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. And so you have that mechanism in place already? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So there’s a mechanism in place right now with 

our first responders. The first responders group right now has publicly available information on what some of the capability gaps are, 

so that’s available, and that’s the goal for the other IPTs as well. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weber. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Brothers. 

How does S&T determine the allocation of resources to basic research, applied research, and development? How do you prioritize 

that? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So when I first came on board, the previous 

Under Secretary, Dr. O’Toole, because of external pressures, she 

had put most of our investment in nearer-term research. One of the 

comments that I’ve made a couple times has been I think that it’s 

important that we have a more balanced portfolio than just all 

near term. I think it’s important because as we start looking at, as 

I mentioned earlier, as we start looking at what industry has to 

offer, what university research has to offer in terms of potential solutions, we also have to realize there’s some things industry does 

invest in, and those areas we have to be willing to put in a longterm investment profile. So therefore, we have to look at—we can’t 

just look at what comes up in the next 18 months. We have to say 

if we’re going toward these visionary goals, how do we actually do 

that? If these visionary goals are 15, 20, 30 years out, what do we 

need to put in place to actually start approaching those things? 

And I think that requires an investigation profile that’s not just 

near term but involves—can involve some aspects of basic research 

as well. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you. And what has S&T done to improve state 

and local government access to technology that improves the safety 

and effectiveness of law enforcement? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Sure. So I think we have a SAVER program with 

our first responders group, which—— 

Mr. BABIN. Did you say SAVER? 

Dr. BROTHERS. It’s called the SAVER program, which frankly 

is—it starts to compare and contrast different technologies for first 

responders. We have another group that looks at capability gaps 

for first responders. So I think—and this is all shared with state 

and locals. 
37 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Let’s see. A July 31st, 2014, GAO report entitled ‘‘Continued Actions Needed to Strengthen Oversight and Coordination of Research and Development’’ states that DHS had not 

yet determined the most effective path to guide R&D across the Department. Does DHS now have an effective way to guide R&D? 

Dr. BROTHERS. As of the signing of the memo on IPTs, I think 

we do. I think we absolutely do. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. If that’s so, then how does DHS determine the 

most effective path to guide R&D and why didn’t DHS do this since 

its very inception? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So the IPT process, that is something I’m bringing back. It did exist in the past for a variety of reasons. I think 

one thing that was not codified, it was an S&T-only process. The 

process is now one that spans the Department based on the memo 

I mentioned. So I think there’s more institutional buy-in, if you 

will, to the IPT process. So this is something that was done before, 

it was stopped, and now we’re starting it again, and I think on better, more solid footing. 

Mr. BABIN. Well, I congratulate you, but what happened to your 

predecessors? 

Dr. BROTHERS. What happened to them? 

Mr. BABIN. Well, why—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. Why didn’t they do that? 

Mr. BABIN. Yes. 

Dr. BROTHERS. So two predecessors ago started the IPT process. 

Admiral Cohen started the IPT process. He started it based on his 

knowledge of something called future naval capabilities in the 

Navy. I’m familiar with them from when I was in DOD. My immediate predecessor chose to discontinue those. Again, I think part of 

the challenge was, the original IPTs were not necessarily supported 

as strongly by the entire Department as they are right now. 

This has to do with the Secretary’s Unity of Effort. You know, 

the Secretary’s Unity of Effort has made a significant difference in 

the entire Department, and right now the IPTs are part of this 

Unity of Effort that the Secretary has codified. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Do you have reason to believe that GAO would 

concur with this? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I can’t speak for GAO but I think it’s a compelling 

argument. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Babin. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you, Dr. Brothers. 

Chairman SMITH. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is 

recognized for his questions. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

you, Dr. Brothers, for your testimony. 

You stated in your testimony that you’re using Centers of Excellence to plug into the research community, especially on urgent 

issues such as countering unmanned aerial systems and violent extremism. I understand that S&T currently has eight Centers of Excellence and set up three more last year. One of these new centers 

is the Center for Borders, Trade, and Immigration. There’s also a 

Border Security Integrated Product Team. So I want to ask, how 
38 

do you ensure that the research being done at the Centers of Excellence is integrated with the overall R&D priorities of the Directorate and that findings from the university partners make their 

way past the basic research phase to the development and testing 

work? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. Having done university work myself, 

having sponsored university work both from industry and from department of Defense, I can tell you that I was really amazed at 

how different the S&T is doing university-funded research, sponsored research. We’re actually coming in the front end. So a lot of 

grants that go to universities are just that, they’re grants. They 

don’t necessarily have a research plan that’s defined outright. Our 

team—our team in the Office of University Programs does an excellent job developing a research program before the work actually begins, and that research plan quite frankly involves the components. 

I spoke at one of the starting points for one of the Centers of Excellence, and I really had to remark at the engagement of the components of the science engineers at S&T in developing an effective 

and a relevant research plan for these universities. So my goal of 

aligning the research of the University Centers of Excellence with 

those of the IPTs, with those of the priorities, I think is a reality 

based on the way these programs are structured. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I also wanted to move on and talk a 

little about the partnerships with the private sector. In your written testimony, you state that the new Collaborative Innovation Experiments program helps S&T reach out to non-traditional performers. Who’s your target audience, and how are they an asset to 

the R&D program? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Sure. So coming on board from DOD, I was very 

familiar with the DIB, defense industrial base, large companies, 

the Lockheeds, the General Dynamics, BAEs, et cetera. One of my 

concerns coming in, though, was what companies are going to provide the equivalent Homeland Security industrial base to S&T. 

We’re different than DOD. A lot of what we buy is off the shelf, 

and as such, we have to strategically shape our shelf. To strategically shape our shelf, we have to be able to have visibility, have 

influence and impact on all of the creative individuals in the country and internationally as well. So a lot of what we’ve been doing 

recently is reaching out to strategically shape their shelf, has been 

reaching out to the companies in Silicon Valley and Dallas and 

Austin and Chicago and L.A., et cetera, as a way to increase the 

creative minds that are tackling our problems. 

And I was out in Silicon Valley, and I started asking some of the 

investment professionals, the venture capitalists out there, you 

know, what would really get the creative people out there involved 

in solving our problems, and their answer was very simple. They 

said look, we’ve got a lot of smart people here, a lot of smart people, and they’re interested in solving hard problems that make a 

difference. Hard problems that make a difference. And I think that 

as an organization, as a Department, Homeland Security has an incredibly compelling mission, and what you find when you talk to 

these folks, these new companies, potential entrepreneurs, they get 

really excited by solving these problems. They just haven’t necessarily known about them in the past. 
39 

So what we’ve done then is, we’ve had a coordinated outreach, 

and I’m very proud to say that last year we had an idea. The idea 

was, could we in this whole sense of strategically shaping the shelf, 

could we indeed develop accelerators. Just a simple question, right? 

Can we actually develop business accelerators in our field, in the 

field of solving Homeland Security problems, that also represent effective businesses. So we tried that, and there were three fundamental questions we needed to answer. One question was, does 

anyone care, will we get responses from the solicitation to have accelerators? The second question was, if anybody cares, will there be 

good answers, will we get relevant, effective solutions? The third 

question was, are these viable businesses? 

Last September—so this was a little over a year ago, actually 

about a year ago—in September after we’d done this, we had 150 

companies or so actually apply. So the first question was affirmative. There are a lot of creative professionals out there who are interested in solving our problems. Coming through this accelerator 

program—one of the accelerators was based in Dallas and one was 

based in Chicago—we had 18 companies. These companies had excellent solutions that not only had applicability to first responders 

because our accelerators are based on first responder technology, 

and if I can segue, it was really concerned with giving first responders situational awareness: where am I, where are my team, 

these kinds of things. And then we had these companies, and they 

solved problems with situation awareness for first responders but 

they also had commercial value as well. About half of these have 

interest from follow-on funding. 

So what we’ve found is that the hypothesis we had, can we get 

creative individuals across the country interested in solving our 

problems, is yes. Yes, we can. Not only that, I’ve reached out to 

larger companies, and one of the things that I think is unique 

about our strategy is we’ve tried to make roadmaps that are in the 

back of our strategy, technology roadmaps, that a CTO at a large 

company would get that would match what they’re looking for. Because one of the challenges large companies have is, how do you 

use your IRAD—your independent research and development dollars—effectively? Well, if you have a roadmap, which you know 

that your potential government customer is using, that can help a 

lot, and that can help the leadership of those companies make the 

effective business case to their leadership to work in a particular 

area. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, and I want to—I know I’m out of time. 

I just want to say I just started, with Mr. Hultgren, a prize caucus 

here, and I want to ask you following up about the Directorate’s 

plans to use prize authority. But thank you. I yield back. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, is recognized. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. 

Brothers, for being here. 

What you’re doing is very broad, and I applaud the efforts that 

you’ve taken so to kind of get you prepared for the direction I’m 

going, I want to talk about transportation security and then port 

security as well. 
40 

I applaud you at the screening at speed. Those of us who travel 

often really appreciate that. But at the same time, I have some 

grave concerns. As you know, the DHS IG released a report a few 

months ago where they failed 95 percent of the time of inspectors 

getting banned items through TSA checkpoints, and also within the 

last few months, I personally know of three individuals who inadvertently made it through screening points with scissors, a flathead 

screwdriver, and one who actually in his checked bags had live 

rounds loaded in a magazine that were not detected. 

Through researching some of where we are, and where I’m getting is, I’d like your input as to where is that balance and where 

are we going in this because that concerns me greatly. I’m also on 

the Homeland Security Committee. I’ve been on foreign fighter task 

force. And so yes, we definitely appreciate the speed of life going 

through security checkpoints but to balance that with security, we 

weigh heavily on the technology aspect, and I do know in my research that we were close to having a new set of standards for 

next-generation screening technologies but that was put on hold recently to go back to the drawing board. 

I do know, and I’ve visited some new technologies out there that 

use high-energy X-ray to give not only three-dimensional but fourdimensional view of what’s in a bag using basically medical technologies such as biopsies to be able to tell the contents or the material, what is likely in the material that’s in a bag. 

Can you tell me where are we in advancing to actually field the 

new generation of scanning technologies and, you know, and also 

maybe opine, have we gone too far in the speed and efficiency and 

we’ve given up on some of the security? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So let me go back—thank you. Let me go back to 

the vision. I think the vision, while it talks about screening at the 

speed of light, there’s always, as you know, this tradeoff between 

security and the speed of commerce. I don’t think in any means did 

that vision mean that we’re not trying to improve security. I think 

what it means is, you need to look at the airports, ports of entry 

holistically. So right now, you know, you may look at just the 

screening equipment. What are other aspects of the process from 

ticketing on out that you can actually impact to improve security? 

I think with respect to the particular technologies, we’re looking 

a different technologies, different phenomenologies as a way of 

screening for a variety of threat materials, if you will. We have a 

transportation security laboratory in New Jersey that works with 

TSA to test these types of technologies. There’s an integration facility in DC. that is used for further—more operational testing. 

So I think that there is an understanding across the Department 

to look at this problem holistically, to use as much of the newer 

technology as possible, but there’s another issue as well. Quite 

frankly, I learned this going back to DOD as well, the importance 

of the human dimension. So I was involved in some studies when 

I was in the Department of Defense, and what was quickly apparent to me was how important the human dimension really is. We 

can get caught up in the importance of technology as much as we 

want but the tactics, techniques and procedures that the humans 

perform are incredibly vital to this combined function of the 

human-machine subsystem if you will. And so we’re also involved 
41 

in research in looking at how to do better training of the transportation security officers as well. 

So I think we’re looking at it not just from the checkpoint perspective, we’re looking at the entire point of entry perspective and 

we’re also looking at it from the training perspective. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. All right. Thank you. 

And quickly, as we’re going to look at port security very quickly, 

I perceive we’re going to have some challenges with potential of the 

TPP coming through as well as lifting sanctions on Iran. How are 

we going to ensure that cargo coming into the United States is 

safe, especially that may be coming from a nation that is sworn to 

the destruction of the United States, but also opening up free 

trade, which I’m all in favor of, but also knowing that we have a 

responsibility to ensure that what is coming into the nation is safe, 

is secure, it’s legal, and it doesn’t bring harm to the United States? 

Are you guys looking at advanced technologies and techniques to 

deal with the increased load of imports coming into the United 

States? 

Dr. BROTHERS. Absolutely. We’re also working with our partners 

with DNDO as well to look at the different modalities of threat to 

come in. We’re looking at it from the perspective of integrated systems assistance, whether that’s the actual screening technology 

itself or whether that’s bringing information from disparate sources 

and infusing it in a way to get better decision support. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Loudermilk. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. LaHood, is recognized of his 

questions. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Dr. Brothers, 

thank you for being here today and for your testimony. 

Following up on Congressman Loudermilk’s line of questioning 

there on the Inspector General’s report that found the failure of 

TSA to find the mock explosives and the banned weapons over 95 

percent of the time, so since that occurred and the analysis that 

was generated from that, if another say, mock test was done today, 

what would be different? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I believe the results would be different but I 

think this type—it’d be good to get back to you on a classified discussion of some of the changes, if you like, that have been made. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Are you confident there would be a different outcome of that was done today? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I believe there would be a different outcome, yes. 

Mr. LAHOOD. And in terms—I know there was a reference earlier—and by the way, I’d love to have a follow-up on that—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. Sure. 

Mr. LAHOOD. —to learn more about that and what’s occurred 

with the new technology. 

There was a reference earlier about drones, and I guess thinking 

about how we balance drones and the technology with the private 

sector and letting them innovate and expand and privacy rights 

and also security, can you comment a little bit on the direction 

we’re headed on that and that appropriate balance moving forward. 

Dr. BROTHERS. So you know, the FAA is looking at regulations 

of having folks register, drone users register. One of my approaches, quite frankly, has been, when I was in Silicon Valley a 
42 

couple weeks ago was to talk to some of the manufacturing community and say, you know, you really need to get involved in these 

discussions because they’re important. There’s a tremendous tradeoff between the commerce potential for these devices as well as the 

threat, and so I’ve been personally engaged with some of the manufacturing community of drones to understand their potential capabilities going forward as well as to get their input into what makes 

sense in terms of counter-drone technologies as well as some policy 

issues. 

Mr. LAHOOD. And are you working actively with the FAA on 

their—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. We are. 

Mr. LAHOOD. And when do you anticipate that will be ready to 

go? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I can’t tell you. I do not know. I cannot tell you 

that. That’s something that I think is still a work in progress. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Another issue that we discussed last week in this 

Committee was the issue of cybersecurity, and in looking at your 

particular Department and investing appropriately in research and 

development programs that will address rising security concerns as 

it relates to cybersecurity, can you comment on that a little bit? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question? 

Mr. LAHOOD. Yeah. We had a hearing last week on cybersecurity 

and specifically involving power systems and some of the issues related there in looking at the threats that are out there. In looking 

at your Department and specifically with research and development, can you comment on how your Department’s addressing 

that? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I can. We’ve put a focus on cyber-physical systems, which one substantiation of cyber-physical systems is a 

SCADA system, control systems for, let’s say, power plants, these 

kinds of things. I think this is an area of increasing concern, and 

we’re working with our partners at Infrastructure Protection over 

at NPPD as well. So we’re putting together a program to address 

the threats to not just the power grid but also financial sector and 

the other critical infrastructure sectors as well. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. LaHood. 

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Moolenaar, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Dr. Brothers, 

thank you for being here with us today. 

I was looking through your background, and I noticed you were 

with the Department of Defense, and I wondered if you could tell 

me what the research and the work that you’re doing now versus 

the research that’s done at the Department of Defense, what are 

the similarities and differences between Homeland Security Science 

and Technology and Department of Defense? 

Dr. BROTHERS. A major similarity is the importance of the missions. I mean—— 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. I’m sorry. The—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. Of the fundamental importance of the missions 

with the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security. Major differences have to do with the difference in the budg-
43 

ets of the departments, the fact that a lot of what we do buy, what 

our components buy are off the shelf. The fact that, for example, 

particularly for our first responder stakeholders affordability is a 

big concern. So whereas the Department of Defense you may find 

work in hypersonics, for example, you would not find that type of 

work in DHS. 

That said, where our challenges may not be to exploit new types 

of propulsion technologies, our challenges are to get effective capabilities to our stakeholders that have minimal training time and 

much smaller budgets. So whereas the Department of Defense, the 

resources are there to do significant training, that’s not necessarily 

so with our stakeholders. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. And then I noticed the Integrated Product 

Teams, you have five different areas. Is that too many? I mean, it 

seems like a pretty—I mean, they’re all very complicated, challenging areas. Are there one or two that you prioritize over the 

other ones? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I don’t think so. I think these—the Integrated 

Product Teams actually came from QHSR, so if you look at the different mission sets, that’s where they were derived, and I think 

that there was strong reasons for having that set of missions defined in the QHSR and that’s why we have the IPTs set up that 

way. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. Okay. And then when you have agencies that 

would have a common interest, is there ever kind of this concept 

of skin in the game where you have agencies contributing to pooling resources to fund a project? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So for example, we have some of the work we do 

at the borders, sir. Customs and Border Protection is working with 

us, is co-funding some of that work. So the answer to your question 

is yes. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. Okay. And have you been able to find—I’m sure 

just with your experience in defense as well as, you know, the 

other areas, do you feel like we’re doing this the most efficient way 

or—you know, I could imagine at a large corporation when they 

have a research component, you know, sometimes it’s centralized 

and different entities feed into that, and there’re places each of the 

different entities would have their own research component. Do you 

feel that we’re doing things the best way, most efficient way possible here in the Federal Government? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So I appreciate you bringing that up because of 

time constraints, I wasn’t able to talk about that in my opening 

statement, but I think that structure is one that we’re trying to implement right now. So when I was in the Department of Defense, 

one of my challenges was trying to understand how to make the 

Department of Defense laboratories more effective, if you will, and 

I started looking at different business models, corporate models, 

and it’s just like what you say. If you go to a lot of the large corporations, what you find is, they’ll have a central research facility 

that tends to look at cross-cutting, more basic research areas. Then 

the business areas, whether—let’s take a defense contractor that 

might have an electronic warfare business unit that might have a 

platform business unit, communications business unit. Each one of 
44 

these business units independently have their own R&D section as 

well. This will be more applied. 

What I found with the more effective of these corporations was, 

there was a constant interplay between the staff at the central research facility and those at the business unit. Why is that important? It’s important because you need the researchers to understand the market dynamics and you need the applied engineers to 

understand the art of the possible from the basic research. And so 

we’ve done that. We started with our Pioneer program. The Pioneer 

program actually puts our staff into, right now into the Coast 

Guard, for example, into their R&D center. We’ve also put our staff 

on the borders to understand how the border operators operate. 

So I think, getting to your point, a more efficient operation is 

that type of model, and that’s something we’re trying to do right 

now. We’ve already had a number of these Pioneer events. We’re 

setting up work with the Coast Guard to collaborate on research 

right within the Coast Guard. So I think that is an effective model. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. 

Mr. MOOLENAAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Moolenaar. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Abraham, is recognized. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. 

Brothers, for being here. 

Let me pony a little bit on Mr. Moolenaar’s first question because 

we are actively in budget talks even as we speak today and hopefully being good stewards of the people’s money, what is S&T doing 

to ensure that DHS is not duplicating other research in other federal agencies, and the second part of that question, how do you 

guys prioritize your research? 

Dr. BROTHERS. The first part of the question, right now in one 

of the Secretary’s Unity of Effort initiatives, we’re involved in the 

Joint Requirements Council. The Joint Requirements Council really does the vetting of acquisition programs and these kinds of 

things, developing the requirements, et cetera. We’re part of that 

process, and as being part of that process, we’re able to give our 

input into the art of the possible, into what technology’s out there. 

Internally in S&T, what we tried to do, and I think we’ve done 

an effective job of this, is to give our program managers, our leaders, access to a variety of different tools to understand what is out 

there. So Centers of Excellence were mentioned earlier. So access 

to university programs. Laboratories were mentioned earlier as 

well. There are laboratories. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Do you guys hear of any computer programs that 

would actually send an alert if you’re doing research on the same 

topic? 

Dr. BROTHERS. I can’t—so what we do have is the ability to influence the acquisition through the process of the Joint Requirements 

Council. I can’t say we have a computer program that generates 

alerts on everyone’s desk but we have effective input into the acquisition review board information. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And the second part, the prioritization of the research. 
45 

Dr. BROTHERS. The prioritization of research is now being done 

based on the Secretary’s direction through this Integrated Product 

Team structure, and this is where we have components who collectively evaluate what capability gaps there are. We then base our 

research on what those gaps—what gaps come out of that process. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And I’m assuming you guys have regular meetings that you look at this research and say well, this one needs to 

go to the top and this one can be—— 

Dr. BROTHERS. Correct. So we have portfolio reviews as well. So 

once we have defined what direction we’ll take in terms of our 

prioritization of our investments, we then do an annual review on 

these investments. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And what is S&T’s role in the DHS acquisitions? 

Dr. BROTHERS. So we have authority to do operational tests, to 

oversee operational tests and evaluation, and we’re now getting involved in the system engineering up front for acquisition programs 

as well as developmental testing as well. So it’s the testing and engineering up front. The back end is system engineering up front. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Abraham. 

We have no other Members who are here to ask questions but 

we had a nice, full contingent today. So Dr. Brothers, thank you 

for appearing, thank you for the information, and to follow up on 

a couple of things that you said earlier, we’ll look forward to a classified briefing at some point to address some of the issues that 

were brought up earlier. 

But I appreciate what you’re doing at the Department of Homeland Security, and we’ll be in touch. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by The Hon. Reginald Brothers 
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