The volume of U.S. trade has doubled since 1995, and some expect it to double again in the next five years. And yet, by every account, we are not doing enough to protect our citizens. If the Federal Government s policy is to combat the threat posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction, then the government must be organized to do so. The General Accounting Office recently questioned whether having terrorism response teams associated with the National Guard and with the FBI and with FEMA makes sense. Not only may there be duplication, but there may be confusion about who is responsible for dealing with an incident.
Homeland security is a big, complex problem.
No one bill and no one branch of government can address the need. President Eisenhower put it pretty well. A defective system will suck the leadership into its cracks and fissures, wasting their time as they seek to manage dysfunction rather than making critical decisions. My bill, H.R. 1158, tries to deal with part of the organizational deficiencies created by having literally dozens of agencies with some responsibility for homeland defense. The bill does not try to fix all of the problems.