Introduction of the "Federal Protective Service Improvement and Accountability Act of 2015"

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I am reintroducing legislation to reform the Federal Protective Service (FPS).

The ``Federal Protective Service Improvement and Accountability Act of 2015'' seeks to improve FPS' ability to carry out its mission to protect the 1.4 million Federal employees and visitors that access more than 9,500 Federal facilities across the nation.

After the 1995 domestic terrorist attacks on the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, there was broad recognition that Federal buildings, which are symbols of our democracy, must be protected against terrorist attacks while remaining accessible to citizens.

In recent years, the increasing number of terrorist plots against diverse U.S. government facilities in Illinois, Washington State, and New York City as well as attacks on government buildings in other western democracies, such as Canada and Norway, has brought into focus the need to strengthen U.S. Federal building security.

Unfortunately, the primary agency responsible for providing such security--the Federal Protective Service--has a range of longstanding administrative challenges that, to my mind, raise questions about its ability to provide adequate Federal building security.

To ensure that FPS makes progress on its fundamental challenges, my legislation calls for immediate attention to address staffing, training, and contractor oversight challenges that the Government Accountability Office has identified as problematic.

It also directs FPS to not only put in place uniform minimum training and certification standards for all guards, regardless of whether they are contract guards or Federal employees, but develop and implement a strategy for using covert testing to improve performance of security screening at FPS-protected facilities.

Importantly, my legislation recognizes that though FPS is responsible for security, the Interagency Security Committee, comprised of Federal agencies that are tenants, has a major role to play in ensuring that risk-based security practices are in use.

Specifically, my bill requires DHS to assess the degree to which the consensus standard for risk management, which was developed by the Interagency Security Committee, has been adopted at non-military Federal facilities.

My legislation also is forward-looking.

It directs DHS to implement a one-year pilot program to research the advantages of converting guard positions at the highest risk FPS-protected facilities from contract guard positions to Federal positions.

Additionally, my legislation requires DHS to take a hard look at whether the fee-based system under which FPS currently operates provides adequate resources to cover the actual costs that FPS incurs.

Since October 2014, when terrorists attacked government sites in Canada, FPS' has been operating at an enhanced level, at the direction of DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

The resulting increased tempo FPS' security operations has necessitated the deployment of more law enforcement to higher-sensitivity facilities, increases in the frequency of visitor and vehicle screening, and enhancements to explosive canine detection and patrol operations.

Each time that FPS is directed to heighten security operations, new costs are incurred. FPS has no choice but to absorb those costs, often, I suspect, at the expense of addressing longstanding administrative challenges.

GAO, since 2009, has identified weaknesses in FPS' oversight of contract guards as an issue.

Now is the time, from a security and a taxpayer perspective, to have a long overdue discussion about whether FPS' fee model is designed to not only cover surges in protective activities but also to cover the costs of implementing core oversight and administration reforms that GAO has repeatedly recommended.

That discussion must include looking at whether some combination of appropriations and fees need to be part of the equation.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge Members to cosponsor the ``Federal Protective Service Improvement and Accountability Act of 2015''.

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