DHS Field Engagement Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BACON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5079, the DHS Field Engagement Accountability Act. The sharing of counterterrorism and other homeland security information with State and local officials is vital in our efforts to protect the homeland.

Fusion centers as hubs for information sharing and analysis play a critical role in the domestic homeland security information-sharing environment. Over the years, there have been vast improvements in DHS' support for these key stakeholders, including the Nebraska Information Analysis Center, known as NIAC, in my home State of Nebraska.

H.R. 5079, the DHS Field Engagement Accountability Act, builds on ongoing efforts to hold DHS more accountable for supporting fusion centers and fully utilizing them as a resource to the Federal Government.

First, it requires DHS to develop a strategy for engagement with fusion centers. With the maturation of the national network, many fusion centers have adopted an all-threats, all-hazards mission to ensure they are keeping pace with the changing threat environment. A strategy that incorporates all the components of the Department will ensure DHS is supporting and leveraging fusion centers effectively and efficiently.

Second, this bill mandates performance metrics to hold DHS personnel in the field accountable. Among other responsibilities, these personnel serve as ambassadors of the Department and are integral in shaping and strengthening the relationship between fusion centers and DHS. As such, the Department must have appropriate performance objectives and metrics in place to ensure greater transparency in the expectations of these officers and accountability when issues arise.

Finally, this bill requires additional training and improvements for both the classified and unclassified information-sharing systems that the Department makes available to fusion centers and other law enforcement agencies.

While DHS has made strides in facilitating fusion center access to information and information systems, there are gaps in the Department's efforts to ensure these partners are adequately trained to utilize these systems.

So, for example, while all fusion centers now have access to DHS' classified HSDN, many fusion center personnel are not proficient in this system, and DHS does not currently provide any standardized, in- person HSDN training. Granting the appropriate clearances and credentials to access DHS systems is just as important as ensuring competency when using these systems.

Additionally, I have learned that many DHS components do not routinely share analytic products on the Homeland Security Information Network-Intelligence portal, and many documents are not posted on a timely basis.

It is incumbent on the Department to ensure the appropriate policies and metrics are in place to incentivize component use of this critical information-sharing program.

In that regard, I am pleased to report that, as of this month, both the Federal Protective Service and the United States Coast Guard have started participating on the HSIN-Intel Partner Products page. I encourage other components of the Department that do not participate to follow suit. This is a commonsense bill with bipartisan support that will enhance DHS' relationship with State and local fusion centers across the country.

In short, we have learned many lessons this past year in analyzing and studying fusion centers. This bill fixes the multiple problems that we have encountered.

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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey for her comments and her support making this bill a bipartisan bill. Part of the work that we are doing is we are going to improve 70 different fusion centers with this bill and standardize the performance of all of them.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time

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