DHS Accountability Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAUL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of the DHS Accountability Act of 2012.

Congress has an important opportunity to make the Department of Homeland Security a more effective and efficient organization. The purpose of this bipartisan legislation is to create an independent advisory panel to conduct a top-to-bottom examination of deficiencies in the Department's management structure and capabilities. It follows six subcommittee oversight hearings examining corruption, low morale, inefficiency, and waste of taxpayer dollars, and comes almost 10 years since the inception of DHS.

I appreciate the strong support of the ranking member of the Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating), as an original cosponsor of this bill.

As the third largest Federal Department, DHS has more than 240,000 employees and an annual budget of $60 billion. It's transformation, according to the GAO, is critical to achieving its Homeland Security mission; however, excessive bureaucracy, waste, ineffectiveness, and lack of transparency have hindered its operations and wasted taxpayer dollars. Mismanagement at the Department is a threat to the security of our homeland.

Since 2003, GAO has designated the transformation of DHS has high risk because the Department had to transform 22 agencies, several with major management challenges, into one Department. Failure to effectively address the Department's management risks could have serious consequences. DHS remains on GAO's high-risk list. While GAO has conducted numerous audits of specific DHS programs, a comprehensive management assessment of the Department has yet to be conducted.

Our hearings and GAO findings conclude that DHS has made some progress but is still dysfunctional in several areas. The Department continues to face challenges in acquisition management, human capital, integration of financial data, and IT. In August, my subcommittee released a report outlining how the Department's management failures, related to a variety of acquisition programs, have wasted taxpayer dollars and had a serious impact on our ability to protect the homeland. The report's findings show why such a panel is needed to help fix the Department's shortcomings.

GAO's recent work also identified areas of duplicative effort. For instance, GAO found agencies are paying for risk assessments that are not being completed while simultaneously conducting their own assessments. Employee morale also remains one of the lowest in the Federal Government. Additionally, there are examples of Border Patrol agents accepting bribes, theft by airport screeners, and immigration officers complicit in fraud. These deficiencies cannot continue.

Based on the findings of these hearings and GAO reviews, I have doubts that the Department can carry out its core mission of protecting the homeland if the problems persist. These issues of corruption, waste, duplication, and abuse of power are all symptomatic of deeply rooted flaws in the Department's management. I believe it will take a dedicated team of independent investigators to identify the root causes and recommend concrete changes. A top-to-bottom management review is necessary because the current management team is not getting the job done.

The DHS Accountability Act of 2012, as amended, will create an independent eight-member advisory panel appointed by the legislative and executive branches to comprehensively assess DHS management structure and capabilities. It will require the panel to make recommendations to improve DHS's efficiency and effectiveness, and it will require an interim report sent to Congress 1 year after the panel's selection, with the final report due 2 years after its inception.

The panel will possess subpoena power, the authority to conduct hearings, and receive expert witness testimony. The panel's recommendations will help make DHS a leaner, smarter, and more effective organization and ferret out duplicative programs and offices.

Fellow Members, this legislation is our opportunity to take action, and I urge you to support the DHS Accountability Act of 2012.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time

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