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Department of Homeland Security Interoperable Communications Act

Floor Speech

Date: July 8, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 4289, the ``Department of Homeland Security Interoperable Communications Act.''

One of the major lessons of the September 11th attacks was that operable and interoperable communications are imperative to an effective response.

Simply put, when law enforcement and other first responders have interoperable communications during an incident or disaster, lives are saved.

As a Nation, we have invested over $13 billion on interoperable communications. However, the goal of achieving interoperability continues to evade us--even at the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal agency that is in charge of driving efforts to achieve interoperability at the Federal, State, and local levels.

In November 2012, the Office of the Inspector General reported that DHS' interoperable communications capability was deficient.

For example, of the radios examined during the OIG's audit, only 20 percent of them were set up to use the common channel.

The Inspector General recommended that stronger Departmental governance be established to ensure communications policies are fully implemented.

At the time, DHS explicitly rejected the OIG recommendation that a stronger governing structure be established and, instead, insisted that its existing structures were sufficient.

Nevertheless, the interoperability problem at DHS persists to this day.

This past May, Inspector General John Roth appeared before the Committee on Homeland Security and said: ``I am frankly concerned that as we speak today a Secret Service agent in New York can't get on his radio and talk to a Federal Protective Service officer in New York or a CBP officer in El Paso can't talk to a Homeland Security Investigations Agent in the same city.''

H.R. 4289 would require the Department to undertake the planning and oversight necessary to ensure that achievement of interoperability within DHS.

I would like to congratulate Subcommittee Ranking Member PAYNE, Jr. and Chairwoman BROOKS for their commitment to addressing this critical issue. I wish them success in their efforts and urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4289.

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