DHS acquisition accountabilityTwo politicians insisting on more congressional oversight of DHS
The lawmakers who support the proposed DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, authored by Representative Jeff Duncan (R-South Carolina), are doing exactly what they were sent to Washington to do: they are attempting to provide fiscal oversight over one of our largest federal agencies. Hopefully, politicians on both sides of the aisle will join Representatives Duncan and Michael McCaul (R-Texas) in passing legislation forcing DHS to use tax payer money in the most efficient ways possible, including demanding contractors meet the terms of their contracts, not rewarding contractors who have a record of poor performance, and completing their security-related projects in a timely manner.
The Department of Homeland Security, the nation’s third largest agency, has a big, big problem. Not only is it very slow in awarding contracts, according to reports by the GAO, but it pays too much to contractors, gives out contracts to vendors which have failed to deliver on previous bids, and lacks transparency in its acquisition program.
These charges, of course, are nothing new. For example one of DHS’s more than twenty agencies, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), bid out contracts to Boeing, Raytheon, and other contractors for expensive national security projects that did not deliver the goods promised. In Boeing’s case, it accepted more than $1 billion to build a “virtual fence” along the Mexican border that never functioned properly and now is rotting in the Arizona dessert. Former DHS secretary finally shut down the SBInet program in 2011 (Robert Lee Maril, The Fence, 2011). At a somewhat smaller cost to taxpayers, Raytheon accepted more than $200 million to develop and build a machine, the advanced spectroscopic portal system, designed to detect dirty bombs smuggled into this country at the Mexican border in tractor trailers. But the advanced spectroscopic portal system never worked (Lessons Learned fromCancelled Radiation Portal Monitor Program Could Help Future Acquisitions, Government Accountability Office, GAO-13-256, May 2013).
Most recently CBP, after waiting more than two years, awarded a $145 million contract to Elbit Systems of America’s EFW, Inc., to build along the Mexican border what Boeing and $1 billion could not, “…a series of fixed sensor towers and command and control center equipment that displays information on a common operating picture” (Anthony Kimery, “Elbit Wins CBP’s Integrated Fixed Towers Contract,” HStoday, 27 February 2014).
What is new in this very old story is that Representative Jeff Duncan (R-South Carolina) has proposed legislation that will change all this. Duncan, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, is tired of DHS waste and inefficiencies. Citing “…21 IT programs with cost or schedule problems, poor TSA management of its body scanners and canine teams, mismanagement of a $3 billion effort to improve DHS’ radio systems, and failure to convert DHS H-60 helicopters in a coordinated and cost-efficient manner,, Representative Duncan and others are proposing the “DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act.” The draft laws specifically target DHS’s acquisition management program.
Duncan accuses DHS of repeatedly purchasing goods and services based upon strategies that “…buy systems and services that are unaffordable.” (“Legislation Would Require Accountability in DHS Acquisition Management,” HStoday, 25 February 2014).
Backed by GAO reports going back to 2005, the DHS acquisition program has consistently lacked, “…discipline, accountability, and transparency…” (“Legilsation Would Require Accountability in DHS Acquisition Management”).
Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas) agrees with Duncan. Along with Duncan, he accused DHS of failing to get the best bid from vendors and from taking much too long awarding bids. We are reminded by both Duncan and McCaul that the longer it takes for a contractor to deliver a promised product or program, the greater the risk to our national security.
Representatives Duncan and McCaul are doing exactly what they were sent to Washington to do: they are attempting to provide fiscal oversight over one of our largest federal agencies. Hopefully, politicians on both sides of the aisle will join Representatives Duncan and McCaul in passing legislation forcing DHS to use tax payer money in the most efficient ways possible, including demanding contractors meet the terms of their contracts, not rewarding contractors who have a record of poor performance, and completing their security-related projects in a timely manner.
Robert Lee Maril, a professor of sociology at East Carolina University, is the author of The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border. He blogs at leemaril.com.
