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Napolitano Sails through Confirmation Hearing |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Friday, 16 January 2009 |
DHS secretary nominee addresses job experience
Ariz. Gov. Janet Napolitano breezed through a relatively short confirmation hearing before Joseph Lieberman and his Senate homeland security committee Thursday, drawing continual praise for the expertise she would bring to the job of US secretary of homeland security.
Napolitano drew continual praise from Lieberman and fellow Democrats as well as the panel's two Republicans for her experiences as a border state governor and a US attorney in dealing with issues ranging from border security, immigration enforcement, the REAL ID Act, state and local law enforcement activities, and more.
Every member of the panel-including Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-Maine) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio)-vowed their support for the nominee, and Lieberman declared that he would move swiftly to see her confirmed by a vote of the full Senate as soon after inauguration as possible.
Lieberman called seating Napolitano "as important as seating the secretary of defense to the security of our country."
But Lieberman and Collins prevailed upon Napolitano to resist reorganizing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or allowing the removal of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from it.
"There are still those that believed the department should be chopped up," Lieberman commented, but doing so would take us back to 9/11 when the "national balkanization" of US security agencies made it vulnerable to a massive terrorist attack.
The chairman and the ranking member agreed that the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (Public Law 109-295), coupled with capable and responsive leadership at FEMA, largely fixed the problems with the agency. Napolitano has not publicly taken a position on the movement to return FEMA to its status as a separate cabinet level agency, but she did vow to continue integrating the agency with the department, noting "FEMA has an important role to play in homeland security."
Critical questions
Napolitano sailed through most of the hearing with plaudits on her tenure as the governor of Arizona, but Lieberman noted some critics have called out her lack of specific experience dealing in counter-terrorism.
In response, the governor argued that as US attorney for Arizona in 1995, she handled a large segment of the investigation of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla., as much of the planning for the terrorist act occurred in the state of Arizona.
As a prosecutor, she also pursued case against perpetrators such as a militia group that was filming federal buildings in Phoenix with the intent to bomb them, Napolitano added. She also claimed to have direct experience dealing with intelligence assessments in Arizona and making the call on good or bad information.
Collins quizzed Napolitano about a recent article from the Associated Press that reported she failed to fully implement her own state's homeland security plan, asking the governor to identify the obstacles to completing the plan.
Napolitano defended her plan's record, noting that eight of 10 action items were fully implemented. She would complete one of the remaining action items-the full computerization of criminal records throughout the state-if she served out her second term as governor, she contended. Records covering 90 percent of the population have been computerized, she said, leaving only records from very rural areas incomplete.
The other key item not fulfilled under the homeland security agenda was interoperable communications between first responder communities in Arizona. Napolitano identified funding as the key challenge to that problem. The state has been using an effective temporary solution with "patch trucks" that travel to large catastrophes and patch the radios of firemen, police officers and others together, she said.
Other experience
The senators praised Napolitano's broad management experience as the top executive of her state's government. The nominee also pointed to specific events that reinforce her selection by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as homeland security secretary.
First and foremost, as the governor of a state that shares roughly 375 miles with Mexico, Napolitano argued she has been forced to deal with the influx of illegal aliens who have crossed the international border into her state. She was one of the first governors to call for the National Guard to support US Border Patrol agents along the state's border with Mexico. She also enacted the nation's strictest employers' sanctions law, which revokes a company's business license after the second willful violation of laws forbidding the hiring of unauthorized workers.
In addition, Napolitano dealt with a 15-day siege of Arizona's Lewis Prison Complex by its inmates, who held hostages inside the jail in 2004. The crisis was resolved without any loss of life.
Napolitano also handled a massive rupture of a pipeline carrying gasoline in Phoenix. The experience underscored the fragility of critical infrastructure and the need to develop working relationship with the private sector to respond quickly to infrastructure damage.
Her office improved the Arizona 911 emergency system and took in evacuees from Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. Napolitano also oversaw the establishment of a statewide fusion center, establishing a state information security and privacy office to protect the information collected by the state.
Ariz. Sen. John McCain (R), who made a special appearance at the start of the hearing to introduce Napolitano, hailed her as a nominee uniquely qualified to serve as homeland security secretary, as she has walked, flown and ridden over the southwestern border; observed the dismal places where foreign children have slept at illegal border crossings; and witnessed failures in the federal detention of illegal aliens.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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