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Former Director Endorses FPS Move to NPPD |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Wednesday, 27 May 2009 |
Wendell Shlinger says fiscal 2010 budget proposal would align functions of infrastructure protection agencies
The fiscal 2010 budget proposal from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would rearrange several of its offices to improve the alignment of their missions within the department, including the transfer of the Federal Protective Service (FPS) from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD).
The proposal has drawn mixed reactions from Congress. Rep. David Price (D-NC) questioned the move in a May 12 budget hearing, noting that ICE has a law enforcement mission like FPS while NPPD has "plenty to do but no law enforcement mission."
But the next day, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the move made sense as NPPD is "the center of gravity for infrastructure protection at DHS."
And the proposed transfer of FPS to NPPD also makes sense to one former chief of the small agency.
"The primary mission of FPS is protection of federal assets as part of the infrastructure of the nation," former FPS Director Wendell Shingler told HSToday.us. "The concept that it could work in NPPD is absolutely right."
Since its inception, DHS has had a willingness to experiment with the placement of some of its offices and agencies until a best fit is discovered, Shingler observed. For example, the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) came into DHS as part of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). As air marshals are law enforcement officers like ICE agents, DHS moved them into ICE for a time but ultimately decided to move them back to TSA. It simply worked better there, Shingler said, because it was more closely aligned with the mission of TSA than that of ICE.
"FPS has been one of those little guys on the to-do list since the very beginning," Shingler remarked. "It could certainly fit in ICE because it's been there for a while now. But it could be other places. It really doesn't do immigration or customs cases. It does come across immigration and customs things if an illegal alien tries to go to work for a government agency, then FPS does make arrests that impact the ICE mission. But across the board, they don't really do immigration or Customs cases. They do much more work in infrastructure protection."
Infrastructure protection, a mission of the NPPD, breaks down across 15 sectors--of which federal assets are one, Shingler said. Therefore, placing FPS within NPPD provides the directorate with the ability to make policy and to carry out the mission within that one sector.
"It gives them some operational capability," Shlinger said of NPPD. "It not only lets them set the policy for sectors but it also makes them accountable for the protection of one of those sectors with federal assets. So they would have the ability to not only set the policy but also to carry out the mission."
NPPD already has a mission to conduct assessments of infrastructure assets such as chemical facilities and dams and the like, Shlinger commented. It often hires retired law enforcement agents from places like the Secret Service to conduct those assessments. But FPS also has always had an assessment mission.
"They have one of the best assessment capabilities for vulnerability and threat assessments. Both organizations can only benefit from it. They could share missions, they could share best practices and they could share expertise," Shlinger declared.
Shlinger saw those assessment capabilities in action firsthand as the co-author of the vulnerability assessment of the Alfred P. Murrah Building after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He gained a great respect for the vulnerability and threat assessment capabilities of FPS during that time.
"We drove that mission home of continually assessing federal facilities, designing countermeasures to offset weaknesses and moving forward to keep the country safe," he said.
Shlinger applauded Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's willingness to tackle the placement of FPS early in her tenure.
"The current secretary stepped up and said even though it's a small thing on my to-do list, I'm going to do it. So she has looked at it and she is willing to try it out in a new spot," Shlinger said.
"Was ICE a bad thing? No, it was a sound decision. It is a law enforcement agency within a law enforcement group. But FPS protects infrastructure and NPPD is a logical place to put them in fiscal 2010," he added.
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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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