Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:30 PM
CAP's 'Blueprint' For Obama: Examining DHS
By AMY HARDER
The Center for American Progress is aiming to establish itself this fall as the go-to progressive think tank in Washington.
Following the announcement that
John Podesta, the group's co-founder, is co-chairing
Barack Obama's transition team, CAP has joined the New Democracy Project to publish "
Change For America: A Progressive Blueprint For The 44th President." This book, the product of a year of work by 67 writers, purports to demonstrate how the new administration can "bring real change to America." Ten of the book's 50 chapters are
available for free on CAP's Web site.
In light of Podesta's role in forming the Obama administration and the role his think tank is gearing up to fill both on Capitol Hill and K Street, Lost In Transition will periodically highlight select chapters of the book, focusing on concrete ways CAP hopes to influence the policies of the new president.
The first in the series will focus on the chapter, "Rebuilding to Create What Should Have Been from the Beginning." This chapter was written by
Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the Homeland Security and State Departments, and current director of the Homeland Security
Program at the Aspen Institute.
Pegging DHS as the "poster child for government dysfunction," Ervin
lists a number of things the Obama administration should fix within
this department.
Within the first 100 days the administration should...
- Appoint a secretary of Homeland Security who is an "apolitical, independent-minded, well-known, and highly successful leader steeped in counterterrorism and national security," and pair that person with a deputy secretary plucked from a CEO position at a Fortune 500 company or major management consulting firm.
- Commission a "crash" 60-day review of the department's budget, which Ervin contends has been underfunded from the beginning. Diverting funds from the Pentagon to DHS should also be considered.
- Provide Congress and, where appropriate, the public, with a more honest account of "what it is and is not doing" to address security gaps the Government Accountability Office has found.
- Address the problem of "lack of interoperability," which is caused by the unnecessary autonomy the various DHS agencies currently have.
- Stress that "during the first 100 days there is no such thing as 100 percent security" through public appearances by the new secretary.
Within the first year the administration should...- Place "particular emphasis" on securing the aviation sector, since this is a prime target for terrorists given the large number of people on planes at one time and the influence the airline industry has on the economy.
- Require the Transportation Security Administration to "screen all passenger plane cargo."
- Give the "DHS intelligence unit, called Intelligence and Analysis, or IA, the authority and resources that it needs to be the center of the government's homeland security-related intelligence efforts."
- Increase the number of counterterrorism grants given to eligible cities under the Urban Area Security Initiative, and base the allocation of funds on terrorism risk, which would ultimately mean that all of the funding would go to the country's "biggest and most prominent cities."
Looking long-term, the administration should... - Install detection technologies -- with a per-machine price tag reaching $150,000 -- at "every airport checkpoint" by the end of Obama's first term.
- Undertake a "crash effort to develop technology that can accurately distinguish between harmless and deadly radiation at our nation's seaports."
- Consider ending the visa waiver program, which allows citizens from 27 countries (mostly in Europe) to enter the U.S. without "undergoing the now extensive post-9/11 visa insurance process."
- "Radically" restructure and downsize DHS so it focuses only on counterterrorism. This could include separating out the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide that agency with a more "direct line" to the president.
- Work to improve employee morale within the department, which "consistently ranks at or near the bottom of government agencies in terms of employee morale and job satisfaction."
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