Homeland Security Watch

This past weekend, the world witnessed three very different events in three places very distant from one another that produced three very different public responses. Each has something to tell us.

In the first instance, Norwegians’ demonstrated that no matter how powerful the pull of emotion, humans are capable of engaging the most senseless acts of violence in very sensible ways. On the other side of the planet, New Zealanders greeted an icy blast of Antarctic weather that dumped 30cm of snow on their tattered landscape with sighs not screams. “The icing on the quake,” was greeted with as much relief as resignation despite the disruption it caused. Meanwhile, back here in the United States, our leaders in Washington demonstrated that neither the tug of emotion nor the power of reason is strong enough to dislodge our leaders and their supporters from the entrenched positions fueling their partisan brinksmanship.

Norwegian leaders and citizens alike made it clear that Anders Behring Breivik’s rampage will not undermine their continued commitment to maintaining an inclusive, tolerant society guided by respect for human dignity and the rule of law. No one has minimized the challenges facing societies like Norway’s that struggle to embrace multiculturalism on a continent organized around and indeed defined by national distinctions rather than assimilation. If anything, the massacre has rekindled interest in redoubling efforts to accommodate cultural differences without sacrificing quality of life or equal protection of the law.

In Christchurch, people have learned repeatedly to find pleasure in the simplest things. In other cities, including their own in days past, a snowstorm of this magnitude would have been greeted very differently. People would have wondered whether the inability of municipal authorities to keep transportation and economic activities going were some dark sign of their inability to do anything. People have come to expect both more and less of those in government in the after last September’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake and more than 7,300 aftershocks left their city in ruins. They expect more information, more involvement and more empathy from government officials. At the same time, they are more forgiving of errors, uncertainty, and delays, especially when they see public officials confronting many of the same personal and professional challenges they themselves must face.

Our leaders in Washington, however, seem capable of doing little more than what suits their own peculiar political interests. Not long ago a political impasse like the present one would have been resolved by recourse to party loyalty and party discipline. These distinctions pale in comparison to the ideological differences driving the present debate (or lack thereof). Rather than accepting and addressing the urgency of the present situation, both sides seem more committed to leveraging it for ends that enhance their future prospects at the polls at the expense of someone else’s. The principles of inclusiveness, equity, and shared sacrifice have no more to do with either side’s proposals than compromise or collaboration have to do with the way they have engaged the problem or one another.

In Norway, a country that enjoys one of Europe’s highest standards of living, lowest unemployment rates, and strongest social safety nets, the disturbing actions of an individual or small group of extremists in their society have opened both eyes and minds to the need to work harder. In New Zealand, a disruptive snow storm demonstrated that even the most urgent, necessary, and difficult work can wait when conditions require it. The peaceful beauty of the snow can even serve as a brief respite and reminder to enjoy life’s simple pleasures, especially the company of one another.

This leaves me wondering, what will it take to not just get the attention of our leaders and a broad cross-section of American society, but to get then to engage the dilemmas facing our country without resorting to simplistic, self-serving soundbites? What will it take to restore sanity and substance to our politics?

Stewart Prager’s opinion piece in the Sunday New York Times about fusion power got me thinking about the opportunities posed by fusion in other forms. As Prager explained, fusion power holds the promise of producing abundant power with few harmful side effects. All we have to do is figure out how to manage or contain reactions like those at the core or our own sun that produce temperatures around 100 million degrees Celcius.

Clearly, that technical hurdle presents a pretty high bar. Prager himself calls fusion energy production “one of the most challenging science and engineering challenges ever undertaken.”  But the way he puts it makes the problem of bottling the sun somehow seem possible.

Prager’s optimism emerges from impressive successes produced by efforts to think a bit differently about the problem. Instead of trying to contain the reaction by conventional means, scientists are experimenting with ways of controlling reactions so they produce the same amount of heat but in bursts of just a fraction of a second.

This leadership lesson from the esoteric world of high energy physics makes me wonder whether efforts to solve other problems, like the budget deficit, would benefit from a more measured approach. Instead of confining the negotiators in a room and heaping pressure on them to reach a deal, maybe we should look for other ways of managing the heat produced by the application of such intense pressure.

Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) proposal yesterday evening may just do this. If passed by both houses, the proposal would give President Obama unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling in increments that would presumably allow the country to avert the looming default crisis and extend the debt ceiling through the end of President Obama’s current term of office.

Clearly, House Republicans loyal to Tea Party activists consider this proposal unacceptable because it does not require offsetting spending cuts. That alone should make it attractive to Democrats worried that it will saddle the president and his party with a reputation for digging a deeper hole of debt.

Although I suspect Americans themselves are as deeply divided about the question of debt and taxes as their representatives in Washington, D.C., the political consequence do not vex them to the same degree.The economy and the lingering effects of unemployment, slow growth, rising energy and food costs, and the prospect of a return to economic contraction remain their dominant concerns.

Unlike the obstacles impeding progress toward the production of abundant energy through the power of fusion reactions, the country’s challenges are not primarily technical in nature. But the analogy does not break down here. To the contrary, overcoming the barriers to political fusion require a similar commitment to managing the heat.

Political leaders and their constituents alike might benefit from taking a bit of a breather. Despite their differences, leaders of both parties and many of their constituents have made their commitment to deficit reduction clear. It is equally clear that anything that undermines economic stability in the short term will compromise efforts to achieve a debt reduction in the medium term through spending cuts, tax increases or other measures that include combinations of both.

As deliberations over the debt limit become increasingly mired in the debate over strategies to reduce the federal debt, the previously unthinkable possibility of a U.S. government default looms larger by the day. Up until now, homeland security practitioners seem to have been more concerned with whether or not negotiators would touch their pet programs than whether the damage caused by a prolonged impasse could threaten the safety and security of our communities.

In homeland security and emergency management circles, talk of the unthinkable usually revolves around complex hazards that produce a cascade of failures resulting in ripples of consequences. This time around we are talking about a cascade of failures that will produce a complex hazard the likes of which we have no way of really knowing until they emerge. What is certain is that some effects will be immediate and others will take years to appreciate. Regardless what time scale their emergence or our awareness of them adheres to, one thing is certain: Most of the worst consequences will never go away.

Those who argue that the debt limit does not matter seem to believe in a myth of American exceptionalism that suggests we can do no wrong, that our decisions and actions will not produce the consequences for us that others have suffered, often at our hands. The opposite is more likely true. Our security could be threatened in previously unimagined ways by creditors who force us to swallow the bitter pills we have dispensed so earnestly and eagerly to others.

Nowhere is this more likely than in the developing world. China and India are rapidly approaching the points where their roles will shift from risk takers to risk makers. And those left vulnerable to the risks created by their rising dominance will surely be us.

China’s military and political might worries some. But its economic ambitions, borne as they are of a desire to keep pace with the burgeoning aspirations of the Chinese people, are greater cause for concern if only for the consequences of their pursuit on the climate and therefore our own ecology and environment.

Others who see little urgency in the current situation may fear the economic effects of others’ decisions and actions but gleefully imagine an America whose government can no longer afford to inhibit or interfere with the decisions and actions of her own citizens. These same people apparently see little difference between a natural person and a corporation when it comes to fundamental liberties. Sadly, the same cannot be said of these same individuals’ assessments of the responsibilities of each to the other.

It’s worth reiterating that U.S. government default is unprecedented. This is important for two reasons: First, the effects are not simply unknowable because we haven’t witnessed such an event before, but because we have no clear idea what ripple effects will result. Second, unlike other disasters that involve underlying processes that we do not fully understand and therefore cannot predict, we know with certainty that the effects of this disaster are entirely preventable.

We cannot and should not assume that the sovereign debt crises resulting from other countries’ fiscal and monetary failures presage the effects should Congress and the White House fail in their duties to resolve the current crisis. Our economy is not just the biggest, it is also intimately connected with every other economy on the planet. Several economists have warned that default would not only delay recovery from the recent recession, but could actually trigger a worldwide depression. We cannot assume an economic calamity of this sort would resemble previous economic depressions.

A devaluation of the U.S. dollar and higher interest rates resulting from default would hit pocketbooks and balance sheets immediately. Reluctance of foreign buyers to invest in U.S. treasury bills would require the government to suspend activities almost immediately to meet interest payments rather than risk further defaults. As government dollars began flowing out of the county to repay foreign creditors, job losses would rise almost as fast as the prices of basic goods and services.

Already stressed state and local governments would be hit hardest after a default. The effects of the recent recession emerged there last and have lingered far longer than elsewhere in the economy. The need for structural and systemic reforms rather than simple shifts in emphasis have already become apparent to many public safety executives as evidenced by the recent legislative initiatives to repeal collective bargaining rights and restructure public employee pension obligations.

As Chris Bellavita’s holiday post reminds us, our leaders have to work if they are to preserve our republic. Their deeds must match their words.

Phil Palin for his part reminded us that our forebears equated the ideals of the republic with the pursuit of eudaimonia. How one attains such an ideal was as troublesome to the ancients as it is for us today. Then as now, much of the disagreement centered on the importance of attaining wealth and exchanging external goods.

Agreeing on the virtue of reducing the debt is meaningless if we are not prepared to meet our obligations. Others can only ever truly judge our intentions by our actions. And even the mere suggestion that the unthinkable is now thinkable has had a negative effect on confidence in our government and its leaders.

Emerging from the current crisis, whether it deepens into downright default or not, will depend on how we respond not just to our situation but to one another. When cities and states can no longer afford to provide essential public safety services who will notice? And what will they do about it?

Judging solely from the tweets emanating from the Urban Area Security Conference this week, two topics were at the forefront of discussion in and between sessions: cuts in the number of metropolitan areas receiving funding (and indeed the nature and extent of homeland security funding cuts generally) and issues attending advanced technology. I find it hard to separate the two topics, especially in light of the fact that much of the discussion about technology at the conference seemed to focus on the central role vendors played in the conference proceedings.

In some circles (certainly not here) the term networking almost always involves sophisticated technology and considerable cost. You know one of these conversations is spinning out of control when terms like “cloud” no longer refer to the things that shield us from the sun and occasionally deposit rain on our heads.

LIke real clouds, these terms and the discussions in which they get exchanged often obscure much more fundamental problems. My favorite example of this is the ongoing discussion about public safety communications interoperability, especially the push now on in Washington to get a sizable chunk of 700 MHz  spectrum allocated to a nationwide public safety service, the centerpiece of which presumably will include secure broadband data.

Now it’s quite possible that I have already lost a few of you, because, as I said, these terms often have meanings far different from what you might expect. Let’s start with interoperability. I once thought this meant making it possible for police, fire, EMS, public works, and other agencies at all levels of government to exchange information about an incident to which they had all responded and to do so in whatever way was most appropriate. The key was sharing information.

An optimist would tell you I was at least partly right about that. But I am not that optimist, since I have yet to see any evidence that such a system exists in the wild.

Instead, interoperability has meant marrying up sometimes terribly outmoded or outdated technologies so people from different agencies can get together and talk about an incident if they happen to remember to use the technology in the way someone set it up when the time comes to use it. In most cases, the systems have become too complicated for the users to understand, and because they cost so much they rarely keep pace with the commercial-off-the-shelf equipment people buy and use for their own personal communications.

How many of you have been to an incident where a frustrated officer has pulled out her iPhone and texted or called a colleague rather than using a radio? If you haven’t seen this, you have surely seen someone at an incident pull their smartphone out and snap a few pictures of whatever is happening.

These days you don’t have to look very hard or listen very closely to see and hear arguments about how D-Block spectrum will revolutionize public safety communications and make it easier than ever before to communicate in a crisis. While I have no doubt that devices and services designed for this new spectrum will have impressive features, I am much less certain they will improve communications.

My reason for skepticism comes back to the first problem receiving attention at the UASI conference: money. The people who have it and can afford to spend it will determine what the rest of us can buy later. Perhaps fortuitously federal fingers are finding it harder to reach the wallet in Uncle Sam’s deep pockets just as this issue comes to a head.

Oddly enough, the dark clouds of fiscal austerity might be just what we need to whisk away the airy, bright and lofty clouds of “technological progress” impeding or at least obscuring our efforts to communicate. When money is scarce, people have to be a lot clearer about what they need now as opposed to what they want later. In addition, they have to be more open to alternatives and willing to adapt as opposed to simply adopting.

If you don’t believe me, consider this: The argument presented here emerges from my own first-hand experience and a quick reading of a handful of messages consisting of less than 140 characters sent by a handful of friends using an essentially free technology accessible to anyone. That strikes me as pretty effective communication for a very limited investment of time, money and effort.

Over the past few days an interesting theme has emerged around homeland security budget deliberations. As Jessica, Chris, Phil and many commentators on their posts have pointed out, we have no shortage of views about what’s right or wrong with the way we’ve been spending money over the past ten years or about how we should spend money in the future.

As I read these interesting and very informative perspectives, I could not help but think that despite all the discussion of politics this situation is more a problem of policy and the tendency of politicians to confuse the two. The distinction I intend here is simple: Politics concerns itself with competing conceptions of the good related to who, why, where and what; policy extends these judgments by focusing on how, when and how much.

No doubt the competing narratives about whether we’ve spent wisely or whether the proposed cuts go too far are steeped in politics. But the policy questions raised by the decisions unfolding before us have very real implications for programs, processes, people and ultimately what we choose to call progress.

This last point — how we define progress — illustrates the central problem confronting politicians and policy analysts alike. Politicians tend to define success very differently from policy analysts.

A simple semantic distinction might make this problem clearer. Public officials often use the terms efficiency and effectiveness carelessly. If we’re talking about economic (aggregate) efficiency — welfare maximization — then they may not be all that different. But when we talk about efficiency the way the current budget debate seems to be — as a question of productivity or throughput, then it is far less clear that the two terms have the same meaning.

Indeed, when politicians frame budget cuts as a way to hold public administrators accountable, they usually want to improve productive or managerial efficiency, rather than aggregate efficiency. As a consequence, it should come as no surprise when policy analysts and public administrators raise concerns that these decisions will compromise the effectiveness of their programs.

This, of course, sets off a knee-jerk response on the part of politicians, who suspect that the policy analysts and public administrators are only concerned with their own welfare, not the public’s. For their part, the policy analysts and public administrators usually respond to such rhetoric by wondering aloud (albeit under their breath) about the parentage of their political masters.

I am not usually one to suggest that such complex problems have simple solutions, but this might be an exception to that rule. The current budget debate underscores why it is important for us to produce a better understanding of how homeland security contributes to aggregate improvements in welfare. These gains can take many forms, not all of which are economic in nature, but which nevertheless all have some form of value.

Security is a value. So is liberty. Clearly people have competing conceptions of what they would be willing to pay to feel secure. These decisions are in essence a question of how much liberty individuals are willing to sacrifice to feel safe.

We can monetize the value of security by asking ourselves how these individual decisions play out in light of different political or policy choices. Perhaps more importantly, we can assess the ways competing policies affect these tradeoffs. By questioning not just how much we have spent and on what, but also by examining how airport security, for instance, has facilitated or inhibited the desire of individuals to travel as measured by passenger trips taken and the health of the industry, we can assess whether our political choices and policies resulting from them have had their intended effects.

Obviously, these techniques have limitations. Not the least of which is the difficulty measuring how well our investments help us prepare for threats we have not yet imagined. These questions require politicians to trust the policy analysts and public administrators rather than second-guessing them and moving beyond the who, why, what and where to concern themselves with how, when and how much.

Gaining the trust to tackle these difficult questions makes it all the more important that we establish some common ground between the politicians and policy analysts when it comes to deciding what investments to make and how to make them. As such, both groups would do well to review a primer on welfare economics and transaction cost economics before the final vote on the budget.

The National Priorities Project — whose mission is to make “complex federal budget information transparent and accessible so people can prioritize and influence how their tax dollars are spent” — reports

The United States has spent more than $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Total homeland security spending since September 11, 2001 is $635.9 billion.

The Congressional Quarterly [subscription required] points to a 2009 article estimating Al Qaeda’s annual spending ranges from a low of 10 million to a high of 300 million dollars a year.

Even anything close to that ratio represents a massive return on Evil’s investment.

“We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin Laden said in a 2004 interview.

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Yesterday, Jessica reported:

[T]he House approved a 2012 Homeland Security Appropriations bill that slashes homeland spending by $1.1 billion dollars (2.6% decrease) for this year…,” including a 52% percent cut for the Science & Technology Directorate.

Meanwhile, some of the same congressional representatives who recently criticized DHS for not demonstrating what the country has gained from previous years’ homeland security spending, now warn that cuts threaten to undo the progress we’ve made in preparedness over the past decade.

I suppose a foolish consistency remains the hobgoblin of little minds.

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“[T]he Pentagon doesn’t know how it spends its money,” says Oaklahoma Senator Tom Coburn.

One might say the same thing for homeland security, “because homeland security funding flows through literally dozens of federal agencies and not just through the Department of Homeland Security,” says the National Priorities Project

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I am confused by what is going on in the budget world.

On the one hand, it reminds me of a sculpture in the Columbia Center — the tallest building in Seattle and a target included in al Qaeda’s original 9/11/01 hit list. I think the sculpture is called “Climbing the ladder of success.”

You may note none of the climbers have heads.  As if thought, rationality and consistency have no place on a trip to success.

On the other hand, the steaming semantic gyre of budgets, cuts, expenditures, threats, vulnerabilities and missions reminds me of a poem that appeared in the August 19, 1944 issue of the New Yorker. The century’s second war was ending, quickly to be replaced by another, more complicated one.

Lincoln said in 1862 we must “think anew and act anew.” As we move into homeland security’s second decade, after its largely knee jerk first decade, we can be guided helpfully by Fenton’s question: “how can we then make decisions who have so well unlearned to decide.”

On June 1 the 2012 Homeland Security Appropriations bill was submitted for action in the House of Representatives. The legislation provides $40.6 billion in non-emergency funding for the various programs and agencies within DHS. This is a decrease of $1.1 billion – or 2.6% – below last year’s level and $3 billion – or 7% – below the President’s request.

The entire bill is available from the Appropriations Committee’s website.  Several amendments were being considered by the whole House on Wednesday and Thursday. The outcome of those votes are summarized here.

In commenting on the bill, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) commented, ““We’ve significantly reduced or eliminated ineffective and wasteful programs, while requiring reforms in underperforming programs through heightened oversight, to get the most out of each and every tax dollar. This includes long-overdue reform of the State and Local Grant program under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been plagued by inefficiency. These grants often remain in federal coffers for years – right now, there is a backlog of more than $13 billion in unspent funds. As such, this bill reduces funding for this program by $2.1 billion, changing the structure and requiring increased measurement and reporting.”

Here’s related language from the Appropriations Committee report on the homeland security appropriations bill:

The Committee recommends long-overdue reform of FEMA’s administration of its State and Local Programs. For far too long, FEMA has failed to measure the return on investment for the billions of dollars awarded through its first responder grant programs. Furthermore, billions of dollars appropriated in prior years for first responder grants remain unspent due to a variety of reasons, some of which are entirely inexcusable. The Committee believes the Nation’s fiscal crisis and the importance of preparedness and the work of State, local, and tribal first responders to the homeland security mission necessitate bold reform. Therefore, the Committee recommends the following: (1) a substantial reduction in annual appropriations for FEMA’s State and Local Programs; (2) a reorganization of FEMA’s State and Local Programs with funding administered at the discretion of the Secretary and prioritized to the greatest needs and highest risks; (3) a mandate for the FEMA Administrator to submit a plan to drawdown all unexpended balances by the end of fiscal year 2012 from funds appropriated prior to fiscal year 2008 under the heading ‘‘State and Local Programs’’; and (4) a withholding of fifty percent of the funding for the Office of the Secretary and Executive Management until the submission of the National Preparedness Goal and National Preparedness System, consistent with the directions within the recently signed Presidential Policy Directive-8. The latter requirement is designed to compel the Department to begin taking steps to measure the effectiveness and future requirements of these programs.

In addition to the rationale noted above, the cuts to Homeland Security appropriations should be seen as part of the ongoing process of negotiating a deficit reduction plan.  Actual appropriations will reflect Senate input, the outcome of a broader agreement — if any — on the deficit, and horse trading in the eventual House-Senate conference.

Following is specific report language on the proposed reduction in State and Local Programs:

The Committee recommends $1,000,000,000 for State and Local Programs, $2,844,663,000 below the amount requested and $1,229,500,000 below the amount provided in fiscal year 2011. These reductions are due to the persistent lack of quantifiable metrics that measure the additional capability that our Nation has gained for the billions that have been invested and the inability of programs to expend their funds in a timely manner. These concerns, combined with the inadequacy of the Department’s request for a number of other programs, such as ignoring $4,900,000,000 in known disaster costs and $650,000,000 in offsets from aviation security and customs fee revenue that has not yet been authorized, force the Committee to make tough decision on all programs.

Due to a historical pattern of poor execution and management, the Committee is recommending significant reform to the DHS grants process. For years, the Committee has asked question after question of the Department regarding grants and the returns the taxpayers are getting for the funds invested. Today, these questions remain largely unanswered. Therefore, the Committee is making three significant recommendations on first responder grants.

First, the Committee recommends reorganizing the grant program to allow funds to be directed towards the highest need. In the wake of recent terrorist activity, this reorganization will allow the Secretary the discretion to apply limited funds to the programs that have the highest need based on the threat and risk. To address urban areas with the highest threat, the Committee has included language specifically limiting Urban Area Security Initiative funds to the top 10 highest risk urban areas.

Second, the Committee has addressed the massive amounts of unexpended balances in programs. Based on the latest estimates, the Department currently has almost $13,000,000,000 in previously appropriated funds that remain unspent dating back to fiscal year 2005. This level of unexpended balances is unacceptable. To encourage a sense of urgency, the Committee includes a proviso directing the Administrator of the FEMA to submit within 60 days of the date enactment of this Act, a plan to expend all unexpended balances by the end of fiscal year 2012 from funds appropriated prior to fiscal year 2008 under the heading ‘‘State and Local Programs’’.

Third, the Committee has included language directing the submission of the National Preparedness Goal and National Preparedness System consistent with the directions within the recently signed Presidential Policy Directive—8. Funds have been fenced within the funding provided for the Office of the Secretary until information on these programs are provided to the Committee

Unexpended balances are an unequivocal measure of ambiguous meaning.  This is especially the case with federal funds for state and local programs.

There are situations where funds remain because federal officials have not been proactive in working with state and local officials. There are other situations where state and local officials have been slow, even reluctant to integrate federal priorities with existing priorities.  Delayed expenditure is especially an issue where federal programs — appropriately and helpfully — are encouraging state and local innovation.  In some cases funds remain unexpended because of substantive disagreements between levels of government on appropriate purpose and strategy.

Sometimes delayed expenditure is the result of stupidity.  Other times it is the outcome of prudence. The $13 billion includes plenty of each.

Stock and commodity markets reacted negatively today to news that sluggish private sector hiring, slipping domestic manufacturing and sliding Greek sovereign debt ratings. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans met with President Obama to discuss legislation to raise the debt ceiling following a show-vote on Tuesday meant to signal their resistance to any measure that fails to herald a new era of fiscal discipline in Washington. (Which, it should be noted, they regard primarily, if not solely, as cuts to domestic discretionary spending and entitlement programs.)

Although the economic situation in Germany and Japan are not much better than here in the United States (and some would argue much worse), the stories grabbing the biggest headlines in these countries are very different from those here at home. Indeed one might wonder whether the tables have now truly turned since the end of the Second World War.

Those Americans who worked to defeat the axis powers in World War II have come to be known as the Greatest Generation for their willingness both to make difficult decisions and to make significant sacrifices at home and on the battlefield for the sake of future generations. Their leadership benefited not only our generation, but those too of the nations they fought.

The turnabout decision this week by Germany to abandon nuclear power by 2022 and invest heavily in renewables with a target of supplying at least 80 percent of their domestic demand by 2050 reflects nothing short of a payback on our nation’s post-war investment in rebuilding war-ravaged Europe. Germany’s decision and the actions that must follow are no less ambitious than the mobilization of labor and capital required in the United States to supply the war effort 60 years ago. The German people will only succeed in reaching their goal through a combination of expanded capacity, technological innovation and significant reductions in demand through energy conservation and increased efficiency.

A segment of the population of that other great power of the war era has shown a different kind of foresight and fortitude that reflects a more personal sort of sacrifice. The lingering crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has fueled the loss of faith in the government and is now mobilizing a segment of Japanese society that one might assume has every right to sit back and wonder what happened to the country they helped build as the successors to the generation defeated by our grandparents. Instead, this generation of retirees and grandparents is volunteering to expose themselves to dangerous levels of radioactivity by helping cleanup the damaged nuclear reactors rather than leaving the job to younger workers who would be more likely to suffer the long-latent effects of such significant radiation exposures.

In both instances, the decisions and actions we see taking center-stage overseas reflect the sorts of values that made our forebears great. At the same time, their presence, even prominence in the news from abroad makes their absence from our own political debate that much more glaring and indeed worrying for our stability, stature, security and future prospects of success.

What sacrifices are we willing to make to maintain our greatness? How hard are we willing to work? How much would we pay to remain an exemplar of the can-do spirit for other nations to follow?

Judging by the crisis of confidence afflicting both the political and economic spheres, it seems the answers to these questions are “not so much.” Our crisis will continue, if not deepen, unless those who can start doing. Americans should not expect leadership of the sort displayed in Germany and Japan this week to come from politicians alone. As the examples of our former rivals aptly illustrate, we need leadership at every level of our society if we are to restore our greatness.

The Political Economy of Homeland Security

The week before U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden, at least one prominent media outlet took note of an academic paper examining the return on America’s homeland security investments. Although politicians have offered varying opinions in the week since bin Laden’s killing about the ongoing need for such investments, the paper itself has received little additional notice. An event like bin Laden’s death should, however, amplify rather than reduce our interest in assessing where we stand and where we are heading.

The study’s authors, John Mueller of The Ohio State University and Mark G. Stewart of the University of Newcastle, argue that the country’s one trillion dollar investment in homeland security since the 9/11 attacks should be assessed on the basis of risk reduction and cost-benefit returns. Using such techniques, they argue, one would be hard-pressed to justify the massive scope and scale of investments given the miniscule returns achieved.

I am not sure this finding surprises many people reading this blog. Moreover, I am reasonably confident that a at least some of you question whether it even matters.

The homeland security enterprise, like national defense, has rarely considered cost-benefit returns significant criteria for making decisions. To the extent that analysts consider risk reduction, they accept the extremely low short-term probabilities of an attack while assuming something catastrophic (by some measure or another) will occur eventually.

This ensures that debates usually focus on whether or not we are thinking about the right rare event, rather than whether or not our efforts will actually make any difference at all. The opportunity costs of the investments rarely receive any significant attention.

Even if we cannot justify making all homeland security and national defense decisions on the basis of risk-cost-benefit analyses, we should be able to agree that securing should short-term yield from our investments makes sense even if  long-term benefits remain our ultimate concern. Too often, though, the short-term benefit is measured solely in terms of the immediate satisfaction of having mollified critics or addressing the exigencies of whatever crises called our past decisions into question.

As a community concerned with how we prepare future practitioners, these tendencies to focus too much on the moment on one hand and too far into the future on the other should concern us. Most of the techniques we teach new practitioners have very limited efficacy in these situations or have very little evidence to recommend them.

Allied disciplines, like political science, public administration, engineering, economics and policy analysis, employ more robust theoretical frameworks in their analyses. Although homeland security practitioners recognize many if not most of these methods, it seems we rarely use them. Why is this?

As we look to the post-bin Laden future, I suspect we would do well to recognize that most of the investments we made had little impact on the ultimate success of the mission to locate and eliminate the world’s most-wanted terrorist. As we look for ways to address the atomized residue of al Qaeda and its affiliates, we would do well to ask ourselves which investments make the most sense.

We can invest in the development of democratic institutions and the popular expression of the principles of democratic self-governance, including respect for human rights and economic and environmental equity. Or we can continue supporting the status quo ante, which equates stability with subsidies to military-industrial oligarchs and their patrons.

Applying cost-benefit analysis does not in or of itself ensure democratic outcomes. But the absence of any consideration of the economic value of investments in homeland security like anything else ensures that those who have the most to gain enjoy more say in the decision than those who have something to lose.

Building a sustainable homeland security future may not mean ensuring stability in the short-term, especially if it comes at the expense of our economic security. Investing our national wealth — especially our human and social capital — in institutions that promote freedom will generate a more stable long-term future only if we are willing to accept that speed and certainty matter a whole lot less than the price we pay in terms of blood and treasure.

I must admit that like most of you (I assume) the news that U.S. special forces had killed Osama bin Laden and recovered his body from a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan came as a bit of a surprise. But my surprise at that fact pales in comparison to my impressions arising from the openness displayed by the administration in discussing details of the operation and its implications on future policy options.

Much of what needs to be said about the skill and courage of the President and those who conceived and carried out the mission has been said many times over in the past few days. How salient is it, however, that we can acknowledge and discuss the basis for our opinions about the performance of these individuals rather than relying solely on our predispositions to trust the opinions of others? In light of the consequences of public opinion on ongoing support for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, it strikes me a particularly important that people not only can reach conclusions of their own about these actions, but also that they seem to be doing so without any particular help from the punditocracy. (This, of course, in no way deterred the talking heads from babbling, often incoherently, about the whole affair. Despite substantiation of leaks about the subject of the President’s remarks, their distracting dialectic diminished in quality as the interval between the scheduled start of President Obama’s address and his actual appearance became increasingly delayed.)

The policy environment surrounding national defense and homeland security are filled with discontinuities and uncertainty despite bin Laden’s demise. How will we end our involvement in Afghanistan? Will the government of Iraq to extend agreements for the U.S. military to continue advice and support arrangements? How will the administration and Congress resolve their pitched political differences over fiscal restraint and debt reduction without undermining our ability to meet commitments here and abroad?

Notwithstanding the release of some erroneous information that has required correction and elaboration today, the administration seems to have done itself (and us) a huge favor by making as clear as possible the basis of its assessment that al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain a threat to the U.S. and its interests. They have also made it clear that lessons about cooperation and information sharing have been learned. And perhaps most important of all, they have demonstrated the potency of patience, confidence, determination and resolve when exercised in the right proportions.

These lessons reinforce one last point: The success of this operation was not so much the product of superior technology or the investments of vast sums of money (although both undoubtedly helped ensure the careful and skillful execution of this mission), but rather the diligent and precise application of human and social skills in gathering, processing and acting on intelligence, which included precise and scrupulous attention to the most minute details.

Much more of this story remains yet to be told. But this should not hinder our understanding of the extraordinary efforts that led to this achievement nor discourage us from continuing the work required to protect our country and others affected by the threat of violent extremism.

In the last week or so:

Rival military factions clash in Yemen’s capital

Pakistan tells US to pull out CIA

9/11 mastermind will be tried by military tribunal after all

In Georgia a white supremacist was found guilty on weapons and explosives charges

A mass grave is uncovered with 116 victims of Mexican drug violence

Wildfires are raging in West Texas and Oklahoma

The Coast Guard told itself (and us) that it was unprepared for last summer’s oil platform explosion and oil spill

The Red River is flooding (again)

The White House releases Presidential Policy Directive 8 on Preparedness

Current fiscal year DHS budget is cut by $784 million

Fukushima nuclear emergency is recalculated as “equal to” Chernobyl

One month after 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan water, electrical power, and gasoline supplies continue to be seriously disrupted. More than 150,000 continue to depend on the support of emergency shelters.

I am sure you can list several more headlines that have nothing to do with each other and, yet somehow, have everything to do with each other.

This is the homeland security domain.  These are our challenges, our risks, our wicked problems, and our recurring events.

Earlier this week I was on a webinar.  I was probably the only “civilian” (non-government employee) on the call. I am volunteering and had been asked by my sponsor to just listen.  The webinar’s purpose was to re-start a regional planning process.  The webinar had been rescheduled several times, trying to achieve a reasonable quorum.

This particular region is especially concerned about an abundance of toxic agrochemicals very close to schools and residential areas.  There is a significant flood threat.  Earthquake is infrequent, but possible.  There are no doubt other vulnerabilities and threats, but this is a re-start and risks still need to be identified.

Organizers did a reasonable job setting out the issues.  Japan was vaguely referenced.  A law enforcement participant shared some startling stats on a surge in drug violence.  A state environmental protection official distributed a scary map and photographs.

There was not much discussion.  The only questions were about the budget and how it could be used.   Whatever energy was present at the start of the call seemed to seep away about 20 minutes in.  The low point — about 30 minutes in — was when someone thought they had hit mute (but had not) and we all heard someone being chewed out for taking 10 minutes more for lunch than allowed.

It’s difficult to recover from that sort of interruption.

I think most readers of this blog might agree I tend to be a glass-half-full kind of guy.  After the webinar ended I needed a drink.

This work — homeland security, emergency management, public safety and related — has not been my life’s work.  I am a parvenu, an outsider, an interloper.  In any substantive way I have been at this barely ten years.

But perhaps it takes an outsider perspective to feel how privileged we are to have the opportunity to do this work.

Especially when we are asked to reach beyond our typical boundaries: jurisdictional, professional, intellectual, and otherwise.

Consider again the list at the top of this post.  For most of us at least two-thirds of the headlines have local implications. We are tasked to work on behalf of our neighbors, friends, families and others to prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, and recover from these and other prospective threats.  Don’t we need all the help we can get?

For the modest regional effort re-started with the webinar, funding and other resources are provided to bring together neighbors who will depend on each other in a crisis, but most of whom have never met.  What a simply great idea.  What an opportunity, what a privilege, what a practical step in regional risk readiness.  (My principal recommendation after the call was to not have another webinar or teleconference, but to first get people together face-to-face.)

The results of this unfortunate webinar seemed to me an especially dramatic example of a persistent pattern in homeland security.  There is a tendency to undervalue the opportunities presented.  There are several sources of this tendency: over-work, under-appreciation, budget-reductions, urgent demands, political stupidity, media idiocy, jurisdictional and professional parochialism, and the list could continue.

But I will offer at least one other impediment to meaningful regional risk readiness. In the midst of complexity and chaos we encounter a paradoxical threat: our own expertise.

As a species – and as professionals – we depend on experience to predict the future. We craft plans and procedures to ensure our future, reflecting what reality has taught us. We take pride in our practicality.

The more accurate our predictions, the more successful our course, the more assured we become of our future. Until… reality steps beyond our experience, undoes our predictions, and we stand vulnerable and uncertain before the truly New.

Catastrophe — such as we have seen in Japan — is beyond predicting. But catastrophe can be anticipated. To predict is to precisely foretell. To anticipate is but a foretaste, something much less suited to specific definition.

When you encounter the New, it is unlikely to come in the form of a 9.0 earthquake, thirty foot tsunami, and a six-core nuclear emergency. But when it arrives it is quite likely to cascade across your capabilities and challenge your essential capacities in a way that may just now leave a sour taste along each side of your tongue.

Even as we taste the bitterness, we are inclined to avert our eyes and remain fixated on what our experience has taught us. Experience is an effective teacher.  The School of Hard Knocks is a good school.  But there are other teachers also worth our time and attention.

Have the parallels between the street protests in the Arab Middle East and those occurring in the state capitols of Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and a growing number of other states struck you as chilling? On one had I am struck by the similarities while at the same time being taken aback by what distinguishes them from one another. In either event, the juxtaposition of these events has given me pause and no small cause for concern.

On one hand, a long-oppressed proletariat is marching for the overthrow of corrupt dictators who have systematically plundered their nations’ capital and resources with the aid and comfort of a powerful patron interested in maintaining the stability of the status quo ante for its own peculiar interests. On the other hand, we have the same thing but with different classes of people playing the parts assigned to others someplace else.

It is no small coincidence that the politicians here at home claiming to act for an oppressed public who are now turning on public servants no longer fear the financial clout of unions. The Citizens United decision allowed the sums of money available to candidates from corporations to leave union fundraising efforts in their dust. Unhappy simply being able to compete with unions that traditionally favor their Democratic opponents, some Republican governors and legislators now want to corner the market by stripping public employees of their bargaining rights.

The fecklessness of these politicians and their supporters comes as no surprise, but strikes me as practically unnecessary and particularly vindictive. I say this because it has been my observation in recent years that many public employees had already become the kinds of fiscal conservatives (and often also social conservatives) of the kind that typically vote Republican. As such, many local union members, particularly those working in public safety, were often finding themselves at odds with the political dispositions of their parent unions.

For awhile, once ardent trade unionist friends of mine who had of late taken up the Tea Party banner with the zeal of the newly converted were left wondering what happened when the dog they were walking turned, growled and showed its teeth. Now they are realizing that the dog was walking them, not the other way around, and they are coming around to the view that no one in elected office of either party can be trusted.

Many commentators have noted that public sector union membership now exceeds that of unions representing private sector workers. This has come about not through the growth of public employees’ unions, but rather as a result of the decimation of the American manufacturing sector and export sectors.

Others have noted that the authority to bargain collectively explains very little about the nature of public sector remuneration much less the stressed fiscal situations of particular state and localities. In fact, several industrial economists have noted that public employees are generally paid less than their private sector counterparts when you control for education and experience. At the same time, they generally enjoy better benefits whether or not they bargain collectively. In most instances, these benefits represent nothing more than what we once agreed should be available to all workers when it comes to health care and income security in one’s senior years.

In the Middle East, we have seen desperate dictators turn to violence to defend their positions and hold onto power. Is it any less violent for our elected leaders to act under color of law to humiliate their opponents and strip them of their rights?

I am well aware that unions have in many cases overstepped and bargained for conditions that now seem particularly generous in light of the country’s parlous financial condition. At the same time, these concessions came about when those on the other side of the table were all too willing to go along simply to get along rather than protecting the interests of the public they and their employees both served.

I can easily understand the dismay of unemployed workers who seeing their unemployment benefits and job prospects dry up see public officials holding onto much of what they have. At the same time, I am convinced that too many on both sides fail to appreciate the conditions facing the other. (My wife, for instance, was laid off from her public sector job as a city planner in June 2009, and has had exactly three interviews with prospective employers in the public or privat sectors since then despite having a graduate degree and 25 years of experience.)

At the same time, I am all too well aware that much of what has given the unions the power politicians now fear most did not come to them through the collective bargaining process, but rather through the ballot box. As such, the effort now underway to deny them the protection of collective bargaining rights previously granted by legislative fiat is nothing less than an effort to strip a group of citizens of the political power now readily accessible to every corporation in the country.

When I wrote about the remarkable resilience of the revolutionary movements springing up in the Middle East a few weeks ago, I noted how five metatrends I labeled local, simple, varied, open and connected contributed to the power of these movements. Here at home, the willingness of the Right to sharpen its message and distill the essence of its objectives down to a single-syllable rallying cry — CUT! — has made it possible to craft a similarly strong coalition of the willing among people of vastly different ideological persuasions. (Contrast this with the Obama’s retorts to change, hope and progress during the 2008 campaign. These required far more thought and assumed a complex set of shared ideals while still leaving room for varying applications and interpretations.)

The inability of the Left to craft a similarly pithy response and put their differences aside to defend their ideals makes it easy for opponents to suggest their opposition arises from self-interest alone. (Never mind that the Right usually sees self-interest not only as virtuous, but more importantly equates it with liberty.)

If politicians and the public are truly concerned about the future, we should be asking ourselves not only what we should cut, but also how we should spend what we have to maximize benefit to all. This would, of course, require us to decide where we would get the resources we need to make the investments in the future we want for ourselves and future generations. This means not only reprioritizing and reallocating what we already have, but also deciding how we will grow our economy and our revenues to get what we want. This clearly requires the kind of discourse that involves words with more than one syllable.

Pitting one group of public employees — or for that matter citizens — against another and suggesting that this will solve our problems is beyond cynical. If there’s any justice — and polls that suggesting the public thinks more highly of public servants than elected officials suggest this may be the case — those making the cuts will be the ones ultimately paying the price when their patrons realize we do need government.

I have been thinking a lot lately about problems and solutions. Decision-makers find themselves confronted by both of these everyday. Unfortunately, they very rarely present themselves as nicely matched sets.

Indeed, the super-abundance of each sometimes makes me wonder whether some sort of cosmic clothes dryer is out there somewhere randomly producing odd, often unmatched sets of them much like the process occurring in my laundry room that leaves me with a pile of orphan socks overflowing the top-drawer of my dresser.

Like these lonely, mismatched socks, I am reluctant to discard either problems or solutions unless I am sure they have no mate. Others, I have found, seem to think there is a market for both and some desperate sole is out there just begging to cloth their feet with the cast-offs.

We all know many leaders who feel no need to acknowledge much less hang onto problems that present themselves unaccompanied by solutions. And surely we all know people who present problems and solutions or unmatched pairs of both to others hoping someone will rescue them from taking responsibility.

The consequences of both behaviors — favoring solutions over problems and failing to accept responsibility for either — pose many more problems for individuals, organizations and societies than the alternatives: accepting responsibility for problems and engaging one another in the search for viable solutions.

Over the years, it has become clear to me that problems find their origins in one or more of the following places:

• Power
• Purpose
• Process
• Product
• Position

Notice that people and performance are not listed among the Ps. People experience problems but are rarely the cause of them without the intervening influence of one of the listed factors. When problems become evident, people often notice them because they are not achieving the results they desire, which of course means problems are all about performance. Performance, however, is the symptom not the cause.

Power problems originate from the desire to place one’s own needs ahead of others and often manifest themselves in the lack of clear and agreed upon priorities among a group, organization or society. (As often as not, power problems come wrapped as someone or some group’s preferred solution to another problem.) In many instances, no consensus exists about how priorities should be determined, which leaves everyone looking for leadership. Those willing to step up often mistake deciding for others rather than engaging them in the decision-making process as a means of achieving effective performance.

Purpose problems arise from a lack of agreed upon principles or the absence of shared commitment to the outcome. Cooperation and trust are not the same thing, and people often agree to go along to get along. At least that’s the case until they discover or discern that the outcome will yield unfavorable results or generate unwanted accountability.

Clear priorities and a shared sense of purpose are important, but a flawed process can prevent people from accomplishing what they want. Too often we delegate the process decisions to experts and technicians who have little stake in the outcome or who stand to lose very little from the failure to achieve results. Handing off decisions about the process to a willing expert solves very few problems if the process designer has no stake in the game and stands to gain more than they can possibly lose from the outcome and results.

Even well-designed processes produce some unfavorable or unintended results. Inevitably naysayers and critics will claim these results are evidence that the whole process is flawed rather than the natural results of applying simple production functions to complex, value-laden problems. Getting people involved in the process means getting them to accept that side-effects and waste are both unfortunate and largely if not entirely unavoidable. Minimizing and controlling these effects should be our priority rather than seeking to eliminate them.

Finally, like power, position haunts many efforts to resolve problems. Too often those with the most to gain and little to lose offer to take on problems beyond either their ken or ability simply to position themselves as leaders capable or making more decisions for others in the future. In most cases, those who really bear the brunt of the problems see little relief from such efforts beyond the momentary lapse of responsibility for dealing with them on their own. More often than not the old problems return or new ones come to take their places.

If we really want to become an ownership society, everyone has to accept some share of responsibility for the problems we face. Likewise, we should expect our leaders to involve us in solving them.

As we look over and critique the President’s proposed budget and the Republican House leadership’s counter-proposal, we would do well to ask ourselves which of the Ps define their definitions of the problems we face. If either solution or some compromise agreeable to both parties is to really produce results for our society and economy, we have to come closer to agreeing with one another about what’s really at stake. Absent this, we run the risk of becoming a nation of renters entirely beholden on others for our welfare and sense of place in the world.

The President’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget has been released this morning.  The proposal provides $309 million above the 2010 enacted levels (.7 percent increase) for the Department of Homeland Security, bringing DHS’ budget to$43.2 billion.  Here is a quick assessment of the proposal:

Border Security

As expected, there is a focus on border security, with 300 more additional CBP officers proposed for passenger and cargo screening and expanding pre-screening operations at foreign airports and land ports of entry. The budget includes $132 million for E-Verify program.

On border technology, DHS wants $242 million to “acquire technologies that will complete the optimum border security technology lay down in three sectors in Arizona. This technology initiative is tailored to the unique needs of each border region—beyond the prior, one-size fits-all approach—and will result in the faster deployment of security technology, better overall coverage for situational awareness and agent protection, and ultimately a more effective and efficient deployment strategy.”  This is the agency’s post-Sbinet proposal though many details remain unknown without the more information that will likely come in the next few week in the detailed budget documents and oversight hearings.   The request also includes $55 million to support Northern Border technology systems.

Grant Programs

The budget provides $3.8 billion for state and local programs. Six grant programs are eliminated and merged into broader State and local risk-based grant programs. Among the programs cut are the Emergency Operations Center Grant Program and Inter-City Bus Security Grant Program. More details to come.

Aviation

Includes an $82 million increase to support deployment of up to 1,275 Advanced Imaging Technology screening machines at airport checkpoints.   The budget also includes $273 million in funding to support explosive detection systems at airports.  The budget also  proposes $58 million for transportation security vetting and credentialing. There is also $12.4 million for an expanded watchlist vetting initiative.  In keeping with TSA Administrator Pistole’s comments recently on the need for a comprehensive approach to aviation security that includes behavioral analysis, the FY2012 budget requests $236.9 millon for 3,360 behavior detection officers, including 350 new positions.  The budget also proposes to increase the aviation passenger security fee by $1.50 per enplanement.

Coast Guard

The Coast Guard benefits significantly from the proposed budget.  The Administration proposes $358 million to construct six more Fast Response Cutters and$130 million to construct two more Maritime Patrol Aircraft.  The budget also includes$65 million for the Rescue 21 search and rescue communications system.

Administrative Cuts

More than $450 million in cuts to “consulting and professional service contracts as well as reduction in travel, printing, supplies and advisory services.”

Cybersecurity

DHS continues to focus attention on cybersecurity, with more than $459 million going to support the National Cybersecurity Division.  The request includes $233.6 million to “expedite the deployment of EINSTEIN 3 to prevent and detect intrusions on computer systems and to upgrade the National Cyber Security Protection System, building an intrusion detection capability and analysis capabilities to protect federal networks.” Interestingly, the  request includes $1.3 million to “enable DHS to coordinate national cyber security operations and interface with the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland.’

Summary  Table

Click here to see a Summary Chart of DHS Budget Proposal for FY 2012.   Most components will see some increase from FY2010, though the following see some decreases:  TSA, FLETC, NPPD, FEMA, and DNDO.

In his State of the Union Address tonight, President Barack Obama acknowledged that the rules governing our society and our place in the world have changed. Many Americans, he said, have experienced the impact of these changes in lost opportunities, diminished outlook and a dashed sense of optimism if not outright despair. Nevertheless, the President challenged us to see the future as ours to shape, and he outlined a four-point plan to renew American confidence in our competence, our creativity and our ability to make the world a better place by collaborating and competing.

The four elements of the President’s plan — innovation, education, building the nation, and managing the debt — seem sound but strike me as not enough to meet the challenges we face. If what we confront, as the President himself proposed, is a “Sputnik moment,” we have less need for new rules than we do for a whole new game.

As the President himself noted in examples sprinkled throughout his speech, the greatest changes have arisen from people seeing in past crises opportunities dressed up as challenges. The nation itself, he noted, was founded on just such a radical idea. The notion that the nation’s existence reflects a quest to promote an idea — securing the common good by protecting individual liberty — was itself a radical innovation in its day, and one we are in danger of taking for granted.

In what struck me as burying the lede, the President made few if any bold policy pronouncements or proposals until he mentioned his administration’s plan to present a proposal to reorganize executive branch departments and agencies to reflect his agenda. He gave few hints at what this might look like beyond offering an amusing anecdote about the conflicted way in which our government regulates and protects salmon, smoked and otherwise.

Incremental changes in government administration, tax policy and fiscal management will not fix the problems facing our country or renew the promise of its founding documents or the potential of its citizens. The President admitted as much himself, but he offered few if any tangible insights into how we might restore the vitality of the institutions touched by the agenda he proposed. I for one hope that the relative position of comments concerning reorganization of executive branch functions in his remarks does not reflect the true priority of this initiative. If it does, the other planks of the platform he outlined may be doomed.

Finally, unless you count his goal of increasing the percentage of energy we produce from renewable sources to 80 percent by 2035, his remarks barely touched on homeland security. When he turned to foreign policy concerns near the end of his address, he relied almost entirely on boilerplate plaudits. While renewing promises that al Qaeda, its affiliates and supporters will have no safe haven while he occupies the Oval Office, he made the point that renewed focus on domestic issues does not mean abandoning our commitments abroad or seeing those beyond our borders solely as consumers or competitors.

With all of this said, I wonder whether you see the President’s remarks as new rules, a new game or neither? Either way, what would you like to see come of each of the four policy planks he proposed? How will actions to implement policies in each of the four areas — innovation, education, infrastructure and debt — help us build a stronger, safer nation?

             Representative Harold “Hal” Rogers (R-Kentucky).  Picture by the Associated Press

Earlier this week the House Republican Steering Committee and House Republican Conference tapped Harold “Hal” Rogers as the next Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.  Selection of the senior member of Kentucky’s House delegation was greeted by protests from Left and Right.

Mr. Rogers previously served as both chairman and ranking-member of the Homeland Security subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.  He also served on the transportation and defense appropriations subcommittees. (See his official biography.)

Elected in 1980 to represent one the nation’s most economically challenged congressional districts, Mr. Rogers has been effective directing federal funds to a wide array of local wants and needs.  As such he has been assailed by the Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), New York Times, and others as the “Prince of Pork.”  This accusation headlined most of the news coverage given his pending role as chairman of the Appropriations Committee.  Mr. Rogers has joined other GOP leaders in pledging no-new-earmarks.

Constituting less than .05 percent (half of one percent) of the federal budget I perceive outrage over earmarks to be one of those symptoms that complicate diagnosis and treatment of the underlying disease.  In this particular case the pork barrel critiques of Mr. Rogers also obscure his substantive legislative record and specific interest in homeland security.

Full disclosure: from 2005 through 2007 I was Chairman of the Board of a company with a facility in Mr. Rogers congressional district.  As such I often participated in local economic development activities and met with Mr. Rogers or his staff.  During several of these discussions, homeland security was a topic.  While we would not have turned down an earmark sponsored by Mr. Rogers, the company I served did not receive such support. 

From this experience I came away with three strong impressions:

1. Mr. Rogers is an accessible and intelligent man.  He has a particular interest in homeland security and especially in how science and technology can be a force-multiplier.  In my first encounter with the Congressman he quizzed me on homeland security like the former prosecutor he is.  He knows the issues. He understands the complications. He is sophisticated in his strategic approach to homeland security challenges.  He listens.  This personal impression was confirmed by watching him question witnesses in subcommittee hearings. 

2. Mr. Rogers is consistently bipartisan in his approach.  The old saw says there are three parties on Capitol Hill: Republicans, Democrats, and Appropriators. While Mr. Rogers is certainly conservative in most ways, appropriators tend to be pragmatic and less partisan.   This approach served him well in the Minority, it is likely to mark his return to the Majority and to leadership of the full Appropriations Committee.  Chairing Appropriations has been a long-time personal ambition.  On December 31 he will turn 73.  Mr. Rogers is not looking to squander this opportunity.  Leaving a meaningful legacy is one of the more constructive motivations.

3. Like all members of  Congress and most busy professionals,  Mr. Rogers is — at least in part – a creature of his staff and contacts.  Every staff member I met was smart, competent, and wildly over-worked.  Both on Capitol Hill and back in the District what I observed was a tendency for the most narrowly self-interested people to be the most assertive and effective communicators, proposers, and planners.  On several occasions I saw senior public servants choke and defer when Mr. Rogers or his staff were entirely prepared to listen to alternatives.  In retrospect I was one of a whole host of folks who should have — could have — pushed harder on key issues of homeland security.  My hesitation — our hesitation, or cynicism, or laziness, or disdain — just offers opportunity to others who are more willing and ready claim a Congressman’s attention.

Because homeland security — the mission, not the budget per se – is important to me, I will be glad to see Mr. Rogers become Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.   He is more interested in and better able to meaningfully engage homeland security than any other serious candidate for the leadership role.  

As always in democracies — even those with republican constitutions — the quality of leadership will reflect and largely depend on the quality of those who choose to seriously engage the process.