Officials, lawmakers at odds over how to eliminate security clearance backlog

The security clearance process for Defense Department employees is flawed and plagued with delays, but there is no consensus on how to resolve the problems and reduce the backlog of uncleared workers, according to officials and lawmakers who oversee the system.

In a series of interviews with Government Executive, Defense officials and lawmakers said the security clearance process is too slow, especially while the military is engaged overseas.

"The issue is one of national security, more than anything else," said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "It is also a matter of inefficiency, but that's not the greatest concern."

Moran has encouraged personnel officials at the Pentagon to ask Congress for more funding to increase the capacity and staffing at security clearance agencies. He has also encouraged federal agencies to enact policies that would allow more reciprocity for security clearances and reduce the need for overlapping checks.

"It's really an authorization issue, and it has to be done by the Government Reform Committee. We're supposed to leave those issues to the authorizing committee," Moran said. "They definitely need more investigators, but they also need a policy change. That's why it is difficult to rectify this in the authorization process."

Moran sat in on a Government Reform Committee hearing in May where federal personnel officials said they were not able to keep up with the flow of security clearances needed for contractors working for the Pentagon.

"The demand for background checks exceeds our capacity," testified Stephen Benowitz, Office of Personnel Management associate director for human resources products and services. "We believe the process is one that needs improvement."

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, also is frustrated at the clearances logjam. He said he intends to hold more hearings later this year on the problem. According to Davis, OPM and the Defense Department are not taking the necessary first steps-identifying the size and scope of the clearance backlog-that would allow Congress to add more resources to the system.

"At a minimum, we would have increased the staffing somewhere," he said. "We're looking at all the options. We need to get the administration committed to solving this because it is costing the taxpayers."

At the May hearing , personnel officials said there were 188,000 Defense contractors waiting for personnel investigators to make a decision on their security clearances. They could not provide a firm number of Pentagon employees whoare awaiting clearances. A spokeswoman for the Defense Security Service, which conducts background checks of Pentagon applicants, said there are 70,000 cases waiting investigation from 2004, and more than 50,000 unfinished cases from 2003. OPM also conducts security clearance investigations for the Defense Department; officials there would not comment on the size of their case backlog.

Carol Clubb, the DSS spokeswoman, said the security clearance caseload is probably not affecting ongoing military action because particularly important cases are moved to the front of the line. Included in that list are presidential support staff, personnel who deal with nuclear weapons, psychological operations personnel, and officials who work with NATO.

"Some cases we have always worked as a priority, because they are vital to national security," she said. Clubb acknowledged, however, that there are more unfinished security clearance cases than Pentagon leadership would like.

"We are definitely not meeting the goals that we have established," she said.

According to Davis and Moran, personnel officials will have difficulty getting any closer to those goals unless they conduct an honest accounting of the problem.