TSA dismantles maritime unit, reassigns employees

The Transportation Security Administration has disbanded its Office of Maritime and Land Security in what the agency says is an effort to comply with a presidential homeland security directive.

According to a TSA spokesman, the Feb. 7 reorganization created an intermodal program with a new boss, Theresa Bertucci. She oversees security for postal operations and shipping as well as seven modes of transportation, including the agency's high-profile aviation work. Bertucci served as TSA's acting chief of staff in 2004. Spokesman Darrin Kayser said he was not familiar with her experience in transportation issues or other details of her professional background.

The move sidelined TSA Assistant Administrator Chet Lunner, one of the agency's founders. He had been in charge of maritime, railroad, highway, mass transit and pipeline security since June 2003. Lunner now serves as a special adviser to Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Fleming. He declined Government Executive's request for comment Friday.

Employees of the Office of Maritime and Land Security were dispersed to other jobs within the agency, Kayser said. How many workers were affected is not clear.

The shake-up, Kayser said, gives the three-year-old agency a "better organizational structure" that will improve internal communication, aid its response to emergencies and increase its odds for success in implementing President Bush's December 2003 directive on protecting the nation's critical infrastructure. "We continue to evolve as an agency," he told Government Executive.

The directive instructs federal departments and agencies to identify, prioritize and coordinate the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources that could be harmed or exploited in a terrorist attack. It calls for uniform policies and approaches to integrate infrastructure protection and risk management activities across critical sectors, including information technology, telecommunications and transportation systems.

The directive also requires the Homeland Security Department, in which TSA resides, to collaborate with the Transportation Department and relevant private entities on all transportation infrastructure protection and security matters.

TSA often is criticized for moving too slowly and spending too little to secure the 3.9 million miles of public roads, 2.2 million miles of pipeline, 120,000 miles of railroad track and 361 commercial ports that make up the nation's surface transportation infrastructure.

Lunner had overseen development of high-level security strategies for each surface transportation mode. Kayser said TSA distributed its security operation to complement those strategies, which are spelled out in an interim critical infrastructure protection plan that DHS released earlier this month.