Panelists call for emergency communications mandate

Members of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and a panel of national security experts criticized the Homeland Security Department Tuesday for not doing enough to ensure that state and local governments have interoperable communications equipment, adding that Congress should mandate new standards.

"If we can't solve this ... then you really question where we are in the department," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee. "I don't want to place blame [but] we cannot, as the United States of America, get this done."

She said Congress has passed legislation since 2003 aimed at getting the department to improve the ability of public safety agencies to communicate, but problems persist. Former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., who co-chaired the National Commission on Terrorism, said Congress should mandate what kind of communications equipment states should buy and set standards governing what radio frequencies they should use. "Why it hasn't been done better than it's been done is just frankly beyond me," he said.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said nobody from the department was invited to testify at the hearing. "We're always pleased to have a chance to brief the Hill on our programs and priorities, and we're encouraged by the positive discussions we've had with new committee leadership and members thus far," the spokesman said. "There's no question that it is going to be helpful to get the ground truth directly from the department, and we're looking forward to continuing those discussions in the weeks and months ahead."

A subcommittee aide said the hearing was intended to examine the advice and perspectives from people outside of the department.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. James Loy, a former DHS deputy secretary, said Congress should require the department to develop a strategic plan for what it wants to accomplish by 2020 and how those goals will be reached. He said he was frustrated when he left the department in 2005, and remains frustrated that DHS has not done more to improve communications across agencies. "The challenge with respect to interoperable communications is probably the most dramatically identified challenge that we've had on the table since 9/11," he said.

Former Rep. Timothy Roemer, D-Ind., who was a member of the 9/11 Commission, said Congress should take $10 billion out of President Bush's emergency spending supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and put it toward domestic security, including helping states and cities buy interoperable communications equipment. Former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., the other co-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, said homeland security is suffering because the National Guard is deployed abroad.

"I happen to believe that the deployment of the Guard overseas undermines homeland security," he said. "We are weakened by the way the Guard is being deployed."