Homeland Security under fire for plans to finance new facility
Appropriators say they were unaware until March that the department intended to provide such direct support to the computer investigations institute.
House appropriators are questioning the Homeland Security Department's plan to help finance and staff a new computer investigations center in Alabama, saying the project smacks of an administration "earmark" that might have been allowed to proceed without competitive bidding or congressional approval.
Appropriators criticized the department's hand in developing the National Computer Forensic Institute in Hoover, Ala., in their report accompanying the fiscal 2008 Homeland Security appropriations bill, scheduled to be on the House floor Tuesday.
The center, located in the district of Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., will train state and local law enforcement officials on how to do cyber-investigations and forensic analysis of computers and other electronics equipment, Homeland Security officials said.
Homeland Security will provide trainers and equipment to the center, the officials said.
But appropriators said they did not find out the department was planning to provide such direct support to the center, including funding, until a news release was issued in early March.
The department plans initially to spend $9 million on the center, which is to come out of state and local grant programs, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told appropriators during a hearing in March, after the announcement was made.
That prompted House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price, D-N.C., and ranking member Harold Rogers, R-Ky., to single out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for creating the Bush administration's equivalent of an earmark.
In this case, they said, Chertoff made a unilateral decision to divert money away from state and local grants to support the Alabama training center.
"This is outrageous," Rogers said at the hearing. "By the Constitution, no dollar can be spent but for an appropriation of the Congress. That's as elementary as you can get.
"And here's a fairly significant program -- it's certainly expensive -- where we learn about it in a press account, that the secretary decided apparently on his own, and apparently with your concurrence," Rogers told Sullivan.
Sullivan replied: "Chairman Price, Congressman Rogers, I apologize if we did something here -- well, obviously, we did -- that we shouldn't have done. Our intention here was to ... do what we thought was a good thing for state and local law enforcement," according to a transcript of the hearing.
Rogers said he was also furious that the department plans to use state and local grant funding for the project.
"It's in violation, in my judgment at this early date, of the formula grant laws that we enacted, and certainly against the practice of this subcommittee," Rogers said.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman said the city of Hoover approached the department with the idea for the center. She said the department did "a cost comparison" to other options before deciding to proceed with it.
She was unable to clarify, however, whether the department went through a formal competitive process and issued a request for proposals before deciding to support the center.
She said the department is also working now with Office of Management and Budget and congressional appropriators to determine "the funding mechanism" for the center in the future.
Space for the center is being provided rent free for six years by the city of Hoover. The Alabama District Attorney's Association is also a key sponsor.
In their committee report, House appropriators demanded the department submit a report 30 days after the appropriations bill is signed into law providing a detailed description of the source and amount of funds to be used in support of the center.
"While the committee strongly supports the department's effort to fight cyber crime, the department's first notification to Congress of this program was via a press release announcing the secretary's ribbon cutting at the planned center," appropriators wrote. "This approach represents a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of" the law, they added.
Appropriators also demanded a legal opinion "providing the legal basis for the actions taken in establishing this activity."
"In addition, the report shall include a justification outlining why this activity is properly undertaken by the Secret Service and DHS rather than the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice," they added.