Hoping to remedy crucial weaknesses identified by the 1995 blast at the federal building in Oklahoma City, a House subcommittee Tuesday approved a bill, H.R. 809, that would reorganize and beef up the force that provides security at federal offices.
The bill, approved on a voice vote by the Economic Development, Public Buildings, Hazardous Materials and Pipeline Transportation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, reorganizes the Federal Protective Service, a division of the General Services Administration.
It would make the FPS a free-standing service with a commissioner who, by law, must have a law enforcement supervision experience. It would give FPS officers a pay raise, placing them on a scale equal to the Secret Service uniformed division, and increase their numbers from 674 to at least 730. Clarifying the officers' authority, the bill also specifies they have the right to carry firearms and make arrests within 500 feet of federal property.
The bill also would request a General Accounting Office study on the consolidation of security services at federal buildings, and would require federal background checks for an estimated 5,000 private security guards hired under federal contracts to help provide security at federal offices.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the committee's oversight subcommittee.
Only a single, part-time, private security guard was on duty at the time of the blast at the Alfred P. Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people, according to Traficant and others. The lone security guard also had to patrol two other federal buildings in the area. Traficant has said that the absence of visible security could have helped make the building a target.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said the bill has bipartisan support. Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., the subcommittee chairman, praised the bill.
"This bill is strongly supported by federal police entities and certainly will increase security in our federal buildings throughout the country," Franks said.
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