DHS Seeks Streamlined Oversight

Homeland Security Department officials swear they don't mind congressional oversight. They'd just like a little less of it, thank you very much.

In an op-ed in today's New York Times, Stephen R. Heifetz, DHS's deputy assistant secretary for policy development, bemoans the "congressional mess" his department faces on a regular basis. With an obligation to respond to the 80 committees and subcommittees that oversee DHS and its component agencies, the department, he says, has little time to actually develop and implement policy.

The "surplus of committees compels agency workers to devote countless hours to responding to literally thousands of requests and conflicting congressional priorities," Heifetz writes. "In 2007 alone, department officials testified at 231 Congressional hearings and provided more than 2,600 briefings to legislators and their staffs."

What's worse, he says, "individual committees focus on the risks in their domain at the expense of comparable â€" and perhaps greater â€" risks outside."