Homeland Security Bill Tops Legislative Agenda

By GORDON I. PETERSON
Senior Editor

When Congress returns from its one-month summer recess on 3 September, it will face a crowded legislative calendar and the pressing task of finalizing a bipartisan homeland-security bill reconciling the remaining differences between House and Senate versions of the legislation. Labor rights emerged as a contentious issue during the Senate's formulation of its version of the bill--with Bush administration officials vowing they would not back off from the president's call for wide-ranging authority to hire, fire, and discipline 170,000 workers in the new Department of Homeland Security.

The House of Representatives' 319-page homeland-security bill, passed by a vote of 295 to 132 on 26 July, largely follows the measures proposed by President Bush in his new homeland-security strategy, but the Senate did not complete action on its version of the bill prior to adjourning for the traditional August congressional recess.

Included in the House bill (H.R. 5005) are provisions to realign several federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security to bolster the security of U.S. borders. Under the House plan, the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the enforcement and border-protection functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and inspectors assigned to the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service all will be transferred to the new department.

The House bill also requires the commandant of the Coast Guard to report to the secretary that all of its assigned missions are being adequately performed. This provision is aimed at allaying the fears of some members of Congress that some of the Coast Guard's traditional missions--e.g., search and rescue, fishery patrols, and aids to navigation--might be shortchanged, given the administration's continued emphasis on the Coast Guard's homeland-defense responsibilities and the need for increased security in U.S. offshore waters as well as in the nation's ports, harbors, and inland as well as coastal waterways.

Managerial Flexibility Needed

The House bill satisfies the administration's request to grant the secretary of homeland security greater flexibility in personnel management in such areas as performance appraisals, job classifications, pay, labor management, and policies for administering adverse personnel actions. Existing federal employee protections--civil rights, veteran-hiring preferences, prohibitions on age discrimination, workplace access for the disabled, etc.--also are preserved in the House bill, however.

Bush administration officials have charged that the Senate's version of the homeland-security bill does not provide the president sufficient management flexibility. Speaking to a gathering of Republican lawmakers, firefighters, police officers, and emergency-service personnel on 26 July, Bush said that his administration is working with Congress to forge a bipartisan bill, but he renewed his call for broader personnel-policy authority in the Department of Homeland Security.
"I'm not going to accept legislation," Bush said, "that limits or weakens the president's well-established authorities--authorities to exempt parts of government from federal-labor management relations statutes--when it serves our national interest."

"Meaningful Differences" Remain

Responding to the president's criticism of the Senate bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, said that the Senate version of the bill is similar in most respects to the House version, and accommodates most of the president's homeland-security proposals. He conceded, however, that there are some "meaningful differences" between the Senate's approach to homeland security and the president's, notably in the Senate's requirement for a robust intelligence-coordinating directorate.

Lieberman said that he has been disappointed by the "emerging partisan tone" of the administration's public statements about the requested presidential authority to alter existing civil-service and worker-protection laws in the new department.
"The fact is," Lieberman said, "existing law, which is reaffirmed in our bill, gives the president and his secretary substantial flexibility to manage the new department. They can reward excellence, fire poorly performing employees, offer recruitment bonuses, and more."

After the full Senate votes on its version of the bill, House and Senate conferees will meet to reconcile any remaining differences between the two versions of the legislation. As of mid-August it was far from certain if the conferees could agree on a final version of the homeland-security bill, framed to the president's satisfaction, in time for it to be signed into law by the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks--as Bush and many lawmakers had hoped.

Davis Shipbuilding Bill Seeks 375-Ship Fleet

Citing the urgent need to increase the Navy's force structure, Congresswoman Jo Ann S. Davis (R-Va.) has introduced legislation that would establish specific guidelines designed to rebuild the Navy after a decade's shipbuilding holiday.
The proposed legislation (The National Naval Force Structure Policy Act, H.R. 5196) states that it is U.S. policy to rebuild, as soon as possible, the size of the Navy's fleet to no fewer than 375 ships in active service--to include 15 aircraft carrier battle groups and 15 amphibious ready groups. Two years ago, the Navy issued a report suggesting a force structure of 360 ships could substantially reduce the risks to U.S. national security.

"Now, with the war on terror," Davis said, "our current force structure is no longer adequate to address the challenges of the future. This legislation creates the parameters in which we can build the Navy to meet existing and future threats to our homeland."

Noting that the U.S. Constitution requires Congress to "provide and maintain a Navy," Davis said the shipbuilding legislation would establish the responsibility for Congress and the White House to plan to meet the specified fleet strength of 375 ships.

The Navy League of the United States and the American Shipbuilding Association quickly endorsed the proposed legislation as "a matter of national urgency."

"The current build rate will not result in the type of force needed to defend our homeland, fight the war on terrorism, and maintain freedom of the seas," said Timothy O. Fanning, the Navy League's national president. According to Fanning, an early, and major, increase in shipbuilding is "essential for the recapitalization of our naval fleet."

Critics Question Need For New CVNX Study

In a move that some industry officials have characterized as "studying a program to death," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has directed a new analysis of the CVNX future aircraft carrier program--despite the recent completion of a comprehensive report on the program by the Defense Science Board. Rumsfeld's tasking is included in the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) he issued in May to serve as groundwork for preparation of the fiscal year (FY) 2004 to 2009 FYDP (Future Years Defense Program). Industry sources told Sea Power that the Department of Defense (DOD) plans to "reexamine" not only the CVNX program but also four other major defense-acquisition programs to identify possible candidates for future funding reductions.

One retired Navy flag officer told Sea Power that he found it "quite shocking" to see yet another study of Navy aircraft carriers ordered when the DSB's report is already in hand. "It just does not make sense," he said. The Navy, the Department of Defense, and Congress have analyzed more than 70 options associated with the aircraft carrier since the early 1990s, and spiral development of the CVNX was adopted as the best approach to build and maintain the number of carriers needed to meet the warfighting requirements postulated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president, and the secretary of defense.

Members of the DSB would not discuss the conclusions of their carrier study, but industry sources said that it emphasizes that sea-based aviation is a keystone in U.S. military power now and for the foreseeable future. The Navy's current carrier force is said to have no margin for future growth to insert new capabilities. "It is time to get on with the CVNX-1 program now to reduce carrier cost and to provide opportunities to demonstrate new sea-based air capabilities," is how the DSB's report was described to Sea Power.

Asked why it is necessary to conduct a new CVNX study when the DSB's report is still in the "chop" process, DOD spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin told Sea Power that the DPG directed a number of studies in support of the FY 2004 budget-formulation process, with Secretary Rumsfeld's emphasis on transformation included in the underlying assumptions. The studies will be completed and their results considered this autumn, she said.

One industry source said that Rumsfeld's tasking implicitly questions the need for 12 big-deck aircraft carriers. It should be noted, this person said, that the last DOD budget to contain funding for the development of a small-deck carrier was prepared in the 1970s, during Rumfeld's first tour as secretary of defense.

Recent DOD studies, including one completed by the 2001 Study Group on Transformation, concluded that the CVNX program is "transformational" in the sense advocated by Rumsfeld himself. Capt. Dudley Berthold, the Navy's future carriers program manager, told Sea Power that the future carrier will maintain naval aviation's core capabilities (high-volume firepower, survivability, sustainability, and mobility) while introducing new technologies, systems, designs, and processes that will enhance the Navy's overall warfighting capabilities, significantly reduce the total-ownership costs (TOC) of future carriers, and allow significant "flexibility for change" within the ship's design.

CVNX-1's projected manpower reductions are expected to reduce crew requirements by 300 to 500 billets, resulting in a TOC savings of between $1.5 billion to $3.1 billion.

"OSD's [Office of the Secretary of Defense's] analytical process for reviewing programs since Bush came to office has been arbitrary and amateurish," said Dr. Loren B. Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute. "I do not detect among senior policymakers a serious understanding of relevant technologies, operational realities, or even political rhythms--a bad outcome on CVNX thus seems possible."

Ronald O'Rourke, a national-defense specialist with the Congressional Research Service, told Sea Power that he considers the DOD reexamination of the CVNX program to be a resumption to some degree of the examination of the CVNX that was carried out in 2001 as part of the so-called "Rumsfeld Studies" on defense policy and programs. "Although many studies on aircraft carriers have been done in previous years, and although some of the findings of these older studies may be included in the new DPG-directed study," O'Rourke said, "the information in the studies will be looked at differently than in the past--through the lens of OSD's interest in transformation and in the context of defense planning in the post-9/11 environment." *