Inadequate processes for developing requirements across the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have led to poor budgeting and execution for personnel and equipment needs, House appropriators say in a draft report accompanying their version of the department’s FY ’17 spending bill.
“The recent experience of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) serves as a leading example of an organizational failure to establish and implement a rigorous requirements process,” says the draft report of the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. “The security gaps in TSA’s passenger screening processes identified by the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) covert testing in 2015, along with the more recent spike in passenger volume resulting in unacceptably long wait times in screening lines at some of the nation’s airports, are due to the lack of a comprehensive understanding of the agency’s operational requirements.”
The report also says that TSA’s constantly changing acquisition plan is “further evidence of an inadequate requirements process.”
In its request for airport passenger checkpoint screening technology, TSA asked for $49.2 million for the next-generation of Advanced Technology X-ray systems for screening carry-on bags. However, subsequent to the request, the agency told Congress that it doesn’t plan to purchase the AT-2 X-ray systems, with the committee saying the agency “plans to use the proposed funding for a different technology that has neither been tested at the checkpoint nor is a validated requirement.”
TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger last week told a Senate committee that TSA hopes this summer to test computed tomography (CT) X-ray systems at an airport. The CT technology is used to screen checked bags at airports at higher speeds than the AT X-ray systems and using automated explosive detection algorithms lacking in the current checkpoint systems.
The report doesn’t specify what the new technology is. The subcommittee recommends fencing the $49.2 million until the DHS undersecretary for management “certifies…not later than 15 days in advance, that the funds will be expended for transportation security equipment with a validated requirement and an approved acquisition baseline.”
The appropriations panel wants DHS to assess the processes and resources its various components have in place for developing and prioritizing requirements; research best practices; identify gaps and redundancies; and develop and execute a strategy to ensure that operational and resource decisions are fundamentally driven and supported by validated requirements.”
DHS and its components have suffered costly mismatches in the past between acquisition programs and user requirements. Development and testing of a next-generation cargo radiation screening system progressed within the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office for several years despite a lack of input from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The program was eventually terminated.
CBP also acquired, tested and deployed 53 miles of an electronic border security system called SBInet without consistent and sufficient input from the Border Patrol, which uses the system. DHS eventually cancelled SBInet and replaced it in part with the Integrated Fixed Tower system, which must receive approval from the Border Patrol before a deployment it is declared operational and the next deployment is permitted.
The subcommittee said the reestablishment of the Joint Requirements Council at DHS is a step in the right direction, as is a relatively new Southern Border Campaign that brings together various stakeholders to implement a joint approach to border security. This joint approach needs to be part of the “lexicon, operations, and strategic plans” of the components, the report says.
The subcommittee says that the DHS components need to adopt the joint requirements process “and improve their ability to provide improved life cycle cost estimates and to better justify component-specific investment items.”
The report acknowledges that the personnel skills needed to institutionalize the requirements process “are in small supply at DHS,” adding that the department consider analyzing whether it has the appropriate resources to devote to requirements.