By Calvin Biesecker
Going ahead with a resolution that cuts more than $1 billion from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) budget in FY ’11 would delay projects and progress across the range of homeland security missions, the nation’s top homeland security official said yesterday.
For border security operations the Continuing Resolution for FY ’11 “basically stops our progress in its tracks,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the House Homeland Security Committee. “As you know we’ve been adding record amounts of agents and record amounts of technology…to our border and if anything we’re going to have to cut back.”
Napolitano said the FY ’12 budget request for DHS provides for the deployment of more Border Patrol agents than ever before who will be aided by additional deployments of technology for border security. However, she said that if the Continuing Resolution becomes the basis for the FY ’12 budget, the “expansions” planned for border security won’t be protected and will put the country back several years in terms of resources devoted to border security.
During her testimony, Napolitano essentially reiterated concerns she outlined before House and Senate appropriations panels on Wednesday about the impact to DHS from budget cuts contained in the Continuing Resolution that is temporarily funding the federal government for now (Defense Daily, March 3). Still, she provided additional color and details about the security fallout from the cuts.
Regarding the deployment of cyber security technology meant to detect, and eventually prevent, intrusions on government computer networks, she said the budget resolution would “cause significant delays” here.
Napolitano said that Einstein 3, a security system that is being developed to prevent network intrusions, would be delayed “at least two or three years in terms of our ability to deploy it” if the Continuing Resolution takes hold for the rest of FY ’11.
Cyber security is one of five key mission areas of DHS. The DHS budget request for FY ’12 boosts spending on cyber security and, if enacted, would allow for the deployment of Einstein 3 to be accelerated and also provide funding to increase the department’s cyber workforce, Napolitano said.
In addition to cuts to various DHS operations, the Continuing Resolution would also chop more than a $1 billion in grant monies that Federal Emergency Management Agency provides to states and localities, which Napolitano called part of the comprehensive homeland security architecture.
In other areas, Napolitano said that no funding is requested in FY ’12 for a biometric air exit solution as part of the US-VISIT program because the cost to too great. Instead, DHS is focused on making sure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is adequately funded to track and pick up foreign nationals who overstay their visas in the United States, she said.