[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DIRECTORATE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING
THREATS, CYBERSECURITY,
AND SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 3, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-54
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
57-456 PDF WASHINGTON : 2011
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Loretta Sanchez, California Peter T. King, New York
Jane Harman, California Lamar Smith, Texas
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Daniel E. Lungren, California
Columbia Mike Rogers, Alabama
Zoe Lofgren, California Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Charles W. Dent, Pennsylvania
Henry Cuellar, Texas Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida
Christopher P. Carney, Pennsylvania Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Candice S. Miller, Michigan
Laura Richardson, California Pete Olson, Texas
Ann Kirkpatrick, Arizona Anh ``Joseph'' Cao, Louisiana
Ben Ray Lujan, New Mexico Steve Austria, Ohio
William L. Owens, New York
Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri
Al Green, Texas
James A. Himes, Connecticut
Mary Jo Kilroy, Ohio
Eric J.J. Massa, New York
Dina Titus, Nevada
I. Lanier Avant, Staff Director
Rosaline Cohen, Chief Counsel
Michael Twinchek, Chief Clerk
Robert O'Connor, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS, CYBERSECURITY, AND SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
Yvette D. Clarke, New York, Chairwoman
Loretta Sanchez, California Daniel E. Lungren, California
Ben Ray Lujan, New Mexico Paul C. Broun, Georgia
William L. Owens, New York Steve Austria, Ohio
Mary Jo Kilroy, Ohio Peter T. King, New York (Ex
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi (Ex Officio)
Officio)
Jacob Olcott, Staff Director
Dr. Chris Beck, Senior Advisor for Science and Technology
Ryan Caldwell, Clerk
Coley O'Brien, Minority Subcommittee Lead
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Yvette D. Clark, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Emerging
Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology............. 1
The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress
From the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology. 2
Witnesses
Dr. Tara O'Toole, Under Secretary for Science and Technology,
Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Appendix
Questions From Chairwoman Yvette D. Clarke for Dr. Tara O'Toole,
Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 25
THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DIRECTORATE
----------
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and
Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:43 p.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Yvette D. Clarke
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Clarke, Lujan, Owens, and Lungren.
Ms. Clarke [presiding]. Good afternoon. The subcommittee is
meeting today to receive testimony from Under Secretary Tara
O'Toole on the Department of Homeland Security's Science and
Technology Directorate.
Dr. O'Toole, we are pleased to have you here today.
The S&T Directorate is a critical element of the
Department's efforts to secure the homeland, and I know many of
us are eager to hear about your plans and priorities for S&T.
Spurred by the findings of several reports, the committee
initiated a comprehensive review of the organization and
activities of the Science and Technology Directorate. Our
purpose was to identify areas within the directorate that
necessitate additional oversight or modifications to
legislative authorities.
In doing so, we have received--excuse me, we have reviewed
the Homeland Security Act and the Department's use of the
authorities of Congress has vested in it. We have also received
insight and information from DHS leadership, stakeholders, the
R&D community, business leaders, and independent analysts.
It is clear that improvements have been made since the
directorate was first stood up. Many of us share the opinion of
the National Academy of Public Administration, which stated in
its comprehensive review of S&T in 2009 that ``S&T has made
strides towards becoming a mature and productive research and
development organization, particularly during the last 3
years.''
S&T research activities have, indeed, created products that
are used today by DHS, the first responder community, and
infrastructure owners and operators to better secure our
homeland. These products are as varied as the Department's
mission and include everything from secure USB devices and
chemical detection systems to reports, training modules, and
standards. We commend S&T for these activities.
I think we would all agree, however, that despite positive
steps forward, much work remains. NAPA concluded in their 2009
report that S&T's ability to fulfill its mission is ``limited
by the lack of a cohesive strategy, the insularity that defines
its culture, and the lack of mechanisms necessary to assess its
performance in a systematic way.''
This deeply concerns us and squares with the committee's
own review. Our analysis suggests that DHS does not have a
clear risk-based methodology to determine what projects to
fund, how much to fund, and how to evaluate a project's
effectiveness or usefulness.
We found that, in spite of investing in hundreds of
research projects, most technologies are never transitioned
into acquisition programs. This makes it difficult to evaluate
the directorate's success in mitigating security
vulnerabilities.
Without metrics, it becomes difficult for Congress to
justify increases in programmatic funding. That is why I
believe this is a crucial time for S&T. S&T will never achieve
success unless research rules and metrics are more fully
established.
Under Secretary O'Toole, this is your responsibility, and
we will judge you based on your achievements in these areas. We
look forward to hearing about your efforts to address these
issues. We all stand ready to support you and look forward to
working with you in the upcoming years.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.
Lungren, for an opening statement.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Welcome, Under Secretary O'Toole. I appreciate the fact
that you took some time out to meet with me in my office some
time ago, where we could talk about the challenges for your
directorate.
I would just say that this is my sixth year on this
committee. It is the sixth year of this existence of this as a
standing committee. During that period of time, we have grown
along with the Department of Homeland Security.
I was thinking the other day, it is sort of like watching a
child go through elementary school. You go through the various
developmental steps, going from one grade to the other, and you
have greater expectations as you proceed forward, as we do of
ourselves and as we do of the Department.
I do think there has been progress in the overall
Department. I do believe there is greater coordination of the
disparate elements that came together to make up the
Department.
I do believe that your directorate has a particular
challenge, and it is an on-going challenge, and I have even
heard more about it since the terrorist attempt on Christmas
day, a lot of ideas of people who believe that their companies
or their particular ideas should have merit.
They want to make sure that the small entrepreneurial ideas
are looked at, as well as those that come out of the large
shops, the already existing ones, and I know that is a
challenge for those of us who serve on these committees and
serve in the Congress. I know it has got to be a tremendous
challenge for you.
That is one of the things I hope that you would address
today. How do we ensure that we don't lose out on the potential
ideas that may be out there that may be out of the box? How do
we ensure that those who are not the big boys have an
opportunity to present themselves to you, your directorate, and
to the Department through you or in other ways?
How do we accelerate the--how do we accelerate the time
from an original idea to a testable product to actually having
it engaged by contract? The bad guys are out there. They are
attempting to try and deal with us in a variety of different
ways.
One of the great ways that we have been able to keep ahead
of the bad guys, whether they are nation-states or in this case
transnational terrorist organizations, is that we have the
ingenuity of the American spirit and we have a flexibility or
an agility that marks this country.
I am always reminded when I have read Stephen Ambrose's
various pieces of work of literature about World War II, that
he defined the greatness of our forces with the idea of
ingenuity, creativity, thinking out of the box, and the fact
that somehow our system of decision-making allowed those ideas
to percolate up. He would contrast it with some of our enemy
nations and their inability to have that flexibility.
So I would hope that in some way we can capture that spirit
of encouraging ingenuity and somehow working through what is
inevitable. You have to have a bureaucracy. You have got to
make decisions. You have got to make sure that the Government
is spending its money wisely.
But having said that, how do we ensure that in that pursuit
we also ensure that your doors are open for that thought nobody
else has that could be crucial to the decisions that we have to
make in the future? I know that is a big challenge for you. I
am all ears to find out how you are approaching this.
I want to thank you for your prior service to this Nation
and applaud you for taking this assignment and look forward to
hearing your words today.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Ranking Member Lungren, for your
opening statement.
To other Members of the subcommittee, you are reminded that
under the committee rules, opening statements may be submitted
for the record.
I now welcome our witness, Under Secretary Tara O'Toole.
Dr. O'Toole was confirmed as Under Secretary for Science and
Technology in 2009. She is an expert on biological weapons and
terrorism. Prior to her appointment, she led the University of
Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity. She was the director of
the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense
Strategies and on the faculty at the School of Hygiene and
Public Health.
From 1993 to 1997, Dr. O'Toole served as assistant
secretary of energy for Environment, Safety and Health. Dr.
O'Toole earned her B.A. from Vassar College and her M.D. from
George Washington University.
We are pleased to welcome you to this subcommittee hearing.
We appreciate your efforts to respond to the committee's
questions in preparation for our authorization bill. You may
now proceed with your opening statement.
Welcome, once again.
STATEMENT OF TARA O'TOOLE, UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Dr. O'Toole. Sorry. I ask that my written statement be
entered into the record, and I will just give some brief
opening remarks.
Ms. Clarke. Without objection.
Dr. O'Toole. Thank you. I have been under secretary for a
little less than 4 months now. I believe there is a great deal
of value that is going on in the directorate and look forward
to increasing that flow of products and knowledge with your
help.
We have been engaged in a strategic planning process that I
intend to be on-going throughout my tenure, and I want to thank
you and your staffs and the other Members for your advice and
your concern and your conversations with respect to our
strategic planning effort.
I view this hearing as yet another input into the process
of building an increasingly productive relationship between the
directorate and the committee.
I thought I would comment today on some of the top
priorities that I have identified so far for the directorate.
First of all, as I tried to illustrate in my written statement,
the directorate's work is tremendously diverse, reflecting the
huge scope of interest in missions embraced by the Department
as a whole, and the even more expansive needs of what we now
call the homeland security enterprise, which includes not just
DHS and not just Federal agencies, but all the State and local
first responders and entities that would be engaged and are
engaged every day in protecting the country from terrorism and
who would be engaged, should we have to respond to an attack or
a National disaster.
The first job of the S&T Directorate, of course, is to
develop technologies to meet the operational needs of the DHS
components and including first responders. There are three
principal ways I have identified thus far wherein this process
of technology development might be improved, particularly in
the near term.
First, I want to mature and strengthen the integrated
product teams, which are the mechanism my predecessor invented
for linking the needs of the components, our primary customers,
to technology development projects and priorities.
I think this process is key, but I think it can be made
much more consistent across the integrated project teams and
more analytically rigorous, getting to your comments,
Congressman, about the need for a risk-based approach to what
we fund.
I also would like to create a space in the Department for
thinking more strategically across the Department about science
and technology, so not just component by component, but across
the Department, what are we doing in identity management, for
example? What are we doing in sensor fusion, for example? A lot
of our work has similarities in its technological base.
Next, I am very committed to using the directorate's role
in the DHS acquisition process to bolster the quality and the
efficiency of technology development across the Department. We
have just finalized an acquisition management directive in DHS
reflecting the continuing maturation and evolution of the
Department as a whole, and I think this is going to be a very
powerful tool in governing DHS acquisition programs and making
sure that, first of all, we know what we want and we get what
we need, without getting to the end of a long development
process and discovering that what we have doesn't work and the
operational settings for which it was intended or is much more
expensive than we had anticipated.
The keys to successful technology acquisition are, first of
all, establishing very comprehensive and detailed operational
requirements. DHS does not have a long history of doing this,
and I think S&T's expertise can help the components in being
more successful.
Second, S&T has a statutory responsibility for carrying out
independent oversight of developmental and operational testing
in homeland security. I would like to emphasize and expand this
role of the directorate.
But technology is only one of the important products that
S&T puts forth to the homeland security enterprise. We also
produce knowledge. As you mentioned, Madam Chairwoman, this
comes sometimes in the form of a deepened scientific
understanding. It is sometimes in the form of standards,
sometimes in protocols.
I believe that first responders in particular benefit from
this kind of product, particularly in this constrained budget
environment when very few firefighters or police chiefs are
going to have a lot of money to spend on technology, and yet
they can benefit immediately from, for example, a better way
for dealing with white powder incidents. So I am going to put a
real emphasis on standards and operation protocol developments.
Next, university programs. We now have 12 university
centers of excellence, which are engaging over 200 U.S.
colleges and universities in multidisciplinary research and
priority DHS mission areas.
These centers of excellence are essential to keeping DHS in
touch with cutting-edge research. They are creating expertise
in the academic community so that they are familiar with DHS
needs, and they are also creating the future workforce not just
for the scientific infrastructure of America, but for the
Federal Government. I regard that as critically important.
This program suffered a cut in this year's budget. Our
pressing near-term priorities and the constrained budget
environment forced hard choices between investments in near-
term technology development versus longer-term investments in
developing basic research.
But I want to assure you that we are very committed to
these COEs, which are already showing their mettle in providing
valuable services. Last year, these centers of excellence
received $56 million in requests for services outside of their
S&T funding. These are other components of DHS going to the
COEs and saying, ``We would like you to do this, that, and the
other thing for us.'' That is very, very encouraging.
In the next few months, S&T is going to be establishing
BOAs, basic ordering agreements, which will give the
universities mechanisms for very quickly and easily contracting
with DHS components and other Federal agencies so that we can
improve the traffic between these very vital centers of
expertise and the Federal community.
We also tried hard to avoid harming the minority-serving
institutions disproportionately in this tough budget year. I am
very happy to report that the minority-serving institution
programs in S&T increased three-fold, from $2 million to $6
million, in the years from fiscal year 2007 to 2009 and will be
held steady in fiscal year 2011, in spite of our overall budget
decrease.
Finally, I want to emphasize the importance of the private
sector and S&T's work. As you both pointed out, we have to
leverage the private sector's investment in R&D against the
needs of DHS.
The private sector makes enormous investments in this
regard. Successfully taking advantage of that requires two
things. First of all, DHS has to successfully, succinctly, and
efficiently communicate its needs to the private sector.
Second, businesses have to have access to efficient means of
proposing potential technology solutions to DHS for
consideration and evaluation.
There are several ways we now approach these tasks. First
of all, we do regular outreach to the business community
through notices and meetings around the country, including
small meetings, such as Chairman Thompson held recently in
Kansas, to establish our needs and describe our processes.
We annually publish a document that is on the Web of high-
priority technology needs in the Department, and we have a 1-
page pamphlet explaining how you can connect to us, and it is
quite straightforward.
Probably the most important tool we have is the long-range,
broad-area announcement, which allows anyone to submit a very
short paper, 2 or 3 pages, proposing their idea. It doesn't
require a big investment or a lot of time, like a traditional
RFP. We have gotten a lot of return from this.
Since fiscal year 2009, we have gotten 148 white papers; 42
have been selected for contract negotiations. There are on-
going negotiations with about 2 dozen companies for a total of
$62 million. So we are definitely interacting with these small
agile businesses who are the small innovators.
I mean, we have data showing that the small innovators are
much more likely to come up with a new idea than the big
corporations. You are completely correct about that. We are
trying to reach out to them.
We have also made special efforts to reach small
businesses, both through our SBIR program and other means I
would be happy to talk to you about.
Just in conclusion, as I said, I am convinced that DHS S&T
is of vital importance to the DHS mission and to the country. I
look forward to working with you in making it even better, more
powerful, and more effective. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I
would be happy to take questions.
[The statement of Dr. O'Toole follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tara O'Toole
March 3, 2010
introduction
Good afternoon, Chairwoman Clark, Congressman Lungren, and
distinguished Members of the subcommittee. I am honored to appear
before you today on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
to report on my plans for strengthening the Science and Technology
Directorate's (S&T) efforts to advance the scientific and analytical
foundations and deliver the robust technological solutions needed to
protect the Nation from natural disasters and terrorist threats.
Since I was confirmed as under secretary for S&T in November, I
have been continuously impressed with the breadth and reach of S&T's
activities, which reflect the tremendous scope and variety of the
Department's missions. S&T serves as the main source of scientific and
technological research and development for DHS operating components and
has a special obligation to provide knowledge and technologies needed
by the Nation's first responders. The Directorate is also charged with
assessing and testing homeland security vulnerabilities and possible
threats as well as with directing, funding, conducting, and
establishing priorities for National research, development, testing,
and evaluation of technologies related to the DHS missions.
S&T must address a dynamic spectrum of threats and vulnerabilities
across the homeland security enterprise and deliver cost-effective
operational and technological solutions to meet a wide array of
operational requirements. The S&T mission also requires a robust,
rigorous, and disciplined research and development effort to expand our
understanding of homeland security challenges, create advanced
technologies and develop new ways of thinking about problems and
potential solutions.
All of this work should be considered in the context of the newly
completed Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). The QHSR
articulates the homeland security vision and frames the key mission
areas encompassed by the DHS components and the greater homeland
security enterprise that includes State, local, and Tribal governments
as well as the private sector, universities, and individuals. There are
five homeland security missions. These are:
(1) Preventing Terrorism and Enhancing Security;
(2) Securing and Managing Our Borders;
(3) Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws;
(4) Safeguarding and Securing Cyberspace;
(5) Ensuring Resilience to Disasters.
dhs missions
S&T carries out many types of activities and services in pursuit of
each of the Department's missions. The Directorate's most obvious work
involves developing new technologies and shaping existing technology
solutions to fit the operational needs of the enterprise.
S&T is also in the business of creating new knowledge, through
sponsorship of basic research, university programs, sustained analyses
of technical problems and the construction of research roadmaps, which
identify critical information gaps. A particularly important S&T role
is the oversight of technology testing and evaluation (T&E). T&E is an
essential element of a disciplined acquisition process, and I expect
our role to grow in importance. The Directorate also frequently serves
as technical consultant to DHS operational components. Further, S&T
staff work to stay abreast of and to leverage the extensive R&D work
being undertaken by other Government agencies, universities, and
private sector organizations, large and small, in the United States and
overseas.
The following are a few examples of the different kinds of work S&T
is doing to support key DHS missions.
Mission 1: Preventing Terrorism and Enhancing Security
Aviation Security
S&T is collaborating with the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) to improve advanced imaging technology
(AIT) to reliably detect passenger-borne threats. A current
focus of this long-standing work is on developing software
algorithms that could improve contraband detection and reduce
both false alarm rates and privacy concerns. Basic standards
for this technology have been developed by S&T, and we will
leverage this investment to ensure future systems perform as
required.
The Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL) in Atlantic
City is expanding its traditional focus on aviation security to
address explosive threats to mass transportation. Research
there will produce emerging technologies for screening people
and identifying improvised explosive devices in mass transit
environments.
TSA is testing software produced at the University Centers
of Excellence (COE) to randomize airport searches and
checkpoints in order to thwart terrorists' surveillance and
attacks.
Protect Critical Infrastructure
S&T is developing extremely strong and resilient materials,
design procedures, and construction methods that help prevent
building collapse due to explosion. Three Small Business
Innovative Research (SBIR) awards are also aimed at developing
such novel materials. These include nano-enabled spray-on
foams; three-dimensional woven textiles; and materials with
internal geometric structure, known as microtrusses.
Mission 2: Securing and Managing Our Borders
Detecting Semi-Submersibles
Small, self-propelled, semi-submersible boats are carrying
illegal drugs and other illicit cargo from South America
destined for United States through the transit zone in the
Eastern Pacific, an issue that poses a serious emerging threat
to homeland security. S&T leads a team of 25 different
organizations conducting international field experiments
designed to assess current capability and identify shortfalls
for detecting, tracking, and interdicting these vessels.
Detecting and Monitoring Tunnels
Clandestine cross-border and public infrastructure drainage
tunnels are being used as conduits for illegal immigration and
smuggling activities. S&T is developing and assessing sensors
and surveillance technologies to detect clandestine tunnels and
monitor human activity in our subterranean infrastructure.
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Immigration Laws
Multiple Biometrics
S&T is working to address DHS components' growing
requirements for biometric data. Over the next 5 years, DHS's
biometrics databases (maintained by US-VISIT, U.S. Customs
Border Protection, and others) will grow from systems with data
relating to 100 million persons to 500 million persons. S&T is
partnering with industry and academia to develop the capability
to collect two or more types of biometric data per individual,
including fingerprint, face image, and iris recognition.
Combining multiple biometric data points will expedite
legitimate entry into the United States, enable DHS to search
and share biometric data with other agencies, and help to
prevent spoof attempts against any one biometric. S&T has
funded standards for biometric data formats, quality of images,
and exchange of data that are helping US-VISIT work with other
U.S. Government and law enforcement agencies.
Kinship Identification
To help U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) verify
citizenship eligibility, S&T is developing a rapid and
inexpensive DNA-based kinship test. This development will help
USCIS process immigration requests faster and reduce fraudulent
applications.
Mission 4: Safeguarding and Securing Cyberspace
Inherently Secure Systems
In cybersecurity, most existing solutions involve
``patching'' an unsecure system. S&T is working to make future
cyber systems inherently more secure. Our recently published
``Roadmap for Cybersecurity Research'' sets a path forward to
meet this goal. This work supports the current White House
Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) and was
drafted to be especially useful for private industry, enabling
companies to proactively develop solutions to identified
problems.
Domain Name Security
S&T continues to partner with the DHS National Protection
and Programs Directorate, the Office of Management and Budget,
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the global
internet community to deploy Domain Name System Security
Extensions (DNSSEC) onto Government and private sector
networks. Deployment of this protocol will ensure that when an
internet user thinks, for example, they're going to mybank.com,
they don't end up at a facsimile site at hackers.net.
Mission 5: Ensuring Resilience to Disasters
Recovery From Bioterror Attacks
S&T is participating in and leading several initiatives that
address post-attack environmental event characterization
sampling strategies, decision frameworks, and associated
concepts of operation. The goal is to formulate a systems
approach to restoration focused on reducing time and cost while
ensuring the safety of urban areas after bioattacks.
Vaccines Against Foot and Mouth Disease
Plum Island Animal Disease Center is developing vaccines and
medicines for high-priority Foreign Animal Disease pathogens
that will differentiate infected animals from those who are
vaccinated. One of our COEs, run by Texas A&M University and
Kansas State University, is conducting related basic research
on vaccines and disease detection.
Earthquake Warning Systems
S&T is working with the Department of Energy (DOE) National
Labs and private industry to develop seismic warning models
that integrate overhead sensor data into emergency management
tools to better predict and plan for earthquakes.
Unifying and Maturing DHS
In addition to these five explicit mission areas, the QHSR
identifies a sixth focus area designed to unify and mature DHS as an
organization. The following are examples of S&T activities related to
this sixth mission.
Consolidation of DHS Research Activities--Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office
As part of unifying and maturing the Homeland Security Enterprise,
the fiscal year 2011 budget proposes to transfer the $109 million
radiological and nuclear transformational and applied research
portfolio from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) into S&T.
Consolidating all DHS fundamental research in one component allows
efficiencies and will help eliminate gaps, better enable cross-cutting
research and more easily leverage economies of scale.
During the integration, S&T and DNDO will conduct in-depth reviews
of on-going work to identify the strongest programs for advancement.
This will help ensure our focus on the most promising and highest
priority research areas. The new Radiological and Nuclear Division in
S&T will identify research and develop technologies, processes, and
procedures to dramatically improve the performance of nuclear detection
components and systems; significantly reduce the operational burden of
the radiological/nuclear detection mission; and improve the Nation's
capability to respond to and recover from radiological/nuclear attacks.
Building the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF)
The safety and security of our food supplies are critical to
National defense; another aspect of maturing and building S&T's
capabilities will be the continuation of our efforts to build the
National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). NBAF will be the
Nation's first integrated agricultural, zoonotic disease, and public
health research, development, testing, and evaluation facility. NBAF
will be able to address threats posed by high-consequence zoonotic
diseases and foreign animal diseases, such as Foot and Mouth Disease.
NBAF will also have a bio-safety level 4 capability, allowing S&T to
perform more extensive research on a wider array of some of the most
dangerous diseases than our current laboratories allow.
DHS is committed to building a state-of-the-art facility that
incorporates all necessary safeguards, both facility-based and
procedural, to ensure its safe and secure operation. DHS is completing
a comprehensive site-specific risk assessment to develop mitigation
strategies and establish the protocols necessary for safe operation.
S&T has also contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to
perform an independent review of our risk assessment and mitigation
plans. NBAF construction will not begin until that review is complete
and shared with Congress.
University Centers of Excellence
S&T will continue to invest in and mature our University Programs
and COEs. These efforts harness and leverage the cutting edge research
of our universities and create engines of innovation. DHS internships,
fellowships, and scholarship programs, such as the Scientific
Leadership Awards, help ensure that the necessary Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math graduates are available to help lead the Homeland
Security Enterprise into the future.
In order to ensure the development of a science and technology
workforce that reflects the diversity of the American people, we
continue to grow our outreach to Minority Serving Institutions (MSI).
During the past 2 years, we've sharply increased the number of new MSI
Scientific Leadership Awards while modifying the program to better
reflect the composition of the MSI community by adding categories for
institutions focused on Associate's and Bachelor's degree programs. S&T
has increased funding by increasing the number of Scientific Leadership
Awards and by naming four MSIs to serve as co-lead institutions for
COEs.
COE collaborations have made substantial progress and continue to
broaden their impact and demonstrate their value in a variety of ways.
S&T investment in COEs has attracted the attention of outside funders
and resulted in 178 requests for support from other Government agencies
in fiscal year 2009. These requests, and the 126 additional requests
from DHS components, resulted in more than $56 million dollars of
additional funding in fiscal year 2009, more than doubling the original
S&T investment. This ability to leverage the initial investment into
outside funding demonstrates the value of their work.
s&t directorate: moving forward
S&T has begun a strategic planning process that I intend to be
inclusive and on-going. I appreciate the observations and suggestions
that we have received from Congressional Members and staff, and we will
continue to solicit input on how S&T might better serve the Department,
the broader Homeland Security Enterprise, and the Nation. The strategic
planning process is not finished, but some strategic priorities are
already clear.
Capstone Integrated Product Team (IPT) Process
My predecessor performed an important service in establishing the
Capstone Integrated Product Teams (IPTs), which created an explicit way
to link the technology needs of DHS' operational components and first
responders to S&T's technology development efforts. I intend to build
on the customer relationship that S&T has with the operating components
and first responders, largely enabled by the Capstone IPT process, and
to evolve that relationship into an increasingly collaborative
partnership. I would also like to embed more rigor and consistency in
the processes used by the IPTs to identify capability gaps and
technology development priorities.
First Responder Engagement
S&T recognizes the importance of the first responder community.
They are the Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial emergency
professionals who prevent, defend against, and mitigate the
consequences of terrorist attacks and natural disasters. First
responders are a widely diverse group with vastly different needs,
resources, and requirements. For example, despite their shared core
mission, firefighters in New York City face very different challenges
on a day-to-day basis than their counterparts in Muscatine, Iowa. The
diverse range of environments in which responders across the country
operate creates several challenges to supporting this essential
component of the homeland security enterprise.
One way to address this challenge is to expand S&T's engagement
with first responders beyond traditional technology development and
place more focus on the delivery of information products for use across
a broader spectrum of the first responder community. While every first
responder may not have the budget to buy emerging technology, nearly
all can gain access to the internet to download test reports and other
important information on currently available commercial equipment. S&T
has established the System Assessment and Validation for Emergency
Responder (SAVER) Program within its Test & Evaluation and Standards
Division to conduct objective assessments of commercial responder
equipment and to provide those results along with other relevant
equipment information to the emergency response community. The SAVER
Program provides information that enables decision-makers and
responders to better select, procure, use, and maintain emergency
responder equipment.
S&T also seeks to leverage its testing and standards efforts to
vertically integrate products for responders by developing and posting
on-line standard operating procedures for incidents, identifying
equipment that has been tested and would work well for those
procedures, and posting training and certification plans to enable the
responder community to more easily integrate it into operational use.
While these efforts may not generate the same level of enthusiasm as a
new technology would, they can be applied across a much broader swath
of the community and could help standardize the response to certain
incidents. In the end, this approach potentially could have a bigger
operational impact than efforts to develop technologies with more
limited use.
Acquisition Support
DHS recently implemented Acquisition Directive 102-01, which
institutionalizes a disciplined process for DHS technology
acquisitions. The directive mandates detailed specification of
operational requirements and the conduct of rigorous developmental and
operational testing. Implementation of this directive is an important
milestone in the maturation of DHS and should promote a more
transparent and cost-effective approach to technology development and
deployment across the Department.
A key role of S&T at this point in the Department's evolution is to
oversee testing and evaluation of complex technologies that the DHS
components are seeking to acquire. DHS intends to leverage the private
sector's own research investments in commercial technology against the
mission needs of the Department, but we must exercise appropriate
diligence to determine if the technologies work as anticipated in
realistic operational settings. Secretary Napolitano has instructed me
to work closely with the DHS Under Secretary for Management and DHS
components to ensure that the new Acquisition Directive is implemented
in a manner that encourages a more mature approach to technology
investments.
Test and Evaluation
Section 302 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 charges S&T with
the responsibility for ``coordinating and integrating all research,
development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation activities of the
Department.'' To carry out these and other test and evaluation (T&E)-
related legislative mandates, the Directorate established the Test and
Evaluation and Standards Division (TSD) in 2006 and created the
position of Director of Operational Test & Evaluation in 2008.
TSD develops and implements robust Department-wide T&E policies and
procedures. Working with the DHS under secretary for management, TSD
approves Test and Evaluation Master Plans that describe the necessary
Developmental Test and Evaluation and Operational Test and Evaluation
tasks that must be conducted in order to determine system technical
performance and operational effectiveness based upon vetted Operational
Requirements Documents. The Department's new Acquisition Directive
provides the management framework for a robust and comprehensive T&E
program.
Leveraging Work of Interagency and International Partners
In many cases, the challenges faced by the homeland security
enterprise are shared by others, and DHS can leverage the work of our
interagency, international, and commercial partners to provide the best
value for our investments. By leveraging others' science and technology
capabilities, S&T can ensure the best products and information are
available sooner and at a reduced cost to the U.S. Government.
DHS and the Department of Defense (DOD) in particular share many
technical challenges, such as detecting and finding adversaries,
locating improvised explosive devices, and protecting cyber networks.
DOD has a robust research and development infrastructure to address
these challenges, and S&T has developed a strong formal partnership
with them through the Capability Development Working Group (CDWG). The
CDWG is chaired by the DHS S&T under secretary, the DHS under secretary
for management, and the DOD under secretary for acquisition, technology
& logistics. The partnership: Ensures the best use of resources and
avoids duplication of effort; explores capability development topics of
mutual interest and decides on implementation paths; promotes future
cooperation; and supports and informs policy, planning, and decision-
making.
A focus on aviation security has led S&T to further enhance its
partnerships with international groups as well as DOE. Following the
failed Dec. 25 bombing attempt, we established the DHS-DOE Aviation
Security Enhancement Partnership to develop technical solutions key to
aviation security problems. This under secretary-level governance
mechanism will manage a strategy to further extend and leverage this
relationship, with a focus on improving aviation security. This
strategy will:
deliver key advanced aviation security technologies and
knowledge;
conduct analyses to assess possible vulnerabilities and
threats and support/inform technology requirements, policy,
planning, and decision-making activities; and
review the use of existing aviation security technologies
and screening procedures, and the impact of new or improved
technologies using a systems analysis approach to illuminate
gaps, opportunities, and cost-effective investments.
Working with the Private Sector and Small Business
In 2008, S&T officially established the Commercialization Office to
develop and execute programs and processes that identify, evaluate, and
leverage the products and capabilities of the commercial sector.
Through the System Efficacy through Commercialization, Utilization,
Relevance and Evaluation (SECURETM) Program, an innovative
public-private partnership, DHS harnesses the skills, expertise, and
resources of industry to develop products and services that align to
DHS operational requirements with minimal investment of taxpayer
dollars. The program identifies operational requirements as well as the
commercial market potential available to businesses if they develop a
product that fulfills those requirements. The program provides an
entree, especially for small businesses, into the marketplace of
Government equipment and attempts to leverage the internal research and
development dollars of industry to solve DHS requirements.
As the 2009 report on The Small Business Economy points out, small
businesses are ``more likely to develop emerging technologies'' than
large ones. It is critical for S&T to leverage these innovators for the
good of the homeland security enterprise. So far, S&T and DNDO have
made 372 Phase I and 122 Phase II awards, totaling $139 million, to
small businesses through the SBIR program. Through fiscal year 2009, we
have received 2,300 applications from all 50 States. In order to make
sure we are getting the best and most innovative ideas the country has
to offer, it is critical that we continue our efforts to reach new
small and rural businesses.
conclusion
I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today and report
on S&T activities relevant to the scope of this subcommittee and
outline my plans for aligning the Directorate to the Department's
priorities as articulated in the QHSR.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to strategically guide the
Directorate as it advances its efforts to respond to the current threat
environment and enable technological capabilities to better protect the
American people. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your
questions.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Dr. O'Toole.
I will remind each Member that he or she will have 5
minutes to question the panel.
I now recognize myself--excuse me--for 5 minutes.
Dr. O'Toole, I am glad that you sort-of outlined for us in
your testimony what some of your priorities are for the
directorate. I would like to get a sense of, you know, how will
you measure S&T's success in establishing and really hardening
these priorities?
Dr. O'Toole. You know, I talked to a lot of people who run
R&D organizations before I was confirmed about how to measure
success, and they all were extremely consistent. They all said
it is really, really hard.
They have different ways of going about it. For example,
DARPA, which some would regard as very successful, regards a
project manager as unsuccessful if more than 40 percent of his
projects actually result in acquired technology, because in
DARPA, that is seen as not being risk-taking enough.
I think that would be too stringent a level for S&T, except
for our innovation division, where that kind of acquisition
rate is probably appropriate, where we try to do leap-ahead
technologies.
Another answer I got from a very large R&D corporation--or
very large technology corporation who does a lot of R&D is that
you have to prove that you are incrementally improving the
business or the services that your corporation does everyday.
In DHS-speak, that would be, are we providing value to the
components? Are we helping them do their work better, more
safely, more efficiently, faster, et cetera?
I agree with you. I think one of the things we need to
build into our IPTs is our metrics for measuring that more
effective.
The other measures that I heard are: Do you have any money
placed against the big bets? Are you managing it in a
reasonable way? This usually involves a project management
process that very carefully ensures that you are watching the
development of a project in which you have invested money. If
it starts looking like it is going to succeed, you keep going,
but you also have built-in exit ramps so that if you have
invested in something that sounded like a good idea, but isn't
working out, you get out of it and you go on to something else.
So the short answer to your question is, we need several
different kinds of metrics to measure different things. One
size is not going to fit all. I think they have to be tailored
to the particular objective we have in mind.
Ms. Clarke. I recognize that, you know, you are all of 4
months into this, but I think one of the challenges with the
directorate has been being able to try to really get that
tangible--those exit ramps and all the other pieces that you
have described.
Is this something that you intend to embed as part of the
culture?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes.
Ms. Clarke. Is there a particular preference that you have
for the type of metrics that you would like to embed as a
practice at the directorate?
Dr. O'Toole. It is probably about 60 days too early to
answer your question definitively. Some version of all three of
those types of metrics I mentioned, I think, are needed, but I
will tell you this. We will certainly have more solid metrics
for measuring project management.
Ms. Clarke. Fair enough. Fair enough. In January, you
provided timely responses to the committee's questions about
the R&D process at DHS, and we want to thank you for that.
Some of the responses confirmed problems that S&T has in
selecting research projects. In a response to a question about
Capstone IPT process, you stated that S&T is working to further
mature the process by improving the consistency and analytical
rigor of the decision-making process within each IPT.
Can you provide the committee with more specifics? How, for
instance, are you using risk assessments to prioritize
projects?
Dr. O'Toole. The IPTs differ, for example, in the level of
seniority of the representatives from the components who
attend. In some cases, I think the enthusiasm of the
representatives can drive the conversation. The IPTs always
consist of more than one component. They are co-chaired by two
components.
But they should--the decisions about priorities, I think,
should be driven more by an objective assessment of risk and
need and likelihood of success and less by the enthusiasm, if
you will, of the people present at the table. So a more kind-of
objective approach to what we prioritize out of the individual
IPT is needed.
Then we need a more disciplined, rigorous way at the
technology oversight group of arraying all of the IPT choices
across the Department and figuring out what it is that we
should fund on what kind of priority. We are already working on
both of those levels.
Ms. Clarke. Who establishes the risk assessment?
Dr. O'Toole. I think that risk assessment has got to be a
collective process of S&T and the operators and the leadership
of the Department. I recognized the appetite for having some
kind of clear algorithm of what our top risks are and the next
level, et cetera, et cetera. That is really hard to do in a
sensible way that allows one to execute projects.
So, for example, you may have a near-term opportunity to
solve three problems at once very quickly. Even though that
isn't your highest risk, well, that might be a really good S&T
investment.
So S&T, good S&T is a combination of addressing risks in a
sensible way and taking advantage of opportunities.
Opportunities are often serendipitous. A lot of this demands
judgment. We are not going to eliminate judgment. It is never
going to be totally objective. But the process ought to be very
transparent.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you. I am over time at this stage, so now
I would like to recognize the Ranking Member of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren. Thank
you.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
thank you, Dr. O'Toole, for being here.
I noted in your resume that you practiced internal medicine
for a period of time. My dad was an internist. I am just trying
to think what it would be like to have you--to be a patient of
yours. I think you would be rather straightforward, and you
would probably tell me that I should change my diet.
[Laughter.]
I think I would walk out of there thinking, ``I had better
do what she says.''
Thank you for what you are doing here. I do not want to add
to bureaucracy, certainly. But I note that TSA and CBP are not
necessarily required to go through your directorate when they
purchase technology, but given that that is the case, how do
you ensure that your directorate's expertise is leveraged?
Is that sort of relationship-building with the people that
are there? Or is there something we need to do? Or is it
impossible without creating unnecessary bureaucracy so that,
you know, elements like TSA and CBP would be hamstrung in terms
of making timely purchases?
Dr. O'Toole. Relationship-building is very important
because a lot of these technology development acquisition
processes go on for years, and they--it really is a team sport.
Okay, that is the other thing to remember about technology
development. It takes years.
Short-term S&T is 3 to 5 years, until you get a prototype,
from idea to prototype, okay? It was 20 years from the first
time we ran a locomotive in London until we actually had a
railroad, okay? So good ideas don't necessarily translate right
away into product. That is one of the reasons it is so
difficult to measure the effectiveness of R&D. Couldn't get a
railroad until we had wrought iron, which we didn't have when
we conceived of the idea.
But I am extremely interested in the acquisition process
because of the question you raised. That is a very powerful
lever for influencing the acquisition decisions of the
components. With this new directive, S&T is now mandated to be
part of both the operational requirements which get laid down
at the front end of the process and the testing and evaluation
that happens at the end of the process before we decide to
acquire a technology and spend really big bucks on it.
So that is critical. That is a very strong signal of a big
maturation step in DHS.
The other question--should we be more tightly linked to the
components?--I think can be answered in two ways. One answer
would be, yes, okay, there ought to be more crosstalk between
S&T and the components when we are in a highly technical area
or we are talking about a big complex acquisition.
The nature of that conversation deserves some careful
thought. I think the acquisition process will force that
conversation in a disciplined way that will be quite
constructive.
But the other issue is that we are going to have to build
over time a lot more technical expertise, scientific and
technical expertise, into the components themselves. I was very
struck the last time in Government, which was 16 years ago, by
how technical the business of Government has become. I am even
more struck by that observation today.
Everything we do is very complicated, is embedded in
technology or in scientific findings, and so on and so forth. I
am sure you have your own list. We have to build a much more
technically fluent Federal workforce than we now have.
DHS is in a good position to do this, because we are going
to have to be hiring a lot of young people. That is one of the
reasons I am so committed to these internships and fellowships,
which I think is a great way of bringing people into Government
who normally wouldn't think of it as a career.
Mr. Lungren. Let me ask another question. When I was out in
California a couple weeks ago, I got an e-mail message that the
advanced--I think it is called spectroscopic----
Dr. O'Toole. Portal.
Mr. Lungren [continuing]. Portal monitor that we had been
waiting results on for some time had not passed the test, that
that was something that was supposed to be a follow-on to what
we have been using for some time at our major ports. Is there
any lesson that we learned out of that?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Lungren. Or is that success that we took the time to do
this and found out that it didn't do what we thought it was
going to do? Or is there some way for us to speed that process
up? Or is that just the nature of the animal, No. 1?
No. 2, I understand some responsibilities have been
transferred from DNDO to you in the budget. What does that
mean, in terms of future reviews, studies, et cetera?
Dr. O'Toole. To take your latter question first, the R&D
portion of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office is going to be
transferred to S&T in fiscal year 2011. That is $109 million or
so. I think that is a good thing. It gives us the full suite
now in S&T of R&D, including rad-nuke, and it allows us to do
robust, multidisciplinary R&D across the Department.
I would regard the recent decision on ASP, as we call it--
--
Mr. Lungren. That is easier for me to say.
Ms. O'Toole [continuing]. A victory. Yes. As a victory. It
is, first of all, going to be used, but in secondary screening.
We determined with considerable precision and objectivity that
it is effective, it does what we want it to do, and it is cost-
effective in that operational setting.
It is not a cost-effective solution for primary screening.
We shouldn't put every cargo container that comes into a port
through ASP right away. If in the initial screening looks
funny, then it goes to ASP, and that is a good way to do it.
That is smart screening.
So it is a success in that sense. It took a long time. It
takes a long time. We had to build this technology. We had to
test it at ports, which had very high throughput. It is very
difficult to actually interrupt the operations of ports without
being very intrusive, i.e., expensive.
But I think the full story of ASP in the last 2 years is
actually a story of doing it right.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Lungren.
I now recognize the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lujan. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much.
Dr. O'Toole, thank you for being here, as well. The
enabling legislation for DHS makes specific reference to the
ability of the Science and Technology division to tap into the
expertise resident in DOE and NSC laboratories. Dr. O'Toole, I
would be interested in your perspective on the interactions
between your office and the NNSA facilities and whether you
would like this to be a true partnership rather than a short-
term fee-for-service arrangement.
Dr. O'Toole. Thank you for the question. I think the
relationship is robust. A significant portion of our budget is
invested in the laboratories. We just established a new
aviation security partnership with the labs to look at three
different aspects of aviation security that I think are going
to be very important to the Nation and are quite long-term, at
least in terms of what it is going to take to bring them to
true fruition.
I certainly don't have complaints with the laboratories so
far. I think--I know them well from past experiences. I have
had a lot of conversations already with folks from the labs.
I think we could work on the same problem we talked about
in the private sector. How do we know what they have got and we
need and vice versa? That is kind of an on-going challenge, and
we just have to keep oiling that machine.
But I think the--as I said, I think the relationship is
quite robust.
Mr. Lujan. Well, I appreciate that very much, Dr. O'Toole.
As we look to the National labs and to other entities that we
have made sizable investments in, I certainly hope that we
engage more with DOE specifically and NNSA facilities to help
solve some of these problems and to look at their modeling,
their simulation, computing capabilities to be able to
understand the systems-wide problems that we are trying to work
on to engage in these technologies, sometimes where it is for
rain imaging, and then we find out that there is another
application that TSA can employ.
Following up on some similar questions, regarding the
aviation security enhancement program between DHS and DOE, how
will this program affect S&T's ability to partner with NNSA
laboratories and transition new technologies to deploy to TSA,
as opposed to bogging things down? Will this allow us to move
forward in a way that these technologies will help get into
market sooner, rather than later?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Lujan. Very good. On the topic of domestic nuclear
detection with DNDO, I understand a number of changes that are
being proposed that we just spoke about, as well, that the R&D
elements will move into your directorate, as this takes place,
is DHS ready to take full advantage of the laboratory? Are they
willing to take full advantage of the expertise that we have at
some of the NSA facilities to help meet those needs?
Dr. O'Toole. I believe so, Congressman. I don't see any
obstacles. We are going to do a program review of the DNDO
portfolio, so we understand what is there and we keep the best
of it, and if we need to change things around, we do that.
We haven't undertaken that yet, so I have a general
knowledge of what is in DNDO. I have talked to the current
acting director at some length, and I have read all the paper,
but that might be a question best asked, again, in another 60
days.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate that very much, Dr. O'Toole.
Madam Chairwoman, you know, as we bring some of these
questions forward and we identify some of these problems, you
can see the passion that I have, but the belief that our
scientists, our physicists, our researchers, and our National
laboratory system, investments that we have made, places and
people that have solved great problems, that the more that we
engage with them and that we allow for these synergies to take
place between DHS, DOE, DOD, to be able to bring these to
application and truly be able to harness the ability and
streamline the process associated with commercialization of
some of these technologies to allow them to solve these
problems, wherever they may be across the country, not only
will we be creating jobs and allowing for the domestic
manufacturing to be built again, but we are going to be able to
arm a lot of people with safer environments to be able to make
a difference.
That is why I emphasize this with Dr. O'Toole. I am anxious
to see where we go from here. I am very pleased with your
responses, Dr. O'Toole, as far as the commitment to be able to
work in a very close way with our DOE and NSA facilities.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back my
time.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Lujan. Your insight into the use
and application of our National labs as it relates to homeland
security, I think, is a very keen observation that we need to
emphasize more and more each day.
We do have expertise resident in these labs around our
Nation, of which you are keenly aware and very engaged with
already, Dr. O'Toole. I guess it is sort of connecting the dots
and some of the information-sharing that we are always hearing
about that is always the challenge, but we look forward to your
continued advocacy and see how we can, you know, make this come
to fruition in a much more tangible way, ways that I think we
will see that next generation of individuals going into our
labs and sharing that responsibility with our S&T Directorate
to bring out those products that we need.
Having said that, I would like to acknowledge the gentleman
from New York, one of our newest Members, Mr. Owens----
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Clarke [continuing]. For 5 minutes. Sure.
Mr. Owens. I would like to go back to something that you
mentioned in your testimony, and that is, how are we going to
make available the procurement process to small businesses,
innovative folks, and at the same time protect the Department
from the point of view of the small businesses' ability to
perform once engaged?
Dr. O'Toole. That is an important question. There are some
success stories here, but what you are highlighting is a fairly
common conundrum, where you have a small business that has a
terrifically innovative idea that looks like it may solve a
problem that we have, but they do not have the resources,
whether it be the accounting systems or the capital to build a
big production system, to actually bring that idea even to
prototype.
What we have done in the past--and what I would like to do
more of--is play matchmaker and pair those small businesses
with larger concerns who can help shepherd the product through
at least a prototype so we can get a good look at it and test
it.
We just did this recently with the third-generation
BioWatch system, an environmental sensor for biological weapons
that is not yet deployed. It is just going into testing now. We
had a very innovative small business who had some great ideas,
and we paired them with--I think it was Northrop Grumman.
They ended up being one of the two candidates being
selected for further testing. But that often happens, that the
small businesses can get so far, and then they need help. That
is the other reason for the long-range BAA. They often just
don't have the capital of the time of the people to develop a
full-blown request for proposal response.
So with these brief white papers, we are trying to give
them an opportunity to get their ideas in front of us.
Mr. Owens. Thank you. How well is that known, the process,
the marrying process that you talked about, in the small-
business community?
Dr. O'Toole. I don't know the answer to that. But I will
tell you what, it is a good question, and we will put it into
the pamphlet that describes how to work with S&T.
Mr. Owens. I think that is very important.
Dr. O'Toole. Yes, you are right.
Mr. Owens. I have another question.
Dr. O'Toole. If I could just mention, since you brought it
up and you are thinking of authorizing--of reauthorizing S&T,
we use the other transition authority a lot to get these non-
traditional companies who don't usually contract with the
Government into the game.
It is--you have been very generous in reauthorizing it
every year. Having that as permanent authority would be
actually helpful, because it is the way you engage these small
businesses, oftentimes.
Mr. Owens. Again, thank you. Again, I think that it is very
important to engage small businesses in this process.
Another question that is somewhat related, but maybe not
fully. Are you working on a management directive detailing how
basic and applied homeland security research is identified,
prioritized, funded, and evaluated by your directorate?
Dr. O'Toole. No.
Mr. Owens. Is that something that the Secretary may be
working on?
Dr. O'Toole. We are having conversations with the
Secretary's office about how to structure little S and little T
in DHS more effectively, i.e., including what the components
do, but I haven't at least been in conversations about a
particular directive----
Mr. Owens. Okay, thank you.
Ms. O'Toole [continuing]. That would codify that.
Mr. Owens. Where are we at in the process of testing the
next generation of AIT equipment? When do you think it will be
deployed in the Nation's airports?
Dr. O'Toole. It depends on what you mean by next
generation. The way TSA has decided to proceed is that it is
going to put into the field the current generation of imaging
machines, which we all agree are imperfect but better than
nothing, and then we are going to try and incrementally improve
those machines, for example, by adding algorithms for automatic
targeting, which we are working on now.
The checkpoint--the whole checkpoint, not just one machine,
but the whole experience from the moment you walk into the
airport until you get on the airplane, is currently, the focus
of one of the lab projects that I was just referring to, we are
doing a systems analysis of that whole experience to figure
out, where is the low-hanging fruit? What might we do right
away? What are the big problems which, if solved, change the
world, okay?
So there are things going on in S&T and in TSA on all of
those different levels. We are certainly looking at entirely
new technology approaches to imaging. One of the projects in
Los Alamos, for example, uses low-energy magnetic resonance
technology instead of the current X-rays or millimeter wave
technologies.
That may be dynamite. It is looking pretty good in the lab.
Sometimes things that happen in the lab aren't so good in the
messy operational environments of airports. These are very low-
energy waves, these MRI things that we are using. What happens
when you put it around all the metal at checkpoint, we will
have to wait and see.
Mr. Owens. Thank you very much for your analytical answers
and responses and for your good work. Thanks very much.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Owens, would you yield briefly on that?
Mr. Owens. I think my time is expired, so I have no problem
yielding.
Mr. Lujan. Madam Chairwoman, just to add a quick thought?
Ms. Clarke. Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Lujan.
Mr. Lujan. I just want to mention that that technology is
being tested in an airport, as well.
Dr. O'Toole. That is correct----
Mr. Lujan. So we have seen it in application and in use.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Clarke. There are still a couple of additional
questions that my colleagues have, so we want to go around for
another round of questioning with you, but I wanted to get back
to a question raised by Mr. Owens about management director,
because in response to us, it was stated that you are currently
formalizing the Capstone IPT process with roles and
responsibilities through a DHS management directive.
Is that still in play?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes. Sorry. Yes, I misunderstood.
Ms. Clarke. Okay. All right. Let me ask you then about the
NAPA findings. We intend on incorporating many of the NAPA
findings in our authorization bill. One of the NAPA's findings
suggest that S&T establish a system to monitor and account for
homeland security research, milestones, and create a formal
process for collecting feedback from customers and end users on
the effectiveness of the technology or service delivered by
S&T.
I know many of us were surprised to hear that these
processes are not already in place, but what specifically are
you doing to implement this recommendation?
Dr. O'Toole. You know, I read the NAPA report very
carefully, and I spent a lot of time with the principal authors
and found it a very valuable document. I think on that, they
were mistaken.
There is no single system that gets feedback from
customers, but there is a lot of feedback. It may be that we
need to codify that and integrate it and make it a little bit
more quantitative, but, again, it is a really different thing
to ask a first responder if they found a protocol to be useful
or accurate--I am not sure which question would be
appropriate--versus asking a component whether they found our
testing and evaluation to be helpful or overly tough versus
asking whether a deployed technology, once it is handed off to
the components, actually met the need as expected.
There are many different questions that have to be posed.
This one-size-fits-all metric system that NAPA was after does
not, I believe, exist, alas. I mean, life would be much easier
if it did.
But I do think we are going to have to set up a variety of
feedback systems to figure out how we are doing. It is
basically the other side of your metrics question, Madam
Chairwoman. There is no easy fix. We have to do a number of
things.
Ms. Clarke. It is not a one-size-fits-all.
Dr. O'Toole. No. You know, In-Q-Tel, for example, which has
been in this business for a few years trying to help the
intelligence community, particularly with information
technologies, is run by some very sophisticated people out of
the private sector who have a lot of venture capital
experience.
I asked them. I said, well, what are your metrics? They
have a similar mission to S&T. They said, ``We don't know what
to measure, so we measure everything and try to make sense of
it.'' They have like 20 different things that they actually
keep track of. I think that is what we are going to do for
another year or 2.
Ms. Clarke. According to a recently released quadrennial
homeland security review, the Department has five homeland
security missions, one of which is safeguarding and securing
cyberspace, yet the President's fiscal year 2011 request for
cybersecurity research within S&T is $36 million, a $2 million
decrease from last year.
Why is a fundamental mission area like cybersecurity being
funded at such a low level? Do you anticipate reprioritizing
future S&T budgets to reflect the significance of the cyber
mission?
Dr. O'Toole. I think the cyber mission is extremely
important. It actually stayed even, except for an earmark,
compared to last year in S&T. It has grown 300 percent in 3
years.
So $36 million is not a lot of money compared to the size
of the problem. It is a fairly significant chunk of money in
S&T terms. We went to great lengths to protect it even in this
constrained budget environment.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Dr. O'Toole.
I now yield--excuse me, I now recognize the Ranking Member
of the subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr.
Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much.
Dr. O'Toole, you mentioned in your opening statement about
the white paper process, and then further speaking, when Mr.
Owens asked you questions about small business. Can you tell me
a little bit more about that white paper process? The reason
why I say that is, I do have people who come to me who purport
to represent smaller companies, who believe that they have
certain unique approaches to things.
I have particularly been--had a number of people contact me
on this whole area of advanced imaging technology, sometimes in
the area of passive millimeter wave technology and others.
I am no expert. I listen to what they have to say. I take a
look at it. I try and see whether it makes much--whether it
makes sense. If it does, I want to make sure at least they are
being heard.
What would your suggestion be if we do have people who are
relatively small business, entrepreneurial organizations, how
they should proceed? For some of them, DHS is a rather large
entity. What would the suggestion be?
Dr. O'Toole. Well, I have a stack of these 1-page pamphlets
called a quick look guide to doing business with S&T. I can
give them all to you or we can spread them around the
committee. I am serious.
Mr. Lungren. No, that would be very helpful, because that
is the kind of thing----
Dr. O'Toole. I would appreciate it if you would let your
constituents know how to get in touch with us. This is one of
the ways we are going to connect. I mean, it is obvious that we
think calling their Members of Congress is a good way to
connect with the Government, and it should be.
So we would like to make that easy for you. As you will see
from this guide, which is pretty straightforward, depending
upon what they have got and whether or not they really want to
talk to S&T, there are a number of ways they can go.
One common confusion is small companies think they actually
have a product that is ready to be bought, so they have a
better millimeter wave than the one we are using. That should
go to TSA, because we develop technology. If it is already
developed and ready for market, it is not our deal. That is the
first declension.
Second, it depends upon whether or not they think they have
a fix for a particular problem. In the commercialization
office, for example, we publish a lot of operational
requirements documents that say, ``We have this need,'' and
they describe it pretty thoroughly. If you think you have a
fix, Mr. Businessman, then we want to talk to you in the
commercialization office. If it really looks like a fix, we may
even help you test and develop your product.
So if you think you have a real near-term fix to a defined
need, that is one route. If you have a wilder idea, okay--
forget about these millimeter wave technologies. Forget about
X-ray. I have got a whole new energy system that I think can
solve your checkpoint problem. That is probably a white paper
exercise.
Mr. Lungren. Oh, I got it.
Dr. O'Toole. Okay? So there are different flavors of
solutions that people want to present. We try to be very clear
and very direct in which portal to walk through with the
greater sense of success.
We have also gone out and talked to people about what we
want in the white paper. We want to know who your team is. We
want to know your analytical argument for the proposal you are
making. You know, some simple things like that make a big
difference in our capacity to understand what is being
proposed.
Mr. Lungren. That is very helpful. I appreciate that. Let
me ask this. Look, nobody ever has the budget they wish they
would have. We have true budget problems now. I don't think we
are even seriously addressing them.
But nonetheless, when I look at the budget proposals and
your statement, the 2011 budget request for chemical and
biological within your directorate is slightly decreased from
the 2011 level. The Congressional justification given in the
budget is that the decrease reflects ``the funding of higher-
priority items within the Department.'' I know it is always
trying to figure it out.
But in light of this decreased budget request and the
statement that there are other priorities, can you explain what
your plan is for chemical and biological programs going
forward? One of the reasons I ask that is, if you look at the
WMD commission, it reiterated the importance of biodefense. I
know you know that well.
It is, it seems to me, a call to us in Congress to take it
seriously. So given that, what are your plans going forward
within your budget constraints?
Dr. O'Toole. Well, I certainly share the concern about the
biothreat. I think it is one of the gravest that the Nation
faces, along with cyber and possibly an IND, improvised nuclear
device.
The cut in the chem-bio program, which is the oldest and
the biggest program in S&T, really impinged upon some
information analytics that we were doing for the Office of
Health Affairs. It was in support of a program called NBIC, the
National Biosurveillance Information Center, and the assistant
secretary for health affairs has decided to pause in that
program, which has been problematic for a long time--it is
never really gotten a lot of momentum for reasons that have
been described by GAO and others--and re-think it
strategically.
So by cutting the money we were putting into an analytic
technology, we basically ended up doing very little, if any
harm to any program involving bio or chem.
In the future, I think the bio program needs to stay
extremely robust, because to a large extent, the S&T program
anchors a lot of essential activity in the Government, such as,
for example, the analytics and the laboratory assays behind
what we would do post-attack to determine the extent of the
contamination, if it were anthrax for example, and how to clean
it up, okay?
That is really DHS doing that. We are doing it with
partners in the interagency, but we are the anchor. S&T's chem-
bio division has actually become a very robust interagency
nexus of work in the bio arena, and that, too, needs to
proceed, but there is a long list of to-dos. You are quite
right.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you.
Ms. Clarke. I now recognize the gentleman from New Mexico,
Mr. Lujan, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Just one last thought or question, if you will, Dr.
O'Toole, building off a question that Mr. Owens asked, looking
at the new imaging technology that we are currently exploring
and seeing what we are going to do with AITs.
I would request that your office would get a briefing from
Los Alamos National Laboratories around the technology that is
separate from AVIS, but which I believe, based on the
information that I was presented with, would allow us to be
able to meet many of our needs, address some of the privacy
concerns, if not all of the privacy concerns, but truly allow
us to see what needs to be seen, as well, and do it in a timely
fashion, which would allow us to meet these needs.
I understand that this is a spin-off of a different set of
R&D that was taking place, but that there is currently not a
customer in this area which will restrict our ability to move
this technology forward, but based on your expertise and those
around you, would ask for that consideration just going
forward.
Dr. O'Toole. Okay.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I yield
back my time.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you. I would like to just let you know
that I share the concerns of Ranking Member Lungren and Mr.
Owens about the small-business concerns. I hope that some of
the provisions within our authorization bill will also help
address these concerns.
It is a comment that we hear pretty frequently, you know,
from people who just visit us, actually, on the Hill. They
don't even have to necessarily be constituents. They will seek
us out, because they know we are on the Homeland Security
Committee.
I guess sort of creating as many corridors based upon, as
you said, I guess the level of development or the intent of the
particular individual, enables us to hopefully not overlook
something that may be of great value to the work that we do.
We would like to also just--you know, we are here to
partner with you. We know that you are, you know, 4 months in,
but there has been a lot of concern that this directorate is
not where we hope it to be, where we want it to be, given its
critical interaction with all of the components.
The on-going scrutiny that we get, particularly when it
comes to coming up with solutions for the homeland security
challenges that we face, inevitably people want to know what
the S&T Directorate is doing. So we would like to be as helpful
in strategic planning and perhaps even aligning some of what we
are looking at in terms of the authorization bill with some of
the aspirations of you and your team.
Then, finally, you talked a little bit about the need to
sort of look at how we establish some of these metrics. I hope
that you will get back to us, once you have given it more
thought, sort of looked at the lay of the land, with some of
your observations and where you think you can be as a baseline
in terms of metrics going forward.
Dr. O'Toole. Yes.
Ms. Clarke. I want to thank you, Dr. O'Toole, for bringing
your talent and expertise to bear in this area. It is great to
see that women are right there in the forefront making it
happen.
Mr. Lungren liked that one.
Mr. Lungren. I like the fact that internal medicine
specialists----
Ms. Clarke. That, too. We look forward to your work going
forward in the future.
Let me just close by saying that the Members of the
subcommittee may have additional questions for you, and we will
ask you to respond expeditiously in writing to those questions.
Hearing no further business, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:49 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Questions From Chairwoman Yvette D. Clarke of New York for Tara
O'Toole, Under Secretary for Science & Technology, Department of
Homeland Security
Question 1. What specific steps are you taking to make the
integrated project teams more analytically rigorous?
Answer. As the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) does
periodic (roughly semi-annual) reviews of the Integrated Project Teams
(IPTs) and their programs, we are alert to instances where the
requirements and the corresponding risk analyses might need to be more
rigorously examined to ensure that sound judgments can be made on
programs. As such instances are identified, a team of analysts,
experienced in requirements analysis and risk evaluation, is assigned
from the Homeland Security Studies and Analysis Institute (HSSAI), one
of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federally Funded Research
and Development Centers (FFRDCs), to work with the scientific staff to
reconsider and strengthen the analytic basis of the programs.
Eventually, S&T anticipates that this procedure will provide a basis
for comparative evaluation across IPTs as well.
Question 2. You gave conflicting responses to the committee when
asked if DHS was creating a management directive formalizing the
Capstone IPT.
Is DHS creating a management directive? If so, please provide any
relevant details, including expected release date.
Answer. During testimony, two different questions were asked.
Congressman Owens asked if there was a management directive being
formulated specifically for research. There is no Department-wide
guidance currently being formulated for research.
Chairwoman Clarke's question referred to a management directive for
formalizing the IPT process, which directs our Transition portfolio.
Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has drafted a management
directive and believes it will be a useful tool for increasing the
transparency and rigor of the IPTs. However, while the formal structure
of the IPTs is still under review, this management directive is still
being reworked. The focus of this guidance is on the Capstone IPTs, and
does not encompass basic research. It will describe the roles and
responsibilities between the S&T and our customers for the Transition
Portfolio. I expect it to be in place by the start of fiscal year 2011.
Question 3. You described the current DHS risk assessment process
as a collective one, bringing S&T, the operators, and the leadership of
the Department together.
Do all components perform their own assessment of risk and threat
today?
If so, how do you baseline this across the Department to determine
which activities should be funded?
What efforts are underway at the Department to baseline these
activities?
Answer. Many directorates, offices, and components across the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conduct analyses or assessments
related to risk, threat, vulnerability, and/or consequences as means to
inform strategic and operational planning, and to support decision-
making specific to their mission. Since these assessments are
necessarily tailored for the specific decision contexts and needs of
their leadership, they appropriately use differing sources and
granularity of data, different assessment methodologies and approaches,
and report results in ways that are most useful to them. For example,
the United States Coast Guard conducts the National Maritime Strategic
Risk Assessment (NMSRA) and the Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model
(MSRAM) to influence strategic and operational plans, and in execution
of tactical operations.
Consequently, since these intra-component assessments are designed
to support specific needs and decisions, it is generally difficult to
compare assessment results or findings across these assessments unless
they are designed to do so in a consistent manner. To address this, the
Office of Risk Management and Analysis (RMA), in conjunction with
partners from across DHS and the homeland security enterprise--
including Federal, State, local, Tribal and territorial government
organizations, the private sector and our international partners--is
working to achieve a consistent and integrated approach to risk
management that will increase the effectiveness of homeland security
risk management. RMA has taken several critical first steps for
building and institutionalizing integrated risk management. The office
established a risk governance process with the DHS Risk Steering
Committee (RSC), with membership from all components and offices in
DHS. The RSC, which meets at three levels, including component
leadership, ensures that there is collaboration, information-sharing,
and consensus-building across the Department as we identify and
integrate best practices for risk management and analysis. In September
2008, the RSC published a DHS Risk Lexicon that establishes a common
language for discussing risk-related concepts and techniques, and then
in January 2009 released an Interim Integrated Risk Management
Framework that sets the foundation for a common approach to homeland
security risk management.
RMA also conducts strategic all-hazards risk assessments that are
designed to inform the prioritization of risks and resource allocation
across the diverse mission sets within the Department. Specifically,
the Risk Assessment Process for Informed Decision Making (RAPID), to be
finalized in the spring of 2010, is the first quantitative all-hazards
assessment of risk, and is being conducted to support strategic and
budgetary decision making in DHS. While RAPID is not an aggregation or
``roll up'' of other Department assessments, it uses and leverages data
and results from those assessments as much as possible in its analysis
to support decisions about planning, programming, and budgeting. RAPID
will deliver three products in 2010: (1) A quantitative all-hazards
assessment of risk, (2) a detailed mapping of most DHS programs to a
range of all-hazards scenarios, and (3) an estimate of the risk
reduction afforded by those programs.
Question 4. What specific efforts will you undertake to create a
risk-based approach for research funding?
Answer. Risk has been identified as a fundamental consideration in
decision-making across the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
the larger National homeland security enterprise. Primary
responsibility for consideration of societal outcome risks starts with
those agencies and entities responsible for achieving homeland security
outcome goals. Included among those responsible are the DHS components;
other Federal agencies and departments with homeland security
responsibilities; Government agencies at the State, local, territorial,
and Tribal levels; and private sector entities such as owners and
operators of critical infrastructure. These agencies and entities
identify gaps in their capabilities to meet mission performance
expectations. The Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) Capstone
Integrated Product Team (IPT) process brings these stakeholders
together to identify and prioritize capability gaps for which
technology solutions and research & development are necessary or
potentially fruitful. Through the IPT process, homeland security
stakeholders share their risk assessments with S&T.
In addition, S&T is committed to working with other elements of DHS
and the larger National homeland security enterprise to improve our
collective understanding of homeland security risks and to develop and
execute better methods, tools and processes for analyzing and
communicating needed risk information.
S&T's research divisions are active partners with other
elements of DHS and the larger National homeland security
enterprise in carrying out assessments of various risks. For
example, S&T's Chemical and Biological Division has the lead
responsibility for biennial, systematic end-to-end risk
assessments on both traditional and advanced biological agents,
known as Bioterrorism Risk Assessments (BTRA).
S&T is actively working with the Office of Risk Management
and Analysis in the National Protection and Programs
Directorate to improve DHS's understanding of risk management
and analysis, the Department's risk lexicon, its risk education
and training capacity. S&T is also sponsoring active research
into analysis of complex-adaptive system risks, cross-community
collaboration in risk analysis and analyses of alternative
courses of action assessing multiple attributes including
effectiveness, cost, and sustainability.
Question 5. What do you believe is the appropriate percentage for
DHS S&T projects resulting in acquired technology?
Answer. Research and development (R&D) is not a linear process and,
therefore, linear metrics, such as a percentage of projects that will
result in technology acquisition, are not measurable or appropriate.
However, the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) does measure
progress toward achieving success on R&D projects. S&T has a goal of
achieving 75 percent or higher of all project milestones each year.
Program Managers measure performance by establishing milestones at the
beginning of a project that reflect the key achievements needed to
reach a desired end-state. Included in those milestones are decision
points that indicate whether a project should continue or be
terminated.
S&T has a diverse investment portfolio. Transition programs
represent approximately 50 percent of the R&D within S&T. These
projects are lower risk efforts designed to deliver products to
acquisition programs across the homeland security enterprise within 3
to 5 years. The S&T Innovation investment represents less than 10
percent of the R&D funding and those projects are designed to take on
higher risk projects than an acquisition program can accept with the
potential for higher pay-off than the acquisition program expects to
receive. The basic research investment accounts for approximately 20
percent of S&T budget and is funding efforts that are looking at the
phenomenology and basic science that will lead to the development of
the next generation of homeland security technology. The remaining
funds are dedicated to the operation of the S&T laboratories,
construction, SAFETY Act, and other functional programs that enable
research, development, testing and evaluation, and further the homeland
security position of the country.
Question 6. During the hearing, you stated that ``we need several
different kinds of metrics to measure different things.''
Can you give us specific examples of the kinds of metrics that
currently exist at S&T, and the metrics you intend to implement as
Under Secretary?
When will the results of the National Academy study on portfolio
metrics be released?
Answer. The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) tracks two
levels of performance metrics. One level is Government Performance
Results Act (GPRA) Measures. The GPRA measures are high-level outcome
measures that demonstrate progress toward achieving project success.
The key GPRA measure is percent of program milestones met. Program
Managers measure performance by establishing milestones at the
beginning of a project that reflect the key achievements needed to
reach a desired end-state. To make measures more meaningful S&T has
tied Senior Executive Service (SES) performance plans and bonuses to
the end-of-year results of the divisions' GPRA performance measures of
achieving milestones.
In addition to the GPRA measures, S&T had hundreds of detailed
internal management measures that the divisions use to gauge program
progress. These measures are based on a comprehensive programmatic and
technical review to improve the performance of individual activities
within projects. This process helps S&T ensure the viability and
vitality of individual programs and projects.
To help improve S&T program performance metrics, S&T contracted
with the National Academy of Science (NAS) to develop a framework of
metrics for S&T to better plan and evaluate its research activities. An
important element of R&D planning is development of appropriate
metrics, defined as a system of measures of the impact of research, to
inform evaluation and improved decision-making. The NAS study began in
April 2009 and selected the members of the committee in August, 2009.
The committee, chaired by Dr. Carl Pister, held its first meeting on
September 1 and 2, 2009. The study is scheduled to conclude in April,
2011.
Looking ahead S&T is engaging a third party to perform an initial,
independent portfolio analysis. The result will be a process and method
for repeatable portfolio analysis. The selection of the portfolio
analysis performer is expected in early April 2010. Portfolio analysis
will allow S&T to improve the efficacy and efficiency of its research
investment.
Question 7. With regard to assessing S&T performance, you stated
that ``there would be different processes to ask a first responder if
they found a protocol to be useful or accurate, versus asking a
component whether they found S&T testing and evaluation to be helpful
versus whether a deployed technology actually met the need as
expected.'' You also stated that you are going to have to set up a
variety of feedback systems to figure out how we are doing.
Please describe specific steps you are taking to create these
feedback systems. What current systems exist at S&T for these purposes
already?
Answer. The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has several
current feedback systems with which to assess performance related to
first responder technologies and knowledge products. They include:
S&T established the First Responder Capstone Integrated
Product Team to provide solutions that address capability gaps
identified by Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal
first responders.
S&T assumed responsibility, in fiscal year 2009, for the
management and funding of the former FEMA System Assessment and
Validation for Emergency Responders (SAVER) Program. The SAVER
Program conducts objective assessments and validations on
commercial equipment and systems and provides those results
along with other relevant equipment information to the
emergency response community in an operationally useful form.
SAVER provides information on equipment that falls within the
categories listed in DHS's Authorized Equipment List (AEL). The
SAVER Program mission is to provide information that enables
decision-makers and responders to better select, procure, use,
and maintain emergency responder equipment.
S&T established TechSolutions to rapidly address the
technology gaps identified by Federal, State, local, and Tribal
first responders. First responders are able to submit gaps
through the website, www.TechSolutions.dhs.gov. TechSolutions
validates capability gaps and first responder priorities by
working with a panel of first responder subject matter experts
to include the Inter-Agency Board (which comprises over 1,000
leaders from fire, police, emergency medical services (EMS)
throughout the United States). TechSolutions fields
prototypical solutions in 12 to 15 months; establishes a cost
that is commensurate with the proposal (normally $1 million or
less per project); and develops a solution that meets 80
percent or more of the identified requirement.
S&T's receives feedback on first responder needs through the
Integrated Product Team (IPT) process, which allows
stakeholders from the homeland security enterprise to identify
and prioritize technology gaps. Two examples of projects
undertaken for first responders are:
Geospatial Location Accountability and Navigation System
for Emergency Responders (GLANSER) Project.--Develops an
advanced first responder locating system that includes
integrated sensor components and software for visualizing
locations and tracks for incident commanders.
Physiological Health Assessment Sensor for Emergency
Responders (PHASER) Project.--Develops an integrated sensor
package that will monitor a responder's vital signs such as
cardiac rhythm, heart rate, blood pressure, body
temperature, and oxygen saturation, which could indicate
Pre-Ventricular Contractions (PVCs) or cardiac arrhythmias.
S&T is also creating additional feedback systems for the first
responder community to interact with S&T. Specific additions include:
The establishment of the First Responder Research
Development Test & Evaluation Working Group (FRWG), which
includes active members of the first responder community.
Members help identify and shape first responder specific
capability gaps and potential solutions that are undertaken by
S&T.
The FRWG is an integral part of the IPT process that
selects the S&T projects that go forward to mitigate First
Responder critical needs.
The FRWG is being expanded from 38 members to 52 members.
Each of the FRWG members reaches back to his/her
constituent groups and professional associations to
communicate not only what projects S&T is undertaking but
to validate the need and priority of those projects. S&T,
in conjunction with the FRWG, is reviewing the most
effective and efficient processes to conduct this outreach.
S&T is expanding the FRWG representation from 10
associations to 12. The 10 associations currently
represented are: International Association of Fire Chiefs
(IAFC), International Association of Firefighters (IAFF),
Interagency Board (IAB), International Association of
Chiefs of Police (IACP), National Sheriffs Association
(NSA), and Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM).
National Emergency Management Association (NEMA),
International Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
(IAEMT), and the international Association of Emergency
Medical Services Chiefs (IAEMSC).
Several of the individual working group members also
belong to many prestigious National associations and will
conduct outreach and solicit input and feedback through
their respective associations, some of which are: National
Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE),
National Native American Law Enforcement Association
(NNALEA), and the National Native American Fire Chiefs
Association (NNAFCA).
S&T is increasing first responders' ability to participate
in field demonstrations, tests and evaluation through a new
partnership with the Naval Post Graduate School. This close
interaction will give the first responder community the ability
to make informed observations on the project as it proceeds
toward completion.
S&T Directorate is developing the design and scope of a
first responder ``Community of Practice'' on the
FirstResponder.gov website. S&T is also exploring ways in which
to expand the membership and interaction on first responder.gov
to increase our visibility, outreach and first responder input
into S&T efforts.
Question 8. S&T currently has the authority to use the research
resources of other Federal agencies to determine the best existing
solutions to homeland security related issues and to find sources to
develop certain DHS security technologies.
Which Department of Defense research labs, other resources within
DOD, or other Federal agencies has DHS sought for expertise in sensing
technologies and applications?
Answer. See chart below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Facility Name and
Division Project Name Fiscal Year Federal Agency Location
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infrastructure/Geophysical.... Advanced Surveillance 2009, 2010...... Department of Massachusetts
Systems. Defense. Institute of
Technology Lincoln
Laboratory,
Lexington, MA
Infrastructure/Geophysical.... Underwater 2009, 2010...... Department of Naval Surface Warfare
Surveillance--Dams Defense. Center (NSWC),
and Tunnels. Crane, IA
Infrastructure/Geophysical.... Geospatial Location 2009, 2010...... Department of National Business
Accountability and Interior. Center (NBC), U.S.
Navigation System Department of Army--Communications
for Emergency. Defense. -Electronics R&D
Center (CERDEC)
Infrastructure/Geophysical.... Physiological Health 2009, 2010...... Department of NBC, U.S. Army-
Assessment Sensor Interior. Communications-
for Emergency Department of Electronics R&D
Responders (PHASER) Defense. Center (CERDEC)
[formerly First
Responder
Physiological
Monitoring].
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Instrument Standards 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
for Chemical Commerce. Standards and
Detection. Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Standards Development 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
for Detection and Commerce. Standards and
Sampling of Technology,
Biothreats by First Gaithersburg, MD
Responders.
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Radiation and Nuclear 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
Detector Standards Commerce. Standards and
and Validation. Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Development of a 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
Standard and Commerce. Standards and
Measurement Technology,
Infrastructure for Gaithersburg, MD
Calibration,
Standardization and
Optimization of
Trace Explosive
Detection.
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Metrology and SRMs 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
for Canine Olfactory Commerce. Standards and
Detection of Technology,
Explosives. Gaithersburg, MD
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. NIST Standard 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
Reference Materials Commerce. Standards and
(SRMs) to Support Technology,
Trace Explosive Gaithersburg, MD
Detection.
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Information 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
Management, On- Commerce. Standards and
Demand Evaluation, Technology,
and Dissemination Gaithersburg, MD
System for
Properties of Novel
Explosives.
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. National Standards 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
for X-ray and Gamma- Commerce. Standards and
ray Security Technology,
Screening Systems Gaithersburg, MD
and Their Validation.
Test, Evaluation & Standards.. Standards for Secure 2009, 2010...... Department of National Institute of
and Reliable RFID Commerce. Standards and
Communication in Technology,
Identification Gaithersburg, MD and
Applications. Boulder, CO
Command, Control and Discrete-Element 2009, 2010, 2011 Department of Sandia National
Interoperability. Computing, Privacy Energy. Laboratories,
and Forensics. Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
(PNNL)
Command, Control and Experimental Research 2009, 2010, 2011 Department of Sandia National
Interoperability. Testbed Project. Energy. Laboratories;
Department of
Defense--Space and
Naval Warfare
Systems Command
Command, Control and Common Operating 2009, 2010, 2011 Department of Space and Naval
Interoperability. Picture (COP) Data Defense. Warfare Systems
Fusion Technologies Command
Project.
Command, Control and Law Enforcement and 2009, 2010, 2011 Department of Space and Naval
Interoperability. Intelligence Sensor Defense. Warfare Systems
Fusion Project. Command
Command, Control and RealEyes Project..... 2009, 2010, 2011 National Jet Propulsion
Interoperability. Aeronautics and Laboratory,
Space Pasadena, CA
Administration.
Transition.................... Canary............... 2009, 2010...... Department of Edgewood Chemical
Defense. Biological Center,
U.S. Air Force,
Pentagon Force
Protection Agency
Transition.................... SNIFFER.............. 2009............ Department of Oak Ridge National
Energy. Laboratory
Transition.................... SPAWAR Situational 2009, 2010...... Department of Space and Naval
Awareness. Defense. Warfare Systems
Command
Chemical & Biological......... ARFCAM and LACIS..... 2003-2010....... Department of Naval Research
Defense. Laboratory,
Washington, DC
Chemical & Biological......... Detect to Protect.... 2005-2009....... Department of U.S. Naval Research
Defense. Laboratory,
Washington, DC
Chemical & Biological......... Detect to Protect.... 2005-2010....... Department of Edgewood Chemical
Defense. Biological Center,
Aberdeen Proving
Ground, MD
Chemical & Biological......... Detect to Protect.... 2009-2011....... Department of Massachusetts
Defense. Institute of
Technology, Lincoln
Laboratory, Hanscom
Air Force Base, MA
Chemical & Biological......... Low Vapor Pressure 2010-2011....... Department of Edgewood Chemical
Chemicals Detection Defense. Biological Center/
Systems. Aberdeen Proving
Ground, MD
Border and Maritime........... Sensor Data Fusion 2009-2010....... Department of Space and Naval
and Decision Aids. Defense. Warfare Systems
Command Pacific (SSC
Pacific), San Diego,
CA
Border and Maritime........... Advanced Container 2004-2010....... Department of Space and Naval
Security Device. Defense. Warfare Systems
Command Pacific (SSC
Pacific), San Diego,
CA
Border and Maritime........... Container Security 2004-2010....... Department of Space and Naval
Device. Defense. Warfare Systems
Command Pacific (SSC
Pacific), San Diego,
CA
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2009-2010....... Department of Naval Surface Warfare
Surveillance. Defense. Center (NSWC),
Crane, IA
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2009-2010....... Department of Naval Undersea
Surveillance. Defense. Warfare Center
(NUWC), Newport, RI
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2009-2010....... Department of Naval Research
Surveillance. Defense. Laboratory (NRL),
Washington, DC
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2006-2010....... Department of Naval Research
Defense. Laboratory (NRL),
Washington, DC
Border and Maritime........... Tunnel Detection..... 2008-2010....... Department of U.S. Army Corp of
Defense. Engineers
(Engineering,
Research and
Development Center),
Vicksburg, MS
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2005-2010....... Department of U.S. Army Corp of
Defense. Engineers
(Engineering,
Research and
Development Center),
Vicksburg, MS
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2005-2010....... Department of U.S. Army
Defense. Communications--Elec
tronics Research and
Development Center
(CERDEC), Ft.
Monmouth, NJ
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2005-2010....... Department of U.S. Army Night
Defense. Vision & Electronic
Sensors Directorate,
Ft Belvoir, VA
Border and Maritime........... Offshore Buoy SBIR... 2006-2010....... Department of Naval Facilities
Defense. Engineering Support
Center (NFESC), Port
Hueneme, CA
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2005-2009....... Department of U.S. Coast Guard
Surveillance. Homeland Research and
Security. Development Center
(USCG RDC), New
London, CT
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2005-2009....... Department of U.S. Coast Guard
Surveillance. Homeland Command and Control
Security. Engineering Center
(C2CEN), Portsmouth,
VA
Border and Maritime........... Sensors & 2010............ Department of Volpe Center (is the
Surveillance. Transportation. short title),
Cambridge, MA
Border and Maritime........... Advanced Container 2004-2010....... Department of Sandia National
Security Device. Energy. Laboratories,
Livermore, CA &
Albuquerque, NM
Border and Maritime........... Container Security 2004-2010....... Department of Sandia National
Device. Energy. Laboratories,
Livermore, CA &
Albuquerque, NM
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2006-2010....... Department of Sandia National
Energy. Laboratories,
Livermore, CA &
Albuquerque, NM
Border and Maritime........... Advanced Container 2004-2010....... Department of Pacific Northwest
Security Device. Energy. National Laboratory,
Richland, WA
Border and Maritime........... Container Security 2004-2010....... Department of Pacific Northwest
Device. Energy. National Laboratory,
Richland, WA
Border and Maritime........... Advanced Container 2004-2010....... Department of Lawrence Livermore
Security Device. Energy. National Laboratory,
Livermore, CA
Border and Maritime........... Container Security 2004-2010....... Department of Lawrence Livermore
Device. Energy. National Laboratory,
Livermore, CA
Border and Maritime........... Passive Coherent 2005-2007....... Department of Air Force Research
Localization. Defense. Laboratory, Rome, NY
Border and Maritime........... Sensor Data Fusion 2009-2010....... Department of Air Force Research
and Decision Aids. Defense. Laboratory, Dayton,
OH
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2007-2010....... Federally funded Massachusetts
Research and Institute of
Development Technology--Lincoln
Center. Laboratory (MIT-LL),
Lexington, MA
Border and Maritime........... BorderTech........... 2007-2010....... Department of Institute for Defense
Defense. Analyses,
Alexandria, VA
Human Factors................. Multi-modal 2008-2010....... Department of National Institute of
Biometrics Project Commerce. Standards and
(formerly Biometrics Technology,
Project). Gaithersburg, MD
Human Factors................. Mobile Biometrics 2009, 2010...... Department of Massachusetts
System. Defense. Institute of
Technology--Lincoln
Laboratory (MIT-LL),
Lexington, MA
Innovation.................... FAST................. 2009, 2010...... Department of Intelligence Advanced
Defense. Research Projects
Activity, Research,
Development and
Engineering Command--
Night Vision and
Electronic Sensors
Directorate,
Washington, DC
metro; Fort Belvoir,
VA
Innovation.................... Cell-All............. 2009, 2010...... National Ames Research Center,
Aeronautics and Moffett Field,
Space Mountain View, CA
Administration.
Innovation.................... Multi-Modal Tunnel 2009, 2010...... Department of NORTHCOM, Peterson
Detect. Defense. Air Force Base, CO
Innovation.................... MagViZ............... 2009, 2010...... Department of Los Alamos National
Energy. Laboratory; Los
Alamos, NM
Explosives.................... Canine Training Aids. 2010............ Department of NAVEOD Technical
Defense. Division, Indian
Head, MD
Explosives.................... Metal-Insulator-Metal 2008-2010....... Department of Naval Research
Ensemble (MIME) Defense. Laboratory (NRL),
Sensor & Test Bed. Washington, DC
Explosives.................... Multi-Assay Enabled 2010............ Department of Defense Advanced
Wide Area Sampling Defense. Research Projects
and Testing. Agency, Arlington,
VA RedXDefense,
Rockville, MD
Explosives.................... Explosive Detection 2007-2010....... Department of Air Force Research
System (EDS) Data Defense. Laboratory, Tyndall
Collection. Air Force Base,
Panama City, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 9. Since October 2008, S&T commercialization and industry
outreach and collaboration efforts have been handled largely through
the DHS SECURE Program and other similar efforts.
Under your leadership, how will S&T expand its work with private
industry to develop new capabilities that may be of benefit to DHS and
first responders?
Answer. The SECURETM program enables collaboration of
public and private entities to develop products, technologies, and
services rapidly for DHS stakeholders. In fiscal year 2009, the
SECURETM program generated eight Operational Requirements
Documents (ORDs). S&T plans to expand SECURETM. In fiscal
year 2010, the program expects a minimum of ten new SECURETM
ORDs and 20 ORDs in fiscal year 2011. In fiscal year 2012, the program
plans to generate and vet an additional 25 ORDs.
Below is a list of ways that the Science and Technology Directorate
(S&T) will work with private industry to develop new capabilities that
may benefit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and first
responders:
S&T outreach efforts center on notifying the private sector
about opportunities that exist for partnership and business
development to address the needs of DHS, the first responder
community, and critical infrastructure/key resources (CIKR)
owners and operators. These outreach efforts are conducted
through invited talks to trade conventions, reaching small,
medium, and large businesses. Efforts also extend to meetings
with minority, disadvantaged, and HUBZone groups on a regular
basis.
DHS routinely publishes and makes available the unsatisfied
needs and wants of S&T's stakeholders through the publication
of the ``High Priority Technology Needs'' (dated May 2009)
book, which assists in the communication of needs throughout
the Department and externally to the private sector when
appropriate.
S&T issues Requests for Information (RFIs) and Sources
Sought notices to gather information on the current state of
technology industry-wide as well as to collaborate with
industry on development proposals. These mechanisms are
normally followed by a request for proposal if there is
indication a Government need can be met.
S&T uses the Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (LRBAA) to
give industry an acquisition vehicle to communicate with S&T on
its technology proposals to meet current requirements, and this
also allows S&T to screen industry for any new break-through
technologies that may enhance or exceed current development
efforts.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program
reaches out to small, innovative businesses to fund critical
research/research and development stage and it encourages the
commercialization of technologies, products, and/or services.
Similar to the research and development (R&D) programs of S&T,
SBIR topics generally address the needs of the seven DHS
operational units as well as the first responder community.
S&T's leverages its TechSolutions Project to rapidly address
the technology gaps identified by Federal, State, local, and
Tribal first responders. The TechSolutions Project fields
prototypical solutions in 12 to 15 months; establishes a cost
that is commensurate with the proposal (normally $1 million or
less per project), and develops a solution that meets 80
percent or more of the identified requirement.
Question 10. How has S&T incorporated the findings and
recommendations of the 2009 National Academy of Public Administration
report into current operations?
Answer. The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has taken
several steps to address the National Academy of Public
Administration's (NAPA) recommendations in the 2009 report on S&T.
Primarily S&T is actively engaged in a strategic planning effort that
includes the development of an investment review process including a
redefinition of the way performance is defined and measured; a review
of the Directorate's functions, organizational construct, and business
practices; and a renewed focus on coordinating the homeland security
research and development (R&D) activities across the Federal
Government.
S&T is developing its strategic plan by first reviewing the entire
planning process from vision and mission to goals and objectives. The
strategic plan will help S&T determine if the organization is properly
shaped to meet its mission efficiently and effectively. This plan will
incorporate recommendations from the NAPA study and results from the
Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR), released in February,
2010. It will help determine if the right business practices are in
place to facilitate the work. The QHSR lays out a DHS-wide strategic
framework to guide DHS activities. The QHSR framework provides a
foundation for the development of long-term strategic goals for S&T.
S&T plans to have a final version of its strategic plan implemented
prior to fiscal year 2011.
S&T has already taken several steps toward completing its strategic
plan. S&T has formed a steering committee familiar with S&T operations
to provide direction and logistics for the strategic plan. S&T has set
an aggressive goal to complete several internal planning sessions or
forums and an employee survey that ensures active participation S&T-
wide. An independent, third-party subject matter experts (SMEs) team
has been selected to work with the steering committee and provide
analysis of gathered information. The SME's have completed reviews of
other research and development (R&D) agencies' plans. Stakeholders,
both internal and external to DHS, have been identified and will be
interviewed. Stakeholders will consist of DHS internal operational
partners; Congressional staff; other Federal agencies; a cross-cut of
the homeland security enterprise, as time allows. These activities are
the foundation to completing a strategic plan by fiscal year 2011.
Repeatable portfolio analysis is critical to S&T's strategic
planning process. Portfolio analysis will allow S&T to improve the
efficacy and efficiency of its research investment. S&T is engaging a
third party to perform an initial, independent portfolio analysis. The
result will be a process and method for repeatable portfolio analysis.
The selection of the portfolio analysis performer is expected in early
April 2010.
To help improve S&T program performance metrics, S&T contracted
with the National Academy of Science (NAS) to develop a framework of
metrics for S&T to better plan and evaluate its research activities. An
important element of R&D planning is development of appropriate
metrics, defined as a system of measures of the impact of research, to
inform evaluation and improved decision-making. The NAS study began in
April 2009 and selected the members of the committee in August, 2009.
The committee, chaired by Dr. Carl Pister, held its first meeting on
September 1 and 2, 2009. The study is scheduled to conclude in April
2011.
As Section 302 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 describes, the
Under Secretary for Science and Technology has the responsibility to
develop strategic plans for homeland security R&D. In response to this
mandate, S&T published ``Coordination of Homeland Security Science and
Technology'' in December 2007 (revised January 2008), which reported
the roles and responsibilities of Federal agencies, as well as
initiatives underway to counter threats to homeland security. S&T is
currently revising this 2008 effort in conjunction with the QHSR.
As DHS developed the QHSR, S&T working groups began to update the
National level strategic plan. Divisions within S&T have compiled input
with their interagency partners. The working groups are also performing
the following tasks:
Define the process for drafting a National-level Homeland
Security Science and Technology Plan;
Articulate a vision of the outcome of that process in terms
of the criteria that the final plan must meet; and
Define key terms and phrases for the plan development
process.
S&T is engaging external partners to inform this strategic research
plan. S&T is in consultation with OSTP, including the Executive
Director of the National Science & Technology Council (NSTC), to
discuss the plan details and coordination efforts for the plan across
Federal partners. SMEs from DHS's Federally Funded Research and
Development Center (FFRDC) have provided plan support by both
developing a framework and through on-going analysis of input from
inter-agency working groups and councils.
In addition to the above steps to implement NAPA recommendations,
S&T has already realigned the programs addressing first responder
requirements gathering and technology development under the Interagency
Division and defined roles and responsibilities to ensure a coordinated
effort. S&T has established a new goal of achieving 75 percent or
higher of all project milestones each year. These project milestones
are determined by program managers at the beginning of a project and
reflect the key achievements needed to reach a desired end-state. S&T
has further opened up the lines of communication between staff and
senior management through the use of a suggestion mailbox read by the
S&T Chief of Staff.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
