NPPD Budget Hearing Testimony

While the budget hearing before the Homeland Security Sub-Committee of the House Appropriations Committee for the DHS National Protections and Programs Directorate was closed to discuss classified information, the Committee has published the DHS testimony. The testimony of Under Secretary Rand Beers and Deputy Under Secretary Phil Reitinger provides more details on the President’s FY 2012 budget request for that portion of DHS that includes the CFATS program and the public side of the cyber security program.

Chemical Security Spending

I noted in yesterday’s blog that Beers reported to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the President’s FY 2012 budget request included $99 Million for the CFATS process. The budget testimony expands on that information noting that:

“The FY 2012 budget request of $99.3 million supports [CFATS] inspection activities, the full implementation of the Personnel Surety Program to identify individuals with potential terrorist ties at covered facilities, and refining the suite of Chemical Security Assessment Tools that support the program. This funding also supports the development and implementation of regulations governing the sale and transfer of the nation’s supply of ammonium nitrate pursuant to the authority granted the Department in the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act.” (page 10)

The written testimony does not note that this is a decrease from the FY 2011 request of $100 Million or from the FY 2010 spending of $105 Million. While DHS needs to trim their budget to reduce excessive or unnecessary spending it would be nice to see an explanation of how the Department intends to do more with fewer financial resources. Of course the Sub-Committee members may have asked about this, but since it was a closed hearing we’ll probably never know.

Cyber Security Spending

Even in this testimony it is difficult to track down the Administration’s spending plan for the program of most interest to the chemical security community, ICS-CERT. While the program is mentioned, no specific dollar amount allocation for the program is included in this testimony. It is presumably included in the spending for the Cyber Emergency Response Team program. This program provides support to both federal civilian networks and private sector networks. The testimony describes the funding request:

“The FY 2012 budget request for US-CERT Operations is $80.9 million. This funding enables US-CERT to expand its capabilities in the areas of cyber analytics, cybersecurity indications and warnings, collaboration and coordination, and cyber incident response to enhance its 24-hour operational capabilities.” (page 4)

Additional funding for the program may be included in a number of different programs for cyber security operations. These programs might include:

“The FY 2012 budget request includes $24.5 million to provide high-quality, cost-effective virtual cybersecurity education and training to develop and grow a robust cybersecurity workforce that is able to protect against and respond to national cybersecurity threats and hazards.” (page 6)

“The FY 2012 budget request includes $61.4 million to support the collaboration with the public and private sectors to assess and mitigate risk to the nation’s cyber CIKR and to promote cybersecurity awareness among and within the general public and key communities.” (page 7)

Confusing Testimony

While the following comments are directed specifically at this testimony they generally apply to testimony provided to support the Congressional budget process. The prepared testimony is a narrative description of the spending plans, but because of the hodgepodge of spending mechanisms for different programs, it is difficult to follow the details of the money allocations.

I hope that the Administration is providing clearer data to the Congressional staffs responsible for actually writing the budget and allocating resources. One would like to think that someone has a spread sheet that shows the spending plan for each program. For instance the CFATS Program plan would show how much is being allocated for salaries, travel and admin support for the inspection force; how much is being allocated for similar categories for the ISCD home staff; and how much is being spent on contractors supporting the program.

It is only that level of spending detail that will allow for the kind of educated analysis of the Department’s spending that would support a real discussion of budget cuts. Rather than just blindly cutting programs based upon philosophical ideas, we could actually try to make the Federal government more efficient.

Classified Briefings

Looking at the prepared testimony I’m still having a hard time figuring out why this hearing was closed. The best I can figure is that there was going to be some discussion of the implementation of Einstein 3 and the impact the reduction in funding will have in the deployment of that system. Of course, it could be something else entirely; something that I don’t know anything about. It is classified after all.

I would like to suggest to the committee staffs that when there is going to be a relatively small portion of a hearing like this that is going to be classified that provisions should be made to web-cast the unclassified portions. The security folks would probably not want the web-cast to be live so that they could ensure that no classified information inadvertently leaked out during the discussion and that’s fine. Most people probably look at these web casts after the hearing in any case. I know that I usually do.