HS Subcommittee Hearing on Mexican Border Violence

Yesterday the House Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism held a meeting to look at violence on the Mexican border. All five of the witnesses were from various parts of the Department of Homeland Security. It was an interesting discussion about the current state of affairs on that border and what DHS was currently doing and could do in the future to deal with the situation. While there was an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the current situation, two interesting points were made. First that violent crime was actually down in US border cities like El Paso. Second, the drug cartel violence, according to the DHS Attaché to Mexico, was limited to the Mexican border states and was not a problem in the rest of the country. Both of these observations (neither of which were questioned by the Committee) run counter to a lot of what has been appearing in the press in the last month or so. DHS is promising to beef-up their efforts to stop guns and money from going South, but admit that there is not a lot of infrastructure in place to do that effectively. All of the inspection type checkpoints, for instance are on the inbound lanes not the outbound lanes of roads crossing the border. Southern Border Security Task Force Interestingly, a member of this subcommittee introduced a bill (HR 1437) on Wednesday, calling for DHS to: “To establish a Southern Border Security Task Force to coordinate the efforts of Federal, State, and local border and law enforcement officials and task forces to protect United States border cities and communities from violence associated with drug trafficking, gunrunning, illegal alien smuggling, violence, and kidnapping along and across the international border between the United States and Mexico.” The bill would make DHS the lead agency for this task force. It would have 180 days to get the TF set-up and another 180 days to report back to Congress on its efforts. It would also appropriate $10M to fund the effort. The bill was referred to both the Homeland Security Committee and the House Judiciary Committee for review. No Mention of Chemicals Once again there has been no mention of the significant commercial trade in hazardous chemicals that crosses this volatile border. There are still no provisions for physically checking the railcars of TIH chemicals that cross from Mexico into the United States for IEDs or other signs of tampering until they change hands (carrier-to-carrier, or carrier-to-receiver) somewhere in the United States. Even carrier-to-receiver inspections are not required by current TSA rules unless the receiver is located in an HTUA.

House Hearing Week of March 9th

The House Homeland Security Committee has three hearings scheduled next week that may be of interest to the chemical security community. The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has two hearings that might be of interest. Cyber Security The Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology Hearing will hold a hearing on cybersecurity issues on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 2pm EDT. It is entitled: “Reviewing the Federal Cybersecurity Mission” and it will provide an opportunity for the Committee to provide input into the 60-day NSC cybersecurity review. There is nothing in the currently available information indicating that the issue of control system security will be discussed, but it cannot be ruled out. Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection will look at the Mumbai attacks and their implications for infrastructure protection in a hearing to be conducted on March 11th at 2pm EDT. The hearing will be entitled: “The Mumbai Attacks: A Wake-Up Call for America’s Private Sector”. This hearing should have the most direct impact on planning for the protection of high-risk chemical facilities. Mexican Border Violence On Thursday, March 12th at 10am EDT the Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism will look at the situation on the Mexican border in a hearing entitled: “Border Violence: An Examination of DHS Strategies and Resources”. Again, nothing indicates that chemical security issues will be specifically addressed, but, as I noted in a blog last December, there are substantial cross border shipments of hazardous materials that may be affected by this violence. The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will look at the same issue on Tuesday, March 10th at 11:30am EDT. Interestingly there is no overlap in the witness lists for these two hearings, so there should be a broad cross section of agency views expressed between these two hearings. Rail Security Issues The Homeland Security Subcommittee will be holding a hearing on March 12th at 10am EDT that will be looking at railroad security issues. The hearing is entitled: “Securing the Nation’s Rail & Transit Systems”. Two of the witnesses will be representing large metropolitan (New York and Los Angeles) transit authorities, so it is not clear that there will be much discussion of freight rail security issues.