Report Questions Homeland Security Oversight
A new report from the Center for Public Integrity released Thursday finds that the Department of Homeland Security is still answering to more than 80 congressional panels and subcommittees five years after the 9/11 Commission recommended “a single, principal point of oversight” for the department.
The investigation, “Is Congress Failing on Homeland Security Oversight?,” details political infighting, power plays, and an extraordinary number of demands that are hampering the department’s ability to budget, organize, and prioritize.
“When you have oversight conducted by numerous committees and subcommittees you tend not to get the rigor you need in oversight,” Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, told the Center. “The more [committees] you have engaged in the topic, the less robust it is. We think the executive branch needs very rigorous, independent oversight that can only really come from the Congress.”
9/11 Commissioners say Congress has enacted 80 to 90 percent of the 41 recommendations the panel made on July 22, 2004 but point out the lack of organized homeland security oversight is a glaring omission.