This country is faced with a renewed commitment to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Our immediate answer is for more fuel-efficient cars. Well let me remind everyone that we already have the technology to move large numbers of people and things on our train system while greatly reducing the consumption of fuel. The problem is that we need more investment in the tracks and equipment that has served the nation for 150 plus years.
Security Debrief contributor James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation does a guest interview on the respected emergency preparedness blog: “In Case of Emergency, Read Blog.” Carafano discusses a report he co-authored with David Heyman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Congress has been so preoccupied debating the STD reduction and smoking cessation components of the stimulus package that they have failed to notice the gaping whole in the legislation. It’s time to belly up at the bar and take real action. Invest in jobs, the future, the environment, healthcare, security and the economy – all at the same time. How? By fixing our nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Not $800 billion worth, all of it! It’s the best $2.2 trillion you’ll ever spend.
From the moment we first stood up DHS, the entire leadership made the case and operated under the principle that a successful homeland security model required a true partnership with the private sector. That meant going beyond simple advisory committees but developing programs in which the government and private sector could work together, as well as acknowledging that — with more than 80 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure being owned by the private sector — those outside of government had just as much at stake and spent just as much time looking for solutions to protect that infrastructure.
Following Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, the Administration has stepped up enforcement activities against employers, possibly in the hope that it would spur compromise and further consideration of immigration reform. These efforts over the past two years have resulted in impressive Department of Homeland Security operations.
I am generally a fan of term limits to ensure that new ideas have a chance to be heard, but in this case, a waiver was justified. The continuity on the subcommittee, especially at a time when the department won’t have much continuity, is extremely valuable to DHS and to all Americans who depend on its success.
Implementing new cargo-scanning regulations that have questionable security value and will assuredly disrupt the global supply chain and further undermine American commerce, jobs and the economy at large seems like a remarkably bad idea.
The Age of Unity may indeed be upon us. The right-leaning Heritage Foundation and left-leaning Center for American Progress appear to be in significant agreement on at least one thing: The need for a BRAC-like commission of independent voices to review the tangle of homeland security laws and mandates issued in the frantic years after 9/11.
Of all the important cases handled by Michael J. Garcia, who for three years has held arguably the most prestigious United States attorney’s post in the country, perhaps the one that drew the most attention is the case he did not file against New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.
CNET’s Editor in Chief, Dan Farber, has written an interesting column this past weekend on the potential turf battles that will be created by President-Elect Obama’s campaign promise to create a federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Farber says, “it could be difficult to find a worthy candidate from the private sector willing to take on a task of such enormous scope in an environment known to chew up and spit out White House policy czars.”
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