Two miles from home, on what had been a typical evening, I sat on a Metrobus last week and saw a bright orange flash cut through the dark night – 50 feet in front of us, a car erupted in flames. To my horror, someone was inside. When action was needed, four brave men ran to the burning car to answer their unexpected call to duty. At its very essence, this is Homeland Security – it’s America in action.
The House Energy & Commerce Committee is set to markup the Drinking Water System Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 3258) tomorrow. The bill, which would regulate drinking water utilities through a “CFATS-like” regime under the Environemental Protection Agency (EPA), will require utilities to update their vulnerability assessments, develop site security plans, and evaluate their disinfection processes.
At a time when the economy is in the toilet, when we’re fighting (and perhaps losing) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when healthcare is becoming a fading memory, and we’ve got to worry about Ahmadinejad trying to get his hands on a nuke with all the fervor of a Wall Street fat-cat chasing down a government bailout, Congress seems more concerned about finding ways to belittle one another than fulfilling the oath to serve.
Last year DHS asked the President’s private sector advisors on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) to examine what impedes the nation’s ability to respond and recover from a major disaster resulting in the prolonged loss of infrastructure service. On Tuesday, the Department and the President received their answer.
This weekend I’ll be celebrating that 233 years ago, the idea of a free nation became a reality. That a land of promise, opportunity, and choice – founded on God’s principals of right and wrong – became a living body, filled with the sacrificed breath of our founding fathers.
Despite the existence of H1N1, you’re going to be OK – really! As of May 5th there were 403 confirmed cases of H1N1 infection in the United States. One of those, my friend’s niece in New York, said the only difference between H1N1 and the ‘regular’ flu is the name. Mexico is reopening restaurants, the World Health Organization has no plans to elevate its alert level, and Joe Biden has stopped scaring us. It seems safe enough to stop giving people with allergies the stink eye for sneezing on the Metro.
For a group that’s dangerously close to being branded as the ‘party of no,’ Republicans have a funny way of showing they can lead. Republican leaders – spearheaded by Congressman John Carter of Texas – are calling for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired.
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.
Bob Stephan, oft referred to as the “soul” of DHS, officially added “former” to his title as Assistant Secretary of Infrastructure Protection this weekend. Bob has been a visionary at DHS, building the public/private partnership model for homeland security and creating the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.
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