[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 14, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1606-E1607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE IMPROVEMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 
                                  2010

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 14, 2010

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to 
introduce a bill on behalf of myself and the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. 
Jackson Lee.
  The ``Federal Protective Service Improvement and Accountability Act 
of 2010'' addresses glaring gaps in security at our Federal buildings 
by putting the Federal Protective Service (FPS) on the path to 
fulfilling its homeland security mission.
  My legislation would direct FPS to increase its ranks while fostering 
greater accountability and management of contract guards and security 
service contracts.


                               BACKGROUND

  The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is a critical component of the 
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and of our national security, 
being the agency responsible for the law enforcement and security of 
nearly 9,000 Federal facilities all across the country.
  Over one million government employees work in federal facilities 
nationwide and many more members of the public visit and utilize 
federal facilities each year. Protecting these men and women is of the 
utmost importance.
  FPS was transferred to DHS from the General Services Administration 
(GSA) under the 2002 Homeland Security Act. Starting in 2006, we began 
learning about serious capacity and operational challenges in this 
critical agency.
  In 2006, two DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports were 
released that questioned the management of and security provided by 
FPS.
  The first report revealed that FPS was running a significant budget 
shortfall due to problems with transferring operational funds when FPS 
was moved into DHS. The OIG indicated at the time that the fee-funding 
system employed by FPS to cover the costs of security it provides 
Federal agencies might be a part of the problem.
  The second report included troubling revelations about the state of 
the contract security guard program which FPS had come to rely on to 
provide the physical security presence and access point controls at 
almost all of the facilities under their protection.
  In 2006, FPS had less than 1,000 uniformed officers and employed 
roughly 15,000 contract guards. The OIG discovered that FPS was not 
performing adequate oversight of guards and estimated that at least 30 
percent of contract guards in the facilities they inspected either did 
not meet suitability requirements to be permitted to stand at their 
post and perform their job or had at least one expired certification 
that would also prohibit them from standing post.
  Furthermore, the OIG found that the guards standing post often did 
not adhere to the terms of their contracts by failing to adequately 
follow the orders laid out by FPS for manning their guard posts. The 
Inspector General's report concluded that FPS may have created a 
situation of unnecessary risk and increased vulnerability at Federal 
facilities by failing to properly oversee their contract guards.
  In May 2007, I convened a Full Committee hearing on the state of FPS. 
At the hearing, we took testimony as to the serious flaws within the 
contract guard program and learned of FPS' initial plan to address 
their budget shortfall. FPS planned to transfer more than 200 Federal 
law enforcement officers and special agents out of FPS, their duties to 
be fulfilled by contract guards.
  At the time, I expressed my strong reservations about this plan. 
Subsequently, the House Appropriations Committee directed FPS to 
maintain a staff of at least 1200 FTEs and FPS ended up addressing its 
budgetary woes by increasing the fee it charged for providing security 
by 47% between FY2005 and FY2009.
  Over the past three years, my Committee has conducted extensive 
oversight of FPS and its management of the contract guard program.
  By April 13, 2010, a follow-on audit by the Government Accountability 
Office that I requested revealed that previous concerns raised by the 
OIG as well as my Committee remained unaddressed, and serious security 
gaps existed.
  GAO found that the initial problem of uncertified or unqualified 
guards standing post due to a lack of proper oversight was still a very 
big problem. In fact, GAO identified an entire region of roughly 1,500 
guards who never received the proper x-ray and magnetometer training 
from FPS.
  In one instance a woman's infant was put through the x-ray scanner, 
but the guard was able to retain his job after challenging the FPS for 
never properly training him on how to use the machine.
  GAO also continued to find guards standing post with expired 
certifications, and even found one level IV facility, the highest risk 
facility FPS protects, where 75% of guards standing post had at least 
one expired certification.
  GAO determined this happened because FPS lacked a reliable system to 
track and monitor certifications and training of guards, and was 
relying on contractors to accurately self report on their guards.
  GAO concluded that the lack of uniform guidance for the frequency and 
rigor of guard post inspections meant that FPS rarely inspected many 
posts, and when they did there was no continuity from region to region 
with regard to what constituted a proper or thorough inspection.
  The most concerning of GAO's findings, however, were the results of 
their penetration testing.
  GAO performed covert penetration tests to see if contract guards in 
10 of the highest risk facilities across the Nation would be able to 
prevent someone with bomb-making materials from entering the 
facilities. GAO had a 100 percent success rate.
  In other words, they were able to sneak bomb making materials into 
every single facility they tested, on every attempt they made, and were 
even able to go somewhere within the facility like a bathroom, assemble 
the device, and then walk around the facility unimpeded, in and out of 
offices, including those of Members of this House.
  This demonstrates an almost complete lack of entryway security at 
Federal facilities with the highest risk designation, and that is 
simply unacceptable.

[[Page E1607]]

  To make matters worse, contract security guards do not have arrest 
authority of any kind, so if incidents did occur they could often do 
little besides call the police instead of physically being able to 
address a threat themselves.
  When, in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, the Obama Administration 
proposed transferring FPS out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
(ICE) and into the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), 
I held another Full Committee hearing to receive testimony as to 
whether this move would help or hinder reform to enhance FPS' 
performance.
  At the November 2009 hearing, FPS and the leadership of NPPD promised 
to immediately begin reforms that would address the troubling GAO 
findings with the contract guard program.
  In April, 2010, the Committee on Homeland Security held its third 
dedicated hearing on the state of FPS. At that hearing, GAO provided 
testimony on the contract guard program, and the question of whether it 
was time to rethink the Federal Protective Service's use of contract 
guards to protect some of our Nation's highest risk facilities.
  Specifically, GAO recommended that FPS reassess how it protects 
Federal facilities, take a stronger role in overseeing contractor 
performance, and most importantly reassess the use of contract guards 
in the first place.
  FPS responded to the GAO by noting they had increased the frequency 
of guard post inspections by 40 percent, and were in the process of 
implementing a multi-million dollar computer risk assessment program to 
streamline the process of guard post inspections and make them more 
uniform across the Nation. The computer program was not in use at the 
time of the hearing though, and still remains largely inoperable today.
  In response, GAO stated that even with this new process, FPS was 
still too understaffed to perform adequate oversight of contractors and 
contract guards.
  I would note that, at my request, GAO is currently performing an 
audit of the aforementioned computerized risk assessment and management 
program, known as RAMP.
  Interesting, at the hearing, FPS claimed to have performed analysis 
of the cost savings that might be gained by full or partial conversion 
of contract guards to Federal positions, and had made the determination 
that the gains in security were not sufficient to warrant the expense.
  Given that FPS lacks both a human capital plan and a current 
workforce analysis, FPS' contentions were somewhat dubious.
  At the conclusion of the hearing, I was left unsatisfied that FPS was 
able or willing to undertake the necessary reforms. Thus, I came to 
believe that it would take legislative action to ensure that our 
Federal buildings had the security that Americans have the right to 
expect.
  I directed my staff to work on legislation to tackle FPS' challenges 
in a comprehensive fashion.


                      OVERVIEW OF THE LEGISLATION

  The ``Federal Protective Service Improvement and Accountability Act 
of 2010'' seeks to bolster FPS' management and diminish its over-
reliance on contract guards thereby improving the overall security 
provided by FPS in many ways:
  First, the bill will require FPS to increase the ranks of Federal Law 
Enforcement inspectors it employs from the current number of about 800 
to 1350. The increased presence of Federal law enforcement within 
Federal buildings, providing ``boots on the ground'' security expertise 
will fundamentally transform FPS.
  Within the inspector workforce, the Federal Facility Security 
Officers shall serve the security expert function, responsible for 
performing the risk assessments, making security countermeasure 
recommendations, and performing the onsite inspections of security 
guard posts.
  Complementing this effort will be the contributions of Federal 
Facility Law Enforcement Officers to address a serious need within 
Federal facilities for patrolling, performing law enforcement 
investigations, responding to crises, and exercising arrest authority 
when necessary.
  This augmented inspector workforce--comprised of Federal law 
enforcement--will provide FPS, for the first time, with a core of 
specialized security personnel with the training and authority to 
foster change within the entire organization.
  Second, the bill directs FPS to establish a dedicated contract 
oversight staff to monitor the contract guards. This would allieviate a 
major responsibility that was thrust upon FPS' law enforcement officers 
who, though lacking contract oversight knowledge, are expected to 
monitor contractor performance by contractors. Establishment of a 
specialized corps of contract oversight staff will have the added 
benefit of freeing up law enforcement officers to concentrate on their 
law enforcement duties full time.
  Third, the bill will require the establishment of national minimum 
standards for the level of training and the certification of security 
guards.
  This standard would directly alleviate the problem of different 
states and regions having contract guards with varying degrees of 
qualifications and training, despite being certified to act as security 
guards in their home states or regions.
  Fourth, it expresses the sense of Congress that the security 
standards for Federal facilities established by the Interagency 
Security Committee, a Federal security advisory committee, and 
published in the document ``Physical Security Criteria for Federal 
Facilities'' become implemented for all Federal facilities for which 
they were issued. This would be another major step toward ensuring 
security at Federal facilities was uniform across the Nation.
  Fifth, this bill sets up a 1 year pilot program to assess whether a 
Federal Facility Security Guard that is a Federal employee would do a 
better job protecting the highest risk federal facilities than a 
contract guard. GAO is charged with assessing the performance of the 
Federal Security Guards performing in the pilot.
  In the event that the GAO finds their performance satisfactory, the 
Federal Facility Security Guard position created by the pilot would 
then become a permanent position at FPS. This pilot program is critical 
towards possibly addressing the problems with the contract security 
guard program that are all but endemic at this juncture.
  FPS can no longer continue a patchwork approach to plugging security 
holes consistently found in the contract security guard program. This 
pilot will present Congress and FPS with a real world example of an 
alternative to contract guards that would instantly alleviate many 
concerns regarding the quality and legitimacy of security guard 
training and certification.
  Sixth, this bill will require the highest risk Federal facilities to 
always maintain a sufficient number of persons with Federal law 
enforcement arrest authority so that they could respond to any crises 
that may occur with the necessary force and authority.
  Seventh, this bill will require GAO to investigate the fee-funding 
system FPS utilizes to cover its operating costs. Numerous reports have 
linked this fee system, which bills tenant agencies for security 
primarily by a charge per the square footage of the facility, to 
hindering the progress of integration with DHS, as well as general 
reform, at FPS by hampering their ability to make decisions that 
require significant budgetary commitments.


                            CLOSING COMMENTS

  The Federal Protective Service has a critical mission when it comes 
to this Nation's homeland security because it is a mission that 
directly protects Americans from potential harm. Yet since it was first 
moved into the Department of Homeland Security, FPS has been plagued 
with issues of mismanagement.
  Some of these have been addressed, but the most serious issue to date 
has been the inability of the contract force, upon which FPS heavily 
relies, to provide adequate security at the entrances and exits to many 
highly populated and high risk Federal facilities.
  This bill takes a comprehensive common-sense approach to addressing 
these security holes as quickly and responsibly as possible.
  Simply put, FPS needs more officers, and this bill will give it to 
them. At the same time, FPS needs to find alternatives to its current 
contract-reliant approach to guarding facilities and this bill does 
just that by putting FPS on a path to building needed internal capacity 
to provide guard services.
  I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the ``Federal Protective Service 
Improvement and Accountability Act of 2010'' and work with me to get 
passage of this critical homeland security legislation.

                          ____________________