Homeland Security Dept. Seeks Innovation The Department of Homeland Security plans to issue a broad agency announcement shortly seeking innovative technologies to protect the nation against terrorist attack. The announcement, worth “several tens of millions of dollars,” will ask for proposals in about 20 specific areas that “cover the breadth of homeland security,” said Penrose Albright, currently assistant director of research and development in the White House Office of Homeland Security, but soon to become a top official in the department’s Science and Technology Directorate. Speaking Feb. 27 at a Washington conference sponsored by Defense Week, he said the announcement will be released within a few weeks. It is being developed by the Technical Support Working Group, an office managed by the Defense and State Departments. He said near-term priorities include systems to detect radiological and nuclear devices; biological warning and detection; chemical and explosives detection “in vehicles on the road as well as in airports;” and cybersecurity, especially forensic cybersecurity that can aid in identifying hackers. He emphasized that the department will be looking for solutions that can be operational fairly quickly. “We are not interested in lab rats,” he remarked. “There are many instances of technologies that work absolutely well in the lab. You take them into the field and they don’t work at all.” The law creating the department requires it and all other agencies to conduct market research to identify sources, including small businesses that can provide technologies for combating terrorism. “Increasing the small-business supplier base” is a high priority, because small firms are often leaders in innovation, said Robert Burton, associate administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. About 20% of homeland security spending will to go to small, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses, said Bruce Aitken, president of the Homeland Security Industries Association, speaking at the same conference. Aitken said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has emphasized teaming in contracting. “The old ways of single-company bidding, I think, are out the window under the new department,” he added. The department’s Science and Technology Directorate includes a research arm modeled after DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, that will be “engaging the private sector,” Albright said. The HSARPA will search for “disruptive technologies, technologies that change the way we do business,” he added. Albright also said the department will develop national standards for equipment and technology to be used by first responders, enabling vendors to offer DHS-approved products to state and local agencies. The fiscal 2003 budget allocates nearly $1 billion dollars to states and localities for anti-terrorism equipment, training and exercises. By law, the Science and Technology Directorate will handle the department’s acquisition activities, with procurement responsibilities in the hands of the undersecretary for management. Janet Hale, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, has been nominated for the management post; Charles McQueary, a former defense industry executive, is the nominee for undersecretary of science and technology. The acquisition and procurement chiefs who will work under them have not been named, according to several federal officials who have been involved in transition planning. Congress granted the department streamlined acquisition authority for any product or service that it deems essential to its mission. (SAA, 11/29/02, 12/13/02) Most important, it can treat any mission-critical product or service as a commercial item and purchase it under simplified procedures in the Federal Acquisition Regulation. “That’s probably the most significant (procurement) provision in the legislation,” OFPP’s Burton said. OFPP will issue what he called “common-sense” guidelines sometime this month to implement the provision. However, use of the streamlined acquisition authority may be limited, because each purchase requires the approval of a high official and must be reported to Congress within seven days. Burton said he expects most of the department’s procurements will follow the standard rules. To attract new contractors, Congress provided limited liability protection for firms selling anti-terrorism products and services. The Homeland Security Act includes the Safety Act, which puts contractors under the protection of what lawyers call the “government contractor defense,” said Ray Biagini, a partner in the Washington law firm McKenna, Long and Aldridge. He said that means courts cannot hold a contractor liable as long as it was providing a defect-free product or service according to government specifications and did not conceal any potential safety risks from the government. On March 1 the department formally took control of most of its 22 component agencies and 175,000 employees, including the Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and most of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The transfer of control has little immediate practical effect, since employees will continue working in the same locations and for the same supervisors and in some cases will continue wearing the same uniforms. As of March 1, only three of the new department’s top 20 officials had been confirmed by the Senate. Nominees have not even been chosen for many of the positions. Secretary Ridge dramatized the gargantuan task facing the department. He told some of his new employees that, counting all the people who enter the United States by plane and ship and across land borders, as well as cargo containers, “we’ve got to be right about 1.3 billion times a year” to keep terrorists out.