Rob Portman, Dec. 9, 2002

The terrorists who struck our homeland on September 11, 2001 killed more innocent civilians than did all our previous foreign enemies combined. Things had forever changed for our nation, but it wasn't clear yet if things were going to change for our government.

There is an old saying that reads, "Times change, and we change with them too." Unfortunately, this statement often does not apply to the federal government. While times change, the federal government is often too big and too bureaucratic to adapt and meet new challenges. This was one of the problems we faced on the issue of homeland security. With over 100 federal agencies sharing responsibility for homeland security, everyone was in charge and no one was in charge. There can be no accountability within such a system.

That is why last summer, President Bush presented Congress with a bold plan to merge and consolidate the major federal responsibilities within a single Department of Homeland Security. The President laid out three strategic objectives for the new department: prevention of attacks; reduction of our vulnerabilities; and minimizing the damage and maximizing the recovery should attacks occur. These objectives provided a framework to begin to sensibly align people and funding - and authority and accountability - to the task of homeland security.

In June, the Speaker appointed me to the nine-member bipartisan Select Committee on Homeland Security to work with the many committees in Congress that have jurisdiction over these issues, and draft legislation creating the new Department. We heard testimony from nine Cabinet secretaries, Committee Chairs and Ranking Members from ten House committees, and many other colleagues with special expertise in homeland security. Our focus was to ensure that we were not just creating a new federal department, but that we were creating a new kind of federal department -- a department that would be far more effective and more efficient.

I believed from the start that the key was going to be ensuring that the President and the new Secretary of Homeland Security have the flexibility they need to put the right people in the right places at the right time to respond to this new kind of threat. This meant budget, organizational and personnel flexibility. Under our current antiquated, federal personnel system, it can take up to five months to hire a single worker. It can take months to transfer critical personnel. The government can't really reward good performance, and there is very little the government can do to discipline workers who aren't performing to expectations. Even most federal employees recognize that this is a problem. In a recent survey, two-thirds said they believe that poor performers in their ranks are not adequately disciplined.

That is why the final legislation to create the new department contained an amendment that I authored that would create an unprecedented level of flexibility at the department. On personnel, it strikes a balance between protecting workers' rights, yet being responsive. It retains key civil service protections - including collective bargaining rights, whistleblower protections and protection against political hiring or discrimination. At the same time, it gives the President and the new Secretary the ability to develop a flexible and modern team approach to respond to a shifting threat.

The new Department of Homeland Security isn't going to make us immune from terrorism, but if it's done right it will make us much safer. Merging and consolidating the federal government's homeland security efforts under one roof and making it work will be a huge challenge. But Congress gave the President the tools he needs to make it work.

Congressman Rob Portman represents Ohio's Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.