The Department of Homeland Security needs a strategy to use
the Department of Energy’s labs — it is authorized to do
so in the Homeland Security Act — for research on nuclear,
biological and chemical detection and response technologies,
the General Account Office has said.
It looked at a research program funding projects at five
DoE labs — Los Alamos, Sandia, Lawrence, Livermore, Pacific
Northwest and Oak Ridge National Laboratories — which got
over 96 percent of DHS research investment for fiscal 2003,
$57 million, and stand to get 90 percent of the $201
million set aside for fiscal 2004.
Yet, DHS has not completed a strategic plan to identify
research and development priorities, goals, and objectives
— needed to leverage resources and prevent the duplication
of research — and it needs to better coordinate with other
federal agencies and integrate its plan with their research
and development efforts, said GAO.
It recommended that DHS “develop criteria for distributing
annual funding and for making long-term investments in
laboratory capabilities, and develop guidelines that detail
how DoE’s laboratories would compete for funding with
private sector and academic entities,” something not
normally allowed for government labs.
DHS officials explained that the department has had other
priorities than the completion of a research plan, such as
organizing the Science and Technology Directorate created
in March 2003, developing policies and procedures, and hiring
necessary staff.
