The Department of Homeland Security has received disparate and, attimes, contradictory direction from Congress, which has resulted ina plethora of unrealistic mandates. Congress's firstobjective should be to address the lack of effective congressionalleadership, and consolidate congressional oversight.
The Secretary of Homeland Security has identified many systemicshortfalls that have retarded the development of a more effectivenational response system. Congress should support his proposals tofix the problem and consider reforming the grant allocationprocess, regional preparedness, and the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency's response mission to strengthen the Department'scapacity to deal with deadly disasters.
The nation's preparedness has come a long way in the past 20 years, but there is significant unfinished business. The challenge is to find ways to continuously improve, to sustain the effort over thelong haul, to better leverage federal resources to get majorinitiatives done, and to encourage states to build recovery plansthat will put them in charge of a large-scale recovery.