DHS Updates COAC on its Plans for a Regional Structure
The Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) held its quarterly meeting on February 6, 2004 in Washington, DC.
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This is Part I of a multi-part series of summaries on the February 6, 2004 COAC meeting. See future issues of ITT for additional summaries.
During the February 6, 2004 COAC meeting, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security (BTS) Asa Hutchinson discussed, among other things, DHS' plans for a new regional structure.
Regional structure plans still "under development." Under Secretary Hutchinson noted that DHS' regional structure plans are still "under development" and have not been signed off on by the White House.
7-10 regions envisioned, each with a regional director. According to Under Secretary Hutchinson, DHS currently envisions a structure consisting of 7-10 regions, each with a regional director.
Under DHS' current plans, regional directors would have the following responsibilities:
representative/liaison - the regional director would be the Secretary of Homeland Security's representative and would be a liaison with State and local governments. According to Under Secretary Hutchinson, this would provide more direct local contact for DHS.
incident management - during an "incident," the regional director would serve as an on site commander who would coordinate the activities of multiple agencies in the region. This responsibility, which DHS characterizes as primary, would only be triggered when an "incident" occurred and, during times where there is no incident, the normal structure would prevail.
integration and coordination - the regional director would be responsible for looking at how people are working together as a region.
National trade policy, private sector relationships would not be delegated to regions. Under Secretary Hutchinson stated that national level trade policy and DHS' relationship with the private sector would continue to be managed at the Headquarters (i.e., Washington, DC) level and would not be delegated to the regional directors.
(In its summary of President Bush's fiscal year (FY) 2005 budget request, DHS noted that it will create a regional field structure that will unify the existing regional structures of DHS components, and unite Federal, state, tribal, local, and private sector homeland security resources.
The Bush Administration's FY 2004 budget request had also stated that DHS would have a region-based structure with directors within each geographic area in charge of all operations. See ITT's Online Archives or 02/06/04 news, 04020615, for BP summary.)