The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday approved by voice vote legislation to reform the Federal Protective Service (FPS), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for providing physical security services to thousands of federal facilities nationwide.
Key aspects of the Secure Facilities Act of 2011 (S. 772) include authorizing that the FPS maintain at least 1,371 full-time equivalent employees, including at least 950 in-service field staff, in FY ’12. The agency currently relies on 1,200 full-time employees and a contract guard force of 15,000.
The bill asks DHS for a report within one year of the bill becoming law to address the feasibility of federalizing the FPS contract guard force, including the projected costs of a conversion.
The bill would also establish minimum training requirements for all FPS armed guards, including contracted guards, and require periodic assessments of the training as well as the security of federal facilities protected by the agency.
The Secure Facilities Act was originally introduced last year after a series of reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found shortcomings with the FPS, including the penetration by government investigators of federal facilities with bomb components and diluted liquid explosives at checkpoints (Defense Daily, Sept. 22, 2010, and July 10, 2009).
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate committee, last year said that some FPS guards lacked basic training in security and operating X-Ray systems and that the agency also had trouble assessing which guards were qualified.
The bill requires that DHS and an interagency security committee create performance-based standards for checkpoint detection technologies used to screen for explosives and other threats.
Another provision requires FPS to add 60 more security detection canine teams by FY ’15. The original legislation called for pilot projects using Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT), which are the whole body imagers that the Transportation Security Administration is deploying to airport checkpoints, but the version of the bill approved yesterday only calls on DHS to provide a report to Congress on various methods to detect or prevent explosives from entering federal facilities, including more canine teams, AIT systems and other technologies.
“The FPS is a dysfunctional agency, struggling to perform its mission, and the evidence of that is overwhelming,” Lieberman said in a statement yesterday. “This legislation is urgently needed to set the agency back on course so it can protect the thousands of people who work and visit federal buildings.”