Department of Homeland Security Stabilization and Security Enhancement Act of 2006 - Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Administrator of General Services to jointly complete and submit to Congress a comprehensive master plan for the establishment of a 21st century permanent headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6286 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6286
To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to complete and submit a
master plan for a headquarters location in the District of Columbia or
elsewhere, within 360 days.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 29, 2006
Ms. Harris introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Homeland Security
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to complete and submit a
master plan for a headquarters location in the District of Columbia or
elsewhere, within 360 days.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Department of Homeland Security
Stabilization and Security Enhancement Act of 2006''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Congress debated an appropriate location to house
leadership elements of the Department and ultimately
transferred the Nebraska Avenue Complex (NAC) facilities,
located in northwest Washington, DC, from the Navy to the
jurisdiction, custody, and control of the Administrator of
General Services to accommodate the leadership of the new
Department under Public Law 108-268.
(2) Congress contemplated that the NAC would be a temporary
station for the Department's leadership due to security
concerns.
(3) There is dispute whether Public Law 108-268 was
intended to establish an official Department headquarters at
all. There is no occurrence of the term ``headquarters'' in
Public Law 108-268 other than in the long title, which has no
legislative effect, and Members of Congress expressed direct
opposition to such a notion in floor debates.
(4) The NAC was chosen as the initial leadership station
because it included preexisting infrastructure and basic
security measures that would allow the new Department's
leadership to become adequately operational in a short period
of time.
(5) The security of the NAC remains a serious concern,
especially in light of security breaches and lapses.
(6) Some discussions and concrete steps have been taken to
move the headquarters of at least one component of the
Department, the Coast Guard, to the West Campus of St.
Elizabeth's Hospital. These discussions have contemplated
moving other leadership components of the Department to St.
Elizabeth's Hospital at an unknown time in the future.
(7) St. Elizabeth's Hospital was founded by Congress in
1852 and opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the
Insane, more commonly referred to as an ``insane asylum''.
(8) As recent as 2002, according to the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, St. Elizabeth's Hospital was one of the
``11 Most Endangered Places'' and ``is crumbling''.
(9) St. Elizabeth's Hospital has been considered for a
headquarters location for components of the Department because,
according to a statement of administration policy, dated May
25, 2006, the ``facility has been identified by the General
Services Administration as the only federally owned secure
campus readily available in Washington, D.C.''.
(10) Congress has suspended the Coast Guard's plans to
relocate to St. Elizabeth's Hospital because of the lack of
sufficient planning, inadequate coordination with appropriate
congressional oversight committees, and an overall haphazard
approach.
(11) Under sections 71 and 72 of title 4, United States
Code, headquarters of Federal Government agencies and
departments are generally required to be located in the
District of Columbia absent a statutory exemption.
(12) In the past, Congress has granted waivers from such
requirement to agencies and departments that, due to national
security concerns, require enhanced security and additional
space and, therefore, should consider locating outside the
District of Columbia. Such waivers have been granted, for
example, to the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence
Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(13) The Department of Homeland Security, like the
Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is a Federal entity with a
critical national security mission. The rationale for
relocating those entities should be considered in establishing
a new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security.
(14) The Department of Homeland Security remains a young
Federal entity and should begin to pull together its disparate
parts into a single secure location in order to stabilize the
Department to make it more effective.
(15) It is desirable, given its critical mission, to give
the Department the space and resources it needs to ensure the
safety of its employees, to ensure the security and stability
of the Department, to improve integration among its agencies,
and to make it more effective for the ultimate purpose of
securing the homeland and protecting the American people.
(16) Given the critical national security mission of the
Department, it should establish a permanent home, either inside
or outside of the District of Columbia, that enables it to more
effectively carry out its mission.
(17) The Department's headquarters should be a new 21st
century complex tailored to the specific needs of the
Department and should, among other things, be secure in all
respects, contain superior physical, technological, and
communicative infrastructure, include a working environment
conducive to high productivity, be accessible to personnel,
capitalize on modern technologies, and provide enough physical
space for future expansion.
SEC. 3. AUTHORITY TO DETERMINE LOCATION FOR HEADQUARTERS OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY.
(a) In General.--Title I of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6
U.S.C. 111 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``SEC. 104. HEADQUARTERS OF THE DEPARTMENT.
``(a) Purpose.--The purpose of this section is to strengthen and
stabilize the Department and make it more effective by pulling together
disparate leadership components into a permanent and more secure
location.
``(b) Master Plan.--The Secretary and the Administrator of General
Services, within 360 days after the date of the enactment of this
section, shall jointly complete and submit a comprehensive master plan
for the establishment of a 21st century permanent headquarters for the
Department in the District of Columbia or elsewhere, to the Committee
on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation, and the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs of the Senate, and the Committee on Homeland
Security and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the
House of Representatives.
``(c) Permanency.--The master plan shall be designed as a permanent
solution to establishing the Department's headquarters.''.
(b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of contents in section 1(b) of
such Act is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 103
the following:
``Sec. 104. Headquarters of the Department.''.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Management, Integration, and Oversight.
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