Federal Diary: House oversight hearing on workplace security

By Joe Davidson
Tuesday, March 16, 2010; B03

While recent tragedies make it easy to hyperventilate on the subject of federal workplace safety, we shouldn't forget that Uncle Sam goes to great lengths to protect his staff and, generally speaking, does a pretty good job of it.

It's been years since Mr. and Mrs. Citizen could simply walk into a federal building and watch their tax dollars at work. Now visitors must go through a metal detector and have their possessions screened before they get to a reception desk, staffed with armed guards, where IDs are checked and appointments confirmed.

After Sept. 11, 2001, these precautions make good sense.

Yet, there have been three cases of violence at federal facilities this year. That is a pattern that needs to be stopped before more people are killed or injured.

The first incident was in January in Las Vegas. A gunman killed a U.S. courthouse security guard and wounded a deputy marshal.

Last month, a pilot angry with the Internal Revenue Service flew his plane into an Austin, Tex., building containing IRS offices. An IRS worker died, as did the pilot.

This month, a man shot two Pentagon police officers before he was fatally shot.

These acts of violence have led a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee to examine federal workplace security at a hearing scheduled for this afternoon.

The attacks are evidence of the "significant and daily risks faced by our dedicated federal employees at federal and postal facilities nationwide," said Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.), chairman of the subcommittee on federal workers, Postal Service and the District of Columbia.

There's no indication the three attacks were linked. But anti-government groups are growing, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks them.

"Militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight," according to the Center. A report issued earlier this month said the number of active groups jumped from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009, a shocking 244 percent increase.

A focal point of the hearing likely will be the Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for protecting many federal buildings. In testimony prepared for the hearing, David Wright, president of the Federal Protective Service Union, which is part of the American Federation of Government Employees, said numerous reports about the service by the Government Accountability Office "paint a portrait of an essentially dysfunctional agency."

Wright said the service is on a starvation diet that's reflected by a staffing level below the congressionally mandated 1,200 positions.

"FPS security services have been slashed to the point of ineffectiveness," Wright said. "No longer do FPS police officers operate on a 24-hour patrol basis -- even when protecting level IV high-security facilities. No longer does the agency have the personnel necessary to adequately oversee private guards, and no longer is FPS able to adequately monitor the state of security equipment at federal buildings -- due to a lack of manpower."

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes FPS, did not respond to Wright's remarks.

The criticisms aren't coming just from a union leader. As we reported in November and as Wright indicated, the GAO also has been critical of FPS.

The GAO found that "FPS uses an outdated risk assessment tool and a subjective, time-consuming process to assess risk," and that because the contract guards it hires were not properly trained, investigators were able to get explosive-device components past guards at 10 high-security facilities in four cities.

FPS Director Gary W. Schenkel said his agency has "increased inspections of security posts and oversight of contract guards, overt and covert inspections of screening processes, and established a Web-based Risk Assessment Management Program system to further mitigate risks."

'Reprehensible action'

As Ed O'Keefe reported in the Federal Eye at washingtonpost.com, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is blocking Senate passage of a bill that would compensate the roughly 2,000 Transportation Department workers who were furloughed during a congressional impasse over federal funding for highway and transportation projects.

That infuriates Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), who initiated the legislation. On Monday, he called Coburn's move a "reprehensible action."

Coburn agrees that the workers should be paid, but he wants the $1 million to come from the congressional budget. That proposal would cost each House and Senate office approximately $2,000.

Connolly said it's okay with him if Coburn and Republicans who supported the halt in highway funding, which led to the brief layoffs, wanted to take the money out of their individual office funds, but not the overall legislation budget.

The furlough stemmed from Sen. Jim Bunning's opposition to an unemployment bill that included a temporary extension of federal highway funding. The Kentucky Republican disagreed on how to pay for the bill, and funding dried up for some federal highway inspectors and employees working on anti-drunken driving campaigns before the Senate eventually passed the bill.