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July 20, 2010

Subcommittee Chairman Wu's Floor Speech on H.R. 4842, The Homeland Security Science and Technology Authorization Act of 2010

As prepared for delivery

 
I rise in support of the Homeland Security Science and Technology Authorization Act of 2010, which reauthorizes the activities of the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security.
 
We rely on the Department of Homeland Security to protect our country and secure our nation’s borders, ports, and waterways from a wide range of threats.  As chair of the Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, I fully recognize and appreciate the critical role that technology plays in enabling DHS to carry out this vast and important mission.
 
The Science and Technology Directorate is responsible for ensuring that those who are responsible for keeping us safe have the best tools and most up-to-date technologies to get the job done. 
 
Over the last year and a half, my subcommittee has held multiple hearings on the work being carried out by the Science and Technology Directorate. Through these hearings, we were able to identify critical areas where the Directorate could use new tools or, in some cases, new direction to help it achieve its mission effectively and efficiently.
 
The reauthorization bill we are considering today takes an important step forward in ensuring that the research and development conducted by the Directorate is prioritized properly. This legislation will help DHS align its research and development activities with the most significant threats facing us, as well as make sure that its research is meeting the needs of those working every day to keep us safe.
 
The bill requires that the Directorate develop its research and development portfolio in close cooperation with first responders by inviting their ideas and feedback during every step of the process.
I want to thank Chairman Thompson, Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member King, and Ranking Member Lungren for their work on this important legislation.
 
I am pleased that our committees were able to work together over the last couple of months to craft this important, bipartisan legislation, and I am confident that this reauthorization bill will go a long way to making sure that we have the tools and technologies we need to keep this country safe. 
 
 
I look forward to working with the Homeland Security Committee to address some of the other issues that arose during my subcommittee’s hearings, particularly those relating to the public’s acceptance of new technologies. For example, I remain concerned about the Transportation Security Administration’s decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy full-body scanners in airports across the country without fully understanding the potential reluctance of the public to accept these technologies.
 
I urge its passage and yield back my time.