Border projects mostly met stimulus goal, DHS review finds

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 23, 2009; 8:38 PM

A spokesman for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said a new review by the department's inspector general answers criticism by lawmakers that politics influenced plans to spend $680 million in stimulus funds on border security projects.

A report by DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, required under the $787 billion relief package approved in February, concluded that U.S. Customs and Border Protection "generally developed practical, thorough, and comprehensive expenditure plans."

The Associated Press reported in August that DHS allowed low-priority projects -- such as a sleepy checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., that received $15 million but only sees about three travelers a day -- to leap-frog more pressing needs. The AP cited statements by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) boasting that he and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) successfully pushed for funds.

A border station in Nogales, Ariz., -- Napolitano's home state -- received $199 million, more than any other site, while one of the nation's highest-priority stations at Laredo, Tex., received none, according to the AP, which said DHS allowed it to review but would not publicize a list of most urgently needed repair programs.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, has called on Napolitano to disclose the border agency's selection criteria. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) wrote Napolitano saying DHS's plan "lacks common sense and would represent a terrible waste of taxpayers' money."

According to Skinner, however, the border agency selected 23 checkpoints for improvements based on "operational priorities, facility assessments" and project risk, although investigators did not evaluate how the border agency set its priorities or determined its costs.
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The 28-page report, which was released Friday to Congress for a 30-day review and obtained by The Washington Post, noted that the $420 million of DHS stimulus funds that were designated for border checkpoints could be spent on only the 43 of 163 stations, known as land ports of entry, that the department owns. The DHS-owned ports are primarily low-volume checkpoints on the Canadian border.

The other 120 ports, including the one in Laredo, Tex., are owned by the U.S. General Services Administration, which received another $300 million for upgrades. DHS officials acknowledged that both agencies coordinate improvements based on the same priority list.

Also, none of the DHS projects met the legislation's goal to "quick-start" spending by using half the money for work that could begin in June, Skinner said.

A DHS official said the department would not release the list because it is "constantly changing." Some projects may have been passed over because full funding was not available, or because they required potentially lengthy environmental or historical reviews and were not "shovel-ready," the official said.

"The report released today demonstrates that [Customs and Border Protection] has effectively and objectively managed its Recovery Act projects, bolstering security while investing in local communities across the country," Napolitano spokesman Sean Smith said in a statement.

Napolitano has halted new border construction projects pending a separate, 30-day department review. A DHS official said the secretary expects to receive the results Friday, which she will review before making her own recommendations soon.

In an e-mailed statement, Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella said, "It appears that DHS followed their procedures properly in allocating stimulus funds," but that officials were hamstrung by how the administration and Congress split the money between agencies.

Bardella said DHS "had to scramble to re-prioritize... projects based on this strictly artificial delineation of funding, the rationale for which remains non-transparent."

Tester has said he had no role in the decision making.

Dorgan, in an interview, maintained that the spending was nonsensical, and noted that DHS declined an offer by Skinner to review why it was spending some $220 million on 22 Canadian border checkpoints, which Dorgan said on average saw four cars and one truck each per day.

"My point is, that's way out of line," Dorgan said. "I'm all for border security, but we can do it for much less than we're spending."

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