DHS considers reviving dormant Joint Requirements Council.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News - United States Department of Homeland Security - Brief article

* Nothing is more maddening to budget hawks and government watchdogs than two different agencies setting out to purchase the same technology in separate acquisition programs.

The Defense Department has struggled with that problem for years and set up mechanisms in the now defunct Joint Operations Command to eliminate unnecessary duplications that waste taxpayer dollars.

The Department of Homeland Security, with 22 agencies brought together by congressional mandate, unsurprisingly suffers from the same problem.

In 2004, it set up a Joint Requirements Council in an effort to eliminate duplication, and sometimes, triplications of efforts within the department.

Its life was brief, though.

By 2006, its chair had been reassigned to other duties and the council stopped meeting, Charles ft Edwards, acting DHS inspector general, said before the House Homeland Security Committee's transportation subcommittee.

For example, DHS has eight different procurement offices that purchase the various types of detection equipment that screens people, vehicles, baggage and other objects for contraband. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency...