9/11 lessons not learned: three failed reforms
Most of the 9/11 commission's recommendations have been implemented, but three reforms, in particular, have failed to fully take shape since 2001.
A patron of the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Springfield, Ill., reads a copy of the "The 9/11 Commission Report" on July 22, 2004.
Seth Perlman/AP/File
Washington
Created by Congress in late 2002, the 9/11 commission was mandated to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.
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The resulting 9/11 commission report produced a rarity in public life – a government report that's also a bestseller. More than 6 million people downloaded the final report, and another 1.5 million purchased W. W. Norton’s authorized edition, reissued Aug. 8.
The events of 9/11, along with strong pressure from families of the victims, gave the 9/11 commission’s final report, released on July 22, 2004, powerful momentum. Despite a highly polarized campaign cycle, the 9/11 commission’s recommendations were endorsed by both leading presidential candidates and most members of Congress. Most of its 41 recommendations became law or were implemented by executive order.
But now, 10 years after the attacks, significant gaps in carrying out the recommendations remain. Here are three reforms that, though widely supported, have languished in Congress:
Homeland Security too unwieldy
The 9/11 commissioners called on Congress to create a single, principal point of oversight for homeland security to avoid a massive, often duplicative reporting burden. Today, 108 committees oversee homeland security – up from 88 when the 9/11 commission declared the system “dysfunctional.”
“Few things are more difficult to change in Washington than congressional committee jurisdiction and prerogatives,” the report concluded. “The American people may have to insist that these changes occur, or they may well not happen.” Such has been the case.
Since January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has provided more than 1,800 briefings to congressional committees and subcommittees and testified at 120 hearings. From 2008 to 2010, DHS witnesses prepared 4,072 briefings and testified at 304 hearings.
“It’s the one 9/11 commission recommendation there has been no action on,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a Monitor breakfast for reporters on Aug. 30. Secretary Napolitano, who has testified before Congress 22 times, said, “And we can’t control the action except to say: Look, if you want to prioritize for us how best we spend our time and resources, Congress looking at itself and the demands it puts on us would be very helpful.”
Special communications for responders
The failure of police and firefighters to communicate added to the death toll on 9/11, especially among first responders. The 9/11 commission recommended that Congress immediately pass pending legislation to assign radio spectrum for public safety purposes. The legislation is still pending.
In February, President Obama called for $10.7 billion effort to help deploy a national wireless broadband network, including a band of radio spectrum (the D-block) to be set aside for emergency responders. Draft bills are pending in both the House and Senate.
In a recent report card on the 9/11 commission’s recommendations, co-chairs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton attributed the delay to “a political fight” over whether the D-block should be allocated directly to public safety or auctioned off to a commercial wireless bidder required to give priority access to public safety during emergencies.
But after the ravages of hurricane Irene, along with the Virginia earthquake and devastating Texas wildfires, public safety groups have stepped up calls for Congress to act.
“As a public safety communications director in coastal Virginia, I can assure you that [the] earthquake and hurricane provide too many real-life examples of why public safety needs this dedicated, nationwide broadband network, and with all due respect to our colleagues in the commercial sector, why our nation’s day-to-day and critical emergency communications cannot rely on the commercial network infrastructure,” Terry Hall, first vice president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) said in a statement on Sept. 1.
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