DHS: Additional Funds For National Security R&D

The Department of Homeland Security’s main R&D arm, the Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), would receive a 16.9% increase from the 2011 continuing resolution, for a total 2012 budget of nearly $1.2 billion. The proposed increase includes a request for $150 million in new spending under its laboratory facilities program to begin construction of the National Bio & Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kan., the eventual replacement for the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located near the northeastern tip of New York’s Long Island.

S&T’s 2012 budget also calls for spending $660 million on various R&D activities, up 14.3% from 2011. This figure includes $18 million in funding for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative to support R&D projects focused on protecting against “threats to critical civilian and military computer systems and networks.”

Also included is $17 million for the directorate’s chemical detection program, which works to develop tools to enable the interception, detection, and warning of attacks or large releases of chemical agents against the U.S. population.

An additional $3 million is targeted for the development of advanced capabilities to detect explosives, including homemade explosives, through improved trace sampling and detection technologies.

DHS’s total 2012 budget request of $56.9 billion includes $43.2 billion in discretionary funding, a slight 1.4% increase over the $42.6 billion in the 2011 continuing resolution. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the proposal would allow the department to meet evolving threats from criminal and terrorist organizations “by prioritizing our essential operational requirements while reflecting an unprecedented commitment to fiscal discipline that maximizes the effectiveness of every security dollar we receive.”

The President’s budget also includes $937 million for infrastructure protection and information security, $99 million of which would be spent on DHS’s infrastructure security compliance project. This funding would be used to protect the nation’s physical infrastructure and key resources from terrorist attacks through regulatory initiatives such as the department’s ammonium nitrate and Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism Standards programs.

Chemical & Engineering News

ISSN 0009-2347

Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society