Pace of research office mergers at Homeland Security criticized

A plan to merge several research and development efforts at the Homeland Security Department are “not moving quickly enough,” a Republican congressional aide said on Thursday. Kim Kotlar, the legislative director to Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and lead staffer on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development, which Thornberry chairs, said there are “four or five” R&D budgets that are managed under different agencies at Homeland Security. “There is a plan to merge” the offices, “but they’re not moving quickly enough,” she told industry officials during a Homeland Defense Journal conference. Kotlar also said Thornberry plans to use his oversight responsibility over the department’s science and technology division to watch how it implements a new law designed to limit liability that companies might face if the counter-terrorism technologies they sell to the government fail to prevent terrorism. Thornberry wants the department to take “full advantage” of the law and “follow the spirit” of it, she said. Full Story