| Home | Information Sharing & Analysis | Prevention & Protection | Preparedness & Response | Research | Commerce & Trade | Travel Security | Immigration |
The threat level in the airline sector is High or Orange. Read more.
This information is not current, is not being updated, and may contain broken links.
Release Date: 06/12/03 00:00:00
It's a pleasure to speak before an audience focused on the future, and doing something about it.
For as long as I can remember, North Carolina has been known for tobacco, textiles and college basketball. Now it's known worldwide for research and development in the most cutting-edge fields - biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, genomics - fields that are making the world a healthier place.
The Piedmont Triad has become a major engine of this growth. More than a dozen new biotech firms have located in the Triad in just the past two years, no doubt attracted by institutions such as Wake Forest, UNC-Greensboro, North Carolina A&T and the 17 other quality universities and colleges. And while these bright young minds are still making the world a healthier place, they now have an opportunity to make it a safer place as well.
The Department of Homeland Security is seizing that opportunity with a Science and Technology component that is unprecedented. We're harnessing this knowledge behind the mission of homeland security: to protect America and our way of life from terrorists and their weapons of mass destruction.
Science and technology will be used to make every aspect of homeland security a little bit better. We will find, develop and deploy these cutting-edge technologies in the field so that the 180,000 dedicated men and women of our Department can perform their jobs at peak efficiency.
Our challenge is to form a Triad of our own, between academia, the private sector and institutions such as the NIH and CDC. We want to create a climate where creative genius is channeled toward our top priorities in protection. We will put resources behind this research in order to ensure readiness - and even economic recovery. It's an exciting opportunity, and I'd like to share with you how we can seize it.
If I were asked to describe the Department of Homeland Security, I would say it's a story about science and technology. Science and technology can be used to spot patterns of risk that tell us where to deploy our resources and people. That is at the heart of our risk management strategy. From prevention to detection to mitigation and recovery, there is no aspect of homeland security beyond our scope.
Let me focus on what we will bring to the table, what we will ask from you, and the structure we will put in place to make it happen.
Overall, since becoming a Department in March, we've spent well over $4 billion on homeland security. In fact, in March of this year, DHS announced nearly $50 million dollars in grant funding for North Carolina's state and local first responders. These funds will enhance their ability to protect our communities and themselves through training and equipment that will assist them as they respond to potential terrorist attacks.
As for Science and Technology, we are investing or transferring nearly a half a billion dollars into our Directorate this year alone. The President's budget for 2004 requests another $800 million.
We will invest this money toward developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies and capabilities - testing and evaluating them - and rapidly prototyping them so we can get them onto the market and out into the field.
To that end we have created the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency - a cousin to the Defense Department's DARPA agency, which helped create the Internet. HSARPA will jumpstart and steer homeland security R&D toward our highest priority needs.
Our Directorate has also partnered with the inter-agency Technical Support Working Group to enable businesses to submit their proposals, track them as they're reviewed, and get an answer back quickly. Last month we released a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeking contract proposals; the deadline for responses is June 13.
In addition to our efforts, there are examples of organizations like TechLink Center, a Montana State University initiative that is supported by Department of Defense and NASA to link private sector companies with Federal laboratories to conduct collaborative research and technology transfer projects. Public-private initiatives like TechLink Center play a key role in bringing innovative technology to the marketplace.
Among the requirements we're looking for are improved methods for detection and response to threats ranging from biological and chemical to high explosive attacks. The latter is an especially high priority - and I note that a biotech firm under UNC / Greensboro is working on genetically engineered plants that glow when exposed to TNT.
Another high priority is protecting our nation's critical infrastructure, including physical infrastructure such as bridges, chemical plants and pipelines - and the vast expanses of Cyberspace, which powers much of that infrastructure and is just as vulnerable to attack.
We recently announced the creation of the National Cyber Security Division. The NCSD will conduct analyses of the threats and our vulnerabilities, issue alerts and warnings, and respond to major incidents that threaten cyberspace. It will also provide technical assistance toward continuity of operations and recovery planning. My Office will work closely with both the NCSD and our private sector partners to identify the R&D required for this effort and what steps need to take place to implement the technology.
My Directorate has also been tasked with establishing a network of multidisciplinary laboratories to develop the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics that could help us survive a terrorist attack. We would help teach these talented scientists and engineers the various operational and technical issues associated with homeland security so that problems are anticipated and delays prevented. Assisting in this effort is the President's BioShield Initiative, which will create incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in new treatments and streamline approval once a drug is announced.
In the near-future, we hope to build a nationwide bio-surveillance program which will work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC to detect early adverse health events. I might add that the billions of dollars we have already provided to state and local public health systems has markedly improved our ability to track diseases such as SARS and the latest monkey pox outbreak in the Midwest.
So what do we want from you? We want you to recognize the economic and educational opportunity that homeland security presents. We want you to share with us your ideas through my office and our office of the Private Sector, as well as through our Internet sites such as
We want you to help us create not only a model of innovation but a model of cooperation, an environment in which the private sector and laboratories can freely and easily collaborate with our Department and with one another. And if we do so, the result will not only be a safer country, but a stronger region and economy.
Thank you for your time and attention.
This page was last reviewed/modified on 06/12/03 00:00:00.
