Support wanes for wasteful border technology program

Support wanes for wasteful border technology program
House subcommittees say SBInet would need to prove itself before more funding
BY ROB MARGETTA, CQ STAFF
The Department of Homeland Security’s ailing SBInet border-technology project took a drubbing Thursday at a joint House subcommittee hearing, with lawmakers and the officials overseeing the program speculating about whether it has a future.
Members of the two House Homeland Security subcommittees — Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism and Management, Investigations and Oversight — said SBInet needs to prove its benefits outweigh its costs in order to survive.
If the program fails that analysis, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants it eliminated, said Mark Borkowski, executive director of the Secure Border Initiative’s executive office. But even if the program were working perfectly, DHS would still question whether it was worth the money or whether other commercially available technology would result in the same performance at a better value.
“The secretary has been very clear that we must have technology,” Borkowski said. “The question is what that technology should be.”
Earlier this week, DHS froze the program’s funding until officials complete a review. Conceived in 2005 as a technological barrier of surveillance and communications equipment on the Southwest border, SBInet has suffered cost overruns and repeated delays, as well as performance problems.
Lawmakers at Thursday’s hearing painted a grim picture of the program’s prospects. Full committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Congress was told in 2008 that it would cost less than $2 billion to cover the entire Southwest border with surveillance equipment. Two years later $833 million later, the initiative has covered about 20 miles, he said.
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