Critical Releases in Homeland Security: September 24, 2008

This U. S. Department of Homeland Security Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2008-2013 discusses the department's vision, strategy and goals for the coming years listed. The following is taken from the report: "The 2008 Strategic Plan serves to focus the Department's mission and sharpen operational effectiveness, particularly in delivering services in support of Department-wide initiatives and the other mission goals. It identifies the goals and objectives by which we continually assess our performance. The Department uses performance measures at all levels to monitor our strategic progress and program success. This process also keeps the Department's priorities aligned, linking programs and operations to performance measures, mission goals, resource priorities, and strategic objectives. Faced with the challenge of strengthening the components to function as a unified Department, DHS must coordinate centralized, integrated activities across components that are distinct in their missions and operations. Thus, sound and cohesive management is the key to Department-wide and component-level strategic goals. We seek to harmonize our efforts as we work diligently to accomplish our mission each and every day."

The Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council published this report "detailing the ten top strategic challenges" that will face the individual who will succeed Michael Chertoff as the next Secretary of Homeland Security. "It is important to note that these key challenges are in no particular order of importance. They are interrelated and interdependent, equally necessary to continue to build a strong Department and secure Homeland. With that said, a core test for political leadership will be to make the hard choices on priorities and trade-offs between equally important programs and policies. Successfully taking on these challenges will help the new Secretary gain credibility within the Department as well as among its many homeland security partners throughout the Nation. Ultimately, homeland security is about synchronizing efforts with multiple partners across the landscape of America. The ability to successfully establish and maintain meaningful partnerships at all levels of government and society for the purposes of securing the homeland may be the greatest, ongoing challenge facing the next Secretary, as well as his or her successors."

"The possibility of an influenza pandemic is cause for concern among policymakers, public health experts, and the world's populations. Against that prospect, in 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a plan that includes a series of measures, first to monitor the spread of disease in the event of a worldwide outbreak and then to facilitate a rapid response. That second step includes developing influenza vaccines and expanding the nation's capacity for producing influenza vaccine; creating stockpiles of antiviral drugs and other medical supplies (to avert an influenza pandemic or minimize its effects); coordinating federal, state, and local preparations; and planning for public outreach and communications. HHS's plan has two specific goals that relate to vaccines. The first goal is to have in place by 2011 domestic production capacity sufficient to supply vaccine to the entire U.S. population within six months of the onset of a pandemic. The second goal is to stockpile enough doses of vaccine to inoculate 20 million people as soon as possible after the onset of a pandemic. This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper, which was prepared at the request of the Senate Majority Leader, focuses on the government's role in the vaccine market that stems from HHS's plan. It provides information on the current state of readiness, the additional expenditures likely to be necessary to achieve HHS's vaccine-related goals, the expenditures that are likely to be needed to maintain preparedness, and the approaches of other countries as they too face the prospect of an influenza pandemic. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective, nonpartisan analysis, this paper makes no recommendations."