Kansas City congressman wants buildings protected
WASHINGTON — Missouri Republican Rep. Sam Graves is usually a strong supporter of the administration. But he’s pretty upset about what he regards as an inexcusable lack of security for federal buildings in his Kansas City district, and across the country.
Graves, the ranking Republican on the House economic development, public buildings and emergency management subcommittee, voiced his concerns at Friday’s hearing on a General Accountability Office review of the Federal Protective Services, the agency responsible for federal building security.
“When it comes to high security buildings, Kansas City has 12 of the 35 level three buildings and 15 of the 42 level four buildings located in the FPS region 6,” Graves said. “Thousands of people work there and tens of thousands of my constituents go into these buildings. I am concerned about the security of these federal buildings and the people working and visiting them every day.
“Every major terrorist attack in this country has targeted a government-owned building, yet six years after Sept. 11th it appears these buildings are less secure. How is it possible that the Department of Homeland Security has let this happen? The Federal Protective Service was put into DHS to make sure the security of our federal workforce is a priority, yet this report leads me to believe they are more vulnerable today than before September 11th.”
The federal government should do more on this issue, starting by providing needed resources in terms of money and personnel, according to Graves. “Anything less would be a disservice to those who work in and visit the more than 9,000 federal buildings across the country,” he said.
Well, uh … if the federal government can’t secure a few buildings, what we need to do is put them in charge of providing health care for 300 million people.