S. Hrg. 115–356 NOMINATION OF HON. ELAINE C. DUKE HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOMINATION OF THE HONORABLE ELAINE C. DUKE TO BE DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY MARCH 8, 2017 Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 26–770 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming GARY C. PETERS, Michigan JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California CHRISTOPHER R. HIXON, Staff Director GABRIELLE D’ADAMO SINGER, Chief Counsel MARGARET E. DAUM, Minority Staff Director ANNA E. LAITIN, Minority Policy Adviser LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk BONNI E. DINERSTEIN, Hearing Clerk (II) C O N T E N T S Opening statements: Page Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 2 Senator Hassan ................................................................................................. 14 Senator Harris .................................................................................................. 16 Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 18 Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 21 Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 23 Prepared statements: Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 33 Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 34 WITNESSES WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 Hon. Rob Portman, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio 4 Hon. Elaine C. Duke, to be Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 37 Biographical and financial information .......................................................... 39 Letter from the Office of Government Ethics ................................................. 57 Responses to pre-hearing questions ................................................................ 60 Responses to post-hearing questions .............................................................. 95 Letter of support ............................................................................................... 117 APPENDIX Chart Submitted by Senator Harris ....................................................................... 119 Immigration Panel Transcript Submitted by Senator Harris .............................. 120 Letter from the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles ............ 200 (III) NOMINATION OF HONORABLE ELAINE C. DUKE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chair- man of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Johnson, Portman, Lankford, Daines, McCaskill, Tester, Heitkamp, Peters, Hassan, and Harris. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON Chairman JOHNSON. Good morning. The hearing will come to order. We are meeting today to consider the nomination of Ms. Elaine Duke to be Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ms. Duke, welcome. Senator Portman, welcome. You have your position there, but you will hopefully come up on the dais here. I do want to welcome Ms. Duke’s family, and I will let you intro- duce your family during your opening remarks. This is an incredibly important position. I believe this is an in- credibly important Department, particularly at the current time. The mission statement of this Committee is pretty straight- forward—and I appreciate my new Ranking Member adding to it—but it is simple to state: to enhance the economic and national security of America and promote a more efficient, effective, and ac- countable government. And certainly from the homeland security side of it, we are really talking about the primary goals of securing our border, securing our homeland, our cyber assets, cybersecurity, protecting critical infrastructure, and combating violent extremism in any form. Ms. Duke, I appreciated the time we spent in the office. I thought it was interesting, and I am completely supportive of, I think, the management style and the management directed be- tween yourself and the Secretary. It sounds like Secretary Kelly is going to be the boots on the ground, looking at the front lines, find- ing out what is happening there, really at the point of the spear. And you will be back here in Washington, D.C., holding down the fort. And you realize, because you have been there before, that there are a number of challenges with the Department. And so I appreciate your experience. I appreciate your willingness to serve. (1) 2 I do not have a whole lot more to say. I will let Senator Portman do the introduction, but we will first turn it over to Senator McCaskill for her opening statement. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL1 Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, and wel- come, Ms. Duke. I always like it when a valuable public servant returns, and it is one of the things, I think, that is most frustrating about the current political climate, that there are too many people out there giving the impression that everybody who works in gov- ernment is somehow lazy or corrupt or not dedicated. And, clearly, you have made a choice which is not based on finances to come back to this work, and I am very appreciative of that. And I think the American people should be, too. As you know from your many years at the Department of Home- land Security, your role is going to be an incredibly important one. While the Secretary has to look at the big picture, you, in fact, are going to be charged with making the trains run on time and man- aging the day-to-day operations of the Department. When Secretary Kelly’s nomination was in front of this Com- mittee, I told him he was going to need a top-notch Deputy for Management. I am pleased to see that he has, in fact, chosen some- one with significant managerial experience, but someone also who has shown a respect for taxpayer dollars. Since the nomination, my staff and I have heard from many DHS former employees and officials about your strong qualifications for this position. It includes a formal endorsement signed by the pre- vious five Deputy Secretaries of Homeland Security attesting to your integrity and skill. I have been glad to hear from each of these endorsements because you face a formidable task. The Department of Homeland Security is the third largest Fed- eral agency in this country with a $46 billion budget. It is charged with some of the most important duties in our government such as overseeing cybersecurity, immigration, homeland defense, and emergency management. It is also an agency that has faced per- sistent challenges of unity of effort, acquisitions, and personnel. As you have acknowledged, DHS continues to struggle with cohe- sion and mission among its many components. Many of its acquisi- tion programs have been plagued by backlogs, delays, and budget shortfalls. In terms of employee morale, the Department is consist- ently ranked as one of the worst places to work in the Federal Gov- ernment. Gratefully, the Department has made strides in recent years on all of these fronts—procurement, acquisitions, jointness, and mo- rale. I know you played a role in many of those efforts in your time at the Department. If you are confirmed, it will be of the utmost importance that you continue pushing these approaches because re- cent improvements cannot be allowed to roll back. As the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of this agency, I expect that you will always approach new and existing programs with a critical eye on how they can effectively achieve their missions and more efficiently spend taxpayer dollars. As the Department con- 1 The prepared statement of Senator McCaskill appears in the Appendix on page 34. 3 tinues to be thrust into the spotlight and entrusted with some of the highest priorities of this Administration, the job of Deputy Sec- retary in maintaining high operational standards, and particularly acquisition standards, in this evolving environment will be difficult. I was pleased to see that you have made a strong written com- mitment to responding to requests for information from any Mem- ber of this Committee, and I underline ‘‘any’’ Member of this Com- mittee. So far, the Department of Homeland Security has done a very poor job of responding to such requests. Since becoming Rank- ing Member of this Committee, I have sent a number of requests for information in