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The House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee fiscal 2014 spending bill, to be marked up by the subcommittee May 16, proposes $1.22 billion for the Coast Guard acquisition budget, an increase from the $951 million in the White House proposal--but also still far less than the approximately $1.46 billion annually the service has been appropriated in recent years.

Release in short succession by the Coast Guard of a much anticipated notice of proposed rulemaking for the placement of Transportation Worker Identification Credential readers in maritime facilities and a report (.pdf) by the Government Accountability Office that heavily questions a TWIC reader pilot conducted by the Transportation Security Administration has brought new life to questions about the efficacy of the TWIC program and its implementation.

Lies, damned lies and statistics, of course; but debate bereft of data is vacuous hot air--otherwise known as a lot of the present-day discourse around key homeland security issues. There's the...

The number of individuals apprehended by the Border Patrol for illegally crossing the border went up slightly in fiscal 2012 but still remains historically low. Customs and Border Protection statistics show (.pdf) that the Border Patrol apprehended 364,678 individuals--a number that apart from the previous fiscal year's total of 340,252, is the lowest since 1972, when the Border Patrol apprehended 396,495 illegal crossers.

Pilot testing of Transportation Worker Identification Credential readers generated enough reliable data to support a conclusion that they contribute to port security, said the Transportation Security Administration official responsible for the TWIC program before a May 9 House panel.

The New Madrid zone, located in southeastern Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and southern Illinois, is the most active seismic area in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1811 and 1812, hundreds of earthquakes occurred there, with three large events reaching estimated magnitudes of 7.9, 7.6 and 8.0.

Pilot testing of Transportation Worker Identification Credential readers was so flawed that Congress should require the Homeland Security Department to back off from their implementation until it conducts a proper test, says the Government Accountability Office. That new assessment of readers should also revisit the question of whether a more decentralized approach toward maritime identity cards might be better, auditors say.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it will update the National Incident Management System, the national structured framework for all-hazards disaster response at all levels of government.

In a May 2 letter (.pdf), Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) say that in light of the April 17 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, a presidentially appointed commission should review the CFATS program. The explosion at the West, Texas fertilizer plant killed at least 14, many of them firefighters responding to a fire at the plant.

The poll results come as new Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has shifted the emphasis of federal state anti-crime efforts to reducing street violence, an approach different than that of predecessor Felipe Calderón, who favored military-led confrontation with transnational criminal organizations. During Calderón's tenure, drug-cartel violence claimed more than an estimated 70,000 lives, although murders may have diminished somewhat in 2012 and this year.