Turmoil in Congress Imperils Mass Threat Detection Team’s Future

A team charged with safeguarding Americans from mass attacks has three months to fend off its own existential threat.

Mary Ellen Callahan, assistant secretary for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the Department of Homeland Security, took the helm with just months to lock in support for the troubled office as lawmakers consider whether to renew it. Without a reauthorization, her office closes, and the US loses a division that trains first responders, researches and distributes technology, and helps detect threats nationwide.

“The reauthorization is a sword of Damocles hanging over our head,” Callahan said in an interview at DHS headquarters last month.

CWMD, as the office is known, works to detect and prevent chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats in the US. Its congressional authorization expires Dec. 21, and unique legislative language requires it to shut down if Congress fails to act.

Mary Ellen Callahan, assistant secretary for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the Department of Homeland Security, stands at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Ellen M. Gilmer/Bloomberg Government

The weapons office has faced internal challenges since its inception, but national security professionals say its work is essential to keeping Americans safe. The team coordinates with federal agencies, states, and local partners and provides technology and support to detect threats.

“Eliminating CWMD will take away a very important risk reduction tool from national security partners,” said Brian Harrell, DHS’s assistant secretary for infrastructure protection during the Trump administration.

CWMD specialists deploy to crowded events, such as the Boston Marathon, to operate equipment that can detect nuclear and chemical releases. The office also researches and acquires detection technology and other equipment for US Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service, and others.

On Capitol Hill, however, the threat to the office’s existence remains unknown to most lawmakers outside the House and Senate homeland security panels, and broader congressional turmoil could compromise reauthorization efforts.

For Callahan the pressure is on to both raise the office’s profile among lawmakers and address its longstanding morale and operational problems.

“If I don’t get this reauthorized I deserve to lose my job,” she said. “It’s too important, and I’ve got to get this over the finish line for my team and for the department.”

Organizational Angst

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen created CWMD in 2017 by consolidating nuclear detection and health offices and setting out an ambitious agenda. The unified office would coordinate inside and outside the department on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats and prevent terrorists from launching attacks on Americans.

But the reorganization created headaches, and partners questioned whether some of the office’s key programs worked. One part of the overhaul has already been undone — DHS spun off the health portfolio into a standalone office last year.

Troubled Weapons of Mass Destruction Office Set for Overhaul

“It’s been over five years since CWMD has been established, but it still feels like it’s undergoing a reorganization and a transformation,” said Tina Won Sherman, a director for the Government Accountability Office’s Homeland Security and Justice team.

GAO in 2022 found that the office needed to improve communication with state and local partners, study gaps in detection capabilities, and reassess its acquisition plans for finicky radiation portal monitors that often sounded false alarms at border crossings.

CWMD’s BioWatch program — a system of aerosol collectors set up to detect possible bioterrorism threats in metro areas — has also been derided as inefficient and outdated.

Employee morale has also cratered. CWMD came in last in a 2019 ranking of best places to work in government. By 2022, it had inched up two positions, making it only the third worst out of 432 federal offices. DHS as a whole ranked second-to-last among large agencies.

Rotating leadership and an extended reliance on career DHS officials in temporary director roles have contributed to the low morale, Sherman said. Callahan’s appointment could help improve that dynamic and give the team a clearer voice in the reauthorization push, she said.

“It’s critical to have someone in a permanent role to be able to highlight, ‘Here are all the things that we have done, here’s what the results have been, and here’s where we’re headed,’” Sherman said.

DHS Insider

Callahan is new to the weapons office but deeply familiar DHS and its broader challenges. She most recently served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary John Tien, who stepped down this summer, and she was DHS’s chief privacy officer during the Obama administration. She worked across the department’s agencies and offices in both roles.

“Some people say, ‘Rad nukes and privacy?’” said Callahan, who worked on cybersecurity and privacy at The Walt Disney Co. before returning to government in 2021. “And I say, actually it’s about managing and integrating into the department. And I’m good at that.”

Original artwork featuring Mickey Mouse hangs on Callahan’s office wall, and the 2017 Disney film “Coco” is her favorite.

Callahan acknowledged CWMD’s “growing pains” and said she’s committed to being transparent and approachable to try to boost team spirit among the office’s roughly 240 employees and 400 contractors. But the fast-approaching deadline to get reauthorized or dismantle it isn’t helping morale, she added.

Tien, her former boss, said she’s well-suited to fight for CWMD’s survival.

“One thing that you can count on with Mary Ellen is that she will put the country first and use her great combination of smarts, servant leadership, and strategic vision to achieve the outcome that our fellow citizens deserve,” he said.

‘Jaws Is About to Attack’

As the Dec. 21 deadline grows nearer, Callahan and her team have been working to educate lawmakers and their staffs on the impacts of unusual authorizing language that requires the office to “terminate” if it isn’t renewed.

Houston, for example, would see grant funding evaporate for nuclear detection equipment and training CWMD supports through its Securing the Cities program, said George Buenik, the Texas city’s director of public safety.

“It would eventually be phased out,” he said. “We wouldn’t be replacing equipment, we wouldn’t update equipment, and we wouldn’t be doing any expansion.”

The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously advanced a clean reauthorization bill (H.R. 3224) earlier this year. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a broader measure (S. 1798) to renew the office and make some organizational changes.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), the panel’s top Republican, voted against the bill in committee after the panel rejected amendments he offered related to Covid-19 origins. He blocked fast-tracked approval of a separate DHS-related measure in July, raising questions whether he would oppose other reauthorizations. Paul referred questions about CWMD to his office, which didn’t provide a response.

Homeland Security Tools at Risk as Congress Ducks To-Do List

Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who introduced the Senate bill, said supporters are trying to find legislative vehicles for it. Committees advanced reauthorization bills last Congress, too, but never got them to the floor.

“In an ordinary legislative environment, there would have been people getting this across the finish line well in advance of the expiration of these authorities,” said former DHS counterterrorism official Tom Warrick, now at the Atlantic Council.

Getting traction on any legislation now is complicated by political turbulence in Congress, with House business disrupted pending the selection of a new speaker and another government funding showdown likely next month.

Callahan is making her case for reauthorization while simultaneously preparing for the fallout if Congress fails to act — preparing to wind down the office’s finances and records, if needed, and find other jobs within the department for the staff.

Last month, she wrote to laboratories that receive CWMD money to research next-generation detection technology and warned them that the office might cease to exist by the end of the year.

It’s like preparing for a government shutdown, but grimmer.

“Everyone’s looking for the alligator closest to the boat, and right now that’s the fiscal funding,” Callahan said. “But I’m already looking at, Jaws is about to attack the fishing boat.”