Brookings Study Calls Homeland Security Plans Too Ambitious Adding to a growing list of Congressional concerns about domestic security, a study released today warns that the president's plan for a new Department of Homeland Security is too ambitious and could create more problems than it solves. The report by the Brookings Institution recommends a pared-down department concentrating on border and transportation security, intelligence and threat analysis, and protecting the country's infrastructure. In a letter to the White House, Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and David R. Obey of Wisconsin, both Democrats, wrote this week that the president's new department would have far-flung responsibilities like administering the National Flood Insurance Program, cleaning up oil spills at sea and eradicating the boll weevil. That, the lawmakers said, could dilute the department's mission to fight terrorism and "risks bloating the size of the bureaucracy." For similar reasons, the eight Brookings scholars and former government officials argued in their study today that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should remain separate from the new department. "Fortunately, terrorist attacks are rare, but you can count on national disasters every year � right now there are floods in Texas, fires in Arizona � so why should the Department of Homeland Security be pulled away from its mission and worry constantly about those disasters?" asked James M. Lindsay, an author of the study, "Assessing the Department of Homeland Security." The study also recommended that Congress delay deciding whether to include scientific and technological research on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures against terrorist attacks. "The proposal put on the table is too big; it needs to focus on just those functions directly related to homeland security like the Coast Guard, customs, intelligence analysis and protecting public and private infrastructure that doesn't really exist today," said Ivo H. Daalder, another author of the study and a former member of the National Security Council. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/politics/14HOME.html