HR-3598 : Still Just a Bill

Fusion Center Enhancement Act of 2015

This bill amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to revise provisions concerning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) State, Local, and Regional Fusion Center Initiative. The bill renames it as the Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center Partnership Initiative and changes references to "participating state, local, or regional fusion centers" to references to the "National Network of Fusion Centers," which is defined as a decentralized arrangement of fusion centers intended to enhance individual state and urban area fusion centers' ability to leverage the capabilities and expertise of all fusion centers for the purpose of enhancing analysis and homeland security information sharing nationally.

The duties of the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Initiative are revised to include:

• supporting the maturation and sustainment of the Network,
• reducing inefficiencies and maximizing the effectiveness of federal resource support to the Network,
• ensuring that support for the Network is included as a national priority in applicable homeland security grant guidance,
• ensuring that each fusion center in the Network has a privacy policy and a civil rights and civil liberties policy approved by DHS,
• coordinating the nationwide suspicious activity report initiative to ensure that information gathered by the Network is incorporated,
• ensuring that fusion centers in the Network are the primary focal points for the sharing of homeland security information, terrorism information, and weapons of mass destruction information with state and local entities, and
• disseminating best practices on the appropriate levels for staffing at Network fusion centers of qualified representatives from state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement and emergency services, public health disciplines, and the private sector.

The Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis must: (1) ensure that fusion centers in the Network have access to homeland security information sharing systems, (2) coordinate with appropriate federal officials to ensure the deployment to Network fusion centers of representatives of other federal agencies with relevant expertise, and (3) report to specified congressional committees annually through 2022 on the efforts of DHS components to enhance support provided to Network fusion centers.