§6922 Office of Homeland Security

Summary

The Department of Agriculture must create an Office of Homeland Security led by an Executive Director of Homeland Security. "Agriculture and food defense" means actions to stop, protect against, lessen harm from, respond to, or recover from natural, accidental, or deliberate threats to the food and farm system. The Executive Director is the Secretary’s main adviser on homeland security, emergency management, and agriculture and food defense. The Director must coordinate department policy, budgets, and oversight; be the main contact with other federal agencies; gather early-warning information about risks to food and agriculture; share that information with the intelligence community (as defined in section 3003 of title 50), law enforcement, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and State fusion centers (as defined in section 124h(j) of title 6); help produce intelligence assessments with the Director of National Intelligence; run and improve preparedness exercises; make a department-wide strategic coordination plan; and do other duties the Secretary assigns. The Secretary must also set up a program, with the intelligence community (section 3003 of title 50) and fusion centers (section 124h(j) of title 6) that have relevant analysis skills, to exchange personnel and information to better defend the food and agriculture critical infrastructure sector. To do this, the Secretary may make cooperative agreements or contracts with federal, state, or local authorities that have the needed analysis and intelligence capabilities and use any other appropriate authority to engage those partners.