Text by Ben Kamisar, video by Mattias Gugel, audio presentation by Kit Fox and Shirley Li
WASHINGTON — One of the senior members of President George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security, Paul Rosenzweig never imagined himself becoming a Beltway insider when he was a student studying life under the sea and hoping to one day become an oceanographer.
“I was really interested in science because I was interested in big questions,” he said. In the mid-1980s, Rosenzweig was part of one of the first groups to study the effects of global warming. At the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, he studied the absorption levels of carbon dioxide into ocean water. But just before obtaining his master’s degree, he realized the life of a researcher was not a good fit.
“Most of science is funded by government or industry,” he said. Because of the realities of fundraising, Rosenzweig found that most of his time was spent lobbying for money from various groups and he “was not comfortable being a beggar.”
Rosenzweig left the world of science after earning his master’s degree, moving to the environmental sector of the Department of Justice after receiving his law degree from the University of Chicago. After Sept. 11, 2001, Rosenzweig joined the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, as a senior fellow writing on civil liberties, national security and criminal law, but was pulled out of the private sector by a friend.
“A friend of mine, Stewart Baker, went into the Department and basically called me and said ‘put up or shut up,'” Rosenzweig said. “[He said], ‘Either come on in here and help me actually solve the problems or stop writing about all the problems because that’s just cheesy.’ So I did.”
When then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff developed the policy directorate for the department in 2005, Rosenzweig became the first to fill the position. In his role as the deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, Rosenzweig drafted and recommended policy to the department, helping to guide the national security apparatus through the uncertainty surrounding the post 9/11 world.
“My job, I always used to say, was to be fired for Stewart Baker, was to help him make the hard decisions and if it turned out wrong he would fire me,” he said. “Stewart, his job was to be fired for Michael Chertoff. And Chertoff’s job was to be fired for George Bush.”
Rosenzweig had to balance creating and implementing policies to protect homeland security and national interests with how much political capital his department wanted to spend on the issue.
And according to Rosenzweig, the DHS also had to battle Congress on some issues.
After Hurricane Katrina, for instance, he was given the task of creating a policy on saving pets during a natural disaster. While many pet owners would refuse to follow the Coast Guard to safety without their pets during Katrina, saving animals introduced a whole host of risks for rescuers and victims, potentially jeopardizing their safety.
“After thinking about this for a long time, consulting with the Coast Guard, FEMA…and all the other people, the Department came up with some policy which was: We are not going to save Fluffy,” he said. “But we are going to save more grandmas and grandpas that way.”
But Congress thought otherwise, reversing the decision in the post-Katrina Emergency Management and Reform Act to “take into account the needs of individuals with special needs and individuals with pets.” While Rosenzweig understood that Congress did not want to look heartless in the eyes of pet owners, he believes that the DHS policy was correct.
Rosenzweig’s tenure at Homeland came to a close when President Barack Obama was inaugurated. It is common practice for a new president to replace most politically appointed positions with new appointees, especially when the White House changes parties. Although he was expecting to leave at the end of the Bush administration, Rosenzweig still yearns for one more chance to step back into government.
“I would very much like to have one more swing at government at the next higher level up, where I get more of a say in making decisions,” he said. “I think I have the skill set to and I would be an advantage [to an administration if I was] to do it again.”
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