6 U.S.C. § 112 — Secretary; functions

(a) Secretary (1) In general: There is a Secretary of Homeland Security, appointed by the President with the Senate's approval. (2) Head of Department: The Secretary heads the Department and has direction, authority, and control over it. (3) Functions vested in Secretary: All powers of every officer, employee, and unit of the Department legally belong to the Secretary. (b) Functions: The Secretary (1) may hand off any of these powers to any Department officer, employee, or unit, unless this chapter says otherwise; (2) may make contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements, and work with other federal agencies, as needed to carry out the job; (3) must take reasonable steps so the Department's information systems and databases work with each other and with other departments' relevant databases. (c) Coordination with non-Federal entities: On homeland security, the Secretary must coordinate — through the Office of State and Local Coordination, including by providing training and equipment — with state and local governments, the private sector, and other groups, including by: (1) coordinating with them to ensure adequate planning, equipment, training, and exercises; (2) coordinating, and where appropriate combining, the federal government's homeland-security communications with them and with the public; (3) distributing, or coordinating the distribution of, warnings and information to them and to the public. (d) Meetings of National Security Council: Subject to the President's direction, the Secretary may attend and take part in National Security Council meetings. (e) Issuance of regulations: The Secretary's regulations follow the normal process in title 5, chapter 5, except where this chapter, laws transferring authority to the Department, or laws passed after November 25, 2002, say otherwise. (f) Special Assistant to the Secretary: The Secretary must appoint a Special Assistant to the Secretary, responsible for: (1) building strategic communication with the private sector to support the Department's core mission of protecting the homeland; (2) advising the Secretary how the Department's policies, regulations, and actions affect the private sector; (3) working with other federal agencies that have homeland security missions to see how their actions affect the private sector; (4) creating and running private-sector advisory councils, made up of industry and association representatives the Secretary picks, to (A) advise on private-sector products and solutions for homeland security challenges; (B) advise on how policies and actions affect participating industries; and (C) advise on private-sector readiness, including (i) promoting voluntary preparedness standards and (ii) helping the private sector adopt them; (5) working with federal labs, federally funded research centers, universities, and the private sector to develop and deploy the best available homeland security technology; (6) promoting existing public-private partnerships and building new ones; (7) helping develop and promote private-sector best practices for securing critical infrastructure; (8) telling the private sector about voluntary preparedness standards and the business case for preparedness, and promoting their adoption; (9) coordinating with industry to identify private-sector resources that could help prevent or respond to a terrorist attack; (10) coordinating with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Commerce's trade-development office on travel and tourism issues; and (11) consulting with the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness on all private-sector matters, including tourism. (g) Standards policy: All of the Department's standards activities must follow a specific federal technology-standards law and a named Office of Management and Budget circular. (h) Planning requirements: The Secretary must make sure every Department office head considers the needs of children — including children in under-served communities — when planning and carrying out missions, and must require each office head to seek advice and feedback from organizations representing children's needs, where practical. The Federal Advisory Committee Act does not apply when that advice or feedback is sought this way.