6 U.S.C. § 341 — Under Secretary for Management

(a) In general. The Under Secretary for Management is the Department's Chief Management Officer and the Secretary's main advisor on managing the Department, including combining and modernizing its operations. Through the Under Secretary, the Secretary is responsible for managing and administering: (1) budget, appropriations, spending, accounting, and finance; (2) procurement; (3) human resources and personnel; (4) information technology and communications systems, including rules to keep the Department's components able to communicate with each other; (5) facilities, property, equipment, vehicle fleets (covered further in subsection (c)), and other material resources; (6) security for personnel, IT and communications systems, facilities, property, equipment, and other resources; (7) strategic and annual performance planning, including tracking performance measures; (8) grants and other assistance-management programs; (9) integrating and modernizing each management area — information technology, financial, acquisition, and human-capital management — to consolidate functions and staff efficiently, including (A) building centralized, connected data sources to improve visibility and coordination; (B) building standardized, automated management information to run programs and make good decisions; (C) building effective program management and oversight, including clear governance roles, shared best practices, and reliable acquisition and investment data; and (D) overall supervision — including internal audits and management analyses — with oversight procedures to check that components are actually following the Department's integration and modernization policies; (10) creating a transition and succession plan before December 1 of each presidential-election year, to help hand off Department functions to a new administration, and sharing that plan with the next Secretary, the next Under Secretary, and the relevant congressional committees; (11) reporting to the Government Accountability Office every six months on measurable, sustainable progress fixing the Department's management problems on GAO's high-risk list, until GAO's Comptroller General tells Congress the high-risk label is removed; (12) conducting internal audits and management analyses of the Department's programs and activities; and (13) any other management duties the Secretary assigns. (b) Waivers for conducting business with suspended or debarred contractors. Within five days after the Department's Chief Procurement Officer or Chief Financial Officer waives the usual rule against doing business with a contractor or grant recipient listed as suspended or debarred (in the government's System for Award Management), the Under Secretary must notify the congressional homeland security committees and the Department's Inspector General, explaining the compelling reason found for the waiver. (c) Vehicle fleets. (1) The Under Secretary oversees and manages the Department's vehicle fleets overall, and specifically must (A) make sure components follow federal law, regulations, guidance, and Department policy on fleet management and home-to-work vehicle use; (B) develop and share a standardized method and plan for components to figure out their optimal fleet size; (C) make sure components formally document their fleet decisions; and (D) approve component fleet plans, vehicle leases, and vehicle acquisitions. (2)(A) Component heads must (i) follow the same fleet-management rules, keep fleet data accurate and reliable, use it to build a vehicle allocation tool and fleet management plan, and use those tools to develop annual funding requests — and (ii) generally may not lease, acquire, or replace vehicles without the Under Secretary's prior approval. (B) There is an exception: in exigent (urgent) circumstances, a component head may lease, acquire, or replace a vehicle without prior approval, but must then explain those circumstances to the Under Secretary. (3) Ongoing oversight: (A) the Under Secretary must collect quarterly data on each component's fleet size, makeup, cost, and use; (B) the Under Secretary must also try to build the ability to automatically collect quarterly data on trips, miles driven, hours and days used, and lease costs; (C) the Under Secretary must track this data to make sure fleets stay optimal-sized and cost-effective, and use it in the annual review described next. (4) Starting with fiscal year 2018, component heads must annually submit a vehicle allocation tool and fleet management plan to the Under Secretary, which may be submitted in classified form if needed to protect operations or missions. (B) The vehicle allocation tool must analyze utilization data, the fleet's role in the component's mission, and any other relevant information. (C) The fleet management plan must include a plan to reach optimal fleet size (including eliminating excess vehicles), a cost-benefit analysis, a schedule, and any other relevant information. (D) The Under Secretary reviews and rules on each component's tool and plan, checking for optimal fleet size and legal compliance, and uses them when reviewing that component's funding requests. (5) The Under Secretary must give guidance on how components can reach optimal fleet size, covering (A) leasing, acquiring, or replacing vehicles when needed; (B) disposing of excess vehicles that shouldn't be reassigned elsewhere; and (C) reassigning excess vehicles to components that need them. (6) As part of the annual budget process, the Under Secretary reviews components' funding requests for their fleets; if a component didn't work toward optimal fleet size the prior year, the Under Secretary must send rescission recommendations to the relevant House and Senate appropriations and homeland security committees. (7) Accountability, starting with fiscal year 2019: (A) the Under Secretary and component heads can't approve a new vehicle lease, acquisition, or replacement for a component that didn't comply the prior year; (B) no Department official responsible for fleet management can get annual performance pay if their component didn't comply the prior year; and (C) no senior executive whose office has a fleet can get access to a car service if their component didn't comply the prior year. (8)(A) The Under Secretary may study whether a shared vehicle motor pool is feasible, to let components share vehicles and reduce excess vehicles department-wide. (B) That study must (i) include regions where multiple components' fleets cluster or many authorized drivers work, and law enforcement vehicles; (ii) cover the National Capital Region; and (iii) account for different components' mission needs. (C) The Secretary must include the study's results in the Department's next required annual performance report. (9) Definitions for this subsection: "component head" means the head of any Department component with a vehicle fleet; "excess vehicle" means a vehicle not essential to a component's mission; "optimal fleet size" means the right number of vehicles for a component's mission; and "vehicle fleet" means all vehicles a component owns or leases (commercially or from the government), including law-enforcement and other vehicles. (d) Appointment and evaluation. The Under Secretary for Management must (1) be appointed by the President, with Senate confirmation, from people with extensive executive-level leadership and management experience, strong leadership skills, a demonstrated ability to manage large and complex organizations, and a proven record of positive operational results; (2) sign an annual performance agreement with the Secretary setting measurable individual and organizational goals; and (3) go through an annual performance evaluation where the Secretary decides whether the Under Secretary made satisfactory progress on those goals. (e) System for Award Management consultation. The Under Secretary must require all Department contracting and grant officials to check the System for Award Management (or its successor) before awarding a contract, grant, or other transaction, to make sure the chosen contractor isn't excluded from federal contracts, subcontracts, or other federal financial and non-financial assistance and benefits. A second provision, also labeled (e) in the statute, defines "interoperable communications" for this section as having the meaning given in section 194(g) of this title.