At the close of a month’s worth of hearings focusing on America’s ability to bounce back from a disaster or terrorist attack, the leadership of the House Homeland Security Committee said it was time well spent.

But while the chairman described the proceedings as a base to build on in the future, the committee’s top Republican said plenty of prevention issues remain to be addressed.

“The committee’s monthlong examination resulted in a number of important lessons learned, especially that a resilience-based strategy is fundamental to good homeland security policy for our government and its private sector partners,” said Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “Our hearings provide an essential foundation for this administration — and, perhaps more importantly, the next — to focus on all elements of resilience: prevention, protection and the quick and effective recovery from disasters that may lie ahead.”

Ranking Republican Peter King of New York agreed that the hearings addressed a worthy topic, but he added that he wants the committee’s oversight focus to move back to assessing serious threats.

“Resiliency is important, and we all need to be doing more to make sure we’re prepared in the event of an attack,” he said. “However, I hope that as a committee we go back to examining the threats against our nation. This year we have not held a single hearing on the threat of nuclear terrorism, al Qaeda operatives within the United States, or the vulnerabilities on the northern border.”

The emergence of resilience as a buzzword in the security sector in the past few years represents a shift in focus from preventing disasters to dealing with them. Because most of the critical infrastructure that would have to bounce back from an attack lies in private hands, most resiliency discussions involve ways that government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security can work with industry.

The handful of hearings reflected that approach, with federal and state officials called for testimony alongside witnesses from the private sector and homeland security analysts. Topics included how quickly the supply chain could recover from an attack and the preparations needed to improve the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s early warning system.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stuart Baker, speaking at the kickoff resiliency hearing, set the tone for much of the testimony from department officials, saying they are tasked with balancing prevention and recovery.

“Stopping terrorism is a key mission of the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “We must make every effort to prevent an attack, but we must do more. As a nation, we must be able to withstand a blow and then bounce back. That’s resilience.”

However, some who spoke at the hearings said that balance is still tilted too much toward prevention.

“The current focus of DHS is heavily weighted toward prevention and enforcement, with little emphasis on building resilience,” said Robert W. Kelly, senior adviser for homeland and national security at the Reform Institute — a think tank started by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — speaking at the supply chain hearing.

During his opening statement at the first hearing, Thompson said the committee has gotten on the resiliency wagon, but executive agencies like DHS lag behind.

“Since 9/11, this administration has focused solely on preventing the next attack as opposed to how best to recover should an incident occur,” he said.

Thompson said Friday that DHS has to change its thinking, but added that the hearings showed one area of the department is showing promise.

“The department must do more to embrace the principle of resilience consistently in all of its operations; however, the committee was pleased to see it has a strong partner in DHS’s Office of Infrastructure Protection,” he said.

Rob Margetta can be reached at rmargetta@cq.com.