E-911 Implementation Act of 2003

Madam Speaker, tomorrow starts an historic process as we move through the 9/11 Commission recommendations and other actions by this Congress in committee to try to address many of the terrorist concerns and how we are going to handle those terrorist concerns with new legislation.

We have already taken many actions in this Congress, we have already taken many actions in the executive branch, but tomorrow we start a committee process where we are going to implement many other historic pieces of legislation.

Madam Speaker, I would now yield to my colleague the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) who is going to address a number of the aspects that we will be starting in our deliberations this week.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). There are so many aspects to the 9/11 Commission report and all the many day-to-day activities in fighting terrorism that it is hard to even begin to fathom the number of issues that we have to deal with as we move through the committee process.

Before I continue, I want to make sure that I point out to the gentlewoman from Michigan that I meant no

offense by my Notre Dame tie, just because Notre Dame is the champion of Michigan this year, both Michigan and Michigan State. I actually wore my Notre Dame shirt after they lost to Brigham Young at a State park in Michigan when I thought we were in a dismal year. I am a Notre Dame hot dog regardless of the time.

I hope no offense was taken by this wonderful Fighting Irish tie.

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about another aspect of the 9/11 Commission, but first I would like to say a little bit about how we got here.

I know there are some Members in this body over the next few days, and they have been saying it in the news media, that think that just because there was a commission that somehow we have now checked our voting cards at the door and we are supposed to adopt this report lock, stock and barrel.

I was one who actually opposed this commission at the start, because I was afraid it was going to be overly political. In fact, there were times in the commission hearings that I felt that. For example, in Dick Clarke's self-serving testimony, it became very critical and was more focused on attacking the President than trying to move forward. I felt that not addressing the values of the PATRIOT Act was something that was kind of a gross omission of something we have actually done that has worked extremely well in this country in helping thwart future terrorist attacks.

Overall, however, it is not only an excellent document, but one of the best written government reports you will ever read. It is actually interesting; it is compelling as it goes through the testimony. The fact remains, however, that it is the opinion of a few individuals.

Now, a number of those individuals served in Congress, not many but at least three; and all of them were from the other party. The Republicans appointed to the commission were largely executive branch people at the State or the Federal level. Each of them had their own biases as they came in and had their own committee backgrounds as they came.

So while they have many excellent recommendations, we have to now work through a committee process by elected representatives, people in the House and Senate, who have many other opinions in addition to this commission. But the one thing this commission absolutely accomplished was it forced us to deal with this yet this fall. And it kept the pressure up such that tomorrow we are actually starting markups in multiple committees to try to move through as many things as we can without moving so hastily that we make major mistakes.

One problem with just rushing to judgment in an area as comprehensive as telecommunications and border security and individual liberties and privacy and travel visas, and all sorts of, just an incredible number of issues potentially here, relations with individual countries around the world, how we reorganize defense intelligence, narcotics intelligence, border intelligence, domestic and international intelligence, how you put different bureaucracies together when we are still struggling in the Department of Homeland Security, it is unclear how we absolutely merge Defense intelligence, the CIA, and the FBI. Their cultures are even more pronouncedly different than the cultures that were merged inside DHS, which is taking quite a bit of time. Nevertheless, we need to continue to move ahead.

Let me reiterate one other thing. It is not as though Congress has not been doing anything, not only after 9/11 but before 9/11. On the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, when I was vice chairman of the subcommittee that now Speaker Hastert chaired, we went over to Saudi Arabia after Khobar Towers. We heard from the counterintelligence people in many classified as well as public hearings about the increasing attacks on our military and our civilians around the world. Although they had not attacked us, although they had attempted to attack us at the World Trade Center, they had not successfully had a disaster like happened on 9/11. We were already moving to improve and to consolidate, but there was not as much consensus on how to do it.

Then, after 9/11, we went and wiped out terrorist bases in Afghanistan and deprived them of one of the major funding sources and routes to terrorism for al Qaeda through the Taliban. We moved into Iraq, which was not only attempting, if not absolutely having developed, weapons of mass destruction with which to attack us. They not only provided some tangential assistance to al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in ``the enemy of my enemy is my friend'' theory, but more directly were preparing to be an even bigger threat than al Qaeda itself.

Because we went into Iraq, Mohamar Qadafi decided he did not want to be in a spider hole, and all of a sudden he is fingering Pakistan, that they are providing him with nuclear parts. Then Pakistan moves over and provides some help to us.

As we now look at the potential terrorist nations of Iran and Korea, one of the questions we had when we looked at Iran was, where would you even base Americans. Until we moved into Iraq and Afghanistan and had a change in attitude at least of Pakistan, it was not clear how we would be able to deal with Iran.

So we have to take steps and look at this in a historical perspective of it was not like 9/11 occurred and nothing happened until there was a 9/11 Commission, they do a report, and suddenly there is panic. No, we have been dealing with this steadily and consistently.

My subcommittee, which predominantly deals with narcotics but also deals with immigration and all sorts of criminal justice things, and particularly on the border, spent 2 years focusing on our borders. We did multiple hearings and in July of 2002 issued this border report, which then we used partly as an information base as the Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security of the Select Committee on Homeland Security was organized, because this was the first comprehensive document where we pulled together information on which border crossings are the major truck crossings, which ones are the major car crossings, where do individuals cross, where do we have multiple people putting pressure on our borders, and what things do we need to do to improve our security clearance systems, what things do we do to move the port security away from the U.S. but do the clearances farther out, whether it be Singapore or over in Europe at Rotterdam, for example. How can we preclear these things before they get to our borders?

It is fine to say we are going to add border patrol agents, but we are having trouble recruiting for the existing slots we have. What do we need to do internally to make sure we have an adequate supply of people who are willing to serve in the Department of Homeland Security, at the border and other things? How do we not lose other missions as we work on the border?

So there were a lot of things we were already progressing on at the legislative side. The executive branch has been working diligently to improve, for example, the border security. Let me give some examples related to border security.

It does not do any good to try to have all sorts of different approaches and have electronic systems that can talk to each other, and everybody wants to strengthen emergency response, and I am on the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness and Response of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, but that is all dealing with after disasters happen. The goal is to try to prevent a disaster from occurring. To do that, you have to make sure the terrorists do not get into our country; and when they come in, you have to make sure you have some means to track them.

This means that, A, we have to get our borders more secure, both north and south; B, we have to have information systems at the border that can identify the people and give us the ability to track them. That also means that if you are going to have an ID, and this is one of the things that will be moving through this week, you need to have some kind of thing that makes the identification secure.

If we do not have secure IDs, whether it is the U.S. visit program, whether it is from U.S. citizens, whether it is from noncitizens living in the United States, whether it is from people from Mexico or Canada or other countries that are coming in, we are only as safe as the ID

system they have. We are only as safe as our birth certificate system is.

If you can forge a birth certificate or a Social Security number and then get a legal ID, the whole system is broken. There is no tracking of money. It does not do us any good to have banking laws. It does not do us any good to have wiretap laws. It does not do us any good to be tracking people who have false IDs. So clearly, we have to get better systems of identification and more secure systems.

Secondly, we need to have machines that talk to each other. You cannot have somebody on the north border with one kind of machine over at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, and somebody with another kind of machine down there at the El Paso-Juarez crossing and find they cannot talk to each other; and if people cross different points, the machines cannot read the same information going into the same information bank.

If somebody gets on at an airport in Europe to come in and we want to pre-check them, and somebody is coming in at the Los Angeles airport and our systems cannot cross-check or read each other, what is the point of doing all this? So we have to have better integration. These will be expensive systems, and so we will have to make decisions on which ones will work, and we are testing.

This does not happen real fast. You do not walk into Wal-Mart and say, by the way, we would like 2,000 of these systems tomorrow. They are not there. We have to make some basic decisions, then you have to produce on those decisions, and that is the process we are working through.

We have a multitude of other things. I have two small companies in Angola, Indiana, that are part of the two largest companies that make the container seals. We talk about port security. One of the vulnerabilities we have to nuclear weapons, chemical, and biological weapons is port security.

When something comes into the Los Angeles area or into the New York area, the question is do we know for sure whether there are nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in that container before it blows up the city? The answer is, well, we are preclearing and we are checking the IDs and so on. But if the container seal can be broken, so what if the bill of lading matches? All they do is pull the little sealant loose, put something in, and replace it at whatever point we have precleared.

One of the problems we have, for example, is no international standards on these container seals. Well, why? Partly, bluntly put, China has taken intellectual property rights and are mass producing these seals and they do not want to have anybody check for international standards because what they are making is illegal because they stole somebody's license. So that means that most of the container seals being used right now, are actually pirated and there is no security or way to check to see if those container seals can be modified or changed, or whether the number of seals is out there or whether they have rigged the market where some are on the black market and somebody could change the container seals.

So we can do all this other stuff, but if the container is not sealed and does not have protection, it does not do any good. That is why we talk about layered security. You have preclearance. You even need eventually to move downstream from preclearance, because the things coming in from Singapore are coming in from China and India and other places. You then need to be able to check them on the ship. You need to know that the sealant is there. You need to check the people who are moving these things at the harbor where it is loaded, on the ship as it is moving through, in the harbor as it is unloaded, and on the train.

For example, some stuff comes from China to Singapore to Vancouver, British Columbia, crosses at North Dakota on a train, the seventh biggest crossing is in North Dakota, headed down to Chicago and the Midwest. If it gets precleared in Singapore, think how many places that container could be modified if we do not have checks and have a secured container. So there are lots of different small aspects of this.

Now, let me mention a couple of other things that are difficult. There is a lot of criticism about merging all the different agencies. I do not sit on the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations, but I want to suggest that there are things that are unique in the different branches of government that make this harder than the simplistic let us consolidate everything.

There are some missions that are more military, some missions that are more antiterrorist. Let me give an example of a couple of other things, and this has been a very bitter controversy in the Committee on Homeland Security as we fight over jurisdiction, and there are reasons we are having fights for jurisdiction. For example, the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is one of the major ways that we fight narcotics.

If you are from Alaska, the Coast Guard provides some narcotics protection and pipeline protection and harbor protection, but the number one thing is fisheries. If the Coast Guard is not guarding the international waters, the Russian trawlers, among other countries, would take the salmon that do a circular route and they would net those salmon and destroy the salmon industry in the United States. So to Alaska, it is a lot of fisheries.

On the Great Lakes when we think of the Coast Guard, we think to some degree homeland security, to some degree narcotics; but you think search and rescue. The same thing off Florida. It is fine to say I think that those boats ought to be focused on homeland security, but do not let the overturned sailboat people drown. Do not let the narcotics come in. There are multiple missions to the Coast Guard.

We hear all politics are local. No one wants to die. Obviously, if we have a nuclear bomb and we are all destroyed, jobs do not matter much. But ultimately, jobs are the number one local issue. So let us talk about the legacy customs department inside homeland security. Their number one priority is homeland security, but if they allow goods in, I remember one case when I was a staffer, there was a dumping case in Seattle where they were going to dump enough lawn mower motors below the cost of production. It would have put a major company in Indiana out of business. It would have taken 2 years of market.

The goal was to say you cannot illegally dump. If the Customs people had not stopped the ship from unloading, then the unemployment rate in that area would have soared and people would have said to the then- Congressman, it is jobs. How could you let this company go?

Partly in fighting on international customs questions, as well as narcotics questions, the Department of Homeland Security has duties beyond just homeland security. We cannot just by a broad statement of saying oh well, let us just do homeland security, forget there are many reasons that these agencies exist beyond just homeland security. For example, we do not want the FBI just to do homeland security and forget about racketeering, which may or may not be related to al Qaeda, but may in fact result in lots of different deaths in the United States or driving people out of business or terrorizing people. There are other functions for these agencies. This is not going to be worked out in 30 days, but a lot of it is.

What we are seeing is progress in trying to work out a national intelligence director, progress on some new international initiatives, progress on cutting off financial support to terrorists, and isolating different terrorists. There will be bills passed this week in parts of this package regarding border security, international cooperation, government restructuring, and first responders. Much of what is in this report will be moving. The parts that are not moving are things that we have internally through the elected process in the United States said do not make a mistake that is more costly even than the current system.

One other brief point, and then I want to conclude with some remarks on drugs and terrorism.

The weekend before last, I went with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) to Russia. We went to the city of Beslan; and it was the most awful single experience that I have seen. In that school, 32 terrorists attacked a school on the second day of school. They came up on the school

yard and drove approximately 1,500 teachers, students, and parents into the school building. Apparently they had planted bombs earlier to go off in different parts of the school if they needed to. Initially, they pushed the kids in.

Immediately, the 22 people they felt most likely to resist, young men and male teachers, were killed and thrown out of a second story window. We were the first Americans. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) went a couple days later, and he visited the people in the hospitals and said it was the most emotional experience he had been through because of the brutality of terrorists who seized children and shot them. Many parents were killed and the teachers were killed, and many of the kids were wounded with head wounds and different things as the parents tried to cover them up, and they could not get them covered. They deprived them of water and food for 3 days. At the site in this picture are all of the bottles of water, thousands of bottles of water, because those kids were deprived of water and if they complained, they shot them.

In this burned-out gym, the kids were crying. One man lost his wife and five children. The emotionalism, we felt it was important for us to stand with them. I have been to new graves, but never to a whole new graveyard, 300 some graves, mostly children spread over a big field. We felt it was important to say as Americans, and all of us broke down because it was so emotional.

This man, Speaker of the House, he had a 7-year-old son and a 10- year-old daughter inside. They put one of his children on the telephone. The boy said, ``Daddy, if you storm this, they are going to kill me and my sister.''

They stalled for a number of days. A bomb went off. A number of people got killed. They put his little boy on the telephone. Meanwhile kids, many were dead, some started to run out of the building. The terrorists started gunning down the children as they left. The parents outside decided to storm as well as the police outside, and they went in.

It was important for us as Americans to stand there and say, look, terrorism is evil wherever it occurs in the world, and we are in this fight together. This might have started as a local battle in Chechnya, but the proclaimed leader went to Afghanistan and he was trained by al Qaeda, and he came back a different man. Instead of fighting for freedom in Chechnya, he decide to murder children and parents and teachers and parent-volunteers in the second day of school, and to kill as many as 500, 600 kids.

Do you think Russia after having two planes go down and this school bombed, after hitting a theater, after hitting a subway, they do not understand the battle we are in right now? One of the things that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) was talking to them about was having a homeland security conference over there and over here as we all look for new technologies to fight this battle because these crazed people who think they can do these suicide attacks on anybody at any time are a different breed. We have to take strong actions.

I want to make sure I make these points tonight that are the connections between narcotics and terrorism. I chair the narcotics committee and have for the last 4 years. And as the 9/11 Commission has pointed out and President Bush has pointed out, there are huge profits through drug trafficking that will continue to finance terrorism throughout the world. As President Bush pointed out in September 2001, ``The traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists. Terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder.''

Furthermore, as the U.S. steps up its efforts against more legitimate sources of funding, terrorist organizations will increasingly turn to drugs and similar illegal sources. As the 9/11 Commission has noted, the Federal Government, including DHS, must be able to adapt to these shifting strategies of the terrorists. ``Instead of facing a few very dangerous adversaries, the United States confronts a number of less visible challenges that surpass the boundaries of traditional nation- states and call for quick, quick imaginative, and agile responses.'' That is page 399.

Recognizing the central importance of stopping terrorist financing, the 9/11 Commission reported: ``Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The government has recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.'' Page 382.

The connections between drugs and terrorism are well-documented.

In Afghanistan, our subcommittee was told February 26, 2004, the State Department provided declassified information, which is just the tip of the iceberg, showing in Afghanistan two terrorist insurgent groups are financed by drug money and most likely are provided with logistical support by drug traffickers. Two other groups, al Qaeda and the IMU, probably receive at least logistical support from drug traffickers, and some reports suggest that they receive funds from drug trafficking as well.

Drugs and al Qaeda, in November 2002, Attorney General Ashcroft announced the arrest of three al Qaeda operatives who offered 600 kilograms of heroin and five metric tons of hashish in exchange for four Stinger shoulder anti-aircraft missiles.

With respect to terrorist groups in Colombia, the State Department has noted that the main terrorist organizations are heavily dependent on the funds derived from drug trafficking.

Worldwide, testimony before our subcommittee on May 11, 2004, Donald Semesky, DEA Chief of Financial Operations, stated that drug income is among the sources of revenue for some international terrorist groups, and the Department of Justice has highlighted links between groups and individuals under investigation for drug violations and terrorist organizations. In fact, 47 percent of the 36 foreign terrorist organizations identified and updated by the Department of State in October 2003 are on record with DEA as having possible ties to the drug trade.

Strong DHS action against drug trafficking is vital to overall efforts to stop the financing of terrorist activities. It was for this reason that Congress specifically provided that the primary mission of the Department included the responsibility to ``monitor connections between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism, coordinate efforts to sever such connections, and otherwise contribute to efforts to interdict illegal drug trafficking.''

For example, the Coast Guard, part of DHS, has seized a record 240,518 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2004, shattering the previous record of 138,393 pounds set in 2001. That is nearly double. That is $7.7 billion that will not go into the hands of the narcoterrorists.

Just this month, Federal agencies joined together to make a record seizure of an estimated 27 tons of cocaine on board three fishing vessels in the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands.

These record-breaking seizures, coupled with the record-breaking year, are an excellent example of what can be accomplished if DHS continues to improve intelligence-sharing and interagency cooperation.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, I would like to highlight two provisions of the bill that we are doing this week that address the importance of stopping drug trafficking to homeland security.

The first strengthens and clarifies the role of the counternarcotics officer at the Department of Homeland Security. The second requires that drug enforcement activities be one of the benchmarks for relevant employee performance appraisals at DHS.

I proposed both of these reforms which will improve the Department's anti-drug efforts.

The two provisions promote two key objectives, to deprive terrorists of their means of financing their operations: first, strengthening the effectiveness of the Department's narcotics interdiction efforts; and, second, improving coordination and cooperation among the Department's subdivisions and between the Department and other agencies with counterterrorism missions. As the 9/11 Commission reported: ``We recommend significant changes in the organization of the government. Good people can overcome bad structures. They should not have to.''

The Counternarcotics Office at DHS, this proviso was added. This office was not in the original draft of the President's bill. Thanks to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), we were able to put this in the original reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security. This provision will modify that. The first provision, section 5025 of the Speaker's bill, and that could be changed, but that is where it is right now, would add a new section 878 to the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the new Department.

The new section replaces the current position of counternarcotics officer that was contained in the original 2002 act with an Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement headed by a director. At present, the counternarcotics officer, which we worked hard to get in, is nevertheless not actually an employee of DHS. Instead, he is a detailee employed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP. Furthermore, he has no authority to hire staff to assist him. The current law also fails to clearly define how the counternarcotics officer is to carry out his responsibilities. The new section 878 would rectify this problem by replacing the CNO with a director of counternarcotics enforcement, subject to Senate confirmation and reporting directly to the Secretary; assigning specific responsibilities to the new director, including oversight of DHS counterdrug activities and the submission of reports to Congress; and authorizing permanent staff assigned to an Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement as well as detailees from relevant agencies to assist the director.

In other words, we need a department with teeth. Quite frankly, there is no antidrug effort if we don't have legacy Customs, legacy Coast Guard, legacy Border Patrol fighting narcotics. We have no protection. Thirty thousand people died last year from narcotics, none from international terrorism, inside the United States. We have to remember, don't throw out the baby with the bath water and when we are doing reorganization, let us stay focused on multiple missions.

Secondly, the use of counternarcotics performance for certain DHS personnel evaluations. The second provision, section 5026 of the Speaker's bill, would add a new section 843 to the 2002 act, ensuring that employees involved in counternarcotics activities will be evaluated in part on the basis of such activities. It is vital that DHS encourage its law enforcement personnel to continue their efforts to stop illegal drug trafficking. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether drug enforcement is being given sufficient consideration by the department in developing its employee performance management system. A word search of the department's proposed new personnel rules, including those for performance management, 69 Federal Registry 8030-01, February 20, 2004 shows that the words ``narcotics'' and ``drugs'' do not appear at all. This, in the number one agency that is supposed to protect us.

New section 843 would require DHS to include as one of its criteria in a performance appraisal system for relevant employees performance of counternarcotics duties. In order to encourage such personnel to cooperate and coordinate efforts with other agencies, the new section also requires that this be a factor for consideration in performance appraisals as well.

I was hoping that we could address two things that are critical to our border efforts. One is, we have made some movement on and we are continuing to negotiate with the executive branch on what to do with the air marine division of the legacy Customs. The second is with the shadow wolves. If we cannot get control of the border at the Tohono O'odham or up on the north border in upstate New York where we have Indian nations on those borders and we cannot use creative things like the shadow wolves to do it, we have no protection on the border.

We held a hearing at Sells, Arizona, inside the Tohono O'odham nation. I asked one question of the Border Patrol. I said, when you see the cars go by here, are any of these people here for legitimate purposes? They said, no, we could stop any car and arrest anybody because all of them are pretty much here unless they are a member of the Tohono O'odham nation. What does that mean? It means that at the national park on the border there, we have had a ranger killed, they have closed down some of the best hiking trails in the United States. The day we held our hearing, the previous year they had, I think, 250 or 500 pounds of drug seizure the first 3 months of the year because other parts of the border were sealed off. They had something like 1,000 pounds. And the day of our hearing, when we had all these government officials there, they picked up a load of 300 pounds, 500 pounds, a load of 400 pounds, then got another load of 500 pounds. They took down more in one day while the Federal agents happened to be there for our hearing than they had in the previous 3 months, which was more by double the previous year.

It is an open border in parts of Arizona and Texas right now. And particularly where you have a nation that borders that and you have a functional group, you cannot be so rigid in DHS parliamentary guidelines that you cannot have some flexibility to keep inside these independent nations a group that was working and one of the only things that was working in that area. We need a similar thing up at the Indian nation on the north border in New York.

We are making lots of steps this week. There are many things that I and many other Members of this body would like to have in this bill, but it is an important step, and in fact we are moving with major legislation in multiple committees that will make our country even safer. We have made steady progress prior to 9/11, we have made dramatic progress since 9/11, and this week we are going to make even more dramatic progress working with this administration to make our country safer from terrorists.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for yielding to me.

I am going to focus on two issues dealing with the telecommunications arena, and these are very, very important, as we have found since September 11, especially in the arena of communicating between all the different levels of the first responders. This is something the Committee on Energy and Commerce has been focused on for the last few years, especially, as I said, since the terrorist attacks.

We have begun debating legislation that will implement many of the recommendations from the 9/11 Commission report. A number of these recommendations focus on public safety communications. The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that the inability of first responders to talk to each other at the World Trade Center, at the attack on the Pentagon, and at the crash site in Pennsylvania were a critical element in impeding rescue work.

A recent report by the GAO said that the Federal Government still does not know how extensive the lack of effective emergency communication is, mostly because there is no comprehensive policy within the Federal Government that addresses spectrum assignments and plans for interoperable communications technology for public safety.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge just announced that his department was establishing an office to set national standards for emergency communications so first responders can talk to each other. This office will receive the wide range of public safety interoperability programs and efforts currently spread across Homeland Security. These programs address critical interoperability issues relating to public safety and emergency response, including communications, equipment, training and other areas as needs are identified.

The term ``interoperable communications'' means the ability of emergency response providers and the relevant Federal, State and local government agencies to communicate with each other. Oftentimes, this is a very difficult task. More and more often, when a public safety officer responds to a call, he or she will arrive at the call site and find out their radio does not work because a private wireless carrier operating in the same spectrum band has a tower close to the call site. The interference is generally a result of the carrier's signal either overpowering or mutating public safety's signal.

The 9/11 report recommends that Congress expedite the increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes. I believe, as do other Members, that full public safety communications interoperability within the decade should be a national goal. H.R. 10 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, working with the Secretary of Commerce and the Chairman of the FCC, to establish a program to enhance public safety interoperable communications at all levels of government and to establish a comprehensive national approach to achieve public safety interoperable communications.

There are some 60,000 first responder organizations in the United States, and each one purchases its own equipment. These organizations control more than 40,000 spectrum licenses. Neighboring communities that need to communicate in an emergency often start out with vastly different communication systems and different capacities to fund new equipment, but this is a difficult problem to correct. Many localities are not willing to give up their system so they can have the same one as a neighboring community. They feel the systems they have work best for them in an emergency and feel the cost of switching to a new system is too high. Some first responders worry that a fully integrated system could compromise command-and-control in an emergency by fostering a confusing set of instructions.

States are looking for low-cost solutions that will enable better communication, while avoiding the danger in which the chain of command breaks down in emergencies. We do not want everyone talking to everyone else all the time.

One key is to set a date for the availability of new spectrum. It gives States and cities an incentive to move more quickly on the investments in new equipment needed for interoperability, especially in urban areas where the volume of users can quickly overload the system in an emergency, as it did in New York and the Pentagon on September 11.

There is a lot of uncertainty out there about how Congress and the FCC should acquire this spectrum. Congress passed legislation that included providing some of the needed frequencies. Congress mandated that channels used to broadcast analog television were to be clear, and spectrum at 700 megahertz was to be reallocated for wireless communications, including public safety.

In the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress established 85 percent as the threshold for the percentage of households, by market, that must be able to receive digital signals in order for the FCC to end the licenses for analog over-the-air broadcast and then use those analog licenses for public safety. In this scenario, the 15 percent that lacked digital equipment would, presumably some 16 million homes, quickly lose access to all television programs.

A proposal by the FCC media bureau chief, Kenneth Ferree, known as the Ferree Plan, would include cable and satellite set-top boxes that can accept digital signals and evaluate whether at least 85 percent of a TV market has either digital TV or converters. Such an action would make it possible for the FCC to begin reclaiming spectrum from broadcasters as early as January 2009, but this has been met with some criticism by broadcasters across the country. To date, over 1,400 of the 1,600 plus over-the-air broadcast stations are broadcasting a digital signal.

Another issue I wish to address is the communication problems we are having when people need to call 911 in an emergency, especially on their cell phones. The critical numbers 9-1-1 is our first link to getting lifesaving help or thwarting a terrorist attack. Only a small percentage of the Nation's PSAPs are capable of processing wireless 9/ 11 calls. Those are public service answering points; most of us know them as the 911 call centers. They are really the government-run answering locations for public safety. An estimated 130 million wireless phones are in use, generating an average of 150,000 calls to 911 each day. Our Nation's communications technology has changed, but our emergency response infrastructure has not been updated. Too many remain needlessly at risk.

The most significant remaining hurdle to ubiquitous E-911 services is PSAP readiness. However, most of the remaining PSAPs lack the funding necessary to upgrade their systems, and many States, like my home State of Illinois, have aggravated the situation by using the subscriber fees collected on phone bills for E-911 services to help cover budget shortfalls.

To address this growing problem, I joined with my colleague in the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), she is a Democrat from California, and two U.S. senators, Senator Conrad Burns from Montana and Senator Clinton from New York, to form the Congressional E- 911 Caucus. Together, we have pushed legislation that will enhance coordination of E-911 implementation in each State, discouraging the raiding of E-911 funds, and give local PSAPs additional funding to help them finally achieve enhanced 9/11 capability.

I joined the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) in introducing H.R. 2898, the E-911 Implementation Act of 2003. The bill passed the House last November and is currently waiting action in the Senate. I believe the 9/11 Commission report legislation would be the perfect vehicle to attach this legislation. The legislation will do four major things to advance E-911 deployment.

First, it authorizes $100 million for 5 years to provide PSAPs with matching grants to help them with much-needed upgrades.

Two, it penalizes States for diverting their E-911 funds. Under the legislation, PSAPs will not be eligible for matching grants until their States certify that they have stopped using their E-911 moneys for other purposes.

To make a long story short, what States are doing are taxing our phone bills, and that money is supposed to be going to implement 911 call services and now enhanced 9/11. States are raiding that fund to pay for budget shortfalls. If the States do not clean up their act, they are not going to be eligible for any grants to help them meet the E-911 requirements.

A third thing it does is creates an E-911 office at the National Telecommunication Information Administration that will serve as a clearinghouse for best practices in the deployment of E-911 and administer the grant program.

Number 4, it also directs the FCC to review its E-911 accuracy requirements for rural areas to determine if they adequately address the complexities associated with providing E-911 services.

E-911 stands for enhanced, and what we are trying to do is make sure that when you use your cell phone and you call 911, people know where you are at, that you can identify yourself or they can be identified on a map. There are countless stories of people not doing that. How it translates into the 9/11 Commission report is that what we have also found is the ability to forward calls from cell phones so that if you had a major terrorist attack and if it was a weaponized anthrax or if it was a radiological, a dirty bomb, and we knew the disbursal area and we knew the wind direction, you could plot that, and then, in essence, use cell phones and call people who are, in essence, downwind and say, go this direction or go that direction and get out of the path of the cloud which is coming your way. That is how this is all tied to the 9/ 11 Commission report.

And accuracy is very, very important. Accuracy in urban areas is a challenge with high rises. Accuracy in rural areas is a challenge because you have long distances with isolated sectors of the population. So in a rural area you may get away with being accurate up to 100 feet, but in an urban area you may need a more specific and precise location.

What I am highlighting here tonight is a need for Congress and the SEC to act on public safety communication problems. H.R. 10 starts that process moving. There are other fixes like E-911 legislation that could help first responders respond quicker to emergencies and possible terrorist attacks.

These solutions are not easy. Congress and industry are going to have to make difficult decisions, but our goal should be to improve public safety communication systems and ensure that first responders are equipped with the necessary tools to respond to terrorist attacks and other emergency situations.

This is an important time in our country as we are moving forward to address numerous concerns. I really personally applaud the 9/11 Commission report. I think they have done a good job outlining many of the needs that we have to address to make sure that, as the commission so precisely put it, we are as a Nation safer today than we were on September 11; but we are still not safe. So we have to make needed improvements.

I have just talked about the communication aspects and dealing with some of the vague issues of spectrum and then how first line responders can free up spectrum for them to be able to communicate, and also how in using telecommunications we can help the individual citizens as more of our country moves to cell phone communications.

With that, I wish to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana, for yielding to me; and I look forward to following his discussion on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2898) to improve homeland security, public safety and citizen activated emergency response capabilities through the use of enhanced 911 wireless services, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 2898.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we consider H.R. 2898, the E-911 Implementation Act of 2003, bipartisan legislation introduced by two members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo). As chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, I am a proud original sponsor of this legislation as well.

Mr. Speaker, what many of our constituents may not realize is that when they make a 911 call from their cell phones, many emergency dispatch centers, otherwise known as public service answering points or PSAPs, cannot automatically locate where that call is coming from, unlike when such calls are made from landlines. All too often, we have heard horrific stories of how first responders could not get to a cell phone 911 caller quickly enough, or maybe not even at all, because they could not automatically locate where that caller was, and the circumstances were such that the caller was not able to tell the first responder where they were calling from. In such emergencies, time is of the essence. Seconds in such emergency responses can literally mean the difference between life and death.

For a number of years, our Nation's wireless carriers and PSAPs have been in the midst of deploying Phase II E-911, which would, in fact, provide PSAPs with the automatic location information of cell phone callers who dial 9-1-1. While our Nation's wireless carriers have been deploying the technology and the infrastructure to achieve Phase II E- 911, our Nations PSAPs have been confronted by enormous challenges in getting their piece of the puzzle in place.

Our Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a number of hearings on how we could overcome these challenges, and we arrived at a number of conclusions which form the basis of this legislation,

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Speaker, I submit three letters for printing in the Congressional Record: one from the CTIA, another from APCO, and the remaining one from the National Emergency Number Association in support of the legislation.

Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association,

Washington, DC, October 27, 2003.

Hon. Billy Tauzin,

Chairman,

Hon. John Dingell,

Ranking Member,

Committee on Energy and Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Tauzin and Congressman Dingell: On behalf of

the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association

(CTIA), I would like to express our support for H.R. 2898,

the E9-1-1 Implementation Act of 2003. CTIA represents more

than 400 member companies, including both wireless carriers

and manufacturers of wireless telecommunications equipment.

Once in place, E9-1-1 location technology will speed

delivery of emergency services to people in need.

Unfortunately, too often, states and localities have diverted

E9-1-1 funds collected by carries from wireless consumers to

fund unrelated activities. This legislation will protect E9-

1-1 funds while simultaneously strengthening statewide

coordination and cooperation among local phone companies,

wireless carriers, and public safety. The wireless industry

has made important strides in developing and implementing E9-

1-1 location technology. H.R. 2898 will help ensure that

states and localities develop the necessary ``best

practices'' to efficiently and effectively deploy location

technology.

The wireless industry remains committed to implementing

this vital technology and applauds your leadership on this

important issue.

Sincerely,

Steven K. Berry.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Just in closing, I want to again thank the lead authors. They have both been real players on our subcommittee all year long. I have appreciated their active participation on so many issues. We have worked on a bipartisan basis on virtually everything, and as we look at the end of this legislative calendar year, this is certainly a major success, and I can remember our first hearings when we began this journey to get this legislation done, virtually every single Member, Republican and Democrat, personally had made a E-911 call from their cell phone. We had all had different experiences as we thought about the calls we made in our district. All of us know our district like a blanket. We could tell exactly where we were. But when we are in somebody else's district, whether it be here in Washington, D.C. or I remember the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry), who is also very active on this, when he talked about going from Nebraska to Colorado, he had no clue where he was on that highway, wherever it was, and we all felt very frustrated as we saw these accidents literally appear before us. So this is legislation that perhaps some in the industry were not supportive of at the beginning. We pushed them along. They are now fully on board. We have sent a message to the States: They are collecting money from us in our bills to make sure that this legislation is coming through. Spend it the right way, and if they do not, then they do not participate in this program.

I think, too, the session that we had at the FCC, where the gentleman from Illinois and other Members on both sides of the aisle were there, we embarrassed some of the States that are using the money for other purposes. Let us get this money spent for the reason it is being collected, for the right cause so that we will save the lives that all of us want to save. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2898. This legislation is desperately needed to ensure the rollout of E-911 across the country.

I want to thank my colleagues Anna Eshoo and John Shimkus on the House Energy and Commerce Committee for their work on this issue and moving this to the floor as quickly as possible.

Improving public safety is a constant struggle, as I have learned working on improving 911 services for the Houston area and the entire state of Texas as a state legislator.

Enhanced 911, which will allow folks in trouble to be located by rescue crews and police just by dialing three simple numbers, is a necessary next step.

It is critical because many times when a wireless caller calls 911, they either cannot talk or they do not know where they are.

The technology exists to help people in danger--I saw successful demonstration at the FCC just last week. And this legislation addresses the technical issues for industry, local government, and regional concerns, so no further delay is justified.

While lives are being saved in my area of Harris County where we are Phase Two complete for E-911, lives are still being needlessly lost in other areas where compliance is lagging.

Unfortunately, many other jurisdictions, including many in large rural areas of Texas do not have the resources necessary to upgrade their 911 systems.

We are not all safe when we travel on the roads until E-911 is up and running nationwide.

Public safety should be a top priority. States moving E-911 funds to other purposes deceives wireless consumers who saw that E-911 funding on their cell phone bills.

Coming from Texas, I know what it means to children and families hit by huge budget cuts, but E-911 is necessary--it is a proven life-saver. This legislation brings funding, accountability, and sensitivity to rural areas to the process and deserves strong support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me first indicate that, of course, I am rising in strong support of H.R. 2898, the E-911 Implementation Act of 2003. House bill 2898 has already passed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and it did so unanimously, as one might expect.

Mr. Speaker, it is important we commend the authors, first of all. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) for this incredibly important legislation. I obviously want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the subcommittee, who has done such a great job, along with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the ranking member, in moving this bill forward. Of course, we always need to extend our great thanks for the cooperative spirit we always get from the ranking member of our committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who has on so many occasions provided the bipartisan spirit by which we move important pieces of legislation like this.

Mr. Speaker, most of the bills we debate in this body are about money, about how to spend it and who to spend it on and what are our priorities, how to raise it and how to distribute it in this great country. This bill is about lives. It is about saving lives. It is about improving the infrastructure by which this country addresses the worst of situations Americans find themselves in, lost on a highway, in the middle of an accident with nobody there to help them; a young woman on a bike path or a jogging path who gets assaulted, who tries to get help in the 911 system but no one can locate her.

It is about whether or not an ambulance arrives in time to save a life or in some cases to save a limb or to save someone from a debilitating injury that could have been prevented if only the first responders could have gotten there in time. It is also about in this time of national concern with terrorism and this war we constantly battle now, a question of whether our infrastructure is going to be good enough for us to quickly respond when things happen that we hope will not happen again in this country.

It is about saving lives, like the Firestone investigation that our committee conducted several years ago that produced the first major rewrite of highway safety laws in 30 years that was adopted in this House unanimously and in the Senate unanimously. A remarkable process. Like that bill, this bill when it becomes law, when it is fully implemented, will save American lives, will create the possibility of smart cars, will take the search out of search and rescue, and will give us a chance to quickly locate people who need to be located quickly because relief, help, medical attention, other services must reach them quickly to save a life or prevent, as I said, a debilitating injury. E-911 is all about that.

The grants in this bill will go to those communities that more aggressively push out the PSAPs, the point of

answers in the local systems that are going to be important to this system to work. It is going to help wireless systems and the wired systems cooperate so that we can in fact have an infrastructure that communicates well with one another. Those points of presence that are going to make a difference as to whether or not you have E-911 present in your community are going to be spreading out across this country and be more available to more and more communities as a result of the grants in this program. This bill makes it clear to communities that the moneys we have given them for E-911 deployment that have been siphoned off and used for other purposes is not going to be tolerated. This is lifesaving money, and no one should be raiding those funds for any other purpose. This bill makes it clear we will not tolerate that anymore.

The sooner these systems are in place, trust me, someone you love will thank you, because someone you know, someone you love in the district you are so honored and privileged to represent back home, someone will have some life saved. Someone will come out of a horrible accident with help in time to prevent a disabling condition that could have been prevented if the ambulance or the medics arrived in time. Someone will thank you that today this House, and hopefully the other body quickly, will pass a law that implements this system sooner rather than later in time to make a difference. That is how important this legislation is today.

So while we stay here in the waning days of November trying to wrap up our money business, all our appropriation measures and a few other critical, important things, today will be an extremely important day in the history of this Congress, because today we are going to save some lives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2898, the E-911 Implementation Act of 2003. H.R. 2898 passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously on October 1st.

I commend the bill's sponsor, Representatives Shimkus and Eshoo, for introducing this important legislation. And I commend Subcommittee Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Markey for moving it expeditiously through their subcommittee. Finally, I want to thank my good friend John Dingell for his cooperation with moving H.R. 2898 through our committee.

H.R. 2898 will help states and localities that are making a strong effort to implement Phase II E-911 services. The nation's largest wireless carriers have done a good job implementing or putting themselves on a clear path to implementing Phase II E-911 technology in their networks and handsets.

But the readiness of carriers to provide safety answer points (PSAPs) with location information will be meaningless if PSAPs do not have the ability to use such information. And too many PSAPs are woefully behind in deploying E-911 services. Only 18 percent of PSAPs and 11.8 percent of counties nationwide have implemented Phase II E-911 technology.

Mr. Speaker, nationwide implementation of Phase II technology has enormous public safety and homeland security benefits for the United States. We can save countless lives if emergency personnel can locate people with life-threatening injuries. And law enforcement will be able to prevent or detect more terrorist activities.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to dispel a few myths about this bill. This bill does not reward counties and PSAPs that are sitting on their hands rather than deploying Phase II services.

No state, county, or PSAP, can simply come to the federal government and ask it to pay for Phase II deployment. H.R. 2898 has a minimum 50 percent matching requirement. You have to be actively engaged in Phase II deployment in order to qualify for money under this program.

Some have argued that Congress does not need to authorize new spending for this initiative and that funding for it should be derived from existing homeland security and law-enforcement funds. Well, robbing Peter to pay Paul is not how we are going to solve our nation's homeland security and law-enforcement problems. Congress should be funding homeland security and E-911 initiatives; Congress should not choose between the two.

Some have argued that H.R. 2898 does not provide enough specific eligibility criteria to ensure that the agencies implementing the legislation will not provide grants to wealthy counties. But Congress does not need to unnecessarily tie the hands of NTIA and NHTSA. I expect NTIA and NHTSA to work very closely with Congress when it crafts the eligibility requirements. Grants should be, and will be, distributed based on means and will reward entities that are devoting significant resources of their own on Phase II E-911 deployment.

And this bill ensures that grants cannot be distributed to counties in states that are raiding E-911 funds for other purposes. This critical element of the bill provides a huge incentive to states and localities to devote their resources to E-911 deployment.

Mr. Speaker, I again commend my colleagues for their hard work on H.R. 2898, and I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this E-911 Implementation Act of 2003, legislation introduced with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), who is also the cochair of the E-911 caucus, and a long-time partner in ensuring that our public safety community has the very best tools to locate every caller who dials 9-1- 1.

The tragic events of September 11 and the continuing threat of terrorism within our country have increased the need for a reliable 911 system. Citizens across the country are being encouraged to call 9-1-1 whenever they notice suspicious activity. Our 911 system is really the backbone of hometown security.

E-911 or Enhanced 911 provides caller information, location information to public safety officials the second a call

is made. Many people do not realize that when an emergency call is made to 911, the speed with which the ambulance or the police car is dispatched depends on whether you are calling from your home phone or your cellular phone. Our bill ensures there is no difference in response between landline and cellular phones because every second counts when there is a life-threatening emergency.

Why should this be a priority for the Federal Government and the Congress, because over 150,000 wireless 911 calls are made every day representing over half of the 911 calls in our country. Each one of these calls is the single most important one that an individual will make because cell phones can and do save lives.

I have worked on this issue since 1996, when I introduced legislation to ensure that public safety entities would have the same ability to locate a wireless call as they do a wireline call.

The bill we bring before the House today passed both the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and then the full Committee on Energy and Commerce by unanimous votes. That is not an easy thing to do with most legislation, so I am really proud of the effort that has been launched.

There are two key shortcomings hindering wireless 911 implementation today: funding and coordination. Our bill addresses both of these shortcomings by creating a joint E-911 implementation and coordination office at the Departments of Commerce and Transportation to better coordinate Federal, State, and local emergency communication services. If they are not coordinated, in short, it is not going to work. By authorizing $500 million in grants over 5 years to enhance our emergency communication systems all across our country in all of our communities; and by preventing any State that has diverted their 911 fees for other purposes from qualifying for these Federal dollars. So we are motivating the States to join with us and to be able to make use of the dollars that we are setting up and not divert the money for other uses anymore.

Unfortunately, some States, including my own State of California, have raided the funds they have collected for 911 services, and they have used the funds for other purposes. This bill will end that practice, and we will be able to use the dollars that are collected to upgrade our E-911 facilities. This bill provides a Federal authorization to upgrade and to improve that emergency communication network across our country.

As my colleagues know, every bill authorizing Federal funds must be coupled with corresponding appropriation. I will work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure that this very important authorization is fully funded. If it is not, it is not going to work.

No bill makes it to the floor of the House without the support and the guidance of our chairmen and our ranking members. I want to especially thank and salute Chairman Tauzin and Chairman Upton, without them, clearly we would not be here today, as well as Ranking Members Dingell and Markey for making this bill a priority. I also want to thank the staff members who helped shape this legislation, especially Howard Waltzman who has done yeoman's work. I really salute you, Howard. And to Will Norwind with the Committee on Energy and Commerce staff; Peter Filon with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell); Colin Crowell with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey); Courtney Anderson with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus); and our wise telecommunication legislative counsel, Steve Cope. No one has done more, in my view, than Eric Olson of my staff. I am proud of his work, and I am very grateful to him for it.

I would also like to thank Steve Seitz, Richard Taylor, John Melcher, and the brave men and women of the National Emergency Numbering Association who continually strive to improve and enhance our Nation's emergency communications system. I am especially proud of Chip Yarborough, a member of NENA, who has worked tirelessly to ensure the 911 system in my congressional district works seamlessly to help those who need it. Bob Gurss with the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, David Ayward of ComCare, Jonas Neihardt with Qualcomm, Mike Amarosa of True Position and the Cellular Telephone Industry Association all deserve our thanks for making E-911 a priority. Their critical assistance has really ensured that this bill improved at every step of the process. It has been a long journey, and I want to salute them, too.

Last but not least, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), my wonderful colleague and partner in this. He has been a believer. He has been a leader. He has used his humor as well as all his legislative tools to move this along. I cannot thank him enough. He has been a wonderful partner. It has been fun doing this with the gentleman.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation because it is good for our country and it is going to move us ahead and be able to coordinate at every level for every emergency whether it is at the local level or at the national level. I am proud to have been a part of this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.