Waiving points of order against the conference report to accompany the bill (S. 2845) to reform the intelligence community and the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, the following provides a summary and the legislative intent of the provisions included in the conference report on S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, that are within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on International Relations and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

As a member of the conference on S. 2845, and Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, it is appropriate to provide guidance to those who will be responsible for faithfully executing this important statute. The inclusion in the conference report of several provisions of interest to the International Relations Committee reflects our work to implement the recommendations of the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, July 2004, hereafter referred to as the 9/11 Commission.

As a practical matter, I consulted with Mr. Lantos, the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Committee on International Relations (who was not a member of the Conference Committee), Senator Collins, Senator Lieberman and, through them, with Senator Lugar on these provisions included in the legislation. We reached agreement on the text of those provisions, and following is further elaboration of the most significant provisions that shall be considered to have the effect of a statement of managers.

Sec. 7102--Terrorist Sanctuaries. This section transforms

the broad recommendations of the 9/11 Commission into action.

The 9/11 Commission stated, ``The U.S. Government must

identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist

sanctuaries. For each, it should have a realistic strategy to

keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all

elements of national power.'' (Pg. 367) In response, this

section provides a comprehensive statement articulating the

sense of Congress that U.S. policy should have such a focus

or mandate. It establishes reporting requirements to enable

the Congress to monitor patterns relating to terrorist

sanctuaries and to assess successes or setbacks in our

efforts, in order to correct any deficiencies that may exist.

Further, this section amends the Export Administration Act

(EAA) to add terrorist

sanctuaries to determinations relating to states that

``repeatedly provided support for acts of international

terrorism.'' It is in keeping with the underlying criteria in

the Export Administration Act which says that, when imposing,

expanding or extending export controls under the EAA, the

President ``shall consider the compatibility of the proposed

controls with the foreign policy objectives of the United

States, including the effort to counter international

terrorism, and shall consider the foreign policy consequences

of not imposing controls.''

This section merely updates U.S. law to reflect the post-9/

11 world. It provides legislative authority to the goals

outlined in the National Security Strategy for Combating

Terrorism to deny sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to

terrorists, and to choke off the lifeblood of terrorist

groups from their access to territory, funds, equipment,

training, technology, and unimpeded transit.

Through the definition of ``terrorist sanctuary,'' the

section seeks to encompass a broad range of activities

including training, financing (which includes fundraising),

recruitment, and the use of a nation-state territory as a

transit point for terrorists, funds, or equipment.

Governments of terrorist sanctuaries are knowledgeable

about the recurring use of their territory for terrorist

purposes and are ignoring or tolerating such activity. Their

failure and unwillingness to take action against such use of

their territory contributes to the spread of global terrorism

and, in turn, augments the threat to U.S. national security

and interests.

This provision seeks to serve as an inducement for

cooperation with U.S. counterterrorism efforts, as well as a

deterrent to keep governments from allowing their territories

to be used as terrorist sanctuaries.

Asked about this provision, 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Lee

Hamilton said, during an August 24, 2004 hearing of the House

International Relations Committee, ``There must be a strategy

developed in dealing with wherever these sanctuaries are;

economic sanctions, of whatever kind, would certainly be one

of those tools to deny those sanctuaries.''

Sec. 7104--Assistance for Afghanistan. This section is

largely derived from Sections 4061--4070 (Subtitle D of Title

IV) of H.R. 10 as passed by the House of Representatives (the

House amendment), and Section 1004 of the Senate bill.

Sec. 7104(a)--Short Title. Sets out a short title for this

section; derived from the House amendment.

Sec. 7104(b)--Coordination of Assistance. Derived from

section 1004 of the Senate bill, this subsection sets out

Congressional findings, consistent with the Commission's

Final Report, relative to the United States assistance

program for Afghanistan and related topics. Expresses the

sense of Congress on actions to be taken.

Sec. 7104(c)--Coordinator for Assistance. This section's

findings note that the 9/11 Commission criticized American

assistance to Afghanistan as overly divided among specific

programs and note that the flexible funding mechanisms put in

place by the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002 have not been used to date.

The provision requires the appointment of a powerful

coordinator for assistance to Afghanistan. This coordinator

would have powers similar to those used effectively by such

persons as Deputy Secretary Armitage when he served in a

similar role with respect to the Former Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe. The coordinator would be a locus of

responsibility, as contemplated by the Afghanistan Freedom

Support Act, but the intent of which was frustrated when no

government-wide coordinator was appointed.

This provision was derived from section 4062 of the House

amendment. The Senate bill contained no comparable provision.

Sec. 7104(d)--Assistance Plan: International Coordination.

The coordinator would submit the Administration's plan, or

program, for assistance to Afghanistan in the form of a

program plan. The plan should be submitted as early as

possible after the beginning of the fiscal year or after the

enactment of the relevant appropriations acts, whichever is

later, and certainly before a significant portion of the

year's appropriations are obligated. The plan should indicate

its relation to the Administration's long-term strategy for

Afghanistan.

The coordinator would work with the international community

and the Afghan government to ensure that assistance to

Afghanistan is implemented coherently and efficiently. The

coordinator would, in general, work through the Secretary of

the Treasury and the United States Executive Directors at the

international financial institutions (as defined in Sec.

1701(C)(2) of the International Financial Institutions Act

(22 U.S.C. 262r(C)(2)) in order to effectuate his or her

responsibilities with respect to international financial

institutions.

This provision was derived from section 4062 of the House

amendment. The Senate bill contained no comparable provision.

See. 7104(e)--General Provisions Relating to the

Afghanistan Freedom Support Act (AFSA) of 2002.

(1)(A) and (2) These provisions set out a general

declaration of policy reaffirming the commitment of Congress

to the authorities of the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of

2002 and establishes some key policies underlying the bill--

the commitment of the United States to its undertaking in

April 2004 when it supported a development program of

Afghanistan, the forthcoming parliamentary elections, and the

necessity for additional nations to step forward and shoulder

additional economic and military burdens.

(1)(B) This subparagraph broadens an inappropriately

narrowed ``notwithstanding'' provision from the Afghanistan

Freedom Support Act of 2002 which had the effect of limiting

certain flexible authorities for the implementation of Title

I of the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002. It is

consistent with the flexibility recommended by the 9/11

Commission. The only ``notwithstanding'' authority currently

applicable to Title I of AFSA relates to the Brooke

Amendment.

(3) The Conference agreement, in a provision similar to the

House amendment, permits reports to Congress required under

the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act to contain a classified

annex.

(4) This paragraph amends AFSA to require the President to

prepare and submit to Congress a long-term strategy for

United States policy toward Afghanistan, as well as an annual

statement of progress made in executing that plan and of

changes to it.

These provisions were derived from section 4063 of the

House amendment. The Senate bill contained no comparable

provisions.

Sec. 7104(f)--Education, Rule of Law, and Related Issues.

Derived from section 4064 of the House Amendment, this

subsection updates the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act (AFSA)

of 2002 with respect to programs to help courts, prosecutors,

and others in reflecting the information gathered by Congress

in the course of its oversight of conditions in Afghanistan,

as the situation in Afghanistan has evolved since late 2002.

Provisions emphasizing the need to assist Afghanistan with

respect to aiding democratic political parties, renovating

and otherwise supporting secondary schools and universities,

improving the physical infrastructure of the justice system,

and providing for professional education for Afghanistan's

officials have been added in the conference process. The

section of AFSA (Sec. 103(A)(5)) in which all of these

provisions are found is restated and re-enacted in its

revised form for the sake of clarity. The Senate bill

contained no comparable provision.

Sec. 7104(g)--Monitoring of Assistance for Afghanistan.

This subsection provides that the Secretary of State shall

provide an annual report to the Congress describing

assistance to Iraq, including a report on activities and

their funding sources by agency, program, and fiscal year,

obligations incurred, the participation of each government

agency, and any other information the Secretary considers

necessary to fully inform the Congress on assistance to Iraq.

This report would become a responsibility of the coordinator

provided for in section 104 of AFSA. All government agencies

involved in assistance to Afghanistan shall provide the

Secretary information the Secretary reasonably requires to

prepare and submit this report.

Sec. 7104(h)--United States Policy to Support of

Disarmament of Private Militias and Expansion of

International Peacekeeping and Security Operations in

Afghanistan. This subsection is derived from Section 4066 of

the House amendment. The Senate bill contained no comparable

provision.

This subsection, in paragraph (1), establishes that it

shall be United States policy to take immediate steps to

provide active support for the disarmament, demobilization,

and reintegration of armed soldiers, particularly child

soldiers, in Afghanistan, in close consultation with the

President of Afghanistan. ``Active support'' does not

necessarily mean the deployment of military assets, but all

appropriate means to help the Government of Afghanistan

rid the country of private militias should be considered.

The semi-annual report provided under section 206 of AFSA

is to contain a report on activities taken pursuant to

this subsection.

Paragraph (2) of the subsection addresses the need to

increase the area in which security is provided by

international security forces in Afghanistan. To that end, it

is established that it is the policy of the United States to

make every effort to support the expansion of international

peacekeeping and security operations within Afghanistan. The

purpose of that expansion is to allow international security

forces to undertake vital tasks related to promoting

security, such as disarming warlords, militias, and

irregulars, and disrupting opium production. Moreover, a

force spread over a larger area might safeguard highways in

order to allow the free flow of commerce and to allow

material assistance to the people of Afghanistan, and aid

personnel in Afghanistan, to move more freely.

Sec. 7104(i)--Efforts to Expand International Peacekeeping

and Security Operations in Afghanistan. Subsection (i),

derived from section 4067 of the House amendment, addresses

the issue of encouraging and enabling additional countries to

participate in international peacekeeping and security

operations in Afghanistan. (This is not to be confused with

subparagraph (h)(2), which addresses the issue of helping

those forces within Afghanistan to expand their reach.)

Subsection (i) provides that the President shall encourage,

and, as authorized by law, enable other countries to actively

participate in expanded international peacekeeping and

security operations in Afghanistan, especially through the

provision of military personnel for extended periods of time.

It also

provides for semi-annual reports to the Congress on the

President's efforts in this regard, which may be submitted

with the reports required by AFSA section 206(c). The Senate

bill contained no comparable provision.

Sec. 7104(j)--Provisions Relating to Counternarcotics

Efforts in Afghanistan. Subsection (j), derived from section

4068 of the House amendment, amends AFSA to provide

assistance for a variety of non-military measures to disrupt

the opium trade, such as technical assistance, credit, and

farm-to-market facilities for alternative crops, and training

for counternarcotics police. The Senate bill contained no

comparable provision.

A second section to be added to AFSA expresses the sense of

Congress that the President should make the substantial

reduction of illegal drug production and trafficking in

Afghanistan a priority in the Global War on Terrorism; that

the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary

of State and the heads of other appropriate Federal agencies,

should expand cooperation with the Government of Afghanistan

and international organizations involved in counter-drug

activities to assist in providing a secure environment for

counter-drug personnel in Afghanistan; and that the United

States, in conjunction with the Government of Afghanistan and

coalition partners, should undertake additional efforts to

reduce illegal drug trafficking and related activities that

provide financial support for terrorist organizations. The

provision also requires a joint report to Congress from the

Secretaries of Defense and State within 120 days of the date

of enactment that describes the progress made toward

substantially reducing poppy cultivation and heroin

production capabilities in Afghanistan, and the extent to

which profits from illegal drug activity in Afghanistan are

used to financially support terrorist organizations and

groups seeking to undermine the Government of Afghanistan.

This provision makes needed changes in the Afghanistan

Freedom Support Act to update it from late 2002.

Since the fall of the Taliban, there has been a tremendous

resurgence of narcotics cultivation and trafficking in

Afghanistan. Money made dealing in narcotics has flowed to

the neo-Taliban and to al-Qaeda terrorists. Those criminals

seek to kill members of Afghanistan's army, of our Armed

Forces, and of our Coalition. Unchecked, they will destroy

Afghanistan's economy and environment, its nascent

government, and Afghan society itself. Today, half of the

economic activity in Afghanistan is based on narcotics.

If the narcotics trade is not suppressed, Afghanistan will

become a narco-state that will once again become a sanctuary

for terrorists: the United States and its allies will have

gained little if anything for the valiant efforts of those

who struggled on America's behalf in this difficult theater

of war.

Sec. 7104(k)--Additional Amendments to the Afghanistan

Freedom Support Act of 2002. This subsection, derived from

section 4069 of the House amendment, makes a technical change

in AFSA to reflect the change in the name of an Afghan

institution and extends AFSA's main reporting provision

through 2010. The Senate bill contained no comparable

provision.

Sec. 7104(1)--Repeal of Prohibition of Assistance. Section

620D of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 bans aid to

Afghanistan. This section repeals that provision of law,

which has outlived its usefulness. This law is no longer

needed, given the efforts of the American-led Coalition and

the Afghan people. This subsection is derived from section

4070 of the House amendment. The Senate bill contained no

comparable provision.

Sec. 7104(m)--Authorization of Appropriations. This

subsection amends the AFSA to authorize the appropriation of

such sums as may be necessary for each of FY05 and FY06.

The Senate bill, in section 1004(c), provided for the

appropriation to the President, for each of the Fiscal Years

2005 through 2009, ``such sums as may be necessary to provide

assistance for Afghanistan, unless otherwise authorized by

Congress,'' for development assistance, children's health

programs, economic assistance, international narcotics and

law enforcement, nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, demining

and related programs, international military education and

training, foreign military financing program grants, and

peacekeeping operations. Assistance provided by the President

under this subsection ``shall be consistent with the

Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002,'' and shall be

provided with reference to the ``Securing Afghanistan's

Future'' document published by the Government of

Afghanistan.

Sec. 7109--Public Diplomacy Responsibilities of the

Department of State. This section amends the State Department

Basic Authorities Act to provide a description of the

Secretary of State's public diplomacy responsibilities. It

also directs the Secretary of State to make every effort to

coordinate public diplomacy activities of federal agencies

subject to the direction of the President. As the foreign

policy agency for the United States, the State Department

should also take the lead role in U.S. international public

diplomacy.

The provision states that the Secretary of State shall

coordinate with the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to

develop a comprehensive strategy and measurable objectives

for public diplomacy.

Although this section is designed to ensure the highest

level of attention by our foreign policy agencies to public

diplomacy needs and objectives, it does not provide new

authority to the Secretary of State over the programs of the

BBG. The role of the BBG as a firewall against political

interference in the content of the broadcasts remains

unchanged, as does the independence of the agency.

Numerous studies of U.S. public diplomacy provide

recommendations to improve the current system and strategic

direction at the State Department. This provision seeks to

support the State Department and others involved in public

diplomacy by establishing a clear set of responsibilities.

Sec. 7110--Public Diplomacy Training. This section seeks to

enhance the quality and depth of public diplomacy

capabilities within the State Department. The findings

emphasize the recruitment by the Foreign Service of

individuals with expertise and professional experience in

public diplomacy, and enhanced training in the range of

public diplomacy activities. The findings also emphasize the

role which chiefs of mission should assume in designing and

carrying out public diplomacy strategies.

This section encourages the State Department to be more

creative in its recruitment strategies in the area of public

diplomacy. To meet a serious foreign language gap, the

section requires the Secretary of State to provide special

consideration for individuals with such language abilities,

and sets a goal to increase the number of Foreign Service

officers proficient in languages spoken in predominately

Muslim countries.

In addition, a change is made in the precepts for promotion

in the Foreign Service so as to reward the willingness and

ability of officers to participate in public outreach efforts

related to their jobs as well as other aspects of public

diplomacy. Expressing and explaining U.S. policies and the

breadth of American values is an important element of the

professional skills necessary for Foreign Service officers.

It should be recognized within the promotion precepts.

Sec. 7111--Promoting Democracy and Human Rights at

International Organizations.

Sec. 7111(a)--Support and Expansion of Democracy Caucus.

Derived from section 4032 of the House amendment, this

subsection calls on the President to continue to strongly

support and seek to expand the work of the nascent Democracy

Caucus at the United Nations and the United Nations Human

Rights Commission; and to seek to establish a Democracy

Caucus at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament and at

other broad-based international organizations. The purpose of

the Caucus is to forge common positions, revise outmoded

systems of membership selection and regional voting, and

establish a rotational leadership agreement.

Sec. 7111(b)--Leadership and Membership of International

Organizations. This subsection, derived from section 4033 of

the House amendment, urges the President, acting through the

Secretary of State, to use United States influence and vote

to: (1) reform criteria for membership and leadership

positions within all United Nations bodies and other

international institutions so as to exclude countries which

violate the principles of the specific organization; (2) make

it the policy of the United Nations and other international

organizations and multilateral institutions in which the

United States is a member that a member country may not stand

in nominations for membership or significant leadership

positions if the member country is subject to sanctions

imposed by the United Nations Security Council; and (3)

ensure that no country stand in nomination for membership or

in rotation for significant leadership positions in such

organizations, or for membership on the United Nations

Security Council, if it has been determined by the Secretary

of State that a member country has repeatedly provided

support for acts of international terrorism.

Sec. 7111(c)--Increased Training for Multilateral

Diplomacy. This subsection, derived from section 4034 of the

House amendment, states that it shall be the policy of the

United States that training courses should be established for

Foreign Service officers and civil service employees for the

State Department, including appropriate chiefs of mission, on

the conduct of multilateral diplomacy. It specifies that the

Secretary of State shall ensure that multilateral diplomacy

training is provided at various stages of the careers of

members of the service, including as part of their training

upon entry into the service; and for officers, including

chiefs of mission, who are assigned to United States missions

representing the United States to international organizations

and other multilateral institutions or who are assigned in

Washington, D.C., to positions that have as their primary

responsibility formulation of policy towards such

organizations and institutions or towards participation in

broad based multilateral negotiations of international

instruments, receive specialized training in multilateral

diplomacy prior to the beginning of service for such

assignment or, if receiving such training is not practical at

the time, within the first year of the beginning of such

assignment. It also directs the Secretary of State to ensure

that employees of the Department of State who are members of

the civil service and who are assigned to international

organizations or multilateral institutions also receive

multilateral diplomacy training.

Sec. 7112--Pilot Program to Provide Grants to American-

sponsored Schools in Predominately Muslim Countries to

Provide Scholarships. This section authorizes the Secretary

of State to initiate a scholarship program for grade school

kids in predominately Muslim countries to attend American-

sponsored schools. The Office of Overseas Schools assists

many schools overseas, therefore this grant program would

operate through this office. The purpose of the provision is

to complement other U.S. Government efforts to broaden the

understanding of American values and support a wider use of

English. Numerous studies of U.S. public diplomacy point to

the need for creative, measurable programs. This trial

scholarship program provides a new option for American

outreach efforts.

The provision allows the Secretary of State to start a

pilot program to provide full or partial scholarships to

children of low and middle-income families to encourage them

to attend an American-style school. The pilot program is

intended to determine whether such a scholarship program can

be more broadly used in the region and whether such a program

is supported by the participating parties: the American-

sponsored schools, the families, the State Department, and

the Congress.

Sec. 7118--Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

This section amends section 219 of the Immigration and

Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189) by making two principal

changes to the current law regarding the designation of

foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). First, it would

replace the requirement to formally re-designate FTOs every

two years with a procedure allowing these groups to petition

the Secretary of State at two-year intervals to have their

designation revoked. It would also require the Secretary of

State to review the designation of each FTO every five years.

Second, section 7118 would establish a new procedure for

handling the situation in which a terrorist organization

changes its name or uses new aliases. This provision allows

the government to amend the underlying administrative record

instead of re-creating a voluminous document every time this

occurs. A group will be able to appeal these additional

designations.

Under existing law, the U.S. government must devote

significant amounts of its counter-terrorist resources to the

time-consuming and burdensome FTO re-designation effort.

Section 7118 changes the re-designation process to allow the

State Department and other government agencies to focus more

of their scarce resources on responding to new terrorist

threats or tracking and analyzing newer groups that emerge on

the horizon.

Sec. 7120--Case-Zablocki Act Requirements. The 9/11

Commission report states that of all the recommendations,

strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most

difficult and important. Recently, the House Committee on

International Relations learned that, due to numerous

management failures within the Department of State, over 600

classified and unclassified international agreements dating

back to 1997, had not been transmitted to Congress, as

required by the Case-Zablocki Act.

This failure by the Department of State covers a variety of

sensitive international agreements, including intelligence

and military cooperation agreements. The full knowledge of

these agreements by the Congress is not only required by

United States law, but is also critical to the ability of

Congress to execute Constitutional oversight

responsibilities. This strikes at the heart of the

relationship between the two branches of government, severely

inhibiting our ability to carry out effective foreign policy

objectives to prevent foreign terrorist operations. Although

the Department of State is working to immediately address

these management shortcomings and produce the remaining

outstanding international agreements to Congress as soon a

possible, this has reached crisis proportion which demands

immediate Congressional attention and oversight.

In 1972, the Case-Zablocki Act (1 U.S.C. 112a and 112b) was

passed as a result of the Executive Branch's failure to

adequately inform Congress of the international executive

agreements entered into by the President and other officials

on behalf of the United States. At that time, the Symington

Subcommittee on National Commitments uncovered contemporary

examples of secret agreements entered into without adequate

reference to Congress. The provisions of the Yalta Agreement

at the end of World War II were also not publicly disclosed

for three years, or published until some time later. These

actions prompted great Congressional and public discourse and

controversy. Congress stated that each incident in which such

secret agreements become known creates tensions and

irritations between the Congress and the Executive Branch

which severely inhibit carrying out an effective foreign

policy. (House Report 92-1301.)

Currently, the Case-Zablocki Act requires that the

Secretary of State publish an annual report of all treaties

and international agreements to which the United States

became a party during each calendar year, unless the

publication would be contrary to the national interest of the

United States. It further requires the transmission to

Congress any international agreement, other than a treaty, no

later than 60 days, with classified agreements transmitted

under a secrecy agreement.

The Conferees support the tightening of the Case-Zablocki

reporting requirement in an effort to conduct more rigorous

congressional oversight over the Executive Branch.

Specifically, it clarifies the types of agreements subject to

Congressional transmittal and further requires the State

Department to compile an annual classified index containing

all executive agreements acted upon during the past year by

country. Not only does it require the transmission of any

bilateral or multilateral counterterrorism agreement, it

requires the notification of any agreement the United States

enters into with a country designated by the U.S. government

as being a state sponsor of terrorism. Last, it requires the

expedited publishing of agreements, when possible.

Therefore, this section makes it clear that Congress is

concerned about not being fully informed regarding

international agreements entered into by the Executive ranch,

particularly sensitive agreements. While the Secretary of

State has discretion over determining the which agreements

are considered significant enough to be reported to Congress,

Congress considers certain agreements of such import that it

desires to be notified during contemplation of, and as soon

as practicable after, signing the agreement, although by

strict interpretation of Case-Zablocki, notification would

not have to be made until after the agreement was entered

into force. However, many of the agreements do not enter

into force for years after they are signed. Congress wants

to be informed about the significant agreements prior to

that time. In general, these types of agreements would

consist of any agreement which would: (1) significantly

broaden our commitments with another country (regardless

of duration of agreement); (2) concern co-production of

weapons systems, transfers of defense equipment,

cooperative research, development and testing of weapons

systems; (3) grant access to foreign military facilities,

installations, or bases; (4) involve the deployment of the

U.S. military forces; or (5) involve covert intelligence

operations. Similarly, Congress expects that significant

political undertakings should not be disguised as non-

binding agreements in order to avoid Case-Zablocki's

reporting requirements.

Effective foreign policy is not created in a vacuum whereby

individually-requested briefings on narrowly-selected topics

of interest will adequately explain the depth necessary for

making important legislative decisions on how to fund the

executive branch's foreign policy programs. Foreign policy is

best conducted through a prolonged process of sharing

objectives and information which leads to informed discussion

and context, ultimately concluding in Congress' support of

the President's initiatives.

In order to strictly enforce this provision, no funding may

be made available during 2005-2007 for any international

agreement if Congress is not notified pursuant to statute.

Sec. 7202--Establishment of Human Smuggling and Trafficking

Center. The 9/11 Commission Report found that terrorist

travel and facilitation issues should be further studied and

emphasized in order to confront terrorists at their weakest

points, when they travel.

The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security

and the Attorney General currently exchange information on

human smuggling and trafficking through the interagency Human

Smuggling and Trafficking Center (``The Center''). This

section would specifically establish The Center and codify

The Center's responsibilities.

The Center will increase integration and overall

effectiveness in the U.S. Government's enforcement and other

response efforts, and work with other governments to address

the separate but related issues of alien smuggling,

trafficking in persons, and smuggler support of clandestine

terrorist travel. Migrant smuggling, clandestine terrorist

travel and trafficking in persons are transnational issues

that threaten national security.

The Center will continue to provide a mechanism to bring

together all appropriate U.S. agency representatives from

policy, law enforcement, intelligence and diplomatic areas to

work together on a full-time basis to achieve increased

effectiveness and to convert intelligence into effective law

enforcement and other action.

The Center shall be supported by signatories to the

original Memorandum of Understanding (in existence on October

1, 2004), which shall provide appropriate personnel,

resources, and funding to the Center. All other appropriate

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are encouraged

to support The Center and its mission.

Participating agencies shall utilize The Center to: (1)

facilitate broad dissemination of all-source information by

serving as an information fusion center and clearinghouse;

(2) prepare strategic assessments; (3) identify issues for

interagency coordination or attention; (4) coordinate select

initiatives and provide support; and (5) conduct related

activities. The Center shall be governed by an inter-agency

steering group in such a manner as agreed upon by the

participating agencies.

All relevant U.S. agencies shall disseminate the

information to the front-line personnel as appropriate.

Sec. 7203--Responsibilities and Functions of Consular

Officers. This section consists of four parts aimed at

increasing the resources

of the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs and

improving the training and operation of U.S. consular

officers in detecting fraudulent documents and preventing the

entry of terrorists.

Subsection (a) increases the number of consular officers

from 65 (FY04 and FY05) to 150 per year for FY06-FY09. Since

the 9/11 attacks, consular officers have changed their policy

and now are required to interview almost all visa applicants

between the ages of 14 and 80.

Subsection (b) places limitations on the use of foreign

nationals to screen both immigrant visa and nonimmigrant visa

applications by stating that all such applications shall be

reviewed and adjudicated by a U.S. consular officer. This

provision does not preclude the assistance of foreign

nationals in the review of visa applications. However, it

assures that a U.S. Government official is involved in the

decision on such applications.

Subsection (c) requires that the training program for

consular officers include training in detecting fraudulent

documents and working directly with Department of Homeland

Security immigration inspectors at ports of entry.

Subsection (d) requires the Secretary of State to conduct a

survey to determine which consular posts have the greatest

frequency of presentation of fraudulent documents. An anti-

fraud specialist employed by the Department of State must be

assigned to each such post unless the Department of Homeland

Security has already assigned a person to the post who has

both sufficient experience training and experience in the

detection of fraudulent documents. This provision will

provide consulates with expertise in the detection of

fraudulent travel documents and other papers that are

submitted by visa applicants as part of their immigrant visa

or nonimmigrant visa applications.

Sec. 7204--International Agreements to Track and Curtail

Terrorist Travel Through the Use of Fraudulently Obtained

Documents. This section calls upon the President to lead

efforts to reach international agreements to track and stop

international travel by terrorists through the use of lost,

stolen or falsified documents. Section 7204 states that one

agreement should require the establishment of a system to

share information on lost, stolen and fraudulent passports,

the establishment of a real time verification system of

passports with issuing authorities, the sharing of this

information by governments with officials at ports of entry,

and that parties to the agreement criminalize the production

or use of fraudulent travel documents.

In addition, Section 7204 calls upon the United States to

continue to support efforts at the International Civil

Aviation Organization to strengthen the security features of

passports and other travel documents.

Sec. 7205--International Standards for Transliteration of

Names into the Roman Alphabet for International Travel

Documents and Name-based Watch List System. This section is a

sense of Congress that the President should seek to enter

into an international agreement to modernize and improve

standards for the translation of names into the Roman

alphabet in order to ensure one common spelling for such

names for international travel documents and name-based watch

list systems.

Section 7205 is a direct result of findings of the 9/11

Commission. In its Report, the Commission found that the

current lack of a single convention for transliterating

Arabic names enabled the 19 hijackers to vary the spelling of

their names to defeat name-based watch list systems and

confuse any potential efforts to locate them. While the

introduction of biometric identifiers may lessen this

problem, that process will take many years, and a name-based

watch list system will always be useful. Therefore, a

standardized way of translating names into the Roman alphabet

should be a top priority.

Sec. 7206--Immigration Security Initiative. This section

expands the Immigration Security Initiative, which is a

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-operated program that

assists and trains airline personnel at foreign airports in

identifying fraudulent travel documents. Currently, the

Immigration Security Initiative is operating in two foreign

airports. Section 7206 expands the program to include at

least 50 additional foreign airports by December 31, 2006.

This section authorizes $25,000,000 in FY 05, $40,000,000

in FY 06, and $40,000,000 in FY 07 to carry out the expansion

of this program.

The program's objective is to identify and stop passengers,

including potential terrorists, who seek to enter the United

States using fraudulent documents. Stopping terrorists at

foreign airports provides another line of defense in the U.S.

Government's border security strategy. Further, as we saw

with the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, preventing terrorists

from even boarding a flight can forestall a terrorist attack.

Sec. 7209--Biometric Entry and Exit Data System. This

section states that, consistent with the 9/11 Commission

Report, Congress calls on the Secretary of the Department

of Homeland Security to develop a plan to accelerate the

full implementation of an automated entry and exit data

system at U.S. ports of entry as required by existing law.

The Secretary of Homeland Security must report to Congress

on the plan no later than 180 days after the enactment of

this legislation. Section 7209 requires the Secretary of

Homeland Security to integrate the biometric entry and

exit data system with other databases maintained by the

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services that

contain information on aliens. This section also calls for

the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement a plan to

expedite the processing of registered travelers at ports

of entry.

Section 7209 also contains specific requirements and goals

with respect to the entry-exit system, as well as additional

reporting requirements on the part of the Department of

Homeland Security and the Department of State.

Sec. 7211--Exchange of Terrorist Information and Increased

Pre-Inspection at Foreign Airports. This section expands the

pre-inspection program to at least 25 additional foreign

airports. The additional locations should be operational by

January 1, 2008. The pre-inspection program allows Department

of Homeland Security immigration and customs inspectors to

screen passengers at airports located outside the United

States instead of inspecting them when they arrive at U.S.

airports. This program is currently operating in eight

airports in Canada, four in the Caribbean nations, and at

airports in Shannon and Dublin, Ireland.

In addition, the selection criteria for pre-inspection

locations is based on reducing the number of aliens who

arrive to the United States who are inadmissible. Section

7211 changes the selection criteria for pre-inspection

locations to include the objective of preventing the entry of

potential terrorists and facilitate the travel of admissible

aliens.

Section 7211 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security

and the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress on

the progress being made in establishing these locations no

later than June 30, 2006. Section 7211 also contains findings

with respect to the exchange of terrorist information and

pre-inspection at foreign airports. Subsection (c) of section

7211 requires a report regarding the exchange of terrorist

information.

The pre-inspection program allows U.S. Government officials

to conduct a thorough screening outside the United States.

Not only is this an important tool for preventing the entry

of inadmissible aliens, but the pre-inspection program can

also help prevent terrorists from boarding flights bound for

our country.

Sec. 7217--Increase in Penalties for Fraud and Related

Activity. This section amends section 1028 of Title 18 to

increase penalties for the possession and transfer of

fraudulent government identification documents that are used

to further an international terrorist attack. Specifically,

it increases the maximum term of imprisonment for the

production, use or transfer of fraudulent government

documents from 25 years to 30 years if the crime involving

fraudulent government documents was used to facilitate an act

of 14 international terrorism.

Sec. 7218--Study on Allegedly Lost or Stolen Passports.

This section requires the Secretaries of State and Homeland

Security to jointly conduct a study on the feasibility of

establishing a system, in coordination with other countries,

so that border and visa issuance officials will have access

to real-time information on newly-issued passports to persons

who alleged that their previous passports were lost or

stolen. If developed, the system studied in Section 7218 will

assist consular officers and immigration inspectors in

preventing the movement of terrorists who obtain new

passports to hide indicators of travel to certain countries.

This study must be completed by May 31, 2005.

The 9/11 Commission found that three of the 9/11 hijackers,

including Mohammed Atta, obtained new passports prior to

seeking visas to enter the U.S., possibly to eliminate

evidence regarding their previous travel. Each claimed that

his old passport had been lost.

Sec. 7219--Establishment of Visa and Passport Security

Program in the Department of State. This section establishes

a Visa and Passport Security Program within the Bureau of

Diplomatic Security of the Department of State. The Assistant

Secretary for Diplomatic Security will designate an

individual, who has experience in the investigation and

prosecution of visa and passport fraud, to be in charge of

this Program.

Section 7219 will require the Assistant Secretary of

Diplomatic Security, in coordination with officials of the

Bureau of Consular Affairs, the Coordinator of

Counterterrorism, the National Counterterrorism Center and

the Department of Homeland Security, to develop a strategic

plan to target and disrupt individuals and organizations that

are involved in document fraud. The objective of the Visa and

Passport Security Program is to increase awareness within the

Department of State regarding document fraud crimes and their

links to terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time and commend her service on the Committee on Rules. I rise to make clear that I will not object to this rule waiving any points of order which might lie against the conference report, a report that I strongly support.

I will be speaking about the content of the bill once we move to consideration of the conference report, where I will be managing the time on our side, but I did want to rise to comment on some of the claims that have been made in the debate so far, especially the claims just made by the powerful and passionate chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary.

I would point out to our colleagues that the conference report, which was the product of 3 months of intense negotiation, does contain immigration reforms. All of the conferees, to my knowledge, believe that immigration reform is necessary; and all of the conferees, and I hope all of our colleagues, understand that our goal here is to make certain that our immigration system does not enable terrorists to get on airplanes or otherwise to harm our citizens. That is why in this bill many of the suggestions made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and many of the provisions in the House bill were accepted.

For example, the bill provides for 10,000 more border guards over 5 years. Ten thousand. It provides 4,000 more border inspectors over 5 years. It provides for 40,000 more detention beds over 5 years. These are beds that will be used by those who might be deported.

So our point is that we want the immigration laws to work better. We want to make sure that we know who is coming into our country, not just at our southern border but also at our northern border. Most of us are well aware that attempts to harm our country have come to us across our northern border as well as our southern border. Indeed, one such attempt was foiled just before the millennium, when a man trying to get to Washington State from Canada was, fortunately, intercepted by an adroit Customs agent. He was driving a rental car full of bomb material intending to bomb LAX, a major international airport surrounded by my congressional district.

So, Mr. Speaker, I get this. Our borders are porous, and we need to make them more secure. This bill does that.

In addition to that, this bill adds to our law enforcement tools, addressing other issues with which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) was concerned. We toughen the penalties for terrorist hoaxes. We create a new set of penalties for those who would use shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down airplanes. We toughen the penalties for material support of terrorists, and we add a provision which enables us to punish the ``lone wolf'' terrorist, someone acting alone, as Timothy McVeigh did, to harm our citizens.

The bottom line here is this carefully structured, bipartisan, bicameral conference report does deal with these issues, as well as the chain of command, which many of us felt was adequately protected in current law, but which we addressed again to make sure everyone understood we were dealing with it. The point I want to make is we took these issues on, we came to the best resolution we could. This rule permits us to vote finally on what I think is the best possible conference report we could have developed under all of the circumstances. It deals with the valid concerns of the families who lost loved ones on 9-11, and it honors those they lost. I urge support of this rule. I will rise later and urge support of the conference report.

Mr. Speaker, I am supportive of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the new chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), for his nice comments and for his enormous efforts at restoring bipartisanship to our committee. He, Senators Collins and Lieberman, House conferees on our side, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), have contributed a great deal, an enormous amount, to the legislation we are debating today. It is a good product, it is the right product, and I urge all of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to support it.

Mr. Speaker, this day, December 7, is a date which will live in infamy. So was September 11, 2001. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were the two most tragic hours since America became a Nation.

President Roosevelt launched a clear-eyed investigation of the intelligence lapses leading to Pearl Harbor, and since 9/11 we have worked hard to understand why critical intelligence about the plans, capabilities and whereabouts of the 9/11 hijackers fell through the cracks.

Our intelligence system is broken. We have 15 intelligence agencies with different rules, cultures and databases. Our Intelligence Community operates on a 1947 business model designed to defeat the Soviet Union, which was defeated in 1989. Fifteen years later, the enemy is digital, but our organizational structure remains analog.

This long-overdue legislation will modernize our capabilities, integrate our intelligence collection and analysis efforts, unify our counterterrorist efforts and promote intelligence sharing. It will promote the same jointness in

intelligence that has been the hallmark of our military's success since the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.

Mr. Speaker, there is not much time, so I will forego describing the bill. But in addition to thanking our conferees and the so-called ``big four,'' I want to thank others who made this possible. They are the 9/ 11 families who were the moral force beneath our wings. I want to say to the families that your loved ones are holding a special spot in heaven for you and for all that you did for the safety of our country.

I also want to thank another group of people who are not here. They are the men and women who serve in our intelligence agencies and who wear the uniform, many of whom are on the front lines at this hour risking their lives for our freedom. This legislation is designed to give them the capabilities they deserve and need to win the war on terrorism. They have our praise, our admiration and our full support. Good people need better tools. We are going to provide those tools today.

Mr. Speaker, December 7 will always remind us of the vulnerability of our homeland, but once we pass this bill, it will also stand for something else. It will stand for our resolve to make our Nation safer. And, I might add, it is a fitting birthday tribute to Senator Susan Collins, who worked so hard to make this effort possible.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to clarify two issues that are not stated explicitly in this legislation but that were very much on the minds of its drafters.

The first issue deals with the consolidation of power within the DNI to protect intelligence sources and methods. Members of the public have expressed concern that the increased authority of the Director of National Intelligence could be abused to constrict the free flow of information that is critical to our duties in the Congress and that the authorities under this bill might be used, or abused, to unduly limit the flow of information to the State and local governments and to the public.

The sources of this concern are past uses of government secrecy--not to protect classified information--but to limit, and occasionally to intimidate, current and even former government employees from speaking out. These measures have included over-classification and requirements that government employees take polygraphs and sign unduly and overly broad secrecy and non-disclosure agreements as a condition of access to information.

The purpose of this bill is to facilitate the dissemination of information within government. There is no intention on the part of the Congress to impair the appropriate and desirable flow of information. This bill does not contain any authority for the DNI or the President to establish a regime of undue government secrecy. The bill vests the DNI with the authority to protect intelligence sources and methods, just as the Director of Central Intelligence has exercised that authority. There is no new authority to criminalize or suppress the lawful and appropriate sharing of information within the government or to alter or waive any existing protections of government employees who wish to disclose information to Congress or through other lawful channels.

Further, it should be Congress's duty to assure through oversight that this information sharing environment is appropriate and complete. Congress will track the implementation of the various responsibilities assigned under this bill. The creation of the Information Sharing Environment and the establishment of the National Intelligence Center and the Information Sharing Council provide some of the many opportunities for congressional oversight.

A second issue deals with the creation of national standards for driver's licenses. This legislation creates strong minimum Federal standards for the issuance of State driver's licenses. We delegate to the Department of Homeland Security the task of devising these standards, but we make clear that these standards must at least require that licenses contain a person's full name, date of birth, gender, driver's license number, digital photograph, address, and signature. We also stipulate that the regulations shall include procedures to protect the privacy rights of individuals who apply for and hold driver's licenses. I want to make clear that we also intended to ensure that these regulations protect the civil and due process rights of those individuals as well.

This legislation requires that driver's license standards be established with a negotiated rulemaking. This rulemaking shall include State officials who issue driver's licenses, State elected officials, DHS, and interested parties. The words ``interested parties'' are not defined, but it is our intent that such parties should include organizations with technological and operational expertise in document security and organizations that represent the interests of applicants for such licenses or identification cards.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

announcement by the speaker pro tempore

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the support for this bill from the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), and I would like our colleagues to know as one conferee, we all support the chain of command.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), a conferee, and the ranking member on the House Committee on Armed Services, a wonderful committee on which I served for 6 years.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), who heads our Democratic Caucus, a wonderful and valued colleague on this issue, and a third of our Democratic conferees.

(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, clearly many in this House feel strongly. I hope most of us will vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, my predecessor as ranking member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and someone who knows these issues extremely well.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), my classmate, a member of our committee and the ranking member on our Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy and National Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to applaud the comments of the last Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), another of our committee members and an increasingly valuable member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary and an extremely conscientious Member of this House.

(Mr. WATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, obviously we do not all agree on the best direction in which to go. It is clear from this debate that Members on our side and Members on the other side of the aisle have some strong feelings against the carefully crafted compromise. But carefully crafted it was. I can assure Members that 10 weeks and thousands of hours by Members and staff went into the language of this conference report.

There were fights about almost every issue. We worked it out as best we could. We worked it out on a bipartisan basis, and as I said at the beginning of this debate, I cannot thank enough Senators Collins and Lieberman and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) for their collaboration, talent, dedication and true grit. This would not have happened without them.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of conversation about the House bill and what was left out of the conference report. I would point out to colleagues that the vote in the House was an extremely close vote. To remind, there was an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez). The vote on that amendment in the nature of a substitute was 203-213; 194 Democrats, 8 Republicans, and 1 Independent supported the Menendez substitute, which was essentially the Senate version of the bill. That means that 96 Members of the other body, all but 2 who voted, and 203 Members of this body, 300 Members, supported essentially the Senate version of the bill. We could look at that as an overwhelming vote for the Senate language. I certainly look at it that way, and the 9/11 Commission said and the White House said in many respects that the Senate language was much closer to what they intended.

My point in bringing this up is in reaching the compromise that we are voting on now, we need to understand how much was given up on both sides. Clearly the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) and those who support his position think a lot was given up on his side. Some of the language that passed in H.R. 10, very controversial language, was given up, to be sure. But a lot of the language in the Senate version of the bill was also given up: such as the declassified top line; such as a number of the powers that have been talked about for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board; such as full control over reprogramming of personnel and budget. A lot of those issues were given up in the effort to reach a carefully balanced, bipartisan, bicameral compromise.

That is what we are voting on today. I would just tell all Members that I believe it is not only the best we could do, but it is very good. Just to remind, we do address immigration, we do increase border protection, we do include Federal standards for State-issued drivers' licenses, and we do do something which has not been mentioned, which is direct TSA to develop within 6 months new standards for ID documents for boarding airplanes. TSA is directed in this bill to handle what we all agree is a problem. We do not want terrorists to use fraudulent documents or documents based on expired visas to board airplanes, and we correct that problem in this bill.

We also address the chain of command, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) has pointed out. We did not address the border fence issue, but I am hopeful that without waiving environmental protections, those of us who care about it in California will figure out a right and fair solution.

Finally, let me point out, as many Members have, that this bill is supported by the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the 9/11 Commission, most of the 9/11 families, most of the conferees, and overwhelming majorities on a bipartisan basis in each House. I urge its adoption. It is the right thing to do. It honors the 9/11 families, and it makes a point about the 63rd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks. We know how to fix these problems. We will do it tonight. I urge adoption of the conference report.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make the point that this legislation is a victory for the 9/11 families who lost loved ones, heroes, on September 11, 2001. Those family members who were the ones who were instrumental in creating the 9/11 Commission in the first place and who have been tenacious and persevering in making sure that we do the right thing deserve the credit. I want to commend them on their great work on this.

Let me also respond to the previous speaker. By any measure, this legislation will improve our Nation's ability to protect against terrorism. The 9/11 Commission pointed out so well, and I quote them, ``Travel documents are as important as weapons.'' In a provision that I have long advocated for, and that was put in this legislation by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), we now have provisions that fortify the visa application process and ensure that our consuls abroad have to thoroughly interview those who are applying for a nonimmigrant visa and meticulously inspect their documents.

Let me remind my colleagues that those who committed the atrocities of 9/11 entered the U.S. legally. They got their visas. They went to one of our consuls in Saudi Arabia and, regrettably, the personnel there were giving out visas like cotton candy. The terrorists exploited a weakness in the system. So they came here legally. They were not illegal immigrants. And that point needs to be underscored.

This legislation with Chairman Hyde's language closes that loophole so that terrorist will be stopped before they get their visas. That's a critical provision in a bill with many, many new programs and I support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. This legislation represents a hard-won victory for the family survivors of 9/11 and for all Americans. They have placed their hopes in us to make the structural changes necessary to prevent another intelligence failure on the scale of September 11th. It is fitting and appropriate that we consider this legislation on December 7th because prior to 9/11, Pearl Harbor represented the largest single day loss of human life to an attack on American soil.

This is, Mr. Speaker, the survivors' bill. If not for the hard work, tenacity and dedication of the families of the victims of 9/11--those 3,000 heroes who lost their lives in that horrific attack--we would not be here today.

Still, there has been much controversy surrounding this bill. Some critics charge that this legislation is not really needed; others contend that it was developed in a rush and should have been considered more thoroughly in committee and subcommittee hearings before being brought to the floor. Neither of these criticisms are valid.

In fact, this legislation is the product of a comprehensive process that began over 2 years ago with the appointment of the 9/11 Commission. I was an early and consistent advocate for the 9/11 Commission because I believed the families deserved answers and the Nation needed a chronicled ``lessons learned'' and a way to move forward to make us safer.

In pursuing its wide-ranging mandate to investigate the facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Commission reviewed more than 2.5 million pages of documents and interviewed more than 1,200 individuals in ten countries, including nearly every senior U.S. government official from the current and previous administrations who had responsibility for topics covered under the Commission's mandate. The Commission's recommendations were nonpartisan, unanimous, and published to wide acclaim this past summer. No less than 13 House committees held more than two dozen hearings on the Commission's report and subsequent legislation. In the Committee on International Relations, I chaired a critical hearing on visa reform and recommendations for enhanced U.S. diplomacy. In the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, on which I serve as chair, we held a hearing on Emergency Medical Preparedness.

Today's historic bill addresses and responds to the Commission's major recommendations, and will bring much needed reforms to our intelligence funding, gathering, sharing, and analytical processes. Anyone who questions whether or not these reforms are needed should read the Commission's report. It is filled with information--available to us at the time--that terrorists were actively plotting against us. But instead of our country being on a war footing, the investigations were treated as mere law enforcement cases, and information was not shared between the FBI and CIA. When Predator unmanned drones captured video feed of Osama bin Laden himself in the mountains of Afghanistan, the Pentagon and the CIA bickered for months about who should pay for upgrading the drones to carry Hellfire missiles. The opportunity to take out bin Laden before September 11th was thus squandered by bureaucratic infighting.

Mr. Speaker, on December 7th, 1941 Americans said `never again' will we be caught so unprepared for a sneak attack. But it did happen again. It happened on September 11th, 2001, and nearly 3,000 men, women, and children lost their lives because of it. This legislation will finally create a national intelligence director who will have direct authority over our intelligence agencies and who will have the power to redirect assets and resources as necessary. The position of national intelligence director should have been created after Pearl Harbor, but J. Edgar Hoover, the powerful FBI director at the time, blocked its creation. Later, the Defense Department blocked similar intelligence reforms over the next several decades. Indeed, the same fate nearly befell this very bill before us today, and it was only the timely and persuasive intervention of President Bush which salvaged this historic package of reforms from being yet another casualty of perennial agency turf battles.

Further, this bill creates a National Counterterrorism Center with the authority to plan intelligence missions and counterterrorism operations. The White House has worked with the conferees to ensure that neither the Director nor the Counterterrorism Center will interfere with the flow of military intelligence to the battlefield and the military's need to preserve its chain of command.

By any measure, the conference report will improve our Nation's ability to protect against terrorism. Mr. Speaker, the 9/11 Commission's report states that for terrorists, ``travel documents are as important as weapons.'' In a provision which I have long pushed for, this bill will require all aliens applying for a non-immigrant visa to completely and accurately respond to any request for information contained in the application, in order to prevent the disastrous series of events in which the 9/11 terrorists failed to provide the most basic of information on their visa applications, yet were still issued visas. It is important to remember that the hijackers were not illegal immigrants. They had valid visas because they exploited the weaknesses of our visa system. With this new legislation, we close those gaps. Consular officials must interview, in person, all appplicants for non- immigration visas unless a special waiver is granted.

This bill includes provisions targeted at preventing terrorism overseas before it reaches our shores. I have been working in this area ever since our embassies were first bombed in Africa in 1998 when I authored the Embassy Security Act. Under the conference report, it directs the State Department to seek international agreements to track and curtail terrorist travel through the use of fraudulent documents and to establish international standards for travel documents, transliteration of names into the Roman alphabet, and common name-based watch list systems. Programs to screen threatening individuals before they reach the U.S. will put U.S. immigration experts at foreign airports.

In order to address the root causes of anti-American incitement overseas which breeds terrorists and sympathizers, the conference report will provide scholarships for Muslim students, more funds for broadcasting and democracy building programs to the Islamic world, and targets aid for strategic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which were described by the September 11th Commission as absolutely vital to the success in the war on terrorism.

Today's legislation also includes several important, overdue measures to bolster our national security here at home. New programs and pilot projects to upgrade airport and aviation security include explosives detection screening for carry-on baggage, training for foreign air marshals, additional screening of airport workers, and blast-resistant cargo and baggage containers. We will enhance our border security by adding 2,000 full-time border patrol agents, 800 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators, 150 consular officers per year for the next 3 years, and advance the use of new technologies such as remotely piloted aircraft to ensure the systematic surveillance of our northern and southern borders. Moreover, this bill will grant the FBI the authority to conduct surveillance and wiretaps on suspected terrorists, even if they have no known ties to any foreign country or entity. In other words, if the FBI is aware of a person trying to produce anthrax, but he appears to be working alone, they can still monitor his activities. For the first time, a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will be created to ensure that privacy and civil liberties concerns are appropriately considered in the implementation of laws, regulations and government policies to protect our Nation against terrorism.

This conference report also tightens our Nation's immigration laws to close loopholes. For instance, officials will be able to deport any alien who has received military training from a designated terrorist organization, was well as rendering inadmissible aliens who have committed acts of torture, particularly severe violations of religious freedom, extrajudicial killing or genocide.

It is important to note that a crucial reform that the September 11th Commission recommended, but which is notably absent from this conference report, is to change the first responder grant formula and make the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants awarded and assessed based on risk and intelligence data.

The House-passed bill which I cosponsored and voted for (H.R. 10), contained an excellent package of reforms to the illogical grant system that allocates nearly 40 percent of all of the DHS first responder grants strictly on a state minimum basis, rather than risk assessment, and divides most of the rest of the funds on a rote population basis without any risk-analysis. The H.R. 10 reforms would have benefited high-risk, high-population density urban states like New Jersey enormously, while at the same time scaling back grants to states like Wyoming that have fewer terror risks. It would have truly implemented the Commission's recommendation to ensure first responder funding was analyzed and prioritized strictly on risk. The state minimums were reduced substantially.

The Senate passed bill and the Menendez substitute were either much weaker or put too much money into the state minimums, but still represented improvements over current law.

Incredibly, the final conference report dropped both sets of improvements and essentially retains current law. Mr. Speaker, the failure to reform the deeply flawed current first responder grant program is a major missed opportunity for Congress. I pledge to work with similarly-minded colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fix this formula in the upcoming 109th Session of Congress.

While the bill creates general national standards for driver's licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards in order to prevent the identity fraud that terrorists can exploit, as well as improves the physical security of the documents, I remain disappointed that the bill does not prohibit the issuance of driver's licenses to illegal aliens. The idea of giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens is not only unsound, it is just not safe for the country. I will continue to push for limitations on the validity of licenses for those individuals temporarily in the United States.

I am pleased that provisions I opposed in the House bill, H.R. 10--to expand expedited removal and basically eliminate appeals for asylum-- are not included in the conference report. These provisions would have dramatically altered our asylum procedures and would have had an extraordinarily harmful effect on true asylum seekers, human trafficking victims, women and children who are victims of domestic violence, and others seeking protection against persecution. We must continue to maintain the delicate balance between ensuring our safety and preserving our country as a safe haven for the persecuted and oppressed.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, I have worked hard over the last several years with the widows, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and other relatives of the victims of September 11th to help establish a meaningful investigation and produce comprehensive reform. Today we mark the furthest milestone in this long, difficult journey. And while no amount of legislative reform can completely heal their hearts, they can take some comfort in knowing that their government has responded and Americans will be safer because of their hard work and great efforts.

Mr. Speaker, in my capacity as the Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on House Administration, our panel has authorizing responsibilities over much of the Legislative-branch portion of the omnibus appropriations bill. Like the rest of the omnibus, the Legislative portion is not perfect, but the sundry agencies under our jurisdiction will generally have the resources they need to continue providing their services to the Congress, and to the American people.

Of course, as a procedural matter, I am disappointed that a freestanding Legislative appropriation did not become law in a regular process, before the start of the fiscal year. Such a bill, H.R. 4755, passed the House in July and later passed the Senate in plenty of time for conferees to report. I recognize that this was not the fault of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] or the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran]. I hope they and all Members have the opportunity to consider the fiscal 2006 bill in a timely, orderly and ordinary process.

With respect to specific agencies under the jurisdiction of my committee, I am pleased that this bill funds a staff fitness facility for the House. This important facility will provide a way for our employees to remain fit and healthy. None of us can properly discharge our duties without the support of our staffs and the other House employees. This long-awaited facility will be a tremendous addition to the House, making it, as well as our employees, stronger.

I am disappointed that the bill does not include a House provision, authored by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Kirk], eliminating funding for the Capitol Police mounted unit. In my judgment, the Police have failed to articulate a sufficient rationale for spending hundreds of thousands, millions over time, for this purpose. There is little doubt that the U.S. Park Police can benefit from maintaining a mounted unit, since the Park Police must patrol thousands of acres of parkland in the District of Columbia, much of it well off-road. The Capitol Police faces no such situation, and in fact, will have to spend tens of thousands each year simply to remove the manure from the carefully manicured and fairly small Capitol grounds. Absent a sufficient justification that the Capitol Police mounted unit was worth its cost, I supported the efforts of my Illinois colleague to save the taxpayers' money. I look forward to the important report by the Government Accountability Office, due in March, on this subject.

I share the concerns expressed in the conference report about the ongoing efforts to reorganize the Police. I look forward to reviewing the results of the GAO's contributions in this area. The conferees also directed the Capitol Police to review all existing operations and general expenses to determine whether any ``outsourcing'' opportunities may exist. That term has come to mean the wholesale transfer of jobs overseas, and as a result, its use in the report may disturb many. Naturally, I am eager to review the Capitol Police's report to the appropriators on this subject, and on the USCP's expensive but mechanically unsound Command Vehicle. It seems that these subjects, and many others related to USCP operations and expenses, would make excellent subjects for formal hearings next year in our committee.

In connection with the Capitol Police, I am greatly concerned that several legislative provisions within the jurisdiction of the House Administration Committee found their way into this appropriations bill. In November, I joined my chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ney], and the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, in a joint letter to the Capitol Police Board directing the Board not to requests further such provisions in its future budget requests, and reminding the Board that it should bring proposed legislation to those committees for consideration. Only in this way can the authorizing and appropriations processes work as designed, and for the good of the men and women of the Capitol Police and the people they serve. The Capitol Police was certainly not the only agency within our jurisdiction which asked for legislative provisions in its budget request this year. The others should similarly heed the message we conveyed to the Police Board.

With respect to the Library of Congress, while I am pleased that the Congress will extend temporarily the authorization for the National Film Preservation Board and Foundation, which enabled the funding of this important work for another two years, I am dismayed that separate reauthorization legislation, under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee and House Administration, has not passed. I trust these committees can quickly address this matter next year. I agree with the conferees, who lauded the work of the Copyright Office with respect to digitizing future and historic Copyright records. The Copyright Office, which depends on the public to defray a portion of its expenses, is headed in the right direction in this regard. I also note the continuing good work of the Congressional Research Service, without which none of the Members of either House could do his or her work effectively.

I am hopeful that our committee can authorize a student-loan repayment program for the Office of Compliance. This important tool has helped numerous federal agencies, including the House, to attract and retain the staff needed to build an effective organization.

With respect to agencies within our committee's jurisdiction and funded in bills other than the Legislative appropriations bill, I am glad to see that the conferees agreed to fund the Election Assistance Commission above the amount proposed by the Senate. The $14 million appropriated will help continue the work started by the EAC to serve as the clearinghouse for Federal elections. Although, the EAC got a late start, with the commissioners not taking office until December 2003, they must continue working to improve the election process. If Congress considers a supplemental appropriations bill next spring, the EAC should consider requesting additional resources.

Yet again, I am not pleased that the majority bypassed the committee and inserted into this bill a provision allowing contributions to campaigns for federal office to be diverted to campaigns for state or local office. While this may be a meritorious idea, I certainly believe it should have been considered in an orderly process in the committees of jurisdiction, and not simply added to a massive appropriations bill.

Finally, the Smithsonian Institution received an increase of 3.1 over the fiscal 2004 budget, an increase of more than $19 million, but still 2 percent below its request. The funding level was reasonable given the overall budget constraints this year, but, as in the past, will not fund an aggressive approach to the Smithsonian's aging infrastructure and inadequate maintenance. I hope that Congress will soon recognize that its year-by-year, finger-in-the-dike approach to budgeting actually accelerates the deterioration of the physical plant of our nation's greatest repository of knowledge and ongoing research.

Congress last year finally authorized the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is in preliminary phases of engineering studies, staffing and planning, and which does not yet have a location or director. The $5 million request to continue the start-

up process was reduced to $3.9 million, which will impede the process. The Board of Regents expects to make a site recommendation to relevant committees, including House Administration, late next year.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hard work of the Appropriations Committee and look forward to working with the committee on matters of common concern next year.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 2845, that would implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. At long last bipartisanship and the will of the American people are at the brink of success here in the House of Representatives. This reform is now long overdue and this issue is too important to suffer the petty partisan games the House leadership have played with this bill. I only hope that our delay does not come at a higher cost than the few bruised egos of those unwilling and unable to work in a bipartisan manner the way our country's Framers always intended when the national security of this great Nation was threatened.

It should also not be lost on any Member of this Chamber that we are here debating this legislation today, December 7, on the anniversary of another day of infamy, which like 9/11 forever changed the future course of this country and generations of Americans. As we honor and discuss those who were lost on 9/11 today, I would like to take a moment to also remember those lost today at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the sacrifices made by so many families and Americans since then to defend this Nation.

The recommendations the bipartisan Commission released in July 2004 will help prevent future terrorist attacks by offering a global strategy to dismantle terrorists and their organizations, prevent the continued growth of terrorism, and prepare for future terrorist attacks. In October, the other body overwhelmingly passed the National Intelligence Reform Act, S. 2845, by a vote of 96 to 2. The Bush administration, the 9/11 Commission chairmen, and families of many September 11 victims fully endorsed the Senate's intelligence reorganization bill.

Unfortunately, there in the House, the People's Chamber, the Republican leadership chose a different path, a path that strayed far from the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. In yet another example of party politics over public interest, the Republican majority drafted a 609-page intelligence bill, H.R. 10, without any input or support from the Democratic leadership, including in it controversial provisions not recommended by the Commission on immigration and surveillance, and even went as far as to exempt the United States from certain applications of the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture. When Democrats put forward the bipartisan Senate bill as an amendment during the debate, it was defeated along party lines 203-213. Only 8 Republican Members of this House voted for the bipartisan bill.

For over a month, no interest was shown by House leaders in negotiating with the bipartisan supporters backed by President Bush and the 9/11 families, and the bill languished in the conference committee. Finally in November, blowing to public pressure, House Republican leaders worked out a compromise with the President and the bipartisan supporters of the Senate bill, and many of us thought that finally we would see action on this needed reform. However, several Members of the Republican House majority refused to accept the compromise and despite overwhelming support in the House and no question that the bill would pass if brought to the floor, the Speaker refused to allow a vote on the bill rather than have it pass with more Democratic support than Republican.

Instead, we waited nearly another entire month, while public pressure forced the President to finally personally work to try and convince enough Republican holdouts to support the bill, no not that it will pass, because there have always been enough votes to pass the bill, but to ensure that at the end of the vote there would be more Republican yes votes, who hold the majority anyway, than Democratic yes votes

While we waited for Republicans to be able to say they passed the intelligence reform bill themselves without needing any Democratic support, another U.S. Consulate office, this time in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia was attacked by terrorists, killing five people and wounding thirteen others. I fear how many more such attacks our enemies have been able to organize while we have delayed enacting intelligence reform needed to combat their activities.

This effort should mark a beginning, not the end, of our efforts to protect the American people by strengthening the systems by which we collect, process, and disseminate intelligence. However, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and as this Congress works to balance the need for greater security while protecting liberty, I would remind my colleagues of the words of one of our nation's greatest founders, Benjamin Franklin, who said, ``They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.''

I hope that the Republican leadership will not tarnish this achievement today by agreeing to vote in the next Congress on efforts that will weaken and undermine Americans' liberties.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask if the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) is opposed to the bill?

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a great amount of admiration for the people who have worked as hard as they have worked on this bill, for the chairman, for the leadership in the House, that has, I know, spent many, many hours in discussions with the other body.

I wish that I could stand on this floor tonight and support this bill. I remember during an earlier debate on H.R. 10, the House version of the response to the 9/11 Commission report, I was proud as I have ever been to be a Member of this body and to see the members of my party, especially the Speaker of the House, the whip and the majority leader, come to the floor and speak articulately and very, very forcefully in support of certain provisions of the bill that the other side of the aisle were trying to take out. These provisions dealt specifically with trying to increase our border security.

It is intriguing in a way, it is ironic in a way, one thing: We established a 9/11 Commission, it did its work, it talked to us about what we needed to do.

We all recognize what happened on that day, on 9/11 2001. When people came into this country from other countries, many of them did so fraudulently, by providing false documentation, by inaccurately filling out their visas, or by coming into the country and after they were here overstaying those visas. They were in violation of our immigration laws. They were able to take advantage of their position because we did not do much, and we still do very little in terms of enforcing those laws.

They were also able to take advantage of another thing in this system. They were able to take advantage of the fact that we were handing out driver's licenses to people like prizes in a Cracker Jack box. The 19 hijackers had accumulated a total of 63 driver's licenses, many from Virginia. They used them with great ability to, of course, get onto planes, to make life easy for them while they were here.

This is one thing we know that happened that helped create the problem, helped create the event of 9/11. We know that. So we create a bill in response to the 9/11 catastrophe, and it is almost inconceivable that any bill could then come to this floor without a reference to, without an ability, without any desire to actually do something about the actual problem that created 9/11. But that is the case today.

To quote the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, who also recognized the flaw, the fatal flaw of this bill, and that is the only way I can really describe it, it is a fatal flaw, this is the quote from Chairman Sensenbrenner: ``Americans deserve a complete bill so that we can prevent another 9/11 from occurring. Border security and immigration reform are vital components of our national security efforts, so why are they not included in this legislation? The time to address these issues is now, not next month, not next year. Hollow promises of future considerations are just that, hollow promises. Terrorists have exploited vulnerabilities in our asylum system and in the issuance of driver's licenses.

``This bill fails to include the strong provisions in the House bill because my Senate colleagues,'' and I am quoting him here, ``found them to be too controversial. That is unfortunate, because their refusal to consider these security provisions on their merits will keep Americans unnecessarily at risk.''

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with his observations, and I would ask my colleagues to look carefully at what they are doing here.

The fact is that this bill has such a gaping loophole and it has such a huge, huge flaw that it is better not to pass this bill at all than to pass it and create the illusion of security. I do not doubt, as I have said, that there are many good parts of the bill. That is not

the issue. But there is something so vital, something so intrinsic to our national security, the issuance of driver's licenses and trying to maintain some degree of control over that process, because we know that a driver's license in this country is, of course, as close to a national I.D. card as we have.

But when we refuse to address this because of our concern about the politics, because it is too controversial to talk about, how can we come to this floor, how can anybody come to this floor or in fact stand in front of any television or any constituency and say, we are doing everything possible to defend the people of this country. How can we say this when we know that that is absolutely untrue; when the one thing we should be doing in this bill, we are not.

So because it does not have that provision, I certainly would request that my colleagues turn this bill down and ask that it come back in a different form, in a more complete form.

Sensenbrenner Statement on 9/11 Bill

Washington, DC.--House Judiciary Committee Chairman F.

James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) issued the following

statement regarding legislation responding to the 9/11

Commission recommendations:

``I am pleased that the chain-of-command issues Chairman

Duncan Hunter has raised have been resolved so that our war-

fighters will not be put at risk. Unfortunately, even with

these improvements, the current bill is woefully incomplete

and one I cannot support.

``Americans deserve a complete bill so that we can prevent

another 9/11 from occurring. Border security and immigration

reform are vital components of our homeland security efforts,

so why are they not included in this legislation? The time to

address these issues is now, not next month, not next year.

Hollow promises of future consideration are just that--hollow

promises.

``Terrorists have exploited vulnerabilities in our asylum

system and in the issuance of drivers' licenses. This bill

fails to include the strong provisions in the House bill

because my Senate colleagues found them `too controversial.'

That's unfortunate, because their refusal to consider these

security provisions on their merits will keep Americans

unnecessarily at risk.

I said two weeks ago that the Senate was hell-bent on

ensuring that illegal aliens can receive drivers' licenses,

regardless of the security concerns. This Sept. 10th

mentality in a post-Sept. 11th world is unwise and among

those I intend to rectify next year.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the only turf that at least I am interested in protecting here is the turf of the United States of America and the people that live on it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller).

(Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to make two quick points.

One is, indeed, most of the people who were here, most of the hijackers were here illegally, not legally, because they fraudulently produced documents to get their visas. The visas were frauds to begin with, making them illegal aliens in this country.

Secondly, many of them had overstayed their visas or were doing something here that was not allowed under the visa, making them illegal aliens in this country. So, indeed, they were illegal.

Thirdly, there are far more members of 9/11 families who oppose this bill because the provisions we are talking about here are missing; those provisions to secure our borders are missing. Far more oppose this bill in its present form than support it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the following is from the final report: ``Secure identification should begin in the United States. Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.'' That is from the report. That is the thing we are ignoring completely in this bill designed to respond to the 9/11 Commission report.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote against this bill so it can come back here in a form that could make us all proud, and so we would be able to go back to our constituents and say we have indeed done something to secure this country. This bill does not do that.