To support initiatives developed by the Firefighter Life Safety Summit and the mission of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the United States Fire Administration to reduce firefighter fatalities and injuries, to encourage implementation of the new "Everyone Goes Home" campaign to make firefighter safety a national priority, and to support the goals of the national "stand down" called by fire organizations.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 331, I call up the bill (H.R. 2475) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government,

the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2475, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This is a very good bill, a bill we can be very

proud of, and a bill that every Member of the House can and should support.

Before I talk about some of the details in the bill, I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). We have worked hard on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to keep this committee focused on the job that needs to be done and to do so on a bipartisan basis, and I thank the gentlewoman for working with us in that process and being able to maintain that spirit as we bring this bill to the floor on a bipartisan basis. I also thank her staff and our staff for helping us through this process in bringing this bill here today.

Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago when he was chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss, now director of the Central Intelligence Agency, asked me to take a strategic look at the technical capabilities within the United States intelligence community. He wanted me to see how the technical intelligence collection systems all work together, evaluate their individual contributions to national security, and see if there were redundancies to understand the affordability of the many systems and, most importantly, understand the impacts on the rest of the intelligence community.

What Mr. Goss really asked us to do was to go back, and we have expanded that in the committee over the past 8 or 9 months, to take a look at the strategic framework that we face in the world today and how we should respond to the threats. So we spent a considerable amount of time looking at the threats that America faces: What is the threat environment that is out there today; what do we expect it to be in 3, 5 and 7 years, so we can shape the proper intelligence community to give our policymakers and our military the right information to make good decisions and keep our soldiers safe?

We have then taken that to take a look at the feedback we have gotten from the 9/11 Commission, the feedback we have gotten from the WMD Commission as to the particular strengths within the intelligence community and also some of the particular weaknesses.

So as we put this bill together, we really focused on making sure that we had a good balance between our human capabilities, the investment we were making in our human capabilities for the long term, and the investment we were making in our technical capabilities. This bill does that by investing more in our human capabilities.

On the technical capabilities, it takes a very, very hard look at the different programs that we have in place there. It makes sure that what we do is put in place programs that will complement each other, give us the information that we need, and hopefully put us on a framework and on a pathway to balancing human capabilities with our technical capabilities.

Also in that area, this bill moves forward and holds some of our contractors accountable for their performance. This is an area where tactically we may disagree on some of the points on how to make that happen, but we are very much in sync on a bipartisan basis that we need a strategic plan and we need to have our contractors perform. It will also lay the framework for a discussion we will have throughout this year about how to make sure that in a time where we have limited budgets and limited programs underway, that we maintain the industrial base here in the United States.

So there are a lot of things that we do in this bill to make sure that we have got the balance and are moving in the right direction on our technical capabilities.

Another key element of this bill is we have heard consistently from our field personnel and others within the intelligence community, especially those involved in the counterterrorism effort, that we cannot fund counterterrorism on an ad hoc basis. So what we did in this bill is we have authorized the majority of the dollars that we believe will be needed to build our intelligence capability and to fund the war on terrorism.

We think it is important to send to the intelligence community a clear signal of how much money they are going to have so they can do the appropriate planning and the ramping up of resources in the waging of this global war on terrorism.

As I said at the beginning of my statement, we have done this on a bipartisan basis. We have taken a strategic look at what the intelligence community, where it needs to be and where it needs to go. We are going to continue working in that effort. I think as Members see through the debate, we have made a lot of progress and there is more work to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight who has been working very effectively with the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) to do the work that an oversight subcommittee is expected to do.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), a new member of the committee, a very valuable member, and also a member of the House Committee on Armed Services.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, and our partner in making sure that we have a solid and strong intelligence community as well as the best fighting forces, the best military in the world.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, as we take a look at the technical programs and we take a look at the structure of the intelligence community, at the end of the day it is about the people in the intelligence community. As we have conducted our oversight responsibilities in developing this bill, we have had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the intelligence professionals throughout the community and around the world. I believe I can speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say that we hold in the highest regard the work accomplished by these dedicated U.S. intelligence community personnel.

At great sacrifice, often under extreme and intense conditions, and at great personal risk, the men and women of the intelligence community continue to perform their missions with great energy, professionalism, and devotion to the national security mission. I commend these patriots for their heroism, their integrity, and their perseverance. These honorable people form the first line of defense for our Nation. Our freedoms and the very security of our country rely on their successes. Those successes are things we cannot and do not often have the opportunity to talk about.

Unfortunately, and quite wrongly, it is the rare but overlooked publicized failures that they are credited with. I stand here today and say thank you to these tremendous people. They deserve our support, and that is what we are doing with this legislation today.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I would like to get to some of the specifics of the legislation. I want to make an observation about the overall position we have

taken. It is my belief, and we have seen it today, that we may be harshly criticized by some for being too bold or aggressive with some of our actions. Indeed, we have already been told that we were not incremental enough. I want to take head-on those who take such positions.

There is no question that what is being proposed today is bold and sweeping in some areas. Without getting into the classified specifics, based on our strategic review, we are cutting back dramatically in some cases, on some technical programs that have had poor performance or could be modified for better utility for the Nation's intelligence efforts.

We are terminating some programs that we do not believe fit in the overall architecture for the intelligence community. We have analyzed these programs extensively, asked the tough questions, and focused on the resulting intelligence output. To paraphrase from a Hollywood movie line, these programs have been weighed, they have been measured, and they have been found wanting.

We are then taking the resulting savings and applying that to historically underfunded areas in the human intelligence and human capital areas. Specifically, we are focusing needed emphasis on adding human intelligence specialists, improving the training of analysts, improving the training of case officers, and making more robust the infrastructure necessary to gain their expertise, and then better employ that expertise.

We have quite simply in the past paid too much lip service to those basic needs, while continuing to fund expensive technical programs that, although important, do not make up for the lack of analysts, lack of worldwide coverage, lack of training, and lack of basic infrastructure. In sum, we are doing the heavy lifting that should have been done long ago. We are acting boldly and positively on the task our former chairman gave us.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers at this time either, so I believe I have the right to close. The gentlewoman will close on her side, and we will have no additional speakers. I will close on our side.

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

Madam Speaker, today before closing general debate, I would like to briefly offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles G. Allen, as many of us know him, Charlie, as he completes his tour of duty as the assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency for collection.

He has served the intelligence community with great distinction, and I will later seek consent in the House to submit a more lengthy tribute into the Record.

But just briefly, he is a native of North Carolina. Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, both in analytical and managerial capacity. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence.

I think that all of the Members in the House, and all of the Members and the staff on the committee who have gotten to know Mr. Allen over the last number of years, number one, we are glad that he is still working on special assignment with Mr. Goss; but we really want to extend our congratulations to him for almost slightly over 45 years of service to this country within the intelligence community, a real national asset in the intelligence business.

Madam Speaker, I include for the Record a statement on Assistant Director Allen.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles E. Allen as he completes his tour of duty as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. Since its creation by the Congress 7 years ago, he has served in this position with distinction.

Mr. Allen was appointed as the first Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. As such, he was responsible for Intelligence Community collection management, and specifications for our next generation of collection systems. During these past 7 years he has come to personify the position, personalize the management of this nation's scarce intelligence collection assets, confound his early critics, and overall achieve positive results beyond even the expectations of his supporters, who are legion. His service has been a great asset, and Congress has regularly drawn upon his experience and judgment.

A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility both in analytic and managerial capacities. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence.

Mr. Allen served as program manager of a major classified project, from 1980 to 1982 in the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and was subsequently detailed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he held a senior position in strategic mobilization planning.

In 1985 the Director of Central Intelligence requested Mr. Allen's return from the Secretary of Defense's office to serve as the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism, and later as Chief of Intelligence in the CIA's newly established Counterterrorist Center. Many of Mr. Allen's successes have and shall continue to remain secret, but two that have become more publicly known illustrate his contributions; he played a key role in apprehending the hijackers who killed an American citizen on the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and he correctly brought to the DCI's attention certain matters which served to stimulate the Iran-Contra investigation.

Mr. Allen served as the National Intelligence Officer for Warning from 1988 to 1994 and chaired the Intelligence Community's Warning Committee. From these positions he issued timely warnings of events of momentous importance, confounding most intelligence officers who did not share his prescience.

Mr. Allen was awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Achievement in 1983 by DCI Casey and the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1986 by President Reagan. In 1991, he was presented the CIA Commendation Medal for provision of warning intelligence in Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

He and his wife, Kay, reside in Herndon, Virginia, where they raised four children.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Allen has already enjoyed a long and luminous career in intelligence, and as he steps down from his current position I hope all my colleagues will recognize the extraordinary contributions Mr. Charles E. Allen has made to our National Security as a lifelong professional intelligence officer. I hope my colleagues will honor him as a great American and pioneer in the management of intelligence collection inter alia.

Finally, Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our confidence in his continued ability and willingness to serve the Nation as she shall call upon him.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Madam Speaker, in closing, again I would like to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked to put together a very, very good bill, my colleagues on my side of the aisle.

We have put together, I think, a very, very strong bill. I think it deserves broad bipartisan support. It sets us in the right direction. As my colleague has indicated, there is more work to do. We do need to take a look at the technical programs. These are critical to the long- term success of our intelligence community, to make sure that public policymakers have the information that we need to make the right decisions.

I appreciate the gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Harman) support as we have gone through this process and recognizing that there are issues and concerns about the performance of some of these programs and so that we have the agreement on that.

Where we are disagreeing and having some discussions right now is what is the most effective way to respond to those problems and issues. We want accountability. We want performance. We want to spend the taxpayer dollars wisely. And I am sure that as we continue to go through this process, work with our colleagues on the other side of this building, and work with the administration, we will come to a conclusion, hopefully, that we can all agree to.

I applaud the committee and our work in taking some of these steps

that I think we all recognize needed to be taken and that we are committed to addressing those problems.

With that, Madam Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, but I do not object to the amendment.

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

Madam Speaker, I will not oppose this amendment. I believe the author will have a perfecting amendment.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for that change.

I think the reason we are accepting the amendment is in the spirit that it was offered by my colleague from New York and, I believe, my colleague from Connecticut. We on the committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and myself have laid down as one of the parameters and one of the things that we expect from the oversight subcommittee is to vigorously and aggressively track the implementation of the intelligence reform bill.

I agree in the time that the gentlewoman and I have been in Congress together until we pass Federal prison industries reform, this will be one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we will have worked on together.

There are some talking points on the technicality as to what ``fully operational'' means, and those types of things; and whether it is fully operational now and whether it could have been fully operational before June 17, because that is when the law came into effect, we fully understand and appreciate the concern that the gentlewoman has in bringing this amendment forward, that we on the committee and that Congress and the American people be fully informed as to the progress we are making in implementing the intelligence reform bill.

We are committed to doing that. We are committed to staying informed on

the committee, riding herd over the director of National Intelligence to make sure that this bill is implemented to the full intent of Congress when we passed it.

So it is in light of the spirit of that approach that we accept this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank my colleagues for working through this amendment and making the necessary changes. As I indicated earlier, we are willing to accept this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused, as I listened to those on the other side as to whether we have or have not done oversight. The author of the amendment says there has been no oversight. My ranking member applauds the work that the committee has done in its role of doing oversight on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. Speaker, we are at a time of war that was not begun by the making of the United States. We are at war against an international terrorist movement that has engaged our country in a clash of values driven by those who fundamentally oppose American democracy and freedom.

The 9/11 Commission emphasized the importance of engaging the terrorists in the ``struggle of ideas,'' noting that many views in the Muslim world of the United States are ``at best uninformed about the United States and, at worst, informed by cartoonish stereotypes among intellectuals who caricature U.S. values and policies. Local newspapers and the few influential satellite broadcasters, like al Jazeera, often reinforce the jihadist theme that portrays the United States as anti- Muslim.''

Mr. Speaker, comments that significantly exaggerate and overstate the situation in Guantanamo Bay do nothing but reinforce the false perceptions of America that have encouraged our enemies.

There is aggressive oversight under way by the executive branch and by Congress into our detention procedures. It is only because of this aggressive oversight and the freedoms provided by American democracy that we are having this discussion in the first place. The system is working properly, and we should continue to let it work; and for those who do not know about the work that is going on, perhaps they could ask.

So when senior Members of Congress, including a member of the minority leadership in the Senate, exaggerate and distort these issues, including by comparing American soldiers to Nazis, those comments do nothing but reinforce the false prejudices abroad that have led us to war.

As an example, I note that the al Jazeera network gave prominent coverage to the remarks of a Member of the Senate comparing the actions of U.S. soldiers to Nazis, Soviet gulags, and a mad regime like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

A columnist in the Chicago Sun Times said of those remarks: ``He should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done.'' What did he do? ``In a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies.''

We are better than those who oppose us. Our oversight has exposed our weaknesses. Now is the time to move on.

To quote from President Roosevelt's ``Man in the Arena'' speech: ``It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.''

I want this Congress to be seen as a doer of deeds. If we fail, we fail while daringly great. To do anything less would be unworthy of the House of Representatives.

Self-loathing of America on the floor of this House accomplishes nothing but fueling the fires abroad that seek to destroy America's democracy and our way of life. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2475, the strongest intelligence authorization bill to emerge from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in recent memory. Without the funding authorized in this bill, the brave men and women of the intelligence community would not be able to do their jobs which are so vital to the defense of our country. I and many other members of the committee have visited these intelligence professionals in some of the most austere places of the world, and they deserve our gratitude and support.

I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and thank him and all of the members and staff of our hardworking committee for their bipartisanship and patriotism. As one of our members, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger) often says, we put America first.

Our members have made a difference. In April 2004, all nine Democrats on the Intelligence Committee introduced legislation that became the basis for the 9/11 Commission's Report and the intelligence reform legislation passed by Congress last fall. That reform dramatically reshaped our intelligence community, unifying 15 agencies under the leadership of a director of National Intelligence.

This year's intelligence authorization bill authorizes funds for that new office. The DNI must succeed in his job and he deserves our support. He is responsible for ensuring that intelligence is timely, accurate and actionable. To do this, he needs authority to build and execute budgets and move personnel. So I am pleased that we removed a provision in this bill that would have severely eroded the DNI's authority to move personnel around the intelligence community.

Mr. Speaker, in the fight against terrorists, intelligence is the tip of the spear. Some see this fight as a traditional war, requiring wartime emergency budgets and wartime authorities for the President. That may have been the right approach immediately after 9/11. We fought a war in Afghanistan and achieved an impressive victory.

But the terrorist threat has changed. Today we no longer face a centralized top-down terrorist organization operating out of one country. We face a network of loosely affiliated terrorist groups which operate as franchises around the world, and that is why I believe we are living in an era of terror.

This legislation does some good things to help us achieve victory in an era of terror.

First, it ends our reliance on emergency supplemental budgets for counterterrorism. The budget the President sent to Congress this year funded less than 40 percent of the intelligence community counterterrorism requirements, leaving the rest for emergency supplementals. This bill changes that on a bipartisan basis, and we fund 100 percent of CT requirements.

Second, this legislation incorporates a resolution introduced by all nine Democrats, urging the new DNI to establish a multi-tiered security clearance system to allow patriotic Americans with relatives in foreign countries to obtain security clearances and serve our Nation. It is high time we do this. This will help with field officers who can speak the languages and blend in with terrorist groups, penetrate proliferation networks, and recruit spies against the toughest targets.

Victory in an era of terror will not be achieved by military might alone, Mr. Speaker. Victory will require America to win the argument for the hearts and minds of the next generation in the Arab and Muslim world. I fear that we are presently losing that argument.

The ongoing revelations about abuses at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere undermine our ability to maintain the moral high ground and be seen as a beacon of democracy and human

rights. I am encouraged that our committee's new oversight subcommittee is investigating abuses that have occurred in our interrogation and detention programs within the intelligence community. This is a serious bipartisan investigation. But I also support a broader public bipartisan inquiry into detention policies across the government so that our efforts to fight the terrorists do not become a moral black eye for America that undermines our security.

One area where this legislation can be improved, Mr. Speaker, is in its approach to technical systems. The details of these systems are classified and cannot be discussed openly. But I am concerned that we have made sudden, drastic cuts to certain programs that may lead to a gap in our intelligence capabilities and erode the industrial base needed to develop critical capabilities in the future. I am pleased that the chairman is committed to addressing this problem with me as the bill moves to conference.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, this is strong legislation that puts us on the right track to achieve victory in an era of terror. There is more, much more, we must do and we will. The brave men and women of the intelligence community deserve nothing less.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell) who is ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence, a mouthful that we call HACI.

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

Mr. Speaker, the new news on our committee is that we have stood up an oversight subcommittee. Much discussion has been made about this already today.

It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) who is ranking member of the intelligence oversight subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, my home State of California produces many of the platforms and systems that give us the technical edge in intelligence, and I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), my California friend, ranking member of the Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), ranking member on the Intelligence Policy Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I served for 6 years on the Committee on Armed Services and came to admire greatly our next speaker.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to the last speaker that I applaud his comments about the need for this new legislation to succeed. It is critical, in my view, to move from a 1947 business model, which is the one we were operating under, to this one.

I also would point out to our colleagues, as the last speaker knows, that battlefield intelligence is not included in the DNI construct that we built.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), a recent addition to our committee, who is a very active member of our new Subcommittee on Oversight.

Madam Speaker, I associate myself totally with the comments that our chairman just made.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), our rookie on our side.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to comment on the remarks the chairman just made.

Madam Speaker, it is not a zero-sum game, it is not a trade-off between what we call HUMINT, that is, human intelligence, which is primarily the use of spies to tell us the plans and intention of the bad guys, and technology. It is a positive-sum game, or we hope it is a positive-sum game, that balances correctly our investments in HUMINT and our investments in technology.

I said earlier that my home State of California makes many of the technical platforms that we use effectively to gather intelligence. I agree with our chairman that we should take a clear-eyed look at what works and what does not work and what capabilities we need to defeat present and future threats. But some of us, I would say a majority on the minority side, believe that the weighing, measuring, and finding wanting that has gone on in this bill needs further review, that the balance can be better struck.

I look forward to working with the chairman on a better balance as this bill comes to conference, keeping in mind that we want a positive- sum outcome.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a very serious Member of this body, not on our committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the last speaker for his generous words and ask how much time remains on each side.

Madam Speaker, we at the moment have no other speakers on the floor. And I reserve the right to close for our side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, the last 4 years have witnessed two of the worst intelligence failures in our Nation's history. Congress passed intelligence reform and created the DNI position to give the brave women and men of the intelligence community the tools they need to collect and analyze accurate and timely intelligence.

We cannot have any more catastrophic failures where we fail to connect the dots or believe too fervently in the claims of bogus sources. This legislation, the authorization bill we are considering today, is the first funding bill under our new intelligence organization.

It is a strong bill that deserves our support. As we said earlier, for the first time we fully funded counterterrorism in the base budget so we can plan CT operations against our enemies. For the first time we have urged the DNI to create multitier security clearances so we can field a diverse group of intelligence officers who speak the languages and understand the cultures of our adversaries.

I am proud to say these were two ideas offered by the committee Democrats that gained bipartisan support in our committee. As I have said, there are ways this bill can be improved further. And I look forward to working on

this as we move to conference. But this is a bipartisan product that deserves bipartisan support.

And before I close, I do want to thank again the hard-working members on both sides of the committee who put so much effort into it day after day, and moreover the hard-working staff on a bipartisan basis.

And let me just identify those on the minority side who are sitting on the floor with me today: David Buckley, staff director; Chuck Gault, deputy staff director; Jeremy Bash, general counsel; Mike DeLaney; Larry Hanauer; John Keefe; Pam Moore; Wyndee Parker, special counsel; and Christine York. They make us look good, and I urge passage of this legislation before us.

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

(Mr. HOEKSTRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the chairman for yielding to me. Charlie Allen is as close as you can come to a legend in the intelligence community. Before the intelligence reform bill passed last year, he was one of the few senior intelligence officers who could get 15 disparate agencies to function as a community. He did that mainly through sheer force of personality.

Our Nation collects intelligence through a variety of means, from spies on the ground to satellites overhead, and everything in between. In his capacity as the assistant director for collection, Charlie got the collectors to understand that they were most effective when they worked together as a team against the hardest targets.

He got them to understand that integrated collection strategies yielded the best outcomes. Under Charlie's leadership, the collectors in the intelligence community have scored some truly impressive victories, and it is unfortunate that these cannot be recounted in public.

I will just tell you that Charlie's service to the Nation was made clear to me the day he told the committee that he had been with the CIA for nearly 50 years. That is an astounding record, and it is certainly appropriate as we close debate on what I think is one of the best authorization bills ever, that we recognize Charlie's service to our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. I want to commend her and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for the enormous work they did outside the intelligence committee. As we were considering the intelligence reform legislation last year, the faces that I saw on a constant basis were theirs and the families. And I often have said that the families were the wind beneath our wings. I would add a couple of Members of Congress to that, too, and I thank them for all they did.

I am very pleased that the majority is accepting the amendment. It is a good idea for us to make absolutely clear that the NCTC, the National Counter Terrorism Center, is a vital piece of the reform we enacted last year and that it needs to be fully operational ASAP.

To explain further, one of the big mistakes we made leading up to 9/ 11 is everyone now knows our failure to connect the dots. Obviously, having a fusion center designed for this purpose is a very good way to make sure we do not fail to connect the dots the next time.

So it took, I would say, the introduction of this amendment to cause the President to nominate a very able fellow, Vice Admiral Redd, to be the director of the NCTC. He did that 2 days after this amendment was presented in the Committee on Rules. And perhaps now that we are accepting it as part of today's debate, the NCTC will become fully operational even before that prison reform bill is enacted.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I strongly support this. I support the team that has brought this to us. And I would note to this body, that bill last year that we worked so hard on gets its real sea legs today as the House takes this necessary step in funding its critical parts and in making clear that we will not accept any efforts to roll back the jurisdiction of the DNI, who is going to be the commander of the tip of the spear in this era of terror.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and commend him for sponsoring this notion of an independent commission to look at detainee abuses.

Mr. Speaker, though I am a strong supporter of this legislation, I think it would be even better if it included language to establish this commission, and so I support the motion to recommit the bill for the purpose of adding the gentleman from California's (Mr. Waxman) amendment.

Military historians often talk about the ``fog of war.'' I believe our intelligence professionals operate in a fog of law, a confusing patchwork of treaties, laws, memos and policies.

Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says that it is Congress' responsibility to establish rules concerning captures on land and water. I hope that we will seize this responsibility.

But as Congress studies the policy options going forward, it is vital that we have the facts. Only a bipartisan, independent commission can get to the bottom of what happened among administration policymakers within the military chain of command and out in the field.

The steady stream of revelations about Guantanamo and other facilities around the world erode our moral credibility, just as we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world.

It is vital to our national security, Mr. Speaker, that we fix this problem so that our detention and interrogation policies get us actionable intelligence without creating a whole new generation of terrorist recruits. Pretending that there is no problem is not a strategy for success.

So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, our committee, on a bipartisan basis, is looking into these issues through our Subcommittee on Oversight. I commend our progress; but in addition, I think the public will have more confidence in what we are doing if we also have an outside, independent commission.

In that spirit, I support the Waxman motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 180) to support initiatives developed by the Firefighter Life Safety Summit and the mission of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the United States Fire Administration to reduce firefighter fatalities and injuries, to encourage implementation of the new ``Everyone Goes Home'' campaign to make firefighter safety a national priority, and to support the goals of the national ``stand down'' called by fire organizations.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 180.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the early 1970s, a report by the President's National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, entitled ``America Burning,'' presented a dismal assessment of fire safety in the United States. The report found that the U.S. had one of the worst, one of the worst, fire safety records in the industrialized world with nearly 12,000 citizens and 250 firefighters lost to fires annually.

In the years that followed that seminal report, the U.S. Fire Administration was created. Fire prevention and fire safety awareness programs were made a priority in communities across the country. And by 1980, deaths suffered from both citizens and firefighters had been significantly reduced. These improvements steadily continued into the 1980s, and by the end of the 1990s, firefighter deaths had been reduced to an average of about 100 annually. A dramatic drop; still too many.

Unfortunately, after 3 decades of great progress, firefighter deaths are disturbingly once again on the rise. In 2003, 112 firefighters lost their lives in the line of duty. Last year 117 died. And so far this year, there have been 58 deaths, on pace for about 130, which is about a 30 percent increase over the average of the previous decade. That, Mr. Speaker, is totally unacceptable.

These troubling statistics have triggered an unprecedented effort by the leadership of America's fire service to address this problem, and the concurrent resolution before us today recognizes and supports those efforts.

Specifically, the concurrent resolution supports three important efforts, which I will briefly describe. First, the resolution supports the 16 fire safety initiatives developed at a recent Firefighter Life Safety Summit convened by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The initiatives were developed to support the U.S. Fire Administration's goal, developed under the strong leadership of Administrator David Paulison, of reducing firefighter fatalities by 25 percent within 5 years and 50 percent within 10 years. We are talking about life.

The initiatives range from broad ideas on the need for cultural change within the fire service related to safety to specific goals such as the development of national standards for training, certification, and physical fitness.

The second effort recognized by this concurrent resolution is the ``Everyone Goes Home'' campaign to make firefighter safety a national priority. The campaign, led by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, intends to raise fire safety awareness and bring fire prevention to the forefront, using the 16 fire safety initiatives as a blueprint for change.

And the third effort recognized by this concurrent resolution is a national ``stand down'' for firefighter safety. Today, all across the country, fire departments are being urged to suspend all nonemergency activity and instead focus entirely on firefighter safety, calling attention to the unacceptable number of line-of-duty deaths and injuries. During the stand down, fire departments will talk about the causes of line-of-duty deaths, check apparatus and equipment, discuss health and safety regulations, review fire ground safety issues, and take stock of training needs and fitness goals. The International Association of Fire Chiefs has also requested that all volunteer departments conduct a special safety meeting the evening of June 21, today, or as near to this date as is possible.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to bring attention to the firefighter safety problem that the fire service is facing today and recognize the importance of these efforts. But this problem, of course, cannot be addressed with one day of recognition. It will take years of steadfast commitment and cooperation by those in the fire service as well as the general public to achieve the fire safety goals set forth by the U.S. Fire Administration. But I am confident that if we work together, we will be successful; and I am hopeful that today's stand down marks an important turning point in our struggle to reduce line- of-duty deaths by firefighters.

And let me just add parenthetically that I am proud to be a Member of this great institution, the Congress of the United States, which has been responsible for initiating the Fire Safety Grant Award program, the SAFER program, providing resources. They get enough words from us on Capitol Hill about how supportive we are of the fire services. They want deeds, and we on a bipartisan basis have followed through by providing literally hundreds of million of dollars to firefighters across the country to get the necessary lifesaving equipment they need to do the job we expect of them: protecting us in our homes and our neighborhoods, our communities.

So we all should take a brief moment to pat ourselves on the back for what we have done responsibly to respond to the problem. But that is not enough, and the fight continues, and I am proud to be a warrior in that fight. None of us had to be drafted. We enlisted.

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

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

In wrapping up, I just want to recall a story about when I was a freshman Member of this great body 23 years ago. I sat on the Committee on Science, and we have jurisdiction over firefighter programs. I recall one of the witnesses being asked if there was a distinction between the professional and volunteer firefighters, and one of my senior colleagues at the time quickly demanded recognition from the chair, and he said to that Member asking the question, There are no amateurs in this business; they are all professionals. Some are paid, some are volunteer, but they are all professionals.

The recognition of that has prompted all of us to initiate the fire safety Grant program, to initiate the SAFER program. We expect so much of our firefighters. They need the resources to do the job that we demand that they do every single day.

All of us in our consciousness have a new appreciation for what the firefighters of America do as a result of 9/11 when 343 firefighters lost their lives. They gave their all for this Nation. Since then, we have developed in some quarters, where there was no prior recognition of the need of the fire service, a new appreciation for what we have to do.

Once again, let me credit this institution. We are often criticized for not being as responsive as some would like to some of the issues facing us across this country. But this institution, on a bipartisan basis, has responded to the call.

Today's resolution is about words and concepts and ideas, but more meaningful is the action, the deeds that we do by appropriating money, by following through to make certain that money is used for its intended purpose and used wisely, and it is. So this, in a sense, is an affirmation of our great appreciation for the firefighters, the men and women all across America on a very professional basis who daily are providing some measure of security for us in our homes and in our communities, and in our Nation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, the preamble to the Constitution tells us that one of the first responsibilities of the Federal government is to ``provide for the common defense.''

My 10 years on the House Intelligence Committee have given me an appreciation for the vital role the men and women in our intelligence agencies play in doing just that.

Many of them take extraordinary risks on a daily basis in an effort to gather the information policy makers and military commanders need to make sound decisions. They are deeply dedicated to preserving our country's security, and each of us is grateful for their hard work and sacrifice.

They need an intelligence system that is as strong, smart, and competent as they are, and this bill takes several strong steps towards making sure we have that system.

I want to commend Chairman Hoekstra and Ranking Member Harman for their leadership and hard work in making sure that this legislation addresses not only the immediate needs of the intelligence community, but helps plan for the future as well.

However, it would be a mistake for us to pass this bill and declare that our work is done and that we have fulfilled our responsibility to the intelligence community and the American people.

It has now been more than 1,700 days since the September 11th terrorist attacks changed our Nation, and laid bare the holes in our intelligence gathering system.

It has been 11 months since the independent 9/11 Commission issued its findings and made its recommendations about how to close those gaps.

It has been nearly a year since the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that our intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities was fundamentally flawed--a conclusion that was recently confirmed by the Presidential Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In part, this bill provides the resources the intelligence community needs to prepare for the future by learning from mistakes made in the past. However, these recent reports--notably those of the 9/11 Commission and the Robb-Silberman Commission--point to the need to do far more than simply fund the intelligence community.

These two commissions made many recommendations for significant change in the way the intelligence agencies operate and are overseen by Congress, the way the intelligence community is managed, and in other matters associated with better protecting the American people from the threats posed by terrorists, particularly terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.

It was an intelligence authorization bill that established the 9/11 Commission, and it is therefore appropriate that in the context of the debate on this authorization measure, and with the first anniversary of the release of the Commission's report and recommendations fast approaching, we reflect on the recommendations that have been implemented, and on those that have not.

The Commission concluded that more centralized management of the intelligence community was needed, and that the manager had to have considerable power over people and money. The first Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador Negroponte is now in office. He faces a daunting task. We all hope he is successful in it.

That is why it was so surprising and regrettable that the Intelligence Committee, over the objections of Congresswoman Harman and the other Democratic Members, chose to welcome him with an effort to restrict his power. What a terribly negative message that provision sent about the commitment of the majority to intelligence reform. This bill is much improved with that provision removed, as the rule has done.

The impetus for this ill-advised action reportedly came from officials in the Department of Defense. We created the position of DNI to help address the interagency squabbling that leads to intelligence failures. This is simply no place for power grabs or bureaucratic self- protection and preservation on the part of the Pentagon.

Just as it was an intelligence authorization bill that created the 9/ 11 commission, I had hoped that this intelligence authorization would include Mr. Waxman's proposal to create a commission to investigate the prisoner abuses in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib, and at Guantanamo.

That will not occur as a result of actions taken by the Republican majority on the Rules Committee. For our international standing, our sense of fairness and decency, and to establish more effective means of intelligence gathering, these abuses must be examined.

As former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, attorney Floyd Abrams, and our former colleague Bob Barr wrote in The Washington Post on June 7: ``This is a time when we should be making extra efforts to reach out to Muslims and to ask them to work with us in the war against terrorism. Instead, our failure to undertake a thorough and credible investigation has caused severe resentment of the United States.''

Some of those who opposed most strongly an independent investigation of the 9/11 attacks also oppose an independent investigation of the prisoner abuse scandal. That is unacceptable.

But just as the American people would not accept the initial refusal to establish a 9/11 Commission, so too will demands continue for an independent commission to investigate the prisoner abuses in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere.

Our country's standing in the eyes of the world depends on getting to the bottom of the prisoner abuse matter--a fact that will ultimately force the majority of this House to stop placing obstacles in the path of a full and independent inquiry.

Unfortunately this is not the only initiative this Congress has failed to act on. Despite the unanimity with which they were adopted and the near universal acclaim they have produced, some critical recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission have gone unfulfilled. For example, Chairman Kean pointed earlier this month to the failure to allocate more of the broadcast spectrum to first responder communications as ``almost a scandal.'' Congresswoman Harman has been a leader in trying to resolve this problem and I congratulate her for her efforts.

Chairman Kean also emphasized what has long been known to Members of the Intelligence Committee: the greatest danger facing the United States is a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, and the best way to address that is to safeguard or destroy WMD components, especially nuclear material, at its source.

Intelligence plays a huge role in efforts to combat proliferation of nuclear material and technology, but money is needed to better protect or acquire these materials in the countries where they were developed. We are simply not providing enough resources to this effort.

Finally, the 9/11 Commissioners have been clear in their assessment that, unless Congress overhauls the procedures by which it oversees the work of the intelligence agencies, intelligence reform will not be successful.

The House has not undertaken the kind of comprehensive review of the oversight process that the Commission believes to be necessary. I have let the Speaker know, repeatedly, that Democrats are prepared to work cooperatively on this review. It is imperative that we begin this task soon--we have already waited far too long.

This bill enjoys broad bipartisan support from members of the Committee, and I intend to support it. In doing so, however, I urge that the House dedicate itself to finishing the job begun last fall with the adoption of the 9/11 intelligence reform bill and address completely all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 180, which supports initiatives by the National Fire Service to reduce firefighter fatalities and injuries.

I want to congratulate the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for introducing this important measure. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is co-chair of the Fire Caucus and is a leading supporter of fire services in Congress and would be here now speaking except that he is in a markup on another legislation.

This concurrent resolution calls attention to the need to take action to reduce firefighter deaths and injury. It explicitly endorses a call from the major fire service organizations for a stand down to promote fire safety. The stand down would apply to every volunteer and career fire department in the Nation.

It would require that each department suspend all nonemergency activities in order to concentrate on measures to raise awareness of safety issues and to institute steps to improve safety.

A growing perception of the need to take corrective action to improve safety was the motivation for a major summit meeting of the fire service community in March 2004. The summit developed 16 firefighter life safety initiatives which are listed in the House resolution.

Unfortunately, despite widespread dissemination and discussion of the initiatives, corrective action has been slow to develop, and the trend in loss in life in the fire service has not improved. The stand down constitutes an action to try to change the culture, which is widely believed to be a key factor in bringing about constructive change.

The fire services perform a critical public safety role, and all Americans respect the high level of devotion to duty and sacrifice that characterize the service personnel. I applaud this resolution that seeks to reduce the loss of life and serious injury that too often occur to firefighters during the performance of their hazardous duties.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this resolution to my colleagues and ask for their support in its passage by the House. Our firefighters have done an incredible job of fire prevention and rescue, saving millions of lives. It is our turn to make sure that we help them by reducing loss of life and serious injury through this resolution.

If I may, I would just like to take a moment to read the names of those that have died in Oregon since 1997. There are 23 names: Randall E. Carpenter, Coos Bay Fire and Rescue; Jeffrey E. Common, Coos Bay Fire and Rescue; Chuck Hanners, Coos Bay Fire and Rescue; Paul E. Gibson, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg, Oregon; David Kelly Hammer, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg, Oregon; Jeffrey D. Hingel, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg; Jesse James, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg; Richard Burt ``Richie'' Moore, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg; Leland Price, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg, Oregon Department of Forestry Contractor; Mark

Robert Ransdell, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg, Oregon; Ricardo M. Ruiz, First Strike Environmental, Roseburg, Oregon; Robert Chisholm, Gearhart Volunteer Fire Department; Daniel Eric Rama, Grayback Forestry, Inc.; Bartholomew Blake Bailey, Grayback Forestry; Retha Mae Shirley, Grayback Forestry, Inc.; Larry A. Brown, Kingsley Field Fire Department, Klamath Falls; John Robert Hazlett, Odell Fire District; D. Craig Mackey, Oregon Department of Forestry; Lawrence J. ``Larry'' Hoffman, Oregon Department of Forestry; Thomas Howard Kistler, Polk County Fire District 1; Randall Harmon, Superior Helicopter, Grants Pass; George P. Converse, USDA Forest Service; Alan W. Wyatt, USDA Forest Service; and Richard W. Black, Weyerhaeuser, Eugene Helicopter Operation.

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

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

I read a list of 23 names from just those in Oregon, but that list could go on and on and on, depending on the State. I am hoping that through this resolution, although I am not foolish enough to believe that there will be no names, but I would sure like to see that reduced to as few as possible. They have done an incredible service to our country, to our communities, and I wish that for every profession we could look at a little bit later on and say, you have done this amazing job of prevention. Mr. Speaker, they are the ones that really make sure that every home, every business had a fire detector, and we think of the number of lives they have saved just by making sure we had that prevention piece. They have done it over and over and over again.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) is right, they were volunteers, but they were professional. They were there training, they were there every night of the week training, they worked all day. Yet when a fire called, they came from wherever they were to make sure that they helped put out that fire and saved and rescued lives. I represent a district that has many rural communities and, again, we have many volunteer fire departments, but they are professional. I hope my colleagues would support this measure.

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