Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we begin today a historic debate on the floor of this House that commences the annual authorization process for the Department of Homeland Security. This annual process is designed to…
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, we begin today a historic debate on the floor of this House that commences the annual authorization process for the Department of Homeland Security. This annual process is designed to recognize that the function of the Department of Homeland Security is the essence of our government's national security mission, protecting the American people and our territory.
This is the same national security mission ultimately that is performed in different ways by the Pentagon and by the intelligence community. Both the Pentagon and the intelligence community for this same reason undergo an annual authorization process in the Congress. That is a collaboration between the executive and the legislative branches that is necessary to ensure that we fulfill this most vital function.
We must remember that the Department of Homeland Security in the executive branch and the Committees on Homeland Security in this House and in the other body were formed because the congressional leadership and the President recognized that neither branch of government as then constituted was properly organized to deal with the 21st century threat of terrorism directed against Americans on our own territory. On an ongoing basis, the Congress and the executive need to focus together on this vital process and the annual authorization is the means for doing so.
The Department of Homeland Security authorization bill that is before the House today reflects an impressive bipartisan effort. That is due, in large part, to the strong and able leadership of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson). The Members on both sides of the aisle have never forgotten for a single day since September 11, 2001, that the security of the American people must be placed above politics.
So as we meet today to consider the Department of Homeland Security authorization bill for fiscal year 2006, we find that we have forged agreement on many important challenges facing our country and the Department, and on ways to begin to address them. In establishing the procedures for bringing this annual authorization bill to the floor, we have been guided by the long-standing practices of the Committee on Armed Services and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Those committees have always brought to the floor bills that live within the spending boundaries established in the House-passed budget. H.R. 1817, the Department of Homeland Security authorization bill also does exactly that.
To have credibility, a national security authorization bill must set the executive's priorities within the framework of its actual budgetary resources. It does little good for us to pretend that the Department of Homeland Security has infinite budget resources, and then give it mandates that it cannot carry out. So this bill funds priorities within the overall DHS budget, not on top of it.
Within that constraint, we have been able to accomplish a great deal more for the security of the American people and for this country. We fully fund the 2,000 new Border Patrol agents called for in the Intelligence Reform Act passed last year, and we increase the Department of Homeland Security's funding by nearly one-quarter of a billion dollars for this purpose.
The bill authorizes $40 million so that immigration and customs enforcement can expedite illegal alien removal. It provides $5 million in new funding to implement the Safety Act so we can more quickly deploy anti-terrorism technologies to protect the American people from terrorism. It adds $20 million for interoperable communications and technical assistance for our first responders. It increases funding for cybersecurity research and development and for cybersecurity education and training.
Within the Department of Homeland Security budget that this House has already approved, we have authorized $40 million in additional funds to support the training of State and local law enforcement personnel so they can help enforce Federal immigration laws. This provision is contained in a separate amendment that I will offer today with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) of the Committee on the Judiciary.
On these and all other funding decisions in the bill, we have had to make hard choices and set priorities. That is our responsibility. As a result, we have not funded every initiative to protect against every conceivable means by which terrorists might mount an attack. But what we have done is based our funding decisions on the best intelligence available, on terrorist capabilities and intentions, and on the actual risk of terrorist attack. The bill also advances our prime objective of preventing terrorism by improving our intelligence capability within the Department of Homeland Security.
Prevention of terrorism requires that information sharing about terrorist threats be seamless, that it be timely, and that that communication be secure. That is exactly what this bill accomplishes, both within the Department of Homeland Security and across the Federal Government and with our State, local and private sector partners. It provides the Department of Homeland Security with new tools to build a robust intelligence capability. It strengthens the partnership with these other stakeholders.
Those partnerships are essential in sustaining the counterterrorism mission into the foreseeable future, and the bill will help the Department of Homeland Security to streamline and integrate the multitude of different background checks and security screenings that are conducted for travelers, workers and other critical personnel who are required to undergo security checks by the Department.
The bill revises the color-coded homeland security advisory system to make sure that threat warnings are specific and informative, and wherever possible, that these warnings be targeted. By targeting these warnings to the areas of the country or sectors of the economy that are threatened, we can be sure that we are warning the right people and not needlessly scaring the wrong people. We also need to make sure that the Federal Government gives clear guidance and speaks with one voice when it issues such warnings. This bill will ensure this happens.
This authorization bill is shorter this year than it will ever be in future years. That is because, first, the Department itself is only 2 years old, and Congress has just recently written the entire legislative charter for the Department.
Second, we have a new homeland security Secretary who is just concluding his top to bottom 90-day review of the entire department. We want to give Secretary Chertoff the opportunity to draw his own road map, both organizationally and programatically, of where this Department should go.
We will proceed on additional authorizing legislation later this year once we have had the opportunity through hearings and oversight to evaluate the Secretary's proposals.
Mr. Chairman, I conclude by thanking the Members on both sides of the aisle and the House leadership on both sides of the aisle for their foresight in creating the Committee on Homeland Security within the House of Representatives and for allowing us to initiate this annual authorization process on the floor. This is a significant milestone on our long journey toward keeping America safe from terrorism.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).
Mr. Chairman, we have no more speakers on our side, and I reserve the balance of the time for closing.
Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi for purposes of closing debate.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), both for his generous remarks but, more importantly, for his hard work on this piece of legislation over a period of several months and, as he pointed out, through ultimately a very long, arduous markup in the committee where members on both sides had an unlimited opportunity to offer amendments and consider a variety of topics.
As we conclude general debate and prepare to move into debate on the specific amendments on this bill, I think we can recognize one important fact, and that is that we are all agreed on the essence of the underlying bill. We have some things, each of us, that we might like to add to this bill, and I predict that in due course, over the rest of this year, we will have an opportunity again on this House floor to take up issues, including aviation security, chemical security, port security, and so on.
But the entirety of what we do accomplish in this bill is bipartisan in nature and agreed upon by the members on both sides of the aisle, at least in the Committee on Homeland Security, and we will soon see about the House as a whole. That is because we have allocated the $32 billion, for what is now the third largest Cabinet department, in a way that demonstrably advances our number one goal of preventing terrorism in the future on American soil, directed against American citizens, protecting America's most critical infrastructure against terrorist attack, and being prepared to respond and recover should, against all our best preparations, that ever occur in the future.
In order to bring us to this point, we have had to have a great deal of bipartisan assistance, all motivated by the best interests of the country from Members on both sides.
I specifically want to mention the vice chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon); the chairmen and ranking members of our five subcommittees, and the Staff Directors on both sides, Ben Cohen on the Majority side and Calvin Humphreys on the minority side. The staffs have done extraordinary professional work, and their staffs are drawn from, in many cases, the executive branch, with experience about precisely the work and the programs that we are overseeing in this legislation. Many of them have come from the intelligence community, others come from the Coast Guard and other branches of the armed services.
We can be very proud in this House about the institutionalization of the role of homeland security oversight and authorization that has been set in motion as a result of a decision of leadership on both sides, and I want to conclude by taking this opportunity, once again, to thank the House leadership for its very wise decision to create permanent authorizing and oversight responsibility in this Congress on an institutionalized basis, and then, today, taking the next important step of institutionalizing an annual authorization process so that together the legislative branch and the executive branch will closely collaborate on what is the essence of our national security responsibility to all Americans: making sure that we are safe and secure on American territory for the American citizens.
So, Mr. Chairman, with that, I will draw this general debate to a conclusion, and I look forward to working with the body on the several amendments that have been made in order under the rule.
Mr. Chairman, I will at this time introduce into the Record a series of letters exchanged between the Committee on Homeland Security and other standing committees, including the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives, concerning jurisdictional issues raised by this legislation.
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC, May 18, 2005.
Hon. Christopher Cox,
Chairman, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your willingness to
consult and work with me as you guided H.R. 1817, ``the
Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2006'' from introduction, through
the Homeland Security Committee, and to the floor. As you
know, the Committee on Government Reform has been interested
in a number of provisions within H.R. 1817. The Committee has
been concerned that the expansion of the Department's
responsibilities for information sharing in Title II,
Subtitle B, Homeland Security Information Sharing and
Analysis Enhancement, not lessen the Department's
responsibility to follow government-wide policies and
procedures for the sharing of information. In addition to the
information sharing provisions of Subtitle B, the Committee
has specific jurisdictional interests in the following
provisions of your substitute: Sec. 201--Consolidated
Background Check Process; Sec. 216--Coordination of homeland
security threat analysis provided to non-Federal officials;
Sec. 217--9/11 Homeland Security Fellows Program; Sec. 221--
IAIP Personnel Recruitment; Sec. 302--Technology Development
and Transfer; Sec. 303--Review of Antiterrorism Activities;
Title III, Subtitle B--Department of Homeland Security
Cybersecurity Enhancement; Sec. 334--Protection of
Information; and Sec. 502--GAO Report to Congress.
I would like to confirm our mutual understanding with
respect to the consideration of H.R. 1817. As you know, H.R.
1817 was sequentially referred to the Committee on Government
Reform. Because of your willingness to work with us to
resolve issues of concern to the Committee and to include
those improvements to the bill in your amendment in the
nature of a substitute on the floor, the Committee on
Government Reform did not consider H.R. 1817. However, the
Committee has done so only with the understanding that this
procedural route would not prejudice the Committee on
Government Reform's jurisdictional interest and prerogatives
on this bill or similar legislation.
I respectfully request your support for the appointment of
outside conferees from the Committee on Government Reform
should this bill or a similar Senate bill be considered in
conference with the Senate. Finally, I would ask that you
include a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter in
the Congressional Record during the House debate of this
bill. If you have questions regarding this matter, please do
not hesitate to call me. Thank you for your attention to this
matter.
Sincerely,
Tom Davis,
Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, first I want to compliment the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), who is a very able and well-informed Member of the committee and serves as the ranking member on the committee on oversight, which has particular responsibilities in this area. I support his view of the importance of the Inspector General's function inside the Department of Homeland Security and of the mission of fighting waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government, and specifically in the Department of Homeland Security, because it is a critical mission.
The reason, however, that I cannot support the amendment is different than what I have just said. I agree with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) about the Inspector General's function and fighting waste, fraud, and abuse. First, I cannot support it because the authorization of $200 million, which is a tripling of the current budget, has no offset. It is therefore a budget buster.
As I stated in general debate, what has characterized our efforts on the underlying bill is that we are operating within the parameters of the House-passed budget, and specifically the allocation for the overall Department of Homeland Security of $32 billion.
When we make changes in the priorities in the bill by doing something else that is good, we have got to find somewhere to take the money from, and this amendment simply does not do it. It pulls the money from thin air.
Second, the new level of funding that this would establish, the enormous increase from $83 million at present to $200 million, would create an IG office and staff and administration virtually identical in size to that which exists in the largest Cabinet Department, the Department of Defense, even though DOD's budget and empire and responsibilities are 10 times larger than the Department of Homeland Security. So there is a problem of scale.
Third, not withstanding the testimony, correctly cited by my colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), of former IGs about their experience and their need for more staff, the current IG has more staff.
The staffing level of the Office of Inspector General already has grown significantly over the last 3 years from 475 full-time employees in fiscal year 2004, to 502 in fiscal 2005, to 540 in fiscal year 2006.
And for that reason, neither the administration nor the Inspector General himself has asked for this increase that is before us in this amendment.
For all of these reasons, I regretfully oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek).
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I simply want to commend the gentleman from Florida for his leadership on oversight and investigation. I will commit to continuing to work with him on the full committee and to make sure that the IG gets the resources that he needs.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I want to take this opportunity to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) with whom I am offering this amendment.
Our amendment will authorize funds to reimburse States for training costs that they incur if they voluntarily participate in the training of their law enforcement agents for the purposes of enforcing our Nation's immigration laws.
In 1996, I authored section 133 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. That section is now codified as section 287(G) of the INA. It provided and continues to provide as a piece of our permanent legislation local and State law enforcement officers with the option of being trained and deputized by the Federal Government so that they can assist with the enforcement of our immigration laws in the pursuit of their normal duties of protecting citizens from crime.
Over the last 8 years, slowly but surely, we have learned how to use this facility so that the Department has entered into several memoranda of understanding, for example, with the State
of Florida in September 2002, the State of Alabama in September of 2003, and very recently the County of Los Angeles in pursuit of specific authorization by the elected officials of the County of Los Angeles in February of 2005.
So the reason that we are offering this amendment today is that inasmuch as this is a purely voluntary program, offering aid to State and local law enforcement that wants it that is asking for it and is volunteering for it, they should be reimbursed for their costs as first responders of helping us enforce Federal law and achieving the national mission of protecting our borders.
We need to capitalize on existing law enforcement resources by ensuring that State and local law enforcement have the opportunity to receive this training that will help them to protect their local communities.
In turn, those enforcement efforts will help protect the Nation from threats of terrorism. I want to emphasize just a few things. First, this amendment does not alter the fundamental voluntary nature of the participation of States and Federal Government. So no State and no subdivision of the State that does not wish in any way to be involved in the enforcement of our immigration laws will be required to do so, either under existing law or under this fund provision.
Second, the purpose of the law, of the training, and of the reimbursement is to focus on crime and on people who are not only unlawfully in this country but who are committing other crimes, in particular felonies.
Third, the training that is provided by the Federal Government specifically includes training in the areas of civil rights and the prevention of profiling.
I want to reiterate that this amendment does not change or alter any authority that already exists in law. It merely provides funding for States for their first responders who should be reimbursed for this training.
I fully support this program, and I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time.
Mr. Chairman, as my colleagues know, this amendment is offered jointly by myself as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time remains on this side?
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul).
Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding; and if I might, I would like to speak first to the amendment that the gentleman has offered, and then we could engage in a colloquy on a second amendment.
So, Mr. Chairman, I rise therefore in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Rhode Island. As the gentleman observes, we have established in the Federal Government, through the Department of Homeland Security, the Homeland Security Center of Excellence for Behavioral and Social Research on Terrorism and Counterterrorism. This center, which is located in Maryland, was established by a $12 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security in January of this year.
This is the fourth Homeland Security Center of Excellence to be established. Its expertise lies precisely in this area, and it makes a good deal of sense to rely on this newly available expertise as we redesign the homeland security advisory system.
As the gentleman from Rhode Island points out, section 205 of the underlying bill, which we are amending, will already require redesign of that system to move from vague and general warnings to specific warnings that wherever possible are sector specific, industry specific and threat specific; regional in nature wherever possible.
We have to stop issuing vague warnings that only serve to alarm the general public, and we have to provide useful information to the category of people who receive the warning. Using the expertise of this center will accomplish both of these important objectives. And I am very glad that the gentleman from Rhode Island has worked with the staff on the committee to address some concerns with the original draft of the amendment so that we are now completely in accord on both the language and the wisdom of the proposal.
For all of those reasons, I am pleased to accept the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote in its support.
Mr. Chairman, although I am in support of the amendment, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).
I yield myself the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to commend the gentleman from Rhode Island for his comments on and his commitment to this vitally important issue. I too am committed to citizen terrorism preparedness.
I agree that the Department of Homeland Security should make it a priority to engage the American public as partners in homeland security. It simply makes sense to encourage continued dialogue between the Department and its constituency, the American people.
The Department of Homeland Security has taken many important steps to foster just this kind of dialogue. For example, the Department administers the Citizen Corps Program which is specifically designed to improve civilian terrorism preparedness. In addition, the Department Science and Technology Directorate plans to establish a Center of Excellence on Domestic Preparedness and Response Capabilities. When established later this year, this center will engage in mission- oriented research to enhance citizen preparedness and improve citizen input into local, State and Federal preparedness and response efforts.
As chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, I believe it would be prudent for the committee to hold hearings on the purpose and effectiveness of the Department's citizen terrorism preparedness programs. I also agree with the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) that our government's preparedness is contingent upon actively and substantively engaging the citizens, and that that question must be part of our inquiry.
I look forward to working with the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) as well as Members on both sides of the aisle on the Committee on Homeland Security as we examine this topic more closely. I think we all agree that citizen preparedness is simply too important to ignore.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) to speak in support of the amendment which the gentleman offered to the Committee on Rules and was made in order under the rule.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in a colloquy.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Chairman, yes, I agree. Certainly in matters relating to cybersecurity and protection of critical infrastructure, the agencies the gentleman listed will be considered ``relevant Federal agencies.''
Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to engage in a colloquy, if I might, with my colleague from Indiana and begin by sharing with him my support for his objectives and also my shared concern with this issue, which he has clearly identified, of overlapping jurisdictions.
Before the Congress takes the next step of designating a single agency to be the lead on airspace security, it is my view that we need our full Committee on Homeland Security through hearings and oversight to take an in-depth look at the capabilities of each of the agencies involved. Additionally, Secretary Chertoff is just days away from presenting to us the results of his 90-day top-to-bottom review of the Department, and I expect that the results of that review will include issues of mission overlap and also areas needing improved coordination.
So I would be glad to work with the gentleman on this precise issue and to
move with alacrity if he would be willing to withdraw his amendment so that we can consider this in the committee. If that is agreeable to him, I would be happy to make that commitment at this time.
I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I believe the gentleman has very clearly and accurately stated the jurisdictional question on this amendment. It has been determined that it falls within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Homeland Security. For that reason I would propose that the Committee on Homeland Security take up this issue and use its jurisdiction to help solve this problem.
I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's understanding is correct. If the gentleman is willing to withdraw his amendment, the Committee on Homeland Security, through its chairman and ranking member, would formally request this information from the Department of Homeland Security.
As the gentleman knows, the Department of Homeland Security and its Infrastructure Protection Directorate is currently focusing heavily on this part of the country and, as a result, the identification of critical assets, high-risk facilities, the implementation of security measures, and the recommendation of additional mitigation strategies for this region is something that the committee should hear on and, as a result, I would propose, with the ranking member, that we seek the information in this way.
My only concern with the amendment as drafted is that it would set the precedent of establishing a national legislation requirement for IP mandates for specific regions within the States, rather than a national infrastructure strategy.
The gentleman has my commitment on that subject.
Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I would like to claim the time in opposition to the Menendez amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back 2 minutes of my time, and I yield the remaining 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), and I withdraw my reservation of objection.
Mr. Chairman, with all respect to my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), I could not disagree more strongly.
The Constitution of the United States gives to our national government the responsibility to provide for the common defense. When al Qaeda turned airliners into missiles, hundreds of passengers aboard those aircraft were killed, but thousands of people in the World Trade Center Towers and in the Pentagon were also killed. And none of them was an airline passenger.
Neither were the millions of Americans who suffered the economic damage of billions of dollars inflicted by al Qaeda as a result of those attacks. Homeland security, in my view, is the essence of national security.
And this amendment puts that question to the test. Is homeland security merely the correlation of national security, or is it the core of what we are seeking to establish when we provide for the common defense and protecting the territory and the population of the United States?
If every time the Pentagon needed a new weapons system they had to find a user fee in order to pay for it, we would have a third-world national defense. But, in fact, Mr. Chairman, as Democrats and Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee have determined, homeland security is all about providing for the common defense, and funding it is a national responsibility.
For those reasons, I strongly support the amendment offered by gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).
Madam Chairman, I think we need to return to the amendment that is before us. There has been a lot of heat and light generated in this debate, but the amendment itself is exceptionally simple.
It begins from the fact that current law provides for the training of State and local law enforcement officials to enforce Federal immigration laws. That is a voluntary program. There is no unfunded mandate in current law because there is no mandate. It is completely voluntary, and only those State and local law enforcement officials, those first responders who are seeking to partner with the Department of Homeland Security in obtaining this Federal training to enforce immigration laws, actually do so.
Second, in an amendment that was adopted earlier by voice vote, we provided $40 million in Federal funding to reimburse any costs incurred by State and local volunteers, that is State and local governments who volunteer for this training, in obtaining the training. So it is not unfunded either. It is a funded, voluntary program.
Lastly, what this amendment adds to existing law is simply to provide a training guide for this training that already exists and training flexibility to make sure that it meets the needs of State and local law enforcement officers.
The last thing it does is it corrects existing law, section 287(g) of the INA to substitute ``the Secretary of Homeland Security'' for the words ``Attorney General.'' This is something that we did in the technical corrections bill that was unanimously passed by the Select Committee on Homeland Security in the last Congress.
Madam Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the substitute amendment, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
If my colleague from Mississippi would indulge me for a moment, I would like to yield the first portion of my time for purposes of a colloquy to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons), and I yield to him 1 minute.
Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Connecticut raises an important issue. I thank the gentleman for his leadership, not only on this issue, but across the board as an outstanding member and chairman of the Committee on homeland security.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Section 841 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 authorized the Department of Homeland Security to establish a 21st century human resources management system. That new system, referred to as MAX HR, is designed to allow the Department to respond quickly to homeland security threats, while supporting the Department's employees with modern human resources principles.
I will ensure that the committee conducts a review of the new personnel regulations with special attention, I say to the gentleman, to the concerns that he raised, and I commit to working with him on any appropriate changes to those regulations, in close coordination with the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Davis) of the Committee on Government Reform, which developed the underlying legislation in this area.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Mike Rogers).
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons).
Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder).
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren), but before I yield, Mr. Chairman, can the Chair tell me how much time remains on our side?
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).
Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains on the other side.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the ranking member and the other members of the committee right in the teeth of this debate about the differences between the base bill and the Democratic substitute simply to remind us what we agree about. We agree about the base bill. And what we are talking about doing in the Democratic substitute is, in some part, restating the base bill and, in some part, adding money to it to go further.
One of the principles that I hope we can establish in this annual authorization process is that when we bring a bipartisan DHS authorization bill to the floor, that that bill is within the House- passed budget; it bears a close connection to the appropriations process, and this year we have a unique circumstance where we are on the floor literally 1 day after the homeland security appropriation bill has passed, so we know exactly what kind of money we are dealing with so that when we impose national security priorities on the executive branch and we provide policy guidance to the Department of Homeland Security, we are doing so in the real world, not in a fantasy world with pretend numbers and budget resources that simply do not exist.
The only real objection that I have to the Democratic substitute, because I agree with a great deal of the policy, is that it takes $7 billion from thin air and adds it on top of, not in substitute for, the provisions of the base bill. As a result, it is not about setting priorities; it is merely a wish list without any sense of priority.
I would say that it abdicates the responsibility of the authorizing committee and places all the burden on the appropriators were it not for the fact that we just voted on the appropriation bill yesterday. So every single Member knows that this is not a real $7 billion we are playing with here.
Rather than being called the Complete Homeland Security Act, it might be called the Death By Report Act because it does not help the Department of Homeland Security to run down terrorists; it instead sends them off on a mission to fill out reports. This substitute, in one of its key differences from the base text, is very heavy on reports and on plans and on studies and on assessments. It includes no fewer than 61 new initial reports, annual reports, follow-up reports, plans, strategies, studies, and reviews. That is not congressional direction; it is congressional misdirection.
There has got to be a focus on preventing terrorism, on doing the job, this most important, fundamental national security mission that we have assigned to the Department to do, rather than filling out paperwork. The substitute itself is 221 pages long, and in some respects it is not ready for action by the full House because its provisions have not yet been vetted even in hearings in subcommittee or full committee before the Department.
I daresay that some of those things, such as port security, chemical plant security, and so on, are policies with which I would agree. They are things that we intend to do as a committee this year. I have stated over and over, as recently as yesterday before the Committee on Rules, that because this is the first authorization bill for a Department which itself has existed for only 2 years, and which was thoroughly authorized in a charter written from top to bottom by this Congress just a few years ago, this bill is smaller this year than it will ever be in future years.
Moreover, because the Secretary is in the midst of his 90-day review of the Department's operation top to bottom as he takes the helm of what for him is a brand-new responsibility, we are trying to give him a few days more, he is due to report to us in June, to give us his roadmap. And that means we will be back on this floor with more authorizing legislation on the very subjects covered by the substitute amendment.
For all those reasons, I respectfully, but strongly, oppose this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Mississippi.
Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Chairman, I would simply say to the gentleman from New Jersey that the point he raises about chemical security is an extremely important one, and I wanted to make sure that all the Members knew that on June 14 the Committee on Homeland Security will be having a hearing on that very topic. We intend, in the balance of this year, to go very deeply into our responsibilities for chemical plant security.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I spoke just a moment ago about some of the provisions in this bill that, in my view, do not belong there, most notably the $7 billion that has no offset and, therefore, breaks the House-passed budget and is completely out of sync with the homeland security appropriation bill for which we had a large, nearly unanimous bipartisan vote yesterday.
But I would like to talk in the remaining seconds available about what this bill, the Thompson substitute, does not do. It does not incorporate, inexplicably, many of the bipartisan provisions that we have already agreed upon in the base bill. I have to believe that that was a drafting oversight; but were we to substitute for the base bill, we would lose the provisions that give, for example, flexibilities to the Information Analysis Office in the Department of Homeland Security to hire more intelligence agencies, something that has been a big priority of our committee for 3 years now. We would lose the reforms of the color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System, which both Republicans and Democrats have agreed upon.
As a result, we would be far better off to stick with the bipartisan provisions that are in the bill, rather than in the partisan provisions that appear in the Thompson substitute. I urge Members to reject the substitute.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I want to draw our attention to what is actually in the motion to recommit. It consists of 15 sequential sections that do nothing more than authorize monies, and a final section, which my colleague from Massachusetts just spoke about, concerning air cargo which contains no reference to money, whatsoever, but which, according to the Department of Homeland Security, would effectively double the budget of the TSA.
Let me read to you the dollar amounts in each of the sections, because I want to draw Members' attention to the fact that there are no offsets. There are no sources of funding for these provisions.
Section 601 adds $20 million without any funding source; section 602, $1 million; section 603, a quarter billion dollars; section 604, $400 million dollars and so on.
I mention this because we are here on the floor for the first time considering the Department of Homeland Security authorization bill in an annual process that is beginning now, but which will go on for the indefinite future. And we are seeking to establish a precedent.
And that precedent is that just as with other national security authorize legislation that we bring to the floor, in this bill, it is real money. In this bill, we are authorizing funding within the House- passed budget and consistent with amounts that we actually intend to appropriate.
Now, we have a unique opportunity this year because the order of consideration of the appropriations bill and the authorization bill was reversed. Just yesterday on the floor of this House, Members voted on the appropriations bill so we actually know real dollar numbers that Secretary Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security will have to work with. And virtually every Member on this floor just voted for that bill yesterday.
So, if we are to come to the floor today and vote for funding figures which are different from what we know will actually happen, we will be placing priorities before the Department of Homeland Security and mandates on the Department of Homeland Security that we know it cannot meet.
There are some other anomalies with the funding provisions in the motion to recommit that I am certain must be drafting mistakes.
I do not doubt for a moment the passion of the gentleman from Massachusetts when it comes to the question of screening air cargo, but I have to draw Members' attention to the fact that
the dollar figure that is authorized for the Department of Homeland Security for air cargo in the motion to recommit is $100 million. That would be a $15 million cut from the actual number that we appropriated last year and a $28 million cut from what we just voted for air cargo screening in yesterday's appropriations bill. I do not know why we would do that.
The same thing is true for air marshals. This House is very interested in putting air marshals on airplanes to protect the flying public. The motion to recommit sets the authorized funding level for air marshals at $83 million. The appropriations bill that we just voted for yesterday would give the Department of Homeland Security $700 million, not $83 million for air marshals. Why would we cut air marshals, unless it is a drafting mistake in the motion to recommit?
As I said, this is an historic moment on the floor of this House, and I want to draw our attention to what we are about to do, as soon as we finish the motion to recommit. We are about to vote on what will be the first of an annual authorization for the Department of Homeland Security.
That bill is bipartisan. Both sides agree on everything that is in it. It fully funds 2,000 new Border Patrol agents. It establishes a top level new Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security within the Department of Homeland Security. It beefs up the intelligence capability at the Department of Homeland Security. It reforms the threat warning system. It establishes the Homeland Security Information Network that will link thousands of local agencies across the country in real-time to the Department. It does all of this and much more within the House-passed budget and within the confines of the appropriations bill that we just passed yesterday.
This is exactly the norm that is set for us in the authorizing legislation that comes from the Committee on Armed Services to fund the Pentagon and that comes to us from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to fund the intelligence community. Those authorization bills all live within the budget. So, too, must we in this homeland security authorization bill this year and every year hereafter.
To my colleagues on the Democratic side, I understand what they are doing in this motion, seeking to draw attention to critical issues such as cargo security and chemical plant security that are not yet the subject of authorizing language on the floor of this House. I commit to my colleagues that this bill on which we agree is a beginning and that our new committee will use its jurisdiction to develop bipartisan legislation on these subjects, just as we have on first responders, just as we did last week on the floor of this House, and just as we have on this historic $34 billion authorization for the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Speaker, if I may in conclusion say that I am thoroughly impressed with the effort and the work that has been put forth on both sides of the aisle on this bill, with the performance and the leadership of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), my colleague. May I say that there has not been 1 day since September 11 when any Member of this House has forgotten the lesson of homeland security that we learned on that day, chief among which is that we must always put the security of this country ahead of partisan politics.
The bill that we will vote on in a moment, the homeland security authorization bill, does that, and I look forward to standing shoulder- to-shoulder with the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), with all the members of the committee, and with, I believe, all the Members of this House.
Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.