Multimedia/Video
9/11 Commission
07/19/2007
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, and 9/11 Commissioners Lee Hamilton and Tim Roemer, held a news conference in the Capitol prior to a joint House-Senate conference meeting to finalize legislation implementing the independent 9/11 Commission recommendations.
Learn more about the legislation>>
Speaker Pelosi's remarks:
Mr. Chairman, I want to join you in acknowledging the enormous contribution of our families of 9/11. Without them, there would be no 9/11 Commission recommendations. Without them, there would have been no 9/11 Commission.
It is an honor to be with them any time we come together. It is a special privilege today when we can offer you an accomplishment.
Pretty soon, hopefully, this bill will pass the Congress and be signed into law. Today, going to conference is a very, very important joint step.
And under the leadership of Vice Chair of that Commission, Lee Hamilton,who is "Chairman" to us of the Foreign Relations Committee in the House of Representatives and Chairman of the Iraq Study Group. He wears so many hats that relate to the safety, security of our country, so many hats as to how we project our power and how we project our ideas and how we protect the American people with his work on that commission. He is joined by Tim Roemer, who is with us today; together, they did indeed move to make America safer. Tim Roemer was the author of the 9/11 Commission whose recommendations we are intending to legislate today.
Three years ago, that Commission made recommendations to the Congress. We are very pleased that the very first act of Congress in the new Congress this year, H.R. 1, was legislation to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. They had our highest priority. They were our first act of this new Congress.
The Chairman has spelled out what the legislation will do, and those words spell out better security for our families in America. So I thank you. I commend Senator Lieberman. Senator Collins, the ranking member on the committee, Congressman King and all who worked together to bring this bipartisan legislation forth.
We have always said that any discussion of 9/11 in any way, shape or form would be made on sacred ground, with reverence to those who were lost. We promised you answers, and we promised you a safer America. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Roemer got you some of the answers. Hopefully, this legislation will fulfill the rest of the promise.