FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Today, we received the report of the Commission on the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement. We commend the Commission for its hard work and the courtesies which it has extended to the Departments of the Treasury and Justice. It has been both thoughtful and deliberative in its review. We particularly commend the Commission for raising concerns regarding training, police integrity and technology.

While the report has many recommendations that must be studied before we can comment, the proposals to merge ATF and DEA into the FBI are not new. We have previously considered, studied and rejected the idea of merging the ATF and DEA into the FBI.

We believe such a merger would be unnecessary and would be detrimental to our law enforcement efforts.

ATF collects revenue, regulates legitimate industries and has criminal enforcement authority. Having all these functions has allowed ATF to be flexible in its enforcement approaches and has fostered a mutually productive partnership between it and the regulated industries. Merging ATF's criminal enforcement jurisdiction into the FBI would eliminate this synergy. There would be reductions in ATF's effectiveness and no material efficiencies or budgetary savings from merging ATF into the FBI.

Over the years, DEA has exhibited a proven ability to foster law enforcement cooperation both domestically and internationally. A merger would result in a dilution of the nation's successful anti-drug effort and would cause a significant loss of momentum in domestic and overseas enforcement activities. Both the DEA and FBI possess unique skills which complement each other and merging the two would not result in cost savings or increased efficiency.

We appreciate the work of the Commission in seeking to improve federal law enforcement efforts. Together we will review the remaining recommendation and provide our comments to the Commission, to the Congress and to the American people.