SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN
Testimony before House Committee on Government Reform
National Security Subcommittee
Department of Homeland Security
June 11, 2002
As Prepared
Thank you, Congressman Shays, ladies and
gentlemen. I’m happy to be able to testify before your
subcommittee today on what is one of our most urgent priorities
right now, and that is, to direct the attention of the federal
government - and the vast resources at its disposal - to
safeguarding the American people from terrorist attack here at
home.
It’s often said that on issues of national defense, politics
stop at the water’s edge. I think this has mostly been the case
in the aftermath of September 11 and I think it must absolutely
be the case as we work - and work quickly - on what may be the
single most important accomplishment any of us achieves during
our time here in Washington: to establish a Department of
Homeland Security.
Government restructuring is no easy task under any
circumstance. There will be powerful constituencies objecting
to the wholesale realignment of certain agencies and programs,
and employees of those agencies will feel insecure about their
futures. But the good news is the White House is now on our
team. President Bush’s landmark proposal to consolidate various
federal agencies, including as many as 170-thousand employees,
is a bold step. I welcome it and I look forward to working with
the President to turn it into reality.
The fact is, the catastrophic events of September 11th are
evidence that the status quo is not sufficient. But when
President Bush appointed Governor Ridge last October, he gave
his new advisor the most difficult and most important job in the
federal government - without the power to get that job done.
Over the last few months in particular, it has become painfully
clear just how uncoordinated existing federal bureaucracies can
be, and how little relative power anyone in Governor Ridge’s
position has to really take control of the reins. History has
changed America forever, and the government, too, must evolve
to respond effectively to the new war on terrorism.
It a sign of strength that, after spending months defending the
current structure of the homeland security office, the President
has recognized its shortcomings and corrected course, offering a
proposal strikingly similar to a bipartisan bill that I
introduced last October with Senator Arlen Specter. That bill,
reintroduced this Spring with Senator Graham as an additional
original cosponsor, was voted out of the Governmental Affairs
Committee a little less than three weeks ago.
Our bill would combine the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the
Border Patrol, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and a
handful of other, smaller programs into a full-fledged cabinet
department, led by a Senate-confirmed Secretary, with direct
budget authority over the department’s agencies.
In addition, we would create a White House Office of Combating
Terrorism, a statutory, Senate-confirmed position, designed to
coordinate anti-terrorism government-wide - with the new
department, the intelligence agencies, but also the military and
the diplomatic community.
The President’s vision of the overall structure of the
department is very similar - although it goes further. He
includes the Transportation Security Administration, a number of
Health and Human Service programs, and the Secret Service.
Under his proposal, the Department’s four divisions would focus
on Border and Transportation Security; Emergency Preparedness
and Response; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear
Countermeasures; and Information Analysis and Infrastructure
Protection. To me, these four divisions are right on target.
I do, however, have some concerns about the president’s
proposal, primarily about intelligence and law enforcement
coordination. The White House blueprint would have the FBI, CIA
and other relevant agencies filter their own intelligence and
relay it to a single focal point within the new agency. This
means the new department would act as a passive consumer of
information rather than an aggressive analyst and synthesizer.
The bill we have authored addresses this gap through the White
House Office of Combating Terrorism, which would be a more
muscular version of the advisory position currently occupied by
Governor Ridge. The White House director, with statutory and
budget certification authority, would be charged with
coordinating the intelligence agencies, along with the Defense
and State Departments and others, in an effort to avoid the mis-communications
that contributed to the September 11 tragedy.
One person must be able to take on the almost 100 federal
agencies that have to do with protecting the American people at
home and tell them, "Get together, work together, and do it now,
or else face the consequences.”
As we proceed, we must also take care to respect and protect the
many non-homeland security functions of the agencies that we
seek to incorporate into the new department. The Secret Service
also polices counterfeiting; the Coast Guard, among other
things, cleans up oil spills. In building a homeland defense
agency, we need not—and will not—compromise any other important
government responsibility.
Important as these concerns are, they are design details. I
know we are all committed to building this new structure and
will work through the specifics, without pride of ownership, to
decide upon the most efficient and effective structure possible.
But we must work quickly and carefully. We must recall the
sense of anger and focus that we had in the days immediately
after the attacks of September 11th, and press on.
The ongoing danger of additional terrorist attacks leaves no
time for bickering over turf.
The battle now begins - but with a broad, bipartisan group of us
in Congress and the White House on the same side, committed to
raising our guard and bringing down bureaucratic barriers in
order to meet the threat of terrorism with all our intelligence,
courage, acumen, and strength.
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