BIPARTISAN HOMELAND
SECURITY BILL
CLEARS COMMITTEE
HISTORIC AGREEMENTS ON CIVIL SERVICE REFORM
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
July 25, 2002
WASHINGTON
- The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Thursday approved
historic legislation to establish a cabinet-level Department
of Homeland Security that would permanently re-orient
government to meet terrorist threats against Americans at
home.
The measure - approved on a
bipartisan vote of 12-5 - includes a new intelligence division
that would be the government’s locus for receiving,
processing, and analyzing terrorist threats against the
United States
homeland. It also
improves management of the federal workforce and clarifies
confidentiality of sensitive information about critical
infrastructure vulnerabilities.
Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the
measure would, for the first time, provide the nation with
focused leadership and a strategic vision for combating
terrorism, while coordinating many disparate government
agencies that play a role in protecting Americans at home.
“This legislation will improve
the security of all Americans,” Lieberman said, “and is
one of several important steps we need to take to prevent the disastrous pre-September 11th disconnects from
ever happening again.”
The legislation, which was
approved as a substitute to the National Homeland Security and
Combating Terrorism Act of 2002 (S. 2452) reported out of
Committee in May, creates six directorates: border and
transportation protection, emergency preparedness and
response, critical infrastructure protection, immigration
affairs, intelligence, and science and technology.
A number of existing federal
agencies and programs - including the Coast Guard, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Service,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the
Transportation Security Administration - would be moved into
the new department. This
consolidation, Lieberman said, would improve coordination and
information sharing among the agencies, and enable a more
constructive relationship between federal, state and local
officials.
The legislation also creates a
White House Office of Combating Terrorism with a
Senate-confirmed director to oversee a unified,
government-wide, anti-terrorism policy, including coordinating
the department’s efforts with diplomatic, intelligence, law
enforcement and other agencies’ efforts.
“This bill gives the President 90 percent of what he
has asked for in terms of the guts of this department,”
Lieberman said.
On
Wednesday, the Committee approved by voice vote a proposal by
Senators George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Daniel Akaka, D-Hi., to
strengthen the management of human resources government-wide.
Among other things, the bill requires the appointment
of Chief Human Capital Officers in government departments and
agencies, streamlines the process for hiring new federal
employees, and provides other tools for better management of
the workforce.
“These
reforms improve the conditions of federal employment and make
public service more attractive government wide,” Lieberman
said.
Also approved by voice vote was
an amendment by Senators Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Carl Levin,
D-Mich., that would clarify public access to sensitive
information relating to critical infrastructure weaknesses
that is voluntarily provided to the Department of Homeland
Security. This delicately-crafted compromise achieves the
balance that is needed between the public’s right to know
and protection of information that could compromise security.
For the first time, one
government agency would fuse all intelligence relevant to
potential terrorist attacks at home from all available
sources, including foreign intelligence collected by the
Central Intelligence Agency. The new department will not just
receive intelligence collected from other agencies; it will
also collect a significant amount of information in-house -
from Customs, INS, Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and other
agencies that will be part of the new homeland security
agency.
Lieberman
held over a dozen hearings last fall on a range of homeland
security issues and introduced legislation in October to
create a new department. In
May, the committee approved a revised version of Lieberman’s
original bill.
Please
refer to the committee website at http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/
for a summary of the bill and a list of amendments and their
disposition
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