Judge Chertoff, please accept my congratulations on your nomination. I welcome you and your family today. I am certain they all share your pride in being nominated as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Today's hearing presents a special opportunity for you to articulate your vision of how DHS will carry out its mission of defending the Nation's borders and protecting us from terrorism while defending our civil liberties. The challenges you will face, if confirmed, are demanding and will require you to search for answers beyond the commonplace and apply your impressive skills to this new job.
My colleagues and I will lay before you a variety of issues that concern us and suggest solutions just as we did for your predecessor, Secretary Ridge, who led this new agency with strength and grace. But DHS remains an agency still in the process of being created. The December 2004 DHS Inspector General report on management challenges outlines an array of worrisome problems -- some of which are to be expected when 22 entities are combined in a single department.
I have a number of concerns, some of which I will summarize today.
I want your assurance that you will defend the Constitution to safeguard our civil liberties. The price of security should never erode our constitutional freedoms, which are essential to the preservation of this democracy. When we met a couple of days ago, you and I talked about the just-released personnel regulations covering the 180,000 men and women who staff DHS. To make these new regulations work, there must be significant and meaningful outreach to this dedicated workforce, their unions, and their managers.
With just about half of the federal workforce eligible for retirement in the next five years, DHS and other federal agencies must promote a sense of trust and a sense of worth among its employees.
Madam Chairman, I wish to insert into the record an editorial from the January 31, 2005, Washington Post that goes straight to my concerns about the new DHS personnel rules: implementing a pay for performance system without a strong performance management system in place, internalizing employee appeals without independent members and adequate external oversight, and the continued position by some that belonging to a union is a threat to national security.
Judge Chertoff, it will be up to you to make sure that DHS recruits and retains the best and brightest to be on the front lines of our national defense.
DHS has been given, by statute, a prominent seat in the Intelligence Community. But the Department will need to earn the respect of that community through the quality of its analysis and its response to threats.
The Department must have the financial management systems and practices in place to provide meaningful and timely information needed for sound and efficient management decision-making. I am particularly pleased that a provision similar to legislation I sponsored with our former colleague, Senator Peter Fitzgerald, is now law, thus bringing DHS under the Chief Financial Officers Act and ensuring a Senate-confirmed CFO who reports directly to the Secretary of DHS.
Judge Chertoff, we also discussed my home State of Hawaii. Given the state's unique geographic location, nearly 2500 miles from the West Coast, there are unique challenges to securing Hawaii from asymmetric threats. For example, when disaster strikes, Hawaii cannot call on neighboring states for assistance due to the distance and time difference. Our eight inhabited islands must be self-sufficient. Secretary Ridge recognized this and took the opportunity to visit Hawaii. I hope you will too.
Hawaii, as an island state, depends heavily on air travel. We are waiting for TSA funding to install in-line Explosive Detection System (EDS) machines. This need is critical at all our airports. Honolulu International Airport serves more than 20 million travelers each year, and each of the other islands have international travel as well. In fact, the neighbor islands combined serve as many visitors as Honolulu. Because tourism is the state's largest industry, crowded lobbies due to long wait times pose a threat to this critical economic sector.
Judge Chertoff, I look forward to a productive working relationship with you. Congress was the impetus for creating DHS. We want to work with you to ensure the Department carries out its mission. I am pleased you have stressed the need to cooperate closely with Congress, particularly this Committee, and to provide the information we need to do our job. You will find this Committee very detailed-oriented; but details are necessary to conduct effective oversight in order to provide you with the resources and support you will need to be successful.
Thank you Madam Chairman. I look forward to hearing from our nominee.
