Lieberman
Welcomes Ridge To Hearing On Homeland
Security Department
June 20,
2002
WASHINGTON – Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman
Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., today welcomed Homeland Security
Advisor Tom Ridge to testify before the committee on President
Bush’s proposal to create a cabinet-level Department of
Homeland Security. The Administration proposal tracks closely
to a proposal Lieberman first offered last fall and which the
committee approved in late May.
Speaking of the challenge ahead in creating the new
department, Lieberman said, “this cannot be a leisurely
process. ‘Slowly but surely’ doesn’t do it, in this case. We
must proceed swiftly and surely, because the safety of the
American people is at stake.”
Lieberman added that, “with all due respect to the critics of
this reorganization, this isn’t about rearranging the deck
chairs on a sinking ship. It’s about building a ship of state
that’s better equipped to carry the American people through
the rough waters ahead.”
Lieberman’s bill, introduced with Senators Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., and Bob Graham, D-Fla., and a bipartisan group of House
members, 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
department, led by a Senate-confirmed Secretary with budget
authority over the department agencies. The measure would
also create a White House Office for Combating Terrorism,
whose Senate- confirmed director would coordinate anti-terror
activities government-wide. The bill was reported out of the
Governmental Affairs Committee May 22 by a party line vote of
9-7.
Lieberman, who described that bill and the legislation
proposed by the president as “a strong foundation to build
on,” also heard testimony from former Senators Warren Rudman
and Gary Hart, who co-chaired a commission whose
recommendations informed Lieberman’s legislation.
Lieberman expressed his commitment to work with the White
House and his Congressional colleagues in forming the new
department. He also announced his intention to move the
legislation through the committee and to the Senate floor next
month and send it to President Bush “by September 11, at best
and by the end of the session, at least.”
Lieberman noted that there were differences between the two
proposals that would have to be reconciled. Chief among the
unanswered questions that Lieberman raised were: