Washington, D.C.-- Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) called the National Security Language Initiative announced by President Bush today a positive first step, but said that more must be done to improve the nation's language proficiency. Senator Akaka urged the Administration to expand the focus of its efforts and provide for sustained leadership to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated national language strategy.

"Greater linguistic skills are essential in the war against terrorism. The basic economic and career security of many Americans is now tied to foreign language capability as well," Senator Akaka said. "Globalization requires fluency in foreign languages to thrive in this new economic environment. Both the security and economic vitality of the United States are now dependent on the improvement of our foreign language education.

"Given the tremendous work that is required to meet our language needs, it is essential that all levels of government work together to address our nation's crisis in language proficiency. We need a National Foreign Language Coordination Council, established around a core of federal executive branch agencies and led by a National Language Director, to develop a comprehensive language strategy that reflects input from State and local governments, the private sector, academia, heritage communities, and stakeholder organizations," Akaka said. "This course was supported by the conferees at the National Language Conference in 2004, whose report said, 'Leadership must be comprehensive, as no one sector -- government, industry, or academia -- has all of the needs for language and cultural competency, or all of the solutions.'"

Senator Akaka wrote to Secretary Condoleezza Rice about the National Security Language Initiative last month and said he looks forward to working with her to incorporate the initiative into an overall strategy that has the involvement of all stakeholders.

Senator Akaka is a strong advocate of improving the nation's language proficiency. He successfully added provisions of the Homeland Security Education Act and the Homeland Security Federal Workforce Act to the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. His amendment to the FY05 National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Department of Defense to develop a strategy for addressing its foreign language shortfalls led to the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap. In 2005, Senator Akaka introduced the National Foreign Language Coordination Act (S. 1089) to create a National Language Director and a National Foreign Language Coordination Council to develop a national language strategy and oversee the implementation of that strategy.