Congressional
Record Statement of
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
On Domestic Infrastructure Gaps Post 9/11
September 26, 2008
Mr. President, it has been
more than seven years since al Qaeda attacked us at home. There are
many lessons those attacks should have taught us, many things we should
have been doing as a nation since that date which we have yet to do.
These post 9-11 gaps in our efforts and strategies need as much if not
more attention today as they did on September 12, 2001. The largest
gap we face is a strategic gap between what we should have done and
what this administration elected to do in response to the tragic events
of 9/11. The administration chose to attack Iraq rather than complete
the mission in Afghanistan – where the 9/11 attacks were hatched
-- and address al Qaeda’s expanding influence in northern Africa,
Southeast Asia and beyond. Those threats are real and have the continuing
potential to manifest themselves again in disastrous ways here at home
and around the world.
There are other gaps –
failures by this administration to address the real challenges of our
post 9-11 world. We have created a gap in the readiness of our military.
Our National Guard, an integral part of any large disaster response,
has been severely strained. We continue to have insufficient intelligence
and information resources posted abroad. We have insufficient diplomatic
personnel, with insufficient language and other cultural experience,
to cover the many places in the world where our national security interests
require that we know more – and interact with those who know us
least. And while I applaud the efforts of this administration to encourage
more of our citizens to engage in international volunteer programs,
there is room for much more to be done to strengthen our image and our
impact abroad through citizen outreach and private diplomacy. In a post
9-11 world, these continuing gaps pose real threats to our security
at home, and we cannot ignore them at the expense of a strategically
misguided and perilously expensive ongoing military presence in Iraq.
Closer to home, we are now
beginning to suffer serious challenges to our economic stability and
longer term economic outlook. We are squandering our wealth and failing
to invest in our economic future and our domestic security. Osama bin
Laden’s stated goal was to bankrupt America. Well, the cost of
our presence in Iraq may ultimately exceed the massive cost proposed
to bail out our failed financial systems. And what do we have to show
for the hundreds of billions spent in Iraq? What do Americans have as
a return on their investment? A more perilous world in which al Qaeda
has a safe haven in Pakistan, our power and influence are diminished
and our military might is badly over-extended.
So where do we go from here?
Mr. President, we go where Americans have always gone in times of challenge.
We will take up the challenge we face head on, and work to close the
gaps we face in the fabric of our domestic security.
Here at home, we continue
to have critical gaps in our domestic security, in our infrastructure,
in our first responder systems. We still have not deployed an effective
system to prevent the smuggling of radiological materials through our
ports. We have not done everything we can to secure chemical facilities
that could be the source of materials for domestic car bombs like the
ones we have seen cause so much damage in Baghdad. We have not fully
implemented the command system needed to ensure that first responders
know how to work together across federal, state and local government.
We have also failed to establish
the military forces needed to conduct medical triage, search and rescue
and decontamination in the wake of a WMD incident at home. I tried to
offer an amendment to the 2009 defense authorization bill that would
have mandated that these forces be established by the end of 2009 and
that they be maintained at the highest levels of readiness. This amendment
would have addressed what the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves
characterized as an "appalling gap" in our domestic defenses.
I was unsuccessful but I will continue to press for enactment of this
legislation. It is time that we get our priorities straight and put
the defense of the American people first.
State and local authorities
will always be the first to defend the American people in any disaster,
whether man-made or natural. We need to ensure that we give them the
resources the need to fulfill their responsibilities. That is why I
have long supported adequate funding for homeland security and emergency
management grants. I opposed the Administration's proposal to reduce
funding for these grants this year and am pleased that 2009 Homeland
Security appropriations bill, which we should vote on shortly, includes
increased funding for these and other important state and local grant
programs.
The security of our borders
is another critical priority. While I had serious concerns about some
provisions of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, the
bill took some steps toward tightening border security that I strongly
supported, such as requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
to develop a national border security strategy and border surveillance
plan. The bill also required DHS to develop a schedule for implementing
the US-VISIT exit-entry program, created new criminal penalties for
constructing border tunnels, provided grants to law enforcement agencies
to address criminal activity along the border, and required the government
to work with countries south of the border to combat human smuggling
and drug trafficking.
While that bill ultimately
failed, I have supported other measures to enhance border security which
have been signed into law, including funding to hire 23,000 new border
patrol agents, put in place vehicle barriers along the border, install
105 radar and camera towers, remove and detain undocumented aliens,
construct barriers, and purchase ground and aerial surveillance devices.
Congress must take a practical approach to securing the borders, and
provide the resources necessary for our government to carry out that
important responsibility.
From our borders to the first
responders in our communities, we face tremendous challenges. As we
work to close those security gaps, we must also draw on America’s
boundless capacity for innovation and creativity. We need those talents
more than ever as we face unprecedented challenges in our energy sector
and elsewhere. We remain hostage to foreign oil sources yet we have
not invested adequately in the necessary alternatives. We face huge
challenges in our transportation systems, which consume the largest
proportion of our petroleum resources. We are beginning to understand
that fresh water may be the next oil and that we have to use, conserve
and manage it as the scarce resource that it is. And where do these
alternatives necessary to rebuild and sustain the economy of our future
come from? Our history tells us they come from what President Eisenhower,
in his farewell address to the nation, called the “solitary inventor,
tinkering in his shop” – the entrepreneurial small businessperson.
So we must invest in our
skilled workers and our infrastructure. We must find ways to invigorate
our creative and entrepreneurial small businesses so that we can not
only drive innovation and employment, but strengthen our own security
in the process.
Two programs – the
Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer
programs – are prime examples of how we can encourage innovation
to improve our security. These highly successful programs not only need
to be reauthorized, they need to be substantially increased and targeted
at the key challenges of our time. Our domestic security, our innovative
and entrepreneurial opportunities, our country’s longer term employment
prospects and our economic future are all directly benefited by these
programs, which provide federal money for small business innovation.
And the National Research Council, after an exhaustive study of the
SBIR program, tells us that Congress could effectively increase funding
of this effort. This is the kind of investment we need to be making
in our national security and in our economic future.
As we make that investment,
we should make security-related innovation a stated priority of SBIR,
not simply a byproduct of some SBIR-supported research. There are few,
if any, government programs better positioned to develop technologies
to protect the American people than SBIR. I have introduced legislation
to make domestic security, water security and quality, transportation
and energy top SBIR priorities. By focusing SBIR innovation and research
in all of these areas, but especially domestic security and water security
and quality, we can do a great deal to address the security challenges
we face.
Today there are many technologies
addressing areas such as first responder emergency responses, detection
of radioactive materials, cargo scanning and cybersecurity, that demand
more research and innovation to meet our security needs in a post-9/11
world. Recent reports from the Government Accountability Office and
the National Academy of Sciences, for instance, identify troubling gaps
in first responders' ability to deal with hazardous releases in urban
areas, or our ability to better track and detect radioactive materials.
SBIR can fund the research that can close these security gaps, and that
program – and most importantly the small business innovators themselves–
deserves our full support in Congress.
Mr. President, as this Administration
comes to a close, we have an opportunity to revisit how best to address
the gaps that have arisen in our national security both before and since
9-11. Our need to act is no less urgent now than it was seven years
ago, except that we have squandered time and great resources in the
intervening period. I urge those of us who will return in the next Congress
to work with the next administration to address these gaps with a renewed
perspective on the sense of urgency they deserve.
I yield the floor. |
