Date: 2005-05-05
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I rise today in strong support of the Conference Report- on H.R. 1268 and urge all my colleagues to support it. In addition to necessary funding for our troops. tsunami disaster relief. and border security. this conference report also includes important provisions to bring longoverdue. common sense reform to drivers licenses and stateissued identification cards. authored last year by the Government Reform Committee in response to a recommendation of the 911 Commission. Mr. Speaker. I want to especially thank the Speaker and Majority Leader for making good on their promise to get this legislation to the floor signed into law quickly in the 109th Congress. I also want to thank my colleague from California. the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. for his strong support ard for agreeing to include these provisions in H.R. 1268. Finally. I would like to thank my colleague from Wisconsin for his tireless work and support on this issue. Last year following passage of the 911 Commission Recommendations Implementation Act. he and I made a commitment to work together to ensure that the most important provisions not addressed in the final bill would be addressed early in the 109th Congress. That commitment is being fulfilled today. Judging by the basic nature of these requirements as weli as .the actions taken by some States. it is quite obvious that not enacting these reforms does not come from a lack of ability. but from a lack of will. The federal government cannot continue to allow our security responsibilities to be compromised by the inaction of a few. Our approach is very straightforward. Building upon guidelines and best practices established and accepted by State Motor Vehicle Administrators. the federal governments longstanding work on identity security. and actions taken by individual States to shore up their licensing process following the terrorist attacks. our legislation sets forth minimum document and issuance standards for federal acceptance of drivers licenses and stateissued personal identification cards. The legislation provides three years for States to come into compliance with these standards in order for the federal government to recognize their documents as proof of an individuals identity. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. States that want their drivers licenses to be used for federal identification purposes will be required to meet these standards. All of them. If they do not. the citizens of that State will not be able to use their drivers license to identify themselves for many purposes that they use them for today. such as boarding an airplane. The bill and the report make clear that the Secretary must determine the uses. in addition to those set forth in the bill. for which drivers licenses only from complying states will be accepted. Importantly. the final bill makes clear that the Secretary of Homeland Security will be responsible for ensuring that the certifications represent full compliance. This requirement ensures that the national security interests of the United States will be protected through enforcement of the requirements -of the bill. States will also be required to confirm the applicants proof of legal presence in the United States. Currently. only 11 states lack such a requirement. meaning a majority of states have already recognized the need for tighter standards. but unnecessary and dangerous gaps in the system still exist. Importantly. States are still permitted to issue drivers licenses to individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States or who cannot provide satisfactory proof of identity. The ability of States to have such a system is currently under challenge in court. and this legislation will provide them with express authority. The bill further provides that these licenses or identification cards must be clearly visually differentiated from Dther licenses and contain specific language regarding their validity for federal identification and other official purposes. In addition. the legislation will require identity documents to expire at the same time as the expiration of lawful entry statusthis will prevent individuals who have illegally entered or are unlawfully present in the United States from having. valid identification documents. This loophole was highlighted on September 11th. as Nawaf al Hazmi and Hani Hanjour. the pilots of Flight 77. both obtained licenses and identification cards after the expiration of their visa authorization. We must correct this dangerous problem before we again give individuals who have overstayed their visas the tools they need to integrate into society and carry out criminal and terrorist acts. Mr. Speaker. it is important to note that these actions are consistent with actions taken by individual states to date. For example. Nevada and New Mexico do not accept. as proof of identity. a stateissued driver license or identification card from states that do not meet their own standards. The federal government has been delinquent in dealing with this issue. but we are correcting that problem today. Fraud in identity documents is no longer just a problem of theft. As we continue to strengthen our intelligence function to better identify and track terrorists. those individuals will be forced to find ways to conceal their identify in order to avoid -detection. We must be able to establish. as close to certainty as we can. that people are who they say they are. and in order to do so the federal government must have documents that it can trust. In fact. we would not be fulfilling our security role for the American people if we did not. Mr. Speaker. I urge my colleagues to support these important provisions and the passage of this conference report.