Date: 2004-10-07
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. first of all. let me thank my friends on the other side in the committee for working cordially with us to improve this legislation. I know we have some disagreements. I want to take up just a minute to correct what I think is misinformation about this legislation. namely. that some of the sections of this are not within the scope of the 9/11 Commissions report. I want to walk through the provisions that were added at the request of our committee. All of these initiatives were things that the committee had been working on to make our country safer prior to the release of the report. but they can also be traced to report language. Our language on identity security. for example. is identified as an urgent need on page 309 of the report. where it says. "The Federal Government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identifica"tion such as drivers licenses. Fraud in identity documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities. including. gates for boarding aircraft. sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists." Our language on appointments reform is in direct response to a finding in the report on page 422: "Since a catastrophic event could occur with little or no notice. we should- minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking during the change of administrations by accelerating the process for nationalsecurity appointments." Our security clearance language is based both on work that we have been doing in the committee and the commissions report which said on page 422 that the Federal Government needs uniform application investigation in adjudication procedures. a single database to store clearance information. and an expedited clearing process for Presidential transition team personnel. Our language to revitalize the FBI workforce responds to a finding in the report on page 425. where it- says "a specialized and integrated national security workforce should be established at the FBI consisting of agents. analysts. linguists. and surveillance specialists who are recruited. trained. rewarded. and retained to ensure a deep expertise in intelligence and national security." And our language on informationsharing and security addresses the commissions finding on page 400 that we need to unify the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a networkbased informationsharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundAries. As you can see. Mr. Chairman. all of these provisions that were marked up by ourcommittees and included in the version on H.R. 10 today are direct responses to problems or weaknesses identified by the 9/11 Commission. I take exception to Members who think the other body had thorough knowledge and exhausted all of the ideas on this. We look to a good conference where we can iron out some of these. but more" importantly I think we thoroughly address some of the concerns raised by the commission. At a time when the terrorists are moving dollars electronically and communicating in nanoseconds. we have to give the executive branch a rapid response for addittonal reorganization changes as well. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 10 and reject the. Menendez substitute. Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.