Miller Message

Letter

Miller Message

This week the House passed the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Over the past 12 years, Republicans worked hard to allot our limited monetary resources in the most effective way to ensure that our intelligence agencies were equipped to fulfill their missions. Our intelligence agencies are our nation's first line of defense; they are always alert, always monitoring our nation's enemies.

Here they go again, the Democrats passed language in the Intelligence Authorization bill this week that requires the Director of National Intelligence to divert some of their resources to study the anticipated effects of global climate change and its implications on the national security of the United States . So instead of monitoring mischievous parties such as al-Qaeda, North Korea, or Iran , our highly trained intelligence agent will be analyzing "ecologically sensitive" sites.

The last thing intelligence agencies should be doing with their resources is studying global warming. In asking questions to determine if it falls under Intelligence jurisdiction, my colleague and Ranking Member of the Permanent House Select Committee on Intelligence, Congressman Pete Hoekstra asks, "Does it require analysts to make assessments using classified information that can only be acquired from sensitive human sources and billion-dollar spy satellites? Does it take holding a high-level security clearance and reviewing information in high-security, classified offices to write assessments about the environment?" We probably come to the conclusion: climate change monitoring does not fall under Intelligence jurisdiction.

During a time of world instability, why are we diverting these valued resources away from the agencies primary missions? When our enemies show up unannounced on our doorstep, the reason is not going to be because we didn't have the technological capability or manpower available. It is going to be because we didn't use our resources efficiently. Our best and brightest are keeping watch so that we may live peacefully.

I'm really at a loss here. Is Speaker Pelosi going to direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to study intelligence data? Global warming scientists will not protect America from al-Qaeda. Congress needs to pass a bipartisan Intelligence Authorization bill-- giving our agents full support and comprehensive resources so that they can do their true job.

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