Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (Senate - October 06, 2009)
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Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the amendment, introduced by Senator Barrasso, to strike the funding for the Central Intelligence Agency's Center on Climate Change and National Security. Climate change and the role of the intelligence community has been the subject of many lively discussions before the Select Committee on Intelligence.
As the vice chairman of this committee, I have worked with the chairman, Senator DIANNE FEINSTEIN, to resolve many issues of importance to the intelligence community. Unfortunately, on this issue of climate change, I have and will continue to disagree respectfully with the chairman.
I recognize that many Members on both sides of the aisle have strong beliefs about global climate change, its causes, and its possible consequences. Regardless of how you come down on this issue, however, our intelligence agencies are not the appropriate venue for dealing with it.
Members who support the creation of this center at CIA have cited the national security implications of global climate change. I agree that global climate change could have national and global security implications and that elements of the U.S. Government and private sector should be studying it, but the intelligence community is not one of those elements. Other government entities, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are far better suited to study this issue.
The intelligence community is not a think tank. Its job, put simply, is to steal secrets and provide analysis of those secrets. There are no secrets to steal or to analyze when studying current weather patterns and estimating the geopolitical effects of an event 20 or more years in the future as this new CIA center would be asked to do.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is constantly reminded by various commissions, and the intelligence community itself, that our Nation's intelligence analysts are overtasked, overworked, and do not have adequate time to devote to long-term assessments, even on the important countries and issues they currently cover on a daily basis, such as terrorism, proliferation, Iran, Iraq, and China.
To those who support this center, I would ask a simple question: As we
face continued threats in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, which analysts are going to be pulled from their current responsibilities to analyze the implications of climate change? Adequately covering all of the geopolitical implications of global climate change would require analysis on dozens of countries by analysts who are familiar with some or all of those countries. In short, it would require drawing on a substantial part of our analytic corp.
Can we really afford to have these analysts redirected from their current responsibilities to work on global climate change, especially when our nation is at war? I strongly doubt that terrorist leaders or rogue nations will stop plotting against us while our analysts take time off to ponder the potential implications of global climate change.
Through my many discussions with Senator Feinstein, I am familiar with the motivation for this center. While I will vote in favor of Senator Barrasso's amendment, I would be willing to work with Senator Feinstein and others to find alternative avenues to obtain the information being sought through this center.
The bottom line is this--at a time when our Nation is fighting wars on two fronts, terrorists continue to plot attacks on our homeland, and the threat of proliferation grows, we cannot afford for our overtaxed intelligence agencies to take time off to ponder climate change.
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AMENDMENT NO. 2596
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to a vote in relation to amendment No. 2596 offered by the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Bond.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, the January report of the Governmental Accountability Office said the Air Force had a couple of major challenges in sustaining the air sovereignty alert capabilities; that is, the air structure that keeps our homeland safe.
They say the Air Force has not developed plans because it is focused on other priorities. Retiring these planes would result in a lack of aircraft to meet the vital ASA mission. And 16 of the 18 sites across the Nation are manned by Air National Guard.
Senator Leahy and I, as cochairs, have introduced this amendment, which is supported by the Guard, which says that we do not retire any more
fourth-generation aircraft until the Secretary tells the Congress how it is going to ensure the capability of the ASA mission.
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