National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Sept. 28, 2004
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT OF 2004
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I want to congratulate my colleague, the Senator from Delaware, for the outstanding work he has done on this amendment and, in fact, as the Senator from Maine noted, his work involved in the series of hearings that we had to allow us to come before this body with a piece of legislation that will make America safer.
If I may reflect first on the process of the underlying bill, we had a series of I believe eight hearings. Sometimes folks say we move too slow in these hallowed halls. There was a concern that in less than 2 months we would come before this body with a bill that provides major restructuring of the way in which we handle the threat of terrorism in this country, that some might say we moved too hastily. But one wouldn't say that if they observed the process.
Within those eight hearings, we had a wellspring of information. We heard from heads of the CIA in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s across party lines. I think of that hearing. We talked about the "three wise men" who came before us. We heard from agents who were active in the field in hearings that were not open to the public in which in fact the names of the agents themselves were still kept confidential. We heard from members of the Commission. We heard from representatives of the families of the victims.
It was for me, relatively new in this body, who served as a mayor, as the Presiding Officer has served as a mayor, and involved in politics at what I call the bottom of the political food chain, a fascinating educational experience. I learned a lot. I think my colleagues, no matter how long they were in this body, learned a lot. We have all learned a lot in the post-September 11, 2001 world.
As a result of what we heard, we come before this body with some needed reform-reform that has broad bipartisan support. I believe the process we used represents the best of what this body is all about, working in a bipartisan way dealing with some difficult issues, issues of life and death, truly life and death, coming to some conclusions, and in the end making America a safer place.
I associate myself with the comments of my colleague from Delaware as he talked about the process because I shared that experience.
I also want to talk about the underlying amendment, the Collins-Lieberman-Carper amendment, again from the prospective of a former locally elected official who appreciates one-stop shopping. When I was dealing with licensing in the city of St. Paul, one of the things we did was set up one-stop shopping so folks didn't have to go to 16 different places to fill out where the application was, what had to be in it, who you had to talk to, and it made a difference. I talked with our consumers. I know because I talked to them. When you are mayor and go down the street, people will grab you by the elbow and tell you about the experience. They appreciated it.
With a matter as complex, as serious, and as profound as dealing with the issue of homeland security in a time when our Nation faces threats of terrorism, we managed in this amendment to do a number of things which I believe are very helpful. We simplified a process. We have taken something that was a 12-step process and made it a 2-step process.
We have accelerated the process requiring States to provide 80 percent for the homeland security resources they receive at the local level within 60 days without moving the money forward. There are needs out there. People deserve to know that the resources are there.
We provided flexibility, targeting the most vulnerable areas, and also making sure that all parts of the country and all States have an opportunity to do what needs to be done to provide a greater measure of safety against the threat of terrorism.
Minnesota is a big State. Wyoming is a big State geographically, but not a big State in population. Much of the area of Minnesota is rural. Yet within the State of Minnesota, which is a big State but not a highly-populated State, with about 5 million people, we have the Mall of America, probably one of the most frequented tourist places in the United States. Every year 35 million people visit the Mall of America.
We have, of course, the Mississippi River in Minnesota which starts as a little stream right up there in Itasca and becomes the great Mississippi of legend, of Mark Twain, and eventually finds its way to Louisiana and into the gulf.
Along the Mississippi, we have a nuclear powerplant on an Indian reservation, the Prairie Island Reservation right on the Mississippi River in Minnesota. We have Duluth, which is located on Lake Superior, which is the gateway to the Great Lakes and transatlantic shipping.
We have miles and miles of border between Minnesota and Canada, a border that is not heavily populated, that is easily crossed, a border which in certain conditions is pretty tough to police. It is pretty tough up in International Falls where it is minus 28 or 30 degrees Fahrenheit without wind chill. Border agents up there have to learn how to pull a trigger on a pistol when it is very cold. It is not that easy. They have to learn how to use snowmobiles and float planes, and all sorts of things that may not be seen in other parts of the country.
But we face challenges. Obviously, we heard from Delaware, and the Presiding Officer would be on the floor now talking about Wyoming. He would talk about the challenges that are faced there.
This is an amendment that provides the targeting of resources in the areas where clearly there is the greatest threat but provides the needed flexibility so that places such as International Falls in Minnesota or the Mall of America or a nuclear powerplant on the Mississippi River can also be protected.
This is an amendment that is a product of the process I talked about. It has bipartisan support. It has the support of Senators from large States and small States. It is something I believe my colleagues will and should overwhelmingly support.
I am honored to speak on behalf of this amendment and to urge its adoption. In doing so, I truly believe it will make this country a safer place and it will make it easier and make it quicker. It will make it much more practical for folks throughout this country to access the funds they need to provide a greater measure of protection against the threat of terrorism.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TEXT
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I would like to address two provisions in the underlying bill that were the subject of much debate, much discussion during our hearings on the 9/11 Commission recommendations. One of them had to do with the recommendation as to whether the national intelligence director should serve at the pleasure of the President or should serve a fixed term.
The 9/11 Commission recommended that the national intelligence director serve at the pleasure of the President. Some observers, however, have suggested that making the NID serve a fixed term would help preserve the independence of the national intelligence director. The Collins-Lieberman bill creates a NID who will be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and who will serve at the pleasure of the President. This is one of those discussions where the words of the Senator from Delaware ring true: the importance of making sure we keep the main thing the main thing.
We had come before us, as I indicated earlier, three former Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency: William Webster, James Woolsey, and Stansfield Turner. Each of them testified that among all the powers of the NID and the variables we needed to consider when deciding whether to create a national intelligence director, the most important quality, the most important variable for the national intelligence director to be effective is to have the support of the President of the United States.
The national intelligence director will be responsible for overseeing a broad range of intelligence functions and operations in this country. His ability to provide that kind of leadership and direction in many ways will be contingent upon having the support of the Commander in Chief, having the support of the President of the United States.
Robert Mueller, who served a 10-year term as FBI Director, testified that the NID should serve at the pleasure of the President. Director Mueller distinguished the FBI, which is expected to be an independent investigative agency, from the office of the NID, which will be responsible for advising the President on intelligence matters, and that advice will be shaping the President's policy decisions. Among the responsibilities of the NID is to be the principal adviser to the President himself.
Some believe that having the NID serve a fixed term could help insulate the national intelligence director from political pressure. However, what it would do is to insulate the national intelligence director from the President. We cannot afford, in these difficult and challenging times, at a time when America is under the threat of terrorist attack, to have the national intelligence director marginalized by a President who does not trust the national intelligence director.
The national intelligence director will be one of the most powerful individuals in the U.S. Government, and he will be one of the President's closest advisers. As such, the President has to be able to select his own national intelligence director. And all those in the intelligence operations, all those in other branches of Government who are involved in intelligence gathering, intelligence processing, and intelligence formulation of operation need to understand that the national intelligence director has the absolute confidence of the President of the United States.
There are a number of alternative mechanisms to protect the objectivity and the independence of the national intelligence director. But, again, I think it is critically important that the national intelligence director have the support of the President. And those thoughts are not just the thoughts of this Senator, but they were the expressed opinions of three former Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency who came before our committee and the opinion of the current head of the FBI who himself has a 10-year term.
One of the other issues that was the subject of a great deal of discussion and focus was what type of authority the national intelligence director should have to develop and execute the budget for national intelligence. It was said many times, whoever controls the money has the power.
We have made a judgment in this bill to have a strong national intelligence director, a national intelligence director who has the confidence of the President of the United States, but also a national intelligence director who will have control over the development of the budget for the national intelligence program, including the authority to coordinate, prepare, direct, and present to the President the annual budget for the national intelligence program.
This bill gives the NID the authority to manage and oversee the execution of the national intelligence program, including visibility and control over how money is spent. It ensures that the core national intelligence agencies-the CIA, NSA, NGA, NRO, FBI Office of Intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection-are entirely within the budgetary authority of the national intelligence director. And it gives the national intelligence director influence over the budgets of intelligence-related activities and organizations that are outside the national intelligence director.
Our approach is consistent with the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which said the NID must be given-and I quote-"control over the purse strings," including the power to submit a unified budget for national intelligence, to receive the appropriation for national intelligence, and to apportion the funds to the appropriate agencies in line with the budget.
The Commission viewed these budget authorities as absolutely essential to achieve the objectives of intelligence reform. One of the chairs of the Commission, Mr. Hamilton, said:
We would not create the national intelligence director if he or she did not have strong budget authority.
Former Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency who testified before our committee also supported giving the national intelligence director strong budget authority.
William Webster, who was both head of the CIA and the FBI, said:
Control of the budget is essential to effective management of the intelligence community.
James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, said:
If budget execution authority is given to the [national intelligence director], he will or she will have a much better ability to say to the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense, "Look, I sympathize. I understand. I know this fluent Arabic linguist is a very rare asset, but you did not hear me. I really need her or him."
Again, who controls the money has the power.
As Chairman Hamilton said: The Commission would not have created a national intelligence director if he or she did not have strong budget authority.
Senior officials in the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence also believe that stronger budget authority is needed in order for the national intelligence director to truly be in charge of the intelligence community.
John McLaughlin said the person responsible for the intelligence community should "have full authority to determine, reprogram and execute all funding for the core national intelligence agencies, principally CIA, NSA, the NGA and NRO."
On and on, the advice the committee received was very clear: If you want to have a strong national intelligence director, you must give him or her strong budget authority.
Consumers of intelligence also testified that it would be desirable for the national intelligence director to have strong budget authority. Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the hearing of our committee on September 13, 2004, said:
The [Director of Central Intelligence] was there before, but the DCI did not have the kind of authority [needed]. And in this town, it's budget authority that counts. Can you move money? Can you set standards for people. So you have access to the President? The [national intelligence director] will have all of that, and so I think this is a far more powerful player. And that will help the State Department.
Some of those who have brought a different perspective have said that the Director of Central Intelligence already has the needed authority but simply has failed to use it, and that if budget execution authority is needed, it should be given to the national intelligence director by Executive order.
With respect to the NFIP budget, the testimony before our committee-much of it in closed session-demonstrated that the Director of Central Intelligence authorities in practice are considerably weaker than they might appear on paper. So what we heard was how things work in the real world. What we heard was the day-to-day reality of how authority can be used, how it can be challenged. If it is not crystal clear, if it is not absolutely clear, if it is not unequivocal, as laid out in this bill, then, in fact, it may not in practice be as strong as one would desire.
The testimony also demonstrated considerable confusion about the actual extent of the Director of Central Intelligence legal authority which I found to be quite interesting. We would have before us various members of the intelligence community, and there would actually be a cross-discussion going on as to whether there was, in fact, this authority that one person believed was there but that the other person didn't believe was there. What we do in this bill is to get rid of the confusion and make it clear. We clarify any ambiguity in the existing language and make unmistakably clear Congress's intent that the national intelligence director, not the Department heads, will have the final say in developing the national intelligence budget.
With respect to receiving the appropriation and budget execution, the Director of Central Intelligence clearly does not have these key authorities today. Neither the administration nor we believe these authorities could be given to the Director of Central Intelligence, much less the national intelligence director, which has not yet been created by Congress, without congressional action.
There is simply no excuse for Congress not to act. This bill provides the kind of action that was clearly laid out before our committee as needed, as supported by those both in the intelligence network and the system, those who are making the decisions and those who are working with the decisions that are being made.
I do hope this body supports the recommendation of the Commission, the recommendation that is part of the bill before us.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the McCain amendment No. 3702, with no second degrees in order to the amendment prior to the vote; provided further that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the vote. Finally, I ask consent that following the vote, Senator Stevens be recognized in order to make a statement.