National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Oct. 6, 2004

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT OF 2004

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, military personnel comprise an important part of the national intelligence community. Managing military personnel is the appropriate function of the Secretary of Defense and the military departments.

The bill, as drafted, would permit the transfer of military personnel within the national intelligence program. This amendment strikes that language and does not permit the transfer of the military personnel within the national intelligence program.

The second-degree amendment makes it clear that the positions, of course, cannot be transferred. In other words, providing that the people who are in those positions are not transferred by the national intelligence director, if it is just the money for the positions, which providing it falls within the scope of reprogramming, for instance, and can be done in any event; providing it is the positions or the money attached to the positions that are transferred from one part of the intelligence community to another, that we do not prevent. It is the transfer of uniformed people that cannot be accepted, and this amendment would prevent that from happening.

So if we are in a situation, for instance, where the national intelligence director says, I want those five people from a particular agency, and if these are uniform military personnel, that would not be possible when my amendment is adopted. The national intelligence director would be able to transfer positions, or the money, and say $400,000 or $1 million or whatever, providing, again, it is within or below the limit that is established, which would require programming approval by the Congress; providing it is below that limit, the NID continues to have that authority, which he would have in any event, to transfer funds or positions from one place to another. So we don't touch the money or the positions.

However, we maintain a chain of command. We maintain military careers. These are uniform military careers, and we do not have an outside civilian person changing that career by transferring a uniform military person from one place to another.

I thank my colleagues, the managers of the bill, for working out this language with us. It is a very important change in terms of military careers, in terms of military personnel, in terms of the management of military personnel, in terms of morale. But it does not disturb, again, the budgetary power or the shifting around of budgets-or billets, as we call them-or positions, providing, again, they are underneath and within the limits established by the reprogramming procedures that have been established, where individual agency heads are allowed to transfer money from one place to another. If it is above that limit, it is established by the reprogramming procedures, then, of course, they have to go through the normal reprogramming process before money can be transferred from one place to another.
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Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, my thanks to the managers, not just for their work on this amendment, but their work generally on this bill. It has been exemplary and a model to all of us in this Senate as to how we can achieve things on a bipartisan basis. They worked together beautifully, and I commend them for it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 3962 to amendment No. 3809, as modified.

The amendment (No. 3962) was agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 3809, as modified, as amended.
The amendment (No. 3809), as modified, as amended, was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.