Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years and 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3494, the Intelligence Authorization Act.

Mr. Chairman, as the chair of the Defense Intelligence and Warfighter Support Subcommittee, I believe this bill will ensure our warfighters retain the information and decisionmaking advantages to which we have grown accustomed and improve the intelligence community's ability to attract and retain a diverse workforce.

The bill includes provisions that authorize increased intelligence funding for combatant commanders and our growing strategic competition with China, Russia, and other malign actors; supports the Defense Intelligence Agency's ongoing assessment of its roles and missions; and provides the Director of National Intelligence with the necessary authority to manage intelligence community-wide academic programs.

This bill also includes language I authored which will improve Federal campaign election security. My provision will require the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to make available an advisory report on foreign counterintelligence and cybersecurity threats to those campaigns. Additionally, my language requires the Director to publish a summary of best practices and provide information to campaigns to help thwart these attacks.

This legislation also continues the committee's longstanding and bipartisan work to promote increased diversity within the intelligence community's workforce. This bill contains language directing the intelligence community to expand its annual demographic hiring report by adding grade level, years of service, career categories, gender identity, and sexual orientation reporting categories. These changes will improve the IC's ability to track how well it retains and promotes persons of diverse backgrounds.

Finally, for the first time in many years, the Intelligence Authorization Act will provide significant funding for programs that will improve the IC's ability to introduce students from diverse backgrounds to its mission.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to voting in support of this legislation. I commend the chairman and ranking member on working together to provide these important authorizations. I encourage my colleagues to do the same and vote for this bill.

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