[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 119 (Tuesday, September 28, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7724-H7730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the majority leader.
Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, tomorrow starts an historic process as we
move through the 9/11 Commission recommendations and other actions by
this Congress in committee to try to address many of the terrorist
concerns and how we are going to handle those terrorist concerns with
new legislation.
We have already taken many actions in this Congress, we have already
taken many actions in the executive branch, but tomorrow we start a
committee process where we are going to implement many other historic
pieces of legislation.
Madam Speaker, I would now yield to my colleague the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) who is going to address a number of the aspects
that we will be starting in our deliberations this week.
Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for
yielding to me.
I am going to focus on two issues dealing with the telecommunications
arena, and these are very, very important, as we have found since
September 11, especially in the arena of communicating between all the
different levels of the first responders. This is something the
Committee on Energy and Commerce has been focused on for the last few
years, especially, as I said, since the terrorist attacks.
We have begun debating legislation that will implement many of the
recommendations from the 9/11 Commission report. A number of these
recommendations focus on public safety communications. The 9/11
Commission noted in its report that the inability of first responders
to talk to each other at the World Trade Center, at the attack on the
Pentagon, and at the crash site in Pennsylvania were a critical element
in impeding rescue work.
A recent report by the GAO said that the Federal Government still
does not know how extensive the lack of effective emergency
communication is, mostly because there is no comprehensive policy
within the Federal Government that addresses spectrum assignments and
plans for interoperable communications technology for public safety.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge just announced that his
department was establishing an office to set national standards for
emergency communications so first responders can talk to each other.
This office will receive the wide range of public safety
interoperability programs and efforts currently spread across Homeland
Security. These programs address critical interoperability issues
relating to public safety and emergency response, including
communications, equipment, training and other areas as needs are
identified.
The term ``interoperable communications'' means the ability of
emergency response providers and the relevant Federal, State and local
government agencies to communicate with each other. Oftentimes, this is
a very difficult task. More and more often, when a public safety
officer responds to a call, he or she will arrive at the call site and
find out their radio does not work because a private wireless carrier
operating in the same spectrum band has a tower close to the call site.
The interference is generally a result of the carrier's signal either
overpowering or mutating public safety's signal.
The 9/11 report recommends that Congress expedite the increased
assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes. I believe, as
do other Members, that full public safety communications
interoperability within the decade should be a national goal. H.R. 10
requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, working with the Secretary
of Commerce and the Chairman of the FCC, to establish a program to
enhance public safety interoperable communications at all levels of
government and to establish a comprehensive national approach to
achieve public safety interoperable communications.
There are some 60,000 first responder organizations in the United
States, and each one purchases its own equipment. These organizations
control more than 40,000 spectrum licenses. Neighboring communities
that need to communicate in an emergency often start out with vastly
different communication systems and different capacities to fund new
equipment, but this is a difficult problem to correct. Many localities
are not willing to give up their system so they can have the same one
as a neighboring community. They feel the systems they have work best
for them in an emergency and feel the cost of switching to a new system
is too high. Some first responders worry that a fully integrated system
could compromise command-and-control in an emergency by fostering a
confusing set of instructions.
[[Page H7725]]
States are looking for low-cost solutions that will enable better
communication, while avoiding the danger in which the chain of command
breaks down in emergencies. We do not want everyone talking to everyone
else all the time.
One key is to set a date for the availability of new spectrum. It
gives States and cities an incentive to move more quickly on the
investments in new equipment needed for interoperability, especially in
urban areas where the volume of users can quickly overload the system
in an emergency, as it did in New York and the Pentagon on September
11.
There is a lot of uncertainty out there about how Congress and the
FCC should acquire this spectrum. Congress passed legislation that
included providing some of the needed frequencies. Congress mandated
that channels used to broadcast analog television were to be clear, and
spectrum at 700 megahertz was to be reallocated for wireless
communications, including public safety.
In the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress established 85 percent
as the threshold for the percentage of households, by market, that must
be able to receive digital signals in order for the FCC to end the
licenses for analog over-the-air broadcast and then use those analog
licenses for public safety. In this scenario, the 15 percent that
lacked digital equipment would, presumably some 16 million homes,
quickly lose access to all television programs.
A proposal by the FCC media bureau chief, Kenneth Ferree, known as
the Ferree Plan, would include cable and satellite set-top boxes that
can accept digital signals and evaluate whether at least 85 percent of
a TV market has either digital TV or converters. Such an action would
make it possible for the FCC to begin reclaiming spectrum from
broadcasters as early as January 2009, but this has been met with some
criticism by broadcasters across the country. To date, over 1,400 of
the 1,600 plus over-the-air broadcast stations are broadcasting a
digital signal.
Another issue I wish to address is the communication problems we are
having when people need to call 911 in an emergency, especially on
their cell phones. The critical numbers 9-1-1 is our first link to
getting lifesaving help or thwarting a terrorist attack. Only a small
percentage of the Nation's PSAPs are capable of processing wireless 9/
11 calls. Those are public service answering points; most of us know
them as the 911 call centers. They are really the government-run
answering locations for public safety. An estimated 130 million
wireless phones are in use, generating an average of 150,000 calls to
911 each day. Our Nation's communications technology has changed, but
our emergency response infrastructure has not been updated. Too many
remain needlessly at risk.
The most significant remaining hurdle to ubiquitous E-911 services is
PSAP readiness. However, most of the remaining PSAPs lack the funding
necessary to upgrade their systems, and many States, like my home State
of Illinois, have aggravated the situation by using the subscriber fees
collected on phone bills for E-911 services to help cover budget
shortfalls.
To address this growing problem, I joined with my colleague in the
House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), she is a Democrat
from California, and two U.S. senators, Senator Conrad Burns from
Montana and Senator Clinton from New York, to form the Congressional E-
911 Caucus. Together, we have pushed legislation that will enhance
coordination of E-911 implementation in each State, discouraging the
raiding of E-911 funds, and give local PSAPs additional funding to help
them finally achieve enhanced 9/11 capability.
I joined the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) in introducing
H.R. 2898, the E-911 Implementation Act of 2003. The bill passed the
House last November and is currently waiting action in the Senate. I
believe the 9/11 Commission report legislation would be the perfect
vehicle to attach this legislation. The legislation will do four major
things to advance E-911 deployment.
First, it authorizes $100 million for 5 years to provide PSAPs with
matching grants to help them with much-needed upgrades.
Two, it penalizes States for diverting their E-911 funds. Under the
legislation, PSAPs will not be eligible for matching grants until their
States certify that they have stopped using their E-911 moneys for
other purposes.
To make a long story short, what States are doing are taxing our
phone bills, and that money is supposed to be going to implement 911
call services and now enhanced 9/11. States are raiding that fund to
pay for budget shortfalls. If the States do not clean up their act,
they are not going to be eligible for any grants to help them meet the
E-911 requirements.
A third thing it does is creates an E-911 office at the National
Telecommunication Information Administration that will serve as a
clearinghouse for best practices in the deployment of E-911 and
administer the grant program.
Number 4, it also directs the FCC to review its E-911 accuracy
requirements for rural areas to determine if they adequately address
the complexities associated with providing E-911 services.
E-911 stands for enhanced, and what we are trying to do is make sure
that when you use your cell phone and you call 911, people know where
you are at, that you can identify yourself or they can be identified on
a map. There are countless stories of people not doing that. How it
translates into the 9/11 Commission report is that what we have also
found is the ability to forward calls from cell phones so that if you
had a major terrorist attack and if it was a weaponized anthrax or if
it was a radiological, a dirty bomb, and we knew the disbursal area and
we knew the wind direction, you could plot that, and then, in essence,
use cell phones and call people who are, in essence, downwind and say,
go this direction or go that direction and get out of the path of the
cloud which is coming your way. That is how this is all tied to the 9/
11 Commission report.
{time} 2230
And accuracy is very, very important. Accuracy in urban areas is a
challenge with high rises. Accuracy in rural areas is a challenge
because you have long distances with isolated sectors of the
population. So in a rural area you may get away with being accurate up
to 100 feet, but in an urban area you may need a more specific and
precise location.
What I am highlighting here tonight is a need for Congress and the
SEC to act on public safety communication problems. H.R. 10 starts that
process moving. There are other fixes like E-911 legislation that could
help first responders respond quicker to emergencies and possible
terrorist attacks.
These solutions are not easy. Congress and industry are going to have
to make difficult decisions, but our goal should be to improve public
safety communication systems and ensure that first responders are
equipped with the necessary tools to respond to terrorist attacks and
other emergency situations.
This is an important time in our country as we are moving forward to
address numerous concerns. I really personally applaud the 9/11
Commission report. I think they have done a good job outlining many of
the needs that we have to address to make sure that, as the commission
so precisely put it, we are as a Nation safer today than we were on
September 11; but we are still not safe. So we have to make needed
improvements.
I have just talked about the communication aspects and dealing with
some of the vague issues of spectrum and then how first line responders
can free up spectrum for them to be able to communicate, and also how
in using telecommunications we can help the individual citizens as more
of our country moves to cell phone communications.
With that, I wish to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana,
for yielding to me; and I look forward to following his discussion on
this issue.
Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). There are so many aspects to the 9/11
Commission report and all the many day-to-day activities in fighting
terrorism that it is hard to even begin to fathom the number of issues
that we have to deal with as we move through the committee process.
Before I continue, I want to make sure that I point out to the
gentlewoman from Michigan that I meant no
[[Page H7726]]
offense by my Notre Dame tie, just because Notre Dame is the champion
of Michigan this year, both Michigan and Michigan State. I actually
wore my Notre Dame shirt after they lost to Brigham Young at a State
park in Michigan when I thought we were in a dismal year. I am a Notre
Dame hot dog regardless of the time.
I hope no offense was taken by this wonderful Fighting Irish tie.
Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about another aspect of the 9/11
Commission, but first I would like to say a little bit about how we got
here.
I know there are some Members in this body over the next few days,
and they have been saying it in the news media, that think that just
because there was a commission that somehow we have now checked our
voting cards at the door and we are supposed to adopt this report lock,
stock and barrel.
I was one who actually opposed this commission at the start, because
I was afraid it was going to be overly political. In fact, there were
times in the commission hearings that I felt that. For example, in Dick
Clarke's self-serving testimony, it became very critical and was more
focused on attacking the President than trying to move forward. I felt
that not addressing the values of the PATRIOT Act was something that
was kind of a gross omission of something we have actually done that
has worked extremely well in this country in helping thwart future
terrorist attacks.
Overall, however, it is not only an excellent document, but one of
the best written government reports you will ever read. It is actually
interesting; it is compelling as it goes through the testimony. The
fact remains, however, that it is the opinion of a few individuals.
Now, a number of those individuals served in Congress, not many but
at least three; and all of them were from the other party. The
Republicans appointed to the commission were largely executive branch
people at the State or the Federal level. Each of them had their own
biases as they came in and had their own committee backgrounds as they
came.
So while they have many excellent recommendations, we have to now
work through a committee process by elected representatives, people in
the House and Senate, who have many other opinions in addition to this
commission. But the one thing this commission absolutely accomplished
was it forced us to deal with this yet this fall. And it kept the
pressure up such that tomorrow we are actually starting markups in
multiple committees to try to move through as many things as we can
without moving so hastily that we make major mistakes.
One problem with just rushing to judgment in an area as comprehensive
as telecommunications and border security and individual liberties and
privacy and travel visas, and all sorts of, just an incredible number
of issues potentially here, relations with individual countries around
the world, how we reorganize defense intelligence, narcotics
intelligence, border intelligence, domestic and international
intelligence, how you put different bureaucracies together when we are
still struggling in the Department of Homeland Security, it is unclear
how we absolutely merge Defense intelligence, the CIA, and the FBI.
Their cultures are even more pronouncedly different than the cultures
that were merged inside DHS, which is taking quite a bit of time.
Nevertheless, we need to continue to move ahead.
Let me reiterate one other thing. It is not as though Congress has
not been doing anything, not only after 9/11 but before 9/11. On the
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, when I was vice chairman
of the subcommittee that now Speaker Hastert chaired, we went over to
Saudi Arabia after Khobar Towers. We heard from the counterintelligence
people in many classified as well as public hearings about the
increasing attacks on our military and our civilians around the world.
Although they had not attacked us, although they had attempted to
attack us at the World Trade Center, they had not successfully had a
disaster like happened on 9/11. We were already moving to improve and
to consolidate, but there was not as much consensus on how to do it.
Then, after 9/11, we went and wiped out terrorist bases in
Afghanistan and deprived them of one of the major funding sources and
routes to terrorism for al Qaeda through the Taliban. We moved into
Iraq, which was not only attempting, if not absolutely having
developed, weapons of mass destruction with which to attack us. They
not only provided some tangential assistance to al Qaeda and other
terrorist networks in ``the enemy of my enemy is my friend'' theory,
but more directly were preparing to be an even bigger threat than al
Qaeda itself.
Because we went into Iraq, Mohamar Qadafi decided he did not want to
be in a spider hole, and all of a sudden he is fingering Pakistan, that
they are providing him with nuclear parts. Then Pakistan moves over and
provides some help to us.
As we now look at the potential terrorist nations of Iran and Korea,
one of the questions we had when we looked at Iran was, where would you
even base Americans. Until we moved into Iraq and Afghanistan and had a
change in attitude at least of Pakistan, it was not clear how we would
be able to deal with Iran.
So we have to take steps and look at this in a historical perspective
of it was not like 9/11 occurred and nothing happened until there was a
9/11 Commission, they do a report, and suddenly there is panic. No, we
have been dealing with this steadily and consistently.
My subcommittee, which predominantly deals with narcotics but also
deals with immigration and all sorts of criminal justice things, and
particularly on the border, spent 2 years focusing on our borders. We
did multiple hearings and in July of 2002 issued this border report,
which then we used partly as an information base as the Subcommittee on
Infrastructure and Border Security of the Select Committee on Homeland
Security was organized, because this was the first comprehensive
document where we pulled together information on which border crossings
are the major truck crossings, which ones are the major car crossings,
where do individuals cross, where do we have multiple people putting
pressure on our borders, and what things do we need to do to improve
our security clearance systems, what things do we do to move the port
security away from the U.S. but do the clearances farther out, whether
it be Singapore or over in Europe at Rotterdam, for example. How can we
preclear these things before they get to our borders?
It is fine to say we are going to add border patrol agents, but we
are having trouble recruiting for the existing slots we have. What do
we need to do internally to make sure we have an adequate supply of
people who are willing to serve in the Department of Homeland Security,
at the border and other things? How do we not lose other missions as we
work on the border?
So there were a lot of things we were already progressing on at the
legislative side. The executive branch has been working diligently to
improve, for example, the border security. Let me give some examples
related to border security.
It does not do any good to try to have all sorts of different
approaches and have electronic systems that can talk to each other, and
everybody wants to strengthen emergency response, and I am on the
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness and Response of the Select
Committee on Homeland Security, but that is all dealing with after
disasters happen. The goal is to try to prevent a disaster from
occurring. To do that, you have to make sure the terrorists do not get
into our country; and when they come in, you have to make sure you have
some means to track them.
This means that, A, we have to get our borders more secure, both
north and south; B, we have to have information systems at the border
that can identify the people and give us the ability to track them.
That also means that if you are going to have an ID, and this is one of
the things that will be moving through this week, you need to have some
kind of thing that makes the identification secure.
If we do not have secure IDs, whether it is the U.S. visit program,
whether it is from U.S. citizens, whether it is from noncitizens living
in the United States, whether it is from people from Mexico or Canada
or other countries that are coming in, we are only as safe as the ID
[[Page H7727]]
system they have. We are only as safe as our birth certificate system
is.
If you can forge a birth certificate or a Social Security number and
then get a legal ID, the whole system is broken. There is no tracking
of money. It does not do us any good to have banking laws. It does not
do us any good to have wiretap laws. It does not do us any good to be
tracking people who have false IDs. So clearly, we have to get better
systems of identification and more secure systems.
Secondly, we need to have machines that talk to each other. You
cannot have somebody on the north border with one kind of machine over
at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, and somebody with another kind of
machine down there at the El Paso-Juarez crossing and find they cannot
talk to each other; and if people cross different points, the machines
cannot read the same information going into the same information bank.
If somebody gets on at an airport in Europe to come in and we want to
pre-check them, and somebody is coming in at the Los Angeles airport
and our systems cannot cross-check or read each other, what is the
point of doing all this? So we have to have better integration. These
will be expensive systems, and so we will have to make decisions on
which ones will work, and we are testing.
This does not happen real fast. You do not walk into Wal-Mart and
say, by the way, we would like 2,000 of these systems tomorrow. They
are not there. We have to make some basic decisions, then you have to
produce on those decisions, and that is the process we are working
through.
We have a multitude of other things. I have two small companies in
Angola, Indiana, that are part of the two largest companies that make
the container seals. We talk about port security. One of the
vulnerabilities we have to nuclear weapons, chemical, and biological
weapons is port security.
When something comes into the Los Angeles area or into the New York
area, the question is do we know for sure whether there are nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons in that container before it blows up the
city? The answer is, well, we are preclearing and we are checking the
IDs and so on. But if the container seal can be broken, so what if the
bill of lading matches? All they do is pull the little sealant loose,
put something in, and replace it at whatever point we have precleared.
One of the problems we have, for example, is no international
standards on these container seals. Well, why? Partly, bluntly put,
China has taken intellectual property rights and are mass producing
these seals and they do not want to have anybody check for
international standards because what they are making is illegal because
they stole somebody's license. So that means that most of the container
seals being used right now, are actually pirated and there is no
security or way to check to see if those container seals can be
modified or changed, or whether the number of seals is out there or
whether they have rigged the market where some are on the black market
and somebody could change the container seals.
So we can do all this other stuff, but if the container is not sealed
and does not have protection, it does not do any good. That is why we
talk about layered security. You have preclearance. You even need
eventually to move downstream from preclearance, because the things
coming in from Singapore are coming in from China and India and other
places. You then need to be able to check them on the ship. You need to
know that the sealant is there. You need to check the people who are
moving these things at the harbor where it is loaded, on the ship as it
is moving through, in the harbor as it is unloaded, and on the train.
For example, some stuff comes from China to Singapore to Vancouver,
British Columbia, crosses at North Dakota on a train, the seventh
biggest crossing is in North Dakota, headed down to Chicago and the
Midwest. If it gets precleared in Singapore, think how many places that
container could be modified if we do not have checks and have a secured
container. So there are lots of different small aspects of this.
Now, let me mention a couple of other things that are difficult.
There is a lot of criticism about merging all the different agencies. I
do not sit on the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on
Appropriations, but I want to suggest that there are things that are
unique in the different branches of government that make this harder
than the simplistic let us consolidate everything.
{time} 2245
There are some missions that are more military, some missions that
are more antiterrorist. Let me give an example of a couple of other
things, and this has been a very bitter controversy in the Committee on
Homeland Security as we fight over jurisdiction, and there are reasons
we are having fights for jurisdiction. For example, the Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard is one of the major ways that we fight narcotics.
If you are from Alaska, the Coast Guard provides some narcotics
protection and pipeline protection and harbor protection, but the
number one thing is fisheries. If the Coast Guard is not guarding the
international waters, the Russian trawlers, among other countries,
would take the salmon that do a circular route and they would net those
salmon and destroy the salmon industry in the United States. So to
Alaska, it is a lot of fisheries.
On the Great Lakes when we think of the Coast Guard, we think to some
degree homeland security, to some degree narcotics; but you think
search and rescue. The same thing off Florida. It is fine to say I
think that those boats ought to be focused on homeland security, but do
not let the overturned sailboat people drown. Do not let the narcotics
come in. There are multiple missions to the Coast Guard.
We hear all politics are local. No one wants to die. Obviously, if we
have a nuclear bomb and we are all destroyed, jobs do not matter much.
But ultimately, jobs are the number one local issue. So let us talk
about the legacy customs department inside homeland security. Their
number one priority is homeland security, but if they allow goods in, I
remember one case when I was a staffer, there was a dumping case in
Seattle where they were going to dump enough lawn mower motors below
the cost of production. It would have put a major company in Indiana
out of business. It would have taken 2 years of market.
The goal was to say you cannot illegally dump. If the Customs people
had not stopped the ship from unloading, then the unemployment rate in
that area would have soared and people would have said to the then-
Congressman, it is jobs. How could you let this company go?
Partly in fighting on international customs questions, as well as
narcotics questions, the Department of Homeland Security has duties
beyond just homeland security. We cannot just by a broad statement of
saying oh well, let us just do homeland security, forget there are many
reasons that these agencies exist beyond just homeland security. For
example, we do not want the FBI just to do homeland security and forget
about racketeering, which may or may not be related to al Qaeda, but
may in fact result in lots of different deaths in the United States or
driving people out of business or terrorizing people. There are other
functions for these agencies. This is not going to be worked out in 30
days, but a lot of it is.
What we are seeing is progress in trying to work out a national
intelligence director, progress on some new international initiatives,
progress on cutting off financial support to terrorists, and isolating
different terrorists. There will be bills passed this week in parts of
this package regarding border security, international cooperation,
government restructuring, and first responders. Much of what is in this
report will be moving. The parts that are not moving are things that we
have internally through the elected process in the United States said
do not make a mistake that is more costly even than the current system.
One other brief point, and then I want to conclude with some remarks
on drugs and terrorism.
The weekend before last, I went with the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Weldon) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) to Russia. We went
to the city of Beslan; and it was the most awful single experience that
I have seen. In that school, 32 terrorists attacked a school on the
second day of school. They came up on the school
[[Page H7728]]
yard and drove approximately 1,500 teachers, students, and parents into
the school building. Apparently they had planted bombs earlier to go
off in different parts of the school if they needed to. Initially, they
pushed the kids in.
Immediately, the 22 people they felt most likely to resist, young men
and male teachers, were killed and thrown out of a second story window.
We were the first Americans. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
went a couple days later, and he visited the people in the hospitals
and said it was the most emotional experience he had been through
because of the brutality of terrorists who seized children and shot
them. Many parents were killed and the teachers were killed, and many
of the kids were wounded with head wounds and different things as the
parents tried to cover them up, and they could not get them covered.
They deprived them of water and food for 3 days. At the site in this
picture are all of the bottles of water, thousands of bottles of water,
because those kids were deprived of water and if they complained, they
shot them.
In this burned-out gym, the kids were crying. One man lost his wife
and five children. The emotionalism, we felt it was important for us to
stand with them. I have been to new graves, but never to a whole new
graveyard, 300 some graves, mostly children spread over a big field. We
felt it was important to say as Americans, and all of us broke down
because it was so emotional.
This man, Speaker of the House, he had a 7-year-old son and a 10-
year-old daughter inside. They put one of his children on the
telephone. The boy said, ``Daddy, if you storm this, they are going to
kill me and my sister.''
They stalled for a number of days. A bomb went off. A number of
people got killed. They put his little boy on the telephone. Meanwhile
kids, many were dead, some started to run out of the building. The
terrorists started gunning down the children as they left. The parents
outside decided to storm as well as the police outside, and they went
in.
It was important for us as Americans to stand there and say, look,
terrorism is evil wherever it occurs in the world, and we are in this
fight together. This might have started as a local battle in Chechnya,
but the proclaimed leader went to Afghanistan and he was trained by al
Qaeda, and he came back a different man. Instead of fighting for
freedom in Chechnya, he decide to murder children and parents and
teachers and parent-volunteers in the second day of school, and to kill
as many as 500, 600 kids.
Do you think Russia after having two planes go down and this school
bombed, after hitting a theater, after hitting a subway, they do not
understand the battle we are in right now? One of the things that the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) was talking to them about was
having a homeland security conference over there and over here as we
all look for new technologies to fight this battle because these crazed
people who think they can do these suicide attacks on anybody at any
time are a different breed. We have to take strong actions.
I want to make sure I make these points tonight that are the
connections between narcotics and terrorism. I chair the narcotics
committee and have for the last 4 years. And as the 9/11 Commission has
pointed out and President Bush has pointed out, there are huge profits
through drug trafficking that will continue to finance terrorism
throughout the world. As President Bush pointed out in September 2001,
``The traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining
terrorists. Terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit
acts of murder.''
Furthermore, as the U.S. steps up its efforts against more legitimate
sources of funding, terrorist organizations will increasingly turn to
drugs and similar illegal sources. As the 9/11 Commission has noted,
the Federal Government, including DHS, must be able to adapt to these
shifting strategies of the terrorists. ``Instead of facing a few very
dangerous adversaries, the United States confronts a number of less
visible challenges that surpass the boundaries of traditional nation-
states and call for quick, quick imaginative, and agile responses.''
That is page 399.
Recognizing the central importance of stopping terrorist financing,
the 9/11 Commission reported: ``Vigorous efforts to track terrorist
financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism
efforts. The government has recognized that information about terrorist
money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and
disrupt their operations.'' Page 382.
The connections between drugs and terrorism are well-documented.
In Afghanistan, our subcommittee was told February 26, 2004, the
State Department provided declassified information, which is just the
tip of the iceberg, showing in Afghanistan two terrorist insurgent
groups are financed by drug money and most likely are provided with
logistical support by drug traffickers. Two other groups, al Qaeda and
the IMU, probably receive at least logistical support from drug
traffickers, and some reports suggest that they receive funds from drug
trafficking as well.
Drugs and al Qaeda, in November 2002, Attorney General Ashcroft
announced the arrest of three al Qaeda operatives who offered 600
kilograms of heroin and five metric tons of hashish in exchange for
four Stinger shoulder anti-aircraft missiles.
With respect to terrorist groups in Colombia, the State Department
has noted that the main terrorist organizations are heavily dependent
on the funds derived from drug trafficking.
Worldwide, testimony before our subcommittee on May 11, 2004, Donald
Semesky, DEA Chief of Financial Operations, stated that drug income is
among the sources of revenue for some international terrorist groups,
and the Department of Justice has highlighted links between groups and
individuals under investigation for drug violations and terrorist
organizations. In fact, 47 percent of the 36 foreign terrorist
organizations identified and updated by the Department of State in
October 2003 are on record with DEA as having possible ties to the drug
trade.
Strong DHS action against drug trafficking is vital to overall
efforts to stop the financing of terrorist activities. It was for this
reason that Congress specifically provided that the primary mission of
the Department included the responsibility to ``monitor connections
between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism, coordinate efforts to
sever such connections, and otherwise contribute to efforts to
interdict illegal drug trafficking.''
For example, the Coast Guard, part of DHS, has seized a record
240,518 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2004, shattering the previous
record of 138,393 pounds set in 2001. That is nearly double. That is
$7.7 billion that will not go into the hands of the narcoterrorists.
Just this month, Federal agencies joined together to make a record
seizure of an estimated 27 tons of cocaine on board three fishing
vessels in the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands.
These record-breaking seizures, coupled with the record-breaking
year, are an excellent example of what can be accomplished if DHS
continues to improve intelligence-sharing and interagency cooperation.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources, I would like to highlight two provisions of the bill
that we are doing this week that address the importance of stopping
drug trafficking to homeland security.
The first strengthens and clarifies the role of the counternarcotics
officer at the Department of Homeland Security. The second requires
that drug enforcement activities be one of the benchmarks for relevant
employee performance appraisals at DHS.
I proposed both of these reforms which will improve the Department's
anti-drug efforts.
The two provisions promote two key objectives, to deprive terrorists
of their means of financing their operations: first, strengthening the
effectiveness of the Department's narcotics interdiction efforts; and,
second, improving coordination and cooperation among the Department's
subdivisions and between the Department and other agencies with
counterterrorism missions. As the 9/11 Commission reported: ``We
recommend significant changes in the organization of the government.
Good people can overcome bad structures. They should not have to.''
[[Page H7729]]
The Counternarcotics Office at DHS, this proviso was added. This
office was not in the original draft of the President's bill. Thanks to
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), we were able to put this in
the original reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security.
This provision will modify that. The first provision, section 5025 of
the Speaker's bill, and that could be changed, but that is where it is
right now, would add a new section 878 to the Homeland Security Act of
2002, which created the new Department.
{time} 2300
The new section replaces the current position of counternarcotics
officer that was contained in the original 2002 act with an Office of
Counternarcotics Enforcement headed by a director. At present, the
counternarcotics officer, which we worked hard to get in, is
nevertheless not actually an employee of DHS. Instead, he is a detailee
employed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP.
Furthermore, he has no authority to hire staff to assist him. The
current law also fails to clearly define how the counternarcotics
officer is to carry out his responsibilities. The new section 878 would
rectify this problem by replacing the CNO with a director of
counternarcotics enforcement, subject to Senate confirmation and
reporting directly to the Secretary; assigning specific
responsibilities to the new director, including oversight of DHS
counterdrug activities and the submission of reports to Congress; and
authorizing permanent staff assigned to an Office of Counternarcotics
Enforcement as well as detailees from relevant agencies to assist the
director.
In other words, we need a department with teeth. Quite frankly, there
is no antidrug effort if we don't have legacy Customs, legacy Coast
Guard, legacy Border Patrol fighting narcotics. We have no protection.
Thirty thousand people died last year from narcotics, none from
international terrorism, inside the United States. We have to remember,
don't throw out the baby with the bath water and when we are doing
reorganization, let us stay focused on multiple missions.
Secondly, the use of counternarcotics performance for certain DHS
personnel evaluations. The second provision, section 5026 of the
Speaker's bill, would add a new section 843 to the 2002 act, ensuring
that employees involved in counternarcotics activities will be
evaluated in part on the basis of such activities. It is vital that DHS
encourage its law enforcement personnel to continue their efforts to
stop illegal drug trafficking. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether
drug enforcement is being given sufficient consideration by the
department in developing its employee performance management system. A
word search of the department's proposed new personnel rules, including
those for performance management, 69 Federal Registry 8030-01, February
20, 2004 shows that the words ``narcotics'' and ``drugs'' do not appear
at all. This, in the number one agency that is supposed to protect us.
New section 843 would require DHS to include as one of its criteria
in a performance appraisal system for relevant employees performance of
counternarcotics duties. In order to encourage such personnel to
cooperate and coordinate efforts with other agencies, the new section
also requires that this be a factor for consideration in performance
appraisals as well.
I was hoping that we could address two things that are critical to
our border efforts. One is, we have made some movement on and we are
continuing to negotiate with the executive branch on what to do with
the air marine division of the legacy Customs. The second is with the
shadow wolves. If we cannot get control of the border at the Tohono
O'odham or up on the north border in upstate New York where we have
Indian nations on those borders and we cannot use creative things like
the shadow wolves to do it, we have no protection on the border.
We held a hearing at Sells, Arizona, inside the Tohono O'odham
nation. I asked one question of the Border Patrol. I said, when you see
the cars go by here, are any of these people here for legitimate
purposes? They said, no, we could stop any car and arrest anybody
because all of them are pretty much here unless they are a member of
the Tohono O'odham nation. What does that mean? It means that at the
national park on the border there, we have had a ranger killed, they
have closed down some of the best hiking trails in the United States.
The day we held our hearing, the previous year they had, I think, 250
or 500 pounds of drug seizure the first 3 months of the year because
other parts of the border were sealed off. They had something like
1,000 pounds. And the day of our hearing, when we had all these
government officials there, they picked up a load of 300 pounds, 500
pounds, a load of 400 pounds, then got another load of 500 pounds. They
took down more in one day while the Federal agents happened to be there
for our hearing than they had in the previous 3 months, which was more
by double the previous year.
It is an open border in parts of Arizona and Texas right now. And
particularly where you have a nation that borders that and you have a
functional group, you cannot be so rigid in DHS parliamentary
guidelines that you cannot have some flexibility to keep inside these
independent nations a group that was working and one of the only things
that was working in that area. We need a similar thing up at the Indian
nation on the north border in New York.
We are making lots of steps this week. There are many things that I
and many other Members of this body would like to have in this bill,
but it is an important step, and in fact we are moving with major
legislation in multiple committees that will make our country even
safer. We have made steady progress prior to 9/11, we have made
dramatic progress since 9/11, and this week we are going to make even
more dramatic progress working with this administration to make our
country safer from terrorists.
Mr. FOSSELLA. Madam Speaker, I believe the ability for public safety
officers to communicate to each other is one of the core principles in
protecting this nation. Whether it is police officers and firefighters
working together to save a child from a burning building or the FBI and
local officials stopping terrorists before boarding a plane, the
ability for local, State, and Federal public safety officers to
communicate should be, and I believe is, one of the goals this Congress
and administration diligently works to achieve.
Just Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Ridge announced the
launching of an Office of Interoperability and Compatibility. This
office will oversee the wide range of public safety interoperability
programs and efforts currently spread across Homeland Security. These
programs address critical interoperability issues relating to public
safety and emergency response, including communications, equipment,
training, and other areas as needs are identified.
I want to commend the Secretary for his leadership on this issue and
would like to add that it is now Congress's duty to ensure this office
has the resources and flexibility it will need to achieve it's goals.
Just as importantly as it is to ensure that State firefighters can, and
do communicate with State police officers, it is equally important that
Congress, through its committees, remains committed to working with
Federal agencies in making sure that they not just set goals, but that
they accomplish them.
As was discovered in a hearing before the Energy and Commerce
subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet earlier this month,
achieving true interoperability will be one of the more difficult tasks
First Responders will encounter in coming years. Despite a clear desire
to achieve interoperability, there remain a number of traps that have
continued to slow down progress.
One of those traps has been the interference public safety officers
receive from some wireless carriers. More and more often, when a public
safety officer responds to a call, he or she will arrive at the call
site and find out their radio doesn't work because a private wireless
carrier operating in the same spectrum band has a tower close to the
call site. The interference is generally a result of the carrier's
signal either overpowering or mutating public safety's signal.
For more than 3 years, the Federal Communications Commission studied
the issue. It was clear that separating public safety spectrum from the
interfering private wireless carrier's spectrum was the only solution.
During this time, a number of my colleagues and I contacted the FCC to
make it clear that whatever solution the FCC was to choose, it must
cover all of the costs incurred by public safety. In July of this year,
the FCC issued a ruling to address the problem. Since July, details of
the proposal have been released and the FCC has continued communication
with the interfering company. While it is good to see that the FCC is
making progress on their proposal, I continue to believe that the only
solution will
[[Page H7730]]
ensure that public safety no longer receive interference, and that all
of their relocation costs are covered in full with no possibility for a
funding shortfall.
The second trap that I previously spoke of involves public safety's
need for additional spectrum. While Congress and the FCC could spend
their time finding and allocating public safety new spectrum, I believe
it would be more prudent to eliminate the digital divide and give
public safety the 24 MHz of spectrum they've been allocated in the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The Balanced Budget Act allocates an
additional 24MHz of spectrum to public safety when broadcasters
operating on their current analog spectrum transition to digital
spectrum.
While many broadcasters have prepared for the transition, others have
chosen to bet against congressional action and become spectrum
squatters, holding hostage the very spectrum that public safety needs
to protect this country. It is time for the broadcasters to vacate
their analog spectrum, and I believe that under the leadership of
Chairman Barton and my colleagues at the Energy and Commerce Committee,
we will be able to offer members the opportunity to vote on legislation
that will eliminate the digital divide and get public safety the
spectrum that they need to make our communities a safer place to live.
In closing I would like to recognize the public safety officials in
our country for that work tirelessly to ensure that our families are
safe and able to enjoy the freedoms that this country provides. While
our troops abroad are working to ensure we don't see terrorism and war
in our streets, it's our public safety officers that prevent and
respond to events at home.
Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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