[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 127 (Tuesday, July 29, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7191-H7192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




PERSONNEL REIMBURSEMENT FOR INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION AND ENHANCEMENT OF 
                         HOMELAND SECURITY ACT

  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 6098) to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to improve 
the financial assistance provided to State, local, and tribal 
governments for information sharing activities, and for other purposes, 
as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6098

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Personnel Reimbursement for 
     Intelligence Cooperation and Enhancement of Homeland Security 
     Act'' or the ``PRICE of Homeland Security Act''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       The Congress finds as follows:
       (1) After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, 
     State, local, and tribal governments redoubled their efforts 
     to combat terrorism and expended tremendous energy and 
     financial resources to help the Federal Government fight the 
     terrorist threat.
       (2) States and localities have formed fusion centers, hired 
     intelligence analysts, and contributed a significant amount 
     of resources to the expansion of Federal homeland security 
     efforts.
       (3) These actions, in conjunction with the efforts of the 
     Federal Government and private industry, have materially 
     contributed to the common defense of this Nation and have 
     helped keep our homeland secure.
       (4) The National Strategy for Information Sharing issued by 
     the President in October 2007 plainly states that ``The 
     Federal Government may need to provide financial and 
     technical assistance, as well as human resource support, to 
     these fusion centers if they are to achieve and sustain a 
     baseline level of capability. The objective is to assist 
     State and local governments in the establishment and the 
     sustained operation of these fusion centers. A sustained 
     Federal partnership with State and major urban area fusion 
     centers is critical to the safety of our Nation, and 
     therefore a national priority.''.
       (5) The Federal Government has endeavored to support these 
     State efforts through the State Homeland Security Grant 
     Program and other methods of Federal assistance but have 
     placed restrictions on the use of these funds that make long-
     term planning for fusion centers unmanageable.
       (6) It is vital to the security of our homeland that States 
     and localities are able to continue to receive funding for 
     the participation of State and local analysts in fusion 
     centers and in their State and local efforts to combat 
     terrorism and terrorist-related activities.

     SEC. 3. GRANT ELIGIBILITY FOR ANALYSTS.

       Section 2008(a) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 
     U.S.C. 609(a)) is amended--
       (1) in the matter preceding paragraph (1) by striking 
     ``Grants'' and all that follows through ``plans, through'' 
     and inserting the following: ``The Administrator shall permit 
     grant recipients under section 2003 or 2004 to use grant 
     funds to achieve and sustain target capabilities related to 
     preventing, preparing for, protecting against, and responding 
     to acts of terrorism, consistent with a State homeland 
     security plan and relevant local, tribal, and regional 
     homeland security plans, through''; and
       (2) in paragraph (10) by inserting the following after 
     ``analysts'': ``regardless of whether such analysts are 
     current or new full-time employees or contract employees and 
     such funding shall be made available without time limitations 
     placed on the period of time that such analyst can serve 
     under awarded grants.''.

     SEC. 4. USE OF FUNDS FOR PERSONNEL AND OPERATIONAL COSTS.

       Section 2008(b)(2) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 
     U.S.C. 609(b)(2)) is amended by striking so much as precedes 
     subparagraph (B) and inserting the following:
       ``(2) Personnel and operational costs.--
       ``(A) In general.--The recipient of a grant under section 
     2003 or 2004 may, at the recipient's discretion, use up to 50 
     percent of the amount of the grant awarded for any fiscal 
     year to pay for personnel and operational costs, including 
     overtime and backfill costs, in support of the uses 
     authorized under subsection (a).''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) 
will each control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California.


                             General Leave

  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague and the ranking member of our Subcommittee 
on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment 
Dave Reichert, introduced H.R. 6098 earlier this year, and it was 
reported unanimously out of our subcommittee and the full committee.
  I have to express my personal disappointment that Mr. Reichert is not 
here for this debate. I know that this is a subject he is passionate 
about, as am I, as are the first responders, so-called ``first 
preventers'' who will benefit enormously by its passage.
  At issue, Mr. Speaker, is how DHS grant recipients can spend their 
money when it comes to hiring and retaining intelligence analysts at 
the State and local levels.
  In the 9/11 Act, we were clear, grant recipients could use up to 50 
percent of their State Homeland Security Grant Program and Urban Area 
Security Initiative funding for personnel costs, without time 
limitations.
  The Department of Homeland Security, however, had other ideas. 
Instead of following the law, it capped allowable personnel costs far 
below the 50 percent threshold, and it imposed a 2-year limit on how 
long States could employ intelligence analysts hired with Federal 
dollars. This has had the absurd result of States and localities firing 
analysts after 2 years, just to continue to qualify for DHS funding.
  Think about this. Someone works for you, is providing excellent, 
accurate and actionable intelligence analysis that will help us track 
and prevent the next set of threats, and that person gets fired only 
because he or she has to be fired in order for money to continue to 
flow. This makes absolutely no sense.
  DHS' approach, likewise, undermines the culture of constitutionality 
that Congress intended to foster at fusion centers in the 9/11 Act.
  Many States and localities want to use DHS grant funds to hire and 
retain analysts at those centers, which are increasingly becoming the 
linchpin for information sharing with the Federal Government. To 
sustain this effort, however, State and locals need money to pay for 
staff overtime to make fusion centers work, something both Congress and 
the President, in his National Strategy For Information Sharing, 
strongly support.
  But, Mr. Speaker, the Department's grant guidance ignores this, just 
as it ignores the stringent privacy and civil liberties training 
requirements that are the centerpiece of the 9/11 Act's funding 
provision. By forcing States and localities to fire staff every 2 years 
in order to access Federal funds, DHS is effectively preventing the 
``culture of constitutionality'' from taking root.
  When privacy and civil liberties best practices have no time to 
develop, abuses, like the Maryland State Police's apparent spying on 
peace protestors and death penalty opponents, are the inevitable 
result.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6098 fixes these problems by giving States and 
localities the flexibility they need to hire and retain the staff to 
keep our communities safe. That is why the bill has been cosponsored by 
both Democrats and Republicans, and that is why it was approved on a 
unanimous basis by both our subcommittee and the full Homeland Security 
Committee last month.
  Mr. Speaker, fusion centers, done the right way, are essential for 
Homeland Security.
  I therefore urge passage of this critically important legislation, 
and reserve the balance of my time.

[[Page H7192]]

  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6098, the 
Personnel Reimbursement for Intelligence Cooperation and Enhancement of 
Homeland Security Act, sponsored by a great Member, again, another 
great Member that I am fortunate to serve with on the Homeland Security 
Committee, Congressman Dave Reichert.
  This bill, which I have cosponsored, would clarify that grant 
recipients under the State Homeland Security Grant Program, and the 
Urban Area Security Initiative, can use grant funding to help pay for 
analysts at State and local fusion centers.
  This clarification is critically important because some of these 
fusion centers have had to limit their operations and some may have to 
cease operations altogether because of unnecessary restrictions on 
Federal funding, despite the intent of the 9/11 bill that became law 
last year.
  Congressman Reichert's bill wisely updates current law to make clear 
that UASI and SHSGP funding can be used to hire and retain these 
intelligence analysts without a limitation on how long grants can be 
used for this purpose.
  This bill also would allow grant recipients to use up to 50 percent 
of their annual grant award for personnel and operational costs, 
including overtime.
  Mr. Speaker, state and local fusion centers play an important role in 
filling gaps in information sharing with the Federal Government and 
facilitating the dissemination of critical information to States and 
localities.
  I encourage all of our colleagues to help these centers maximize our 
ability to detect, prevent and respond to criminal and terrorist 
activity by supporting H.R. 6098.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers on our side. I 
am prepared to close debate once the minority has closed.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill, as I stated 
earlier.
  I yield back.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, we have just debated eight bills that come 
out of the Homeland Security Committee. I think that is a pretty good 
work product. As I mentioned earlier, four of them, those managed by 
the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Thompson, I think, are 
excellent policy. They come from a variety of subcommittees. And I want 
to thank him again, ranking member King and the superb bipartisan staff 
that has helped move us along. I urge their passage by this House.
  The four bills that I have just managed, and that we debated earlier, 
one of which, hopefully will reduce the pernicious practice of 
overclassification and selective declassification, a second, which will 
reduce the ability to put sensitive but unclassified markings on 
documents, a third which will promote the dissemination of open source 
information by the Department of Homeland Security, and the fourth, 
which will end the absurd practice of having to fire people in order to 
continue to receive Federal funds, all go in one direction. And what is 
that direction? That direction is to help our first preventers, police 
and fire services, who know our neighborhoods best, to get critical 
information in real time about what to look for and what to do.

                              {time}  1345

  Without critical information in real time, the cop on the beat could 
unfortunately miss the plot that is being pursued in the house right in 
front of him because he or she doesn't know what to look for and what 
to do.
  Each of these bills is designed to get information which the Federal 
Government may have or which may appear in open source materials to 
that first preventer in real time. And each of these bills also is 
designed to reduce and hopefully eliminate the excuses that can cause a 
Federal bureaucrat to decide that to protect his turf or her turf or to 
protect himself or herself from embarrassment, to say ``Oh, I will just 
mark this document `classified' or I will just put an SBU marking on 
this document and that way the person next door won't get to see it.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, that's the wrong impulse, it's the wrong signal, 
and with passage of these bills, we send a strong message; and more 
than that, a strong requirement to the Department of Homeland Security 
that at least the people who work there cannot, any longer, use or 
abuse the classification and SBU systems in order to protect 
themselves.
  I'm hopeful that later this afternoon as we debate some additional 
bills on the suspension calendar, one of the things we will do is to 
use this principle of limiting the categories for ``sensitive but 
unclassified'' and take it government-wide. That is legislation that, 
as I mentioned, has been reported by the Oversight and Government 
Reform Committee, and I believe that will be before us shortly.
  I want to say that I endorse that idea. I think it makes sense to 
reduce the SBU categories across the government. I think we can make 
DHS the gold standard, but hopefully every department of government 
that can use those stamps to prevent necessary information from being 
shared will get the same strong message.
  Let me finally say, as one of the co-authors of the Intelligence 
Reform bill of 2004, that we recognized, when we enacted that bill, 
that what has been called a ``need-to-know'' culture that has created 
stovepipes, so-called stovepipes in our government, had to be changed 
to a ``need-to-share'' culture if we were ever going to be able to 
connect the dots to prevent the next attack.
  Changing a culture from ``need to know'' to ``need to share'' is a 
very difficult thing to do, but a piece of that is breaking down the 
ways that individuals prevent information from moving off their desks 
to the person at the next desk.
  And with passage of the four bills we have just debated, I think we 
send the strongest possible signal. And with passage of legislation 
that Mr. Waxman, I believe, is going to offer strongly, we continue to 
send that signal out across the government.
  So Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the Reichert bill that we have just 
debated. I urge passage of the four bills that I have been managing 
during the last hour or so. I call for an ``aye'' vote on the 
legislation.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 6098, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.
  The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.

                          ____________________