[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13628-13637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4548, INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION 
                        ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 686 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 686

       Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 4548) to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
     year 2005 for intelligence and intelligence-related 
     activities of the United States Government, the Community 
     Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency 
     Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes. The 
     first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points 
     of order against consideration of the bill are waived. 
     General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not 
     exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the 
     chairman and ranking minority member of the Permanent Select 
     Committee on Intelligence. After general debate the bill 
     shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. 
     It shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the 
     purpose of amendment under the five-minute rule the amendment 
     in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Permanent 
     Select Committee on Intelligence now printed in the bill. The 
     committee amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against the committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute are waived. No 
     amendment to the committee amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute shall be in order except those printed in the 
     report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this 
     resolution. Each such amendment may be offered only in the 
     order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member 
     designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall 
     be debatable for the time specified in the report equally 
     divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, 
     shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject 
     to a demand for division of the question in the House or in 
     the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such 
     amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of 
     the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report 
     the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been 
     adopted. Any Member may demand a separate vote in the House 
     on any amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole to the 
     bill or to the committee amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute. The previous question shall be considered as 
     ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage 
     without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with 
     or without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pence). The gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday the Committee on Rules met and granted a 
structured rule for H.R. 4548, the Intelligence Authorization Act for 
Fiscal

[[Page 13629]]

Year 2005. This bill would authorize appropriations for the fiscal year 
for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United 
States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central 
Intelligence Agency retirement and disability system.

                              {time}  1030

  This is must-do legislation. It is also the most robust Intelligence 
Authorization Act the House has ever considered, and it is consistent 
with the Defense appropriations bill the House passed yesterday by an 
overwhelming vote of 403 to 17.
  The classified annex to the committee report, which includes 
information on the budget and personnel levels, is available to all 
Members of the House of Representatives, subject to a requirement of 
clause 13 of rule XXIII.
  This rule permits only those Members of the House who have signed the 
oath set out in clause 13 of House rule XXIII to have access to the 
classified information. Simply, this means they must agree not to 
release the information they see.
  Intelligence has been, rightly so, recognized as a critical weapon in 
the global war on terrorism. Resources for, and demands on, the U.S. 
intelligence community have increased dramatically in the 2\3/4\ years 
since September 11, 2001, and the attacks we all remember.
  This increase is even more dramatic when one takes into consideration 
the depth of the cutbacks, underinvestment, and the near fatal loss of 
political support for the intelligence community in the prior 
administration.
  That is why I am pleased that this bill authorizes more money than 
last year, even including the supplemental. This is the type of 
investment that our intelligence community deserves.
  This legislation continues the sustained effort and long-term 
strategy to bring human intelligence, signals intelligence, imagery 
intelligence, and other intelligence systems and disciplines to life 
successfully.
  H.R. 4548 also continues a similar commitment to build and maintain 
the analytic expertise and depth of coverage necessary to make wise and 
timely use of the information collected.
  I want to take this opportunity to thank the CIA and all the members 
of our intelligence community who do make a vital contribution to our 
Nation's security.
  I agree with President Bush that this is a mission of service and 
sacrifice in a world of great uncertainty and risk. America's 
commitments and responsibilities span the world in every time zone. 
Every day our intelligence community helps us to meet those 
responsibilities.
  This bill provides the President with the intelligence tools needed 
to win the war on terrorism; and to that end, I urge my colleagues to 
support the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. 
Myrick) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact that the American intelligence apparatus is 
broken is well-known. In the global war on terror, the most important 
weapon we have to protect the Nation and its people is intelligence. 
Today, more than ever, we must make the creation of a strong and 
flexible intelligence apparatus one of the highest priorities of this 
body. The terrorist attacks of September 11, combined with the 
continuing threat of further attacks, underscore the importance of this 
legislation.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the bill reported out of the Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence falls far short of what our 
intelligence community has requested and what the American people 
expect. Now listen up. This bill provides less than a third of the key 
operational funding the intelligence agencies have told us that they 
need to prevent the next terrorist attack. The scheme for funding the 
counterterrorism operations is to give the agencies, listen, I want my 
colleagues to hear this, they are going to give them a third of the 
money they need, and then after the election they will come back and 
ask for the other two-thirds. Does this sound like we are concerned 
about the intelligence community? Does it sound like we are worried 
that we are at war? The answer is no. The election is the deciding 
point on when we come back and ask for the money.
  The plan will starve the counter-
terrorism efforts, leaves the intelligence community anemic. Funding 
the intelligence community in bits and pieces, a portion now and a 
supplemental after the election, is not only irresponsible, it is 
reckless. Senior intelligence community officials have said that 
operating this way could jeopardize key counterterrorism operations. 
That is what they tell us.
  Sadly, this year the bill fell victim to partisanship and the cold 
hard fiscal realities of tax cuts and spending caps. Every single 
Democrat member voted against favorably reporting this bill, and this 
is unprecedented. Typically, the importance of this bill trumps 
personal ideologies or the prevailing partisan winds; but knowing the 
ranking member and the other Democrat members of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, I know that they must have very serious 
concerns to vote against the authorization bill.
  Five dedicated distinguished Democrat members of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, including the gentlewoman from California 
(Ranking Member Harman), offered five important amendments to the bill. 
However, the Committee on Rules tossed out four of these vital 
substantive amendments. The Committee on Rules will not allow the full 
House to consider and debate and amend to withhold a portion of the 
funding until the Secretary of Defense provides all information 
concerning the dealings of the Department of Defense and Ahmed Chalabi. 
This is information to which Congress is entitled. This is information 
the American people want to know. Who was this man who had such an 
incredible effect and so much influence on whether or not we went to 
war? What did we do besides give him $33 million?
  Members will not be able to consider an amendment to restructure our 
dilapidated intelligence apparatus. Shockingly, the committee 
Republicans even made out of order an amendment to fully fund American 
counterterrorism efforts.
  Yesterday, a member of the Committee on Rules tried to suggest that 
the amendments were proposed for political reasons. Far from it. Our 
Nation's security is at risk, and the integrity of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, Democrats, and all Democrats, should not be 
questioned.
  Reported out of committee on party lines, the rule does make in order 
an amendment to express the sense of Congress and support of the 
intelligence community and an amendment expressing the sense that the 
world is a safer place now that Libya has dismantled its weapons of 
mass destruction. These amendments were presumed to take precedence 
over the ones that really dealt with the committee and its budget. They 
do nothing to improve American counterterrorism operations.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a seriously, fatally flawed bill; but, again, 
the Committee on Rules has muzzled debate on some of the most important 
issues concerning American intelligence operations. This is a double 
blow. It is another Committee on Rules strike against deliberation, 
discussion, and serious consideration; and it is a strike against the 
safety of America.
  I am shocked at the rule and the underlying legislation before us 
this morning, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule so that the 
full House can participate in a comprehensive debate on the most 
important issue confronting us today and to consider the vital 
amendments to improve the intelligence community.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Boehlert).
  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me

[[Page 13630]]

the time, and I am glad that we are focusing on this very important 
issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise as a member of the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence, having served in that very distinguished group of 
bipartisan members concerned about intelligence for 8 years.
  I wish to rise in strong support of this bill we are presenting to 
our colleagues and to the American people, the Intelligence 
Authorization Act. This is a well-thought-out bill, developed over many 
months of comprehensive deliberation, which provides much-needed 
guidance and support for the global, and let me emphasize that, the 
global war on terrorism and efforts to combat the very real threats to 
our national security.
  We live in a dangerous world. Reminders of that harsh fact of 21st-
century life face us on many fronts. Threats that were unimaginable 
just a few years ago have now become reality. Suicide bombers, anthrax, 
dirty bombs, these are but a few of the litany of weapons our enemies 
threaten us with.
  To meet this new threat, our Nation requires a much more flexible and 
responsive intelligence community. H.R. 4548 helps provide that 
flexibility; and, importantly, it provides the increased funding to 
aggressively wage war on terrorism. Make no mistake, H.R. 4548 
dramatically, let me emphasize that, dramatically increases 
counterterrorism funding.
  As a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the 
8 years that I have been privileged to serve in that body, one of my 
greatest concerns has been the lack of sufficient numbers of 
intelligence analysts and officers fluent in the languages that our 
enemies speak. This capability deficiency has literally crippled our 
ability to independently gather and evaluate information. It means that 
we have increasingly relied on contract linguists and allied 
intelligence services to translate information and to follow up leads. 
It means, for example, that there are literally miles and miles of 
captured Saddam Hussein documents that are still waiting to be read, 
translated, and made available for our analysis.
  We have made substantial investment in technology, and rightly so; 
but more investment is necessary in human capital, people who serve as 
our eyes and ears at far distant points on the globe, and just adding 
to the numbers in our cadre is not enough by itself. We need 
individuals who are language proficient and possess an understanding of 
the culture being penetrated, who know and are able to appreciate not 
only who was saying what but also are conversant with the nuances and 
able to discern the true meaning of what is being said.
  Of course, particularly in view of my position as chairman of the 
Committee on Science, I can appreciate the value of investment in 
technology; but that alone is not enough. There is no substitute for 
people. A satellite hundreds of miles in the heavens might be able to 
detect the movement of people or machines, and that is important; but 
it does not compare in value to someone inside a cell in Iraq or 
Afghanistan monitoring the words or actions of the bad guys.
  For this reason, I have been part of a concerted effort over the past 
several years to place greater emphasis on and secure needed funds for 
a significant upgrading of our language program for the intelligence 
community.
  Our committee has put together a broad and comprehensive package of 
language provisions. We establish a civilian linguistic reserve corps. 
We fund and expand existing programs that have demonstrated success. We 
look for creative ways to develop and utilize the vast talent pool that 
already exists in our country. We support the National Virtual 
Translation Center; and perhaps most importantly, we try to establish a 
culture in the intelligence community where language skills become an 
integral and necessary part of the job. It is the most important 
legislative effort on foreign languages since the Boren Act of 1992.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4548 is a worthy bill. It takes many of the 
necessary steps to ensure that our Nation's intelligence capabilities 
remain relevant in the 21st century. The gentleman from Florida 
(Chairman Goss) is bringing forward an excellent package in what is his 
final authorization as chairman. He has performed exceptionally well 
during particularly challenging times, and he has presented us with a 
bill that all Members can and should support.
  I urge support of the rule and the base bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), the ranking member of the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership 
on the Committee on Rules and for yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to the 
previous question, which I understand will be offered, because it 
deprives our colleagues of the opportunity to strengthen the 
Intelligence Authorization Act.
  Strong intelligence is our first line of defense in the war on 
terrorism; and make no mistake, we are at war. The gruesome beheadings 
of Danny Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, and yesterday's murder of 33-
year-old Kim Sun Il of South Korea are stark reminders of the nature of 
our enemy. Our brave men and women of the intelligence community are on 
the frontlines fighting that enemy.

                              {time}  1045

  They risked their lives for our freedom, and they deserve our 
unflinching support. Yet, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this rule 
deprives them of that support.
  H.R. 4548 provides less than one-third of the key counterterrorism 
funding the intelligence community has told us it needs to fight the 
war on terrorism. Less than one-third. Members of our committee had 
proposed an amendment to fully fund counterterrorism operations. This 
rule denies us the opportunity to consider that amendment.
  I think it is irresponsible of us to shortchange our counterterrorism 
efforts, particularly when we know al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups 
are planning attacks against us right now. By providing one-third of 
the counterterrorism funding, the majority's bill essentially says to 
the brave men and women of the intelligence community, you can count on 
operations for 3 or 4 more months, but after that, that is rough, until 
next April. That, Mr. Speaker, is exactly what this bill does, and that 
is not acceptable.
  A better rule, a much better rule would have allowed the gentleman 
from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell), 
and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) of our committee to fix 
this bill with an amendment that would have provided for 100 percent of 
the funding that the intelligence agencies say they need. Their 
amendment would have done away with the dangerous practice of budgeting 
by supplemental, of saying let us kick this problem down the road. And 
in this case, let us kick it down the road until well after the 
November election.
  A rule limiting amendments may be appropriate for other legislation, 
but this legislation is different, and here is why. As you know, Mr. 
Speaker, much of our work is classified and, therefore, is not 
discussed in the open. However, a large portion of our work on the 
intelligence policy is unclassified and is contained in the public 
portion of our legislation. This information does not compromise our 
intelligence sources and methods, and for that reason we asked the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) to hold the markup of the public 
portion of our bill in public.
  On a party-line vote, the majority refused. Therefore, these 
amendments have never been debated or voted on in public, even though 
they are not classified and even though they would, if adopted, be part 
of the public part of our bill.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no secret law in the United States, and it is 
anathema to this House to stifle open debate about important policy 
issues. For that reason, it is important that the full House have the 
opportunity to debate these amendments. This rule kills that debate, 
shuts down any effort to fully

[[Page 13631]]

fund counterterrorism, and tries to sweep this issue under the rug. 
Well, this issue is too important, too vital to our national security 
to be swept under the rug.
  The Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 
offered five amendments, all of which were good, all of which would 
have strengthened the bill and strengthened our oversight. All but one 
were rejected by this rule. That is a shame, Mr. Speaker, because 
instead of having a rule that could bring us together under one 
bipartisan banner, we have a rule that ensures this bill will trigger a 
bitter partisan divide.
  In case the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and the Republicans 
have not noticed, the terrorists did not check our party labels before 
launching their attacks against us on 9/11, and they will not check 
them when they launch the next attack. I would have hoped that we could 
debate the bill not just as Democrats and Republicans, but as 
Americans. And for the sake of the country and for the sake of national 
security, I am sorry that the majority let us down.
  Again, I ask for a ``no'' vote on the rule and a ``no'' vote on the 
previous question.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. LaHood).
  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this 
time.
  As a member of the committee now for 6 years, I want to say a special 
word of thanks to the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Goss). This will be the last bill that he will present to 
the House of Representatives, as he is retiring from the House at the 
end of this year.
  It is a great, great loss for the House of Representatives. I know it 
is a great loss for the people of Florida, who he represents, and it 
truly is a great loss for the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence and the intelligence community. As someone who served in 
the CIA prior to coming to the House of Representatives, he has done as 
good a job as anyone on the committee, and certainly been an exemplary 
Chair of the committee. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude for 
the time and energy and devotion that he has given to the intelligence 
community, to the CIA, to people, men and women, all over the world who 
work so hard to collect the information and do the good professional 
work. He has been dedicated to them, he has been dedicated for them. 
And so I say congratulations to Porter Goss, and I think all House 
Members should do that for the work that he has done for the House and 
for the intelligence community.
  As we debate the bill, I will obviously be speaking out on a number 
of things that I think are important, but let me just say this: I think 
it is unfortunate that bipartisanship has deteriorated. It no longer 
exists with this committee. Maybe our committee was the last bastion of 
bipartisanship, but apparently it is gone. And I think it really began 
a year ago when we considered our authorization bill.
  I introduced into the record and put into the record a memo that came 
over from the other body that talked about a game plan on the part of 
the Democrats to politicize the intelligence process, not only in this 
body but also in the other body. And I am going to put that memo in the 
record again this year, because I think it was the beginning of the 
deterioration of bipartisanship for intelligence. That is unfortunate 
and sends the wrong message.
  Congratulations Porter Goss, we have a good bill, and I hope all 
Members will support it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).
  Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I find this rule very disappointing. It effectively 
shuts down debate on an amendment to fully fund the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence's key counterterrorism operations. It is 
unusual for me to speak out like this, but 4 or 5 weeks ago it hit me, 
the current intelligence authorization bill that we are going to 
consider today is just not strong enough. It authorizes less than a 
third of the funds that the intelligence agencies need for key 
counterterrorism operations next year. That is just not right at a time 
when our Nation is under threat of terrorist attacks.
  The administration admits that this is not sufficient funding, and 
says it will seek more money after November. But there is ample 
evidence that al-Qaeda may try to strike before November. If there is 
another terrorist attack, do we want the next 9-11 Commission to find 
that we in Congress failed in our duty to fully fund counterterrorism 
in the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence?
  We sit there day in and day out in closed session, windowless rooms, 
for hours on end listening to the intelligence agencies tell us how 
critical the funds are that the committee authorizes. They routinely 
criticize the practice of funding them in these small bits and pieces 
rather than in a full year, the way we are supposed to do it. They have 
told us how this prevents them from planning effectively, and they have 
told us they have to rob Peter to pay Paul while they wait for the 
additional funds to arrive. And they will probably not receive those 
additional funds that they need until April or May of next year, if at 
all.
  This ridiculous practice of shortchanging intelligence at the start 
of the year has also been roundly criticized on a bipartisan basis by 
members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The agencies 
have indicated with some precision the additional funds that they will 
need in the coming year for counterterrorism. There is no excuse for 
failing to make sure that the intelligence community has the resources 
it needs to protect against the next terrorist attack.
  The amendment that I had intended to offer would have fully funded 
key counterterrorism operations in the next year for the agencies, as 
they have said they need them, 100 percent of the funding. And we had a 
detailed schedule of authorization to specify how the money should be 
spent. So this was not a blank check, as some have said.
  The question before Congress is quite simple: Do we fully fund the 
global war on terrorism or do we want to take the chance that our 
intelligence community can make due until sometime next year? As it 
stands now, it is clear what the majority's answer is to this question. 
And with this rule the majority has made clear that they do not want to 
debate this issue. That is just not right, and I urge my colleagues to 
oppose this rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), another member of the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
for yielding me this time, and I thank both my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle.
  The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is a unique committee. 
We are selected by the leadership, we are asked to serve, we are asked 
to uphold the secrecy and the confidentiality of what goes on in that 
committee, and we are asked to reassure the Members of the House that 
do not have the type of access that we do that we are in fact doing our 
job. So let me assure every Member, Republican and Democrat, we are 
doing our job.
  There is a difference today, and I do not hold the individuals on the 
other side of the aisle responsible. I think the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. LaHood) put it well, politics is alive and well in 
Washington. It is an election year, and I think that strings are 
getting pulled. And I make a pledge to the Members on that side of the 
aisle: That when this bill has passed, and I hope you vote for it on 
final passage, that we will work together in that committee. We will 
make sure that the tools are available to our intelligence community. 
We will make sure that the workings and the oversight are good enough 
that we can look our fellow Members in the eye and say we are doing our 
job.
  But I think today we need to look back at why we are here. Sure, we 
are

[[Page 13632]]

here because of the intelligence threat that exists today and the need 
for intelligence to grow, but we are here because of the devastation to 
the intelligence community in the 1990s. We are here because human 
intelligence was not important to anybody in this town. We are, in 
fact, trying to rebuild. And when I heard Director Tenet stand up in 
front of the independent commission and talk about 5 years, here was a 
man being honest at what it took to recruit people that could 
infiltrate; that we could take individuals who could fluently speak 
Arabic.
  We have to remember that we went from a Cold War need for 
linguistics, which was Russia and Eastern Europe, to now a need for 
Arabic and a lot of different tribal languages that exist, and you 
cannot do it overnight and you cannot do it for no money. The reality 
is that both sides suggest funding levels at about the same, and that 
is above where the administration's request was. We have differences on 
how we get here. That is leadership and it is politics mixed in with 
it.
  I am confident we can put politics aside and we can get passed not 
only this rule debate but the debate on the bill. Because the important 
thing is that our intelligence community knows that this Congress is 
united. We are united behind them, we are united behind the effort, we 
understand the value of what they do as it relates to the safety of the 
troops that we have who defend this country every day.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to also highlight the 
leadership of the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Goss). This will be a tremendous loss to the Congress, the entire 
Congress. The dedication of this man, the leadership, his experience 
and what he has brought to the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence is invaluable. I am sure his years of community service 
are not over with his decision to leave Congress. But with him we lose 
a tremendous resource in our ability to understand and to become better 
in the world as it relates to our intelligence.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Cramer).
  Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for 
yielding me this time, and I rise today to support my colleagues, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson) particularly, in opposition to 
the rule that shuts off debate on fully funding the intelligence 
community's counterterrorism operations. I do this reluctantly, and I 
do not do this very often.
  I want to say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that 
this should have been the opportunity for us to fully debate this 
issue, because there is no real debate as to whether this bill, when we 
get to the bill, provides full funding to the intelligence community 
for this global war on terrorism. We all know that this bill does not 
do that, and we have fallen into the trap ourselves. We are 
perpetuating the trap of continuing to fund the intelligence community 
in fits and starts, in bits and pieces.
  The war in Iraq, as difficult as it is, is a war. The war on global 
terrorism, as unpredictable as it is, is a real war. Every day we are 
faced with warnings, with threats that we are going to be attacked, 
soon, between now and the elections.

                              {time}  1100

  Every administration, or at least the past several administrations, 
have fallen into this trap of using supplementals as a way to slowly 
but surely face the budget issues that we have to face. We are saying 
here today that we want to stop that, that we want to break that habit, 
that we want to up front tell the agencies what they will get and let 
them then tell us what they need so we can perform our oversight.
  This is not a partisan issue. Both sides of the aisle have admitted 
through the hearing process, this year, last year as well, that we have 
got to stop this practice. The administration says this is not enough 
money this year; that later, whatever ``later'' means, we will get to 
the point where we will get to more funding.
  This is not the way to do it. So today we must send a clear message 
that ``business as usual'' is no longer acceptable. Today we must put 
politics aside and do what is right for our intelligence community and 
for our national security. Today we must make sure the intelligence 
community has the resources it needs.
  Oppose this rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Boehlert).
  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the committee, obviously I 
follow these things very closely, and I wish to point out to all my 
colleagues that the other body, their version of this bill closely 
mirrors ours, but is less generous, and that bill passed the other body 
by a unanimous vote, minority and majority. They are following our 
lead. I would suggest that we should evidence that same spirit of 
bipartisanship in this body.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Iowa (Mr. Boswell).
  Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her hard work, 
and I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) for her hard 
work.
  Mr. Speaker, I did take some notice of my good friend and colleague, 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood). I appreciated his remarks 
about the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss). I agree. I think he 
has done an excellent job. But none of us are perfect. I think there 
was an exception here. I actually thought that he would plus-up this 
counterterrorism budget.
  But here we are, and I rise to oppose the rule on the Intelligence 
Authorization Act. In particular, I am surprised that a number of 
Democratic amendments were ruled out of order, notably those of the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), mine and the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Cramer), which would fully fund the counterterrorism 
budget needs of the intelligence agencies.
  I wish the Republicans had been willing to debate this issue head on, 
rather than hide behind a procedure.
  As the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson) has pointed out, the 
current bill authorizes less than one-third of the funds the 
intelligence agencies need to fight the war on terrorism. The 
intelligence agencies will have a tough time accomplishing their 
mission if they do not receive full funding for the counterterrorism 
operations.
  At CIA, these funds do not go to the paper clips and photocopiers. 
They go towards mounting counterterrorism operations on every 
continent. They go towards collecting information on preventing 
terrorist attacks. They go towards funding operations in Afghanistan, 
to prevent resurgence of the terrorist sanctuaries in the remote 
mountains. They go towards working with partner governments on counter-
terrorism. They go towards capturing key al Qaeda leaders.
  When there is uncertainty about funding, according to the agencies' 
testimony, it causes the agencies to hold off on operations, 
potentially putting lives in danger and ruining intelligence collection 
operations.
  The administration officials have admitted they are not fully funding 
counterterrorism in this bill, but will send a request for the rest of 
the funds after the election, while at the same time urgently warning 
of a possible terrorist attack before the election. I say to my good 
friends and colleagues here today, what should the American people 
expect us to do? Is it acceptable to wait until after the election, 
when we already know what we need to do?
  No, it is not acceptable. The American people expects us to debate 
these issues fully and openly and not hide behind procedures. If, as 
the administration officials keep warning us, there is a terrorist 
attack on the U.S. this summer, my colleagues in the majority will wish 
they had debated and settled the Peterson amendment, rather than 
squashing the debate. We will all wish that we had acted and fully 
funded counterterrorism.
  Mr. Speaker, I fully urge the rejection of this rule, so that the 
important issues like the shortfall for

[[Page 13633]]

counterterrorism in this bill can be properly debated.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), chairman of the Committee on 
Rules.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule, and I 
thank my friend from North Carolina for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that obviously we are praising the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) in light of the fact that this is 
going to be the last intelligence authorization bill that he will be 
presiding over before his retirement from this institution.
  We had a very interesting discussion in the Committee on Rules 
yesterday about this issue of funding. As I listened to my friend from 
Iowa speaking about the fact that if we possibly saw another terrorist 
attack on the United States, we would all bemoan the fact we have not 
provided adequate funding, it seems to me that the statement that was 
made by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee yesterday before the 
Committee on Rules is a very important one to note. He is not concerned 
about the issue of funding, he is actually concerned about the 
management of the level of funding that we have right now. This view 
that all you need to do is throw a tremendous amount of money at a 
problem and that somehow is a panacea, that it is an insurance policy, 
is, I think, unfounded.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very important for us to note that the 
proper management over this program is the most important thing for us 
to do now, because we do feel that there is an adequate level of 
funding. So I strongly support this rule, I strongly support the 
underlying bill, so that we can come and work in a bipartisan way for 
what we all want to do, and that is ensure, ensure, that we never see 
another September 11, 2001, on our soil.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in congratulating the chairman, who 
has served so honorably as a Member of the House and for all of these 
years as chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 
and wish him our absolute best.
  I join my colleagues today in standing up in support of stronger 
intelligence. That is what this debate is about.
  This bill is simply too weak and dangerously underfunds the 
intelligence efforts that are so absolutely essential to preventing the 
next big terrorist attack. Every American will understand that 100 
percent is 100 percent. You cannot be committed 100 percent to funding 
if you only fund 33 percent, one-third, of the entire counter-
terrorism budget.
  Opponents of the amendment to fully fund counterterrorism 
intelligence throw around a lot of numbers to try to argue that the 
level of funding in this bill is adequate. But you need to know only 
one thing: The President knows this is not enough funding, and said in 
his transmittal letter of May 12 of this year that he will ask for the 
rest of the money ``in early 2005.'' That is an admission that this is 
not fully funded, and that is what we are debating.
  The problem is the terrorists are not waiting until early 2005. There 
are indications that they plan to conduct a major attack inside the 
United States before the end of the year, according to administration 
officials. The CIA cannot wait until early 2005 to plan its operations 
to prevent that next attack.
  Senior officials testified repeatedly to the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence that the practice of funding counterterrorism 
by supplemental makes it impossible for them to plan, this is what they 
said to all of the members of the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence, and it forces them to rob Peter to pay Paul in an effort 
to make due.
  Does this body really want to make the men and women of the 
intelligence community make do when so much is at stake? They are the 
tip of the spear. We have to give them the resources they need. It is 
our job now, not in early 2005.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham).
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I think it is ironic, some people up 
here on the floor say we are not spending enough. They have never 
served in the military. They vote to cut defense.
  The last speaker, the gentlewoman from California, in 1993, the Frank 
amendment to cut Intel funding, she voted yes; in 1996, the Frank 
amendment to cut Intel funding, she voted yes; in 1998, the Iraq 
Liberalization Act, regime change, she voted yes; in 2002, 
authorization for military force, she voted no; in 2003, Iraq 
supplemental appropriations, she voted no; in 2003, intelligence 
authorization, to increase funding, she voted no.
  This is a sad day, Mr. Speaker. I have got some very good friends on 
this committee. Some of them I hunt and fish with. The gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman), during the Ronald Reagan funeral, I had tears 
in my eyes. She reached over and grabbed my hand to console me.
  That is the kind of friendship that we have on this committee, and I 
think one of the saddest things I see is the partisanship coming out in 
election-year politicking. We will still be friends after this. You 
say, oh, this is not partisan. That is the spin. But it is, Mr. 
Speaker. It is sad, and I hate to see it.
  All the way through, you have people that have fought the Republican 
Party on prescription drugs, Leave No Child Behind, energy, tax relief, 
the environment. You think the Republicans are the meanest people in 
the whole world, no matter what we do. But never before on this bill 
has it been so partisan, and I think it is sad, a sad day on this House 
floor, and election year politics.
  I think when you look at yesterday's vote on defense appropriations, 
which is the authorization for this bill, most of my colleagues voted 
for that. That was less funding than this. The Senate has less funding 
in the bill. But what our great chairman, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Goss) did, is restrict some of the flow of the funding. We have 
taken and analyzed and cut a lot of waste, fraud and abuse out of every 
bill, defense, education, all these bills, and we have put the money to 
good use.
  I think it is even sadder right now that we have got folks that 
choose to go along with their Democrat leadership. When you all elected 
your liberal Democrat leadership, we rejoiced, because we know there is 
a bill to cut the tax break for the rich in the next Bill, and we knew 
exactly what was going to happen to show the differences between 
Republicans and Democrats from your liberal leadership. But what is sad 
is how that leadership is driving some of the good people within your 
party to be partisan, and I think that is even sadder.
  The defense authorization, I sat clear through that thing, and the 
gentleman that is filing ethics violations, that is leaving this body 
this year, filing ethics violations, demanded he see the Taguba report. 
Well, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) just so happened to 
have it on the desk. And, guess what, that individual has not even read 
the report.
  There are 11 investigations going on. The Ronald Reagan event stopped 
hearings. There has never been a hearing that any member of this 
committee has asked for that we have not gotten, whether it is on 
Chalabi, whether it is on the prisons, or whether it is on other issues 
within that party.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) is one of the most bipartisan 
chairmen, and I think the gentlewoman from California would agree
  Mr. Speaker, I also sit on the Defense Authorization Committee, and 
one of the liberal members said, ``Well, we want the Secretary of 
Defense to step down.'' He said, ``You know, I pray for you every day, 
Mr. Secretary. You are a good, respected man, but maybe you ought to 
step down.'' And I told the Secretary, next time someone prays for me, 
I hope they are not trying to put a knife in my back in the 
partisanship that is going on.
  I think it is sad here today, we hunt and fish together, we are 
friends. But this is wrong. Vote for this bill.

[[Page 13634]]


  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Reyes).
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time 
to rise in opposition to this rule.
  First let me just say that like all of us in this House that 
represent communities around this great Nation of ours, I am proud of 
the job that our men and women are doing in the war against terrorism, 
whether they are in the military, whether they are in the intelligence 
community or civilians.

                              {time}  1115

  I am a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a 
veteran. But to me, today, the issue is about oversight and about 
funding the effort.
  I think debate is healthy. I think we should exchange ideas and, yes, 
maybe even political philosophies from time to time. We go to the 
intelligence community and we ask them, what is it that you need? How 
much money will it take to get the job done? They tell us, they give us 
a budget, they give us a proposal; and then we come back and say, we 
can only give you 33 percent of that money. Do they give us 33 percent 
effort? No. They give us 100 percent, so we should fund them at 100 
percent.
  So why are we doing that? I am sure that our men and women that are 
putting their lives on the line are asking that very same question: 
Why? To them, it is not about politics, it is not about budgets, it is 
not about deficits, or even supplementals. To them, it is about support 
for their effort. To them, it is about funding that effort at 100 
percent, and not giving them 33 percent and an IOU or a check-is-in-
the-mail promise. It is about support for our men and women in an 
effort that is very important to our country.
  Mr. Speaker, we can do better, we must do better; and, most of all, 
to the men and women of this body, we must do our job.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley).
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I support the rule, and I support the bill 
and the fine work of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the 
chairman of our committee; and I am certain that sometime today we are 
going to hear more about Abu Ghraib prison. I want to put things in 
context about the politics of what this town has become.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand amazed and disappointed in the self-righteous, 
politically motivated diatribes coming from the other side about Abu 
Ghraib for the last several months. The guilty parties in the Abu 
Ghraib prison incidents are currently before the military justice 
system. They will be tried and justice will be carried out.
  This House, the other body, the President, the Vice President, the 
Secretaries of Defense and State, and the National Security Adviser 
have all gone on record to express outrage over the abuses at the 
prison, as they should have.
  But what I find especially appalling is the deafening silence from 
the other side following the savage beheadings of American civilians 
Nick Berg and Paul Johnson.
  These cowardly terrorist organizations seek to intimidate our people 
through barbaric acts of demonic cruelty on American citizens.
  While members on the other side have mentioned Abu Ghraib by name, 45 
times since January during recorded debate on the House Floor, only 
four times did a Democratic member utter the name Nick or Nicholas 
Berg. No Democrat, not one single Democrat, has even mentioned Paul 
Johnson, the Lockheed Martin employee kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, 
cruelly beheaded, and videotaped for the world to see.
  We are a self-policing society. We will punish those who commit 
abuses at Abu Ghraib. However, I would expect the Democrats in this 
body to express equal outrage over the savage killings of Nick Berg and 
Paul Johnson.
  I urge my Democratic colleagues to break their silence and end their 
indifference to the atrocious acts of cruelty perpetrated on innocent 
Americans.
  Too many are playing politics with Abu Ghraib, trying to score 
political points, while we have 200,000 troops fighting the war on 
terror and standing strong for America in the Middle East and Central 
Asia.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am stunned at what the previous speaker 
has just said. What does he mean that no Democrat has expressed any 
outrage? Has the gentleman polled every Democrat in the country? Does 
he know that no Democrat has expressed outrage over the beheading of 
American citizens?
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, not spoken on 
this floor. Not spoken on this floor. Not a word entered into the 
Record. I have checked with the Parliamentarian and the Clerk, not one 
mention of those names.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, let me reclaim my time. I just think that 
is an outrageous statement to make, and I do not believe that anybody 
in America is going to be impressed by that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Ruppersberger).
  Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule on the 
fiscal year 2005 Intelligence Authorization Act. In response to some of 
the comments made by our colleagues on the other side, let me just make 
this statement: this issue is not about politics; it is about national 
security.
  Now, it is important in our work here in the House that we put 
America first. Equally important is a focus on ensuring that the men 
and women protecting us in the intelligence agencies and in the 
military have all the support and resources that they need.
  I am surprised that a number of Democratic amendments were ruled out 
of order, notably the Peterson amendment which would fully fund the 
counterterrorism budget needs of the intelligence agencies.
  As the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson) has pointed out, the 
current bill authorizes less than a third of the additional funds the 
intelligence agencies need to fight the war on terrorism. This one-
third comes from the contingency emergency reserve fund that the 
President asked for on May 12, which is designed to bridge the gap 
between the budget request and a supplemental funding request that will 
not happen until after the election.
  In his May 12 letter to the Speaker, President Bush said, ``I have 
pledged to our troops that we will have all the resources they need to 
accomplish this vital mission.'' Yet, the intelligence agencies have 
told us in hearing after hearing that the current process of funding 
counterterrorism operations by supplemental has hampered their ability 
to plan and operate. And despite the President's lofty words, we know 
that the intelligence troops do not have all of the resources they need 
to accomplish the counterterrorism mission.
  As a former county executive, I can relate to the agency's need to 
plan right to achieve success, and so I am concerned that these 
budgeting practices have to stop, for the good of the country and 
national security.
  I was disappointed that the Republican majority on the Committee on 
Rules did not allow this amendment to come to the floor for debate. 
This issue needs to be debated. The public needs to know, we need to 
know, we need to debate this issue of national security.
  If, as administration officials keep warning us, there is a terrorist 
attack this summer, we will all wonder if we could have done more to 
protect America. The answer to that question today is yes. For one 
thing, we could be debating the Peterson amendment today and finding a 
way to get the intelligence agencies the counterterrorism funding that 
they need.
  I urge the rejection of this rule. It is so important that all of our 
intelligence agencies have the resources they need to deal with the 
issue of national security.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Nevada (Mr. Gibbons).
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from North 
Carolina for allowing me this time to speak.

[[Page 13635]]

  I do want to begin by giving my great congratulations to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) for tremendous service on this 
committee and for a tremendous bill which does exactly what this 
country's intelligence services need. It is actually a bill which 
should have been bipartisan but, for the first time, was not bipartisan 
in the committee.
  I think I would like to begin with correcting some of the 
misstatements that have been made on the floor. First of all, this bill 
fully funds the base amount for every salary paycheck in the 
intelligence community. Not one intelligence community employee is 
going to go without a paycheck at the end of 3 months. It is just plain 
wrong to assert that, and I wanted to correct that.
  I also wanted to say that, with regard to the funding of the 
contingent emergency reserve, this bill sets forth, I believe, the 
proper oversight for this committee. We have budgeted for one-quarter 
of the year, authorized for one-quarter of the year in order to give 
flexibility to the war on terrorism. This is an opportunity for us to 
exercise our oversight and exercise our oversight by giving smaller 
slices of the pie so we can control the money, where it is spent and 
how it is spent in our oversight authority, rather than giving a slush 
fund out there that can be spent without proper control.
  We will fully fund the war on terrorism. I am struck by the dichotomy 
of each of the previous speakers on the Democratic side who voted 
yesterday in support of the Defense Appropriation bill which funds the 
war on terrorism to the same numbers that we have in this bill, and 
each one of my Democratic colleagues voted ``yes,'' with the exception 
of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), who was absent.
  So to stand here and say that you do not believe we are funding the 
war on terrorism when you supported the appropriation in the same 
amount strikes me as one of politics.
  The last thing we want to do is have the intelligence community as a 
political wedge in the war on politics. They do not deserve it. This 
country does not deserve it. I am concerned that by what we are doing, 
by issuing these proclamations about not funding the war on terrorism, 
is giving aid and support to those people who are trying to attack this 
country.
  More fiscal responsibility is certainly in this bill; more oversight 
by the Congress and the House Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence is exactly what this bill will do.
  As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Intelligence, Analysis 
and Counterintelligence, I wanted to speak briefly about the points 
that are dealing with the analysis part of this bill because it is so 
critical and so important. This rule and this bill support the goals 
that our House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has expressed 
for years, and that is the importance of a well-trained, professional, 
and experienced staff.
  Like many other components of the intelligence community, analysis is 
not a capability that can be developed overnight. It takes years of 
investment in people, technology, and training to create analysts 
capable of connecting the dots. Today, with this bill, through this 
rule, we will have more dots to connect than ever before. We can 
collect all we want, but if there is nobody to synthesize, analyze, and 
look at this information and deliver the proper and correct message to 
our Nation's policymakers, then there is little benefit to this country 
by standing here and politicizing this bill and the intelligence 
community over what we are doing.
  That is why I am pleased to stand here and support the rule, support 
this bill, and congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) on 
what I believe to be a very fair and fundamentally correct bill to fund 
our intelligence community and to support this country's war on 
terrorism.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule.
  The American public, the citizens of America, are looking to us, to 
the Congress, to provide oversight over the intelligence community. My 
colleague, the gentleman from California, said that our committee has 
never been denied a hearing that we wanted. That may be true if one 
defines ``hearing'' very broadly. Yes, members of the intelligence 
community from the various agencies have come to meet with us; but we 
never learned, for example, that Mr. Rumsfeld actually approved ghost 
detainees, detainees who would be kept out of the system. We never 
really got level answers about the search for weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq. It is a long, long list of things that we have 
been denied because we just did not ask exactly the right question.
  The debate this morning is not about how many billions of dollars 
precisely will be added to the counterterrorism budget; it is whether 
they are going to present the budget to us in such a way that it is 
impossible for the committee to exercise oversight. That is what is at 
issue. By funding these programs through supplemental appropriations 
rather than through the normal appropriations process with 
authorization oversight, they dodge responsibility. They dodge the 
oversight. That is what is at stake here today. That is what this rule 
is denying, the American public the oversight that they expect, that 
they need for our national security, denying that that will be carried 
out by the committee.
  So we are talking about a much more fundamental, longer-term issue; 
and for that reason, this rule is very flawed and should be opposed.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson); and, I might add, she is the only female 
military officer in this body.

                              {time}  1130

  Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from 
North Carolina for the time.
  I rise to support this rule today. I have listened to this debate 
with some concern because I think there are things being said that just 
are not being straight with people. I want to talk about two of them in 
particular.
  The first has to do with the funding levels that are authorized in 
this bill. The truth is here in the Congress, we have an arcane way of 
doing things some times. We have an authorizing bill that really sets 
the programs and the outlines of the programs that we intend to fund. 
But the money, the real money is put in the defense appropriations bill 
that we passed overwhelmingly yesterday from this House with what we 
call an open rule, which means anyone can come down this floor and move 
to change money around or increase counterterrorism funding. If one was 
serious about this, that is where the real money was, in the defense 
appropriations bill.
  So what we hear this morning is more about posturing and politics 
than it is about policy. And that is really sad on the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence that heretofore has been absent that kind of 
discussion.
  And the second thing I wanted to raise is this issue of vigorous 
oversight. I have been an advocate for vigorous oversight in a wide 
variety of things. And I have been one of the principal advocates in 
the Committee on Armed Services for greater oversight of the Pentagon, 
including of Abu Ghraib, and cosponsored an amendment to do so with my 
colleague the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).
  In this Congress, there are some committees that are vigorous about 
it and some that are not. I served on the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence a couple of Congresses ago, and the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence is one that is. Its members work very hard, 
ask tough questions. Many of them are when the cameras are off, and 
that is the way it has to be. But I am also particularly pleased at 
their openness to non-members of the committee participating in that 
process.
  I have, from time to time, requested special briefings and the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made that possible for 
me. No other committee in the House tends to be so

[[Page 13636]]

open to that on the part the of non-members.
  The structure of this bill encourages the continued vigorous 
oversight by the Congress of expenditure in the intelligence world. 
This is the kind of bill that we should be proud of as a Congress, as 
an example of vigorous oversight of one branch of government over 
another. We have to rebuild our intelligence services, particularly 
human intelligence and analysis. But this is too important to make a 
partisan issue.
  After this is all over today, I hope that my colleagues will 
reconsider their decision to inject partisanship and election year 
politics into the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It 
has always been above that and, for the good of the Nation, should 
remain above that.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I will close. I 
urge Members to vote no on the previous question. If the previous 
question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will 
allow the House to vote on a critical amendment that was defeated on a 
straight party line vote last night at the Committee on Rules.
  The amendment by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson) would 
fully fund the counterterrorism needs of the intelligence community by 
increasing by 100 percent the funds authorized in the contingency 
emergency reserve. What many Members may not realize is that the 
President's budget request covered just a fraction of the intelligence 
community's counterterrorism requirements, less than a third. They say 
the rest of the funds will be requested only after the November 
election.
  Well, the Nation's intelligence agencies have indicated that they 
need additional funds and the Peterson amendment will make sure that 
they receive them now, not after November elections.
  Mr. Speaker, fighting terrorism is not now and has never been a 
partisan issue. After 9/11, Republicans and Democrats stood side by 
side on the steps of the Capitol united in our effort to root out 
terrorists and to keep America safe. It is hard for me to understand 
why Republicans would now actively work to keep the House from 
adequately funding the counterterrorism efforts.
  The intelligence bill has long been considered in this House under an 
open rule. Any Member who wished to bring an amendment to the floor 
could do so, but last year things began to change. Republicans started 
to pass rules that restricted amendments, that allowed them to pick and 
choose which amendments could be debated in the floor of the House. 
This year they have taken it too far.
  The Peterson amendment is far too important not to be considered and 
is far too important to be subject to petty partisan games. It deserves 
a separate vote here on the floor today.
  So I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to vote no on the 
previous question. Let me make it very clear that a no vote will not 
stop the House from taking up the intelligence bill and will not 
prevent any of the amendments made in order from being offered. 
However, a yes vote will mean that the House will not have the 
opportunity to fully fund the Nation's counterterrorism needs.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the 
amendment immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Is there objection to the request 
of the gentlewoman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just like to remind my colleagues in closing 
that there is more money in this bill than ever before. There is more 
money for counterterrorism than ever before. And whatever is needed 
will be provided, as always been the manner of this House and the other 
body to do.
  I want to close by thanking the gentleman from Florida (Chairman 
Goss) because he has always worked in a very bipartisan manner on the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which all of us appreciate 
greatly, and with his background in intelligence, of course, that has 
been extremely important to have him there. We are going to miss him 
greatly, both as a chairman and as a long-serving, well respected 
Member of Congress from Florida.
  So we wish him only the best as he goes on whatever new challenges he 
may take on.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this structured rule, 
and thank my friend and colleague from the Rules Committee, Mrs. 
Myrick, for yielding me this time.
  H. Res. 686 is a structured rule that provides for the consideration 
of H.R. 4548, the FY2005 Intelligence Authorization Act of 2005. It is 
a fair and balanced rule that deserves the support of the House. It 
makes in order a total of ten (10) separate amendments to the 
underlying bill, three from members of the minority and the remainder 
from members of the majority. These ten amendments were more than half 
of the 18 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I also rise in support of the underlying measure, H.R. 
4548, which authorizes funding for critical intelligence programs for 
FY2005.
  I want to commend Chairman Goss for bringing this legislation to the 
floor. As Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence for the past eight years, the gentleman from Sanibel, 
Florida has served this country with honor, integrity, and distinction.
  His tenure has been marked by a tireless effort to improve and reform 
our nation's intelligence capabilities. He has never wavered in his 
steadfast desire to invest in this critical government function, and 
while there is still work to be done, his leadership has helped the 
intelligence community deal with a turbulent global environment.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4548 provides the tools necessary for a strong and 
effective U.S. intelligence mission as we wage a war against terrorism.
  Intelligence efforts serve as the first line of defense against 
terrorism and oppression. Without a strong commitment to this effort, 
our freedoms and this democracy are vulnerable to the fear and terror 
of others.
  It is incumbent on us to ensure that the blessings of liberty 
afforded to the citizens of this great nation are preserved under any 
possible means. By passing H.R. 4548, we are upholding this intention. 
As such, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H. Res. 686.
  The material previously referred to by Ms. Slaughter is as follows:

   Previous Question for H. Res. 686--Rule on H.R. 4548 Intelligence 
                     Authorization Act for FY 2005

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       ``Sec. 2. Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     resolution the amendment specified in section 3 shall be in 
     order as though printed after the amendment numbered 1 in the 
     report of the Committee on Rules if offered by Representative 
     Peterson of Minnesota or a designee. That amendment shall be 
     debatable for 60 minutes equally divided and controlled by 
     the proponent and an opponent.
       Sec. 3. The amendment referred to in section 2 is as 
     follows:
       
       At the end of title I, insert the following new section:

     SEC. 105. INCREASE IN AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS TO 
                   FULLY FUND THE NATIONAL FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE 
                   PROGRAM.

       The amounts authorized to be appropriated under section 101 
     for the conduct of the intelligence and intelligence-related 
     activities of the elements listed in such section for the 
     Contingency Emergency Reserve, as specified in the classified 
     Schedule of Authorizations referred to in section 102, are 
     increased 100 percent.

  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

[[Page 13637]]



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