[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19734-19740]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 19735]]

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.
  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

[[Page 19736]]

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 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,

[[Page 19737]]

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 
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

[[Page 19738]]

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 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

[[Page 19739]]

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.''
  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.

[[Page 19740]]

  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 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.

                          ____________________