[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 37 (Monday, September 16, 2002)]
[Pages 1517-1518]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

September 7, 2002

    Good morning. Next week, our Nation will pause to honor and remember 
the lives lost on September the 11th. We must also remember a central 
lesson of the tragedy: Our homeland is vulnerable to attack, and we must 
do everything in our power to protect it.
    We protect our country by relentlessly pursuing terrorists across 
the Earth, assessing and anticipating our vulnerabilities, and acting 
quickly to address those vulnerabilities and prevent attacks. America 
needs a single department of Government dedicated to the task of 
protecting our people. Right now, responsibilities for homeland security 
are scattered across dozens of departments in Washington. By ending 
duplication and overlap, we will spend less on overhead and more on 
protecting America. And we must give the Department of Homeland Security 
every tool it needs to succeed.
    One essential tool this new Department needs is the flexibility to 
respond to terrorist threats that can arise or change overnight. The 
Department of Homeland Security must be able to move people and 
resources quickly, without being forced to comply with a thick book of 
bureaucratic rules.
    For example, we have three agencies working to safeguard our 
borders, the INS, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol. They all 
have different cultures and different strategies but should be working 
together in a streamlined effort. Other Federal agencies dealing with 
national security already have this flexibility, the FBI and the CIA and 
the new Transportation Security Administration. It seems like, to me, if 
it's good enough for these agencies, it should be good enough for the 
new Department of Homeland Security.
    In addition, the new Secretary of Homeland Security needs the 
authority to transfer some funds, limited funds, among Government 
accounts in response to terrorist threats. This requirement is nothing 
new; such authority is presently available to numerous agencies, 
including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of 
Agriculture, and the Department of Energy.
    The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would 
ensure the flexibility and authority needed for the Department of 
Homeland Security to effectively carry out its mission. The legislation 
now in the Senate would not. The Senate bill would not allow the new 
Secretary of Homeland Security to shift resources or streamline 
functions in response to a terrorist threat without a time-consuming 
approval process. And the legislation would keep in place a process that 
can take up to 18 months just to fire an employee.
    The Senate bill also provides no transfer authority for the 
Secretary of Homeland Security. Under the Senate bill, the Secretary 
would have to ask the President to submit a supplemental budget request 
to Congress, and then wait for Congress to act every time new terrorist 
threats presented a need for additional funding. In this war on terror, 
this is time we simply do not have.
    Even worse, the Senate bill would weaken the President's well-
established authority to prohibit collective bargaining when a national 
security interest demands it. Every President since Jimmy Carter has 
used this authority, and a time of war is not time to limit a 
President's ability to act in the interest of national security.
    Senators need to understand I will not accept a homeland security 
bill that puts special interests in Washington ahead of the security of 
the American people. I will not accept a homeland security bill that 
ties the hands of this administration or future administrations in 
defending our Nation against terrorist attacks.

[[Page 1518]]

    America has been engaged in this war for nearly a year, and we've 
made real progress. Yet more work remains. A new Department of Homeland 
Security will help us to protect our country, but only if it has the 
tools to get the job done. I urge the Senate to follow the House's lead 
and pass legislation that gives the Department the flexibility and the 
authority it needs to protect the American people.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 11:35 a.m. on September 6 in the 
Cabinet Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on September 
7. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on September 6 but was embargoed for release until the 
broadcast. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish 
language transcript of this address.