Liz Saville Roberts: “In the Emerging Threat Subcommittee we heard from the Bremmer commission, the Gilmore commission, the Hart-Rudman…”

“In the Emerging Threat Subcommittee we heard from the Bremmer commission, the Gilmore commission, the Hart-Rudman commission, the Center for Strategic and International Studies Group, and the Rumsfeld commission. In virtually every one of those commissions, they indicated the need for greater border security with all of the threats you have mentioned. We just had a hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Director Ridge just came before the committee. Secretary Ann Veneman of the Department of Agriculture came before the committee. It is another one of those cases where, as we try to reorganize the Department of Homeland Security, people get a little worried about their turf. People get a little worried about past practices. People say: Wait a minute; do we need to transfer that whole agency over to the superagency? There is an agency within the Department of Agriculture called the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. As you know, in working with the bioterrorism bill, I had an agriterrorism section. We tried to ramp up the funding for our basic research universities: Athens, GA, for salmonella; Ames, IA, for the livestock industry; Plum Island, where you don't want to open up any refrigerator doors under any circumstance because of the pathogens that are there.”