Henry Waxman: “the House is taking up legislation of enormous importance: how to make our Nation safe from future terrorist attacks.…”

“the House is taking up legislation of enormous importance: how to make our Nation safe from future terrorist attacks. Outside of this body the effort to protect our Nation has been a united, bipartisan effort. Against the odds, the 9/11 Commission produced unanimous recommendations about how to protect our Nation. The Senate has carried their work forward. By an overwhelming 96 to 2 vote, the Senate has approved legislation embodying the commission's recommendations. Unfortunately, this bipartisan process has been hijacked in the House. There are just three numbers that you need to remember: 41 were the recommendations from the 9/11 Commission; 11 were the number of recommendations out of the 41 that they implemented; and 50 are the number of extraneous provisions inserted into the bill. The missing components are no minor oversights. H.R. 10 does not give the National Intelligence Director the full authority recommended by the 9/11 Commission. It falls short on border security, on aviation security, and on emergency response. During the first Presidential debate, both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed that preventing nuclear proliferation was the single greatest threat facing our Nation, yet incredibly the Republican bill does not implement the recommendations for stopping nuclear proliferation.”