Henry Waxman: “Mr. Chairman, we might have some difference about how this office ought to function in the White House. The proposal…”

“Mr. Chairman, we might have some difference about how this office ought to function in the White House. The proposal that I am offering is not something that I alone am supporting. It is, by the way, the proposal that has reached bipartisan support in the Senate. Senator Lieberman's committee has supported this concept. The Brookings Institution, this is the core idea of their recommendation. The General Accounting Office said that we need a stronger director in the White House with the tools to be able to do the job of coordinating these activities. Evidently, none of the three of them talked to my colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), but they came to a different conclusion, as have I, than her recommendation. I must say that I do not think that what we are proposing is inconsistent with what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) offered to create this Homeland Security Council to advise the President of homeland security matters and work in consultation with OMB on a homeland security budget. The difference we have is the Council would have much weaker powers than the Director of Homeland Security under the current amendment. For example, the Council would not be permitted to decertify an agency's budget submission.”