Joe Lieberman: “I thought I would say a few words to remind my colleagues of the background that led to this particular legislation, S.…”

“I thought I would say a few words to remind my colleagues of the background that led to this particular legislation, S. 4, which, I repeat, came out of our Homeland Security Committee with a unanimous, nonpartisan vote of 16 to 0 and one abstention and is before us now. I go back to August 21, 2004. On that day, the 9/11 Commission's official mandate as an independent, nonpartisan commission ended, 1 month after the release of their final report. But the 10 Commissioners, the 10 citizens who were members of the Commission and responsible for its extraordinary work--the findings, the recommendations, many of which we adopted in legislation that followed in 2004--the 10 Commissioners decided to stay active in the public debate over the Commission's recommendations that fall. They made a real contribution to continuing to remind us why adopting--certainly considering first and then adopting--their recommendations was so important.”