Bill Keating: “In closing, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his leadership on this. With regard to the gentleman from Washington…”

“In closing, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his leadership on this. With regard to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Reichert), I was a district attorney for 12 years and had my own attached State police force. I worked with local law enforcement, and I understand just what he was talking about in terms of the need to communicate, to work together cohesively, and to share information. We are all safer when that occurs. Mr. Speaker, I started my day this morning in Boston. We met at the Federal Reserve. The ``we'' that met was something that, perhaps, you wouldn't have seen a few years ago but that we see today because of the efforts by Congress, the Homeland Security Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, and me in working together across the aisle and in making sure these things happen. It was a meeting on surface transportation threats and terrorist threats. We had our staff and the head of the FBI in our region there. We had the head of the ATF. We had our regional head of the TSA there. We had State officials, local officials, local police, regional police. We had authorities, like the transportation authorities, all present in the room--filling up the room--working together, sharing information. Yet we know we have to do a better job of making sure that occurs going forward. With regard to many of the things we worked on in the committee, some of those agencies made procedural changes.…”