Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, for a bill that is supposed to carry out a series of partisan campaign promises on national security and homeland security issues, what is most notable about this bill is actually the many areas that it highlights where there has been bipartisan agreement, not only on the provisions of the 9/11 Commission that should be implemented, but just as importantly, those recommendations that should not be implemented. In the 109th Congress, the House acted to address many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. A number of these reforms were included in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, in which the Intelligence Committee played a prominent role. Others were addressed and refined in later legislation. On intelligence matters, many of the items in this bill are duplications or slight modifications to initiatives that were already put into place during the preceding Congress, such as support to the fusion of border intelligence and provisions to facilitate greater information sharing on homeland security. As another key example, this bill would create a new Office of the United States Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. This duplicates and complicates the work of the National Counterproliferation Center created in the Intelligence Reform bill.”