Roy Blunt: “the House is taking bold steps today to reform the way our intelligence community works for the first time in two…”

“the House is taking bold steps today to reform the way our intelligence community works for the first time in two generations. The legislation that we are debating here today responds to the 9/11 Commission's look at an unprecedented and horrendous day in American history. The Commission made recommendations for dramatically changing our intelligence operations, and seven House committees of jurisdiction held 20 hearings and five markups. Despite some claims to the contrary, our committees have worked in a bipartisan fashion to contribute with strong bipartisan votes, sweeping and much-needed components of change of the legislation that we are discussing today. I would like to focus on the intelligence reform for a minute. I have had the privilege of joining the gentleman from Michigan's (Chairman Hoekstra's) and the gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Harman's) committee last week during the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's markup of the components of the 9/11 Commission bill. This legislation establishes a strong empowered National Intelligence Director who will coordinate the efforts of all the U.S. intelligence agencies.”