Porter Goss

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for an opportunity to speak on behalf of a project very important to motorists, to commerce, and to the well-being of millions of residents and visitors to southwest Florida. As a great number of my colleagues and their families know, there has been a steady and dramatic increase in the population in the southwest Florida area. This growth is indeed welcome. It is reflective of a robust economy and a wonderful quality of life, but it has contributed to the serious congestion of our only interstate, I-75. We have requested funds that would widen the forgotten section of I- 75, as we refer to it. It is a section that serves our State university and our international airport, to say nothing of the daily traffic of commuters and visitors. The current level of project funding contained in this act is very helpful and we are grateful, but it does not allow for the full solution to our congestion problem. It is for this reason that I respectfully ask the chairman that this issue be revisited during the conference committee for this legislation.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 430, 431 and 432 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on all three.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I am pleased to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and the remarks of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), who is the author of this particular amendment. And I want to thank them and so many other appropriators who have assisted us in making this partnership stronger and better that exists between the Federal Government and the State for a very wonderful and unique purpose of restoration of our Everglades. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) correctly said that his district encompasses virtually all of the Everglades, and it is clear the national interest of all of us is in the Everglades as well. So it brought some interest together in what I think is a very workable program by this amendment that will provide for the necessary accountability, because the appropriators do have a responsibility for how those dollars are spent and the State of course has responsibility for their part of the partnership as well. We have had a good partnership. It has been almost a decade. It has worked exceedingly well, and I think it will continue to work well in the future. As the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) said, there was a little hiccup earlier this year when the Florida legislature, for reasons that made sense to them at the time, took unilateral action. After we reviewed the action, we felt that we needed to change the way the partnership worked a little bit, and I believe the language herein accomplishes that. This language did just not happen overnight, as was suggested. The gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Taylor), the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula), another of the cardinals, the appropriators; the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), the overall chairman of the committee, dean of our delegation; the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Hobson) helped us; and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), chairman of our delegation. That is an awful lot of horsepower to bring together, and this deserves that kind of horsepower. It is the right answer. We are where we need to be, and I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I was not present on July 10, 2003 due to official travel overseas. As a result, I was not able to be present for rollcall votes Nos. 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352 and, 353. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on Nos. 346, 352, and 353. I would have voted ``no'' on Nos. 347, 348, 349, 350, and 351.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I was not present on July 9, 2003, due to official travel overseas. As a result, I was not able to be present for rollcall votes 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344 and 345. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on all nine votes. I request that this statement appear at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to this evening's Special Order commemorating the third anniversary of Plan Colombia. As Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I wanted to discuss the significant and measurable progress that has been made in the past 3 years in Colombia on a variety of fronts as a product of improved coordination and bilateral cooperation between the governments of Colombia and the United States. Four years ago, the security situation within Colombia was extremely unstable--some were saying than that Colombia was unraveling into a failed state where the national government exercised control of less than 50 percent of its territory. Leftist guerrillas from the FARC and the ELN and rightist paramilitary groups were growing rapidly and expanding their reach throughout much of Colombia. These terrorist groups were financed by the surge in cocaine and heroin production in the unsecured areas of Colombia as well as by other widespread criminal activities, such as mass kidnappings, extortion, murder for hire, and money laundering. The rule of law in much of Colombia during that time was uncertain at best; judges, public defenders, prosecutors, and police were being terrorized and killed at unprecedented rates. The political, economic and security future of Colombia was clearly and increasingly at stake. Given Colombia's economic and political importance as a major democratic ally within our Hemisphere, it was critical that Colombia and its friends jointly develop and fund an effort to enhance Colombia's security, strengthen the rule of law, interdict and eradicate narcotic crops, and grow its economy. During the past 3 years, the Plan Colombia initiative has provided a comprehensive strategy to reassert government control of Colombia's territory as well as to restore public confidence in the viability of Colombia's democratic institutions. Since the inauguration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in August 2002, the Colombian Government has stepped up its implementation of a wide variety of Plan Colombia programs affecting narcotics eradication and interdiction, enhanced law enforcement and other security-related measures, and alternative development efforts. A recent United Nations study estimates that Colombian coca production has been reduced by 40 percent since Plan Colombia was begun. With the strong support of President Uribe and improved mobility and capacity of Colombia's military and police forces, there is an excellent opportunity in 2003 for our bi-national coca eradication program to eradicate 100 percent of Colombia's coca production zones, an area that encompasses over 150,000 hectares. While this is very good news in the short term, our two governments will have to pursue this nationwide eradication and interdiction strategy for at least the next several years as coca growers are forced out of their illegal business and the Colombian Government is able to establish a stable and effective security presence in numerous coca production zones across Colombia. While the coca eradication trends show promise, I am concerned that insufficient attention has been given to developing and implementing an effective strategy to locate and eradicate Colombia's opium poppy crop. Our latest U.S. Government poppy crop data estimates that Colombia produced 14.2 metric tons of export quality heroin in 2002; virtually all of this Colombian heroin was exported to the United States and represented the large majority of all heroin consumed by Americans in 2002. Despite the clear statutory direction and funding guidance in both Plan Colombia and in related Congressional authorizations and appropriations measures during the past 5 years, our bilateral effort against Colombian heroin has been so far insufficient. Given the lethal effects of the heroin trade on both our countries, this key element of Plan Colombia demands senior-level attention by both governments, appropriate resources, and the application of a new, more effective mix of eradication and interdiction technologies to locate and kill the opium poppy on the 12,000-15,000 hectares where it has been grown in Colombia's high Andes mountains. Plan Colombia has registered some notable successes in the past 3 years. We need to stay committed to this important fight with our Colombian allies--not just for our national security, but for the safety of countless Americans who are threatened by the linkages between narco-trafficking and international terrorism. We need to redouble our efforts to stem the production and export of heroin and coca from Colombia, which harm and kill thousands of Colombians and Americans every year. I commend the leadership of Speaker Hastert in this important national security initiative. It was his foresight and concerted effort that has brought us this far. I look forward to working with the Speaker on this effort, and continuing to build upon the success of Plan Colombia as it enters its fourth year.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate my ranking member and the members of the staff on both sides of the aisle. Normally I would name all those staff. This year I am just going to point to one individual who really was the architect of the bill for the majority, put it together, did the hard work as he always does. He does the budget number and he understands the programs. His name is Mike Meermans. In addition to the spectacular work he did for us in a bipartisan and a thoroughly professional way, Mr. Meermans and his family had a sudden and significant illness in the family. We wish his family well and we wish his son Godspeed, full and complete recovery.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2417.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am very pleased to bring the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 to the floor today. As always, this authorization is the culmination of both an intensive review of the intelligence budget request and the rigorous oversight of the Intelligence Community that the committee conducts on an ongoing basis. And I mean ongoing basis. That involves Members and staff here in Washington and elsewhere around the globe. In putting together this legislation and schedule of authorizations, the committee must first answer the question, what is the state of America's Intelligence Community? Overall there have been some significant improvements since the low point we hit in the last decade, and I am pleased about that. I applaud the President for making needed investments in intelligence capabilities and his appreciation for intelligence as a vital element of the national security of our Nation. I am pleased to say that our intelligence authorization comes very close to the number that the President has asked for. In dollar terms, we have basically come in at exactly the level of the President's request. Within that framework and building on the progress made to date, the committee has been able to accomplish quite a bit. Among other things, the bill before us provides full support for the Intelligence Community's efforts in the war on terrorism, job one. It postures the United States for the future with a unified overhead imagery intelligence architecture. I just can put it this way. We have been well served by technology for a number of years. Technology gets old, just like the rest of us, and gets fragile. We need to be in a position to keep a robust architecture of the best technology available and this bill goes a long way to doing that. This bill also makes needed investments in analysis and analytic tools. Anybody who has followed the progress of the 9/11 joint review done with our colleagues in the Senate and our committees have come to the conclusion that a big part of the problem lies in the coordination and making the whole analytical piece work better. We have focused rather extensively on that this year. It is not a new subject for us. We also address counterintelligence concerns stemming from such celebrated cases tragically as the Hanssen case and the Montes espionage cases. These cases did do us damage and there are others that can as well. Counterintelligence becomes even more important because we understand counterintelligence may stop people from doing damaging things to Americans here at home. In addition, the bill continues the committee's push for improved and aggressive human intelligence tools and capabilities. Human intelligence, spying, espionage, getting enemies' plans and intentions is the core business of intelligence. On the homeland front, homeland security is very much part of our mission in the sense that we must authorize the establishment of some connection between our foreign intelligence and our domestic authorities who are dealing with the problems on the homeland. So we authorize the establishment of a pilot program to enable State and local authorities to gather terrorist threat related information and push it upward to the Federal level. The Intelligence Community must be forward leaning on this. As we have discovered consistently through our oversight and through the joint inquiry into the events of September 11, the United States does not have the luxury to be complacent about its national security requirements. Risk aversion, inattention to detail, lack of investment in capabilities, these are not options that the American people are willing to accept and certainly the committee is not willing to accept. Mr. Chairman, I am also pleased that H.R. 2417 continues the nonpartisan tradition of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of reaching consensus. This is entirely appropriate because partisanship has no place in a debate over America's security. None at all. This measure was reported out of the committee by a unanimous vote of 16-0. And I daresay, we did not start with a piece of paper that we all agreed on. We got to 16-0 by dealing with some things that we did not necessarily all agree on but we did it in a responsible and, I would say, adult way, understanding that the flag we work for is the flag of this country, not the flag for any other agenda. I urge the House to support H.R. 2417. I will look forward to making comments on individual amendments as they come along. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that we are going to have a lot of Member participation in the general debate today. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons), the chairman of the Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence Subcommittee. (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. GOSS. There are two reasons why this would be a difficult task to do publicly, and I would not make that broad a commitment. The first is that much of the material that the gentleman is talking about is probably classified if the gentleman is talking about the content of what may or may not be involved in calls, and I cannot go there. The second part is the matter of Constitution which does understand that working documents and so forth of the executive are respected and privileged. That has always been the case no matter who is in the White House.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. GOSS. That is an option that they have and that is why I cannot make a commitment. I cannot overcome that.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I well understand the purpose of the gentlewoman's amendment, and what I am trying to say and outline for her is that dealing with the United Nations with intelligence is an extraordinarily complex issue, and I do not think there is a particular body in Congress that has more experience than the oversight committees on intelligence, House and Senate. And I therefore say give us a chance to do our job and I think she will understand. If the gentlewoman wants to know how much intelligence has been shared with the U.N., I guarantee we can find out upstairs.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. GOSS. Reclaiming my time, this is not supporting or opposing the U.N. I will tell the gentlewoman flat out that I do not have the capacity to declassify information. Our committee does not. We can get involved in a process, but the declassification question is another issue which I would love to enlist her support on on how we can make it better, but that is not part of this amendment. Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just wanted to add one bit of remark with regard to some of the comment we have just heard which I thought was very helpful. We understand very clearly and the Intelligence Community understands very clearly that finding the weapons of mass destruction or what happened to them or whether there was faulty intelligence is a critical issue and that is indeed ongoing. As the gentleman from New Jersey just said, we are early in the game and we have literally thousands of pages for our staff and Members to work through. There is one thing that has not been said very clearly yet that does need to be said. I think we all share the desire to make as much of this known as possible to the public. We want the public to understand how good intelligence is and how good it is not. Frankly, I want to do everything I can to make the American people aware as well as people overseas who might be watching what we have to say here, whether they are our friends or our enemies, that our intelligence is indeed formidable and when in fact we find a place where there is a gap in it, it will be repaired and fixed and that gap will no longer be there. I think that will be a comfort to everybody. That process is partially what this bill is about. But we are doing this as regard to the debate with the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at a time when we desire transparency but we understand that transparency might include some people who are our enemies in the Iraq area where there is still a very dangerous and difficult operational climate as we are tragically reminded every day. I would ask that we understand that this is not just a question of going back and reviewing material at our leisure trying to come to some Solomon decision about whether it was good or bad or where we can fix it. This is matching information that we had which was the best we had at the time as far as we know with what we are beginning to find as we are able to talk to people who are captured in Iraq and other areas who are terrorists or are associated with them, document exploitation, those types of things and match that up. This process is a process that the committee has taken on. We are not just doing the prewar analysis. We are doing the what is going on now and where is it going on a daily basis. I hope Members can be assured, we will be in a continuous position to assess, both give a score card to the community and perhaps to come back to our colleagues here and say there are some other areas where we need to invest in the Intelligence Community because a small investment will yield a greater national security return before we are through. That is an ongoing process and charge of this committee and one we take seriously. Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 295, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), my colleague and friend, who I am happy to report sits on both the Committee on Rules and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with me, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purposes of debate only. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules has granted a modified open rule for H.R. 2417, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004. This is the standard rule that we have used for many years for the consideration of the intelligence authorization. The rule is fair. It will allow ample time for consideration of all matters. The rule provides for one hour of general debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Pro forma amendments listed in the report will be debatable under the 5-minute rule. As in past rules for this legislation, amendments were required to be preprinted. This allowed for the vetting of amendments regarding classified matters, a procedure we have found to be a very good practice, helpful to both the committee and Members. Finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions, as was announced. Mr. Speaker, as in past years, we thought it best to allow Members a good opportunity to review the bill and debate the issues that they feel are important, those particularly to our Nation's security at this time when national security is on our minds. Our classified annex and staff has been made available to any Member of Congress that was interested previously or is interested now in reviewing the underlying bill and reports. H.R. 2417 is, in fact, must-do legislation because of the rules of the House. It authorizes appropriations for fiscal year 2004 intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System. In effect, what that is is the 15 agencies of the intelligence community. In the nearly 2 years since the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, the intelligence community continues to build its capabilities to combat new threats that are threats to our Nation's safety, the well- being of Americans at home and abroad. The bill authorizes resources to improve the analytical depth and capacity in all areas of intelligence, an area that has been in crying need. This will allow us to process and disseminate the information collected in a more efficient, hopefully wiser and more timely fashion, and make sure all interested parties have access. In addition, this legislation continues the sustained effort and long-term strategy to enhance human intelligence, an area that is vital to our current war on terrorism and is essentially the core business of intelligence, plans, and intentions of the enemy. H.R. 2417 helps to improve information sharing among Federal, State, and local governments. This is an area and a desire where we have overlapping interests with other committees in the House. This bill also provides including increased training for State and local officials on how the intelligence community can support their counterterrorism efforts, again, a matter of some overlapping interest. Mr. Speaker, these are only a few highlights from the bill that passed the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously, in the true bipartisan fashion we like to operate our House Permanent Select Committee on. I am sure a whole breadth of topics will be discussed during our general debate; and I think that we have, in this modified open rule, provided ample opportunity for all matters to come to the floor. I noted today in earlier debate that there was focus on one issue that was not necessarily the subject that was under debate, and that was the intelligence assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, this is a topic currently under review by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and I would like all Members and all interested listeners to understand that we have been conducting a review on the House Permanent Select Committee to discharge properly our oversight responsibilities. We have been using the tools of oversight that are available to us. I think they are adequate, and I think they are being well used. I think we are using them in a thorough and in a nonpartisan manner. And, in fact, the ranking member, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), and I have taken extra steps to detail how this review will be conducted and have actually issued a public statement on that. I think it is worth rehashing what that statement says: committee hearings, closed and open, as appropriate, that will permit Members to question senior administration officials about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction holdings and programs, and its links to terrorism, to include questions relating to the sufficiency of intelligence collection and analytical coverage on these targets. Granting accesses to any Member of the House who wishes, under appropriate security provisions and House rules, to review the documentation provided to the Committee by the Director of Central Intelligence in response to a May 22 letter from the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and myself to provide information. And I am happy to report we are getting full cooperation from the Director of Central Intelligence on that. Staff interviews of intelligence community personnel involved in drafting intelligence community analyses of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction holdings and programs and Iraqi links to terrorism. Regular committee updates and status reports on current efforts to locate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which, after all, is a priority, including actions of the Iraq Survey Group and other government agencies employed in that task. And a written report suitable to the results of the committee's review, including an unclassified summary as promptly as is possible. In fact, I would say, Mr. Speaker, the committee has taken a very important additional step in its review. We have voted to allow access to the 19 volumes that we now have on hand of information provided by the Director of Central Intelligence outlining American intelligence analysis on Iraq and the sources that supported it. I do not believe we have ever done anything that specific before. To those who believe that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is not doing its job or that we are incapable of doing our job, they can come and literally read over our shoulder. I think that the committee is doing its job, and I am very proud of its members and its staff and the way it works; and I am very thankful that I have a ranking member who is anxious to preserve the nonpartisan approach that we take to the Nation's important security business. Those who have questions about the competence of myself, my ranking member, or any of the other members on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are welcome to express that today in a vote of no confidence; but I would urge that they not do that. We are doing our very best, and if you would like to come upstairs and help us try to do it better, we would welcome your presence. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I wish to thank the gentleman for his kind remarks. I also associate myself with his remarks about Lou Stokes and Julian Dixon, as well as the efforts of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), when she was ranking member in the committee, to deal with the diversity issue. It is critically important. And as the gentleman from Florida knows, I am prepared to accept his amendment at the appropriate time and pleased to have his leadership. I would also point out that I believe the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes) has shown another element that has improved our bill that we approved and were able to bring to the floor in our mark. So that is an area that has received attention because it needed attention, and I am entirely satisfied that we are taking good steps. I would also point out for other Members that we had a number of amendments requested. I do not think any were particularly controversial as to the bill itself. We have this year, because we are dealing with standing up the Department of Homeland Security, some questions about where we plug in the intelligence piece from our foreign intelligence community, which is a very big piece, into the homeland security apparatus. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) has been a leader on that and done excellent work and is working with the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), the chairman and ranking member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. We also, obviously, are working closely in some other areas that are a little new for us with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, because of some questions about how we deal with some of the Treasury aspects, and, additionally, how we deal with some of the judicial aspects as we respond to the challenge in this country of preventive enforcement for people who would take advantage of our hospitality here and do mischief. And regrettably, we do get the reports regularly that there are still some of those folks in our midst. So we are going to be working in that area. Not all of that is going to come to a final conclusion today. We are going to go from here, from our authorization bill, to a conference process. I expect there will be progress made in some of these areas where there is some apparent overlap between now and conference time, and certainly everybody is going to be assured that this committee is interested only in the portfolio of intelligence. That is what we do, the Foreign Intelligence Program. The other committees of standing that have jurisdictional areas that are associated we will work with closely and on a friendly and nonterritorial basis. I wish to assure them all of that. We had, I understand, some amendments that came in late and we had one amendment that was not germane; but otherwise, I understand that the Committee on Rules made six amendments in order. Five were Democratic amendments, one was a Republican amendment; and I believe that the Committee on Rules responded very fairly. I see no reason to oppose this rule and every reason to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to celebrate the purpose of the Medal, which is the great leadership of Tony Blair. The world needs civilized leaders. The world is a scary place. There are a lot of things going on, and all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Good men are not infallible. Mistakes can be made. But good men acting on good judgment, doing the best they can with what they have is what we are celebrating here today. Tony Blair as Prime Minister has been a great friend to our country, which has a special relationship, of course, with the United Kingdom, of which we are very proud, and an especially strong relationship in the area of intelligence. He has been a great friend with President Clinton when he was President of our country, and with President Bush. Who is currently the President of our country. I think that friendship has gone through a lot of activity in the past several years, and Tony Blair has been there standing strong. He is a proud person to be associated with, in my view. I am pleased that the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown-Waite), the gentleman from New York (Chairman King), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and others have had the good sense to bring this forward at this time, and I thank them for doing it, and I urge strong support.