EVENTS

Date:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Time:	11:00 AM -- 12:30 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

February 2005

Making America Safer: Reforming Congress in a post-9/11 World

Last December, in response to recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, the 108th Congress passed a historic reorganization of the U.S. government's intelligence and counterterrorism agencies. In its final report, the Commission also recommended a dramatic overhaul of Congressional oversight of those agencies. AEI congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein moderated a February 15 AEI panel discussion on the role of the 109th Congress in meeting the greatest national security challenge facing the United States: Islamist terrorism. Topics included executive restructuring and committee jurisdiction, providing effective oversight of intelligence and homeland security, and the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on Congress.

 

Norman J. Ornstein
AEI

The Committee on Homeland Security in the House of Representatives has been made permanent with jurisdiction over all homeland security policies, authority over the Department of Homeland Security internal administration, and jurisdiction over functions related to six specific areas: border and port security, except immigration and non-border enforcement; customs, except customs revenue; integration, analysis, and dissemination of homeland security information; domestic preparedness for collective response to terrorism; research and development; and transportation security.  In the Senate, the committee has jurisdictions over the Department of Homeland Security except in matters relating to the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Secret Service, the Citizenship and Immigration Service, the immigration functions of various agencies, and any revenue measure related to the Bureau of Customs or other entities.

Appropriations have provided more oversight of government agencies than the authorizing bodies. As committee restructuring continues, however, the committees seem to be growing more dysfunctional and less effective at overseeing their departments. 

Edwin Meese III
Heritage Foundation

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was the biggest restructuring of the executive branch in history, bringing together twenty-two different agencies from seven departments--each with different agendas--under one department. Not all the functions of these agencies fall under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security; the agencies are still responsible for all their previous functions. Having no clear lines of jurisdiction within Congress has lead Secretary Ridge to spend an estimated 40 percent of his time testifying to some eighty different committees and subcommittees that have some jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security.

The function of oversight has diminished in Congress, which may be a contributing factor to the tendency in intelligence funding where the money has been allocated more on a per-capita basis, ensuring that all congressional districts receive some funding rather than allocating funds on a threat-analysis basis. Congress and the executive branch should work together, and the recommendations produced by the 9/11 Commission should be the standard against which change should be judged.

The Department of Homeland Security has realized that it will take a significant amount of time for a new department culture to develop. There is a need for the Department of Homeland Security to build relations with first response organizations and local government, because these grassroots organizations will deal with national security issues.

Thomas Mann
Brookings Institution

There has been a great deal of success in restructuring the executive branch, but not as much success with Congress. Two main recommendations from the 9/11 Commission for Congress were changing congressional committee jurisdiction and bringing together authorizing and appropriating functions into a single body. These recommendations are very difficult to implement. Some changes have occurred based upon these recommendations, but not enough. 

The current polarized environment in Congress works against aggressive oversight of the executive branch. Oversight has been further impacted by a centralization of power and the weakening of committee powers.

The expectation is that change will occur in incremental movements from now on. Initial drastic movements only took place because of the bold recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. 

Lee H. Hamilton
9/11 Public Discourse Project

Two major recommendations that the 9/11 Commission made were to establish the Office of Director of National Intelligence and to create a National Terrorism Center. The president and Congress have accepted the recommendations and have tried to work on them. These recommendations, if implemented to their full potential, have the ability to become very powerful tools of the executive branch and thus require congressional oversight. Oversight is a primary function of Congress. This function enables Congress to simultaneously be both a critic and partner to powerful executive departments. The check-and-balance relationship cannot be performed correctly if oversight committees are weak. There has been a continuous weakening of committee oversight which began when the Democrats were in power and has accelerated under the Republicans.  Part of this has occurred because the media does not find oversight interesting.

Steps have been taken by Congress to create effective change, but it is still not enough. It must be recognized that oversight of the intelligence community is different than oversight of other agencies because there are very few interest groups or individual observers who watch the intelligence community, particularly as so many of its proceedings are secret. Therefore, the only true oversight that exists for the intelligence community is Congress. At the authorizing level, the intelligence committees should be given sole jurisdiction over the national intelligence program; homeland security committees should have sole jurisdiction over counterterrorism elements.

The defense subcommittee on appropriation is currently in charge of the money that is to be allocated for the intelligence budget. The defense committee has such a huge amount of money to appropriate, however, that not enough time can be spent on the intelligence budget. Additional subcommittees must be created to deal with intelligence appropriations.

AEI intern Anneliese Lederer prepared this summary.