GOVERNMENT & POLICY each chamber with combined authoriza tion and appropriation powers. The commissioners also recommend ed that only a small number of members, perhaps seven to nine, be appointed to ei ther the joint or separate committees. This is far fewer than the 20 members serving HE 9/1I COMMISSIONERS NOT ONAt press time, the group was set to be on the current House panel and 17 serving ly produced a best-selling report, gin work when Congress returned from its on the Senate counterpart. In contrast to the six- or eight-year as but their recommendations have August recess. A Daschle spokesman says prodded Congress to conduct the "goal is to have the workinggroup's rec signments that House and Senate panel some homework during its Au ommendations delivered to the leadership members have had, appointed members gust recess. In addition to holding con sometime in September" before Congress of the newly formed committee or com gressional hearings to probe possible struc adjourns in early October. The group, he mittees should serve indefinitely the com tural changes to the intelligence community says, is tasked with assessing and making missioners suggested. This would give Senate leadership setup aworkinggroup to recommendations on congressional over them "the time and reason to master the examine its own structure and come up sight of intelligence and of homeland se subject and the agencies ... and be clearly with ways the Senate can improve intelli curity and on expediting the nomination accountable for their work." gence and homeland security oversight. process for national security appointees. To beefup homeland security oversight, the commission recommended the cre House leadership is choosing to use ex isting committees to tackle oversight reform. IN ITS REPORTp the 9/11 Commission de ation of a single permanent homeland A spokesmanforSpeaker of the House J. scribed congressional oversight as "dys security committee in each chamber. At Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said House leader functional" and strengthening it "among present, only the Select Committee on ship would work through the House Gov the most difficult and important" of its Homeland Security exists in the House. ernment Reform and Rules Committees to recommendations. Current House and The Senate has a plethora of committees, craft an oversight reform plan that might be Senate Select Intelligence Committees each with jurisdiction over some facet of acted on before adjournment in October. lack "the power, influence, and sustained homeland security Dan Byman, a Brookings Institution Congressional reform was one of three capability" to provide effective oversight, scholar, views the formation of a joint intel key recommendations of the 9/11 Com the commission said. mission, a prerequisite for ensuring that In his Aug. 2 announcement of the cre ligence committee as "aperfecdy reasonable its proposals for creating a powerful na ation of a powerful intelligence director way to go. It may be the most efficient way tional intelligence director and a national and a counterterrorism center, President to reform Congress's oversight function." However, agovernment specialcounterterrorism center succeed. Σ § ist at the Congressional Research Because congressional reform I Service, FrederickM. Kaiser,writes means tinkering with existing juris dictionalfiefdoms,turf battles ap 0 in an Aug. 25 report: "Critics of the pear inevitable. So in an apparent 5 proposal for replacing the current attempt to head off these fights, % House and Senate intelligence comSenate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R| mitteeswith a single joint commitTenn.) and Minority Leader Tom s tee contend that it would weaken Daschle (D-S.D.) tapped 22 pow 1 oversight and compromise a funerful Senate members to look at 2 damental feature of the Congress, ways its committee structure can be ° namely, two different (and some-: reshuffled for better oversight ofin times competing) bodies." telligence and homeland security James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, claims Members of the working group there are ways to correct the prob include Senate Majority Whip lems cited by the 9/11 Commission Mitch McConnell Jr. (R-Ky.) and other than centralizing all respon Minority Whip Harry Reid (D- FACE-TO-FACE Frist (left) and Daschle at a recent sibility for oversight and approNev.), along with the chairmen and press conference. priations under a joint committee top Democrats of the Senate Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign Re George W Bush "strongly agreed" with or separate committees in the House and lations, Governmental Affairs, Intelligence, the 9/11 Commission's "recommendation Senate. "No one has convinced me that overcentralization is the right answer." and Rules Committees. These committees that... oversight of intelligence and of the would be affected by any restructuring. homeland security must be restructured What would "be the check and balance if a single committee had the responsibility Governmental Affairs Committee Chair and made more effective." Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) sees the tinkering with the existing structure is for oversight and appropriations?" he asks. Carafano would like "to see a fuller de working group as "an opportunity for us in not sufficient," the commissioners con the Senate to prove that there really are no cluded. They recommended either the cre bate on this." But, he fears, "Congress is turf battles here and no protection of per ation of a joint House-Senate intelligence likely to do something just to claim it has sonal interests, but that our paramount goal committee along the lines of the former done something." It is, he contends, "just is to do the work we are charged with do Joint Committee on Atomic Energy or the as egregious to move too quickly as it is ing to make this country safer." creation of an intelligence committee in foolish not to move at all."—LOIS EMBER
REFORM THYSELF
Congress is set to assess how best to improve intelligence, homeland security oversight
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13, 2004
HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
