Pelosi Wants Intelligence Appropriations Oversight Panel

Monday, December 18, 2006

By Tim Starks, Congressional Quarterly

December 14, 2006

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats would create a new panel to oversee intelligence spending as part of their election year promise to implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.

But the proposal will not precisely mirror the recommendations of the commissioners, who advocated for either a joint House-Senate panel or at least a committee in each chamber with both appropriations and authorizing authority. Later, commissioners said an appropriations subcommittee on intelligence in the House and Senate would suffice.

The select panel proposed by Pelosi, a California Democrat, would be within the House Appropriations Committee and would make recommendations on the intelligence budget to defense appropriators. It also would prepare the classified section of the Defense Appropriations bill.

The Subcommittee on Defense and the full Appropriations panel would make the ultimate decisions on intelligence funding levels, said Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider. The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee is chaired by Pelosi ally John P. Murtha, D-Pa., whom she backed in his failed bid to become majority leader.

Pelosi said the structure would achieve the aim of the Sept. 11 commission, which was to bring intelligence authorization and appropriations closer together. The Democratic-controlled intelligence oversight panel would be composed of members whom Pelosi and Republican leaders would choose from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Appropriations Committee. The chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and its ranking Republican would serve as ex-officio members.

"Its purpose is to protect the American people with the best possible intelligence, recognizing the role that Congress plays in all of this," Pelosi said. "I know it will make America safer."

The Sept. 11 commission wrote that intelligence agencies sometimes ignore the wishes of the intelligence committees because they do not have the power of the purse. Commissioners also complained the Defense appropriations subcommittees gave short shrift to the intelligence budget.

The new House panel would be smaller than the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, but its membership has not been decided yet, Crider said. It also would conduct hearings on the intelligence budget and review how funds are spent.

Asked whether it would be too difficult to implement the Sept. 11 commission recommendation for a bicameral intelligence panel, Pelosi said, "The 9/11 Commission made several -- presented several different options. All of them were intended to make -- to strengthen congressional oversight."

Pelosi said the initiative would be part of the rules package House Democrats would push at the start of the new Congress.

"What we are doing, I think, is quite remarkable and new, and we can only act for ourselves in the House so that we are taking this action in the House," she said. "Perhaps it will grow into something that could be House-Senate, but we can only act upon our own body."

Crider said the Senate was aware of the House Democrats' proposal. Jim Manley, a spokesman for incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Democratic leaders in the Senate "have already begun to craft plans to strengthen their committees' oversight."

"In addition, we will work with key senators to carefully examine the House proposal as part of our larger discussion about the best ways to ensure implementation of the spirit and letter of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations."

Early reaction to Pelosi's proposal was mixed.

"This is a significant step forward on intelligence reform and a major step forward on fixing the dysfunctional intelligence oversight system in Congress," said Tim Roemer, a Sept. 11 commission member and former Democratic representative from Indiana (1991-2003). "The 9/11 Commission sought two goals: to strengthen the oversight process and to tie oversight to the budget. While this solution is not the precise formula the commission recommended, it is clearly achieves the commission's goals," Roemer said.

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a prepared statement that he appreciated Pelosi's effort to reach out to Republicans on her proposal, but also jumped on Pelosi's statement about the commissioners offering alternatives to their recommendations, ". . . so if they are giving you different alternatives, implicit in that is that you can't do them all."

"I also appreciate the candor she has demonstrated in recent days with respect to the Democrats' promise of enacting all of the remaining unresolved recommendations of the 9/11 commission during the opening hours of the 110th Congress, such as her statement Thursday that 'you can't do them all'," Boehner said. "I told the Speaker-elect I would be pleased to take a look at her proposal and confer with my colleagues about it. That process is already under way."

The top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Peter T. King of New York, was harsher, saying the Democrats' plans for the Sept. 11 commission recommendations revealed their vow to implement them amounted to "a hollow campaign promise" and noting that she has not yet addressed a commission recommendation to streamline oversight of the Department of Homeland Security into one committee.

Pelosi did spell out her plans to address one homeland security-related commission recommendation. According to Pelosi, "we have even tougher proposals to screen 100 percent of the containers long before they reach U.S. shores."

Pelosi added that homeland security measures in the Sept. 11 commission legislation would match proposals from Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, signaling that the legislation would contain 100-percent inspection language proposed by Massachusetts Rep. Edward J. Markey earlier this year. Markey proposed a five-year phased implementation of a 100-percent screening system as an amendment to a port security bill signed into law in October (PL 109-347).

Pelosi was noncommittal on whether she would push to declassify the total intelligence budget, another commission recommendation. The commission said declassifying total intelligence spending would enhance oversight.

"I have long supported making the intelligence budget public," Pelosi said. "It isn't a view that is shared by all in Congress."

Asked if she still had confidence in incoming Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who generated significant criticism after he failed to correctly answer several questions in an interview with Congressional Quarterly about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, Pelosi replied, "Absolutely."

Patrick Yoest and Jonathan Allen contributed to this story.

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