Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank you very much. I'd now like to yield to Mr. Gilman of New York for his observations.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend our chairmen, Mr. LaTourette and Mr. Shays, for bringing us together on this important hearing. I'm pleased to join our colleagues today who will be making a further examination of the Federal effort to confront and combat terrorism here in our own Nation.

We've often focused on this grave threat to innocent persons and property only when it's been in the headlines as a result of an act of terrorism, too much of a band-aid approach. The Federal Government, pursuant to various Presidential directives, began over the last decade to concentrate on this problem, and regrettably, wellintentioned efforts too often have wound up being parochial, designed to shore up security of a given agency's assets, their personnel and traditional functions. The effort to coordinate anti-terrorism planning among Government entities at the Federal, State and local level has faltered, and the end result has been a fragmentation of responsibility that features turf protection and a proliferation of resources among some 40 Federal agencies.

The three legislative proposals before us today seek to correct that situation by assigning a central authority to direct our government's anti-terrorism efforts. A similar effort has been underway since the creation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism in the mid1988 period within the National Security Council. The national coordinator of that program provides advice, but lacks any authority to direct or to assign agency budgets for counterterrorism efforts. And therein may be the problem.

I believe budgetary authority, and not just the amount of money authorized and appropriated, is central to fixing the most important problem in our plans to thwart domestic terrorism. Any solution that we propose must give the central coordinating entity responsibility to set terrorism related budgets in order to establish clear lines of direction and responsibility. Without that kind of a control, the anti-terrorism coordinator is at the mercy of agencies focused on their own albeit virtuous interests, but pulling in too many directions.

More generally, prevention should be at the center of any antiterrorism coordinator's focus. Better human intelligence on possible planned attacks is a key to foiling such threats. In our recruiting to develop better human intelligence, our government has exercised due responsibility and due caution over contact with persons involved in human rights violations. There is a time, however, when higher interests prevail, and such contacts become vital to preventing future violations of human rights resulting from any terrorist attack.

In conjunction with the efforts to acquire better human intelligence, our Nation should also put greater emphasis on international cooperation with police in other agencies in the fight against terrorism. At this point, terrorists often turn to criminal elements for stolen cars, for explosives and other ingredients in planning any kind of a terrorist attack.

It seems to me that the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement training for police forces overseas would serve to improve our inter

national cop to cop contacts, expanding our terrorist information network. Mr. Chairmen, it is long overdue that we provide a central authority with a comprehensive national strategy to direct and coordinate our Nation's fragmented anti-terrorism efforts.

I want to thank our chairmen again for continuing these hearings, and we look forward to the testimony of our three distinguished witnesses from the House as we seek to craft appropriate solutions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank the gentleman. Ms. Holmes Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I may, I'd like to thank both of our chairmen, Mr. LaTourette and Mr. Shays, for their very sensible beginning of a solution. If Members of two subcommittees can see the problem and get together, perhaps we can get the respective agencies together as well.

And may I thank the members who have devoted some considerable time and very deep thought to what, in my view, is the most serious, major problem confronting our society today, and for which there is no strategy: no one can doubt the rise of worldwide terrorism. We can all be grateful that as a matter of fact, we have experienced so little of it.

I am constantly amazed that we have experienced so little of it, and believe that the major reason for this has to do with the personnel who control our borders and keep people from entering this country who might have been most inclined to engage in some such terrorism. Although I do note that the only major act of domestic terrorism in this country was the work of an American.

As the member who represents the Nation's Capital, I am ashamed of how our capital looks. When your constituents come to visit you in our capital, I can assure you that they are, and they comment upon, how astonished they are at how our capital looks. The capital is being closed down in our midst. You don't see it because you come to work every day.

But your constituents see it. They came 3 years ago to bring a sixth grade class, and they come back now and it looks different. And they know it, and they say it. They see the barricades and they're troubled.

They will ask me, has there been an incident here? When I pass by and they say, this is the member who represents the Nation's Capital, did you have something happen here? Can you imagine what children think when they come to the Nation's Capital and every important building is surrounded by barricades of the kind that might have been easily used in the 19th century if you were trying to protect yourself against terrorism?

Because I don't see any advance over what might have been used then over what we are using here. I believe what the members on the dais are doing, the members who have prepared legislation are doing, is most important. But I would like to suggest today that it is time that we added a layer to our thinking about how to keep an open society in a world of rising terrorism.

My friends, that is the challenge, not how to combat terrorism alone. We can all get together and figure out ways to keep them out. But would you want to live in a society that only figured out

ways to keep them out? Or to keep enemies from within from committing acts of terrorism?

I believe that we need to look at terrorism in the context of maintaining an open democratic society. If you want to really grapple with this problem, you cannot simply deal with one aspect, albeit a hugely important aspect of it. Because you can deal with that aspect and end saying, how could we have done this to ourselves? Is there no better way to do this?

May I suggest that I think that beyond ourselves we have to, in order to come to grips with what is a problem that has never faced the world before, at some level and in some ongoing working forum bring together the best minds in the society. And I do not simply mean security minds, albeit they are indispensable minds. I mean people who know how to think about the kind of society in which we live, the society's intellectuals, the society's security people, the society's police people, the people who understand what kind of a society it is, and let them all help us gather this problem and think this problem through.

We've done this in the past, when we had problems we didn't know what to do with. We did it in Los Alamos. We did it with the Kerner Commission came forward. We realized that we did not have all the answers, or that we were all grappling with one part of the aspect of the beast.

We need an approach that takes full account of the importance of maintaining our democratic traditions, while responding adequately to a very real and very substantial threat that terrorism poses. Are you proud that the best your country could think to do after the outrageous, stunning bombing in Oklahoma City was to close down America's main streets? Is that the response of the world's greatest power, of its most advanced technological power?

If so, we are truly bankrupt. And I do not believe we are. But I do not believe we have brought to the table all of those that are necessary to help us think through this problem. We are called upon to provide ever higher levels of security in public spaces, while somehow remaining just as free and open as we were before there was any worldwide terrorist threat. As yet, our country does not begin to have, has not begun to do any of the thinking through of a systematic process or strategy for meeting the dual challenge of securing us against terrorist threats and maintaining the open democratic society which is all that we stand for.

Before he left, I discussed with Senator Daniel Moynihan an approach that would put the people I'm calling the best minds in society together at a table. And he was very taken with it. Unfortunately, he has retired. I am not giving up, and I regard this hearing as one way of informing me about an indispensably important aspect of this problem. I thank our Chairs and all who have been involved in preparing legislation for their contribution.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank the gentlelady.

If there are no further opening statements, I would now like to call up today's first panel. This panel consists of three very distinguished Members of the House of Representatives, who are to be commended for their work and their leadership in addressing the problem.

We're honored to have with us today Mr. William Gilchrest of Maryland, Mr. Mac Thornberry of Texas and Mr. Ike Skelton of Missouri. And we'd now like to turn to you, Mr. Gilchrest, because you are a long recognized champion of the Transportation Committee, a champion of wetlands environments everywhere, and now you're showing your versatility with H.R. 525.

STATEMENT OF HON. WAYNE GILCHREST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, for the opportunity to testify here this afternoon. Part of this is in recognition of terrorist activities for the Nation's ecosystems as well, I'm sure, and certainly for our wetlands.

I would like to very briefly respond to some of the comments that have been made by the members of the committee toward our three bills. I think that Mr. Skelton and Mr. Thornberry and myself recognize that each of us doesn't have all the answers to this problem, and that a collaboration of our three proposals might be best at the end of the day.

But my particular bill certainly doesn't deal with the comprehensive problem of terrorism in an international way from let's say, Chestertown, MD on the Eastern Shore to a city in Pakistan. But it does deal specifically with the nature of the problem, with our first responders here in the United States.

When someone sees a building blow up or a possible terrorist activity, using, God forbid, radioactive material, germ warfare, chemical warfare, they call 911. And if you live in Chestertown, that's probably a retired man in that 911 dispatch office that's going to get the call. He will then call a volunteer at a local volunteer fire department who will call the paramedics, who are also volunteer people. And they will be the first people to respond.

Our effort is in some way small steps, immediate steps to take provisions to coordinate as much as is possible all the resources of this country to help those first responders. This bill is not a massive, comprehensive overhaul of Federal approach, this Nation's approach to terrorist activity. And I recognize that is a good idea.

Also, Mr. Kucinich made a comment, very good comment about civil liberties. I would suggest that in our three bills it is inherent that constitutional rights of your civil liberties will certainly not be denied by any of these bills. If anything, they will be enhanced because of the recognition of people's education to respond to these kinds of disasters.

And Ms. Norton, your comments about combating terrorism in a free society are excellent comments. How do we do that? Do we continue to increase the barricades and reduce the access to our public buildings because of the threat, the real threat of terrorism? So we do need to discuss that issue. And our U.S. Capitol must continue to be the most accessible public building in the world, which it has been for some time.

I think the legislation before you in the form of these three bills makes those concerns about terrorism, about civil liberties, about access to public buildings, about responding quickly and in a coordinated fashion to those volunteers calling 911, that's going to happen with and through these kinds of discussions.

Mr. Chairman, what I'd like to do is go through some very brief points about what H.R. 525 does. 1, H.R. 525 establishes a President's council within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate Government-wide efforts for improving preparedness against domestic terrorist attacks. The bill is the right approach because it raises the profile of domestic preparedness by placing the formulation of the national strategy into the Executive Office of the President. We don't say specifically how this is to be done or which agencies are to participate in it. This is up to the President.

The council will include representation from each Federal department that has an important role to play in the development of that strategy. The council will participate in agency budget processes, making recommendations to accomplish the goals of a defined national strategy. It also improves accountability by directing the council to provide clear budget recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget. With those recommendations, it would be required to follow the national strategy.

We've increased the amount of money used for domestic terrorism by billions of dollars over the last few years. And yet, the members on the committee have all testified in one way or another that we still have a fragmented strategy. Well, it's important for the budget to be clear and succinct on how we're going to spend those dollars. H.R. 525 will help to better coordinate the Federal response to other major disasters. It's not only for terrorist activities, but major weather disasters.

And I'd like to conclude with, the bill is designed to afford the President the latitude and the flexibility to be able to work with his staff to create domestic preparedness plans that incorporate the recommendations of all the Federal agencies, streamlines the budget process, incorporates needs of State and local first responders, those folks in Chestertown that made that 911 call, and to find a level of preparedness to guide our national efforts in order to deal with the existing, emerging and evolving nature of domestic terrorism and natural disasters.

And I thank the chairmen for the opportunity.
Mr. LATOURETTE. We thank you.

Mr. Skelton.

STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you very much, Chairman LaTourette and Chairman Shays, for this opportunity to appear before you today. I think all of us today would agree that our country needs to improve its ability to provide security for our citizens. Unfortunately domestic terrorism is an increasing national problem. The sad truth is that the various governmental structures at all levels now in place do not operate in an efficient, coordinated and coherent way to provide adequate homeland security for our citizens. As a matter of fact, recent GAO reports indicate that some 43 different Federal agencies deal with this issue.

Part of the reason for the lack of coherence in our domestic terrorism prevention is that terrorist attacks can come in many forms. They can be intercontinental ballistic missiles, crude home made