an opportunity to create a model high-performing organization in this critically important area. In order to achieve this, the new department should be given reasonable management flexibility to be able to reorganize, realign, and transform itself to best achieve its mission.

At the same time, there need to be appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse of Federal employees and adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms in place to monitor progress and assess effectiveness over time. Periodic congressional oversight and independent GAO reviews will play critically important roles in this regard.

Madam Chair, that summarizes my statement and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker appears as a submission for the record.]

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Walker.

We are joined by Senators DeWine and Sessions, and I trust that they have received a copy of the GAO testimony, dated June 25. It is relatively new—well, it is very new. I would like to ask Senator DeWine and Senator Sessions if they would like to make an opening statement at this time.

Senator DEWINE. No, thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Senator DeWine does not.

Senator Sessions, would you like to make an opening statement? Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I will have to slip out. I hope to be able to return, but I would just say a couple of things.

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

When, early on, people began to discuss a homeland security agency, I asked myself how can a new, junior agency expect to order Treasury to do A, B, C, and D, Justice to do this, Defense to do this. I didn't see that they would have the clout.

But President Bush's move here is really historic. He is moving almost everything that is within an agency related to homeland defense to homeland defense, and I had to take a new look at that. Frankly, as a person who served in the Federal Government, in the Department of Justice, for almost 15 years, I know that in that great agency there are bureaucracies, there are inefficiencies. There are problems of unhealthy competition even within Justice, and certainly between Justice and other agencies. It is just an exceedingly difficult thing to make this huge Government agency function as one.

It is one Government, but it doesn't act that way. Oftentimes, it acts as independent nations. They send emissaries between one another. They cannot communicate, except with memoranda of understanding, and treaties get cut when disagreements occur. So it is very difficult.

Having Mr. Ridge as the President's person, with the President's clout behind him, he has some ability to bend agencies because if they don't agree with his idea he can simply say, Secretary Rumsfeld, why don't you and Secretary Mineta meet with me and the President next week and we will discuss this little disagreement?

And if the President is backing up Mr. Ridge, he can get some things done that way. I am inclined to think this would work.

Mr. Walker, I appreciate your report and insight and commitment to reforming Government. Maybe in the process of making this move, we would not create additional bureaucracies, but if we use our imagination and if we are creative, maybe we can make this one of the best-run agencies in the Government.

Certainly, I have no doubt it would enhance our ability to protect the homeland. I do think there is a concern that we not diminish the other duties these great agencies have, such as the Coast Guard and Customs.

They have other responsibilities, too, Madam Chairman, so we don't want to diminish them and just undermine them excessively. So it will be a challenge. I think it is probably healthy. The American people want to see us do something. The President has boldly proposed a program to make some changes. If we all work together, I believe we can make it work.

Thank you for this hearing.

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Sessions.

I would like to begin with the questions now and I would like to ask each one of you to answer this question. I think the original thrust for the department started because many were concerned about the absence of statutory and budgetary authority for the new homeland security person.

Just putting that individual within the Office of the President created problems. One was he couldn't come and testify before Congress, which kind of took on an expanding role as things went on. Now, I almost wonder if it isn't in the process of being created an agency which is so big that there will be so many mixed missions within it and so many bureaucratic problems that if you take one agency-for example, INS, and I serve on the Immigration Subcommittee of this-many of us have felt that this was an agency with severe mission overload, without the ability of a modern management system which enabled it to make crucial errors; for example, printing up 5 million biometric border-crossing cards, and yet not having the readers in place to read them when they came across the border, or, second, not checking a data base when you sent out visa renewals and actually renew the visas of two dead hijackers.

Now, those may be just small indications, but maybe of us that have watched this agency have become very concerned. Here in this, you transfer the service elements. We have 5,000 unaccompanied alien children a year. Do they belong in a Department of Homeland Security? I don't think so.

What about the naturalization process? Is it best served by being in a Department of Homeland Security?

So I guess my question is this: Would it not be more efficient and effective just to take those functions of an agency, like from INS Border Patrol, and place it into an agency and leave the other aspects of the agencies that deal with the non-security-related issues to function?

The same thing would go for FEMA; you know, leave out the flood, the earthquake kinds of activities of that agency, and yet

transfer those elements which you might want in a border security type of situation into homeland defense.

That is my first question and I would like you to answer it. My second involves several_very serious personnel issues, but let's begin with you, Senator Rudman.

Mr. RUDMAN. You raise probably the most vexing issue when you handle any government reorganization. Let me say to you that you probably, in some cases, would cause more harm than good by splitting them. That was our conclusion.

Now, there is a reason why our proposal was as limited as it was. Our proposal, and we have testified on it before, took Customs, Border Patrol, and Coast Guard. We split Border Patrol from INS, for the very reasons that you mentioned. The President has decided, and probably with good reason, that it needs reform and it can be reformed with a new agency as well as where it is. In fact, it might get more attention in a smaller Cabinet agency with a particular mission.

Now, take the Coast Guard. It is probably the best example I can give you of why the splitting probably won't work. It is an extraordinarily able organization. I have had a lot of personal experience with it on the New England coast. They do a wonderful job of water safety, of inspection of buoys, and of channel-marking. They do drug interdiction, and they are now going to do homeland security.

But the same people that do many of those functions will do all of those functions. A Coast Guard cutter that is working on a drug intercept tomorrow may be working on an intercept of a vessel that is suspicious off the coast of New England. So the same people are going to do the same thing.

If you tried to split it and say; you are going to do harbor safety; you are going to do boating safety; you are going to do drug interception; you are going to do something else, you would end up with a terrible mess. So, after talking to all of the people involved, and we did have three-and-a-half years to look at it, we came to the conclusion that if they had an overwhelming border security mission, then you ought to put it in this agency and the other missions would be carried out as they are.

The words "separate entity" are important in our report. The Coast Guard, in our view, would be transferred as the Coast Guard. It would then be reorganized within the new department however they decided to reorganize it, but it would still be the same entity.

Now, let me make one last comment. When you look at these various agencies, Customs does a wonderful job at what they do. I have had a lot of experience both here and in the private sector with Customs. FEMA is outstanding. The Coast Guard is a very good agency. They are three of the best small Government agencies that we have being transferred.

INS you have got some big problems with, and you know you have got big problems with them. Merely transferring them won't fix those problems, but we think that splitting them could cause problems.

Now, for some of the other things, animal and vegetable, I don't know about those. We haven't recommended those. We didn't rec

ommend the Secret Service. The President must have a reason for that. If you split the agencies that we recommended, you might be getting more problems resulting than you would anticipate.

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thanks, Senator.

Governor Gilmore?

Mr. GILMORE. Senator Feinstein, our proposal in our report was for the national coordinating office in the Office of the President, the current Ridge office-our thought was that the goal here was to achieve management and coordination between the different agencies with a person who was, if anything, elevated a little above the Cabinet to avoid some of the conflicts and turf wars.

I thought that Senator Sessions laid out the philosophy of this very eloquently a few moments ago with respect to the way that that office could work.

We also recommended that it have congressional authority and congressional approval, Senatorial approval of the position so that there would be more interdiction and more buy-in from the Senate; and, second, that there be budget certification authority in order to provide that office with greater tools.

This proposal addresses the issue of the split function issue. This was actually what we were trying to avoid, but the split function issue has been addressed. I am aware that Attorney Richard Davis submitted a different memo to a different committee, I believe, in which he suggested that there be split functions in order to make this happen. That would divide the bureaucracy in two so that you have homeland security concentrated in one place and non-homeland security remaining where they are now, and I think that theoretically that could work.

Other than that, it will be a management challenge which is still achievable if, in fact, the agencies go all together into one unit. As Senator Rudman says, it is probably achievable, but it will require an enormous management challenge to do that.

One more point that I would make, Senator Feinstein, is let us not lose sight of the fact that what we are really talking about here is the creation of the national strategy and coordination of the different organizations. When the times comes to deal with the actual response itself, that is an entirely different model. That goes to the issue of coordinating the Federal, State, and local people, because the people who are actually going to respond are by and large going to be the local responders, and only the local responders in the first hours.

Then after that, there can be a partnership between FEMA within this organization and the State emergency operation centers, which probably should be in charge, as a partnership coordinating with the locals. But this is an entirely different function that the Congress should not lose sight of as they work on the organizational and coordination functions of this new department.

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much.

I would like to acknowledge that we have been joined by the distinguished ranking member of the overall committee, Senator Hatch.

Senator prior to Mr. Walker answering the question, would you like to make an opening statement?

Senator HATCH. No. I will just put my statement in the record and welcome our three witnesses. All three of them are good friends and very important people in my eyes.

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Walker?

Mr. WALKER. Senator, I would recommend that you consider doing the following: first, start with the Hart-Rudman Commission proposal which was more focused, compare the differences between the Hart-Rudman Commission proposal with regard to those entities and functions that it recommended to consolidate versus the President's proposal, which is much more comprehensive, as Senator Sessions mentioned, and use the GAO's proposed criteria as a way to evaluate those differences.

I also think that no matter what the Congress ultimately decides to do, the implementation elements that we have outlined in our testimony will be critical to success.

Chairperson FEINSTEIN. That is on pages 6, 7, and 8?
Mr. WALKER. Right, 6, 7, and 8.

Furthermore, I also would respectfully suggest that in the final analysis the Congress may decide that you not only need a secretary of a new Department of Homeland Security, but also a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed head of the Office of Homeland Security who will end up being focused on coordinating those activities that go beyond the Department of Homeland Security.

It has already been acknowledged that there are a number of activities that are not going to be addressed by this Department of Homeland Security. This is to a great extent focused more on the operational aspects, trying to pull together a lot of the operational aspects at the Federal level, at least. I totally agree with Governor Gilmore that it is a national effort, which is Federal, State, local, public sector, private sector, not just Federal.

Thank you.

Mr. RUDMAN. Senator, if I could just add just 30 seconds-
Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Go ahead, Senator Rudman.

Mr. RUDMAN. We totally agree with the Gilmore Commission's recommendation that there ought to be somebody in the White House who heads up the office. We said it would be more like the National Security Advisor, not confirmed by the Senate, because it would be a Presidential aide. However, if you decided to do it the other way, it does the same thing.

We fully agree that this does not supplant the need for the national strategy to be developed in the White House by an Office of Homeland Security. This is precisely what we say in our report. Chairperson FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much. I think my time

is up.

Senator Hatch, do you have questions?

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Welcome to all three of you here, and the other witnesses as well. This is an important hearing and I appreciate having you all here. I might say that certainly, Senator Rudman, and you and Governor Gilmore and your commissions have certainly proven to be very accurate and very, very persuasive and very helpful to this administration, and I think all of us up here on Capitol Hill.