Former House speakers urge permanent homeland security panel

A pair of former House speakers Tuesday urgently implored the House Rules Committee to move now and not wait another year to recommend the formation of a new standing committee to oversee the nation's homeland security.

Former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and former Democratic Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., in remarkably similar testimony, strongly urged the Rules panel to immediately adopt, in principle, the notion that a permanent committee on homeland security be set up, and then implored top House leaders to get behind the idea.

"Designing and implementing an effective homeland security system is the most important challenge facing this Congress," Gingrich said. "It could prove to be literally a matter of life and death in terms of the nation's safety. It is conceivable that some of the threats facing us now could kill many times [the] 3,000 who were killed on Sept. 11, 2001."

A Rules subcommittee headed by Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., has until Sept. 30, 2004, to come up with a recommendation on whether to establish a new permanent committee. Although most outside experts and many rank-and-file legislators agree with the concept, House committee chairmen and ranking members are zealous in guarding their respective committees' jurisdiction and have been quietly questioning the notion.

Concurring with Gingrich, Foley noted that such resistance could hinder effective reorganization of homeland security matters, and he implored the Rules Committee not to shrink from the task.

Citing the findings of most think tanks and other outside political scholars, Foley said that Homeland Security Department officials-while struggling to forge a coherent organization out of dozens of disparate parts-now are spending far too much time and energy answering summonses from dozens of congressional committees with existing jurisdiction over those parts.

"We should not have just an open season on department officials by every committee and subcommittee of Congress that feels a need to get something from them on the record," Foley said.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who once led a quixotic effort to overhaul the House's encrusted committee system, also testified in favor of a new standing committee. But he cautioned that it would be "an extremely difficult undertaking. To be blunt, it's an issue of power. Authorizing committees are endowed with powers of oversight, investigation and authorization, and they will be reluctant to cede these powers to a new committee," he said.

Both Foley and Gingrich agreed that it would take strong leadership on the parts of current Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to overcome this intramural opposition and establish a new panel.