Unifying DHS Intelligence Enterprise Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, 16 years ago, an unprecedented attack against the United States revealed immense gaps in how the United States approached domestic security and information sharing. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security was established to consolidate 22 existing Federal agencies and reshape the domestic intelligence and counterterrorism structure in the United States.

Over the years, DHS has matured and refined its Intelligence Enterprise, or what we know as DHS IE. Even now, however, the Department has struggled to fully unify the various intelligence offices within the component agencies. This has limited the value DHS provides to the intelligence community and its State and local partners. Disparate guidance for the intelligence components within DHS undermines the Department's ability to fully utilize important data and conduct analysis.

DHS needs to follow the model of many other members of the intelligence community and produce an intelligence doctrine that clearly articulates roles and priorities across the DHS Intelligence Enterprise. The lack of this internal structure reflects a painful legacy from the pre-9/11 era in which bureaucracies operated as silos and were poorly coordinated.

H.R. 2468 empowers DHS to address this continued failure. By requiring the Department to produce guidance to all its components on the processing, analysis, production, and dissemination of information and intelligence, this bill helps to professionalize the DHS Intelligence Enterprise. Such a doctrine will guide how operational information from across DHS is incorporated into a wider strategic Homeland Security picture. This will increase the use of Department- specific information in its analytic products and processes.

H.R. 2468 also takes another step in strengthening the Department's Intelligence Enterprise by formalizing the Department's existing support for the DHS Chief Intelligence Officer, or the CINT. Though the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, or the I&A, serves as the Department's Chief Intelligence Officer, these two roles carry different statutory authorities and distinct missions.

Therefore, Congress should support both functions by authorizing staff support for the CINT. H.R. 2468 does not authorize new hiring but, rather, reauthorizes the Department's existing staff assignment and, most importantly, makes those assignments permanent.

It is now time to hold the Department accountable for developing a common foundation among members of the Department's Intelligence Enterprise. By requiring DHS to produce these guidelines and by ensuring the Department's leadership is properly and reliably supported, H.R. 2468 helps us to work to fulfill the promises made to the American people 16 years ago: Never again.

I am very pleased the text of H.R. 2468 was included in the larger DHS authorization bill, which passed this very House in July. I urge my colleagues to support the standalone measure to improve the quality of DHS' analytical products and help the Department better serve the intelligence community and its State and local partners.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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