House GOP leaders unveil plan to implement 9/11 changes

House GOP leaders Friday introduced broad intelligence reform legislation incorporating most of the recommendations made by the independent 9/11 Commission.

"Making America more secure has been our highest priority since the tragic attacks of Sept. 11," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., told reporters. "This legislation reflects the good work of the 9/11 Commission and it will make America safer."

Hastert has instructed the committees with jurisdiction to complete marking up the bill by the end of next week in time for a floor vote the first week of October.

According to Hastert, the House is committed to sending a final bill to the White House before Election Day, increasing the likelihood of a scenario laid out earlier this week by GOP leadership aides under which neither the House nor Senate would formally adjourn Oct. 8. Instead, the aides said, conferees would remain in Washington to complete a conference report. Both chambers then would return to vote on it before the election.

While House Republicans said they are confident a conference report can be finished before November, there are several discrepancies in the House and Senate versions of the bill that have already drawn protest from Democrats who are cautious of House language that critics say could affect civil liberties or expand police powers laid out in the USA PATRIOT Act.

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said he expects the House to quickly approve the measure, but acknowledged the potential problems in conference.

"The problem with the Senate is they need consensus," Davis said, "and the problem with consensus is you can't always make the decisions you need to make."

Hastert said he expects the House "will work with the Senate as we always do."

While some House and Senate members have also expressed caution on rushing a bill through Congress to meet an Election Day deadline, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said he believes it is a reasonable deadline, noting that the 9/11 Commission has pressed Congress to respond.

"The president has asked us to do it, [and] leadership has accepted that responsibility," Cox said. "If we have it within our grasp, I think we have to seize the moment."

House Democrats have already taken issue with Hastert's comments that the GOP leadership formed a bipartisanship relationship with committee members to draft the bill. House Democratic leaders were excluded from drafting the legislation.

"Today, instead of acting in a bipartisan manner, the Republican leadership has introduced a bill written behind closed doors that attempts to score partisan points and goes far beyond the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission," Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. "It is disingenuous to say that Republican leaders consulted with each of the Democratic ranking members on this legislation. It simply did not happen," added a spokeswoman for Pelosi.

The House Republican bill is similar to a Senate measure to overhaul the intelligence community, but it includes contentious provisions on immigration and law enforcement and excludes language on other key recommendations.

The GOP leadership bill would create a national intelligence director -- the top recommendation made by the independent commission -- and would give the NID what House Republicans called "extensive" budget authority. But Senate Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Collins said her bill would give the NID "stronger" budget authority.

The House GOP bill also creates a national counterterrorism center that is "on the same track" as the Senate measure, said a House GOP leadership aide. The House bill does not follow the 9/11 Commission's advice to make public the intelligence budget.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House GOP measure goes beyond intelligence reforms on immigration, law enforcement tools to prosecute terrorists, funding for fire fighters and "first responders" and foreign diplomacy.

Hastert called the measure a "comprehensive" bill that "reflects the commission's recommendations." Still, he acknowledged that it "doesn't do everything the commission wants."

Hastert's office provided reporters with a table of contents during a background briefing while staff continued to draft the final legislative language. The Republican bill lightly touches on one key recommendation: changes to congressional oversight. The bill is expected to include a "sense of Congress" that changes are needed, but not mandate new jurisdictional lines for House committees, a GOP aide said.

One Democratic aide, who is knowledgeable of homeland security issues, seized on other provisions left out of the bill. "While there are some good ideas in the bill, it is woefully incomplete and misguided," said the aide, adding GOP leaders make "empty promises" by authorizing programs without mandating funding.

The aide criticized GOP leaders for a provision requiring a report to identify obstacles for securing nuclear weapons in other countries, but failing to authorize funding for international weapon programs.

The aide said the measure fails to authorize more investments in infrastructure, staff or technology to keep terrorists out of the country. Instead, it focuses on immigration laws and enforcement tools after terrorists have illegally crossed the border. Civil liberties and privacy groups have cried foul over those provisions.

The Democratic aide expressed support for a provision to revamp how first responders receive federal funding to prepare and prevent a terrorist attack, but said Democrats would prefer that Republican leaders had "satisfied" the concerns of the New York delegation.

However, Homeland Security Chairman Cox said he had a "commitment" from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to "move the bill forward." New York and other urban areas have said the current formula does not provide adequate funding to high-risk areas.