GOP accuses administration of keeping ineffective intel center open

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are charging the Obama administration with playing a political shell game to continue funding for a controversial project in the district of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

GOP lawmakers say the administration quietly decided this year to shift oversight and funding authority for the National Drug Intelligence Center away from the Intelligence Committee and place it under the purview of the House Judiciary Committee.

House Republicans have been trying for years to eliminate funding for the center, which is headquartered in Johnstown, Pa., in Murtha's district. They have said the center duplicates work done elsewhere, lacks a clear mission and is poorly located.

The Republicans renewed the controversy over the center in their minority views accompanying the recently released committee report on the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill. The bill was approved last week by the panel's Democratic majority and awaits floor action, where further fighting over the center could ensue.

"NDIC has only remained open the past several years as a result of receiving the largest single, pork-barrel expenditure in the intelligence budget," Republicans wrote.

During the committee markup of the intelligence bill, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., offered an amendment that would have authorized funding to shut down the center. But Democrats defeated the amendment on a party-line, 13-9 vote.

"The resulting attempt to hide oversight for an 'intelligence center' in the Judiciary Committee is a direct affront to this committee's proper authorities and responsibilities in the House," GOP lawmakers added. "It is an unprecedented effort to shift and diminish the power of this committee for purely political reasons and the majority should not have allowed this bald-faced political move to stand."

Spats have erupted in the past over the center. In 2007, for example, Murtha, who heads the powerful House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, vented his anger on the House floor at Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., for voting to kill funding for the center. Former President George W. Bush also tried to close the center.

GOP lawmakers assert the Obama administration has transferred oversight of the center to the Judiciary Committee to remove it from the line of fire of Intelligence Committee Republicans.

This was done by moving the fiscal 2010 budget request for the center from the Justice Department's intelligence operations that are part of the national intelligence program to the department's nonintelligence accounts that fall within the House Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction.

On another front, the Intelligence Committee used its report to direct the nation's intelligence agencies to produce a comprehensive assessment on whether foreign adversaries are deliberately trying to supply U.S. government agencies and private companies with compromised electronic components that could exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

The bill would require the office of the Director of National Intelligence to produce a national intelligence estimate "on the risks to U.S. national security resulting from the presence of counterfeit electronic components that may be defective or deliberately manipulated by foreign governments or criminal organizations."

"With the growing concerns over cybersecurity, the committee believes it is appropriate to focus the intelligence community's attention on threats emanating from the global supply chain that provides much of the computer systems for both government and private industry," the committee said.

The committee also said funding for U.S. cybersecurity programs "may need to be reduced or slowed until the future direction for cybersecurity is better defined," including developing clear doctrine for conducting offensive cyber operations.