For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 7, 2002
Radio Address by the President to the Nation
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Next week, our nation will pause to
honor and remember the lives lost on September the 11th. We must also
remember a central lesson of the tragedy: our homeland is vulnerable
to attack, and we must do everything in our power to protect it.
We protect our country by relentlessly pursuing terrorists across
the Earth; assessing and anticipating our vulnerabilities, and acting
quickly to address those vulnerabilities and prevent attacks. America
needs a single department of government dedicated to the task of
protecting our people. Right now, responsibilities for homeland
security are scattered across dozens of departments in Washington. By
ending duplication and overlap, we will spend less on overhead and more
on protecting America. And we must give the Department of Homeland
Security every tool it needs to succeed.
One essential tool this new department needs is the flexibility to
respond to terrorist threats that can arise or change overnight. The
Department of Homeland Security must be able to move people and
resources quickly, without being forced to comply with a thick book of
bureaucratic rules.
For example, we have three agencies working to safeguard our
borders: the INS, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol. They
all have different cultures and different strategies, but should be
working together in a streamlined effort. Other federal agencies
dealing with national security already have this flexibility -- the FBI
and the CIA and the new Transportation Security Administration. It
seems like to me if it's good enough for these agencies, it should be
good enough for the new Department of Homeland Security.
In addition, the new Secretary of Homeland Security needs the
authority to transfer some funds, limited funds, among government
accounts in response to terrorist threats. This requirement is nothing
new; such authority is presently available to numerous agencies,
including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department
of Agriculture, and the Department of Energy.
The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would
ensure the flexibility and authority needed for the Department of
Homeland Security to effectively carry out its mission. The
legislation now in the Senate would not. The Senate bill would not
allow the new Secretary of Homeland Security to shift resources or
streamline functions in response to a terrorist threat without a
time-consuming approval process. And the legislation would keep in
place a process that can take up to 18 months just to fire an
employee.
The Senate bill also provides no transfer authority for the
Secretary of Homeland Security. Under the Senate bill, the Secretary
would have to ask the President to submit a supplemental budget request
to Congress, and then wait for Congress to act every time new terrorist
threats presented a need for additional funding. In this war on
terror, this is time we simply do not have.
Even worse, the Senate bill would weaken the President's
well-established authority to prohibit collective bargaining when a
national security interest demands it. Every President since Jimmy
Carter has used this authority, and a time of war is not time to limit
a President's ability to act in the interests of national security.
Senators need to understand I will not accept a homeland security
bill that puts special interests in Washington ahead of the security of
the American people. I will not accept a homeland security bill that
ties the hands of this administration or future administrations in
defending our nation against terrorist attacks.
America has been engaged in this war for nearly a year, and we've
made real progress. Yet more work remains. A new Department of
Homeland Security will help us to protect our country, but only if it
has the tools to get the job done. I urge the Senate to follow the
House's lead and pass legislation that gives the department the
flexibility and the authority it needs to protect the American people.
Thank you for listening.
END
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