Bob Barr, June 21, 2002

Despite the complex and difficult task of fundamentally altering a typically intractable federal bureaucracy in Washington D.C., President Bush’s proposed Department of Homeland Security is an important and needed step in the right direction. There is no greater priority than defending the promise of America - individual liberty and citizens’ personal safety must come before bureaucratic regulations, rules and red tape. This was the message the President’s homeland security advisor Tom Ridge, brought to the House Government Reform Committee this week, and it is a message and mission I am committed to achieving.

For far too long, the federal government has used a piecemeal, unfocused approach to our homeland security; an approach dominated by independent federal fiefdoms that too often allowed turf wars and jurisdictional battles to cloud their basic mission of protecting our nation and its citizens. Important decisions were often delayed, as competing federal agencies bickered over authority, and important intelligence information was not shared within our own government.

This new department will establish very clear and needed lines of authority. In doing so, it will also establish the accountability that has long been lacking in government. The need for real accountability was made all too clear at a Government Reform Committee field hearing I chaired on May 1st, in which very serious lapses in security were revealed at federal buildings in Atlanta.

At the request of me and Committee Chairman Dan Burton, undercover investigators from the General Accounting Office (GAO) tested the security procedures at several buildings which housed some of our government’s most sensitive information. The results were shocking - not only was security virtually non-existent, but there was little the government agencies charged with the buildings’ security could or would do about it.

I discussed this GAO report with Governor Ridge directly at the Government Reform Committee hearing this week, and made clear we must care more about homeland security than job security. If government employees, paid for by the taxpayers, are not getting the job done, they ought to be removed, transferred or fired, and the President ought to have the authority and flexibility to do so.

As Vice-Chair of the House Government Reform Committee, I intend to work closely with the Bush Administration and my colleagues in the Congress to ensure the President and his Administration have the flexibility to do the job right, and protect our homeland. It’s high time we stopped allowing our homeland security to be hamstrung by Washington red tape. We have a major job ahead of us, but I am confident we have a President committed to doing what is right, and I look forward to dramatically improving the way our government conducts its business and protects our homeland.

Barr represents Georgia’s Seventh District. He serves on the House Financial Services, Judiciary, and Government Reform Committees.