But you are absolutely right, there is a seamless relationship between homeland security and our national defense, and you see that clearly with the Coast Guard, but also with all of the other entities involved in protecting our borders and making sure that we have the right information so that we can react to this new threat.

You said in your testimony that you were concerned about the strategy. You now have seen the strategy. Are you satisfied with the strategy as laid out yesterday by the President?

Mr. SKELTON. I must tell you, from a perusal of it, it is positive. To be right honest, receiving it only yesterday, I have not had the opportunity to fine-tooth-comb it, but basically it is in the right direction.

I wish I had a better answer for you, but time has not allowed me to study it as each of us should..

Mr. PORTMAN. In our deliberations, we have talked a lot about flexibility, and in order to keep costs down and in order to be able to better respond to an agile enemy, we all want to be sure that there is flexibility and that this is a lean department.

You actually gave the President more flexibility in your proposal. Instead of naming Lawrence Livermore Labs as the lead

agency-.

Mr. SKELTON. No-.

Mr. PORTMAN. —the President—.

Mr. SKELTON. There is nothing wrong with that. I think we did right.

Mr. PORTMAN. Could you give us a little more background as to why you believe that it is not appropriate for the Congress and this committee to propose a specific lead, but rather, to put that decision at the President's level?

Mr. SKELTON. Well, we think it is important to have a central research and development operation, no question about that; and it ought to be at one of the laboratories. And I don't think you will find a major disagreement on that.

The administration has recommended Lawrence Livermore as the site. However, there will be a serious discussion between those areas, the three particular laboratories, as to which one is best.

Why tie the Secretary's hands? Although one is recommended, why should we put it into law? So what is wrong with flexibility? The end result would be the same, if not better.

Mr. PORTMAN. And the key is to get the best R&D and to have that flexibility?

Mr. SKELTON. The important thing is that you have a central system, a central place for research and development, because that will be a challenge for the various threats that are out there, some we haven't even dreamed of.

Mr. PORTMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.

Chairman ARMEY. The gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Skelton, thank you for your service to our country. It is really one of the exceptional people in the House and particularly in the context of our Armed Services and defense issues. Really, I think you are a giant in that regard.

I really don't have a question, except to join with you and Mr. Frost in the strategy document that the administration put out yesterday. I am concerned about that section.

I believe that the essence of what we want to ultimately achieve in homeland security starts with prevention, which means good intelligence, raw materials analyzed in real time, shared across the spectrum, so that we can then act when we need to in a preventive capacity. And thereby the military of the United States is an essential, if not the key, ingredient—after that, intelligence gathering— to perform that preventive function.

I do not see them providing a role here domestically in, in essence, law enforcement functions; and I think that is a dangerous proposition for this country. If we were being-if we had ships coming up or armies crossing borders, of course that would be different, but in essence to suggest that the Defense Department would act in what are essentially law enforcement obligations, I think is a dangerous proposition.

I think we need to reserve our capabilities and the risks of the challenges that we will face for the preventive aspects that we want abroad, and so I want to commend you for raising that issue. I know it is not part, physically, of the administration's proposal, but since the strategy is ultimately going to guide the future actions of the administration, it is important to raise our sabers now and start saying kind of what we think about this.

So thank you for doing that, and I appreciate your service and your information.

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you for your comments. We should remind ourselves that there are, at the present time, some 27 national forward civil support teams which would help in the event of a disaster. There will be a proposal to establish a total of 51, is my understanding.

Let me mention a concern with you. You mentioned intelligence. There are two aspects to intelligence. Number one is gathering it, which is sometimes very difficult and you rely on everything all the way from electronics on the one hand to HUMINT on the other. And the second is that of analyzing it; and I am concerned about there being too many layers of analysis, and while that happens, something bad comes to pass. So put that in the back of your mind so there will not be layers of bureaucratic intelligence analysis that would cause us to miss the boat in something untoward happening. That concerns me.

I am not just sure how you would write it, or prevent that, but just put that in the back of your mind. I think that is a potential problem for all of this.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Well, I appreciate your comment. I am sure our distinguished ranking member on this committee and on the Intelligence Committee, Ms. Pelosi, is right on top of those issues and has been leading in that regard.

I just want to comment on your part of the National Guard in the context of helping us respond. That is much different than the law enforcement aspect, and certainly that is one that we would embrace.

Thank you for your comments. I yield back the balance of my

Chairman ARMEY. Gentlelady from Connecticut.

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Ranking Member Skelton for being here and for being a continued advocate for our armed services. And I thank you for your years of service in this committee and the knowledge that you will bring to this.

I think that there are questions that have to do with the relationship between the Department of Defense and the-how the Pentagon, which is charged with fighting terrorism abroad, will work with the new department that is fighting terrorism here at home; and I think one of the crucial areas to take a look at is, how do the two departments handle the competing demands of Coast Guard and National Guard? And I would love to have your views on this and your sense if there is any—what the process might be for coordination, and whether or not-get your opinion on whether or not the two Guard services will have the necessary capabilities to meet both departments' demands.

Mr. SKELTON. I don't think there is a problem regarding the National Guard. As you know, their commanders in chief on a dayto-day basis are the governors, and they perform many domestic duties disaster, et cetera-on a Federal level, unless they are federalized to serve, as we have some 85,000 Guard and Reservists serving on active duty today. The civil support teams, 27 of which exist to date, are the best examples, but I don't think that is a problem.

The question, to which I don't have an answer, is the one dealing with the Coast Guard, because you have a bifurcated set of duties. One is search and rescue, which they do a phenomenal job. The other is drug interdiction, and they are first class now.

On the other hand, you have antiterrorism-type of activities. I don't know how you are going to bifurcate that. That will be one of the biggest challenges your committee has. I don't have a solution for that, unless there is some sharing agreement between the Department of Transportation, which owns the Coast Guard, and the department head of Homeland Security; of maybe bifurcating the duties or certain sections of the Coast Guard. There is no easy answer to this.

Now, I know this may be one of your biggest challenges, and I wish I had a good answer for you. There is none.

Ms. DELAURO. I thank the ranking member.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ARMEY. Gentlelady from California.

Ms. PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to join you and our colleagues in commending the distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee for his wonderful leadership and his very thoughtful statement today, which is very valuable to the committee.

I appreciate the caution you recommend in your statement in terms of posse comitatus and the Posse Comitatus Act. Also your concerns that you raised, not directly related to our work here, but certainly related to the mission that we have, which is to protect the American people, to reduce risk to them. And, of course, force protection is a very important part of what we do on the intelligence side of it. So your insightful comments are very helpful.

I also want to say that while it is not the work of our committee today, I look forward to-not now because the time does not permit, and it is a much longer discussion-to hearing some of your thoughts on transformation of the military, which will be very important to protecting the American people. I know that you will always be a leader in that regard.

So I thank you for all that you have done for young men and women in the armed services. We are very, very, very proud of them, and thank you again for your leadership in helping them do their job, to do our constitutional duty to protect and defend the American people.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SKELTON. I appreciate your kind words.

This intangible thing we call "transformation of the armed services" is real. It is looking ahead to potential threats and challenges so that we will have the Armed Forces prepared to face them in the years ahead. Each of the services is working on them, and I hope that it is about ongoing challenge, that the next several years will find us not only modernizing but transforming into the secure force that we need.

It is a major challenge on our committee, but we appreciate your support and your help.

Ms. PELOSI. Thank you very much, distinguished gentleman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ARMEY. Mr. Skelton, does your committee have any direct testimony from the Pentagon about the force reduction plans reported in the Baltimore Sun?

Mr. SKELTON. No.

Chairman ARMEY. It is conceivable then that the Baltimore Sun can simply be wrong?

Mr. SKELTON. I don't believe it is.

Chairman ARMEY. You do not believe it is. Would you not find it unacceptable, patently unacceptable, for the Baltimore Sun to have information regarding force strength that your committee does not have?

Mr. SKELTON. I don't think it is a good idea, but I do believe the reporter is a highly respected reporter, and I believe what it said. Chairman ARMEY. How would the Baltimore Sun have information about the force strength of the United States armed services that the House Armed Services Committee would not have? By what basis could a reporter have that information and your committee not have it?

Mr. SKELTON. I can only tell you to ask the reporter that.

Chairman ARMEY. You know, I thank the gentleman for that suggestion. I believe I will ask the Pentagon that.

Mr. SKELTON. Good. I think you will receive an interesting an

swer.

Chairman ARMEY. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. And the witness is excused with great appreciation.

The Chair now looks forward to hearing from the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. I believe it is-would be accurate for the Chair of the Select Committee to observe that both the chairman and the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee

understand, with a great deal of adeptness, the administration of the committee's business under the 5-minute rule.

I think that you are both experienced before this chairman, so let me just remind you that it is indeed the practice of this committee to take testimony under the 5-minute rule. We would ask you to please submit your formal statement for the record, and if you could make your independent statements within the 5-minute rule, we will try to see to it that the committee addresses its questions within the context of that rule as well.

And we do welcome you so much for your testimony here. We will begin with Chairman Tauzin.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE Mr. TAUZIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me indicate that we have had two days of full committee hearings, in which we heard from 40 different witnesses from Federal, State, local, academia, professors, all sorts of research communities, et cetera.

We should also point out that after those 2 days of hearings, the work we presented to you was approved unanimously by our committee. It was constructed in a bipartisan fashion, just as was the bioterrorism preparedness bill, the sweeping $4.6 billion bill that our committee shepherded through Congress most recently, and was done in a true bipartisan fashion.

I want to thank Ranking Member Dingell for that great effort that allows us to bring to you a bipartisan set of recommendations in regard to our committee's jurisdictional areas in this critical area of homeland security.

There are four specific areas we want to address. First, with respect to biomedical research and emergency preparedness of the Department of Health and Human Services, in our committee we literally recognize the role of the department and actually enhance its capacity beyond that which the President originally proposed. But we want to make it clear that HHS would still maintain primary responsibility over human health-related research. Most of which is currently being conducted by the CDC and by the NIH. We understand the administration supports this clarification and does not wish to duplicate the research capabilities of NIH and CDC.

We also understand from Governor Ridge's testimony that it was not the administration's intent to give a new Secretary the unilateral authority to direct these HHS programs or their priorities, but rather simply to ensure collaboration between the two agencies; and I think we concur in the need for that.

However, we do not believe the new department should have primary authority, including budgetary authority, over bioterrorism programs that remain at HHS. Substantively, we don't believe the new Secretary should have primary control over the $1.9 billion in NIH grants relating to pathogens and countermeasures, or the $1.5 billion in public health emergency grants to State and local public health departments.

We simply want to point out that this money spent by these agencies is spent not just to prepare the country for the possibility of bioterrorism, but it is for building up the infrastructure, such as