Grassley said his main focus is on improving federal law enforcement, protecting whistleblowers in the new federal agency, making the State Department's visa process more secure, and strengthening the Customs Service's ability to monitor international trade.
"While Congress acts to better coordinate the work of the federal agencies involved in homeland security, we also need to improve these agencies so they actually do their jobs better under the framework of a new department," Grassley said. "My amendments include reforms designed to bring about these kinds of positive changes. I also want to empower homeland security whistleblowers, who can bring to the light of day important information about mishaps and other problems that need to be fixed for the public good."
The overall bill would create a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to plan, coordinate and implement activities relating to homeland security. Six areas are covered, including border and transportation protection, intelligence, critical infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness and response, immigration affairs, and science and technology.
Grassley's key amendments are described here.
Grassley has filed as an amendment to the homeland security bill the FBI reform legislation he sponsored with Sen. Patrick Leahy. The Senate Judiciary Committee gave unanimous approval to their bill in April. The proposal, S. 1974, would improve accountability within the bureau. It would expand the jurisdiction of the inspector general for the Justice Department to include internal investigations within the FBI; improve protections for FBI whistleblowers; address the disparity in disciplinary remedies for lower-level FBI employees; and require that certain reports be made to Congress regarding the FBI's jurisdiction and case statistic reporting. The reform measures reflect Grassley's many years of scrutiny of the nation's largest law enforcement agency. While the FBI would remain outside a new Department of Homeland Security, Grassley said the bureau plays a premier role in fighting terrorism and it makes sense to implement these necessary reforms along with creating a new cabinet-level department.
Grassley filed another amendment to clarify the transfer of the National Infrastructure Protection Center from the FBI to the Department of Homeland Security. The center was created in 1998 to watch over the private-sector computer networks that control the information flow for the nation's banking, water, power, telecommunications and government. Grassley said his amendment is intended to prevent the FBI from keeping in the FBI experienced cyber-security personnel and necessary equipment and thereby thwarting the transfer of important institutional knowledge.
This amendment filed by Grassley would ensure that employees of the Department of Homeland Security receive training about their whistleblower rights. It requires the new department to participate in the certification program sponsored by the Office of Special Counsel and to be certified as compliant no later than 24 months after the bill establishing the new department is enacted.
Grassley has also filed an amendment to the homeland security legislation that would require the new department to place an employee at all U.S. government offices issuing visas unless the new department makes an affirmative decision that it is unnecessary to do so. As it stands now, the pending homeland security bill makes the new department's day-to-day involvement in the visa issuance process discretionary.
Grassley said the new department's involvement needs to be mandatory to ensure more accountability with visa issuance procedures and to prevent problems such as the Visa Express program. In July, Grassley and Rep. Dave Weldon prompted the State Department to dismantle a program that allowed visa applicants in Saudi Arabia to receive approval to come to the United States without proper in-person interviews. Three of the 19 September 11 hijackers took advantage of this Visa Express program by going through a travel agent for their visas. They were never interviewed by an American official. Despite this tie to September 11, the State Department was still operating the Visa Express program when Grassley and Weldon spoke out. Grassley said there may be as many as 20 similar programs still operating in various countries around the world.
Another amendment filed by Grassley and Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would prohibit revenue raised by the U.S. Customs Service through COBRA user fees from being used by any homeland security agency of office other than Customs. The amendment also dedicates a portion of the merchandise processing fee collected by Customs to development of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). The ACE will replace an antiquated system for processing imports and enable Customs to more accurately monitor trade flows.
In addition to introducing these amendments, Grassley has cosponsored an amendment to improve federal whistleblower protections by lowering the burden of proof for whistleblowers. Sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, of Hawaii, and co-sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, of Michigan, it provides certain authority for the Special Counsel to use government attorneys to represent homeland security employees in some types of proceedings. It also gives all federal circuits jurisdiction to review decisions of the Merit System Protection Board for five years.
Grassley is the Ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Finance, which has jurisdiction over the Customs Service. He is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI and immigration issues. In 1989, he co-authored the Whistleblower Protection Act. He's been an outspoken advocate for whistleblowers in the government and private sector.