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Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Schiff Announces Committee Unanimously Passed FY 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act

 The Intelligence Committee advanced the bipartisan Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 by unanimous voice vote at a markup this morning. The annual IAA ensures that the programs and activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), including Department of Defense (DoD) intelligence elements, are authorized in law and optimally resourced to protect the nation from threats at home and abroad.  Equally important, this critical piece of legislation also ensures rigorous congressional oversight of the IC, including over its most sensitive aspects.

This year’s IAA authorizes intelligence funding nearly equal to the FY17 President’s Budget request, which is approximately the same as the FY16 enacted budget level.  The FY17 IAA’s Base budget authorization is nearly equal to the President’s request, and the Overseas Contingency Operations authorization is roughly 1.5% above the request. It provides substantial and appropriate oversight of the IC by trimming unnecessary funding and reprioritizing resource allocation; adding money to underfunded programs; and providing congressional direction to improve processes, gain efficiencies, and ensure greater transparency and accountability within the IC.  It also fences significant amounts of funding to better ensure continuous IC accountability throughout the year.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, stated after the markup: “Our nation, and the intelligence community that protects us, face a myriad and diffuse set of global threats and bad actors that try to harm Americans and our interests on a daily basis.  This year’s intelligence authorization bill gives our intelligence community the resources, authorities, and capabilities it needs to protect our nation, while also conducting thorough and tenacious oversight and ensuring our privacy and civil liberties are protected and enhanced.  Chairman Nunes and I, along with all of the members of the committee, crafted this bill in a bipartisan fashion, and I look forward to supporting it on the Floor.”

Among other highlights, the bill:

  • Emphasizes the need to focus on long term threats, such as those from an increasingly aggressive China, Russia, and North Korea, while maintaining focus on the immediate threats posed by terrorism and the security challenges in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia;
  • Protects our most vital capabilities, whether in space, cyberspace, on land or at sea, as well as our most invaluable resources—our IC professionals—against growing threats across domains;
  • Leverages and promotes commercial capabilities, while investing in the most advanced technologies that do not yet have commercial application; 
  • Promotes greater capacity-building among key partners and allies to further leverage shared resources and competencies, and advances more strategic approaches to these efforts;
  • Emphasizes the importance of recruiting, developing, and retaining the most effective and diverse workforce to answer the increasingly complex challenges facing the IC and the defense intelligence enterprise;
  • Continues to support HUMINT, a critical intelligence mission;
  • Includes provisions aimed at better ensuring the integrity of DoD intelligence analysis, and improves procedures for IC whistleblowers to report complaints to Congress;
  • Promotes, through resources and direction, enhanced cyber security for our nation’s most critical systems; and
  • Ensures thorough oversight of surveillance capabilities.

Some concerns that Democrats maintain:

  • While IAA funds, and, for the first time, specifically authorizes the activities of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), Democrats will remain vigilant to ensure that the its oversight jurisdiction is not constrained. Last year, the IAA included a provision which curtailed PCLOB's authority over U.S. Covert Action programs – this year Representative Himes tried unsuccessfully to reverse that limitation through an amendment.  
  • The Minority remains committed to a strong counterterrorism posture, but also to a more transparent one.  Accordingly, the Minority reiterates the need for the release of substantial data on the total number of combatants and noncombatant civilians who may have been killed or injured as a result of counterterrorism action.   We believe this requirement should be embedded in statute so it will transcend beyond this administration. 
  • The IAA calls for a declassification review of certain intelligence products regarding terrorist acts committed by transferred detainees before their arrival at Guantanamo Bay.  The only detainees covered by the declassification provision, however, are those transferred since President Obama took office, disregarding the roughly 500 detainees transferred or released by the prior administration—detainees whose recidivism rates generally remain far higher than any transferred or released under President Obama.
  • Democrats are also disappointed that the IAA does not fund an IC request to enhance analysis on the national security implications of climate change, which science tells us will be substantial. 

Despite some of these concerns, Committee Democratic Members successfully included provisions which substantially improved the IAA. Specifically: 

  • Rep. Jim Himes’s provision to improve the timeliness and fairness of the pre-publication review process throughout the IC, by calling for uniform guidance to ensure that reviews only block publication of appropriately classified material, and that employees at each IC element receive impartial and expeditious reviews of their works;   
  • Rep. Terri Sewell’s language on investment in “Centers of Academic Excellence” programs, helping to guarantee that a diverse array of students can take part in IC internships, and her requirement to collect data to evaluate the IC’s federally-funded academic programs;
  • Rep. André Carson’s provision requiring the IC to publish insignia commonly associated with terrorist organizations to assist public and private entities in swiftly removing terrorist content online; his provision on cooperation and de-confliction between the departments of Homeland Security and State regarding countering violent extremism programs; and his requirement to have the Committee receive information on the operational impacts of foreign investment in the United States;
  • Rep. Jackie Speier’s provisions to: (a) standardize declassification photocopying fees across the IC to promote increased availability of information and enhance transparency; (b) expand access to graduate education programs at the Defense Intelligence Agency; (c) obtain information on the mental health resilience programs available to IC civilians returning from tours in combat zones; and (d) study reprisals taken against IC contractors who make disclosures that would be legally protected if made by IC employees;  
  • Rep. Mike Quigley’s language to continue support to security services in Ukraine;
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell’s provision to track foreign fighters, his requirement to analyze the status  of loan forgiveness and debt counseling programs in the IC, and his provision to better understand how the departments of Homeland Security and Energy take advantage of the expertise resident at our National Labs; and
  • Rep. Patrick Murphy’s provisions to: (a) provide a report detailing cybersecurity threats to, or vulnerabilities in, systems employed by seaports and transshipment hubs, including efforts to improve our preparedness and response to a cyber attack; (b) improve intelligence reporting with respect to Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; and (c) require a report on the security threats emanating from maritime smuggling routes and ways to better cooperate with other nations to mitigate these threats.  

To read the full Minority Views of the FY 2017 IAA, please click here. Ranking Member Schiff’s opening statement as delivered during the Committee’s markup of the FY 2017 IAA are below:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I would like to thank Chairman Nunes, who has once again proven an invaluable partner in drafting this bipartisan legislation that authorizes our most critical intelligence programs while continuing to enable and promote the most thorough oversight. 

You and your Members have worked with us as you’ve done before to solve real problems and find real solutions.

I would also like to thank the Minority and Majority Staff, who have worked so hard to help prepare this important legislation.

I look forward to advancing this bill out of Committee and to voting for it on the House Floor.

In particular, I am pleased that the FY17 IAA addresses the key questions I have been asking over the course of this year:

(1)               First, are we focusing too much on the threats of the day, at the expense of the threats of tomorrow?

Over the years, we have spent significant resources on counterterrorism priorities in the Middle East and South Asia—and of course we must continue to focus on CT, particularly with the rising threat of ISIL.

But we cannot disregard our near-peer competitors such as China and Russia, whose increasing adventurism beyond their borders challenges our interests and influence abroad, and threatens our allies and partners.

I am pleased this year’s IAA invests in collection and analysis of these and other “hard target” countries, and provides resources for increased language training and capabilities.

(2)               Second, are we sufficiently protecting what we currently have—whether in cyberspace, space, or at sea?

In order to address ever-increasing security challenges and the growing capabilities of our adversaries, we must continue to protect our own capabilities in space, at sea, and in the cyber realm.

This requires investment in supply chain security, resilience in space, and protection of our equities at sea. I am proud that this year’s IAA focuses heavily on each of these areas.

Our adversaries will not simply confine themselves to terrestrial battlefields, so we must ensure that we are protecting the capabilities we have that extend beyond these battlefields as well.

(3)               Third, are we leveraging commercial products and services, while at the same time making investments in revolutionary technologies that do not yet have commercial application?

We have the world’s most productive and innovative private sector—particularly when it comes to space.  We must leverage and support it wherever we can, which I’m pleased the IAA does.  At the same time, this bill recognizes that Government must invest in the most advanced, game-changing technologies that are not yet ready for market.

(4)               Finally, are we recruiting, training and developing the most effective and diverse workforce, as well as leveraging foreign intelligence relationships and building foreign partner capacity?

The U.S. has the most advanced, most capable, and most reliable intelligence community and personnel in the world.  This bill identifies ways to further improve the workforce by expanding diversity in the IC, promoting travel, and supporting language training.

There is also no reason we cannot improve our capabilities, better ensure our security, and promote global stability by enhancing our foreign partnerships. 

The IAA provides critical support to build the capacity of foreign liaison services, and does so strategically, and in a way that helps ensure the utmost professionalism and respect for the rule of law.

This bill also includes several important provisions championed by my Minority colleagues, including:

1. Mr. Himes’s provision to reform the pre-publication review process to ensure fairness and timeliness of review;

2. Ms. Sewell’s language to improve the Centers for Academic Excellence, which will encourage geographically and demographically diverse students to join our national security cadre; and her provision to evaluate the success of the IC’s federally-funded academic programs;

3. Mr. Carson’s requirement for the ODNI to publish symbols associated with terrorist groups, which will support programs seeking to counter violent extremism; his provision to ensure State Department and DHS CVE programs are in concert; and his requirement to receive information on the operational impacts of foreign investment in the United States;

4. Ms. Speier’s provisions to support mental health resilience among civilians in the IC; to ensure transparency by managing declassification review costs; to improve DIA’s graduate education opportunities; and a requirement for a study to determine whether IC contractors are being subject to reprisals for whistleblowing;

5. Mr. Quigley’s continued support to our security partners in Ukraine;

6. Mr. Swalwell’s mark requiring a report on the status of loan forgiveness and debt counseling programs across the IC; his provision with Mr. LoBiondo to better track foreign fighter flows; and his requirement for a report to explore how the departments of Homeland Security and Energy can further utilize the expertise at our National Labs; and

7. Mr. Murphy’s provision to improve JCPOA monitoring; his provision to better understand the cyber vulnerabilities within our seaports and transshipment points, and ways to improve our preparedness and response to maritime cyber attacks; and his requirement for a report on maritime smuggling routes.

There is one element that did not make it into the IAA this year that I want to note.  For years, I have pushed the Administration and Congress to support the publication of an annual report on the number of combatants and noncombatants killed in lethal strikes. 

Despite our best efforts to ensure to a near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured, sometimes strikes do result in civilian casualties – and it is important that we acknowledge those accidents and learn from them.  At the same time, greater transparency can help narrow the perception gap between what really happens, and what is reported or sent out as propaganda.

Soon, the Administration will release the first accountability report – this is a good thing.  But I also believe that there is value in considering a statutory requirement to make this executive action permanent, ensuring that our commitment to transparency extends beyond the term of the current Administration.

Ultimately, I am proud to support this year’s Intelligence Authorization Act, and once again I thank my Minority and Majority colleagues for working together to authorize as well as oversee, to support as well as scrutinize, and to help make sure that U.S. intelligence programs and activities are lawful, efficient, effective, and in keeping with our highest traditions.

Thank you, I yield back.