Senior senators rebuffed on intelligence legislation

WASHINGTON – The Senate rejected attempts Monday by its senior members to rein in some proposed national intelligence director’s powers, responsibilities that some lawmakers said senators wanted to reserve for themselves.

The defeat of changes sought by Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and ranking Democrat Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia are considered to be bellwether votes for the chamber’s legislation responding to the Sept. 11 commission’s complaints that the intelligence community needs a strong leader to make them work together more effectively.

The bill’s sponsors, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said they expect a final vote on the legislation by week’s end. A vote on a similar bill in the House also is expected this week.

But “I don’t underestimate the challenge,” Collins said. “There are a lot of people who don’t want any change.”

Stevens and Byrd are the longest-serving senators in their respective parties. They wanted to take away some of the funding control that the intelligence director would have, contending that the person would be too powerful.

“He has the right to move monies from any part of the intelligence community to another part without consent of the agency to whom we appropriated money, and really, without regard to the program activities, or even the specifications that Congress has put on that money,” Stevens said.

Byrd said the provision would provide a “leash to rein him in should abuses occur.”

“I am very interested in reform and I admire the work the committee has done, but we’re acting too hastily,” he said. “We’re going to rue the day we turned this amendment down and failed to leash this unelected bureaucrat.”

Byrd and Stevens control one of the most powerful committees, so their opinions matter, Lieberman said.

“But I believe we have the arguments on our side, because of the case that the 9-11 commission has made about how the status quo has failed us and will fail us again,” he said.

The amendment failed on a 62-29 vote. Stevens also lost a vote, 55-37, to keep the intelligence budget secret.

Some senators say part of the opposition to the proposed reorganization is because the new intelligence director would be given powers that were once reserved for the military or the Senate.

“There are three kinds of senators here in the United States Senate: Republican senators, Democratic senators, and appropriators. And the appropriators are desperately trying to protect their turf,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said.

Senate leaders also proposed changes to the Intelligence Committee to respond to the complaints of the Sept. 11 commission, which had called congressional oversight “dysfunctional.”

Some of those changes would include the elimination of term limits for Intelligence Committee members, a reduction in size from 17 to 15, and the guarantee that the minority party in the Senate would have only a one-seat disadvantage on the committee.

Senate deputy leaders Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not offer to give the Intelligence Committee appropriation power as the commission had suggested, however. The Appropriations Committee instead will get a new intelligence subcommittee.

The commission had complained there were too many committees with control over national security. “If you’re the national intelligence director, you could make two stops: one at the Intelligence Committee and one at the intelligence Appropriations subcommittee,” McConnell said.

The proposal also would make Collins’ Governmental Affairs Committee into the Homeland Security Committee and give it additional jurisdiction so that the Homeland Security secretary also will have only two committees to report to.