Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this year's Intelligence Authorization Act.

Our national security is truly a bipartisan issue, and this legislation is a reflection of both parties' shared commitment to the safety and security of all Americans. This bill helps provide our intelligence community with the necessary resources and capabilities to defend our Nation against ongoing and emerging threats around the world.

As a ranking member on the DOD Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee, I am pleased that the language and direction in this bill continues to advance our capabilities on the ground and in space, and provides necessary oversight of many critical DOD, NRO, and NGA programs. Additionally, this legislation takes important steps towards enhancing thorough oversight of our surveillance capabilities while continuing to make calculated investments in critically important strategic efforts.

In the IAA, we also invest in our greatest national resource--our people. By accepting provisions that I drafted to promote diversity in the IC workforce, we are now able to provide a summer internship program to students from the existing Centers of Academic Excellence. We also now hold the IC more accountable for doing a better job of developing a matrix to assess how minority fellowship and internship programs actually achieve their desired results.

This past weekend I had the pleasure, along with Congressman Andre Carson, to attend and be honored at the 3rd Annual African American National Security and Intelligence Leadership Summit. This annual event serves as a rare opportunity for African Americans in the IC to gain leadership insights from top national security officials. It was also a great occasion and further reaffirmed my commitment to helping ensure robust diversity throughout the entire IC.

We were also successful in this year's IAA to include bipartisan language that promotes accountability and transparency in all IC federally funded academic programs by requiring agencies to report on their recruitment and retention efforts. Increasing diversity and accountability in the IC is a good governance issue and makes all of us better because it ensures unique and creative ways of problem-solving, which is increasingly necessary as we face more complex intelligence challenges.

As a committee, I am extremely proud of the work we did. We took great pains to cut unnecessary funding while prioritizing the need to improve upon processes and promote efficiencies in the IC. The reality is that we live in a world where potential threats to our Nation are constantly developing and changing. As our military missions and intelligence objectives continue to evolve, we need an intelligence community that is diverse, agile, and adequately funded.

I am proud to support this year's Intelligence Authorization Act. I want to commend my chairman and ranking member and all of the staff for all of their hard work on this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support this critically important piece of legislation.

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