Intellegence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 754) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2011 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes:

* Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chair, today I want to highlight a critical issue facing the Intelligence Community: increasing reliance on contractors.

* A 2010 Washington Post story reported that 30 percent of the workforce in our intelligence agencies is contractors. Furthermore, the Post estimated that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. I encourage my colleagues to read this eye opening article.

* These startling facts cause me great concern--we've learned the hard way time and time again what happens when we fail to monitor the work of federal contractors. The federal government has the responsibility to maintain its commitment to monitoring their use--with special attention made to the evolving nature of their work and the associated national security risks inherent to outsourcing these tasks. I look forward to working with the Select Committee on Intelligence to achieve this goal. [From the Washington Post, July 20, 2010]

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