The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“MANDATORY OPERATIONAL CONTROL REPORTING AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES ACT OF 2012” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6432-H6434 on Nov. 27, 2012.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
MANDATORY OPERATIONAL CONTROL REPORTING AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES ACT OF
2012
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6025) to provide for annual reports on the status of operational control of the international land and maritime borders of the United States and unlawful entries, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 6025
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Mandatory Operational Control Reporting and Performance Measures Act of 2012''.
SEC. 2. ANNUAL REPORTS ON OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF
INTERNATIONAL LAND AND MARITIME BORDERS.
(a) In General.--The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's Annual Performance Report, an annual report on the number of miles of the international land and maritime border between the United States and Canada and the United States and Mexico that are under operational control of the Department, cumulatively and by sector.
(b) Estimates of Unlawful Entries.--Each report under subsection (a) shall include the estimated number of unlawful entries between ports of entry along the international land and maritime borders of the United States during the period covered by the report, determined using all available sources of data.
(c) Independent Evaluation.--The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available to the Government Accountability Office the data and methodology used to compile the statistics used in preparing each report under subsection (a), to ensure the suitability and statistical validity of such data and methodology.
(d) Terminology and Methodology.--Except as provided in subsection (e), for purposes of consistent usage of terminology and methodology in the annual reports required under subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall use the methodology used to measure such operational control in accordance with the Department's Annual Performance Reports for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2010.
(e) Alternate Terminology and Methodology.--The Secretary of Homeland Security shall use the terminology and methodology described in subsection (d) until such time as an alternate terminology and methodology is--
(1) required by an Act of Congress; or
(2) certified as suitable and statistically valid by a Department of Energy National Laboratory with prior expertise in border security.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Michigan.
General Leave
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I might consume.
Among the enumerated powers of the Constitution, providing for the common defense is, in my mind, the most important responsibility of this Congress. A key part of the common defense is ensuring that we secure our Nation's borders, and in the coming months, determining how to measure progress along the thousands of miles--north, south, and coastal--will be absolutely crucial.
H.R. 6025, the Mandatory Operational Control Reporting and Performance Measures Act of 2012, requires that the Department of Homeland Security resume reporting miles of the border under operational control and provide an estimate of the number of unlawful entries between ports of entry.
For years, we relied on operational control as a proxy for border security. It really became sort of the de facto term of art that indicated how much or how little of the border the Border Patrol could effectively control. But at last count, only 44 percent of the southwest border was under operational control, and less than 2 percent of the northern border was adequately secured.
I'm not quite sure how we can go from having less than half of the border under operational control to get to the current thinking that the border is more secure than ever, as the Secretary of Homeland Security has said, without having a legitimate way to measure border security.
In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security stopped reporting the number of miles of border under operational control with the promise of a new, more holistic measure of border security called the Border Condition Index. Nearly 3 years later, we're still waiting for the introduction of that measure without any idea if it will ever be used.
It's time for the Department to provide a suitable measure that adequately captures the security situation on the border, whether that is the Border Condition Index or something else. Until then, the Department should resume reporting miles under operational control.
To ensure that the numbers DHS gives us are sound, this bill, Mr. Speaker, requires that the Department give the Government Accountability Office access to the operational control numbers for third-party verification.
I fully understand that the leadership of the Department believes operational control, as it is currently configured, is not the right measure to describe security at the border. So I think we are all really open to new, more robust standards if it supplements operational control and better describes the level of security at our borders. But we can't just take this administration's word for it that the border is more secure than ever without some agreed upon standard.
To that point, I'm not sure that we should automatically assume that any new measure stacks up against operational control. With an issue this important, we can't just change the rules if we don't like the results.
Under this bill, the use of anything other than operational control to describe the security along the border must be vetted by a national laboratory with prior expertise in border security. Validation by a third party to ensure it accurately measures security along the border boils down to this: trust, but verify.
In testimony, the Government Accountability Office has been clear that the use of apprehensions of aliens at or near the border as a proxy for border security is, at best, incomplete. It tells us that we are catching lots of people, but it doesn't answer the most important question: How effective are we at keeping the drug cartels, human traffickers, and others from crossing our borders at will?
H.R. 6025 asks the Department to address this issue with an estimate of the number of unlawful entries between ports of entry so that the American people can put the apprehension numbers in the proper context and can stack apprehensions against the number of people who successfully cross the border illegally.
{time} 1640
Mr. Speaker, the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have a very difficult job, and I certainly want to thank them, as I'm sure we all do, for the very hard work that they do in some very demanding conditions to keep secure our Nation.
How we determine or measure what a secure border looks like has been the subject of a lot of debate, but the fact remains that the Congress and the American people should have a verifiable way to determine if we are making progress along the border.
I ask my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6025, the Mandatory Operational Control Reporting and Performance Measures Act of 2012, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The bill before the House today would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to report annually to the relevant congressional committee on the number of miles of our international land and maritime borders that are under operational control and, number two, the estimated number of unlawful entries between ports of entry along our international land and maritime borders.
The Department of Homeland Security already tracks much of this data, and I have no objections to it being provided to Congress in our effort to better secure our borders.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thought I had another speaker, but I do not see him here. If the gentleman from Mississippi has no further speakers, I am prepared to close.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. I have no further speakers.
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would just ask my colleagues to support this legislation that moves us toward a more full understanding of the security situation along the border.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, as I have no further speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6025, a bill to require the Department of Homeland Security to resume reporting operational control as a measure of border security.
I thank the gentlelady from Michigan and her staff for working with me on this bill and for bringing it to the floor today.
As part of the 2004 Border Strategy, the Border Patrol has been reporting miles of the border under operational or effective control and included it in its annual performance reporting.
However, as of fiscal year 2010, the metric has no longer been reported, with the Department instead relying on reporting apprehensions which tell only a part of what's happening at the border and planning for the yet to be rolled out ``Border Condition Index.''
In fact, the Department's recently released 2012-2016 Border Strategy makes no reference to operational control or any other readily reportable metrics to evaluate border security.
Far be it from me to ascribe a motive to the situation the Administration has created regarding the border security metrics they are or are not employing, but it certainly looks like they would simply prefer to ignore data that doesn't support their ``border is safer than ever'' narrative.
Sadly, for those living in border communities, there is some daylight between that narrative and reality and for that reason I urged the Department to resume using operational control during this year's appropriations process.
In speaking with Arizonans making their living on the border, I continue to hear story after story of break-ins, run-ins with armed groups crossing the border, and other dangerous situations.
In recent days much has been made about apparent momentum that is building towards Congress finding solutions to the problems created by our broken immigration system.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: there is little hope of the American public--particularly in border communities--trusting the Federal Government to deal with the many pressing immigration issues if we cannot get it right when it comes to border security.
There is simply no tackling immigration reform without achieving operational control of our southern border, and the Federal Government can't achieve operational control if they can't define it.
This legislation is simple; it would direct the Department to resume reporting operational control exactly as they had been previously.
If Congress and the Administration are in indeed serious about getting about the business of addressing the issue of border security, the successful passage of this common-sense and noncontroversial bill is the least we can do
I urge adoption of H.R. 6025.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 6025, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
