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Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1723) to authorize the establishment of a program under which employees of the Central Intelligence Agency may be offered separation pay to separate from service voluntarily to avoid or minimize the need for involuntary separations due to downsizing, reorganization, transfer of function, or other similar action, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
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 `Central Intelligence Agency Voluntary Separation Pay Act'.
SEC. 2. SEPARATION PAY.
(a) Definitions.--For purposes of this section--
(1) the term `Director' means the Director of Central Intelligence; and
(2) the term `employee' means an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, serving under an appointment without time limitation, who has been currently employed for a continuous period of at least 12 months, except that such term does not include--
(A) a reemployed annuitant under subchapter III of chapter 83 or chapter 84 of title 5, United States Code, or another retirement system for employees of the Government; or
(B) an employee having a disability on the basis of which such employee is or would be eligible for disability retirement under any of the retirement systems referred to in subparagraph (A).
(b) Establishment of Program.--In order to avoid or minimize the need for involuntary separations due to downsizing, reorganization, transfer of function, or other similar action, the Director may establish a program under which employees may be offered separation pay to separate from service voluntarily (whether by retirement or resignation). An employee who receives separation pay under such program may not be reemployed by the Central Intelligence Agency for the 12-month period beginning on the effective date of the employee's separation.
(c) Bar on Certain Employment:
(1) Bar.--An employee may not be separated from service under this section unless the employee agrees that the employee will not--
(A) act as agent or attorney for, or otherwise represent, any other person (except the United States) in any formal or informal appearance before, or, with the intent to influence, make any oral or written communication on behalf of any other person (except the United States) to the Central Intelligence Agency; or
(B) participate in any manner in the award, modification, extension, or performance of any contract for property or services with the Central Intelligence Agency,
during the 12-month period beginning on the effective date of the employee's separation from service.
(2) Penalty.--Any employee who violates an agreement under this subsection shall be liable to the United States in the amount of the separation pay paid to the employee pursuant to this section times the proportion of the 12-month period during which the employee was in violation of the agreement.
(d) Limitations.--Under this program, separation pay may be offered only--
(1) with the prior approval of the Director; and
(2) to employees within such occupational groups or geographic locations, or subject to such other similar limitations or conditions, as the Director may require.
(e) Amount and Treatment for Other Purposes.--Such separation pay--
(1) shall be paid in a lump sum;
(2) shall be equal to the lesser of--
(A) an amount equal to the amount the employee would be entitled to receive under section 5595(c) of title 5, United States Code, if the employee were entitled to payment under such section; or
(B) $25,000;
(3) shall not be a basis for payment, and shall not be included in the computation, of any other type of Government benefit; and
(4) shall not be taken into account for the purpose of determining the amount of any severance pay to which an individual may be entitled under section 5595 of title 5, United States Code, based on any other separation.
(f) Termination.--No amount shall be payable under this section based on any separation occurring after September 30, 1997.
(g) Regulations.--The Director shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to carry out this section.
(h) Reporting Requirements.--
(1) Offering notification.--The Director may not make an offering of voluntary separation pay pursuant to this section until 30 days after submitting to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate a report describing the occupational groups or geographic locations, or other similar limitations or conditions, required by the Director under subsection (d).
(2) Annual report.--At the end of each of the fiscal years 1993 through 1997, the Director shall submit to the President and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate a report on the effectiveness and costs of carrying out this section.
SEC. 3. EARLY RETIREMENT FOR CIARDS AND FERS SPECIAL PARTICIPANTS.
Section 233 of the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement Act (50 U.S.C. 2053) is amended--
(1) by inserting `(a)' before `A participant'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(b) A participant who has at least 25 years of service, ten years of which are with the Agency, may retire, with the consent of the Director, at any age and receive benefits in accordance with the provisions of section 221 if the Office of Personnel Management has authorized separation from service voluntarily for Agency employees under section 8336(d)(2) of title 5, United States Code, with respect to the Civil Service Retirement System or section 8414(b)(1)(B) of such title with respect to the Federal Employees' Retirement System.'.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Glickman] will be recognized for 20 minutes, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] will be recognized for 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Glickman].
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Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I introduced H.R. 1723 on April 20 at the administration's request. That we are able to consider the bill on the House floor slightly more than a month after its introduction is a tribute to the dedicated efforts of the chairman of our Subcommittee on Legislation, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Coleman] and the ranking Republican member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas]. They are to be commended for the cooperative spirit with which they have worked with the Director of Central Intelligence to produce a measure which could be brought expeditiously to the House floor.
In the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1993, Congress signaled its judgment that personnel levels in the intelligence community were too high by mandating a 17.5-percent reduction in the work force. This reduction is to be accomplished, in stages, by 1997. When the personnel cuts were proposed, the Intelligence Committee indicated its strong preference for accomplishing them without resorting to involuntary separations, or reductions-in-force.
In seeking to comply with this congressional directive, the intelligence community, a did the Defense Department before it, discovered that attrition is a reliable tool to effect reductions in personnel only if the economy to which the retirees are headed is healthy. If economic trends are unsettled, employees do not generally opt to leave their jobs, unless some type of incentive is provided. The Secretary of Defense has statutory authority to provide voluntary separation incentives to civilian employees of the Department, including those employed by defense intelligence agencies. H.R. 1723 provides similar authority to the Director of Central Intelligence for civilian employees at the Central Intelligence Agency.
The bill will produce two important results. First, it will assist the Agency in meeting its mandated personnel reduction ceilings. In addition, it will hopefully reduce personnel levels further than required so that new employees, with the skills necessary to meet the intelligence challenges of the future, can be hired without exceeding the ceilings.
I want to emphasize that the incentives to be provided by H.R. 1723 will be available only to CIA employees in certain occupational groups or geographic locations to be designated as `surplus.' This designation is a reflection that the end of the cold war has brought to the intelligence community, as it has to other parts of the national security establishment, a need to re-examine the mix of skills in its work force. Employees whose expertise is no longer in demand must either be retrained, if possible, or be encouraged to retire or resign so that those with the skills necessary for the future can be recruited. H.R. 1723 will be a tool in not only shrinking the size of the CIA, but in reorienting it from its cold war focus and methods.
To ensure that the incentives are directed only at surplus employees, the bill prohibits the re-employment of any individual receiving a separation pay incentive for 12 months from the date of separation. Similarly, employees receiving a separation pay incentive will be prohibited from representing a party, other than the United States, before the CIA, or participating in the award or performance of any contract with the CIA. In addition, it is the committee's intention that separation pay incentives be awarded to an employee on a one-time-only basis regardless of whether the employee subsequently qualifies for re-employment with the CIA.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1723 will enhance the ability of the Director of Central Intelligence to reshape the CIA's work force in a sensible fashion. While there are some initial costs, in the long run the bill will save money through reductions in salaries, benefits, and the size of annuities. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation which will contribute to the paring down of the personnel rolls at the CIA in a manner which is effective and fair.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, for his description of this bill and for moving this bill. I strongly urge my colleagues to support it. The Director of Central Intelligence, James Woolsey, appeared before our committee on the 23d of April and outlined clearly why the CIA requires this legislation. It is designed to enable the CIA to hire new employees to meet the intelligence challenges of the 1990's, while simultaneously achieving a significant overall personnel reduction by the end of fiscal year 1997. It will facilitate the identification of categories of employees where there is a surplus and permit the CIA to pay each of these employees up to $25,000 on a one-time basis to retire or resign.
It is important to note that the CIA is in a special situation because its employees all hold top-secret clearances and have access to very sensitive information. Given that this is a voluntary program, this bill would minimize any potential counterintelligence risk arising from their being targeted by hostile foreign intelligence services. One area about which I am very sensitive is the fact that the CIA has made considerable progress in hiring minorities and women. This bill is sensitive to those gains while ensuring no one group is shown favoritism as the CIA begins the painful process of personnel reductions.
In conclusion, I again emphasize my strong support for this bill. It is carefully crafted to meet the needs of the CIA, minimize the cost of the American taxpayer, and ensure that the CIA is capable of meeting the new and very difficult intelligence challenges that it will face throughout the 1990's. This is good management. This is good sense.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen].
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 1723. It is a carefully crafted piece of legislation that meets the needs of the CIA to reduce the overall size of its work force in a carefully planned 5-year, phased downsizing. This plan is designed to avoid, where possible, involuntary terminations of CIA personnel and give them a cash incentive to retire or resign early. It will remove from the CIA work force employees who fall into surplus categories. Many of these personnel have become surplus as a result of the end of the cold war and the changed threat that the U.S. faces.
The Soviet Union is no longer the monolithic problem that we faced from the end of the World War II to 1989. Responding to the changed threat, former Director of Central Intelligence, Bob Gates, and the current DCI, James Woolsey, found that the CIA had to change its skills mix in order to focus more on problems such as proliferation, terrorism, and narcotics and hire new personnel with specialized skills. In order to do that in a reduced budgetary environment, the CIA has designed a plan to encourage employees to retire early to make room for new employees with other skills and to reduce the overall size of its work force. This bill will achieve both goals, and I strongly support it and I urge all of my colleagues to vote for it.
Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson].
(Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
[TIME: 1540]
Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, first I commend the new chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the ranking member for producing a good bill, one that will enable us to move ahead into the intelligence challenges of the 1990's.
This legislation authorizes the Director of CIA to implement a program whereby certain CIA employees will be offered cash incentives to voluntarily resign or retire from the agency.
Why is this legislation important? It basically is important because it means that we now will be able to hire those new recruits, new people with new skills to develop the new mission of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the past, many of the employees at the CIA have been geared toward the cold war, toward the Soviet Union's specialities, and we need new recruits for the new challenges facing this country, nuclear nonproliferation, economic competition, counternarcotics, Arabists, experts on the Middle East and Africa. We need this good management tool to move ahead and be able to recruit some new people with new skills into the agency.
Mr. Speaker, the fiscal year 1993 Intelligence Authorization Act mandated that the intelligence community reduce its personnel by 17.5 percent by the end of fiscal year 1997. At the time the fiscal year 1993 Intelligence Authorization Act was being debated, the Central Intelligence Agency was experiencing their traditional levels of attrition. Agency managers informed the intelligence committees that the CIA would be able to meet its reduction targets through the normal rate of attrition. However, Mr. Speaker, a sluggish economy accompanied by reduced employment opportunities in both the private and public sectors has resulted in falling attrition rates at CIA.
Despite low attrition rates, CIA maintains their ability to meet fiscal year 1993 personnel levels, although it will be at the expense of hiring new persons possessing skills critical to the future mission of the CIA. The collapse of the former Soviet Union and the resulting end of the Cold War has created new demands on our Nation's intelligence agencies and entities. In order to meet these challenges, the CIA must employ those persons trained in the academic disciplines which figure prominently in future intelligence requirements. If the CIA is unable to recruit such individuals. Then our entire future will be placed in jeopardy.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1723 provides the Director of Central Intelligence a management tool to assist in reducing the Agency's personnel levels while at the same time addressing the skills mix of the future Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Speaker, I might add that the Secretary of Defense enjoys similar authority which H.R. 1723 seeks to authorize for the DCI. At present, civilian employees at the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency are entitled to separation bonuses if the Secretary of Defense designates their occupational skill category as excess to the needs of the Defense Department. H.R. 1723 would establish a degree of uniformity within the U.S. intelligence community with regard to personnel reductions and future work force composition.
In addition, the Director of CIA is urged very strongly to ensure that minorities and women get the proper opportunities in this new, future intelligence structure.
I urge passage of this legislation.
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Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield the balance of my time.
Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I again would like to commend the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest], particularly for his efforts in holding hearings and doing the necessary work to develop the record. He and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] were responsible for getting the material so quickly to the House floor which the Director of Central Intelligence says was so important for their agency.
Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kildee). The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Glickman] that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 1723, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: `A bill to authorize the establishment of a program under which employees of the Central Intelligence Agency may be offered separation pay to separate from service voluntarily to avoid or minimize the need for involuntary separations due to downsizing, reorganization, transfer of function, or other similar action, and for other purposes.'.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
END