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Hastert, Pelosi Fill Out Homeland Security Panel

House leaders answered one question by naming the full roster of the new Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, but the more complicated matter of settling jurisdictional disputes remains up in the air.

According to Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) appointed Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) vice chairwoman.

They are joined on the panel by a number of Republican committee chairman: Reps. Bill Young (Fla.), Appropriations; David Dreier (Calif.), Rules; Don Young (Alaska), Transportation and Infrastructure; Duncan Hunter (Calif.), Armed Services; Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), Judiciary; Porter Goss (Fla.), Intelligence; Bob Goodlatte (Va.), Agriculture; Billy Tauzin (La.), Energy and Commerce.

The other GOP committee members are: Reps. Christopher Shays (Conn.), Curt Weldon (Pa.), Dave Camp (Mich.), Ernest Istook (Okla.), Hal Rogers (Ky.), Jim Gibbons (Nev.), John Linder (Ga.), John Shadegg (Ariz.), John Sweeney (N.Y.), Kay Granger (Texas), Lamar Smith (Texas), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Mark Souder (Ind.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Peter King (N.Y.), Mac Thornberry (Texas) and Sherwood Boehlert (N.Y.).

Homeland Security ranking member Jim Turner (D-Texas) said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) named the following Democrats to the panel: Reps. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Loretta Sanchez (Calif.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Norm Dicks (Wash.), Barney Frank (Mass.), Jane Harman (Calif.), Benjamin Cardin (Md.), Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Nita Lowey (N.Y.), Robert Andrews (N.J.), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Karen McCarthy (Mo.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Bill Pascrell (N.J.), Del. Donna Christensen (V.I.), Bob Etheridge (N.C.), Charlie Gonzalez (Texas), Ken Lucas (Ky.), James Langevin (R.I.) and Kendrick Meek (Fla.).

Frank is ranking member on Financial Services, Harmon on Intelligence.

The committee will oversee matters previously handled by 88 separate House and Senate committees and subcommittees, Cox said. And a new Appropriations subcommittee will handle funding.

While the committee, convened in response to the largest reorganization of the federal government “in my lifetime,” will face bureaucratic hurdles, Cox said it will not get mired in red tape.

The committee’s purpose is stopping terrorism, he said.

Out of the blocks the committee will introduce a noncontroversial technical corrections bill soon, he said.

And he hopes to unveil revisions to the Homeland Security Act by the August recess.

“We may go at it with an Exacto knife,” he said.

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