mr. speaker , i rise in strong support of this balanced rules package .  i want to speak particularly to the provisions regarding homeland security .  to determine whether a proposed regime to oversee homeland security is appropriate , one can not just look at a flow chart .  the simplest structure is not necessarily the best , nor is one that is unduly complex .  one has to look at how a proposed structure will actually function and what it can and can not accomplish .  the homeland jurisdiction being proposed in this package strikes the right balance between a system that is too centralized and one that is too diffuse .  first , i should say that the most important and necessary change regarding governance of the department of homeland security was made 2 years ago when we created a subcommittee on homeland security on the committee on appropriations .  but having a single committee that can look across the department of homeland security from an authorizing perspective is also a sensible move , and the new committee created in this package will do that .  what would not make sense , however , simple as it might seem , is giving sole authority over all aspects of homeland security to the new committee .  homeland security is too diffuse and important a government activity to rest with one committee .  almost every activity of every federal agency has some relationship to homeland security , and almost every activity of the department of homeland security impinges on the activities of other agencies .  an appropriate congressional oversight structure has to take account of that basic fact .  a structure that overly centralized homeland security oversight would make it harder to evaluate the department of homeland security in the context of the other activities of the federal government .  an overcentralized structure could also make a congressional committee a captive of the agency that it oversees .  i know that it is very easy to denigrate arguments against a single , centralized select committee on homeland security as so much turf fighting .  but in reality it is simply intellectually lazy to assume that a centralized structure would enable congress to do its work more effectively .  i found especially ironic a washington post editorial that called for a highly centralized structure .  the editorial argued that a centralized committee would be more efficient because the department of homeland security would not have to answer questions from a lot of different committees .  well , it would also be more efficient if the department did not have to respond to questions from a lot of different news outlets , but presumably the post would argue that there are advantages to forcing the department to respond to reporters with a variety of areas of expertise and a variety of perspectives .  the post certainly would not want the only news outlet to be an in-house publication .  so i want to applaud the house leadership for doing what it has done , and i stand in strong support of this rules package .  