WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Sunday that Congress should be ready to act quickly on intelligence issues when it reconvenes in September.

Snowe, hailed Sen. Pat Roberts’ proposal to overhaul the nation’s intelligence community. Roberts, a Kansas Republican, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Snowe, a committee member, had earlier joined with California Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat, to put forward legislation calling for a single director of national intelligence. That post would oversee the work of 15 intelligence-gathering agencies.

“A single DNI – beholden to no one agency – will be more accountable to the president, to Congress and ultimately, to the American people,” Snowe said in a statement.

She called Roberts’ plan, which includes the DNI provision, “a significant and bold step in jump-starting the legislative process on the critical issue of intelligence community reform.”

She said another aspect of the bill, to create an inspector general for the entire intelligence community, will bring about accountability and improve oversight.