[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING
TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 25, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-162
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
84-814 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Justin Paulhamus, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 25, 2002................................... 1
Statement of:
Bakas, Nicholas S., chief public safety officer, city of
Albuquerque................................................ 127
Busboom, Stanley L., division leader, Security and Safeguards
Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory................... 140
Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region VI, Federal
Emergency Management Agency................................ 61
Dean, Steven M., Assistant Special Agent in Charge,
Albuquerque, NM, Federal Bureau of Investigation........... 71
English, Thomas L., cabinet secretary, New Mexico Department
of Public Safety........................................... 123
Horn, Brigadier General Randall E., Adjutant General, New
Mexico National Guard...................................... 133
Johnsen, John-Olav, Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience,
National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department
of Energy.................................................. 95
Nokes, K. David, director, systems assessment and research
center, Sandia National Laboratories....................... 52
Resnick, I. Gary, program manager, biothreat reduction
programs, Los Alamos National Laboratories................. 6
Roth, Paul B., M.D., University of New Mexico Health Sciences
Center, associate vice president for clinical affairs,
dean, school of medicine, professor, emergency medicine.... 147
Sewell, Charles Mack, M.D., State epidemiologist, public
health division, New Mexico Department of Health........... 155
Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, National Preparedness,
General Accounting Office.................................. 27
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bakas, Nicholas S., chief public safety officer, city of
Albuquerque, prepared statement of......................... 129
Busboom, Stanley L., division leader, Security and Safeguards
Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, prepared
statement of............................................... 142
Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region VI, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, prepared statement of......... 64
Dean, Steven M., Assistant Special Agent in Charge,
Albuquerque, NM, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared
statement of............................................... 74
English, Thomas L., cabinet secretary, New Mexico Department
of Public Safety, prepared statement of.................... 125
Horn, Brigadier General Randall E., Adjutant General, New
Mexico National Guard, prepared statement of............... 136
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Johnsen, John-Olav, Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience,
National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department
of Energy, prepared statement of........................... 97
Nokes, K. David, director, systems assessment and research
center, Sandia National Laboratories, prepared statement of 54
Resnick, I. Gary, program manager, biothreat reduction
programs, Los Alamos National Laboratories, prepared
statement of............................................... 9
Roth, Paul B., M.D., University of New Mexico Health Sciences
Center, associate vice president for clinical affairs,
dean, school of medicine, professor, emergency medicine,
prepared statement of...................................... 150
Sewell, Charles Mack, M.D., State epidemiologist, public
health division, New Mexico Department of Health, prepared
statement of............................................... 157
Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, National Preparedness,
General Accounting Office, prepared statement of........... 30
HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING
TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?
----------
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Albuquerque, NM.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., in
the University of New Mexico Continuing Education Building
Auditorium, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn, Wilson and Udall.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief
counsel; and Justin Paulhamus, clerk.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, this hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.
We are delighted to be in the territory of Representative
Heather Wilson. She is one of our outstanding legislators and
an eloquent speaker. I've watched her, without a note in front
of her, make a very cogent argument on the floor of the House.
And I'm glad to see Tom Udall here. Both of you are fine
representatives from the State of New Mexico.
On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most
devastating attacks ever committed on the United States.
Despite the damage and enormous loss of life, the attacks
failed to cripple this Nation. To the contrary, Americans have
never been more united in their fundamental belief in freedom
and their willingness to protect that freedom.
The diabolical nature of these attacks, and then the deadly
release of anthrax, sent a loud and clear message to all
Americans: We must be prepared for the unexpected. We must have
the mechanisms in place to protect this Nation and its people
from further attempts to cause massive destruction.
The aftermath of September 11th clearly demonstrated the
need for adequate communications systems and rapid deployment
of well-trained emergency personnel. Yet despite billions of
dollars in spending on Federal emergency programs, there remain
serious doubts as to whether the Nation is equipped to handle a
massive chemical, biological or nuclear attack.
Today, the subcommittee will examine how effectively
Federal, State and local agencies are working together to
prepare for such emergencies. We want those who live in the
great State of New Mexico, and the good people of Albuquerque,
to know that they can rely on these systems should the need
arise.
We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose valuable
experience and insight will help the subcommittee better
understand the needs of those on the frontlines. We want to
hear about their capabilities and their challenges. And we want
to know what the Federal Government can do to help.
We welcome all of our witnesses, and we look forward to
their testimony.
But before that, I would yield time for Ms. Wilson, and
also Mr. Udall. So, if you have any comments you'd like to
make, Heather, why, go ahead.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
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Mrs. Wilson. Mayor Chavez, I wondered if you wanted to--I'd
yield my time to you, to welcome folks.
Mr. Chavez. Thank you very much.
Mr. Horn. We are delighted to have you here.
Mr. Chavez. Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson,
Congressman Udall, we want to thank you for coming to
Albuquerque. We've ordered up a little of everything; we had a
little snow overnight and by this afternoon, it will be a
beautiful spring afternoon. So you're seeing the best of our
community.
We are the 28th largest community in the United States,
larger than San Francisco, larger than Miami. People sometimes
forget that. And importantly for your consideration today, the
repository of some of the best technologies that we will need
going into this new age, post September 11th.
I'm very pleased, on behalf of Albuquerque, to welcome all
of you here. I want to make sure your deliberations and your
hearings are as successful as possible. While we're a large
city, we're still a small town, so I'm at City Hall during the
day. If there is anything you or your staff need, please call
on us. We want to make sure that we do everything we can to
assure your success here today.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much, from all of us,
because you've had such hospitality here. What a wonderful
facility this is for a hearing, so we might come back here
again. Everybody has been very happy with trying to accommodate
to us. Thank you very much for coming here. If you'd like to
stay, you're certainly welcome.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your coming here and bringing the subcommittee
here. I understand that this is part of a nationwide series of
hearings, in different cities across the country, to look at
how Federal, State and local governments, and private business,
as well, are working together to strengthen our capacity to
respond to terrorist attacks.
I think there is a lot to be learned here in New Mexico,
because we have some unique strengths in combating terrorism
and working together. Of course, we have Los Alamos National
Laboratories to the north, Sandia National Laboratories here;
Kirtland Air Force Base; the hub of a very strong research and
development community. The the University of New Mexico and
University of New Mexico Hospital, which has the Centers for
Emerging and Infectious Disease, which does some of the
country's best research on emerging disease. In addition, we
have a State health department that's integrated and co-located
with many of the other facilities we have here.
From that perspective, I hope there are things that can be
learned here, from New Mexico, that can apply in other parts of
the country, and maybe highlight how special New Mexico is.
When anthrax was confirmed in the House of Representatives, in
two of our buildings, this last fall, after the House was
closed for testing, the laboratories on the East Coast were
kind of overwhelmed with the anthrax attacks, and other cities
on the East Coast, as well. The Speaker of the House, his
office, on a Saturday afternoon, called me and said, ``Look, we
are stretched to the limit for detection capability and
decontamination capability, and we need some more help. Can you
get ahold of the labs, or anyone else in New Mexico, to see if
you can help us?''
That's how well regarded New Mexico's capability is, and
New Mexico came to the aid of the Nation at a very difficult
time. The House has passed bioterrorism legislation; the Senate
has, as well, and we're now working in Conference Committee to
work out the final details of a bioterrorism bill that I think
will strengthen our ability to combat bioterrorism and to
detect people's attempts to use disease as a weapon of warfare
or weapon of terror before people get sick.
I think that's one the great advantages that Sandia and Los
Alamos have to offer. They've been working for several years on
continuous monitoring of contaminants in the water, so they can
detect, in water systems around the country, whether there has
been contamination before the water gets in the pipes to your
home.
They have developed surveillance research, surveillance of
disease, at Sandia, the RSVP project. And there's a grant
program in the bill, giving a preference for Federal matching
funds for combined laboratories, for these medical
investigators, public health departments and universities, so
that the people who are doing the job are working together.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today,
learning more about what works here and what we need to do
elsewhere, and what the Federal Government can do to assist. I
thank the chairman, again, for holding this hearing, and I
particularly thank my colleague from northern New Mexico, Tom
Udall, for coming down to join us today.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Udall.
Mr. Udall. Thank you very much. Chairman Horn,
Congresswoman Wilson, and Mayor Chavez, it's great to have you
here today.
Mr. Chairman, I know that you're on a very aggressive
national schedule; I note you're stopping at two of the bigger
cities, San Francisco and you're also going to Arizona. We are
very pleased you've decided to make a stop here in New Mexico
and highlight the issues that are before your Government Reform
subcommittee. We very much appreciate you holding the hearing
here in New Mexico, and I'm glad that this distinguished panel
will have the opportunity to tell the Congress what they are
doing to make New Mexico and the United States safer for our
constituents.
Thank you, all of you, for being here.
Since last September, the importance of the issues we are
about to discuss here today have been rightly brought to the
forefront of national debate and consciousness. Multiple layers
of government authority have begun to undertake the massive
project of integrating their information, infrastructure and
communication system into a cohesive unit that will ultimately
provide for the safety and health of our citizens. As this
effort progresses, it's important for the Congress to provide
oversight and to offer as much assistance as possible to those
who are working to prepare for the unthinkable.
I am glad that several representatives of local government
and law enforcement have combined with their Federal colleagues
to provide testimony in today's hearings. As Heather noted, we
have Los Alamos witnesses on the panel today, and I can tell
you that I am very proud of Los Alamos and the role that it has
played, not only in the identification of the genetic code of
anthrax, which Heather referred to, but also goods coming into
this country. There's a huge threat in terms of things making
it in here that we don't want to come in here, and they are
doing the kind of research at Los Alamos, and applying the
technology, that I think is going to make us a lot safer.
The key to all of this, obviously, are local first-
responders, and the role of these first-responders in the
response to any attack is central to the successful fulfillment
of the government's duty to serve and protect. I'm eager to
hear about their preparations. The cooperation of the Federal
Government with local first-responders is crucial in the first
minutes and hours after an attack. It is absolutely necessary
that our local first-responders have the information, training
and equipment they need to do their jobs, and this information
and training often come from the Federal level.
Without a centralized clearinghouse of information and a
unified decisionmaking structure, however, the efforts of our
first-responders will not be as effective as they might
otherwise be. For this reason, I'm eager to hear testimony
today regarding efforts at the Federal level to establish
protocols and procedures, to ensure that the information
provided to first-responders is properly analyzed and dispersed
to those who need it, when they need it.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for being here, and I'm
eager to hear the testimony of this panel.
Mr. Horn. Well, I think both of your representatives do a
wonderful job in Washington.
Panel one, we will begin with Mr. Gary Resnick, the Program
Manager, Biothreat Reduction Programs at the Los Alamos
National Laboratories. We all know that is one of the great
laboratories of the world. It developed the atomic bomb and
worked with the University of California on a number of
research matters.
With panel one and panel two we will swear in all the
witnesses, because this is an investigating subcommittee. And
that's not that you won't tell the truth, but this is the way
we operate on all of our subcommittees on Government Reform.
So, if you wouldn't mind standing up, and putting your right
hands up.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note there are six witnesses, and
they have confirmed the oath.
Now, the way we operate is we start down the line with Mr.
Resnick, and the minute we call your name, your full document
goes into the hearing record. So you don't have to ask us to do
it. It's just automatic. So, with that, Mr. Resnick, we're
delighted to have you here. So please give us your thoughts.
STATEMENT OF I. GARY RESNICK, PROGRAM MANAGER, BIOTHREAT
REDUCTION PROGRAMS, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Mr. Resnick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representatives
Wilson and Udall, it is a pleasure to be here representing Los
Alamos today. As you mentioned, my name is Gary Resnick, and I
am the Program Manager of the Biothreat Reduction Programs at
Los Alamos National Laboratory. I personally have over 20 years
of experience working to reduce the biological threat.
First, the word on Los Alamos. Los Alamos is operated by
the University of California for the Department of Energy's
National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA]. The core of
our mission at Los Alamos has been and continues to be the
nuclear weapons stockpile, but it's important to note that
during the lab's nearly 60 years of existence, our work on
nuclear weapons has enabled us to develop tremendous expertise
in complementary areas, such as nuclear nonproliferation and
biological and chemical threat reduction.
We didn't start thinking about countering the effects of
terrorism on September 12th; rather, this is something that we
have been focused on for decades. Because of our years of work,
we have been able to provide technologies, people and research
to the response of September 11th.
Today, I'll reflect on three main areas of response:
Reducing the global threats of nuclear terrorism; protecting
the Nation's critical infrastructure; and reducing the threats
of chemical or biological attacks.
Los Alamos and the NNSA have been working for the past
decade to reduce the dangers posed by the threat, in the former
Soviet Union, of lost or stolen nuclear weapons and materials
by working with our Russian colleagues to secure nuclear
weapons and materials at their source, build detection systems
at borders and transit points, and detect and intercept
smuggled nuclear materials at U.S. borders and entry points.
Despite these best efforts, if there were ever a nuclear
threat to this country, the NNSA and Los Alamos stand ready to
respond. Los Alamos is active in the Nuclear Emergency Support
Team, or NEST, the group that would be called to respond in the
case of a nuclear-related terrorist attack or accident.
Los Alamos also has significant efforts underway to help
protect the Nation's critical infrastructure. One that I'd like
to mention is a joint program with Sandia that Congresswoman
Wilson is very familiar with, the National Infrastructure
Simulation and Analysis Center or NISAC. NISAC ties together
the Nation's largest scientific computational capabilities to
enable the continuous, reliable operation of our interdependent
infrastructures, consisting of electric power, oil and gas,
transportation, water, communications, and emergency services,
law enforcement, health services, and others.
Last, I'd like to discuss Los Alamos's efforts in
biological threat reduction, most of which in support of NNSA's
Chemical and Biological National Security Program, the CBNP.
Los Alamos was immediately called upon to provide expertise in
identifying the strains of anthrax, as Representative Udall has
mentioned. Los Alamos technology has been applied both in the
field and in the laboratory, throughout the anthrax
investigation, and some technologies have already been
transferred to Federal authorities.
Second, long before last year's anthrax attacks, Los Alamos
had been working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
in California, to develop a system to detect biological
attacks. The result, the Biological Aerosol Sentry and
Information System, or BASIS, was deployed as part of the
security network at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
The BASIS deployment at the Olympics is a prime example of
technologies being developed at the Federal level and then
implemented at the State and local level; in this case, with
the Utah Department of Health.
Last, I'd like to highlight a program with an Albuquerque
focus, called B-SAFER. It's a joint effort of Los Alamos, the
University of New Mexico School of Medicine, in cooperation
with the New Mexico State Department of Health. Short for
``Bio-Surveillance Analysis, Feedback, Evaluation and Response
System,'' B-SAFER is designed to detect an emerging biological
threat, whether naturally occurring or the result of a
terrorist attack. The system combines the collection of
clinical data, such as signs and symptoms; temperature, cough
and rash, or laboratory results, with demographic data and
analytical tools designed to provide early warning to the
medical and public health community in the event of an unusual
occurrence.
I, once again, would like to thank you, in conclusion,
Chairman Horn, and the subcommittee, for inviting me to
testify. As you have heard, the Los Alamos National Laboratory
is heavily engaged in America's efforts to counter-threats of
terrorism and ensure the security of the homeland. We
appreciate the continued support of the U.S. Congress in our
efforts, and look forward to serving the Nation further in
these important endeavors. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Resnick follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you.
We now go with another regular witness with this
subcommittee, and that's Dr. Randall A. Yim, the Managing
Director, National Preparedness Group for the U.S. General
Accounting Office. The GAO, as we say, is the forces that we
depend upon, as Congress, and that we give them months in
advance to tell us how to put together all of these matters and
what's the best type of thing that can be done, in terms of the
hands that we all have to look at in the private sector, the
States and the cities.
And we have Mr. Yim here, and we'd like your summary of
your--because the documents put out by the General Accounting
Office are often 50 and 100 pages, and we can't do all that
today, but we can get a good idea of the particular. They have
put dozens of terrorism documents out for the Congress, and we
can't get into all of them, but we can start with one.
STATEMENT OF RANDALL A. YIM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
PREPAREDNESS, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Yim. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your
confidence in GAO.
Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson, Congressman Udall,
Mayor Chavez, members of the committee, on behalf of
Comptroller General David Walker of the U.S. General Accounting
Office, I thank you for allowing me to address this critical
committee on these issues of utmost national importance. I
applaud your efforts in arranging these regional hearings, to
hear directly about the concerns of our State and local
government officials and from representatives of the private
sector in our communities.
My messages today, are simple to state, but the goals they
articulate remain difficult to accomplish. First, although we
can never be 100 percent secure from terrorist attack nor 100
percent prepared to respond, we can be better prepared and more
secure.
Second, to become better prepared and become more secure,
we will need a comprehensive national strategy that builds upon
the tremendous courage and resolve demonstrated by our Nation's
people following September 11th, and which binds together all
levels of government with the private sector and the people
that the government serves, to form an interlocking shield
against terrorism and a mutually supportive quick-reaction
response team should another attack occur. Everyone cannot do
everything, and everyone cannot and should not do the same
things. Instead, we must augment, foster and maintain what
particular governments do best, and what the private sector and
local communities do best. Third, to fashion such a strategy,
we will need to identify the right questions to ask and
discover those key enablers to the creation and implementation
of our national strategy. Is this better information sharing in
IT architectures? This is perhaps one of the most critical
enablers. Is it recapitalization of specific critical
infrastructure, such as power distribution grids or our
transportation systems? Is it a focus on future capital needs,
so that we begin to create the type of skill sets we will need
in the future to effectively fight terrorism?
We will need to discover those roadblocks that must be
overcome or mitigated along the way. We will need to discover
an investment strategy that maximizes the use of the finite
fiscal and human capital resources, so that our national
strategy is both supportable and sustainable. Unfortunately, as
we all know, this war against terrorism will not be won in a
single battle nor in a few short years.
Fourth, we must acknowledge that any national strategy
lacking measurable objectives, measurable performance
indicators, and accountability mechanisms is not sustainable.
As noted by Kennedy School of Government Professor Richard
Falkenrath, who is now a key member of the Office of Homeland
Security, this is because of a lack of performance indicators
to private policymakers of the information they need to make
rational resource allocations, and program managers are
prevented from measuring progress.
Fifth, we need to be mindful of the consequences of the
actions we have and will take to prevent further attacks, and
to respond to attacks should they occur. We must not only look
at the direct costs of our actions, but at the secondary
impacts that result. For example, we can measure and budget the
cost of new irradiation equipment for our postal offices, but
can we measure and budget for those secondary impacts, such as
the elimination of mail-order film processing or mail shipments
of pharmaceuticals? We must look to whether our well-intended
actions will cause what the terrorist attacks could not.
For example, it is hard to blowup every post office in the
United States, but perhaps not so hard to weaken the financial
position of the U.S. Postal Service and perhaps more
effectively attack such a critical service provider. We must
analyze our efforts for greater security with a mind for their
impacts upon our quality of life, our precious civil liberties,
our rights to privacy and the freedom to travel and worldwide
commerce that we value, and which form a vital part of the
fabric of the greatness of this country.
As I stated, these goals are simple to say, but hard to
accomplish. We have not yet even identified all of the
questions that need to be asked, and clearly, we do not have
all of the answers. But although many things are not crystal
clear, one thing is certain: State and local governments,
private sector and local communities, all play key roles and
must intimately be involved in the preparation of our national
strategy.
Hearings such as this one today will allow all of us to
hear how the Federal Government can effectively aid our State
and local governments and communities and the private sector,
so that we design a national strategy that truly serves the
needs of real first-responders, those actually on the
frontline, should another attack occur, and those upon whom it
will depend to take those initial actions. It is only by this
close coordination with our State and local communities can we
begin to address the question on the minds of many: Are we
winning this war on terrorism?
But remember, this is not a pass-fail test; this is not a
quick fix, nor a single victory that will end our efforts. Let
me suggest that the better question is not are we winning, but
rather how secure and prepared are we, and how secure and
prepared should we be?
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me emphasize the
commitment of the U.S. General Accounting Office to assist
Congress to the best of our abilities, in whatever ways we can,
on this issue of critical national importance. We hope that GAO
can assist the entire Nation in answering these key questions
and meeting the challenges ahead. Thank you very much, and I
stand ready to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yim follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you.
The next witness, I've asked Representative Wilson to
interview him. She's a scientist and he's a scientist, and a
very distinguished one. So I want a scientist talking to a
scientist.
Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, while I survived a bachelor of
science degree as an undergraduate, I would not call myself a
scientist, although I am a science fair mom.
It is my pleasure to introduce David Nokes, who is an
amazing man, and he has made tremendous contributions to this
country and to our security. Mr. Nokes was laboratory manager
of the year in 1994, and has also been involved in running the
Cooperative Measures Program, working with the former Soviet
Union, trying to secure nuclear materials and other things in
the former Soviet Union.
But I think probably the greatest measure of his real
contribution in this area is in the aftermath of the September
11th attack, he was named as the single point of contact for
Sandia National Laboratories for getting Sandia technologies
where they were needed, whatever part of government, wherever
they needed to go, and made tremendous contributions to the
community and to the country.
It's really a pleasure to have you here.
STATEMENT OF K. DAVID NOKES, DIRECTOR, SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT AND
RESEARCH CENTER, SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Mr. Nokes. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson, Mr. Chairman,
Representative Udall. It's a pleasure to be here, and I
appreciate the opportunity to testify.
Sandia is one of the three NNSA laboratories, along with
Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, and we bring to the table a
great deal of national security research and development, and
that's what I'll talk about today.
First, Sandia was privileged to be able to provide
technology to some of the important homeland security problems
that emerged post September 11th. We had over 100 requests from
the government to provide technology, and we responded to most
of those. And the list of people who came to our door is almost
everyone in government. There's the military, for help in
Afghanistan; the CIA, for technical support for all of the
technical problems that emerged post September 11th; the post
office, to talk about anthrax remediation; the EPA; and of
course, the DOE and NNSA.
We provided vulnerability assessments, in the week after
the attack, for all of the DOE and NNSA facilities, trying to
understand if there were particular vulnerabilities that would
be susceptible to terrorist attacks on the Nation like on
September 11th.
It is worth noting that most of the technologies we offer
are the result of work done well before the tragic events of
September 11th. They were the result of the national security
focus of the laboratory and the continuing support of these
activities by NNSA and DOE, by other government sponsors
through our ``Work for Others'' program, and by the investments
made by Sandia management in our energy-directed research and
development.
On the back table, you will see a number of the results of
this investment strategy with our internal focus on research.
We have foams that were used to remediate the House buildings.
There is a detector that is used with commercial explosive
systems to allow a commercial product to have enough
sensitivity to work in airport environments. And there are
nuclear sensors. We have worked for many, many years to try to
understand how one can detect nuclear material and detectors
that would be a threat to our country, and those devices also
were provided by not only Work for Others sponsors and DOE, but
also our internal research.
Unlike other problem areas, such as treaty verification,
arms control, and energy research, no government agency has a
focus on investments for homeland security technology. The
investments that are made are all tactical, trying to serve
current problems, very near-term problems, harvesting and
exploiting the tech-base of the laboratories, but they don't
extend it. And then, there is the longer-term, high-payoff and
perhaps high-risk work that will have to be done if we're going
to have adequate homeland security that's affordable.
It's been suggested that the NNSA become a resource to the
Office of Homeland Security in this mission. It's consistent
with other R&D of NNSA, and would align well with the missions
and capabilities of the laboratories and NNSA.
Another point I'd like to make is the ease with which we
work across government agencies. One of the fundamental
problems we have is transitioning technology to the problems of
government; the tech transfer, if you will, within the
government. Right now, about a quarter of Sandia's work is for
other government agencies, and sometimes the processes that
allow this to happen are clumsy, cumbersome, and could be
improved, and we'd like to be able to respond to Governor
Ridge's top priorities more easily.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Sandia works closely
with State and local governments in the transfer of technology.
We have a group that designs technology to render safe bombs,
including terrorist bombs. We have made that equipment
available to first-responders, and we have trained over 600
local first-responders, including about 20 bomb technicians
here in Albuquerque. We also participate with the local
emergency planning group, and at Los Alamos, we have our NEST
and other groups available, through the emergency response
structure of the country, to respond to nuclear incidents.
Thank you for my opportunity to testify today, and I'd be
happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nokes follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Our next presenter is Mr. Ron Castleman. He has appeared
before this subcommittee, and he has a broad governmental look
at the floods and all of the rest of the things that go with
the Federal Emergency Management Administration. And he is the
responsible regional director, appointed by President Bush, in
June 2001, and his States are Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, and Texas. And he comes out of the private sector,
especially from the computer language research groups, and
others. So he has great experience on a lot of these problems.
So, Mr. Castleman, we're glad to see you again.
STATEMENT OF RON CASTLEMAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, REGION VI,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Castleman. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Congressmen
Udall and Wilson. We're glad to be here.
As you said, I'm Ron Castleman, Regional Director for
Region VI of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It's a
pleasure to be here today to discuss how FEMA is assisting
State and local governments to prepare for potential terrorism
attacks.
FEMA's mission is to lead the Nation in preparing for,
responding to, and recovering from disasters. Our success
requires close coordination with local, tribal, State and
Federal agencies and volunteer organizations. The Federal
response plan outlines the process by which Federal departments
and agencies respond as a cohesive team to all types of
disasters in support of State, tribal and local governments.
This plan has been tested on numerous occasions since its
adoption in 1992, and the Federal Response Plan again worked
well in response to the terrorist events of September 11, 2001.
FEMA's preparedness programs provide financial, technical,
planning, training, and exercise support to State, local and
tribal governments. The programs are designed to strengthen
capabilities to protect public health, safety, and property,
both before and after disaster strikes.
As you know, the Gilmore Commission issued its second
report in December 2000, stressing the importance of giving
States and first-responders a single point of contact for
Federal training, exercises, and equipment assistance. The
commission's third report included recommendations to address
the lack of coordination, including proposals to consolidate
Federal grant program information and application procedures
and to include first-responder participation with Federal
preparedness programs. These findings and recommendations have
been echoed in other commissions and GAO reports, by the first-
responder community, and by State and local governments.
On May 8, 2001, the President tasked FEMA Director Joe
Allbaugh with creating the Office of National Preparedness
within FEMA. The ONP mission is to provide leadership in the
coordination and facilitation of all Federal efforts and to
assist State and local first-responders and emergency
management organizations with planning, equipment, training and
exercises to build and sustain our capability to respond to any
emergency or disaster, including a terrorist event.
The President's formation of the Office of Homeland
Security further provides the coordination of Federal programs
and activities aimed at combating terrorism. FEMA is working
closely with Director Ridge, the OHS, and other agencies, to
identify and develop the most effective ways to quickly build
and enhance domestic preparedness for terrorist attacks.
This January, the President took another important step to
strengthen first-responder efforts to prepare for and respond
to incidents of terrorism. The First Responder Initiative in
the President's 2003 budget calls for $3.5 billion, most of
which will be distributed to States and local jurisdictions for
planning efforts, critical equipment, and to train and exercise
personnel. FEMA's Office of National Preparedness will
administer these grants.
The ONP will also work with our Federal and State partners
to coordinate all terrorism-related first-responder programs,
to begin addressing some of the lessons the first-responder
community learned on September 11th. The ONP will develop
national standards for interoperability and compatibility in a
number of areas, including training, equipment, mutual aid, and
exercising. The first-responder grants, coupled with these
standards, will balance the needs for both flexibility and
accountability at the State and local level.
With respect to New Mexico, we continue to work closely
with the New Mexico Department of Public Safety in all hazard
emergency management. FEMA provides grant funds to assist the
State with planning, training, and exercising for natural and
technological hazards, as well as incidents of terrorism. We
have delivered our Comprehensive Hazardous Materials Capability
Development Program to nine New Mexico communities, including
several Indian pueblos.
Last year, our regional office recognized the need to take
terrorism preparedness training and exercises to communities
that did not make the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici population criterion.
We worked with the city of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County, and
will continue this activity with another New Mexico community
this year. Both our HAZMAT and terrorism preparedness
activities are designed to bring together a cross-section of
first-responders, fire and rescue, emergency medical, police
and sheriff's departments, as well as emergency managers and
hospital staff.
As you are aware, New Mexico is home to some very unique
Federal resources: Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories,
the Nimitz Nuclear Weapons School, and the Waste Isolation
Pilot Project, among others. We have partnered with these
organizations in the past and look for more opportunities to
combine our efforts in support of community readiness in New
Mexico, and across the country.
In conclusion, FEMA is well prepared and equipped to
respond to terrorist disasters. We are strengthening our
preparedness efforts now, so that State, tribal and local
governments and first-re-
sponders are well prepared for all disasters and emergencies,
including incidents of terrorism. Continued coordination among
all levels of government will ensure a safer America.
Thank you for your time, and I'd be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Castleman follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
And I'd now ask Representative Wilson to introduce our next
presenter, Mr. Dean.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a real pleasure to have Steven Dean with us here. He's
been in Albuquerque as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of
the FBI for a little over a month.
We are very happy to have you here, even though you are
formerly a Marine Corps officer. Thank you very much for coming
today.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN M. DEAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE,
ALBUQUERQUE, NM, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Dean. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson. Good morning,
Chairman Horn, Congressman Udall, and members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
this morning, and discuss terrorism preparedness, including
terrorism threats posed by attacks including nuclear,
biological and chemical agents. I'll also describe measures
taken by the FBI and our law enforcement partners to address
these threats.
As Attorney General John Ashcroft stated recently, ``We
must develop a seamless relationship with State and local law
enforcement.'' The FBI in Albuquerque, which is responsible for
the entire State of New Mexico, has embraced this philosophy
for several years. All terrorist threats received by
Albuquerque FBI are immediately disseminated to New Mexico's
law enforcement community. We participate in a group comprised
of the heads of the local, State and Federal law enforcement
agencies in a monthly breakfast, and we discuss pertinent
issues with our partners, and the issues are immense.
The State of New Mexico, as you all know, is the fifth
largest State in the Nation and shares 180 miles of border with
the Republic of Mexico. We possess some of the Nation's most
attractive targets. Congresswoman Wilson mentioned Los Alamos
and Sandia National Laboratories. White Sands Missile Range,
Air Force Research Laboratory, Waste Isolation Pilot Project,
the very large array, Intel, Sumitomo, and the list goes on and
on.
I'd like to bring to your attention several initiatives
already established in New Mexico to address these terrorist
threats. They are the Weapons of Mass Destruction Working
Group, the Domestic Terrorism Working Group, and the Joint
Terrorism Task Force. These programs were established in
concert with local, State and Federal agencies, to include the
New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the Department of
Health. Each agency participating in these programs
participated in the development of guidelines for prevention,
response, investigation and training in regards to a variety of
terrorist acts.
First, the Domestic Terrorism Working Group. This group was
established in 1996, with representation from 45 local, State
and Federal departments and agencies. Meetings are held each
month at the U.S. Customs Air Branch at Kirtland Air Force
Base. Since September 22, 2001, just 11 days after the tragic
attacks, these meetings have included international terrorism
information and alerts.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group was
established in 1998, with representation from over 20 local,
State and Federal departments and agencies. Again, meetings are
held monthly. Albuquerque FBI has conducted 46 weapons of mass
destruction presentations, participated in 55 weapons of mass
destruction meetings, and 13 weapons of mass destruction
exercises, over the past 22 months, with our local, State and
Federal partners.
The Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was established in
March 2001, is comprised of sworn law enforcement members of
the Domestic Terrorism Working Group, with nine full-time
investigators representing their agencies.
Several representatives from the above groups are currently
participating in the development of the Terrorism Appendix to
the State of New Mexico All-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan.
This is being spearheaded by the Department of Public Safety
Office of Emergency Management. The Terrorism Appendix provides
guidelines for response to incidents that are determined to be
terrorism-related.
To establish a seamless communication path with various
agency heads, our office recently met with Mr. Tom English, who
is New Mexico's Director of Homeland Defense, and David
Iglesias, who is the U.S. Attorney. Last week, I joined the
Joint Terrorism Task Force members to provide a presentation to
Martin Chavez, the mayor of Albuquerque.
As you are well aware, each FBI Division has a Weapons of
Mass Destruction coordinator, whose taskings are to maintain
liaisons with fire, HAZMAT, law enforcement, public and
emergency health personnel, whose role is to respond to
incidents resulting from weapons of mass destruction terrorism.
We actively participate in the education of all personnel who
share the FBI's mission to prevent, deter and to detect acts of
terrorism. Therefore, first-responder personnel should not only
be trained on how to effectively respond to weapons of mass
destruction incidents, but also on how to recognize weapons of
mass destruction proliferation.
We've enlisted the help of the former chief of police of
the Oklahoma City Police Department. He's been in New Mexico at
least five times to discuss lessons learned in preparedness
from the Oklahoma City bombing. The former fire chief of the
Oklahoma City Fire Department has also been to New Mexico, when
New Mexico hosted a fire officials conference. He's also
discussed lessons learned from the Oklahoma City bombing. And
an FBI bomb technician spoke at the same conference about
lessons learned from first World Trade Center bombing. We
believe these sessions have helped, can help throughout the
State, to put us all on the same preparedness page.
Last year, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group
provided four training symposiums to first-responders on
recognition and effective response to acts of terrorism,
including chemical agents, biological agents, nuclear and
radiological agents, and large explosives. They have
established a secure Web site, whereby information regarding
training, exercises, meetings, and news articles are posted.
I have a lot more information on the Weapons of Mass
Destruction Working Group, and I realize I've run out of time,
Mr. Chairman, but I'll be happy to answer any questions you may
have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dean follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Well, I want to thank the FBI in your other role
as looking at the computer security matters of the Federal
Government, and your people at the laboratories have just been
tremendous. They've brought witnesses to us from around the
world, and a lot of good things have come from that. So thanks
for what else you're doing.
I'm going to ask our colleague here to introduce Mr.
Johnsen, and he's the Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience,
National Nuclear Security Administration, in the Albuquerque
operations.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our Albuquerque
Operations Office here at the Department of Energy has a
tremendous expertise in these areas, and that's the office
that's responsible for coordinating and guiding things that
happen at both of our national laboratories here in New Mexico.
We're very pleased to have Mr. Johnsen here today. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JOHN-OLAV JOHNSEN, SENIOR TECHNICAL ADVISOR FOR
BIOSCIENCE, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Johnsen. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson. And
Chairperson Horn, thank you very much for allowing us the
opportunity to present some testimony today.
The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security
Administration have been active in bioscience research at both
of the national laboratories here in New Mexico for many years,
and this, of course, includes the predecessor agencies of the
Department of Energy. This work has been going on, in effect,
since the days of the Manhattan Project. With the increasing
emphasis and the anticipated increase in work in bioscience
research and development work, the Albuquerque operations
office, early in 2000, initiated what is now known as its
Biosurety Program.
``Biosurety'' was a term that was coined to define and
emphasize, as a single operational concept, the integration of
biological safety, laboratory security and protection of
biological agents, emergency response and community and
intergovernmental relations and liaison. Biosurety, as both a
concept and as an operational approach is now moving out to
other DOE sites, and is a central tenet of the DOE Headquarters
Biosafety Working Group, of which I am the chairman.
The working group acts as a national coordination and
information-sharing body, ensuring consistency of approaches to
similar issues across the DOE complex, and works to ensure
increased cooperation between the department and other Federal
agencies in the area of bioscience. Both Los Alamos National
Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories are addressing
security of laboratories and protection of biological agents in
their site security plans, and are also addressing the related
emergency response issues in their respective emergency
response planning.
Again, as a central tenet of the biosurety approach, these
plans, as applicable to local law enforcement and emergency
response agencies and groups, are to be made fully available,
so that the fullest and most effective cooperation and
coordination is in place with local, tribal, State, and other
Federal agencies potentially affected by such work at these
national laboratories. Policies are in place or are being
developed by the department to ensure that this occurs.
Albuquerque Operations has issued a directive that
addresses the specific issues and requirements associated with
the safe handling, transferring, and receiving of certain
biological agents at contractor sites. This policy reflects a
higher-level policy that was issued by the Department of Energy
in the fall of 2001, and provides additional clarification and
details specific to biological science activities using certain
biological agents of concern by Los Alamos National Laboratory
and Sandia National Laboratories.
The emphasis by the department is that it provides
expectations and guidance to the laboratories, which in turn
will develop the operational procedures and site-specific
policies to meet these expectations. The department adamantly
holds that the fullest coordination and cooperation between the
national laboratories and local, State, and Federal authorities
is critical to ensuring not only that public trust is
maintained, but in ensuring that affected authorities and the
public are notified and involved in the department's protection
and emergency response planning for events that could result
from its biological science research and development efforts.
Thank you very much for this opportunity, on behalf of the
Albuquerque Operations Manager, John Arthur. I appreciate your
having me here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnsen follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much.
And now we'll go to questions. And I've just got a couple
of questions on a broad front, and then I'm going to let my
colleagues be the real questioners.
Mr. Resnick, I'm curious in terms of how would you rate the
response to the anthrax attacks, and what do you know about
this and how many worries we should have?
Mr. Resnick. I think the Nation has taken on a much greater
appreciation for the threat from biological agents, pathogens
and toxins, and it's now putting that into a biosecurity and
threat context. I think there has been a lot of progress since
September 11th, but there is certainly an awful lot of progress
that needs to be made.
I would say the challenge is very great, but the good news
is that the technology opportunity to now bring against that
challenge, I believe, will measure up to it, and with the full
spectrum of interventional planning, I think we will develop a
level of threat reduction that the American populace is
comfortable with.
Mr. Horn. As you know, when this all started, particularly
with the post office and our various offices of the Congress,
there was a lot of contradictory information at the outset, and
also, the steps taken to protect postal workers was very
strongly criticized, some happenstance. What could you tell us
about that? And what have we learned about?
Mr. Resnick. I would join in some of the earlier comments,
that the thing we have to do first is to know what we know and
to make that knowledge available to all planners and
responders. I think that is our first priority, to gather up
every piece of information that's in every laboratory and
provide that through information technology, so it is real-time
available. But once again, I think there's an awful lot of
progress that could be made there.
Mr. Horn. Let me move to another; this is worldwide, but
you're involved, Mr. Resnick, and also Mr. Johnsen and Mr.
Nokes. Your written testimony notes the challenges associated
with nuclear material stored in the former Soviet Union. I feel
very strongly, and I did from day one in Congress, that if we
don't involve Russia with Europe and with the United States, it
will be the biggest diplomatic mistake we've made. And as we
see, President Bush has a very good relationship with President
Putin of Russia.
And what we worry about are scientists going to some of
these nations and what we're doing in terms of sufficiently
melting down the atomic warheads that we have on our side and
their side. And what--is there a threat here and being
addressed and is it being addressed sufficiently by those with
the responsibilities of the issue?
Mr. Resnick. A very important question. I personally have
visited several of the ex-Soviet Union biological warfare
facilities, and I think there is a very real problem here, from
the proliferation of pathogens and toxins, as well as the
concepts of use outside of Russia. I think Dr. Olav Johnsen's
comments about the concepts of biosecurity, are very important,
and I think we can take those concepts that are evolving in the
United States and share that with Russia to secure their
pathogens and toxins, and make an overall increase in global
security a realty.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Johnsen, got any thoughts on that?
Mr. Johnsen. I'm in full agreement with the need for
increased cooperation. In fact, predating September 11th, in
October 2000, there were--I believe it was approximately 26
very senior Russian, Georgian, Cossack senior science,
bioscience researchers and administrators visited Sandia
National Laboratories for a 4-day session looking at,
specifically, security--increasing security for the biological
agents that they had and have at their various sites in the
former Soviet Union.
So this is certainly something that is recognized as a
problem, potential problem, and as a pressing need, and the
national laboratories here in New Mexico, and certainly within
the NNSA complex, are able to and have been working with their
colleagues in the former Soviet Union, to the extent able, that
we're able to try to limit the proliferation of these
materials. It remains a concern. There is much work yet to be
done.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Nokes.
Mr. Nokes. Yes, I'd make a comment. I think it's not true
that the Russians don't care about the security of their
materials and weapons, because they clearly do. I think what
has happened is, under the Soviet system, the insider was not a
threat. You couldn't steal a weapon or material and sell it,
because there was no market. That is no longer true. And so
they have to change their entire concept of securing materials
and weapons.
The labs have been very active in a government program to
safeguard weapons and materials in Russia since about 1992. A
great deal of work needs to be done, because they're changing
their entire philosophy of security. And I think great progress
is being made, but there is still enormous work to be done. And
I really support what began as the nonnuclear initiative and
continues today in the safeguarding of Russian materials and
weapons.
Mr. Horn. Well, along that line, and I think you've touched
on it, and that's after the second world war, we luckily were
able to get Werner von Braun and his German scientists on our
side, and I think one of them went to the Soviet union. And
where are we now? We had a wonderful experience with NASA and
the space capsule, and so forth, and that certainly got us
working together in a partnership, and are there other ways
that we could get the scientists of Russia, so they aren't
going off to Iran, or wherever it is? And how are we doing on
that?
Mr. Nokes. Let's see; the Russian scientists that I have
met, and during the time that I was managing that type of
program at the laboratory, are as worried about Iran and Iraq
and other countries as we are. But the practical matter is,
sometimes they've made offers they can't refuse. Working with
the Russian scientists has become more difficult at the
laboratories in the last 2 years, because of other, almost
unrelated circumstances around counterintelligence and Dr. Lee
and the perception that the laboratories working with foreign
scientists was not in our national interest.
I think that it is important that we collaborate with the
Russian scientists and give them a reason to stay on the side
of the good guys, and I think that program can be strengthened.
Mr. Horn. Going back a minute to some of the ways that it
can happen, that it hurt a city, a region, whatever, and that
is the toxins that can be spread by airplane. And some of the
terrorists, that we know about, in terms of Florida's school
and all of that, and I wonder to what degree do we feel there
is a real problem there and what do we do about it, because
there's a lot of ranchers, also, and farmers, that they need it
to get these certain things in their lettuce fields, or
whatever it is.
Mr. Resnick. I think you underscore the ubiquitous nature
of the threat. It's very broad and very decentralized. And it's
not a very simple solution to put a fence around. Clearly, it
is quite feasible to disseminate, from crop dusters, biological
threat agents. It's been done fairly routinely for testing
detection systems at proving grounds. I think, once again, it
points to the need for a very comprehensive approach to
identify all of the potential choke points. If we look at the
overall weaponization scheme that an aggressor would have to go
through, start to target each step and look for the
vulnerabilities that the aggressor has to interrupt at each
critical node.
Mr. Horn. Any other comments on that?
If not, I'll ask Representative Wilson to pursue the rest
of the questions, along with Mr. Udall.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There are a couple of things that kind of came to mind as I
was listening to your testimony.
David, you mentioned the processes for other governments,
governing agencies, to be able to get rapid access to the
research and document done at our laboratories. They are, I
think the words you used were ``clumsy and inefficient.'' What
needs to be changed in order for other government agencies, or
State and local government, or whoever needs it in a crisis, or
even preferably in advance of a crisis, to be able to get rapid
access to that technology? What do we need to do?
Mr. Nokes. Well, see, the position we find ourselves in is
when the post office calls and says, ``Please help,'' and if we
don't have funds in the door earmarked for the post office,
we're prohibited from answering that call until we do the
paperwork.
Now, there has been a good step forward, because
Albuquerque Area Office has provided breach funding. So if
someone in the government looks them in the eye and says, ``I'm
going to want this work done, and I'll make good on the
money,'' their labs can start the work. That's a good start, to
begin.
The problem is that the most important work is not urgent.
I mean, it's important for us to react quickly and do the
urgent things that solve a ``today'' problem. The more
strategically important thing is doing a tech transfer from the
tech-base we have to the longer-range problems that make this
whole system come out well, because we cannot just pour money
into it; we can't hire more guns and guards. We have to find
ways to identify the critical points, the nodes, and with a
technology-based solution, make security affordable so commerce
goes on and we have good security at various places in the
country.
It seems to me that one way to answer your question is to
have NNSA as a broker for other government issues, as they do
for treaty verification and arms control; they sponsor the
basic research that provides that technology to the Nation. You
can imagine NNSA having that mission, of making the labs
available to other government agencies, solving problems that
are, in fact, common across the Nation. I would like to see
something of that nature.
Mrs. Wilson. One of the criticisms that we hear, from time
to time, and I know the committee has heard it in other places,
has to do with law enforcement's access to information;
intelligence, if you will, from other jurisdictions and from
the Federal Government. And I wonder, Mr. Dean, if you can
comment on that and whether that's gotten any better; what else
needs to be done, so that when a State policeman pulls somebody
over, for a taillight being out, between Albuquerque and Santa
Fe, they're able to run the number and find out if there's more
than a taillight out.
Mr. Dean. I think we've made some positive strides in that
area. We've enabled chiefs of police and heads of investigative
agencies to get background investigations, where we provide
that information to them. We've also been able to add some
information on terrorists in one of our data bases, called the
violent terrorist file, which would give the information to
patrolmen stopping somebody. It will tell them this person is
not just a regular Joe. It's called the ``Big Talk'' file. It's
not a perfect file, but it does identify a person with some
potential terrorist leanings.
There are still some limitations; some of the information
that we do provide to a chief of police or head of an agency is
law enforcement sensitive, and because of the way Federal law
is written, he possibly could not share that with his boss. The
law does not allow us to--we're limited; it's secret
information that we get, to normally only be disseminated
within the law enforcement community.
Mrs. Wilson. One of the things I'm concerned about is that
we have the intelligence community saying things are
intelligence-source protected; we have the law enforcement
community saying they're law enforcement sensitive; and the
military doing the same thing, so that we're not able to put
together a picture that will allow us to--one of the greatest
assets we have in the war against terrorism is information and
the ability to manipulate it and share it when it needs to be
shared.
Are there things that need to be changed in the law to
allow that to happen among agencies more, so that you can tell
your boss, or even more importantly, you can tell the cops on
the street in Atlanta who to be looking for, in a way that's
systematic and that doesn't require a phone call from one guy
to another guy.
Mr. Dean. I think it's going to require a change in the
law. We are able to filter through some intelligence-sensitive
information, and pass it on to law enforcement, but it's
limited. So it is going to require some change in the law in
what we can put out and provide to our law enforcement
officers.
Mr. Horn. Can I comment on this?
Before leaving for this trip, I sat down with Mr.
Sensenbrenner, the chairman of Judiciary, who has joint
authority with our government reform on this issue, and I have
put a bill in, and Mr. Sensenbrenner told me he certainly was
going to give it a hearing, and that he was all for it. We
might just have it sent to the floor without even a hearing.
When we get back to the district, from the constituency, we
will be acting on that. They wanted to act on it on the early
homeland bill, and just for some reason, it didn't happen.
But using the FBI, we want, obviously, to have a person in
the police departments, let's say, to start with, and the chief
of police of any city ought to designate one individual, and
obviously, the FBI would have to do an investigation to see if
that person is worthy of the intelligence that would be used
from the FBI. If you have somebody who's not a very good
policeman, we need to know that before we give them the
intelligence. But we are making progress on that, and
hopefully, we will get that done in the next month or so.
Mr. Dean. I think that would be very helpful, sir.
Mr. Horn. And I'd like to have my colleagues join me on
this.
Mrs. Wilson. I'd be very happy to join you on that. I
think, also, it's not just law enforcement information that
needs to be shared and passed up. We have 14 national
intelligence agencies; we have Immigration and Naturalization
Service; we have the U.S. Customs Service; we have 56 FBI
offices, and access to information is our first line of
defense. And I hope that we can work out some of these issues.
Having formerly served on the House Select Committee on
Intelligence, I know how hard it is to even share between
government intelligence agencies. I think we need to get beyond
it, so we can protect ourselves and not just our sources. And I
look forward to seeing that move forward.
Mr. Johnsen, I have a question for you. I'm very interested
in this concept of biosurety, and particularly looking at the
continuing biological safety, laboratory security, protection
of biological agents, and then the response, so it's not just
proactive. On biological agents, frankly, we really haven't
paid much attention to it before the anthrax situation on the
East Coast. And I wonder, from your perspective, what needs to
be done in order to strengthen that capacity, not necessarily
at our DOE labs, although you may want to use those as an
example, but nationwide.
I was struck when we had the anthrax incidents, the first
question that the FBI, of course, asked is, ``Well, how many
laboratories across the country have this strain of anthrax?''
And the answer was, ``We don't know,'' because there's no
requirement to even register the various strains of toxins
identified by the CDC. From your perspective, what needs to be
done to strengthen the system?
Mr. Johnsen. First off, from a security standpoint, it's
very easy to take the lessons that everyone is comfortable
with, from protection of nuclear materials or physical
property, and try to apply it to biological materials. But the
fact is that the ubiquitous nature of these materials--they're
commonly available; they're natural materials; they self-
replicate, in many cases--means that security, as applied to
the biological laboratory and to the biological agents that are
contained therein, really present a fairly unique set of
challenges.
The initial reaction of bar-coding vials to keep track of
an inventory, for instance, is fairly meaningless when you can
extract a small amount of material from inside that vial and
you still have your vial accounted for, but not that material.
The fact is that there is a chain of custody procedure for a
set of biological agents, known as ``select agents,'' that is
codified in law. Centers for Disease Control has the Select
Agent Rule, and certain materials, only in the last few years,
have to be accounted for as they're transferred around between
laboratories. But that's only a subset of a much larger group
of materials.
Also, the fact is that we have no laws on the books
regulating these materials, from a security standpoint. The
only guidelines--and I emphasize, they are guidelines or
recommendations--that exist for laboratory security, biological
laboratory security, exist as an appendix to the safety manual
issued by the CDC, which is, in fact, the international gold
standard that is used for laboratory safety. But nonetheless,
the security recommendations are contained within the safety
manual; it's a good set of recommendations, but it's very
broad. It lacks some of the specificity that's needed. So work
needs to be done to strengthen that.
There is an interagency working group that has been looking
at the security of agents since January 2001. And Sandia, in
fact, has been heavily involved in supporting that. The lead
agency for that has been the USDA. And they have come up with
some models that have been put into--or tested, I believe, at a
couple of their biological facilities, the USDA's facilities.
But again, a lot of work remains to be done.
Legislation would be helpful, but it needs to be educated,
carefully thought-out legislation. There are examples in the
international community where security requirements have been
put into place, in one Nation, that are so restrictive that
research has suffered tremendously, and yet, real security has
not been enhanced: Specifically, putting a guard in the
laboratory to watch the scientists, but a guard who has no
biological knowledge. And it really is a meaningless gesture.
Those are the kinds of things we need to avoid, while
recognizing that there are real concerns, real threats that can
be addressed. But they need to be addressed in a very careful
manner.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Johnsen.
Mr. Horn. Along that line, are there certain laws that we
haven't mentioned--I mentioned the one with Mr. Sensenbrenner,
that was a letter from myself and Mr. Shays, who has the
international part on Government Reform. Are there other areas
where we should have a way to get that information to the
people that are the responders, the police, the firemen, and so
forth? Anything we're missing, like a privacy law? Does that
hurt us from getting the information and doing something about
it?
Mr. Johnsen. Privacy Act considerations could come into
play when you're dealing with immunization protocols and this
sort of thing. But I don't know that would directly affect law
enforcement, as much as just looking at the actual security of
materials.
Biological safety, biological security of biological
materials, while separate, are also so interrelated that it is
difficult to separate them. They are definitely separate, but
again, part of our biosurety concept is, in the past, we have
seen that these items, these areas of safety and security and
emergency response, tend to be pigeonholed; they tend to be off
in their own wells. And we felt, as an operational concept, it
was important to start pulling these together, thinking of them
under a single organizational or operational umbrella----
Mr. Horn. Are we able to put that into the record, or is
that a classified document?
Mr. Johnsen. That is not classified.
Mr. Horn. Back to Mr. Yim. What do you have on this,
because I know the General Accounting Office has done a lot of
work on it.
Mr. Yim. I think this is one of the areas, Mr. Chairman, in
which we have to look at not only the experiences from the
private sector and security of our laboratories, but we also
need to look at our laws and whether they've kept pace with the
technology. Unlike, for example, nuclear material, where you're
actually physically moving an agent, sometimes from the
biological aspect, we get tremendous advancements in that
community and be able to transfer code, as opposed to the
actual agent, itself, and cause the same impact. Hopefully,
that's not occurring, but that is an area where laws need to
keep pace with changes in technology, to maintain security, not
only now, but over time.
The transfer of select agents, for example, there may be
some simple fixes, such as requiring prior approval of
transfers, and having, in that prior approval process, a cross-
check with intelligence information as to the recipients of
those materials being transferred. I think that one of the
issues for us is that it doesn't have to be an evil purpose. I
mean, there are well-intentioned researchers that may be
requesting agents for legitimate research purposes that
unknowingly may be creating exposures for us.
So I think the laboratory security issues and the
proliferation of both human disease and also agents that can
affect our food production chains, I think, is an area of
critical importance.
Mr. Horn. Representative Udall.
Mr. Udall. Thank you very much, Chairman Horn.
One of the things that I think would make the fight against
terrorism work very, very well is if citizens are involved in
it, and involved in it in a significant way. I mean, in a very
real sense, our citizens can be the eyes and ears out there and
help detect things. But one of the things that I hear from my
constituents, in doing town hall meetings or having meetings
with them, is that they ask about the current alert system that
we have in place, where we go on this overall alert, terrorist
alert. And I know the attorney general has now refined this,
and they're broken down into categories.
But I'm wondering what--any of the members of the panel
that have any thoughts on this, are we utilizing our citizens
to the best we could, in terms of being eyes and ears out
there; what's the best type of alert system; are we doing
public outreach and letting the public know the kind of
information that the law enforcement and other agencies need?
It seemed to me that there was one incident that played
out. It was where, in California, there was one of the bridges
that was going to be--there was supposed to be a terrorist
incident with a bridge, and the California Governor was given
that information, and he put that information out there. And
clearly, a citizen, under those circumstances could, if they're
driving across the bridge or near the bridge or hear somebody
talking, they can then supply information.
So I guess I have a couple of questions for you, really:
What do you think of the alert system we have now? Can it be
improved on? How do we really get citizens into this fight, in
terms of getting them involved and being able to provide law
enforcement agencies with the very best information?
Mr. Castleman. Well, certainly, Governor Ridge recently put
out the program for a new alert system, and that's getting
feedback right now. It's not finalized yet. But we're hoping
that from the information that we--the feedback that is
received, that system will be refined so that it will become
second nature to people, as to where we are and how to
understand the alert system.
The other point, I guess----
Mr. Udall. Ron, is there any more--I know there's a
graduated tier on there, but is there any more information
being given to the public under this tiered system that's out
there? Is that the intention of going to different tiers, is to
give more information to the public?
Mr. Castleman. I think, so that there is a more clear
understanding, certainly, we're--this proposed system is being
reviewed with States and the local first-responder community,
and other parties that can help make decisions about this. So
we're getting feedback that way. We won't be putting that out
until it's finalized, of course, but it is being tested right
now. I think there is still some work to be done to refine
that. So I don't think we're there yet, but I think we will get
there.
The other point that you made was how can citizens get
involved, and there is an effort, that's just begun, with
Citizen Corp, which, I believe, will--the more citizens we get
involved with those programs, such as Neighborhood Watch and
FEMA, certain programs, we'll be able to align them with the
alert system, be in a better position than we are now. We've
got a long way to go, but we have some things in place that, I
think, are the foundation for where this will all get better.
Mr. Horn. If I might give you an example in relation to
Representative Udall's question, it was recently revealed that
Federal officials had withheld information of a potential
nuclear threat from city and State officials in New York. Is
that justifiable, to not inform them of what they should worry
about in their harbor, and everything else? Now, I know the
Coast Guard was on alert to look at some of the cargo that was
coming in, with shipments from Europe and all over the world.
Is that justifiable, or should the norm be, whether it's secret
or not secret, or that it's not a real threat, because you
ought to get all that focus on it, with the State, city, and
all the others. What do you think?
Mr. Castleman. Well, I'm not sure that I'm in the best
position to comment on that, but I believe that one of the
problems may have been the lack of a good system that every law
enforcement person and emergency management person and every
citizen will understand. And I'm only assuming that part of the
problem in that information not being delivered was a weak
alert system. So it's my opinion, only, that perhaps this
system is to try to counter that kind of problem in the future.
That's my own personal speculation.
Mr. Horn. Any thoughts, Mr. Dean?
Mr. Dean. Mr. Chairman, I don't know the specifics of that
particular incident, so I would only have to assume that the
information wasn't passed because of the law not allowing it to
be passed. And I would say that's a faulty and outdated law,
that type of information has to be passed, when there's a
threat of a nuclear attack. It has to be passed.
In response to Mr. Udall's question, since September 11th,
I think citizens have stepped up to information that not only
the FBI, the Federal and State government have put out, through
the media, with alerts, with requests for citizens to be more
watchful, be more vigilant. Post September 11th, we received
thousands of calls to our command post, from citizens, that we
probably wouldn't have received. So I think citizens are more
mindful, more aware, more careful, and they are participating
more in assisting law enforcement with potential problems.
Mr. Udall. Do you think if they had more specific
information, they'd be able to help you more? And of course, we
don't want to get into methods and sources and those kinds of
things, but it seems to me, when you put people on a general
alert, you're going to get a lot of calls that maybe aren't
very relevant to whatever it is that you're looking into. But
if you're able to somehow use and give specific information,
you may get a lot better information back.
Mr. Dean. I think so. I think the general alerts are very
general and very vague. And I think if specific information was
disseminated, then we probably would receive more relevant
calls from the public, yes.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Nokes, what's your thinking on this?
Mr. Nokes. Well, I was going to make the comment that one
of the problems I think the government has is that you don't
get crystal clear indications that an attack is going to
happen; you get inferences. So someone has to make a judgment,
is this credible and should this be raised to a higher alert.
And I think that, in the case of New York, the judgment was
made that the information wasn't particularly credible. And I
think that's going to be a continuing challenge, particularly
as you get more and more information, get citizens reporting.
Someone has to be in a position to assess the credibility and
the seriousness of the threats that are being posed.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Yim.
Mr. Yim. I think, also, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Udall, one of
the things that's important on the tiered-threat system is not
only a better definition or common understanding of what
information to share, but because the system is modeled on the
Department of Defense tiered system, and under the Department
of Defense system, at each tier, certain additional
nondiscretionary action needs to be taken; for instance, at
each military installation, as you move from Alpha to Bravo to
Charlie, there are additional steps. I think that would be very
helpful, during the public comment period on this system, to
begin to define exactly what additional steps State and local
government should be taking as the threat levels rise, and then
perhaps that would then augment the capabilities of the local
governments to respond as threats ratchet up.
So, again, we'll always have to balance the sharing of
information, intelligence information, with the threat to the
sources and methods. But if we can begin to enhance
capabilities as threats arise, to respond flexibly, I think
that will be the key.
Mr. Horn. Well, this is one of the questions we were going
to ask, and it's relevant to this point: What's the situation
that each of you could provide for us, were the witnesses to
submit for the record a list of the Federal laws that they
believe--you believe inhibit the sharing of information between
Federal, State and local officials? Do any particular laws come
to mind on that? We know about the FBI intelligence. Is there
anything beyond that?
Mr. Yim. Well, Mr. Chairman, I've heard from a lot of
communities that the security classifications are a tremendous
roadblock. So the legislation you've introduced, I think, will
go a tremendous way in handling that problem.
One of things we have to augment, however, in addition to
the classification as to who should get the information, is
also the architecture, of course, to share that information
quickly and effectively. And I think we're making a lot of
progress in getting common data bases that can be shared,
enhancing the IT infrastructure, so that information can be
pumped out.
But once we solve those first two problems, getting the
architecture in place and the security classifications, there
needs to be some focus on the analytics of that. We're going to
have to be creating a pipeline, then, that will get larger and
larger as we're pumping more and more information. And I think
there needs to be emphasis on the analytics of that
information.
One of the things that we've heard from State and local
governments is that they could be deluged with information and
lack the ability, the human capability or just the basic
knowledge, to analyze the volume and could not sort the wheat
from the chaff. And I think that we need to have some emphasis
on that, whether that will encompass legislation or not, or
just straight up, some dedication and resources to augment it;
I think it's more the latter than the former.
Mr. Horn. We'll hold the record over on this question for 2
weeks, and if you have some thoughts, please send it to us, so
we can put it into the final report on that.
Any other questions?
Mr. Udall. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
Mr. Horn. Ms. Wilson.
Mrs. Wilson. No.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you, and we will now go to the
second panel. That starts with Mr. English and Mr. Bakas; Mr.
Horn, no relation; Mr. Busboom; Dr. Roth; and Dr. Sewell.
We thank you for coming, and as those of you know who were
here earlier, this subcommittee that I chair is an
investigatory committee, and so we're going to ask you to
stand, raise your hand and swear or affirm the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that the five witnesses have
accepted that, and we will ask our colleagues here to introduce
a number of you, because you're close friends.
Honorable Thomas L. English, Secretary, New Mexico
Department of Public Safety.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Tom English is the cabinet secretary for the Department of
Public Safety here in New Mexico. He is a former assistant U.S.
attorney and was involved in the prosecution of a number of
gang and violent crimes, including the Sureno 13, and a Major
in the U.S. Army Reserves, where he served as a JAG lawyer, and
also, a long-time New Mexico State Police Officer.
Very glad to have you here, and look forward to hearing
what you have to say.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS L. ENGLISH, CABINET SECRETARY, NEW MEXICO
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Wilson,
Congressman Udall, first of all, I'd like to thank you for
asking for the input of State and local government.
We in State government recognize the Federal role in the
fight against terrorism, that to investigate and to detect. And
we are well served by the Federal Government in that capacity.
Likewise, the Federal Government must recognize the State and
local role in this particular problem area, and primarily that
of being the first-responders.
We all have the same mission, purpose, and resources, and
we should seek to unify those, our mission to protect the
public before, during and after attack, by having the purpose
to mitigate and respond, with our resources that include both
information and capacity. We are starting to improve on
cooperation and coordination. We saw that start with the
Oklahoma City bombing, the passage of the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici
Act, the Office of Domestic Preparedness in the Department of
Justice, but as I have seen this weekend, while fires ravaged
Lincoln County in New Mexico, I know that we face a daunting
task if we are the unfortunate recipients of a terrorist
attack.
We should be well-minded that the al Qaeda network waited 8
years between their attacks. We must be ready and we must be
prepared. And we will be.
Communication is the key to cooperation. Cooperation is the
dynamic that powers a coordinated response to terrorism.
Cooperation hasn't always been an operative term in Federal and
State relations. There are two areas that we really need to
look at, I believe, or I would ask you to look at. One is the
recognition of roles and the second is the exchange of
information.
I went to a meeting with the President and Governor Ridge
at the White House in January, with the 56-some-odd Homeland
Security directors. These concerns were raised, uniformly, from
across our great Nation. In response, the President, Governor
Ridge have proposed the first-responder program, which
provides, as Mr. Castleman said, 3.5 billion in first-responder
money.
I know that there will be some concerns in Congress about
FEMA administering this money. I would like to point out that
this weekend, FEMA responded, not within days, weeks, months or
years, within hours, for a fire suppression grant for the State
of New Mexico. I believe that they are well-suited to provide
the strategic planning to assist us in capacity building and to
pass money to local government.
I'd also like to state that this hearing is a great example
of an attempt to bring us all together. As a State manager, it
is not my job to dictate to local incident commanders what to
do in response to an incident. Likewise, it's not for the
Federal Government to dictate to State and local governments
what to do. The area of information we need access to is
critical relevant information. When DOE has Q-clearances, and
Department of Defense has their clearances, and Department of
Justice has their clearance, we all don't stand, really, a
chance in local government. Make a national security clearance,
clarify the exchange of information.
I'm also reminded of the radar operator at Pearl Harbor,
who thought that the information was not relevant to the attack
on Pearl Harbor. I think of the information possessed before
the attack on the World Trade Center. I would love to be
deluged with information. Give us that information; we will use
it.
Let there be no thoughts or misconceptions. We are ready to
respond. But honesty is the best policy, and we have to admit
there are areas for improvement. We have to look for our
weaknesses so we can get better. Much like I tell my
department, ``We must be one,'' I think we all must realize we
are one Nation. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. English follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4814.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4814.094
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Very eloquent.
Our next presenter is Mr. Bakas.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nick Bakas is the
Chief of Public Safety here in Albuquerque. It's a new position
created under the current mayor to kind of integrate police,
fire, emergency response within the city of Albuquerque, which
gives him, I think, a unique perspective on the problems we
face in combating terrorism. He is also a retired Albuquerque
Police Department officer, the former head--cabinet secretary
for public safety in New Mexico. He led State efforts during
the Cerro Grande fire, and was the head of the New Mexico Urban
Search and Rescue Team. He then went to the Pentagon following
the attack on the Pentagon. So I think he has a unique
perspective to offer this committee.
And thank you very much for coming today.
STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS S. BAKAS, CHIEF PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICER,
CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE
Mr. Bakas. Thank you. Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson,
Congressman Udall, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity
for a perspective from the local level.
I am Secretary English's predecessor at the State level,
but now, as of September 11th, numerous people have mentioned
that the world has changed, the way that government, at all
levels, responds to the needs of their citizens has also
changed, and part of that change, as you've mentioned,
Congresswoman Wilson, is that Mayor Chavez has created this new
position. This is the position of Chief Public Safety Officer.
My duties and responsibilities include the oversight of the
police department, the fire department, corrections, and
emergency management.
There is an old Japanese proverb, I believe, that I think
is very operative of this position, and that proverb is that
the time to dig a well is not when you're thirsty. So our--my
responsibility, our responsibilities in general, is to provide
that planning, provide that necessary effort, so that we're
ready to respond in a time of crisis, whether that crisis is a
weapons of mass destruction incident or whether we're talking
nuclear, biological, or a chemical incident.
On the local level--and I know there has been much
discussion about how we communicate between the various
agencies; let me tell you that it is a monumental task to
communicate among local agencies. Specifically, how do we break
down some real barriers; how do we break down some artificial
barriers; how do we--as Secretary English mentioned, how do we
communicate? It's very easy to become territorial.
I know the fire department has their issues; the police
department has their issues; and Lord knows that the
corrections folks are the redheaded stepchild of the whole
public safety process; no one ever consults, refers or gives
them the time of day. And this is really not where we want to
be when it comes to providing for our citizens in Albuquerque.
Once we can get by those efforts, some real, as I say, some
artificial, we have special needs on the local level. I know
we've been in concert with Dean Roth of the medical school. In
the sense of an emergency, what is clearly apparent is that
there are special needs of the very young and of the very old
that we must address, and what has also become very, very
clear, and important, is that we have needs of the disabled
that, in planning, we all too often forget. We've solicited and
are getting the input of Art Schreiber, a local celebrity here
that town, a local politician, radio announcer, who is blind
and who also will be participating with us on those very issues
of the disabled and how they relate to emergency planning.
Secretary English, his staff, my staff, we're now meeting
on a regular basis to determine what we will need to set in
place, and we are very anxious, with Governor Ridge's proposal,
to distribute, I believe, $3.5 million in first-responder
money. Needless to say that any of this planning, anything that
we're doing here today with respect to planning is very
expensive. And I would emphasize, if anyone is not aware, that
the city of Albuquerque is in dire financial straits, so we are
very anxious to see how this infusion of funds is going to be
distributed. And with that in mind, we are in concert with our
partners at the State level and our partners on the Federal
level.
I know, Congresswoman Wilson, you mentioned that we, here
in New Mexico, stood ready, and we stand ready, to respond to
emergencies of this Nation. I would be remiss if I did not say
that one of the highlights of my career, that you mentioned,
was our response to the attack on the Pentagon, Flight 77. It
was New Mexicans, 62 of us, that went to the Pentagon, and we
did search and recovery efforts. It was fellow New Mexicans, in
partnership with FEMA, in partnership with the country in
general, that performed magnificently. It was New Mexicans that
shored up the Pentagon, which I'm sure is a building you see
regularly. The Pentagon sunk a foot. It was New Mexicans that
put that beam up on the right side of that damaged area and
also supported the left side of that building.
So I am truly very proud. I see some other members of that
team, John Gaffney, out in the audience. I know my time is up,
but I do want to thank you, Congresswoman Wilson, for
presenting us the American flag and a letter, while we were
camped at the grounds of the Pentagon, and that went a long way
to help us in our efforts. So I would thank you, and I will
conclude with that.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bakas follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Go ahead.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you very much, Nick. That was a--it was
kind of a moving experience to go over and meet with you and
your team there at the Pentagon, in those days following that
attack, and their determination to help was heartwarming.
When we're looking at emergency response, there's no way
that any of us can ignore the National Guard. When things go
wrong, every Governor in this country, one of the first things
they do is call out the Guard. And the Guard is among us and
with us; they are part of our communities. And when New York
and Washington were attacked on September 11th, it was Guard
units that were in the air to help protect us.
Since then, the National Guard has flown 18,000 sorties,
providing air cover over this country, continuous air cover
over New York and Washington, and rotating air cover around the
country. The 150th Tactical Fighter Wing, the Tacos, have been
a part of that.
In addition, there is this irony that Mikey Rice, who is
the head of civil air--in his civilian capacity, the Head of
Air Transportation and Civil Aviation for the State of New
Mexico, is also a brigadier general in the Air Guard, who
rotates, about every 6 weeks, through Tampa, to be the general
who is responsible for making those orders, if there is another
attack on the United States. So there is a certain irony about
the Guard and the places people come from and the expertise
that they bring.
The New Mexico Guard has sent security police overseas and
has been protecting our Air Force, our bases here in New
Mexico, in concert with the civil authorities and with the
active duty Air Force. And the New Mexico Guard also is one of
the States that has the civil response team which is set up and
trained to respond to emergencies involving biological and
chemical attacks. And I have to say that when the Speaker's
office called me that Saturday, one of the people that I called
was the Guard and General Horn. And his people were very
helpful in figuring out what capabilities might be available in
the State Guard units, including those in Maryland, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and New York, that might be able to help
Washington. That's a measure of the strength of the National
Guard in our communities.
General Horn is a former fighter pilot who is now the head
of the New Mexico National Guard. He's the adjutant general
here in New Mexico.
And I thank you very much for joining us, sir.
STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL RANDALL E. HORN, ADJUTANT
GENERAL, NEW MEXICO NATIONAL GUARD
General Randall Horn. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson,
Representative Udall, thank you for the opportunity to speak
with you today concerning Federal support for the preparations
we are making in the face of chemical, biological, radiological
and nuclear threat.
I've broken my presentation into distinct areas, to try to
make it easier for you to distinguish between the types of
support and coordination that we're seeing.
The first area of concern is federally funded missions,
that have been identified, supported by the New Mexico National
Guard since September 11th. First, we support the airport
security mission, with 47 Army and Air National Guard
personnel, at four locations around the State, to include
Albuquerque, Roswell, Santa Fe, and Farmington. The FAA has
been involved with the training of these troops, and in our
estimation, has done a very good job. I would comment that it
is important that this operation stay on the current plan for
transition to the civilian sector, currently scheduled for the
end of May.
New Mexico Army National Guard has recently mobilized 19
National Guardsmen to Title 10 Federal status for the Border
Sentinel mission, in support of the U.S. Border Patrol at ports
of entry on the southern New Mexico border with Mexico. The
U.S. Army is our primary interface for this mission, and there
are issues concerned with this mission that I'll address a
little bit later.
The New Mexico Air National Guard contains the 150th
Fighter Wing, the infamous Tacos. We currently have more than
200 New Mexico Air National Guard personnel deployed to New
Jersey, flying F-16s and operating over the city of New York in
support of Operation Noble Eagle. This mission is planned to
continue for the next 60 days.
Mr. Chairman, those are the missions that we have taken on
as the direct result of the terrorist attacks on September
11th. Let me tell you just a little bit about some of the
things we were doing before September 11th, in preparation for
terrorist type of activities.
New Mexico National Guard has one of the Weapons of Mass
Destruction Civil Support Teams, as they are usually referred
to. This 22-person team was recently certified, and the CST
aids civil responders in identifying chemical, nuclear and
biological threats as they evolve. The 64th Civil Support Team
conducted a series of joint training exercises with communities
throughout New Mexico, on 10 through March 17th of this year,
the primary objective being, was to incorporate CST response
assets with local and State WMD response agency assets. This
team has setup a display in the front lot, and I would invite
you to come by after the hearing today to visit with them and
understand a little bit more about what they do.
The New Mexico National Guard also operates the 100-person
counter-drug mission on the Mexico-New Mexico border. This
program is directly aimed as stopping the flow of illegal
drugs; however, it obviously has a spillover effect to the
apprehension of people and products who might be trying to
bring weapons of mass destruction into the State, as well.
Mr. Chairman, that's a thumbnail sketch of the types of
operations we currently work with, with regard to prevention of
chem/bioattacks. I would like to spend just a few moments to
outline areas where I think the Federal Government could help
us perform our jobs just a little bit better.
Our intrastate terror efforts will include planning,
training and participation in regular exercises. The National
Guard, along with other State agencies, is presently focused on
a comprehensive interagency planning and implementation process
to help us seamlessly address threats and interface with
Federal agencies. We are evaluating our communications
capabilities and finding them a little bit weak. We will be
asking for Federal assistance to upgrade our communications
systems to make us more compatible with other State agencies.
Another area of constant concern is the chronic
underfunding of counter-drug program. As you remember, I told
you that is the 100-person team that works with Border Patrol
agencies on the Mexico border. The Governors' State Plans are
the mechanism identified by Congress to list the programs and
missions the State wishes to conduct in support of their war on
drugs and to identify and request those Federal funds necessary
to execute the program. The return to full funding in FY03 will
allow New Mexico Guardsmen to become more effective to counter
illicit drug and terrorist activities.
I would also like to address the following issue concerning
the 22-person Civil Support Team. This team is made up of
unique capabilities, and right now, we do not have the
capability to backfill any of those positions ahead of time. If
we lose a radiological doctor, or somebody with those kinds of
capabilities, it's very difficult to bring someone in behind
that person in a timely fashion, to keep that CST team going.
So we'd request that you entertain the possibility of giving us
a little backup support, so that we can fill in behind and be
ready to respond to any kind of danger that would be there.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would state that, in
general, I am pleased with the support we've received from the
Federal Government regarding our role in the fight against
terrorism. We in the New Mexico National Guard are very proud
of our part, and we look forward to continue the efforts to
protecting the country that we all love. Mr. Chairman, that
concludes my remarks.
[The prepared statement of General Horn follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
If you want to introduce Mr. Busboom, go ahead.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Stan Busboom has more than 30 years of experience in
security. He is now Division Director of Security and
Safeguards at Los Alamos National Laboratories. He served in
the Air Force for 26 years and retired at the rank of Colonel--
although we wouldn't guess it by your haircut today.
We're very pleased to have you here.
STATEMENT OF STANLEY L. BUSBOOM, DIVISION LEADER, SECURITY AND
SAFEGUARDS DIVISION, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Mr. Busboom. Or my lack of haircut.
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Wilson, and Congressman Udall,
thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you
today. I am Stan Busboom, Director of Security at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, and in today's testimony, I want to
provide you with a summary of the immediate actions and on-
going responses to the terrorist threat, following the events
of September 11th of last year, and how we're interfacing with
our State and local governments in those efforts.
On a day-to-day basis, just to give you some background, we
employ over 400 uniformed officers to protect the 43-square
miles of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Recruit, train and
deploy a highly motivated force of men and women whose primary
focus is guarding our two nuclear facilities, but as well, over
100 other security areas on the mesas of Los Alamos. The
typical recruit receives more than 440 hours of intensive
training before performing any duties.
Our special response team--those are the SWAT team
members--receive an additional 360 hours of tactical training
before they go to do anything. That special response team has
over 70 members and is fully equipped with military weapons,
including armored vehicles, M-60 machine guns, grenade
launchers, and thermal-imaging sensors.
Along with all Federal, State and local government security
agencies, we reacted immediately to the events of September
11th. I'll provide you with a summary of our actions. Vehicle
screening posts were established outside of our nuclear
facilities to identify personnel and to provide standoff
against potential vehicle bombs. Selected roadways, paths,
parking lots, and fence lines were blocked off with concrete
barriers, and we began screening all trucks and commercial
vehicles that were entering the site. Mail and parcel delivery
were intensively screened, using both x-ray machines and
explosive-detection machines.
Increased vigilance was requested of everyone on the site,
and we began issuing a series of security bulletins to keep our
employees informed and to direct them to take precautionary
measures. I would mention that our employees are also a
substantial amount of the population of Los Alamos County, so
we were serving two purposes in this security measure.
Extensive consultations were conducted with the County of
Los Alamos Fire and Police Departments to predetermine response
to any incidents and to establish a fresh understanding on how
to implement the existing agreements for mutual aid in case of
emergency. We also consulted Forest Service officials and the
governments of our neighboring pueblos.
Immediate and ongoing contact was established with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and daily reviews were
conducted of intelligence from all sources. We consulted with
the New Mexico Emergency Management Office and briefed them on
our capabilities and our response plans.
Finally, we looked at all the potential terrorist threats
against all the targets we have at the laboratory, and we
revalidated our protective strategies.
I will say that one of the most challenging aspects of
protecting Los Alamos National Laboratory is that we have an
open site. We have taken extensive measures, since September
11th, to control our roadways and protect key facilities, but
it's very manpower-intensive. In the initial weeks following
September 11th, we had some guards putting in as many as 72-
hours on post per week, a tremendous effort on behalf of that
guard force, with some cooperation on overtime waivers from the
union. We never ran into a situation where we had any post
unfilled. We had plenty of volunteers. There's plenty of
patriotic folks in northern New Mexico willing to step up to
this job.
Having addressed our staffing issues by hiring additional
people since then, we are also looking at engineering and some
special solutions. We do have supplemental money this year, and
by the way, we very much appreciated the supplemental
appropriation we received to allow us to pay the overtime and
to design some engineering solutions to our open-site
difficulties. We are planning to look at two bypass roadways
that will allow us to control access, and right down to fully
closing the site, if we need to, similar to the way it's done
at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Chairman Horn, there are additional measures that we've
taken that are classified. And we'd be glad to brief you and
other Members in an appropriate setting.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Busboom follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, here in New Mexico, we are
blessed with having one of best medical schools in the country,
and I'd also----
Mr. Horn. I might suggest that they started the new
approach, and when Harvard finally got the publicity on it--
that it was New Mexico that started it. And I just was telling
somebody, last week, this, and what a fine school you have in
medical matters.
Mrs. Wilson. See Dr. Roth grinning.
I wanted to first start by thanking Dr. Roth and his staff.
This is a University of New Mexico building that we're meeting
in today, and I wanted to thank you, and Robin and Kathy from
your office, for helping us to arrange this on fairly short
notice. I appreciate that.
We are very fortunate to have someone of Dr. Roth's caliber
leading the medical school. He has 18 years of experience in
disaster medicine, as well as emergency medicine. Dr. Roth
created the country's first-ever civil Disaster Medical
Assistance Team, the DMAT, within the National Disaster Medical
System that was established in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was
president, and since then, the New Mexico Disaster Medical Team
has developed more experience and capability, through his
leadership, than--really than any other team in the country. We
now have the Center for Disaster Medicine at the University of
New Mexico.
He has also played a leading role in establishing the
National Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, building on
work that was done at the University of New Mexico on the Hanta
virus outbreak, rapidly identifying a new disease and
identifying its source and developing treatment for that.
We are very pleased to have him here as the head of our
medical school and so involved in the issues surrounding
chemical, nuclear and biological agents and their impact on
populations.
Dr. Roth.
STATEMENT OF PAUL B. ROTH, M.D., UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR CLINICAL
AFFAIRS, DEAN, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, PROFESSOR, EMERGENCY
MEDICINE
Dr. Roth. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative
Wilson, Representative Udall. I thank you for those kind
remarks. Harvard tends to copy many institutions, but
prominently, the University of New Mexico, in that regard.
It's a pleasure to be here to speak to you today concerning
the state of our Nation's preparedness with regard to
biological, chemical and nuclear attack. As was mentioned, I'm
here not only speaking to you as the dean of the medical
school, but someone who has a great deal of experience with
disaster response. And so I speak to you not only from a
desktop background, but from firsthand experience in the field.
Just a few remarks regarding the University of New Mexico.
Our Health Sciences Center and its School of Medicine have been
actively involved in anti-bioterrorism planning, training,
related research, and response, for several years. Most
recently, we have been working very closely with the New Mexico
Department of Health in planning for the use of the new CDC and
HRSA moneys. We are also rewriting our Health Science Center
disaster plan to accommodate biological and chemical events by
retrofitting elements of our Health Sciences Center hospital
facilities to serve as a major tertiary care referral center
with unique capabilities to handle these kinds of special-needs
patients.
We are involved, through our Bio-Defense Center, in several
collaborative projects with the State and Federal Government in
both national laboratories, all of which are directed toward
basic public health research in anti-bioterrorism. They involve
all aspects of controlling the bioterrorist threat, including
prevention, early detection, and therapeutic intervention. One
such product is the Animal Development Center, which serves as
the testing site for DARPA, with ties to USAMRID, and assists
in the development of promising vaccines and new drug
therapies.
Our Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, that
Congresswoman Wilson mentioned earlier, was created a year ago,
with her support, and is focused on emerging infections to
better understand the disease process.
And finally, we have established a New Mexico Consortium
for Bioresearch, that has been formed to conduct collaborative
and innovative research, with the main focus centered on anti-
bioterrorism. The membership of the consortium includes the New
Mexico Department of Health, Sandia Laboratories, and UNM.
Let me comment on some issues related to Federal, State and
local efforts for preparedness, first with regard to
coordination and cooperation among Federal agencies.
I would first like to commend the administration for
creating the Office of Homeland Security. Although Director
Ridge has a huge challenge ahead of him in assuring the safety
of all Americans, the creation of this office is something that
our country has needed for a long time. I know, from my
personal experience in responding to natural and manmade
disasters, that the primary inefficiencies in these response
efforts have centered on poor coordination and communication
among the responsible Federal, State and local agencies. The
only way that Director Ridge can successfully assure the safety
of our country's citizens is to have the authority he needs
over the vast array of the agencies involved with bioterrorism
preparedness and response.
We must clarify the relationship between the Office of
Homeland Security and FEMA. Both of these organizations have
seemingly similar missions, and it is imperative that a
division of responsibility be outlined.
Next, with regard to preparation of the Federal, State and
local emergency management responders to coordinate a response
to a biological or chemical terrorist attack, in my view, we
are only in the very early stages of developing a reasonable
response. For many years, public health capacity has been
gradually deteriorating, and despite much effort, still needs
to be reinvigorated with substantial resources. It will take a
huge effort to reverse this trend.
And finally, with regard to how Congress and the executive
branch can address surge capacity in the public health system,
I would like to emphasize one point, that no discussion
regarding overall healthcare surge capacity can be complete
without considering hospital capacity. There currently appears
to be very little attention placed on the Nation's medical and
hospital infrastructure. This piece to the complex puzzle of
assuring our preparedness for bioterrorist acts is, in fact,
the most critical. There is no minimizing the dire straits that
our country's healthcare system is in today. Every day,
hospitals are at capacity and are constantly battling to keep
their doors open for their patients.
In New Mexico, we are seeing a progressive deteriorating in
our hospitals' abilities to admit acutely ill patients. One way
we monitor our hospital capabilities is to track the number of
times each hospital diverts emergency patients away to other
hospitals due to the lack of in-patient beds. In our system
today, this has been occurring so frequently by so many
hospitals, that we have had to develop an inter-hospital
agreement that forces all hospitals to open when they all go on
divert. That has to occur even if patients have to remain in
the emergency department for extended periods of time.
Now we track the numbers of times we must invoke this state
of forced openings. Over the past 3 years, the frequency of
forced openings has increased dramatically, indicating an ever-
dwindling ability of our healthcare system to accommodate even
the normal volume of emergency cases. In fact, Albuquerque
hospitals are often on divert more hours each week than they
are open.
Current hospital admissions data for the State of New
Mexico shows that there are over 3,000 admissions and
approximately 10,000 emergency room visits each week. Clearly
then, the sudden influx of hundreds and potentially thousands
more patients into this current situation, as a result of
bioterrorist attack, would result in a collapse of the system,
not only increasing the morbidity and mortality of these
patients, but all of the patients ordinarily cared for by
hospitals.
That concludes my prepared remarks, and I'd be pleased to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Roth follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Dr. Sewell came in after everybody else had
already been sworn in. So we can swear you in. So if you'll
stand and raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are also fortunate
here in the State of New Mexico to have a very strong and
integrated Department of Public Health and epidemiological
laboratory. I know that in some States, health departments are
kind of county by county. Here we have a very strong State-
level Department of Health, and Dr. Sewell is the head
epidemiologist for the State of New Mexico. He has been there
as the State epidemiologist since 1989, and brings a wealth of
experience in the study of disease.
And it is very much our pleasure to have you here today.
Dr. Sewell.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES MACK SEWELL, M.D., STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST,
PUBLIC HEALTH DIVISION, NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Dr. Sewell. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Representative
Udall, Representative Wilson, it's a pleasure to be here this
morning.
My name, again, is Max Sewell. I'm the State
epidemiologist, Public Health Division, New Mexico Department
of Health. Secretary Alex Valdez asked me to represent him
today. He had prior commitments and could not be here. He
extends his appreciation for the opportunity to testify before
this committee.
I have been with the Department of Health here in New
Mexico since 1984, and State epidemiologist since 1989. My
training is in epidemiology, public health, and microbiology,
and I also represent the Council of State and Territorial
Epidemiologists. I'm on their executive board. This is an
organization that represents epidemiologists and State and
local health departments throughout the country.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to examine how the
Federal Government is assisting State and local governments
prepare for a potential terrorist attack involving biological,
chemical or nuclear agents. The New Mexico Department of Health
has been working on public health preparedness for bioterrorism
for over 2 years, funded through a cooperative agreement with
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In that time,
we have partnered with other State, local and Federal agencies
in improving public health infrastructure in the State.
Contrary to the situation just a few years ago, we now work
regularly with Federal agencies such as the FBI, FEMA, and our
national laboratories. Historically, the New Mexico Department
of Health has worked most closely with the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, which provides funding for many of our
programs.
While the action of terrorists may be hard to predict, one
thing is certain: A biological attack, like the recent anthrax
scare, would manifest through the medical and public health
system, and severely overburden the existing public health
infrastructure. The goals of terrorism are not only to harm
people but also to spread massive panic and fear throughout the
population. Chemical and nuclear terrorism would also involve
the medical and public health system, but would likely manifest
much differently than a biological event. National experts
believe that the threat of bioterrorism remains very real and
necessitates and justifies the action that Congress has taken
in the last few years to improve our abilities to detect and
respond to any such event.
The recent anthrax episodes in Florida, Washington, DC, New
Jersey, and New York were relatively small events compared to
both historical examples and potential events. However, they
clearly dominated the activity of the CDC, FBI, State and local
health departments, hospitals, and others, for several months.
I would urge you to consider the importance of a seamless
response system involving Federal, State and local agencies.
The recent funding provided by Congress is essential to
implementing regional and State planning, disease surveillance,
laboratory capacity, information technology infrastructure,
communications strategy, and training that is necessary to
effectively detect and respond to any bioterrorist threat.
More importantly, the assurance of continued funding is
essential to allow agencies to recruit and retain staff, build
laboratory capacity, develop and exercise response plans, train
medical staff, and develop essential communication plans to
inform the public. Having dedicated and appropriately trained
staff is the most important element of public health
infrastructure for a bioterrorist response and for improving
public health through other essential services.
This seamless system also needs to include FEMA, police and
public safety, fire and emergency medical service personnel, so
that first-responders and disaster personnel are similarly
trained throughout the country. We need to have similar
language and an understanding of concepts between Federal,
State and local government agencies and between different
disciplines, such as public health, medicine, public safety,
for example.
Last, I would like to make you aware of the need to replace
the existing laboratory facility that currently houses our
Scientific Laboratory Division, the Office of the Medical
Investigator and the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. The
Scientific Laboratory Division is one of five State health
department laboratories in the country to have received
supplemental CDC funding for chemical terrorism. The New Mexico
Legislature has approved planning and design funds for a new
quad laboratory building, which would house all of the existing
functions, as well as the State Crime Laboratory. Replacing
this aging structure, which has greatly outgrown its existing
space, with a more modern and secure facility is also a
priority for us.
The potential for the quad lab to become a regional
reference laboratory and to serve the needs of an expanding
border population is essential to public health and to national
security. This laboratory can only happen with Federal support.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Sewell follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. You have a lot of
information that we need to know and that we need to help you.
And that is why, to all of you, if you could, take a look at
our State laws here in New Mexico, or the region, the
southwest, that would inhibit the sharing of information
between Federal, State and local officials. We have that
problem at the Federal level, but it also sometimes occurs at
the State level, and so if you have something you can put into
the record in the next few weeks, we'd appreciate it.
So we can--we'll also have the American Law Division of the
Library of Congress, and we'll see if we can't find these laws,
then. We need to do it in advance, and we need to relate to it.
And we have legislation in, that both Judiciary and Government
Reform will work with it when we get back there. So that would
be very helpful, if you would.
I'm going to ask Mr. Yim, of GAO, to join us, and we'll do
him after we've had all of the panel. We always ask the
representative the General Accounting Office to say, have we
missed something. That's why we have him here.
Let me ask a few things, and then I'll yield it over to
Representative Wilson on most of the things. But I have been
very interested in the laboratory situation in any State, and
you obviously have a very good and what would be the major
laboratory here. But if we had a germ warfare thing, or
anything else, do we have, besides your laboratory, nonprofit
laboratories that could be able to look at and see what it is
that's going on? And you don't know, often, for weeks, when you
have a germ warfare type of thing, and I'm just curious, where
are the other things besides your laboratory?
Dr. Sewell. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I
think, obviously, any laboratory and epidemiologic response is
very much going to depend on the agent and how it were
dispersed. Of the potential agents, the ones that are on most
people's lists of possible agents, things like anthrax,
smallpox, they all have very specific ways they would be dealt
with.
One of the interesting things is that our State laboratory,
some months ago, before the September 11th episode, and then
subsequent anthrax attacks, sent out some nonpathogenic strains
of anthrax to clinical laboratories, and they found that not a
single one of them were able to identify anthrax. Now, since
then, that has since changed. And there have been additional
efforts to get better training in clinical laboratories thought
the State.
In most States--New Mexico is no exception--specimens are
frequently referred to the State laboratory, because they
function as a reference laboratory. Specimens are also sent,
depending on the situation, to the CDC. Certainly, any suspect
smallpox cases, specimens, would be sent, automatically, to the
CDC in Atlanta for analysis, because they have the reagents and
capability to do so.
I think that our local hospital labs, and certainly, the
medical staff, play a key role in recognizing any potential
event. They're the frontline, and perhaps Dr. Roth may wish to
followup on that, because that's the real key to recognizing an
event, is that the right questions are asked, the right
expertise is brought in early on.
Mr. Horn. What about the universities and colleges and even
high school laboratories? If we're trying to find out what
this--whatever it is, and we don't really know what it will be,
can they be of help?
Dr. Sewell. It depends, again, on the situation. I think
they may be of help. I think that for medical-type testing, the
greatest level of expertise tends to be in the bigger
commercial clinical laboratories, the State lab, and certainly
the university arena. Many of the universities have a lot of
laboratory testing, but in many other areas.
Again, there's--I think one of the difficulties with
terrorism is that one is only limited by one's imagination,
whether there could be some novel agents or novel chemicals,
biological agents, but certainly, they tend to fall into
groups. And the conventional wisdom is that many of the agents
that would be likely to be used are fairly predictable. And
they fall into things like anthrax, plague, tularemia,
smallpox, for the biological agents; there are a whole host of
chemical agents that potentially could be used. Again, we do
have good expertise, both at the State lab and at the
university, in diagnostic capabilities.
Mr. Horn. Now, if we had such a situation, what's the
capacity of the State of New Mexico, in terms of beds in
hospitals and how that would be dealt with? And would the
National Guard have, perhaps, mobile canvas-type situations
that you'd have in a wartime; MASH, in essence. And I'd be
interested to know if we're prepared there.
Dr. Sewell. I'll take a first pass. I think that New
Mexico--one of the things we did, several months ago, was a
survey sponsored by the Department of Justice on capacity. And
the results of that survey are available. I don't happen to
recall, off the top of my head, issues like bed capacity and
county emergency management personnel. But that was assessed
during that Department of Justice survey. Perhaps Dr. Roth
could comment, better than I, in terms of the issues of bed
capacity. And again, what I heard him say, in our discussions
we had before, is the system is already experiencing issues
even without a bioterrorist attack.
Dr. Roth. Mr. Chairman, in response to the earlier
question, with regard to medical staffs' capabilities, and
laboratory capabilities, the training that's been already
implemented in New Mexico for hospital staff and in emergency
departments around--really, nationally, including New Mexico,
all would allow us to better recognize, in a fairly early way,
syndromes that would present in the context of a bioterrorist
attack. So I think we would be able to be alerted. I think the
area of greatest need, at this point, is to try to consolidate
this data through technology and have an opportunity to
recognize this phenomena much earlier than we might at this
point.
With regard to additional laboratory capabilities, the
medical school currently has four--what are called BSL3
laboratories, which is the second-highest safety level
laboratory there is. There are currently discussions underway
to provide backup to the scientific laboratory, the Department
of Health's laboratory in the event of the need for that level
of diagnostics.
Part of what Dr. Sewell mentioned earlier, with regard to
the quad services building, is inclusive of a BSL4, at least in
the very early stages of development, which would permit us to
go the next step in not only research for vaccines and drug
development, but again, to help back up the scientific
laboratories.
With regard to bed capacity, I guess that's where I tend to
be the most concerned. It's my belief that we have very limited
surge capacity for hospitals, as I mentioned in my testimony.
If we were to deal with--if one were to consider the worst-case
scenario of smallpox, and even if we had, initially, only 50
patients that presented to various institutions around the
State, the nature of that particular disease is such that you
would anticipate a tenfold next wave of those who have already
been exposed and contaminated.
Whether the system could handle 500 or 5,000, I believe, we
do not have the capability of dealing with that volume,
considering that about a third of those patients will go on to
die, even under the best of the circumstances. The necessary
critical care beds for, hopefully, preventing some of those
deaths, are clearly not present in the State of New Mexico. I
don't believe that they are present in any State in the United
States.
And that concludes my response to that question, sir.
Mr. Horn. Well, we'll get back to a few others, then. I
want my colleagues to ask a number of questions, and then we'll
get back to, maybe, what the National Guard is planning to do.
But I do want to throw this in, because we started these
hearings in Nashville. A very fine university there, just as a
very fine university here. And one of the things we found out
was that the communication situation of the military
helicopters, if you're bringing people to the hospital and so
forth, and the civilian ones, they can't talk to each other;
they have a different frequency. So one of the things we've got
to deal with is how do we connect the civilians and the
military, in this kind of a situation, so they know what's
going on.
Representative Wilson.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And just to follow on
to that, it's not only the National Guard, but the active duty
military, here in New Mexico, I would think that if we had a
national disaster, we would be searching for all kinds of
capability. In fact, down in Alamogordo, they have a lot of the
surge sets for overseas deployment, which, if we were to try to
pull in the event of a national disaster, would be accessible,
but it's the planning and communication in advance and it's the
knowledge of what might be available that's often part of the
challenge.
General, what I wanted to ask, you mentioned in your
testimony about the Civil Support Teams, 22-member team, and
the difficulty of not having the backfill capacity. What needs
to change, or what authority do you need to have, in order to
make sure that if you have a radiological doctor that's out of
service, that you've still got the capacity you need to do your
job?
General Randall Horn. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson,
the issue basically becomes that we have no bench, if I can use
a sports field type of example. We have no bench. If we lose a
player, for whatever reason, a personal reason or one being
engaged in the action that they're trained to be involved with,
is we have no one trained to fill in behind them. Each one of
these 22 people are specifically trained to do a specific
thing; there's not a whole lot of overlap between them. For
instance, the radiological doctor, they're not easy to come by.
And we have no capability to train someone, even partially, who
could fill in behind that person should something happen. So
that's the issue.
I think the thing that needs to be done is to expand the
positions on those teams such that we could try and look ahead
and say, ``Well, is this position''--``is this person looking
at leaving in the near-term future,'' and if so, it would allow
us to put somebody into a backfill position, to have them
trained and ready to move in, if----
Mrs. Wilson. Is that a question of the authorization of
those slots that you have available in the Guard, or what
prevents you from doing that now?
General Randall Horn. Well, we are specifically restrained
from hiring more than the 22 people that are in those slots. So
it's an issue of a manning document, if you will; it's what we
call a ``manning document.'' We're specifically told how many
positions we can use to fill against that mission.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you.
Dr. Sewell, what is the difference; how would you expect a
manmade epidemic, an attack, to be different from a natural
disease outbreak, and what--as an epidemiologist, you look at
the progression of disease and how a disease spreads. How
should we be thinking differently if that's an intentional use
of disease as a weapon, if you will. How do we need to change
our thinking for manmade epidemics?
Dr. Sewell. Congresswoman Wilson, I think that's an
excellent question. Of course, we've had experience with all of
these agents that have been discussed, throughout history. I'm
old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox, but from a
professional standpoint, I've never had to deal with it,
because the disease was eradicated from the globe. I think that
the issue is that a sinister mind could conceive of a situation
that could be very disruptive and deadly, depending on how that
scenario were played out.
I think a good example would be anthrax. We've dealt with
anthrax, here in the State of New Mexico, since it's a soil
bacteria; it's a disease found in cattle. Some of the old
cattle trails that came up through Texas, on up into Wyoming
and Montana, the soil is still contaminated. We have
periodically dealt with cattle, here in New Mexico, that have
died from anthrax, and the testing at the Veterinary Diagnostic
Laboratory, here in Albuquerque, part of the quad--or the
existing laboratory facility, made the diagnosis.
I think the difference is that a terrorist could--and one
of the things that came out in the recent anthrax episodes on
the East Coast, was that, apparently, it didn't take very much
anthrax, dried spore material, to be widely dispersed and make
several persons ill and kill several people. And this was a
learning curve, I think, for the CDC and for others. Who would
have predicted that sealed envelopes going through mail-sorting
machines could have made postal workers ill? There just has not
been a huge amount of experience with this disease.
There was an episode in the former Soviet Union where there
was an accidental release that killed, I think, around 65 or so
cases, something like that. And there have been other, so to
say, accidents. But I think the difference is that an evil-
intentioned person could release what could literally be a
small amount of material, if they had appropriate technology to
release it, could wreak havoc on a large population and kill or
injure tens of thousands of people.
Mr. Horn. Let me just ask about this vaccine. I have it.
You had it. And if you had a rogue government of some sort try
to get smallpox throughout America, or even in just one city,
just to make a terror, which is what they're trying to do, that
vaccine you and I had as little kids, and we didn't have
smallpox, but would that do us any good at this point, and if
not, what do we do about it, in terms of vaccine?
Dr. Sewell. I think that there's still some debate out
there. Clearly, those of us that were vaccinated as children
may have some protection, but it's probably greatly reduced
from the protection we might have had decades ago. I think
perhaps a bigger issue would be all of our children, who have
never been vaccinated, who are completely and totally
susceptible to smallpox. I think the Federal Government, in my
personal view, has taken the appropriate steps in terms of
developing stockpile smallpox vaccine, to make it available
should we need it.
There are still some issues, I think, that need to be
worked out between Federal and State and local government.
State health departments, for instance, cannot access the
vaccine today. It's under the control of the CDC and released
only by approval of the CDC director. I think we need to
reexamine this policy as more vaccine is produced. The current
vaccine, of course, is one that you just don't want to give to
everybody, because there are significant side effects of the
current vaccine. So I think that we need a balanced approach
here.
But as more vaccine is produced, I think we should examine
whether we should, on a State-by-State, hospital-by-hospital
basis, have a few persons pre-immunized. We need to have a very
balanced and cautious approach, I would advise.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Go ahead.
Mrs. Wilson. Nick, I've wanted to ask you, you mentioned
the training for first-responders. From your perspective, being
responsible for all of the first-responders in city of
Albuquerque, what is the greatest need that is currently unmet?
What do your people need that they don't now have?
Mr. Bakas. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson, just last
week, we were at our emergency command center here in
Albuquerque, on the west side, specifically going through a
scenario of--I think it was a sarin gas scenario. The training
that we need and we're trying to develop is how does the first-
responder recognize what they're coming upon. After 30 years in
law enforcement, I don't have a clue, with respect to an
anthrax incident, a sarin incident, those types of things.
Basically, our people would be going in blind. Not only that,
we have no protective equipment, going into that type of
situation.
Our policies and procedures with respect to the command
center need to be looked at and analyzed for the best effective
response. This is a totally new area for us, in how to respond.
This is an issue that we've never had to encounter. And as we
mentioned, planning is key. We're going to do exercises
continuously. We're working, as we mentioned, with Dean Roth's
folks at the hospital to recognize some of these issues, to
make our officers aware of these issues.
And in passing, let me also say, I know that General Horn
mentioned the backfill issue. But let us not forget in our
conversations this morning, that when the National Guard is
called up, the individuals you're calling up are police
officers, firefighters, and corrections officers. So the
challenge for us is, when they're doing their active duty, we
still have a city to protect and calls to respond to. So the
issue for us is a grave issue.
Additionally, what we must do within our various zones of
public safety is cross-train. There is absolutely no reason why
a firefighter cannot perform some law enforcement duties, or
vice versa. Those types of issues, clearly, have to be
addressed.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Udall.
Mr. Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, let me thank you all for coming and tell you
I think you're all--your testimony has been very, very helpful.
And I think you are pointing out some things where we could be
a lot more effective. I think the comment by Dr. Sewell on the
vaccine and the CDC; in addition, Dr. Roth's comment about
public health and improving the public health system we've
created, and I know, Dr. Sewell, that's an interest of yours;
we've let that languish too long. And it's not only important
for terrorism; it's important for public health, as we're
interconnected and we see many of the diseases that are
spreading, I think, around the world. And this issue that Nick
just brought up, in terms of equipment and training.
So I think you're bringing some very important things to
the table here today. Many of you probably listened to some of
the earlier panel that were here, and you heard many of these
Federal agencies that are supposed to be interacting with you,
supposed to coordinate, cooperate, share information,
understand and help you deal with these kinds of threats. And
what I'm wondering is, what type of grade do you give them? I
don't want this to degenerate into a piling onto the feds
situation. But what are the areas that really can be improved?
Where are the areas that we're having problems? And really, the
thrust of this hearing is how that cooperative effort is going,
and what thoughts do you have on that? And that's to any of the
panelists here today.
Mr. Bakas. In the absence of anybody else speaking, Mr.
Chairman, Representative Udall, I would give the Federal
Government, across the board, a C-minus or a D-plus in exchange
of information. And I think Mr. Dean correctly set out that
there are different statutory schemes, of which, Mr. Chairman,
you've already spoken to, that can be undone, that prohibit the
flow of information. Some information is coming, but it's
usually very limited and very late.
Mr. Horn. Any other thoughts on that question? It's a very
important question.
General Randall Horn. Mr. Chairman, Representative Udall, I
think the Federal Government has been doing pretty well. I
guess I would give them more of a grade along a B. The issues
that we have in front of us, a year ago, were not even, really,
contemplated. The issues that we have in front of us today
require that we quickly throwup some kind of a guard, if you
will, a preventive measure. But what I think the Federal
Government needs to start working on now is refining those
responses to the areas that we think can give us the biggest
bang for our buck.
There is no way that this government, whether it be State,
local or Federal, is going to protect the citizens of the
United States against a terrorist attack on all fronts. We
don't have the money, and we don't have the people. So what we
have to do is carefully decide, what are the areas that we
think we're most exposed in, and to cover from there.
But I think what the Federal Government can mostly do is to
work on the intelligence angle and be ready to respond to the
perpetrators of the attack. That's where we can get the biggest
bang for our buck, in terms of making sure that anybody who is
thinking about doing something knows that it's going to get
back to them. And if we can identify who that person or that
group is, that's going to be the greatest thing we can do.
Mr. Udall. Dr. Roth, you mentioned surge capacity. Is that
something we only need in terms of a terrorism attack, or is it
something we need, if you set aside terrorism and the threats
weren't there and September 11th hadn't happened, is it
something we need in terms of public health? And how do we
upgrade that; how do we move in that direction? Do we need
additional Federal resources devoted to this?
Dr. Roth. Well, I can speak mostly to the specific area of
hospital and medical surge capacity, to be distinguished from
an overall public health surge capacity. I'll let Dr. Sewell
speak, perhaps, to that question.
I think, from my personal observations, the ability of a
hospital and its medical staff to respond to significant swings
in volume has more or less disappeared. And that capability has
probably taken, perhaps, 7 to 10 years to occur. And I think
what significantly dealt a significant blow to hospital
capacity was the Balanced Budget Act of 97. That had
significantly reduced resources flowing to hospitals, and the
basic infrastructure necessary to support the reserves and the
ability of a hospital to contend with significant volumes more
or less has disappeared.
We can deal with a narrow range today, but, certainly, if
there was either a natural epidemic, a naturally occurring
epidemic, such as an influenza--it wouldn't even have to be an
epidemic; a small increase or moderate increase in the volume
of individuals suffering from influenza, which is not an out-
of-the-box notion, I don't believe the average hospital in New
Mexico could deal with that.
The workforce issues for hospitals has continued to
deteriorate; the ability for hospitals to hire nurses, to hire
technicians. There's currently enough--or at least early data
that would suggest that this country will be suffering from a
physician shortage, and this is in great counterdistinction to
studies done in the early 90's, that would have suggested that
there would be a surplus of physicians by this point. And I
think, as a result of those studies, training programs around
the country substantially cut back positions and even modified
the ratio of primary care to specialty programs.
And all of these factors taken into consideration, along
with managed care, I think, has not just disrupted, but I think
significantly rendered the modern healthcare system in the
United States into a very compromised position, as we currently
speak. And I do not hold out that much hope that even within
the next few years, even if there were significant changes,
that we would see much of a change.
As to what the Federal Government can do, I think issues
around reimbursement are obvious, to whatever extent some of
the impact of the Balanced Budget Act of 97 can be reexamined.
Other types of regulation that would significantly increase the
costs of hospitals are the HIPAA regulations, which is
projected to cost hospitals $7 million in infrastructure costs,
which could have done as programming. I am encouraged by recent
statements from the administration in regard to perhaps backing
off slightly on those issues, while trying to strike a
reasonable balance to patient safety and patient
confidentiality.
But I think, with regard to infrastructure support, other
grants, personal moneys that are flowing to States for hospital
capacity are a very nice beginning. I know, in New Mexico,
we've received under $1 million for all of our hospitals; that
can go to some extent to support planning and maybe some
education, but clearly not address capital improvement or
workforce issues.
An example would be the reference I made earlier to the
Health Sciences Center, in rewriting our disaster plan to
accommodate a potential biological terrorist attack in New
Mexico. In order to effectively handle patients infected by
organisms that we are worried about, it would require a
substantial change in everything from our ventilation system to
the types of supplies and the training and the preparation for
our staff. We estimate that would cost nearly $3 million. That
is only one facility in the State. There would be similar,
proportionate increases for any hospital in New Mexico.
Mr. Horn. Any other questions?
Mr. Udall. Just let me--Dr. Sewell, were you going to say--
--
Dr. Sewell. I was just going to make a quick followup to
your question, if I may.
Mr. Udall. Sure.
Dr. Sewell. I'm not sure that I could come up with a letter
grade. I do think that, speaking for the New Mexico Department
of Health, we've been working with Federal agencies for a long
time, particularly the CDC, and we have been working with
Federal and other local agencies, before September 11th. I
would state, though, that the increased funding that has come
down in the last couple of years has certainly improved that
communication, because we now have some resources to do some
things. We're partnering both with Sandia National Labs and Los
Alamos National Labs. We're working closely with the
university; we have been for many years. And we are getting to
know the FBI.
I think the concern, though, that I wanted to express was
in my testimony, and the concern I've heard Secretary Valdez
express, is concern about whether we have the staying power
here in this country. There is a lot of concern and interest
now around bioterrorism and bioterrorism preparedness. Clearly,
the recent funding that's come down for State health
departments, in my view, is greatly needed, and we're going to
do our best to try to put it to good use. The issue, though,
that keeps coming up is ``Well, will this money be here next
year and the year after, and so on?''.
And I realize it's hard for Congress to make a commitment
way out, on some of these things, but we do clearly need that
support to continue to allow us to do the things we need to do.
The concern might be that if no event occurs in the next year,
will there be pressure then to be reduce some of the funding
that's coming down. And again, a request that we all stick in
there for the long haul.
Mr. Udall. Let me just thank the panel again, and tell you
that I hope this is an opening dialog with you, about how all
of us can do our jobs better, and I hope that you will not
hesitate to let us know how we can work more effectively and
cooperatively together on terrorism, or any other issues.
And I'm going to have to excuse myself, Mr. Chairman. I've
got some other commitments.
But once again, thank you very much for coming, and thank
you for your very good testimony.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming. I
know you've got a lot of constituency things to do.
I want Mr. Yim, on behalf of the General Accounting Office,
to tell us what we are missing.
Mr. Yim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's very hard to add to the comments of this distinguished
panel. But as an attorney, let me attempt a few comments, if I
could.
First of all, I think that Mr. English points out that what
we need to do, if we're going to have an affordable and
sustainable strategy, is to augment existing mechanisms; not
necessarily build a new bureaucracy. And I think that's exactly
on point. We need to look at ways that we can adapt existing
mechanisms, like the wonderful FEMA response that he's talking
about, to handle the unique situations of terrorism.
Mr. Bakas points out the need to plan now. I think that's
exactly right. But one of the things we need to plan, also, is
to look at regional aid, regional compacts, mutual aid
agreements, so it's not just a local jurisdiction having to
plan for every contingency, but to what extent can we bring
larger regions together to augment our response.
General Horn talks about the many missions of the Guard and
the problem of backfill. I think we need to be sensitive to the
plight of the employers and the individuals, and the sacrifices
when they perform both their Guard and Reserve duties, and how
can we make it easier upon them to contribute their skills to
this national fabric.
Mr. Busboom talks about the close coordination between the
private and public sector; absolutely critical. I think it's
very instrumental for us in looking at what type of Federal
programs we should design. If we're designing programs that are
very applicable to State and local governments, they could have
no applicability to augmenting private sector resources. So are
we looking at, for example, tax credits issues, or making
available to the private sector insurance, terrorism insurance;
it may be harder and harder to get. But that needs to be a
fundamental examination; when we're augmenting capabilities,
there's differences between public and private sector.
Dr. Roth talks about the role of transferring expertise and
surge capacity. I think that really points out that what we
need to do is focus on recapitalizing some of our
infrastructure, as a way not only to augment that capacity, but
to lessen the likelihood that would be a terrorist attack. It
could be not only hospital capacity; it could be highway system
capacities; it could be energy, power distribution line
capacities. We need to really look carefully at that. And also
the role of our hospital systems and medical providers in early
detection and surveillance; not merely response, but giving us
that extra 24 or 48 hours to respond to a bioterrorist
activity.
And finally, from Dr. Sewell, the education role that he
points out, I think, is absolutely critical. One of the
problems was just the insufficiency in the activities being
taken as a result of the anthrax scares, and can we disseminate
good, good scientific information, so that our policymakers can
make reasoned choices.
I think this was a very excellent panel. It's hard to add,
Mr. Chairman, to their comments.
Mr. Horn. Let me ask you a question that a lot of citizens
have told me, and that is, with the various current reactors
that we have for getting the electricity--Illinois is a good
example; much of their electricity is generated by nuclear
forms, and I don't know the degree to which New Mexico has any
of their energy coming from a reactor. There is certainly one
in Arizona, I believe. So, if you had some nut that drove a
plane into the reactor, what would that mean to the people of
New Mexico? Do we know that?
Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, New Mexico does not have any
nuclear reactors producing power here. We do have research
reactors at both of our national laboratories, and we've had
some discussions, at the classified level, with respect to
protecting their security. And I believe maybe Mr. Busboom may
be able to discuss that a little bit, although possibly not in
this forum.
Mr. Busboom. Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to followup with you
this afternoon on that very question, while you're at Los
Alamos.
Mr. Horn. That would be fine.
Now, I mentioned that helicopter example in Nashville, and
we've had a lot of input from the law enforcement part on the
frequencies and the broadband, and all that we've got to do to
get interoperability between these. What are we seeing here and
to what degree are you able to deal with it, or are you simply
doing it by region or nationally? And the frequency problem, in
particular.
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman, I think we have a number of
problems across the frequencies. The city of Albuquerque and
Bernalillo County, where we're at now, utilize an 800 megahertz
system. The rest of the cities in New Mexico utilize a much
lower megahertz system. In addition to what General Horn
alluded to, the fact is that the military units are all on
separate frequencies. And in fact, current regulations require
the Guard to have accountability for the property within their
stores; therefore, it's not even within our ability to provide
them with radios to reach us on the proper frequencies. So a
complete relook at this is absolutely essential to our ability
to have a unified response.
Mr. Horn. Any other thoughts on that?
Well, if not, I want to first thank the following people,
and then I have a closing, that takes about a minute. To my
left is J. Russell George, the staff director and chief counsel
for the subcommittee. And our hardworking clerk, Justin
Paulhamus, is here, and he's setting-up these hearings, so we
can get things done.
And we also want to thank the field representative to
Representative Wilson, and that's Jane Altwies and then Raul
Alvillar, who is the Field Representative to Representative
Udall.
And then Beth Horna, with an ``A,'' Facility Coordinator,
University of New Mexico Continuing Education, which is this
beautiful, wonderful place, to have people from throughout New
Mexico and America, to be in this setting, where you can relate
to each other and get some ideas. We are really thankful to the
New Mexico University, and a lot of Beth Horna's team are in
this building, and if they're around, thanks.
And the court reporter, of course, is always overworked,
and that's Lynne Page Rasmussen. There she is. So thank you
very much.
I want to thank all of the witnesses. This was the third of
a series of field hearings that this subcommittee has held
around the Nation. The goal of these hearings is to learn what
our government can do to ensure that our Nation is prepared to
respond to any threat posed to it. The testimony received today
will help reach that goal. And post September 11th, we truly
live in a new world. But you're helping us solve some of these
problems, and I think this is a really excellent panel. So
thank you.
And I'll yield to my colleague.
Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for
coming to New Mexico and allowing New Mexicans to tell their
story of the things that New Mexico is doing that then can be
modeled in the Nation, and things that we need to do in
Washington to make it easier to get things done here.
I do want to say that, following this, General Horn will be
taking us out to the parking lot, where there's a demonstration
set up by the National Guardsmen and their chem/bio response
gear. Everyone is welcome to come on out to see what the
National Guard can do.
Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for coming to New Mexico.
Mr. Horn. It's a pleasure.
OK, we'll follow the general. With that, we're adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]