[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOW EFFECTIVELY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASSISTING STATE AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS IN PREPARING 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
__________
AUGUST 23, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-226
__________
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
______
87-890 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
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (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
DOUG OSE, California MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Bonnie Heald, Deputy Staff Director
Chris Barkley, Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on August 23, 2002.................................. 1
Statement of:
Bakersky, Peter, executive officer, National Preparedness
Division, Region VIII, Federal Emergency Management Agency. 31
Carballido, Raul E., Acting Special Agent in Charge, Federal
Bureau of Investigation.................................... 18
Hoffner, Lieutenant Roger E., Arapahoe County officer of
emergency management....................................... 69
Mencer, Suzanne, executive director, Department of Public
Safety, and director, Homeland Security, State of Colorado. 13
Miller, Dr. Lisa A., State epidemiologist for bioterrorism,
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment....... 40
Posner, Paul L., Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues,
Strategic Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office........... 81
Sullivan, David B., acting director, Office of Emergency
Management, city of Denver................................. 63
Wall, Larry H., president, Colorado Health and Hospital
Association................................................ 60
Whitney, Major General Mason C., Adjutant General, Colorado
National Guard, and executive director, Colorado Department
of Military and Veterans Affairs........................... 8
Wicks, Lieutenant Byron D., Office of Safety Services, Police
Division, city of Englewood................................ 79
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bakersky, Peter, executive officer, National Preparedness
Division, Region VIII, Federal Emergency Management Agency,
prepared statement of...................................... 33
Carballido, Raul E., Acting Special Agent in Charge, Federal
Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of............. 21
Hoffner, Lieutenant Roger E., Arapahoe County officer of
emergency management, information concerning emergencies in
Colorado................................................... 73
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Mencer, Suzanne, executive director, Department of Public
Safety, and director, Homeland Security, State of Colorado,
prepared statement of...................................... 16
Miller, Dr. Lisa A., State epidemiologist for bioterrorism,
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment,
prepared statement of...................................... 42
Posner, Paul L., Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues,
Strategic Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared
statement of............................................... 86
Sullivan, David B., acting director, Office of Emergency
Management, city of Denver, prepared statement of.......... 65
Tancredo, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado, prepared statement of................... 5
Udall, Mr. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Colorado, prepared statement of......................... 6
Wall, Larry H., president, Colorado Health and Hospital
Association, prepared statement of......................... 61
Whitney, Major General Mason C., Adjutant General, Colorado
National Guard, and executive director, Colorado Department
of Military and Veterans Affairs, prepared statement of.... 11
HOW EFFECTIVELY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASSISTING STATE AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS IN PREPARING FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?
----------
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Denver, CO.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at
the Jefferson County Municipal Building, 100 Jefferson County
Parkway, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn and Tancredo.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director, chief
counsel; Dave Bartel, chief of staff; Bonnie Heald, deputy
staff director; Chris Barkley, assistant to the subcommittee;
and Michael Sazonov, staff assistant.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, this hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.
On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most
devastating attacks ever committed on U.S. soil. 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
those 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 Colorado and the good people of cities such as
Golden and Denver 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 front lines. 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.
We are very pleased to have with us today as a member of
this subcommittee, and without objection, he will have full
rights to question and also to have his rights, and that's your
own representative, Tom Tancredo. We would like to have an
opening statement from him.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.001
Mr. Tancredo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very
much, for--and thanks to the committee for coming to Colorado
to discuss these issues. I am pleased because of what I have
seen up to this point in time in terms of the way that the
State has responded. I am very interested in knowing in more
detail exactly how that coordination and cooperation has taken
shape in Colorado, as are you and is the Nation.
I hope that the Federal Government is going to be able to
provide a certain model for this kind of cooperation through
the creation of the homeland defense agency where we, in fact,
are attempting to take those agencies that have a
responsibility for homeland defense and not just have them
cooperating on an interagency basis, but having them part of a
single agency with a single purpose, one director, so that
everybody seems to be, hopefully, on the same page.
This is, of course--The proposal has passed the house, and
I am certainly looking forward to it passing in the Senate. I
know that the President has proposed it and is enthusiastically
supporting it. So I think it is, in a way, a good model, at
least in terms of the way he describes it, the way people can
work together. We are not looking for a similar legislatively
directed creation of cooperation here in the State, but I think
that we can look at what has happened here and, hopefully,
around the country and take some hope away from this.
We are going to be asking people here who think about the
unthinkable, to help us through this process, and give
everyone, I suppose, a feeling of security; not a false sense
of security, but a real sense of security because they know
that good people put their minds together to come up with
programs that will work and be effective. And so I certainly
look forward to the testimony today.
And I again want to express my sincere appreciation for you
and the committee to come out here and prepare for this.
[The prepared statements of Hon. Tom Tancredo and Hon. Mark
Udall follow:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.004
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. Let me now say how we use
witnesses. We are delighted that you've put your heart in
providing us advance statements before the actual hearing, and
they have been very fine. We've looked at all of them, and our
staff is here with us. That will become part of a major report
with the House of Representatives.
And so the way we operate is, we have an agenda, you see,
we start here with the adjutant general. We will be swearing
all the witnesses to affirm the oath on the testimony and that
will be amended. But when we call on each, automatically the
reporter of debates puts that statement in the hearing, and so
you don't have to read it. You can get your own thoughts on it
in a summary that gets to the essence of your written document.
So don't feel you have to read 10 or 15 minutes. We like it
more in the 5-minute range, and then that's good for you and
us. So we thank you all for coming and spending your time.
And we will now have you stand and raise your right hand.
And if you have any staff behind you that will also talk in
answering questions, please have them take the oath too. And
the clerk will note and get the names of those, so keep
standing back there.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. Thank you. And the clerk will note that all of
them were in the back there and so forth. Just mark the names.
And we are delighted to open, as we have in other hearings,
we have Major General Mason C. Whitney, Adjutant General of the
Colorado National Guard, a very important portion of how we
deal with preventing and solving the terrorism problem.
So, General, thank you for coming.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL MASON C. WHITNEY, ADJUTANT GENERAL,
COLORADO NATIONAL GUARD, AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COLORADO
DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY AND VETERANS AFFAIRS
General Whitney. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this
opportunity to talk to your committee about the Colorado
National Guard and our participation in homeland security. As
you are aware, the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans
Affairs is the State organization that I am responsible for,
and that consists of the Colorado National Guard, which is
about 5,000 soldiers and airmen consisting of the Army National
Guard and the Air National Guard, as well as the Civil Air
Patrol, which is also an important part of our homeland
security mission.
Now, that consists of 2,000 volunteers throughout the State
of Colorado in 17 different locations, as well as the Veterans
Affairs, which consists of over 400,000 veterans within the
State of Colorado.
Basically, we have two missions within the Colorado
National Guard and, as well, the Civil Air Patrol identifies
with those two missions as well, and they include the State
mission of emergency response and the Federal mission for
national defense. Now, in preparation for those Federal
missions, we receive about $135 million per year for the
Colorado National Guard from Federal funds to train and
participate in those Federal missions of national defense. The
State mission response, we receive about $4.2 million of State
funds to prepare for State emergency response missions.
When September 11th arrived, and the terrorist events that
took place then, we immediately recalled our Air National Guard
units so that they would be prepared to launch F16s and
maintain air supremacy or take care of any kinds of activities
that still may be or may have been prevalent during the
missions that we saw that were accomplished by the terrorists.
So we had, within 15 minutes, two F16s prepared to launch
after the terrorist events on September 11th. And within 30
minutes of those terrorist events, we had both F16s airborne,
and we had all 16 of our F16s at Buckley Air Force Base
prepared in case they were needed.
Along with that, we also had our Army National Guard units
recalled that would be providing any kind of security
reinforcements for law enforcement agencies throughout the
State. All in all, we had over 1500 of our air National Guard
and Army National Guard personnel that were at their duty
stations within approximately 45 minutes of those terrorist
activities.
As you know, we also were called upon to provide airport
security in support of the law enforcement organizations that
were responsible for the airport security throughout the State
of Colorado. We had over 220 of our soldiers that were on
active duty, that were on State duty with Federal pay, for over
8 months during that period. They provided airport security to
over 13 airports throughout the State of Colorado.
During the time that we have responded to this homeland
security mission, we have performed over 4,000 days of State
active duty in response to other State emergencies, such as
forest fires that have been prevalent in the State of Colorado
this year. So, as you can see, it's been a very busy year so
far for the Colorado National Guard.
Now, of course, the Civil Air Patrol has capabilities as
well to respond to homeland security missions. Visual
reconnaissance throughout the State, coupled with their search
and rescue capabilities, is one of their main missions that
they perform within the State of Colorado.
We have some unique capabilities within the National Guard
also that aid in our homeland security mission, and one of
those unique missions that we have is a Weapons of Mass
Destruction Civil Support Team that consists of 22 full-time,
100 percent federally funded employees of the Colorado Army and
Air National Guard that respond to nuclear, biological, and
chemical events throughout the State, as well as a geographical
area that used to be defined as FEMA Region VIII, but now
they've redefined those regions to more accurately--or more
adequately deploy other civil support teams throughout the
United States so we have 100 percent coverage with every State.
That team and the teams also, the other 26 teams throughout
the United States, have been extremely busy over the last
several months. They have responded to anthrax precautions that
were taken by local agencies or by the FBI. We've also
responded to events that could be considered a chemical
liability within the State. We've supported other law
enforcement and local responders with that team in terms of
exercises, making sure that we are compatible with their
operational procedures.
All units of the Colorado Army and Air National Guard are
also trained in every possibility of warfare, and one of those
obviously is chemical warfare, biological warfare, and nuclear
warfare. That's a matter of their readiness training, so it's
something that comes second nature to them. So there is
response capability within the entire organization for those
type of events.
Sir, that basically summarizes what we've done over the
last several months in terms of homeland security, in terms of
what our capabilities are.
We also have some challenges ahead, and one of the
challenges we face, I think, is: Is the National Guard properly
equipped and trained to be able to respond to those types of
terrorist events that could happen in the future? That's
something I think that will be on a major agenda item for our
new commander of Northern Command, U.S. Northern Command down
at Colorado Springs, General Ed Eberhart.
Mr. Horn. You might want to spell that.
General Whitney. Yes, sir. E-b-e-r-h-a-r-t.
And General Eberhart, obviously, has been in discussions
with the National Guard already about what our role will be
with the homeland security mission within the military,
realizing that General Eberhart operates in a Title 10 world,
the Title 10 Federal statutes, and the National Guard operates
in the Title 32 world, which is essentially the State part of
the Federal statutes.
Subject to your questions, that's all I have, sir.
[The prepared statement of General Whitney follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.006
Mr. Horn. And we will now go to Ms. Mencer. Ms. Mencer is
the executive director, Department of Public Safety, director
of Homeland Security, State of Colorado. I assume that is the
Governor's sort of operation?
Ms. Mencer. That's correct.
Mr. Horn. Put it all together?
Ms. Mencer. Yes.
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE MENCER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF
PUBLIC SAFETY, AND DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY, STATE OF
COLORADO
Ms. Mencer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting
me to speak here today.
I think we realized in 1993, after the first bombing of the
World Trade Center, and then after the bombing of the Murrah
Building in 1995, that we needed to refocus our efforts on this
issue of terrorism, particularly domestic terrorism, which we,
I don't think, gave much attention to at all until 1995. I
think what we learned on September 11, 2001, is that our
efforts still were not sufficient to combat this threat, either
internationally or domestically.
I have the unique advantage, I guess, of having been in the
FBI for 20 years; 13 of those years I was a counterterrorism
and foreign counterintelligence supervisor, both at FBI
headquarters and here in Denver. So I have that in my
background as well, which serves me well now that I try to look
at how to protect the State with not only sharing intelligence
with law enforcement agencies, but also with looking at plans,
preparedness, and response issues as well.
On November 7, the Governor, by executive order, created
the Office of Preparedness and Security in the State. Given our
tight fiscal problems that we are having now, he created this
office using existing resources that the State already had, and
focused our efforts in the area of terrorism. To do this, we
used my personnel from the Department of Public Safety, we
used--we borrowed one person from the Department of Health and
Environment that specialized in bioterrorism, and we used two
people from the Office of Emergency Management, who have always
done a good job at protecting the State in all kinds of all-
hazards approaches to disasters.
But their specific tasking has been to look at focusing the
State on preparedness issues of weapons of mass destruction. To
do that, we have divided this office into two areas of focus.
One is preparedness, plans, and response. To do that--and this
office, by the way, was signed into law by the Governor after
passing the legislature in this last legislative session in the
Colorado legislature, so it became an office permanently in
June.
The focus of this office then is twofold. One is for plans,
preparedness, and response. To do that, the Governor announced
2 weeks ago that we were dividing the State into seven
districts. Six of those districts are the existing State Patrol
districts with one exception, and that is, we carved out the
five counties of the metro area to create the seventh district.
We didn't want the six districts to be overwhelmed by the key
assets that we have up and down the front range. So we decided
to create this seventh district of the metro area, which we
did.
These districts will then be coordinated by three
individuals: A major of the State Patrol of that district, an
OEM regional planner that is assigned to that area, and a CBI
investigator, agent-in-charge. Their responsibility will be to
bring to the table everyone from that district that should have
a say in plans and preparedness issues. They will look to fire
chiefs, to police chiefs, to sheriffs. They will look to health
care professionals in that district. They will look to
emergency first responders in that district, and ask for
assistance from the National Guard and FEMA to coordinate what
should the plans be, are the existing plans sufficient. And,
indeed, we already have good plans out there; we don't want to
reinvent the wheel. Are they sufficient to handle weapons of
mass destruction? If not, what additional responses do they
need in that area, and what kind of training and equipment do
they need that they don't already have? So we'll be looking at
that in each of the districts.
Additionally, we'll also be looking at developing an
intelligence collection piece. I think when I was in the FBI,
sharing of intelligence with local law enforcement agencies
consisted of me receiving the information from the sheriffs and
chiefs and saying, ``Thank you.'' That was about the end of the
sharing. I think what--is there clapping back there?
I think what we've learned is that we have to share better.
And, indeed, the FBI created joint terrorism task forces all
over the United States. Denver was one of the first offices to
do that. I'm sure Mr. Carballido will speak more about that.
And I'm pleased to say that we have a Colorado State trooper on
the domestic side of the joint terrorism task force. So we are
very lucky to have a seat at the table.
Unfortunately, the task forces, by necessity, are limited
as to who can be at the task forces. So we need to have a way
to better have the chiefs and the sheriffs and other folks out
there that have intelligence or that see things every day to be
able to share that. So we are going to act as a clearinghouse
for this kind of information so that we can then package it and
provide it to the FBI if it rises to the level of an
investigative concern. So that's what we hope to do.
We do need to break down some barriers among law
enforcement agencies. It is difficult, if you work hard to get
information, to then give it up and share it with other
agencies. That's always been a problem with law enforcement. So
we are looking at ways to try to break down those barriers
because I think what we've all learned since September 11th is
we do need to share better, and we are going to work very hard
at doing that.
We applaud the efforts of the Department of Homeland
Security and of Governor Ridge, and the President's initiative
to create this new department, similar to what we have done
here in the State, taking existing resources, combining them
together to focus on this issue of terrorism. So we very much
applaud that.
We are in close contact with the Office of Homeland
Security. I am in biweekly conference calls with them. I just
had one yesterday. We share their concerns. They're divided by
FEMA regions. We are with FEMA Region VIII and X on our
conference calls. And all the States' homeland security
directors are there. So it is an opportunity for us to share
our concerns, ask our questions, and get answers at that time,
and they've been very responsive to all the questions we've
had. So we have a good relationship with them.
We also--I go back about every other month to meet with
Governor Ridge and his staff. All the homeland security
directors do, and this has been very helpful as well, so that
we know where they're going, what their direction is, and what
kind of information they can provide to us to better make our
system here in Colorado more functional in working with them.
So we are busy on that.
The Governor also created an infrastructure committee 2
weeks ago, and this will be to bring in the private sectors as
well in the State. We will have at least 13 people at that
table, each representing the 13 critical infrastructures as
defined by the national security strategy. We will look at
those 13 infrastructures and then add some as well, such as
education, to decide things for the State, like the structure
of the threat level system. What does it mean for education if
we go up from a Level Yellow, which we are at now, to a Level
Orange? What does it mean--do you send your kid to school if we
go up to a Level Red? Do you ride the light rail if we are at
the red level?
These are the kinds of questions we will ask this committee
to come up with by asking their constituents to come up with
the models that we need to use and then disseminate to the
public as to how we are going to react to this kind of thing.
So that way we will bring in the private sector as well and get
input from everyone because this is indeed a problem that has
to be solved by everyone, not just law enforcement, not just
the National Guard, not just Public Safety, but we have to all
work together on this. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mencer follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.008
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That's very helpful. And in the
question period I'm sure we'll have plenty to check. And we are
now having Raul Carballido, who is the acting special agent-in-
charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Is that in the Denver
office?
Mr. Carballido. Yes, sir.
Mr. Horn. Well, we are delighted you and your other people,
starting with Y2K years ago and our jurisdiction over Federal
executive computers. And they have been greatly helpful with
their hacking and all the rest of it, and on the lootists and
the viral this or that and sickness here and there in
computers; and they've really been a great help for private
industry as well as for government. And so thank you for being
here.
STATEMENT OF RAUL E. CARBALLIDO, ACTING SPECIAL AGENT IN
CHARGE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Carballido. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Chairman, board members of the subcommittee, and distinguished
members of the Colorado delegation. I value the opportunity to
appear before you and discuss terrorism preparedness, including
threats posed by attacks involving weapons of mass destruction,
as well as measures being taken by the FBI and law enforcement
partners to address these threats. The mission of the FBI's
counterterrorism program is to detect, deter, prevent, and
swiftly respond to terrorist actions that threaten U.S.
interests at home or abroad, and to coordinate those efforts
with local, State, Federal, and foreign entities as
appropriate. The Denver field office of the FBI is responsible
for the States of Colorado and Wyoming. The field office's
headquarters is located in Denver with satellite offices
throughout the States of Colorado and Wyoming.
Enhanced cooperation among law enforcement at all levels is
a significant component of the prevention and investigation of
terrorism. This cooperation is most evident in the development
of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, short JTTF, that now exists
in all 56 FBI field offices. These task forces are successful
for the integration of resources provided by local, State, and
Federal agencies.
The Denver field office, JTTF, was formed in 1996. It is
composed of numerous Federal, State, county, and municipal law
enforcement agencies. The Denver JTTF also coordinates with the
recently created Colorado Office of Preparedness, Security and
Fire Safety to share information on terrorism-related matters.
This cooperation is demonstrated through the anticipated
sharing of an analyst who will conduct terrorism-related
research and analysis for the FBI and the Colorado Office of
Preparedness, Security and Fire Safety.
Denver, as you know, Mr. Chairman, is also home to a number
of significant military assets located in Colorado and Wyoming.
The newly established Northern Command, NORTHCOM, is now
located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. On
October 1, NORTHCOM, Homeland Security Combatant Command, will
become operational. In an effort to facilitate cooperation,
coordination, and the sharing of information between the FBI
and NORTHCOM, in issues relative to terrorism activities and
other activities of joint interest, the FBI will assign a full-
time, senior-level special agent to the command.
The Denver field office of the FBI has taken a proactive
approach in its preparation for terrorist attacks involving
weapons of mass destruction. In January 1999, Denver field
office completed its own Weapons of Mass Destruction Incident
Contingency Plan. This plan was designed to provide specific
guidance for response within the Denver field office. The plan
is updated annually and has been utilized numerous times to
resolve weapons of mass destruction threats or incidents within
Colorado and Wyoming.
In addition to the domestic preparedness training that we
have received over the years, we have also provided weapons of
mass destruction awareness and response training to numerous
law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, emergency management,
military and infrastructure agencies and organizations.
The Denver field office has also participated in numerous
local, regional, and national weapons of mass destruction
exercise scenarios. We consider our involvement in both
training and exercises to be essential to maintaining and
enhancing our relationships with our local, State, and Federal
partners.
In 1996 the FBI established a Hazardous Materials Response
Unit, which is based in Quantico, Virginia. Staffed with
subject matter experts, the unit has provided national and
international assistance in the response to weapons of mass
destruction terrorism. In May 2000, the unit certified the
Denver field office's hazardous materials response team. This
is one of 17 teams throughout the country and a regional asset
for the FBI. This team, which is comprised of FBI agents
specially trained to operate in a contaminated environment, has
the capability to respond to a crime scene where weapons of
mass destruction may be present.
We have also participated in the development of local
weapons of mass destruction response plans. An important
example of this is the recent development of a Metropolitan
Medical Response Plan for the Denver Metropolitan area and the
ongoing development of a similar plan for Colorado Springs.
In December 1998, FBI Denver took a leadership role in the
establishment of what is known as the Colorado Counterterrorism
Advisory Council. This group, which has met monthly since its
inception, includes representatives from a variety of State and
Federal agencies who have primary responsibility for response
to weapons of mass destruction issues within the State of
Colorado. The group has also established interagency
notification and response protocols which have greatly enhanced
our ability to efficiently share information and provide
response resources.
Since the deliberate distribution of anthrax in the U.S.
mail during December and October 2001, FBI Denver has responded
to more than 800 telephonic requests for assistance concerning
potential weapons of mass destruction terrorism, primarily
regarding anthrax. In addition, FBI Denver provided field
responses to potential weapons of mass destruction incidents on
more than 100 occasions and opened more than 30 criminal
investigations. The ability to handle this many incidents is a
direct result of the partnerships developed among the Federal,
State, and local response community, which included the
establishment of efficient operational protocols and agreements
for laboratory testing of chemical, biological, and
radiological agents.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, terrorism represents a
continuing threat to the United States, and as the lead Federal
agency for response to a weapons of mass destruction threat or
incident, the FBI must remain prepared to tackle this
formidable threat--formidable challenge, I should say. In order
to effectively and efficiently respond to the threat, the
Denver field office of the FBI continues to enhance its
counterterrorism program.
Chairman Horn, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would
like to express my appreciation to this subcommittee's
examination of the issue of counterterrorism preparedness, and
I look forward to responding to any questions. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carballido follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Well, I thank you, gentlemen, and thank you again
for the good presentation. We now move to Peter Bakersky,
Director of the Office of National Preparedness, Region VIII,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise known as FEMA.
STATEMENT OF PETER BAKERSKY, EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL
PREPAREDNESS DIVISION, REGION VIII, FEDERAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Bakersky. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure
for me to be here to discuss a pressing matter of how FEMA is
assisting State and local government to prepare for a potential
terrorist attack involving biological, chemical, or nuclear
agents. FEMA is the Federal agency responsible for leading the
Nation in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from
disasters. Our success depends on our ability to organize and
lead a community of local, State, and Federal agencies and
volunteer organizations. The Federal Response Plan forms the
heart of our management framework and lays out the process by
which interagency groups work together to respond as a cohesive
team to all types of disasters. In response to the terrorist
events of 2001, the Federal Response Plan has proven to be an
effective and efficient framework for managing all phases of
disasters and emergencies. The plan is successful because it
builds upon existing professional disciplines, expertise,
delivery systems, and relationships among the participating
agencies.
Much of our success in emergency management can be
attributed to our historically strong working relationship with
our State and local partners. Through our preparedness programs
we provide the financial, technical, planning, training, and
exercise support to give State, local, and tribal governments
the capabilities they need to protect public health, safety,
and property both before and after the disaster strikes.
In meeting the challenges ahead for State and local
government, FEMA's Office of National Preparedness is becoming
more robust. The mission of the Office of National Preparedness
is to provide leadership in coordinating and facilitating all
Federal efforts to assist State and local first responders, as
well as emergency management organizations, with planning,
training, equipment, and exercises.
FEMA has made the following changes to support this
expanded mission. We have realigned preparedness activities
from the Readiness, Recovery, and Response Directorate to the
Office of National Preparedness. We have realigned all training
activities into the U.S. Fire Administration to allow greater
coordination between training for emergency managers and
training for the first responders. We have moved the authority
for credentialing, training, and deploying the urban search and
rescue teams from the Readiness, Response, and Recovery
Directorate to the U.S. Fire Administration.
We continue to work with all 55 States and Territories and
federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaskan native villages
to implement our current and other grant programs to assist
State, tribal, and local governments to enhance their
capabilities to respond to all types of hazards and
emergencies, such as chemical incidents, incidents involving
radiological substances, and national disasters.
We recognize that chemical, biological, and radiological
scenarios will present unique challenges to the first responder
community. Of these types of attacks, we are, in many ways,
better prepared for a chemical attack because such an incident
is comparable to a large-scale hazardous materials incident.
In such an event, the Environment Protection Agency and the
Coast Guard are well connected to local hazardous materials
responders, State and Federal agencies, and the chemical
industry. There are systems and plans in place for response to
hazardous materials, systems that are routinely used for both
small and large-scale events. The EPA is also the primary
agency for the hazardous materials function of the Federal
Response Plan. We are confident that we would be able to engage
the relevant players in a chemical attack based on the
hazardous materials model.
Bioterrorism, however, presents the greater immediate
concern. With a covert release of a biological agent, the first
responders will be hospital staff, medical examiners, private
physicians, or animal control workers instead of the
traditional first responders, with whom we have a long-term
relationships.
The Department of Health and Human Services leads the
efforts of the health and medical community to plan and prepare
for a national response to a public health emergency and is the
critical link between the health and medical community and the
larger Federal response. The Department of Health and Human
Services is also our primary agency in the Federal Response
Plan for health and medical services.
The Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan has 17
Federal agency signatories, and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is the lead Federal agency for coordinating the
overall response, and FEMA is responsible for coordinating
nonradiological support.
Tabletop exercises have been conducted in order to
determine Federal agency resources for responding to a
terrorist attack with a radiological component. In addition,
nuclear or radiological threat posed by improvised nuclear
devices and radiological dispersal devices is being evaluated,
as well as the preparedness of member departments and agencies
to deal with these threats.
It is FEMA's responsibility to ensure that the national
emergency management system is adequate to respond to the
consequences of catastrophic emergencies and disasters
regardless of the cause. We rely on our partners at the State
and local level. Without question, they need support to further
strengthen their capabilities and their operating capacity.
FEMA must ensure that the national system has the tools to
gather information, set priority, and deploy resources
effectively. In recent years we have made tremendous strides in
our efforts to increase cooperation between the various
response communities and now we need to do more.
The creation of the Office of National Preparedness and our
emphasis on training, planning, equipment, and exercises, will
enable us to better focus our efforts and will help our Nation
become better prepared for the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll be available for any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bakersky follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you. And now we have Dr. Miller, the State
epidemiologist for bioterrorism, Colorado Department of Public
Health and Environment.
STATEMENT OF DR. LISA A. MILLER, STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST FOR
BIOTERRORISM, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND
ENVIRONMENT
Dr. Miller. Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chairman. The
previous speaker, I think, gave me a great lead-in to talk
about the ways that the Federal Government, and specifically
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is aiding
both State and local public health and hospitals to become
better prepared to deal with bioterrorism.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is
the recipient of two Federal grants recently to help us become
better prepared. The first grant I'm going to just touch on
briefly is Colorado's hospital preparedness grant. And these
grant funds are provided through the Department of Health and
Human Services via the Health Resources and Services
Administration, and they're intended to upgrade the
preparedness of hospitals. This grant was developed by the
department, but there is oversight from a committee, and this
committee has a broad range of representation. And I think
that's a really important point to make.
This is obviously a very complicated area, and I think
you've gotten the picture just from the few speakers before me
that we have a lot of coordination to do. So to help coordinate
this grant, we have an advisory committee from Veterans
Affairs, Indian health service, from community health agencies,
and from private providers, to really give us that additional
perspective. The Hospital Preparedness Advisory Committee is
led by Mr. Larry Wall, who is going to give you comments later.
So I'm not going to go into any more detail about that grant,
and I'll let Mr. Wall take that one further.
The second grant I want to mention briefly is Colorado's
public health bioterrorism preparedness grant. And this grant
is intended to build public health infrastructure, both at the
State public health level and at the local agency level. This
grant is actually about 3 years old. We started receiving
Federal funds in public health for bioterrorism preparedness in
1999, but recently the Federal Government has increased those
funds dramatically, as I'm sure you're aware. We went from
receiving about $1 million a year to, this year, $14.6 million.
And I want to point out a couple things about this grant.
First of all, although the grant is called a bioterrorism
grant, it really is intended to help improve the infrastructure
of public health so we can respond not only in the, hopefully,
unlikely event of a major bioterrorism event, but we can
respond to everyday emergencies which we have in public health
all the time. We have an example right now going on. We have a
new disease in our country, West Nile virus. So this is
intended really to help us respond to both that, ``everyday
emergency'' in public health and the other bigger issue of a
bioterrorism event.
Again, in this grant, we both wrote the grant and have
oversight in this grant by a committee. And we wrote the grant
with the input of both a broad range of State health department
individuals and local health department individuals. And then
we have an advisory committee, and that advisory committee is
actually made up of several individuals in this room. Ms.
Mencer sits on the advisory committee. Major General Whitney,
Mr. Wall, Mr. Greer and Agent Airy have been involved in the
work of the committee. So, again, we are trying to really get
some coordination between our different agencies and make sure
that the one knows what the other is doing and has input into
those activities.
The grant, as you see in my notes, is divided into six
focus areas. These focus areas are funded separately. They deal
with specific readiness preparations, that is, the writing of
the plans, the exercising of those plans, and training. They
also deal with surveillance and epidemiology, which is the
ability to detect and respond to an event quickly. So if there
is a bioterrorism event, we will know about it as soon as
possible, and we can control it quickly and prevent spread.
There's also a laboratory part of this grant that will go
specifically to help us upgrade our laboratory capacity so we
can better identify, more quickly identify, agents of
bioterrorism at the State level. We also want to upgrade local
laboratory capabilities.
There's also a section that deals with information
technology, obviously an important issue that runs through
every part of terrorism prevention and response. And we are
dealing not only with actually connecting people and making
sure they have good communication technology, but protecting
that information and making sure that our information is
secure.
We found out with the anthrax event, I think, that risk
communication or the ability of public officials and public
health officials to communicate information quickly and
accurately, is very important and can really mean the
difference in an event between quick control and not-so-quick
control of an event. We need to make sure that we have better
training in risk communication in our public health and public
official levels so that we can provide information in the best
way possible to the public.
The last area of focus in our grant is training and
education. Obviously we have a huge number of not only public
health people but also hospital staff to whom this is a
relatively new issue, and we have a lot of training to do about
the issue, about how we respond to this issue, importantly, how
we work with all our different partners here, which public
health staff are not as accustomed to working with as it should
be, probably. We are getting better at working with our
partners and knowing who those partners are, but that's still
an area of need to do some training and education in.
My final point that I would make with these funds is that
they are intended to increase our infrastructure in public
health. And I think in order to do that, a 1-year grant is not
going to work. We need to hire personnel and have training that
is very long-term. And to do that well, I think these funds,
obviously, need to be longer than 1 or 2 years to actually
improve our infrastructure in a long-term way. So I thank you
for your time and attention, and I'd be happy to take
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Miller follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Well, you've done a good job because we hadn't
had a chance to get into these grants since they have been
trickling out over the last few months, and that's very
helpful.
So now let's move to the question and answer. What I'm
going to do is have each of us, my colleague and myself, each
have 10 minutes for questions and answers. And if there's still
questions and answers to be had, we will do it again. So we'll
start with my colleague here. You have 10 minutes.
Mr. Tancredo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I've got a
couple of things that have come to mind as I listened to the
testimony. And I, again, thank you all very much for a clear,
concise presentation.
Major General Whitney, in terms of the new role, the added
role, perhaps I should say it that way, for the Guard and
specifically in the areas that you mentioned in terms of
airport security and that sort of thing, how has that affected,
if at all, the morale of the people involved in terms of a
change in what they see, I suppose, as their primary task or
role? I mean, you know, other than--I mean, it seems to me that
up to this point in time they saw themselves in a much more
active role in case of an emergency, getting in and helping
people, rescuing people, doing all the things that the Guard
has been so good at doing, rather than standing there, you
know, for hours and hours and hours and hours looking at people
walking past them. And I just wondered how, if anything, that
has affected the actual morale. Do you have any indicator of
that?
General Whitney. Sir, I can answer that fairly specifically
as well as generally. No. 1, a general answer to the question
is that, of course, we've been providing homeland security
since 1636 throughout the Nation, so we are not--this is not a
mission that is totally new to us. So we have done these types
of things more than just the national defense mission where you
have a soldier who is well versed in operating field artillery
is all at once asked to come in and provide airport security. A
trained military force is a very capable force in many
different missions. Of course they're trained in combat arms,
and so therefore airport security missions in support of law
enforcement organizations would be something that would fit
within their skill set.
The specific answer to your question, though, how has it
affected the morale of the soldiers who are involved in that
mission is, it hasn't affected it adversely whatsoever.
Actually, it's been a very good thing for most of our soldiers
with very few exceptions. All of our soldiers who performed
that mission did so with a very, very positive attitude about
representing the U.S. military, specifically the Colorado
National Guard and the U.S. Army, in a very visible manner in
that airport security mission. So they're very proud to do
that, very proud to stand in their uniforms providing that
added sense of security that would come as a result of their
presence.
Mr. Tancredo. That's interesting to know. Just as I--Every
single week as Mr. Horn, I'm sure, and I are required to do for
the job and fly in and out of Denver twice a week and passing
them each time, I always just thought to myself, ``I wonder if
they just get so damn bored that they can't stand this
anymore.'' And ``How do you stay alert?'' And ``How does it''--
that's a challenge, I think, and God bless the Guard for the
good job they do. But it just always made me wonder about that.
Ms. Mencer, the focus of most of the discussion here today
was naturally on the reactive capacity of the State in case of
an emergency. But you mentioned something that piqued my
curiosity when you started talking about what I would have
categorized, I suppose, as a preventive activity or
responsibility that you may find in your own--because it's the
office of preparedness, you're preparing for something as
opposed to trying to prevent it from happening.
So when you talk about the information sharing and that
sort of thing, I just wonder to what extent do you actually see
your role, the role of your agency, in this other capacity of
preventive, and how specifically does that play out, if at all?
What do you do in that regard?
Ms. Mencer. Well, certainly at the State level we are not
involved in investigations concerning terrorism. That would be
the responsibility and purview of the FBI. But I think what
we've learned as a Nation is that we need to have a better
mechanism for collecting intelligence and to share it, and we
are hoping that at the State level, by working with the local
chiefs and sheriffs, we can have a mechanism for doing that,
for going out and looking for things that they would have an
interest in, and then being able to disseminate that
information to the right people.
We'd like to go beyond that, though, rather than just law
enforcement, because I think, as Dr. Miller said, we have a lot
of health workers out there that see things every day. We have
a lot of first responders that arrive on the scene first, and
they need to have some intelligence as well. So we are trying
to develop a system where we can not only disseminate bulletins
that come out from the FBI at a law enforcement level, but the
Office of Homeland Security is actually looking at trying to
have a tear sheet so that information can be scrubbed and
disseminated to first responders as well, to the health care
workers, to the first emergency responders who come on the
scene, to the fire chiefs, so that they have a way of knowing
what's going on too. So if there is an explosion, they might
know that, gee, we've had pipe bombs discovered in other parts
of the State. Maybe it's a criminal act rather than just a gas
explosion.
So those are the kinds of things we are looking at trying
to facilitate. It's something that we haven't done well before,
we haven't done at all in some cases, particularly with first
responders. So it's a new way of looking at intelligence, and
we are hoping to play a part in that to assist the
investigators in their role with looking at what do we have in
this Nation.
Mr. Tancredo. Well, that's still sort of the reactive stage
which you've just described, how do we react to the event, how
quickly can we get the information to the people that will be
there first to know what they're dealing with.
But you suggest that this information sharing task that
you've been charged with is the primary role of the preventive
side of your activity. And so I guess I'm asking you to be even
more specific, if you could, and exactly, No. 1, is that
happening at all today? You mentioned, I think, that you are
looking to ways in which that can occur. Is it happening now?
Are you facilitating that and to what extent do you think that
we have increased that degree of information sharing as a
result of the agency's existence, your agency's existence? How
much more do you look forward to doing that in that regard?
Ms. Mencer. Indeed we are doing it today, and we started
shortly after the office was formed. Right now we are cobbling
together several different communications systems to
disseminate information. So we now use our CCIC, our criminal
system that we have in place, to disseminate bulletins and law
enforcement sensitive information. We use the Colorado Law
Enforcement Information Network, or CLEIN, to disseminate
information as well. We use RISSNET, which is an Internet-based
system to disseminate information. We also use an e-mail system
that's developed by my Director of Fire Safety that
disseminates information that isn't law enforcement sensitive
to fire chiefs and emergency first responders. So we indeed
send this out, and we haven't done that before. So that has
been something new. We've received positive comments from local
law enforcement agencies and from first responders, that for
the first time they're actually getting some kind of
intelligence information.
So that's been working well, but we need a better system
instead of trying to use all these different systems, and we
are working with the RISSNET people in a system that the
Colorado State Patrol already has in their possession,
Dialogic, which is a communicator system. What we found with
chiefs and sheriffs is if their information comes in via the
Internet or via their teletype machine or whatever system they
have, they don't know that it's there. There's no mechanism
with their own business practices for the clerical person when
he receives it to say, ``Wow, this is something significant;
the chief needs to see it.'' So a lot of times it sits there.
So the Dialogic system, if you plug your numbers in, your fax
number, your pager, your cell phone, your home number, it
automatically begins to call people and says, ``You need to
check your fax machine, your Internet message,'' whatever. And
so then they know. And it keeps calling them until they
respond. So it's a very annoying system, but it works.
And so we are looking at using the money from the U.S.
attorney's office, which they have been provided, and we have
requested some funding to hire a person that will do nothing
but operate this Dialogic system so that we do have a
communication effort where we can alert people that there is a
message coming in and they need to respond to it.
Mr. Tancredo. And from what agencies are you receiving most
of the information that you are presently then disseminating?
Ms. Mencer. We get information from the FBI on their
intelligence bulletins that they disseminate weekly. We also
get the same information----
Mr. Tancredo. Excuse me. Now, those bulletins would not
have otherwise--let's assume that your agency didn't exist for
a moment--they would not have otherwise been disseminated?
Ms. Mencer. They do. They are disseminated on our CCIC
system, which I think would have occurred anyway. Also the NLET
system, which the FBI uses, and we use that as well.
Mr. Tancredo. So that now that is not happening that way;
you sort of have taken over that?
Ms. Mencer. Well, no, they--Do you disseminate on NCIC? I
don't know if you do or not. I think it's CBI now.
Mr. Carballido. Well, we do from headquarters, initially,
and then there's further dissemination from CCI, and sometimes
we also disseminate from FBI Denver BOLOs, be on the lookout
for this, etc., more specific operational tactical information,
and that goes directly to the local law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Tancredo. What I'm trying to figure out here is exactly
what the role is in term of this information dissemination for
your agency. And is it truly a coordinating agency or are you
just another part of the dissemination picture? I'm not clear
on that exactly.
Ms. Mencer. I think it's both. I think what we've done is
create this whole other layer for first responders and for the
fire chiefs that didn't exist before. And they had no
information flow to them at all. So, you know, that's something
that we've created in the new office and we are trying to
enhance. And if the Office of Homeland Security proceeds with
their goal to have that tear sheet, it will be much facilitated
because they'll provide scrubbed information, if you will, on
the bottom part that we can disseminate to first responders and
then the law enforcement sensitive stuff at the top. So we are
hoping that will make our job a lot easier as well.
Mr. Tancredo. So, so far, it's mostly sort of--right now
would you consider it to be a top-down information sharing
process? You are not getting information, let's say, from
sheriffs' departments that you then--coming up to you that
you--I guess it's not--I don't know whether it's correct to say
coming up to or down from, but are you getting it and are you
sharing the information that they provide to you?
Ms. Mencer. That's what we need to work on specifically,
and that's what the seven districts will do, and the CBI
component of the those seven districts will work with the
chiefs and the sheriffs in collecting information that then we
can disseminate statewide. For instance, if District 1 says,
you know, we've received some information that's some driver's
licenses have been stolen, and then we'll be able to send that
out to the seven districts, and we'll coordinate the
intelligence, bring it to the FBI's attention so that they can
see is this something we need to be concerned about or not.
So as we work on this process of getting these districts
organized and reaching out to the chiefs and the sheriffs,
we'll have a method of not only disseminating it from the top
down, but then disseminating it from the bottom up, which we
need to do and which we haven't done very well as a Nation, I
don't think.
Mr. Tancredo. Well, I appreciate the chairman's indulgence
here on this because I'm just trying to get a good, clear
picture of exactly what it is that you are charged with doing
and how effectively it has, you know, begun to operate so far
and where you think you want to go with it.
It is confusing because there is this, you know, sort of a
generic application of the word ``dissemination,'' and we use
it a lot, and we talk about the need for information sharing,
and are never sure if just the creation of an agency that is
supposed to help in that purpose can actually be that single
source or it just becomes another one of the things that people
sort of look forward to hearing from periodically, people sort
of down the line from it. And it's a challenge, I think,
enormous challenge, of course, to figure out exactly what role
you're going to play that isn't being played by some other--by
the FBI and other Federal agencies.
But let me take it one step further then. To what extent do
you communicate or have communications with other Federal
agencies that have responsibilities for internal security,
specifically, let's say, the INS, Customs, even more
specifically, Border Patrol; perhaps that wouldn't be the one
because, although they do have, of course, internal security
apparatus, to a couple of agents, anyway, do you have any
involvement with them whatsoever?
Ms. Mencer. Well, we are a part of the CTAC, which was
mentioned earlier, the counterterrorism committee that meets,
the State patrol, so we do have participation with other
Federal agencies on that. I'm in regular communication with
ASAC Carballido, so I speak on a frequent basis with the FBI
because I have a relationship with them, obviously, which I
think is a good thing at this point in our Nation's history,
particularly in this State that I do have that relationship
with the Bureau, and I appreciate that.
And we, as a State, I don't see our role as coordinating
with Federal agencies as much as I do with trying to coordinate
the local folks out there. And I think because we in law
enforcement are particularly territorial with the information
we collect and receive, that we do need to begin to share more
with sheriffs, sharing with the chiefs, and chiefs sharing with
the sheriffs, and that kind of thing, and I see the State's
role more as that coordination piece. There is an inherent
distrust, I think, in law enforcement between local police
agencies and the Federal agencies, and I think that is historic
and has been going on for a long time. I don't think we are
about to change that quickly. But I don't see the Federal
Government being able to come in and do that. I think at a
State level it's much easier for us to say we all need to work
together in this, and then help with that intelligence piece to
provide information to the FBI. But, as Mr. Carballido and I
have discussed, it needs to go both ways, and the FBI needs to
begin to bring things down as well, and hopefully we'll act as
a conduit for that too.
Mr. Tancredo. Maybe the creation of the Homeland Security
will help--hopefully that will help in this rather confusing
and sometimes convoluted process.
And the last question I have is for Dr. Miller. There is an
agency I visited sometime ago, and I apologize because it slips
my mind, but it is located at Buckley. It's unique. Maybe I
shouldn't say unique, but there may not be more than one or two
others around the Nation. It has the ability to respond
immediately to an event, chemical, biological type of event,
and tell the State exactly what it is with which we are dealing
with that particular agent. And I'm just wondering if--I didn't
hear anything about it, I guess, or any coordination of
activity with that. It seems like it was an enormously--When I
visited, I thought to myself, ``God, what a great asset to have
here in Colorado,'' because I think it's----
Dr. Miller. Are you talking about the civil support team?
Mr. Tancredo. That's it.
Dr. Miller. That's General Whitney's. And, actually, we
work very closely with them. If they're evaluating, say, an
anthrax threat, we are often talking to them. And our lab
serves as a confirmatory lab. If their testing showed that they
thought they had some agent, our lab would test it and confirm
it. So we are very familiar with them.
Mr. Tancredo. General, maybe just to share with the
committee what the responsibility--because I thought that was
just so great when I was there, I thought, you know, this is in
Colorado only or very few States, anyway.
General Whitney. Well, no, sir; actually there are 27 teams
right now. We were the very first team organized, very first
team certified. We've got the best team in the Nation here in
Colorado. I'm not biased as all in that.
Mr. Tancredo. Tell us exactly what its responsibility is.
General Whitney. It's a team--The designation is Weapons of
Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, and we are team No. 8, is
our designation, because of FEMA Region VIII as to what we were
originally assigned to.
Specifically, they are designed to take this 22-person team
to a site that has been designated as a possible nuclear,
biological, chemical, radioactive, or even a high explosive
site, to determine if there is any type of agent there that
requires special protective measures as well as to mitigate
whatever it is that they find. They have tremendous reach-back
capability with a communications suite, a truck that has every
kind of communications gear you can think of. They have a
tremendous capability to analyze on the scene with a mobile
analytical laboratory, which is probably what you saw when you
went out to Buckley.
It's a one-of-a-kind-in-the-nation capability for this
team, obviously, for the 27 teams that have this. So it's a
tremendous asset for any community to have in place already,
but it's also an asset that can be deployed anywhere in the
Nation, whenever the need arises.
Mr. Tancredo. Again, I really appreciate the chairman's
indulgence here.
Mr. Horn. No, I think when you've got a good topic, keep
going.
Mr. Tancredo. Well, that's it. I guess I'd say that the one
thing I remember about that tour is that there was a hope on
their part that there would be a lot more knowledge, general
knowledge, about their existence and about their ability to
actually coordinate than evidently was the case then. They felt
that they were somewhat unused, that there was--you know, here
we are, this great thing, and how many people even know, how
many even local agencies know that we are there to respond if
they have something like that. So that's why I kind of wanted
to bring it out here, and, hopefully, I don't know, just get
people to be more aware of its existence which, again, seemed
like a great asset.
General Whitney. Sir, I'm not sure how long ago you visited
the organization out at Buckley.
Mr. Tancredo. It could have been a week ago or 2 years ago,
in my mind, I don't know; they all kind of fall together.
General Whitney. Within the last 8 months or so, they have
been very active and responded to numerous calls in support of
the FBI as well as local agencies. So I think we have done, I
think, a much better job in advertising their capabilities to
all those responders that may require their capability.
Mr. Tancredo. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Let me followup in another way involving Ms.
Miller and Ms. Mencer and also the general, and that is, what
do we have in hospital capacity should there be some attack of
biology, chemistry, nuclear, whatever? And I just wonder to
what degree and I guess we will address that in the other panel
and get a lot of knowledge there. But what's your figure on
that?
Dr. Miller. Well, actually, surge capacity in our hospitals
is a huge issue and there are few empty beds right now, so this
is a major problem in the case of a bioterrorism event or any
other event that requires a lot of hospital beds. And one of
the major objectives of this hospital grant is to create
regional hospitals that will serve 500 patients, which is far
beyond what we could do today. So we need to be creative and
think of ways and places where you could actually take care of
500 patients in a region if you had to.
And people are also looking at ways to increase bed
capacity in the case of an event and working out scenarios for
that. I think probably Mr. Wall could give you a lot more
detail about that question, but it's obviously an issue and one
that will be addressed in the hospital preparedness grant.
Mr. Horn. How about the Veterans Administration, are they
involved in these committees and all the rest?
Dr. Miller. They are.
Mr. Horn. How about it, General, are they at the table when
you're coordinating things?
General Whitney. Sir, we don't really have an interface
with the Veterans Administration other than our veterans
affairs organization we have within the Department of Military
and Veterans Affairs. Most of the interface that we have is the
same thing that we have with public safety as well as public
health and environment. So we go to the same meetings that they
go to, but we don't have a direct interface with them.
Mr. Horn. When we started with the first of these series,
it was in Nashville, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt Medical School
and Hospital. And we had various diversions trying to get the
rural parts of Tennessee involved as well as the urban. There
is an incident where you had some strange thing that's attacked
people, and they don't quite know what it is yet, and they want
to bring it into an urban hospital and land the helicopter on
the roof. We found out that even with all of the military forts
and camps and you name it in Tennessee, the military
helicopters could also sit on the roof. However there was no
communication between them because of the difference
frequencies.
And I'm wondering, General, have we got any feeling around
that we've got some frequencies where people can go and involve
the law enforcement very rapidly and so forth? How much of a
problem is that?
General Whitney. Well, that is a significant problem. We
have military frequencies, normally VHF and UHF radios and some
FM radio capability in our military aircraft helicopters, as
you talked to. We have significant Army aviation capability
here in the State of Colorado within our Colorado Army National
Guard.
However, we also have the capability to talk to other local
responders through a digital trunk radio that has been issued
to the Colorado National Guard, and we can give those to a
helicopter that, say, has to land on the roof of a hospital
somewhere if we need to. OEM has done a very good job, I think,
of making sure that all the State emergency responders can
communicate with each other in that respect.
Mr. Horn. Well, that's encouraging. I'm also interested in
where we stand with laboratories other than CDC and other than
the State of Colorado. Is there a use for the the various
colleges' and universities' laboratories? Also the community
colleges and the high schools if you're out in a rural
situation, because Colorado is spread out and it's long miles
to get to some of the things that we ordinary go and just think
it's everywhere as in urban America or urban Colorado. How do
we help the people in the rural part?
Dr. Miller. That's a very good question, and the issue of
surge capacity is also a huge issue. It doesn't take a lot for
laboratories also to become overwhelmed if there's an event.
And one of the things that we are doing within our bioterrorism
grant is trying to bring all these laboratories together, the
hospital laboratories, the CSU laboratories, the university
laboratories. We've done a survey and tried to find out who has
the capability, who needs to be trained in order to understand
what tests you can do to rule out a bioterrorism agent, who
needs to be trained about how to handle these things carefully
because, obviously, you do. So that's a part of our work, to
try and reach out to these other labs.
And we recognize the rural issue too, and that's why we are
trying to increase the capacity in our local health
departments, like Mesa Health Department, Weld Health
Department, El Paso; even though that's a metro area, they
serve a rural area. So we are trying to address that issue.
Mr. Horn. Now, CDC, as I believe, has a certification
program in some of these laboratories. Is there a range of
complexity? How does it work?
Dr. Miller. Yes, there is a range. There are level A, B,
and C laboratories. The State lab is a level C. That means we
can quickly identify bioterrorism agents using advanced
molecular methods. Level B laboratories have less advanced
methods. Level A laboratories are basically clinical labs where
they do hospital sorts of work. At that level lab, really the
lowest level lab, they need to be able to rule out an agent,
and say, ``I identified it as X, therefore I know it's not
anthrax.'' If they can't rule it out, they need to know how to
package it and get it to us or get it to a level B laboratory
where further work can be done.
Mr. Horn. Is there an overwhelming feeling yet in the
Atlanta CDC where they're just overcome with people sending
samples in and all this. And will that get done or will we have
to do it in another way by using the States and the localities?
Dr. Miller. I think during the anthrax event that was
definitely the case. Laboratories were overrun. And people are
definitely trying to figure out how to avoid that if we have
another threat like that. And one of the things we need to do
is work closely with the FBI, and we did that in Colorado. We
need to make sure we have good threat assessment and that our
laboratories are only used when there's a credible threat.
Some States didn't do that; they allowed every specimen
under the sun into their labs, which is dangerous, first of
all, because those specimens weren't screened well, but it also
used up their capacities so that they couldn't respond if there
had been a credible threat. So I think we actually did that
pretty well in Colorado. We were not completely incapacitated
during the anthrax event, and we want to continue to maintain
that kind of policy and work closely with the FBI to do that.
Mr. Horn. Do you agree, gentlemen from FEMA and the FBI, on
this?
Mr. Carballido. I agree wholeheartedly. The protocols that
we set in place and worked very hard on were instrumental in
the screening process, absolutely.
Mr. Horn. Has that been done around the Nation or is it
just Colorado that's doing it?
Mr. Carballido. It has been done in many places but not
everywhere.
Mr. Horn. Because of your protocols which you're very
strong on, I come from Los Angeles County. We have had
protocols, compacts, contracts, whatever you want to call it,
for law enforcement, for fire enforcement, all of that, so we
can help each other even if it's 500 miles north in the Santa
Clara Valley or Central Valley and up to Stockton so where they
need help. So do we have a lot of that here in Colorado?
You've got the big city here. And what about with the
terrible things that have happened in a lot of these States,
and one of them is Colorado, in terms of the fires and all,
which puts tremendous pressures on trying to get something
done. What do you hear on that and what do you think about it?
Mr. Carballido. We were not involved in the fire issue,
sir. That, we were not involved in.
Mr. Bakersky. The protocols that we have in place for
support from other Federal agencies, other State agencies. As
far as the FEMA Region VIII, because of western-type climate,
you know, large concentration in small areas of population, a
lot of the protocols for mutual aid have been in place. A good
example that we had, we actually tested most of our protocols
during the Olympics in Utah. We brought in all of our
resources, not just Federal assets, but also additional State
assets, using the protocols--like Dr. Miller was mentioning the
anthrax--that were actually used during some of the anthrax
scares, during the Olympics.
So I think in this region we are fairly fortunate because
of some of the activities that we've had. We've had the
protocols in place between the law enforcement, between the
emergency management agencies. Like with the Pope's visit, the
G8 visit, the Olympics. So we've had a lot of real-world events
that helped develop this partnership between Federal/State/
local, not only in the law enforcement side of the house, but
also in the emergency management/public safety side of the
house. So they've been tested and they work fairly well. And a
lot of our protocols are basically prototypes for some of the
rest of the Nation, and also the activities that we did in the
Olympics are now prototypes for other agencies throughout the
United States.
Mr. Horn. Some people in other States have said there's
just too much money being spent on planning rather than
providing necessary equipment and training for those on the
front lines of emergency response.
Can you give us a feeling of what's happening there? Is it
just planning or are we getting the goods so people can do
their job, be they a first, second, or third responder? FBI?
FEMA? Anybody else want to take it?
Mr. Carballido. I would simply say that planning is also
paramount. I don't know if there's a balance between equipment
and planning in place, but planning cannot be underestimated.
We exercise the plans, and I think that's why we were
successful in responding to the anthrax threat, which was
major, as you well know. So I really don't know if there's a
balance that exists in Colorado between equipment, training,
and planning, but planning is paramount.
Mr. Bakersky. One of the things we looking at with the new
grant process is just not the planning, but the planning also
includes equipment. When we are saying planning for equipment,
we are looking as the interoperability of the equipment. We
want to make sure that we have a standard. That's what we are
trying to do with the new grant process is setting up a
standard. Resource typing, so that if you request a certain
thing from another area, you're getting the same. Some of the
problems that you have in equipment, even on September 11th,
things just as easy as hose thread. You had on Staten Island--
--
Mr. Tancredo. As what?
Mr. Bakersky. Hose thread, thread on the end of a hose. The
Staten Island Fire Department does not have hose that can be
connected to New York City hydrants. So what they're trying to
do--So you have the planning in equipment, but what you're
trying to do is provide a standardization of equipment that
could be used throughout the United States. A good example----
Mr. Horn. That's fascinating to me. These were borough
differences of the five boroughs or so?
Mr. Bakersky. Yes, sir.
Mr. Horn. We do know Staten Island is different.
Mr. Bakersky. Yes, sir. I'm from New York originally, so--
--
Mr. Horn. And they didn't know about that until the
problems came?
Mr. Bakersky. Probably not because they really did not--New
York City being such a large organization, they didn't have
mutual aid compacts in place. When you have a fire department
of 18,000 individuals, they've never had an event that was
beyond the scope of their capability, that they could not
handle it with their own internal structures. September 11th
came down and it did raise some issues.
There's other examples you could use, like scuba gear. You
can go from one end of the country to another end of the
country and the regulator on scuba gear is the same. You go to
the fire fighting community and MSCA and 3M and SCBA equipment
all might be different threads. So that's one of the things we
are looking at besides the equipment, to have the planning to
be sure that you have the interoperability of the equipment
that can be used in response to an event.
Mr. Horn. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's
news to us. But you never would hear it in most places in
America anyhow unless you've seen it there.
Any other little things like interoperability not
happening? Or do you all have interoperability in Colorado?
You're either sick of hearing it or is it done? And are there
still gulfs somewhere that aren't getting treated?
Ms. Mencer. Mr. Chairman, I also serve on the national task
force for interoperability as well.
Mr. Horn. Boy, am I going to follow you around.
Ms. Mencer. In my spare time I do that. And I'm happy to
report, after listening to the other States that are
represented on that task force, that we are far and away above
many other States with our interoperability issues, and I think
that's due directly probably to Columbine, which emphasized to
us that we needed to be interoperable.
We have the digital trunk radio system in the State. We
have been progressing through different sectors of the State to
accomplish that. Unfortunately, our funding was stopped this
year because of our fiscal problems again. But once we get our
funding reestablished, we'll continue with our progressing
across the State with getting our DTR capabilities up. But, as
you know, it was just announced earlier this week, Senator
Campbell effected this system that will be like a patch system
for different radio systems so that those areas of the State
that are not interoperable, they will be able to use this
system to patch through and get them connected. So that is not
a long-term solution to the problem of interoperability but is
a short-term fix until we can get the digital trunk radio
system up all over the State. So we are working very hard at
that, and we have made great progress at that in the last
couple of years.
Mr. Carballido. If I may add, Mr. Chairman, we also have a
similar piece of equipment that we obtained--we were one of a
number of offices in the FBI--from our research facility that
accomplishes the same purpose, and this was done after
Columbine as well.
Mr. Horn. Now, how much does this cost in terms of those
that have equipment and need to be changed? And when the
Federal Government gives a grant out, do you think they ought
to say and demand it, that if you're going to use the
taxpayers' money, it ought to be the right way, and figure out
what are you going to do with the equipment that is not doing
very well? How do you handle that?
Ms. Mencer. Mr. Chairman, this national task force is
looking to make statements to bring forward to the Office of
Homeland Security, to the President, stating what they believe
are the best practices as far as interoperability goes.
I was amazed to learn when I attended my first meeting of
this task force that some States don't even see the need for
interoperability, which I think is amazing. But, of course,
most States haven't had a Columbine incident to reinforce the
necessity of this.
I think they will be coming forth with the statement
encouraging that all States go to some level of
interoperability, 800 megahertz, 700 megahertz, whatever it
happens to be for that State. I think we will see all States
coming on board with this eventually. But, again, I think
Colorado is far ahead of that curve, and I'm happy that it is.
But it is a continuing issue. I think the Office of
Homeland Security is looking at earmarking some funds
particularly for interoperability, and that may be what we need
as a State to continue with our progress with getting the other
sectors up in line. So I'm hopeful that we'll see some funding
in that regard.
Mr. Horn. Well, that's good because there's been some
concern about the department created, that they haven't gone
for standards against which one can then know we've done
something right or we haven't. And so we are going to urge that
a little bit and give it a nod.
There's a number of questions we have here that we might
want to use for you. And let me just say, if you had 30 seconds
with the President of the United States, went into his office,
what would you say to President Bush is the most important
thing on dealing with terrorism?
Let's just go down the line. General?
General Whitney. Well, sir, I guess as it relates to my
specific mission area, I would ask him how we could implement
new equipment, new training, and new parts of our organization
in order to be able to meet the challenges of this terrorist
threat.
Mr. Horn. How about it, Ms. Mencer?
Ms. Mencer. Well, I would first compliment him, I think, on
what he's attempting to do with the Department of Homeland
Security. I think focusing existing resources is what we need
to do. And I think the resources are there, the capabilities
are there. We need to have a place to focus those, and I think
he's doing that, as we've tried to do in the State as well.
Mr. Carballido. Mr. Chairman, I think I would ask the
President for a great deal of money and technology that exists
presently to create data bases throughout the country that
could better coordinate all the information that we all receive
at the various levels, to better connect the dots and improve
on our intelligence base, because for us that is the key to
prevention and to be in a proactive posture so that we don't
have to involve ourselves in crisis management.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Bakersky.
Mr. Bakersky. I would stress that we continue the
initiatives that were started with the fiscal year 2002,
supplemental fiscal year 2003, providing resources, both
monetary and personnel resources, to States and locals, which
basically are the first responders. They're the individuals
that are going to be putting their--everything on the line.
When we have an incident, we have to make sure that we have
funding streams in the initiatives that are started and
maintained for the next 3, 4, 5, 6, however many years it
takes.
Mr. Horn. Dr. Miller.
Dr. Miller. I would panic, first of all, but----
Mr. Horn. No, you wouldn't. He's a really friendly guy.
Dr. Miller. He does seem like a really friendly guy.
I would echo some of those comments, and I would stress
that this is really a new role for public health. And if we are
really going to develop this capacity in public health to
respond to bioterrorism and to be part of emergency plans, we
need long-term infrastructure support.
And I would also try and frame public health as part of the
first responder community. I think it's easier to understand
that way that we also need to be prepared to be first
responders, and that's a new role.
Mr. Horn. Very good. Any more thoughts?
Mr. Tancredo. Nothing more. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very,
very interesting.
Mr. Horn. And we have with us the General Accounting
Office, and at the end of the next panel. We bring them here
because we've got over 50 blue books already, and it's very
worthwhile material, if you don't have it, and I would hope GAO
would send it to all of you. And we ask them, what haven't we
done? Where are the openings that we don't know what we are
talking about? And then go back to it. So that will come up
after the next panel.
So you've done a wonderful job, all of you. And I think
Colorado seems to be in good hands. So we will now move to
panel 2.
[Recess.]
Mr. Horn. Recess is over. And before we begin with Panel 2,
there is a statement, a very fine statement, by Representative
Mark Udall, and I would like the reporter to put that following
the Horn and Tancredo statements at the beginning of the thing.
We'll put Mr. Udall's in as it is, and she will give it to you.
I just want to make sure everybody is here. We've got Mr.
Wall, Mr. Sullivan, Lieutenant Hoffner, Lieutenant Wicks, and
Mr. Posner, so you know this procedure. Since it is an
investigative committee, if you have any staff to support you,
have them take the oath so I don't have to do it in the middle
of the areas. So if you'll raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The five witnesses have affirmed the oath, and we
will begin with Mr. Wall. If some of you haven't been here in
the first session, we were going right down the line in order.
And as we call your name, your whole, full written statement is
automatically put in to the report, so you don't have to give
every word in it, but we would like to have you give us 5
minutes or so, or maybe 10 sometimes, if it's that wonderful,
and we would like you to give us the summary of it, and then we
can get into the question period at the end, and we'll do that
in each case. We've looked at the documents; they've been very
good.
And so we'll start right now then with Larry H. Wall,
president of the Colorado Health and Hospital Association.
STATEMENT OF LARRY H. WALL, PRESIDENT, COLORADO HEALTH AND
HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION
Mr. Wall. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
opportunity to be here. In addition to my responsibilities as
president of a hospital association, I'm also a member of the
Governor's Epidemic Emergency Response Committee, and I chair
the Hospital Preparedness Advisory Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify before you this morning.
September 11th has obviously created a new world for all of
us, and that includes hospitals. Hospitals as first-line
responders have always been the foundation of a response to the
medical needs of patients, be they personal or as a result of
natural disasters or flu epidemics.
Historically, the resources of the hospital system have
been adequate to meet the needs. The potential use of weapons
of mass destruction and bioterror agents, however, results in
the need for a whole new level of preparedness. There are at
least eight areas that need to be addressed. One, communication
and notification, and we've heard a lot about that already this
morning. Communication for hospitals is as critical as it is
for other organizations and agencies. Disease surveillance and
reporting and laboratory identification. That was referred to
earlier as part of the intelligence network, which I think is
an important issue. Personal protective equipment. Facility
enhancements. Decontamination facilities. Medical, surgical,
and pharmaceutical supplies. Training and drills. And mental
health resources. At this particular point the resources are
not adequate to address all of these needs.
Just to use a very simple example, the 2-year HRSA
allocation for Colorado is approximately $4.5 million, or
roughly $70,000 per hospital. The estimated cost to address the
communication issue alone is in the neighborhood of $3.5 to
$3.7 million, leaving little for the remaining seven areas of
need.
The current allocation of dollars, while it is very much
appreciated, is really inadequate to meet the needs with regard
to hospital preparedness. I think it's important to understand,
however, that the public can certainly be assured that
hospitals will be as prepared as they possibly can within the
constraints of the available resources. Neither Congress nor
the American public should assume that at the current level of
Federal funding that hospitals will be fully prepared to handle
the outcome of a significant event. We are significantly ahead
of where we were on September 11th, and progress on
preparedness will continue to be made. But more funding is
needed if hospitals are to meet what I believe are the
preparedness expectations of Congress and the American public.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify, and
I'll certainly be happy to address specific questions with
regard to hospital issues, some of which were raised in the
earlier testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wall follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7890.032
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much, Mr. Wall. We now have David
B. Sullivan, acting director, Office of Emergency Management
for the city of Denver.
STATEMENT OF DAVID B. SULLIVAN, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, CITY OF DENVER
Mr. Sullivan. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity
to speak to you today. The events of September 11, 2001 have
greatly exacerbated the threat to this country from terrorist
attacks. Congress's willingness to provide leadership,
direction, and funding to support our preparedness efforts has
been greatly appreciated. We at the local level are thankful
for the support we've received from Congress and the
administration. Our efforts in Denver began prior to September
11th with the Nunn-Lugar-Dominici legislation. The equipment,
training, and support we have received through that program has
greatly enhanced our preparedness; however, there is still a
great deal of work to be done.
The $3.5 billion allocated for first responders in the
President's homeland security strategy is truly needed, and we
applaud the efforts of the administration and Congress, but
there are some concerns. First and foremost is the competitive
nature of the grant process that pits local first responders
against each other for the Federal funds. This has been a
problem in the past with the Department of Justice grants and
continues to be troublesome.
Terrorism events will tax the full resources of local
jurisdictions, States, and the Federal Government. We must be
prepared to respond in a comprehensive manner utilizing all
resources available. The burden for response lies squarely on
local jurisdictions. State and local Federal resources are
sometimes hours or days away. The capability of the initial
response is what will save lives. Rather than fund specific
first responders, funding should be made available through
local jurisdictions to provide for all their needs rather than
preidentified disciplines. The breakdown of the funding in the
homeland security strategy identifies how the moneys will be
distributed. The distribution is similar to past DOJ programs
in that only 9 percent of the $37 billion allocated for
homeland defense will go to local jurisdictions. Of the moneys
going to the States for pass-through funding, 25 percent will
remain at the State level for whatever requirements the States
determine. However, the 75 percent passed through to local
jurisdictions are predetermined, fitting into defined
categories of planning, equipment, training, and exercises.
Amounts are predetermined for each category and the State
determines priorities. Unfortunately, each jurisdiction's
different, with different threat levels, different levels of
preparation, and different resource needs. As such they should
be given the same opportunity the States have in determining
how the moneys are utilized.
Emergency management, by its very nature, must integrate
and collaborate with all the players involved on issues of
domestic preparedness. Funding is required not only to provide
initial resources, but also to create an infrastructure of
domestic preparedness that will be a long-term integrated
component of the day-to-day operations of an emergency
management system. Federal support for local emergency
management programs have slowly eroded over the past 15 years
to the point where many emergency management programs have
either been dissolved or incorporated into other supplemental
responsibilities of another municipal agency or department.
Local emergency management programs have always been the
forgotten stepchild of other public safety agencies in terms of
funding and authority. While the various and numerous Federal
agencies have provided grants to traditional first responders,
there has not been funding directed to support local emergency
management agencies. Federal funds to build, maintain, or
improve local emergency operation centers ended nearly 10 years
ago, and there are little or no local funds to pay for capital
improvements to such centers. If local communities are truly
expected to be the first line of protection in the new homeland
defense system, they must be properly equipped to facilitate
efficient and effective decisionmaking in an adequate emergency
operations center. Funds are needed to immediately--funds are
needed immediately to upgrade and establish a full functional
EOC in each community.
While we at the local level support the enhancement of
homeland security on a national level, we must never lose sight
of the normal day-to-day emergencies and disasters that affect
and could potentially devastate our communities. Attention and
resources for floods, tornadoes, winter storms, wildfires, and
other natural technological hazards must not be diminished at
the expense of today's hot topic of weapons after mass
destruction and homeland security.
As local emergency managers, we stand ready to assist by
coordinating the planning, training, and resources of our
jurisdictions in developing comprehensive readiness programs.
We look to you for assistance in developing these programs,
recognizing the critical coordination role that local and
emergency managers play in developing readiness programs. We do
not operate as single disciplines when preparing for or
responding to natural disasters, and we certainly should not do
so within the arena of terrorism.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. Lieutenant Roger E.
Hoffner, Arapahoe County officer of emergency management. Glad
to have you.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT ROGER E. HOFFNER, ARAPAHOE COUNTY
OFFICER OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Hoffner. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I
apologize I don't have a prepared presentation. I was under the
understanding that my sheriff was going to be presenting this
morning, so I bowed to him.
What I'd like to do is--and what Dave Sullivan said, I
agree to wholeheartedly. The emergency managers in the
metropolitan area work very closely together, and what he said
is right on track. I'd like to say a little bit about where I
came from before I get to where we are and where we are going.
In 1996 I became the emergency manager for the county.
Before that I was a deputy for over 15 years. And up to that
point the only thing I knew and was aware of is what the
responsibilities were for our response on the street to those
everyday calls. I had no understanding or very little about
incident command. I had very little understanding about
preparedness for big disasters, none of that. And when I took
the emergency management position, I found out that the job was
probably more massive than I ever imagined, and it's more
massive than I still imagine. I have never had a job that I
haven't been able to master in 6 months to a year, and I've
been doing this for 6\1/2\ years, and there are days I still
feel lost. It's an incredible job.
In 1998 I had an opportunity to go to an exercise sponsored
by the Department of Energy in Las Vegas. It was then that I
started learning about PPE, personal protective equipment. They
talked about the Quick Masks that every capital police officer
in D.C. was wearing on their belt. I took that back and decided
to do a grant to try to get gas masks. Because if we look in
most of our police cars, they'd be lucky if they had an old
military gas mask that's a false sense of security; they have
nothing.
So with that money I applied for, $45,000, I got 400 gas
masks. And the other thing that went with that is I tried to
find out from government what was the best thing I could get
for my money. And they all said, ``Well, now, we could give you
a list of things, but we can't tell you which one because
that's a conflict of interest.'' Well, I found that very
frustrating because I wanted to spend the best money that I
could, get the most I could out of it, and be able to protect
my people. So I did my own research and I bought 400 masks with
the best chem/bio filter they had and distributed it to our
people in Arapahoe County, but I was still 1,000 gas masks
short of what I needed. When we started----
Mr. Horn. What do you have now?
Mr. Hoffner. Right now I have about 850 bags out there, and
that's where I'm going to go to. One of the things that we
started with, where we really picked up our information, is the
federally funded Top-Off 2000 exercise that came to Denver with
the biological release. I was involved in that from the
beginning with the planning phase, up through the incident
command, and with the hot wash at the end to do a critique on.
A lot of people thought that was a failure. I thought it
was an incredible success because what we did was we learned
and we learned and we learned some more. And one of the big
things we learned was that we don't have a good communication
system. And we never worked that closely with the department of
health, with hospitals, and we have no communications with
them. We learned an awful lot from that and we are building on
it. And when Aurora had the Nunn-Lugar money come down to do
their exercises, one of the last ones they did about 4 months
ago was almost identical to Top-Off, and the responses we had
to that showed me that it's working, that people were working
together, that we were talking about communications, that we
were talking about our response, we were talking about mass
distribution of medical aid to people.
So it's working. That money was very well spent.
The MMRS, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, was
another grant that came down, and Aurora and Denver both were
cities of that. And with Aurora getting the last one, we've had
incredible response about making sure that money went to good
use. We put stockpiles of supplies, Mark 1s and medical
supplies for first responders to an incident. A major success,
I think, for our front range.
And that other money that we used is--I had an opportunity
to take our county back to Emmitsburg, Maryland, to the
Emergency Managers Institute for an integrated emergency
management exercise in the November 2000. They were all leaders
of our county, all taken care of by Federal funds. That brought
us together. There were people there I didn't think they could
be in the same room, and as a matter of fact, when it came down
to it, they worked very well together. So I've had the
opportunity to meet with that group and followup every 3 to 6
months with followup meetings, with training, with tabletops,
with that kind of thing, and that has been incredible. All
federally funded money. Again, a success.
But then I get to the money that came down for 1999, 2000,
2001, and my image, when I think about New York City, is, sure,
I see the plane going into the building, but my biggest image
is seeing those cops and firemen with handkerchiefs tied around
their faces and gagging and coughing and can't breathe.
So what I did with that money when it came down, Arapahoe
and Douglas Counties did a regional application. I got--
$352,000 is what was targeted for us. And I had in my mind that
I wanted to put together some kind of first responder bag for
these first responders, for the cops that are going to be out
there first. We needed to take care of them.
When September 11th happened, my money was sitting
someplace between here and who knows where. So I asked the
Office of Emergency Management, the State, if they would
request $113,000 to be expedited so I could get those bags
together as quickly as possible. And they did that. And with
that 113,000, I put 805 bags together, which included a
chemical/bio mask, a chem suit, goggles, three different kinds
of gloves, a decontamination kit, eyewash, earplugs, disposable
mask, and put it all in a canvas bag that they could carry in
their car. I assigned one of those to 805 cops. Still short,
but I picked the primary, most probable officers that would
respond and said, how many do we need? And I gave them out.
They were very well received.
The only problem that comes up is we have a question about
training. How do we meet OSHA standards? Well, reaching out to
my resources that I have met over the last 6 years and my
contacts, I had a meeting 2 days ago with Tri-County Health and
with three representatives from National Jewish Hospital. They
came up with a plan to implement training to include medical,
limitations, and fit tests, which are the three primary things
for OSHA.
They're going to do a proposal to me. They're going to do
it on a very reasonable fee, and I'm going to include that in
the grant, and it's going to cover every person that received a
mask. And we are going to be able to take those and be able not
to have--and one of the reasons why I went with this is, it's
multifaceted; we can use them for the WMD event. But we can
also use them for that everyday thing that happens, the turned-
over tanker, with a meth lab, or whatever that they're doing
perimeters on, to protect themselves. Some protection. They
have nothing.
The next round of money that's coming now, we are hoping to
get somewhere around $500,000, which I'm going to try to get
probably another 1,000 bags put together to cover every cop in
two counties. And now I've added one of the rural counties,
Elbert County, into it because they pretty much have nothing.
And I thought, well, being big brother, we can help them out.
So we are going to bring them in, and I'm going to make sure
every cop gets it.
The extra money that we've had with that--we call it extra
because it's just in addition to that--is that our HAZMAT teams
and our fire departments have been reinforced with detection
equipment, with decon equipment, and personal protection
equipment. And although we have not met every need that we
would like to have, we have far exceeded--and I can't even
imagine how far we've exceeded--over 1996 when I started.
So, yeah, we could use more money. We could use more money
all the time, and there's other things we could do. But with
the money we've had, we've come a long way.
We talked about interoperability with radio systems; that
was one of the comments that was made earlier, the
interoperability of communication systems. What they do is they
plug in a radio and it allows them to talk to each other. But
if there's no control on who gets on those radios, there's
going to be such mass chaos that you won't be able to
communicate, but you've got one frequency now or maybe two.
The other question we need to deal with is the incident
command system, to have that somehow supported by Federal
Government down to the State level that says that, yeah, we
strongly suggest that everyone uses the incident command
system, which includes a communications plan within that
system. So that we know that when you have this one frequency,
the only person talking on it is a commander, and everybody
else talks with other frequencies within their own department.
And we can do that. But I think if we don't have that
communication, we are going to be lost, just like we were with
Columbine.
And on the grants, real quickly, I agree with Dave that
when these grants come in, it's hard to look at a grant when we
say we need communications and the grant is telling me that we
need to spend $500,000 on needs assessment. We know what the
needs are; we don't need to have somebody tell us that we need
to do a needs assessment.
Mr. Horn. This is--which agency made that statement?
Mr. Hoffner. Which one?
Mr. Horn. On the one that you would have to do a needs
assessment.
Mr. Hoffner. That comes down on a lot of grants. They have
areas that say specifically you have to spend this much money
on, and we are saying, ``No, we'd like to spend it on this.''
And they say, ``No, our guidelines are there.'' And what I'd
like to see is be able to--like Mr. Sullivan said, is to be
able to have those grants so they're a little more open. And
the new one coming down has a little more latitude to it. And
it's going to allow us to be able to do a little more approach
to exact needs of our local agencies, and I think that's
critical.
And I'll shut up except for questions. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Very interesting.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Lieutenant Wicks, Office of Safety Services,
Police Division, city of Englewood.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT BYRON D. WICKS, OFFICE OF SAFETY
SERVICES, POLICE DIVISION, CITY OF ENGLEWOOD
Mr. Wicks. Yes, sir. The Department of Safety Services for
the city of Englewood incorporates fire and police as well as
building codes and code enforcement. So when I speak, I speak
both from the fire and police perspective.
My current assignment is as the investigations bureau
commander. And before I get started, I want to make note that
we are the benefactor of Lieutenant Hoffner's initiative and
project. And we have, I believe, about 76 of those 805 bags
that Lieutenant Hoffner's agency has donated to us, and we
appreciate that.
Right after October or in October 2001, shortly after the
September tragedy, my director appointed me czar of the
Englewood Office of Preparedness and Security, as he called it,
and Lieutenant Hoffner's been in this business for 6 years and
if he feels confused; I've been in it for about 10 months and I
know I am. So my perspective is definitely one from the
operator's point of view, and that's based on 27 years of law
enforcement experience, 31 years as a commissioned officer in
the Marine Corps in which I was always assigned to operational
billets. So as Lieutenant Hoffner indicates, operations at the
level that we deal with is critical.
The two points that I want to bring up, and you're going to
hear a lot of this, if you haven't already, is, first, the
issue of interoperability. I know it's a hot topic, but if we
don't have it, we are lost. And as sort of a subset to that
issue of interoperability, I include communications, obviously,
and that is definitely a problem, planning, and commonality in
terms of response.
There isn't that much difference in a typical response that
agencies in a suburban area would have. It's not to say that
one size is going to fit all, but with minor modifications, it
would be about a 95 percent solution. But when we are on one
page and Arapahoe County's on another, even if we can talk to
each other, we are not going to function well enough to do the
job correctly the first time.
Which brings up the issue of exercises, both interagency
and intra-agency exercises. And along with that, it would be
nice if there was some standard, if you will, if Arapahoe
County and Englewood had an exercise that maybe the State would
say, ``This is the way we want to go,'' so we have a common
direction, a common focus, not just for our two agencies, but
all agencies in the State of Colorado.
And then the second point I want to just address very
quickly, and Roger virtually said everything I was going to
say: As a grant administrator, funding issues are always an
issue. One, obviously, is the amount of Federal funding in
terms of grants, but maybe even more important than that, and
Roger addressed this, is the fact that, one, how is it going to
be spent? We recognize our own strengths and we also recognize
our areas of need better than anybody else does.
Second of all is the form the grant comes in and the
complexity that we have to deal with in terms of reporting what
we've done with the moneys. Some grants, as a grant
administrator, we will not accept, we will not apply for,
because it's so difficult, it's so painful as an organization
to account for that money, we simply won't do it we will not
take any grants from the COPS program.
Mr. Horn. Did you ever have money from the COPS?
Mr. Wicks. Yes, we did, and we were audited, and it was
incredibly painful, and it was just too difficult to prove what
they were asking us to prove.
Mr. Horn. Well, you also had the problem of the localities
and the cities of having to go out and add some people to their
law enforcement, either their fire or for police and the
sheriff's office, and that would be--got you out on a string
there, and the Federal Government money suddenly comes off. And
I don't know how much that was a factor in saying that--that
program happened to be my law which was merged into it, because
I wanted people just like you, a Marine, when you're retired
from the military, I thought it was a good thing to do that
because we needed police people. This was back in 1992-93, and
so I was curious about what the problem was there with COPS. I
do know there was a lot of bias as to the politics of it. That
isn't unusual, but a little more than one.
Mr. Wicks. Well, we only spent about half our money and
tried to give it back. That is impossible, to give back money
on a grant. I mean, we couldn't spend it, we couldn't give it
back. It was very burdensome. So right now the only grants that
we will apply for are the block grants. And, quite frankly, I
like the format of block grants because we get to choose the
area in which we spend it, a one-page justification for the
expenditures, and show them a receipt.
Mr. Horn. Well, I agree with you. I was a big advocate,
beating the drums, long before I got into Congress in terms of
revenue sharing, and that way the localities were much more
able to figure out the needs than somebody sitting in
Washington. That's my approach to it. There's the revenue
sharing.
Mr. Wicks. And the last thing Roger brought up as well is
we are one of the few police departments that uses the incident
command system. Apparently Arapahoe County does. We use it
because in safety services we combine with fire. Almost all
fire departments use them but very few police departments. It's
a great system, and it would be nice if the State agencies in
the State of Colorado were like those in California where they
all use the incident command system. They're all talking the
same language and we all understand the responsibilities and
jobs in a collective endeavor.
And with that, I'll rest.
Mr. Horn. That's very helpful, and we'll go in and do a few
more things.
And now we have Paul L. Posner, Managing Director of
Federal Budget Issues, Strategic Issues, U.S. General
Accounting Office. Some of you, I think, are well known by it,
and that is headed by the Comptroller General of the United
States, currently Dave Walker, first-rate person, who believes
in management and believes in people working together and all
the rest. And he's got a 15-year appointment, and nobody can
fuss around with him, including the President and the Congress,
which is a pretty good deal. He deserves it, and he's doing a
great job.
And so we've asked Mr. Posner to tell us what's missing and
what haven't we got into that we should have gotten into. And
if we've got something that isn't working right, we throw it
over to him because we like his little blue books. There's
about 50 blue books they've put out, by the way, on terrorism;
isn't that right, easily 50?
Mr. Posner. Probably more, but easily 50, yeah.
STATEMENT OF PAUL L. POSNER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUDGET
ISSUES, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Posner. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here,
and it's a pleasure to hear the other testimonies such
compelling ways showing that our Federal system is still vital.
It reminds us at Washington how valiant the efforts have been
out here, and when we craft new Federal responses, we better be
sure that we support and don't kill that kind of initiative and
passion.
We are realizing slowly that this challenge is beyond the
capacity of any one level of government, including Washington,
and it means that what we do here involves a national not a
Federal response. It means it has to be collaborative,
partnerial in nature. We have over 40 Federal agencies involved
in this problem, 22 of which are going to be consolidated into
the Department of Homeland Security, and there's still going to
be a significant number of agencies not in this department, I
might add. We have State governments from which we've heard,
local governments, special districts; we have 87,000 units of
those. We have private players who are critical in addressing
this problem, and somehow we all have to figure out a way to
integrate and overcome the stovepipes that have traditionally,
at least at the Federal level, and are used to having these. I
started my career with the New York City budget office and was
familiar with stovepipes in city government as well.
One of the things that's so critical we've heard,
particularly after September 11th, is the statement with regard
to the first responders, and that's obviously a critical role.
We've heard a lot about that, how you're better preparing
yourself. But throughout the whole range of this problem, State
and local governments are critical. But the last panel brought
that up very well that even in counterintelligence and
counterterrorism efforts, State and local governments are
really critical players because we at the Federal level don't
have the resources that you do. There are 650,000 police
officers in this country, and it's dawning on Federal agencies
that to respond to the kind of threat we are facing, they have
to get into the community and have those kinds of information--
they need to better find a way to tap the kind of information
that you have and the resources you have. And that's why the
INS is starting to contract with local police departments to
chase down visa overstayers because their staffs simply aren't
enough to do the job.
It's true for critical infrastructure. How do we protect
critical infrastructure? The Federal Government doesn't own
much and doesn't do much on its own. The critical
infrastructure--the roads, the highways, the transit
facilities, the ports in this country, the drinking water--are
all really owned by State and local governments and private
sector. And so how we can kind of figure out a way to mobilize
a response on a national level is absolutely critical to
solving this problem. And the dilemma for any local official,
having been one myself at one time, is that you have really a
lot of different players involved with these things. You don't
control much, but, you sure are accountable for almost
everything. And so that's why, you know, it's important that we
help you better address those kinds of issues.
I will say that there are shifts going on right now in the
way we--and we've heard here at the local level some of the
important initiatives going on. At the Federal level, we all,
of course, know about the President's proposed a Department of
Homeland Security. The House has passed a bill largely
following his proposal. The Senate has a somewhat different
bill that has not yet passed. We are awaiting a resolution of
that this fall. We believe at GAO that is a promising first
step, a necessary but not sufficient step. It's important to
get all the relevant players, for example, border security, get
it together. Does that mean they'll all really work together?
No. That's why putting them into a department is probably the
first of a maybe 10-year journey before we really achieve the
kind of harmonization and integration that we need. In the
bill, for example, the Customs Service still has autonomy with
regard to submitting its budget directly to Congress,
notwithstanding the new department. So there are forces that
still are going to be very difficult to address as the
department, if we get a department, tries to bring some more
cohesion to this.
Grants is one of the real important tools that we think the
department will use and consolidation of grants is important.
And you all have experienced the Department of Justice and FEMA
and the Public Health Service and a variety of other separate
funding streams coming down with different requirements, and we
kind of dump it in your lap, and you've got to figure out how
to bring them together. The Federal Government can do a better
job of bringing some cohesion to that up front and providing
some national goals, but giving you flexibility in how you
address them.
So those are some of the challenges that we are starting to
move to, but we've also seen some significant shifts already,
not even passing the statute yet, in long-standing roles and
relationships between these levels of government. National
defense was historically a national responsibility, a Federal
responsibility. Fire and police were historically a local
responsibility. What this crisis is bringing to light is that
defense is increasingly a local responsibility, protecting the
Nation from this kind of insidious attack. And that, in fact,
local police and how you work together is a national level
interest. So we are bringing more of these kinds of levels that
used to be separate together in some way, and the key is how
can we do it in a way that both provides accountability to
achieve some national expectations but gives flexibility to
avoid a one-size-fits-all.
For example, when you look at what's in the offing right
now, what's on the table, we have a new law that Congress
passed requiring local drinking water systems to do
vulnerability assessments and develop protection plans with
some Federal money. We have a new Coast Guard regime that's
putting a new Federal responsibility over the ports; that used
to be a State and local responsibility. The Coast Guards
requiring plans in 55 major ports. Fire services are again
going to get a lot of Federal help but also probably some
Federal standards. Communications, historically, we've heard,
is a fairly fragmented thing. Every State and every community
does it somewhat differently. The Office of Homeland Security's
plans say that as a condition for Federal grants, local and
State governments are going to try to achieve some greater
interoperability, some national standards coming down in that
arena. For the motor vehicles issue every State has a separate
Department of Motor Vehicles. We are now seeing national
proposals coming from Congress and the President to nationalize
that responsibility, to get States to provide better secure
documents when they issue driver's licenses so that we don't
have terrorists able to counterfeit these kinds of documents.
So there's going to be greater national pressures building on
local services. The question is, how can we do it in a way that
accommodates both national and local roles?
We've also seen State and local roles changing, and that's
one of the issues when we talk about what's missing here. One
of the things we've been doing is we've been going out, and
we've seen, as jurisdictions within metropolitan regions
attempting to work together more closely. Bringing together
partners across a community as widespread as the Denver
Metropolitan area is not an easy challenge. Every metropolitan
area has tens, or hundreds in some cases, of governments,
special purpose and others, that are responsible to their own
constituencies. How to bring some harmonization together is
always a challenge.
And so as we look down from the Federal angle, we see some
of these problems are clearly local, some of them seem to be
State, when the States can provide leadership, and some of them
might best be done on a regional basis. And we've seen, as we
visited, a lot of this starting to happen on its own. Mutual
aid agreements historically have been in place. The public
health networks are improving. And we are seeing a lot more
here in Denver and other areas of regional efforts to promote
better sharing and promote more economy of scale in how we
provide for this expertise we need. But more, clearly, can be
done in that regard, and it's historically very difficult to
get communities, whether in the Washington area or New York
area, to really collaborate with one another. And that's the
kind of thing that we need to promote.
And we look at critical infrastructure areas, and we also
see a lot of fragmentation there. Take, for example, airports.
Airports have a patchwork quilt of different players
responsible for security. We have TSA now responsible once you
go through the gate. We have local and State governments
responsible for the perimeter. We have the National Guard that
comes in from time to time. We have the FAA that has
responsibility. The airlines have responsibilities. So when we
look at the safety of airlines and airline travel, we have a
lot of players. And it's not clear to anyone that this has
really been sorted out.
The same thing goes for something like food safety. You
take the distribution chain and you have, you know, from the
farm to the processor to the retail establishment to the
grocery store or the restaurant, very different governmental
roles and responsibilities for each stage of that process. The
farmer is pretty much on their own. We have some kind of State
roles there. When you get to the processing plants, why, there
you have two different Federal agencies: The Agriculture
Department responsible for meat and poultry, and the FDA
responsible for pretty much everything else. We don't have any
Federal standards; we have voluntary standards that those
agencies have put out for that phase of the distribution
process. When we get to the restaurants, that's totally State
and local.
So what the President's homeland security plan suggested,
and I think this is a useful thing to think about, is having a
national strategy for each one of these critical infrastructure
areas so that we would at least have a way to agree as a Nation
whether we are comfortable and whether those roles and
responsibilities are appropriate.
Given all these different players, it's really important to
have clear goals and measures as we craft national strategies--
what we are trying to achieve. How much security is enough, and
how will we know it when we get there? The presence or absence
of a terrorist event is not an acceptable performance measure.
We want at national levels to make more of these investments.
The quid pro quo is, I think, we are going to want to see some
demonstrable changes in the results, in the outcomes. What are
we getting by way of approved protection? Are there ways to
measure it? Can we get every one of the systems to subscribe to
those measures?
Finally, we've heard a lot of discussion, rightly so, about
assistance, and we need to think more clearly at the national
level about how we are going to get this done. Because,
clearly, every hearing we do and every time we go to the local
level, needs are incredibly large and always outrun the funding
available. I'm reminded that the congressional budget office on
Tuesday is going to issue their latest deficit update for the
Federal Government; $160 billion deficit in 2002.
One of my other responsibilities at the General Accounting
Office is to develop long-range Federal budget forecasts. And
given the aging of our population and the increasing demands of
Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, why, our forecast of
CBOs say that at current tax rates, we are going to be able to
basically pay for the elderly and their doctors and that's
about it in 20 years. In other words, we are quickly running,
as the baby boomers retire, into dire fiscal straits. And so
the question is, how do we respond to these urgent needs in a
way that is both effective and economical? And that means we
are going to have to think hard about how to best target these
moneys, how to best ensure that we are going to get something
of value for this. How, for example, to ensure that when we
hand money down to local communities and States that they don't
simply turn around and replace their own money with our money
and cut taxes or put it in some other area. In other words, we
need to prevent fiscal substitution. We need to have reasonable
accountability provisions. I know that planning sometimes can
go a little awry. Some kind of, again, assurance of results in
terms of what we are getting for the money is important.
And, finally, there is the question of sustainability. How
long should the Federal Government be involved, and what should
be the Federal versus the State versus the local shares of
costs in these things? So the point is, I think, by and large,
we have to fig-
ure out a way to have a national and not a Federal approach.
How do we balance accountability and flexibility, and how do we
do it in a way that capitalizes on the strengths of each of the
levels of government in forming a real partnership. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Posner follows:]
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Mr. Horn. OK. And let us go back a minute now on a few
questions, and then we'll wrap it up.
Mr. Wall, I was curious as to what degree are the Veterans
Administration hospitals and clinics working with your overall
association, and what do you feel the VA can do in terms of
some of the things we've talked about in terms of the attacks
of chemistry, biology, you name it, and are we prepared for the
private, nonprofits, and the VA, and the military hospitals?
Mr. Wall. Several questions there. I'm not sure I have
answers to all of those, but----
Mr. Horn. Are they part of your group?
Mr. Wall. The VA system, at least in Denver, the hospital
in Denver is a member of the association. The other outlying VA
hospitals are not members. They are appointed to be represented
on the hospital preparedness advisory committee, but to date I
don't believe we've had a representative attend any of our
hospital preparedness advisory committee meetings. With regard
to the issue of capacity that you raised earlier, there was a
time in Colorado when we had approximately 5 beds per 1,000
population. As a result of the changes in the health care
economy, we are down today to about 2 beds per 1,000
population. So the issue of excess capacity is not present any
longer, and I think Dr. Miller talked about surge capacity, and
we right now as part of the needs assessment process are
evaluating how many gurneys are available, can beds be put in
hallways, do we have power to be able to do that, and so on and
so forth. So I think the issue of capacity with regard to
application to a significant event is something of a very
significant nature that we need to be very, very concerned
about.
For example, most hospitals in Colorado were built in the
1960's and 1970's. We obviously have some that are----
Mr. Horn. Hill-Burton?
Mr. Wall. A lot of Hill-Burton money around the country and
Colorado included. Emergency power needs in the 1960's and
1970's were very different than emergency power needs today. I
mean, computers weren't even a reality back in those days, and
now all of the technology that we have is basically driven by
computers. Emergency power was not, in fact, required at that
level at that time. It was basically required to be able to
continue a surgery in an OR, for hall lighting, perhaps for
food preparation, but nowhere near to the extent were the power
requirements in place in that time that we have today. So to
upgrade capacity in case power had to be self-sustaining is a
very significant issue for most hospitals in the eventuality of
an event like this.
Work force capacity is a significant issue today. Even if
we had all of the equipment that we needed, even if we had all
the beds we needed, the question is, where is the work force
going to come from to staff those beds if all of a sudden you
had a need for 1,000 new patients in a metropolitan area like
Denver? I can tell you right now the capacity is not there to
address an event of that size.
Dr. Miller was talking about the work that we are doing
trying to address this issue on a regional basis where we could
take care of 500 patients. That is a lot of additional patients
in a system which, quite frankly, from a bed capacity point of
view, is there right now.
So there are some very significant needs out there, and
that's why I raise the funding issue as important. And clearly
the money is needed for the improvement of the infrastructure
for public health. There's no question about that. But to put
that in context, the first-year grants to public health were
about $14 million in the State of Colorado. The first-year HRSA
grant for hospitals in the State of Colorado was $1.9 million,
a portion of which is utilized for staff required as part of
the grant as well as the cost of the needs assessment which was
part of the grant as well. So we may net out of that for
hospital capability the first year maybe a million and a half
dollars. And I can tell you, that doesn't begin to scratch the
surface in terms of having hospitals prepared. And the issue of
preparedness is ongoing. It's not that we get ready for a year
and then we don't have to be concerned about it. This is going
to be an issue of ongoing concern well into the future, and I
think we need to look at it in a long-term context.
Mr. Horn. I think some of these terrorists will be doing a
lot of mischief, and most hospitals have a separate supply of
electricity and energy, I think I'm right on that, where they
have gasoline and motors, should they ever try to do something
like knocking down the towers and all that. And that will
probably happen just as it did in New York. But the power goes
out and all the rest, and what do we do and what are we doing
now to make sure that they can't get to the different batteries
that are in many hospitals and motors to generate that energy?
Mr. Wall. I think you have two issues there. Certainly
hospitals have emergency capability. I think my point is that
the bulk of that emergency capability in hospitals is
undersized based upon the power needs of hospitals in the year
2000. And for us to think that we have the capability on those
emergency power systems to run all of the equipment that we
would need in order to respond to an event like this, I think
is not appropriate. It is just not there. Emergency power
capability is critically important.
With regard to the issue of security, hospitals throughout
this country, and certainly in Colorado, have internal security
forces in most cases, although, again, the further outside the
metropolitan area one goes, the more problematic that becomes.
But there certainly would be ways, I think, of protecting a
hospital from outside mischief, for the most part. Those
generators are tested periodically, and they are available.
But, again, it's a question of the capability of those
generation systems that is in question.
Mr. Horn. The first panel, before they went away, we said,
if you could see the President for 30 seconds, what's the most
important thing you'd tell him?
Mr. Wall. I think there's probably three things. One is the
continued need for ongoing work force development. And
sometimes that may not be viewed as part of preparedness, but
the reality is we can have all the equipment and capacity we
need, but if the work force isn't there to provide the care,
it's all for naught. So I think work force development is
absolutely essential.
Second, the training of that work force is critical. The
issue of bioterror agents, chemical agents, and weapons of mass
destruction are new things for hospitals to have to deal with.
I think--As the lieutenant said earlier, he's been in this 6
years and still feels lost on occasion, and I think the same is
true for health care professionals, although that's their daily
routine. We are talking about a new and different time and new
and different agents, which is going to require extensive
training and ongoing training because of the turnover of
personnel that occurs as well.
And then last, obviously, the equipment needs that we have.
Most hospitals, certainly outside of Metro Denver, do not have
individual decontamination capability. There's very little
personal protective equipment available. And, obviously, the
key thing we've talked about today is the communications
system. And in a State like Colorado, with our varied
geography, communication in nonemergency circumstances is a
tremendous challenge, let alone during an emergency where it's
necessary for all first-line responders and enforcement
agencies and incident command centers to all be able to talk
with one another with regard to the management of that
incident. And I can tell you that is a tremendous problem in
the State of Colorado.
Mr. Horn. What do you feel are the human, in terms of
personnel, type of issues for the hospitals? Is it the nurse
shortage?
Mr. Wall. Nursing is clearly an issue, but in Colorado we
also have shortages of radiologic technologists, laboratory
personnel. Labs have been mentioned a number of times today,
and laboratory personnel are in short supply. And another key
profession is that of pharmacists. We have a significant
shortage of pharmacists throughout the entire country. And if
you begin to think about the distribution of pharmaceutical
supplies during an event of this nature, they're going to be a
very key profession in our ability to respond.
Mr. Horn. What about the various scholarships we have had?
Maybe they aren't enough. We've had nursing scholarships from
the Federal Government. We've had the GI bill generally after
the Second World War. And what do you think the government
should do about that? Now we are talking about bringing people
from the Philippines and all that, and they're already here. I
mean, they've been here for probably two decades at least. How
do you think you're going to solve this problem of getting them
educated?
Mr. Wall. Well, I think, again, Mr. Chairman, it goes back
to the issue of adequate funding for the training of the health
professions. And over the years, I think if you look at the
expenditure for the education of health professionals, it's
progressively become less and less and less. And I know
Congress right now is looking at a Nursing Reinvestment Act. I
think that's a critical issue, but not only for nursing, but
for the other health professions as well. We in health care
have our own work to do to make health care an attractive
profession for individuals as well. Quite frankly, the ability
to move into the computer sciences where you work 5 days a
week, 8 hours a day, make significant 6-figure incomes,
compared to nursing, where you're working 7 days a week or
you're at least available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365
days a year, that's not very enticing to young people. And I
think we need to do some things about that from the point of
health care as well. But we clearly need to reemphasize the
importance of the health care professions at the national
level.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan, if you were in the
President's oval office for 30 seconds, what would you tell
him?
Mr. Sullivan. I think I'd just sum up my earlier remarks.
Additional resources, flexibility in their use, coordination,
and the interoperability of communications equipment, and that
would be both the personnel and the technical interoperability.
We have a tendency, I think, to focus on solving our
communication needs by buying new radio systems. It's been my
experience that a lot of the communication doesn't take place
because of cultural differences or blinders, if you will, of
the agencies involved. And that's something we need to address.
Mr. Horn. So you've really got to work with the culture of
bureaucracy, bureaucracy by bureaucracy?
Mr. Sullivan. Essentially. And the tendency, particularly
on the first responders' level, to focus in on your particular
discipline and what you've been trained to do and not step back
and realize that it's a broader issue, and you need to
communicate with law enforcement, fire, EMS, public health, and
those types of things.
Mr. Horn. And with this new department that we have, a lot
of mergers and a lot of corporate mergers have occurred. And
when those come together, there's often also a problem--just
like Customs, 200 years of real help in this country. And same
thing with the Coast Guard. You have a problem, and
corporations have looked at that. And you've got to be very
fair to those you merge with so that the one group does not
have all the positions. They've got to meld them with the rest
of the group and have them all working together.
Mr. Sullivan. Yes, sir. We need to--It's just a simple
process--I wish it were a simple process--of breaking down
barriers. There's been a lot of talk today about intelligence
sharing. That needs to happen. We need to break down a lot of
the barriers. That isn't just a Federal and State problem; it's
a local problem. Law enforcement--and I say that even though
the two gentlemen to my left are armed----
Mr. Hoffner. I don't have any bullets.
Mr. Sullivan [continuing]. Has been reluctant to share
outside of the law enforcement community. And it's one thing
for the FBI to send information to State law enforcement and
local law enforcement, but if that information doesn't get
distributed out to public health and EMS and fire and emergency
management agencies, it really doesn't serve its purpose.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. What would you tell the President,
Lieutenant Hoffner?
Mr. Hoffner. Well, if I had 30 seconds, I'd say it's really
important that we make sure that the Federal Government keeps
doing what they're doing, but we need not forget who's going to
be the first responders to that incident, and who's going to be
taking care of that incident and those people and those victims
and those communities for the first 2 or 3 days. And that's our
law enforcement and fire departments, and we need to make sure
that they have the training and the personal protection
equipment to make sure that they can survive.
Mr. Horn. How about you, what's your version, Lieutenant?
Mr. Wicks. Mr. Chairman, I think one of the things I would
ask the president to do is assist the civilian population, if
you will, with training for these critical incident commanders
to include community leaders, some of the politicians, you
know, kind of in this same environment, so the community
leaders understand the issues that we as critical incident
commanders have to deal with, and we would all kind of get the
global perspective more than that myopic perspective of this is
what I do and there's no cause and effect out there, because
there is. What I do will have a cause-and-effect and a ripple
effect on a lot of other people and agencies.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Posner, 30 seconds.
Mr. Posner. Well, I would say the well-intentioned efforts
to respond to crises in the past often lead to phenomena that's
been called ready, fire, aim, and we ought to be better
prepared this time to put management more up front in terms of
thinking clearly, what are the tools we are going to use, how
are we going to design them, and how we going to deploy
managers at the Federal, State, and local level to really think
through how these things are going to be implemented.
And in that regard, we had a vehicle where these kinds of
discussions took place in Washington--the ACIR, the Advisory
Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. It's been out of
business for a while. And these field hearings are very useful
in bringing up some issues we need to be thinking more
systematically about in Washington, and how can we create a
forum to have these kind of discussions back there.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you all. And I think we've learned
quite a bit. And it will be a good report with the help of our
fine reporter.
I want to put on the record thanks from the staff, and that
includes Mr. Russell George, who is now leaving the
subcommittee, but he's done a wonderful job over the last 5 or
6 years. And he is now the inspector general for an agency
that--he was given a nomination and now confirmed by the
Senate. And so the lady on the left here, and your right, is
the acting staff director, Bonnie Heald. We also have the chief
of staff in my office, Dave Bartel is back there. And Chris
Barkley is assistant to the subcommittee. And Bonnie Heald and
Chris Barkley and Dave are all on this particular hearing, and
we thank them a lot because it meant tough hours, 2 and 3 in
the morning working, this kind of thing.
Michael Sazonov is back in Washington, staff assistant. And
here in Denver we have Dan Kopelman and Adam Roth from
Representative Tancredo's staff. And then Anne Roelofs is the
Jefferson County facilities person, and she got us this
wonderful auditorium here. She hasn't towed our cars away yet,
we think, and she's a real worker who knows how to do things.
And not least but the best is here, the court reporter, Stacy
Armstrong. So thank you very much. And with that, we are
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:47 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]