[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT'S PLAN TO CONSOLIDATE AND CO-LOCATE
REGIONAL AND FIELD OFFICES: IMPROVING COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY,
NATURAL RESOURCES AND REGULATORY
AFFAIRS
and the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 24, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-168
__________
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
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
94-905 WASHINGTON : DC
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.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
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs
DOUG OSE, California, Chairman
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Barbara F. Kahlow, Staff Director
Danielle Hallcom Quist, Professional Staff Member
Lauren Jacobs, Clerk
Krista Boyd, Minority Counsel
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DAN BURTON, Indiana DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio TOM LANTOS, California
RON LEWIS, Kentucky BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DIANE E. WATSON, California
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 24, 2004................................... 1
Statement of:
Hutchinson, Asa, Under Secretary, Border and Transportation
Security, Department of Homeland Security.................. 19
Kinghorn, C. Morgan, president, National Academy of Public
Administration; Edward Flynn, secretary, Executive Office
of Public Safety, State of Massachusetts; Karen Anderson,
mayor, city of Minnetonka, MN, on behalf of the National
League of Cities; Martin Fenstersheib, health officer,
Santa Clara County Public Health Department, on behalf of
the National Association of County and City Health
Officials; and James Lee Witt, former Administrator,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, currently president,
James Lee Witt Associates, LLC............................. 48
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Anderson, Karen, mayor, city of Minnetonka, MN, on behalf of
the National League of Cities, prepared statement of....... 74
Fenstersheib, Martin, health officer, Santa Clara County
Public Health Department, on behalf of the National
Association of County and City Health Officials, prepared
statement of............................................... 82
Flynn, Edward, secretary, Executive Office of Public Safety,
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 68
Hutchinson, Asa, Under Secretary, Border and Transportation
Security, Department of Homeland Security:
Followup questions and responses......................... 44
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Kinghorn, C. Morgan, president, National Academy of Public
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 51
Miller, Hon. Candice S., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Michigan, prepared statement of............... 30
Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement of....................... 3
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 27
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 41
Witt, James Lee, former Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, currently president, James Lee Witt
Associates, LLC, prepared statement of..................... 91
THE HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT'S PLAN TO CONSOLIDATE AND CO-LOCATE
REGIONAL AND FIELD OFFICES: IMPROVING COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Energy
Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory
Affairs, joint with the Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations, Committee on
Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose
(chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural
Resources and Regulatory Affairs) presiding.
Present: Representatives Ose, Shays, Maloney, Miller,
Tierney, and Ruppersberger.
Staff present: Barbara F. Kahlow, staff director; Danielle
Hallcom Quist, professional staff member; Lauren Jacobs, clerk;
Megan Taormino, press secretary, Subcommittee on Energy Policy,
Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs; Larry Halloran, staff
director and counsel; Robert A. Briggs, clerk, Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations; Krista Boyd, minority counsel; Andrew Su, minority
professional staff member; and Cecelia Morton, minority office
manager.
Mr. Ose. First let me welcome everybody to today's hearing,
a joint hearing between the Subcommittee on Energy Policy,
Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, and the Subcommittee
on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations.
The purpose of today's hearing is to provide oversight to
the Homeland Security Department's plan to consolidate and co-
locate regional and field offices, focusing on communication
and coordination.
In November 2002, Congress established the Department of
Homeland Security to ensure that the tragic events of September
11, 2001, would never happen again. Transferring 22 former
Federal agencies and approximately 180,000 employees to DHS is
a relatively easy task; however, integrating the staff
positions and physical assets and capabilities into a cohesive
Department has been an extremely difficult task. This effort is
complicated by the fact that the 22 former Federal agencies had
and still maintain multiple regional and field offices with
overlapping jurisdictions. Recognizing obstacles that the
former regional field structures would impose upon
communication and coordination among and between the DHS staff
and local first responders, I worked with subcommittee Ranking
Member John Tierney in introducing Section 706 of the
Department of Homeland Security Act. Section 706 requires DHS
to develop and submit to Congress by November 25, 2003, a plan
to consolidate and co-locate those former Federal agency
regional field offices within the same locality that were
transferred to DHS.
DHS submitted its report to Congress on February 4, 2004.
The report provided minimum description of consolidation and
co-location plans of Homeland Security field offices. On a
Department-wide scale, DHS provided an outline of a plan to
consolidate and co-locate physical assets. DHS has not yet
explained how or when it plans to reorganize the regional field
offices in their respective jurisdictions.
Importantly, the report does not address the relationship
between consolidation and co-location of physical assets and
Section 706's legislative history. The legislative history
requires that consolidation and co-location is not merely an
exercise of asset management and efficiency. As Congressman
Tierney and I discussed in a colloquy on the House floor, the
purpose of the Section 706 report is for DHS to provide to the
Congress a plan explaining how it intends to use consolidation
and co-location to improve the level of communication and
cooperation among and between DHS and first responders. To the
extent DHS staff is located in a single building, they're
easier to cross train and to perform emergency and other
functions needed for Homeland Security in the case of an actual
emergency. It is also important for first responders to have
meaningful relationships with their counterparts in the local
DHS regional and field offices. Moreover, the one-stop-shop for
local first responders will greatly improve local preparedness
and response by providing improved communication and financial
assistance.
Congress passed the act establishing DHS. It has already
accomplished the most important job in the Federal Government.
Congress understands that there were 22 Federal agencies with
unique histories and cultures and regional field structures and
jurisdictions. It is a daunting task. However, DHS cannot fully
provide homeland security until its regional field structures
are optimally organized, staff is cross-trained, and the lines
of communication between DHS field offices and local first
responders are open.
We want to emphasize that today's hearing is not about
funding of DHS or local first responders. Today's hearing is
also not about which DHS regional and field offices might be
closing. We called this hearing to facilitate and improve this
Nation's state of readiness.
Today we will hear from DHS on attempts not only to
consolidate and co-locate DHS's human and physical assets, but
also how to do so strategically.
We are joined on the second panel by some of the key
players in local first responder groups. We welcome all of you
and thank you for your tireless effort.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.016
Mr. Ose. As others join us, we will allow their statements
to be put into the record, but in the interest of time we are
going to proceed directly to the witnesses.
In this committee, Government Reform, we swear in all of
our witnesses, regardless of subject. It is our tradition and
protocol. So, Mr. Under Secretary, would you please rise?
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Ose. Thank you. Let the record show that the witness
answered in the affirmative.
Mr. Under Secretary Hutchinson, it is good to see you
again. Thank you for joining us. We do have your statement for
the record, and we are pleased to have your testimony on this
important subject. Go ahead.
STATEMENT OF ASA HUTCHINSON, UNDER SECRETARY, BORDER AND
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you, Chairman Ose. It is a pleasure
to be before this committee, and I want to thank you for your
support and leadership in this area.
Earlier this year, as you know, the Department forwarded a
report assessing our field property portfolio, addressing some
of the issues that you are concerned about with regard to
consolidation and co-location of offices, and we understand
from the discussion of the committee staff that the focus of
our report may have been missing the mark somewhat, and after
reviewing the report I agree with you that it was a little bit
too vague, and so I hope today's discussion will shed light on
that and be beneficial to the committee.
I know that the focus is on the strategic consolidation,
but I might just comment on some of the progress that has been
made in the over-arching area of reorganization, efficiencies
achieved from that, and the better delivery of services.
First and foremost, we consolidated our border inspection
agencies under one particular agency. As you know, prior to the
creation of the Department, you had Agriculture inspectors, you
had Immigration inspectors, and Customs inspectors, all three
reporting in to three different directors, three different
departments of government. That has been consolidated into one,
and now we have CBP officers who are cross-trained in
inspection procedures, provide a better benefit to the public,
and better accountability for management purposes. In addition,
we reorganized the enforcement side in Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, including re-designating the Federal air marshal
program as a part of that to improve efficiencies.
When it comes to first responder grants, which is an
important capability with the State and local community, we
hear loud and clear the frustration that they had a number of
different pipes into the Department of Homeland Security, and
so with the $7.1 billion in assistance that had to be meted out
last year through our Office of Domestic Preparedness and our
other grant programs, we have now consolidated all of the grant
programs into one funding stream in the Department to give
State and local first responders one portal into the Department
rather than having multiple sources that they go through. This
would include the $500 million assistance to fire fighters, and
it would consolidate the 25 State and local support programs
and initiatives into one office to ensure simplified and
coordinated administration of these programs.
From a strategic standpoint, the substantive offices will
still have impact on the distribution of these grants, but it
facilitates the delivery of those services through one portal.
We have also reorganized our national incident management
system to be more effective. The Department established that
this system, which is the Nation's first standardized
management plan to create a unified chain of command for
Federal, State, and local lines of government for incident
response. This certainly impacts our relationship with first
responders, as well.
We will have an incident management center integration
center to serve as a focal point for first responders to ensure
that what we provide is accurate and will be an effective
management tool. We'll provide education and training,
communications and equipment, qualifications and credentialling
of incident management and first responder personnel.
Then, I would also point out that the President's 2005
budget that has been submitted to Congress itemized $100
million in savings in terms of initiative through the strategic
sourcings of office supplies, weapons and ammunition, copiers,
and fleet motor vehicles. These are all from different agencies
where we have a more strategic ability in procurement. We
estimate a $100 million savings from that effort.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, you asked particularly about the
facilities and our planning in the co-location of offices. This
is really being done at three different levels. First, at the
operational level it is an ongoing project where we have legacy
Immigration and legacy Customs offices in two separate
buildings. As leases expire, we are co-locating those into one
facility, and so it is a high priority for us because it is
important for those agencies to be working side by side, but it
varies in city based upon when the leases expire and the
operation capability. We are also doing the same consolidation
at the headquarters level with, for example, making sure that
the Customs offices are located with their strategic partners
at the headquarters level.
Finally, probably most importantly to this committee, is
the regional concept, which is more of a long-term strategic
alignment of the 22 agencies. This will have to be taken a
strategic step at a time, first of all developing the whole
regional concept and then bringing the regional alignments
together underneath that. Finally, the last part of it really
is making sure that the agency is being conformed to that
regional alignment, not necessarily by closing offices but by
making sure their structure, their communication is consistent
with that regional structure. That is an ongoing project and
significant manpower hours are being devoted to that, but it
has not been completed and it is not subject to public
revealing at this point, but we hope to conclude that project
in the near future.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will obviously submit my written
comments for the record, but I'll look forward to our
discussion.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.021
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Under Secretary.
Mr. Shays, do you have any questions?
Mr. Shays. Not at this time, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.023
Mr. Ose. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. I believe I will put my opening statement in
the record and welcome our witnesses.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I will follow suit and submit my
statement for the record. I welcome our witnesses, as well. I
don't have any questions.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Candice S. Miller follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.026
Mr. Ose. We're going to be out of here by 7 tonight.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Under Secretary, we talked a little bit about what
Section 706 sought, and I just want to make sure--and you
touched on it in your testimony about not quite getting it
straight. What does DHS understand the purpose of Section 706
to be?
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, the language of the request has to do
with the co-location of offices, and so our report dealt
specifically with that aspect of it, touching upon the regions.
But, it just was not as specific and not as responsive to the
strategic concerns that this committee had, and so we welcome
this opportunity to clarify any particular issues that you
have.
Mr. Ose. Given my background, I'm particularly interested
in the physical assets in terms of a schedule of leases that
are expiring here and there and so on and so forth. Have you
been able to go through and, for lack of a better word,
quantify where the opportunity might exist across the country
for co-location?
Mr. Hutchinson. That process has started, first in the
determination order. That was really for OMB purposes in making
the budgetary allocation of resources, and it was very sketchy
information for each asset. So, that's the determination order.
Each asset manager within the 22 agencies making up the
Department has a very detailed inventory of all the assets, and
that is consolidated into a data base at Homeland Security, but
that is the process it has to go through for ultimately
arriving at the consolidations that we and efficiencies that we
hope to achieve down the road. That will be done more in a
long-term process, setting up the goals and objectives that we
are trying to accomplish. Any regional alignment that we have
would have to be a strategic marker that we have to respond to.
Right now I think our focus has probably been more narrow
in terms of, for example, the training facilities. We
concentrated upon and it has been my project to look at all of
the training facilities in the 22 agencies, the firearms
ranges. Is there any consolidation, any leadership that we can
provide there? And, so that focus has been there. Then we will
broaden that more to all of the assets that we had. But, that
would be more of a strategic, long-term plan as was outlined in
the report.
Mr. Ose. As we were considering this hearing, I was trying
to conceptualize how you would do that, and I believe this puts
it up conceptually. DHS has 22 different agencies and 180,000
different people. Without getting into specific agencies, if I
understand what your testimony is, making the determination and
figuring out, that this agency has these assets, and then you
have broken those down into, ``This is office space we own,
this is office space we lease, this is where office space is
located under this lease, this is where it is owned.'' Are you
trying to--if I understand your testimony, in a 5 to 7-year
period of time you'll let those leases run their course and
then bring those facilities into a central location.
Do you have yet any of the 22 agencies finished relative to
this plan for consolidation and co-location?
Mr. Hutchinson. Not in the long-term plan. And, let me come
back to your first comment. As, for example, if you take
Chicago, at Chicago we have worked to co-locate all of the
investigative offices in Chicago, and that should be completed
within 3 months in terms of the Immigration and legacy Customs
offices that are now at one agency. That has happened at an
operational level. We're not waiting. It is going to be
accomplished. In Miami, 50 percent of the investigators are co-
located, and so you have different levels, but that is an
ongoing process that has some urgency to it because we realize
savings in that, and it is also better for our agents to work
together.
But in the longer term, for example, you know, Coast Guard,
which is not my arena of responsibility, but their massive
amount of facilities out there and how that relates to, for
example, FEMA or Border Patrol, and that's going to take a
longer-term study to see if there's any efficiencies and any
logic in it, because it might ultimately decide that they have
two separate missions and it would not be any benefit in co-
location, and there would be more of a strategic study that,
quite frankly, I think the timeline that was laid out in the
report is--you know, it is months away before the baseline is
set for that aspect of it. That should not diminish from the
immediate steps that are being taken and efficiencies being
achieved.
Mr. Ose. Congressman Shays.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Secretary, you have a lot under Department of Homeland
Security. You've got it all. One of the things that we have
been concerned about is how we consolidate and so on. There's a
temptation to want to do it by access. You've got to do it and
you've got to go in there. What are you doing to make sure it's
more passive management? What capabilities do you have to do
that? I understand this is really a 7-year effort. I'm aware
it's going to be a long term thing.
Mr. Hutchinson. That's absolutely the point that what
should drive this would be the mission, and the mission should
define any co-locations or asset managements. For example, when
we realigned Immigration and Customs into one enforcement
agency, that mission definement set the stage for those co-
locations. That's ongoing. The next----
Mr. Shays. How long is that going to take you?
Mr. Hutchinson. That's what I was referring to. In Chicago,
3 months it will be done there. In Miami we're 50 percent
there. It depends upon location by location when the leases are
up and that opportunity presents itself. In the meantime,
though, what we're doing, even though you might be in two
locations, you're mixing your investigators so that they are
co-located together even though they are in separate locations.
So we are taking those operational steps.
But, in the next vision statement, really, it will be in
terms of our regional concept. The President submitted in his
2004 budget that the whole Department would look at the
regional alignment. When that final decision is made, which
should be in the near future, then that will define our
missions by regions, and then you can take the best-defined--
the next steps that we take in reference to assets, buildings,
and so on.
Mr. Shays. What about the issue of standards? If we're
doing it by mission, not by asset, you're not going to assume
that you have a vacant building if it makes sense to move
people somewhere else? I mean, is the lease going to be turning
on how we define an employee?
Mr. Hutchinson. That certainly is a factor. I don't think
we're going to be abandoning leases that are going to cost
taxpayers a substantial amount of money if we have to lease
additional space. So, I mean, we're just going to try to be
smart about it.
Mr. Shays. What we'll do is integrate the mission?
Mr. Hutchinson. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. You did what many think is very brave when you
started to talk about standards on a high level. I'm interested
to know what you feel about the goal of standards in
determining allocation of resources.
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, you might followup to make sure I'm
getting after your point, but I think it is critical in terms
of the allocation of the grant money, for example, that we have
assessments that are made----
Mr. Shays. Dealing with preparedness standards.
Mr. Hutchinson. We do not want to come back to Congress a
year from now and have you ask us what happened to that $7
billion that went out the door and we don't have a good
accounting of that, that we actually enhanced security, so we
do insist upon our national priorities on preparedness, on
response capability, and that is supplemented by the State
response plans that help give more flexibility to it. We do
want to have the national priorities reflected so that we can
increase our preparedness and prevention capabilities.
Then you can more narrowly look at that in terms of rail
and transit systems and have a national baseline of prevention
capabilities there. You look at our national incident
management system that is the first one ever in which we are
prepared to respond to incidents in the field, whether it is a
terrorist incident or natural disaster in which there is
coordination, and a national plan that is in place to respond
to that.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Under Secretary.
Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you.
Ms. Miller. About 2 months ago I had the distinct honor to
have Secretary Ridge in my District. We share hundreds of miles
of border with Canada. In that economy we have the Blue Water
Bridge, which is the busiest water crossing. It is the only
certified bridge across the United States to accommodate
hazardous materials. We have a fleet and rail tunnel that runs
right underneath of the bridge. And we also have something that
we all refer to in that area as ``Chemical Valley.'' There are
hundreds of chemical plants on the side of the river there.
We took Secretary Ridge on the tour, a helicopter tour,
about 4 hours. All were trying to express to him our concern,
our consternation and trying to be very proactive on the local
level with regard to Homeland Security, understanding the
unique nature that we have, and yet a very small population
comparatively.
I would ask you to respond to the regional allocation
financially and the criteria that you have for that. It is
really quite an issue in the Nation.
Mr. Hutchinson. Excellent observation, and that points up
the need to have a number of factors that are used in the
distribution of funds for Homeland Security purposes, and
population is a relevant factor because, obviously, population
centers are targets of opportunity to the terrorists, but also
you have critical infrastructure. You mentioned chemical plants
being one of those, transportation centers and hubs, bridges,
tunnels, these type of things that have either symbolic value
or infrastructure value. We also measure those in terms of the
allocation of resources, and that should be an important factor
because that affects the deployment, the drain that is on local
first responders.
Another one I would add, a factor that is relevant is the
extent of operational capability that's intelligence based from
the terrorist standpoint and the intelligence that we've
received as to the nature of their interest in a particular
area.
Ms. Miller. Shifting gears here for a moment, I have a
great interest in what is happening in the Department in
regards to the regional headquarters. As you know, you and I
have had some conversation about that. But, as you have
mentioned, you're not ready to publicly disclose where some of
them may be or any of them may be. I'm anticipating, of course,
that you're putting together your criteria for the regional
headquarters. As you put together the criteria, I also sit on
the Armed Services Committee, and, of course, we are fully
engaged in watching what is happening with BRAC. But, it is
interesting. I think there are some analogies to be drawn to
the Department of Homeland Security with BRAC. The operative
phrase there is ``jointness,'' so that you look at facilities
where you are able to be very cost effective, etc., for the
taxpayers, of course, looking at the military mission.
I'm wondering whether or not the Department of Homeland
Security is coordinating very closely with the DOD as they are
thinking about excess that we may have in the inventory for
military installations within the Nation. As you are citing
some of these regional headquarters, it would seem, as part of
your criteria, you'd be looking at secure locations, that
you've be looking perhaps at locations that maybe already have
several of your agencies under the umbrella at that location,
and again with the idea of jointness first of all for the
mission of Homeland Security but second cost effectiveness, as
well, for the taxpayer. Are you coordinating that?
Mr. Hutchinson. As you noted, there is a lot of interest in
this issue and, just like the Secretary, I have been called
upon to see various facilities, and some of them being military
facilities. Certainly it is something that should be considered
and evaluated. Quite frankly, the first level of priority is
simply the decisionmaking as to the concept of operations at a
region and then locations, the makeup of it, how many. Then,
once those decisions are made, I think then you start looking
at, well, what kind of facility should it be. I think it will
be fairly robust in terms of its capabilities, but probably
modest in terms of its consuming facility.
Then, you know, we will just have a longer-term plan as to
where it needs to go down the road, and during the course of
that certainly it should be coordinated with Defense facilities
that are available, best locations, and obviously with
interested folks in Congress that have a great interest and
understand their Districts more than anyone.
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. The Members up here, with the Under Secretary's
concurrence, have asked for a second round of questions.
Mr. Hutchinson. Certainly.
Mr. Ose. We're going to proceed accordingly.
I'm interested in this integration project that is going on
relative to the regional and field offices. Apparently there's
40 or 50 DHS employees currently stationed in what is referred
to as an ``integration center.''
Mr. Hutchinson. Correct.
Mr. Ose. Can you tell me who is the lead person?
Mr. Ose. Bob Stephan. Bob Stephan, who is an outstanding--
--
Mr. Ose. S-T-E?
Mr. Hutchinson. P-H-A-N. He has been tasked by the
Secretary to put together this team which is made up of our BTS
agency employees and others to develop a concept of operations
for regions, make recommendations to the policy decisionmakers,
and they are actively engaged in that and doing an outstanding
job.
Mr. Ose. Do you have a time table for the completion of
this?
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, it is--I would say that the--we have
been working on this really since the roll-out of the
President's budget in 2004, so for some time, and it has gone
through a number of iterations trying to improve the product,
getting a lot of feedback from people who are knowledgeable
about this, and there have been adjustments made, and I think
it is getting into a very fine product that's getting close to
completion. It's really up to the Secretary and the White House
as to the exact timeframe that this is ready to go. But, I
would say that we are getting closer.
Mr. Ose. Actually, this is one of the points I wanted to
elaborate on a little bit. As the President rolled his budget
out in January 2003 for fiscal year 2004, we didn't complete
our work on that budget until late January 2004. In a very real
sense, you have been at it or actually had it authorized for
but a few months. To that extent, I want to compliment you and
your team for the progress you've made. I don't want to lose
the point that you haven't been able to do this except since we
finalized approval of the administrative side proposal.
I'm going to yield to Chairman Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I'm interested in how the Department of Homeland Security
has involved local first responders and other stakeholders in
the development of its regional plans.
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, it is probably not a formal structure
that they would necessarily be involved in. This is the type of
development that we have reached out, and people who have a
long history in working in these different agencies and law
enforcement have been engaged in. We have people involved in
the integration staff that are very knowledgeable in the first
responder community, but we have also learned that sometimes
having too many meetings out there creates a lot of controversy
about the concept of this, because even though to the
knowledgeable members of this committee a regional concept
makes sense in the delivery of services, it creates a lot of
consternation out there, as well, that this is somehow going to
lose our office or we are going to lose some other capability,
and so there has not been a formal communication structure with
the first responder community, but I believe that their
interest has helped to drive this. They are the ones who are
saying, ``We don't know who to talk to. We've got 22 different
agencies and we don't know the right people to go to.'' Their
comments are the ones that are driving this whole initiative.
Mr. Shays. Basically a point I'd love to make to you
because the synergy that takes place among you and Secretary
Ridge and others, the whole concept of the need to have
standards in what you do, we clearly see a need when we are
allocating lots of the grants, and the argument that every
community should get a certain amount per capita, I mean, I
would suggest to you that communities--New York City clearly
needs an extraordinary amount of resources, as would Washington
and others that are, I think, acknowledged to be targeted
areas, but then the communities nearby. And, I would make an
argument to you that without setting the standards we don't
know how to evaluate whether we are doing a good job. And so,
just as you need to be setting standards, I hope they are
starting to set standards and moving more quickly. We're trying
to get that done in the bill by Mr. Cox. We would like very
much to see that move along more quickly.
What are the standards? Then we can evaluate how we are
giving out the money. We'll continually encourage you to update
the standards and change. Otherwise, I think we're going to
waste a lot of resources.
Mr. Hutchinson. You're absolutely correct. We're in full
agreement with you. Congressional support and the flexibility
of those grants and targeting it to high-risk areas has been
very important to what we have been able to do.
Mr. Shays. I'd love to just know, as a general rule, what
is the interaction that takes place among the four pillars that
we basically designed when we wrote this law? I mean, do you
have meetings where all of you get together and share your
successes and failures and talk about your challenges, or are
you all so busy that you're all just kind of going in different
directions?
Mr. Hutchinson. Actually, Secretary Ridge has been very
good and Deputy Secretary Loy, in making sure we have regular
meetings. So, in fact, yesterday at about 2:30 all the Under
Secretaries and Secretary Ridge met together in a conference
room and we talked about the current status of things, went
around, covered issues, and we do that once a week with
Secretary Ridge and we do it once a week with Deputy Secretary
Loy.
Mr. Shays. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Under Secretary, as we in the Congress are trying our
darndest to make sure that we get our Homeland Security funds
to our first responders and our local communities across the
Nation, I have some consternation or we have had some
consternation in the State of Michigan--and I suppose this is
happening in many of the States--where it is by law, by
statute, appropriate for the States to take up to 20 percent of
all the funding that we are appropriating for administrative
costs, and understanding the budgetary constraints that many of
the States are finding themselves in. I come from State
government. I know what it is to try to plug a hole in the
budget with any money that you can find. I can appreciate their
actions by taking it all the way up to 20 percent, but that was
not what we had in mind when we were appropriating the funds to
be paying for State police or what have you that should be paid
for with other funds. We think those Homeland Security funds
should be going, as I say, for the most part to our local first
responders. Do you have any comment on that? Do you think--are
you able to promulgate rules to change that? Does it require
congressional action? And, should we even be concerned with
that?
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, I think it is important for general
Homeland Security funding to pass through the States because it
is important that there is some coordination, some regional
direction that is given to the training, the response
capability, and to set some of those priorities. Now, as to
whether it is 20 percent or a smaller percent, I think--I
believe that is congressionally fixed. I will have to check to
make sure, but I believe that is correct. We'll be happy to
respond to any directions that Congress gave to us.
I think that there were appropriate circumstances whenever
we gave out the counter-terrorism funds. It did not go through
the States. This went directly to some of the urban centers
that had increased expenses for Operation Liberty Shield and
when we had a higher threat level, and there are overtime
expenses, so there should be some exceptions to that general
rule of the security funds going through the States.
Mr. Ose. If the gentlelady would yield? It is my
understanding that the typical administrative fee is around 10
percent. That's the usual. Now, given the Under Secretary's
comments about unique circumstances, obviously there is some
play to that.
Ms. Miller. That's correct. In Michigan actually
historically it has been between 6 and 8 percent, but right now
it is running at the full 20 percent, which has us--as I say,
we have some consternation about that, so we are going to take
a look at that. I'm sure that's not unique across the Nation. I
don't know what the others----
Mr. Hutchinson. All the cities agree with you.
Ms. Miller. I would just have one other question, Mr.
Chairman, if I could, back to the regional headquarters. Again,
we are all very interested in that, and Chairman Shays had
asked a little bit about this, as well, but as you are
developing your criteria, do you take into consideration, as
well, the first responders and how they might interact with
your regional headquarters? For instance, in my District our
local community college has one of two nationally recognized
training centers for first responders. Again, we are in an area
that we pride ourselves on really trying to be very proactive
about these kinds of things. Would you look to that as a
consideration?
And, then my other question and I'll be done here. I know
you said, again, it is premature to ask you or perhaps for you
to talk about where they may be located, but could you perhaps
tell us, do you have an idea about doing a pilot project for a
regional headquarters? And, if so, when might you have such a
pilot project?
Mr. Hutchinson. For the regional operating concept we had a
limited pilot in Miami when we were operational out of concern
for Haiti and the circumstances there and the potential of a
mass migration. We had an operational concept that was set up
that brought all the agencies together, but that was somewhat
of a test as to how it worked.
In going back to criteria for regions, the first, most
important thing for us is the commonality of a region. Do they
share threats? Do they need to bind together working
relationships, history. And then we start looking at, you know,
other factors such as what you mentioned, which certainly
should be relevant.
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'd
like to add my opening remarks to the record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.027
Mr. Ose. There will be no objection to that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Asa, how are you doing?
Mr. Hutchinson. Good. Good to see you.
Mr. Tierney. We've been seeing more of you lately than
anybody else, I think, up here.
Mr. Hutchinson. I love being over here.
Mr. Tierney. Yes. Let me just ask you a couple of quick
questions here. One is with respect to cross-training. That was
one of the issues that the chairman and I talked about when the
bill was filed. Can you give us an update on what exactly is
being done in order to cross-train people from different
agencies or departments so that they have an appreciation for
what the others are doing and can better coordinate their
efforts?
Mr. Hutchinson. Yes, and I'm grateful for the congressional
push and encouragement in this area. I think it is a very
important part of the mandate of Homeland Security. For
example, the first instance would be in the reorganization
we've accomplished Customs and Border Protection, which
includes customs, immigration inspectors, agriculture
inspectors into one CBP officer. They are being cross-trained.
That is an ongoing effort that happens locally on a day-by-day
basis, but we are also formally doing it through the Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center where we are doing cross
training there, and the new batch of officers coming out have
that cross training.
It is also taking place in the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement area where we have our special agents. They are
working side by side, Customs agents, Immigration agents
historically. Now they are ICE agents and they are being cross
trained, as well, working on cases together. That will be
expanded.
Then, for example, the international arena, we've had to do
substantial work, because all of the sudden we might have a TSA
inspector in a region of the world that we might have other
taskings for. It is a gradual process and we want to be careful
not to diminish their primary mission and training, but it is
something we're looking at as aggressively as we can.
Mr. Tierney. And other areas besides that on the domestic
level, in particular, cities or regions?
Mr. Hutchinson. Yes. I'm trying to think of illustrations
of it. For example, in the airports, just so limited, we just
initiated the Arizona border patrol initiative in Phoenix where
we really are trying to address the lack of border patrol
there, and we even had some limited training of TSA so that
they would know a little bit more how to identify and work and
support our efforts in the airports, not to interfere with
their usual operations, just to be more cognizant of other
Homeland Security issues. So that is an ongoing basis. We are
continually looking for opportunities there, and as we move
into the regional concept obviously that's where it will be
enhanced to even a higher level because you would have a
regional director that would help in the cross-training, in the
integration whenever it makes sense.
Mr. Tierney. Will you be providing Congress with a more
detailed plan of what you intend to do on cross training?
Mr. Hutchinson. We're happy to keep you posted, and
certainly you would be formally notified of any development of
a regional----
Mr. Tierney. Will you give us a plan of where you intend to
go, exactly what you intend to do, and when you intend to do it
by?
Mr. Hutchinson. We would be happy to.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.029
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. One last question on that is: with
respect to the Fire Act grants, is it the Department's
intention right now to continue those, the administration of
those the same way that it has historically been done, or are
you going to make any changes in that?
Mr. Hutchinson. The only change that I'm aware of is that
all of the grants, including the fire grants, are brought under
ODP, Office of Domestic Preparedness, simply for the purpose of
having a portal that all the grants be processed. We believe
that makes it easier. But the substantive review and the
commitment at the administrative level will remain the same
with emergency preparedness and response.
Mr. Tierney. So the application would go in as always and
the money would be directly out to the locals, as always?
Mr. Hutchinson. Yes. Yes, right.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
I want to go back to a comment that you made earlier. I
want to particularly focus on this procurement consolidation
for $100 million. Did I understand you to say that, by virtue
of the procurement consolidation for DHS, you expect savings of
$100 million?
Mr. Hutchinson. That's correct.
Mr. Ose. That's just on the first year of expenditures?
Mr. Hutchinson. This is in our 2005 budget, and it is
broken down--office supplies, weapons and ammo, copiers, fleet
motor vehicles, and IT savings is a big chunk of it I shouldn't
forget. So, those are strategic sourcing savings.
Mr. Ose. That's on the procurement side. So, in effect,
you've almost a one-stop procurement shop there, where
everybody's request can be consolidated and you can buy in
volume, if you will?
Mr. Hutchinson. Volume and efficiencies, yes.
Mr. Ose. All right. Now, on the other side of this, on the
grant side where assistance is being given out to local first
responders, that's also been consolidated. I think your phrase
was ``one avenue of access'' for that. I want to build on that
a little bit in terms of first responders. Where do they go for
assistance or guidance or direction? Whether you're the fire
department or law enforcement or public health officers or
whomever, is it DHS's intention that each of these different
disciplines will have a one-stop portal, or will all of the
disciplines be grouped into a single portal?
Mr. Hutchinson. The change we've made is for the grant
process, so that's just really for the flow of money. Now, for
technical assistance and other support they still have varying
agencies that help them. For example, public health you
mentioned. Obviously, Department of Health has a huge role to
play in that regard in supporting them and directing them. The
fire grants, you still have the Fire Administration that
supports them. If you are looking then, of course, at police,
they have a relationship with the law enforcement agencies that
we would be supporting them, the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center. So, it is a difference between the flow of
money and the technical expertise.
Mr. Ose. I am differentiating there, and that's my
question. I think I understand the money flow side of things.
I'm trying to understand the technical expertise. Is there a
similar one-stop shop concept for that?
Mr. Hutchinson. There is not now, but under the regional
concept the Department of Homeland Security there will be
that--they will absolutely know who to go to on the regional
level so they all don't have to go to Washington to call
around. That's one of the major benefits of a regional concept.
Mr. Ose. All right. Now, with your cooperation--Ms. Miller,
do you have anything else for the Under Secretary?
Ms. Miller. Could I ask one more question?
Mr. Ose. Certainly.
Ms. Miller. Just very briefly--it is interesting in my
counties--and, again, I'm sure this is not unique--it seems as
though almost all the counties have identified as their
priority their lack of ability to communicate with one another
for the different first responders, particularly the county
sheriffs, the police, etc. Do you have any comment on what the
appropriate role would be for your agency to make sure that
there is a standard, perhaps mandating the frequency or what
have you, so as everybody is out purchasing these new radio
control towers at the cost of millions of dollars, that they
can--I mean, it's great they could communicate within a county,
but how about the next county or State-wide?
Mr. Hutchinson. I might not have the technical expertise to
answer that question, but it is my understanding that this is
really not subject to a national standard, but it would be, for
example, the State of Arizona I know we're setting some State
principles in that regard, knowing which system everybody
should get on. States might make a different decision in that
regard. So, our priority is interoperability of the
communication systems. We direct that. We give some flexibility
obviously to the local communities as to how to accomplish
that.
Ms. Miller. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. All right. Mr. Under Secretary, we are going to
leave the record open for 10 days for questions for the record,
so obviously when we send them we certainly appreciate a timely
response.
We also, by consensus up here, think we might in 4 to 6
months have another hearing just like this to discuss DHS's
progress. We'd appreciate your cooperation on that.
Mr. Hutchinson. Always.
Mr. Ose. It's great to see you. You're doing a great job.
We appreciate your being here today.
Mr. Hutchinson. Thanks for your partnership.
Mr. Ose. All right.
We'll take a 5-minute recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Ose. We'll reconvene.
As you may have seen in the first panel, as a matter of
course we swear all our witnesses. We are joined today on our
second panel by the following people: Mr. C. Morgan Kinghorn is
the president of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Welcome. We are also joined by Mr. Edward Flynn, who is the
secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety in the State
of Massachusetts. We are also joined by Mayor Karen Anderson,
from the city of Minnetonka, MN, on behalf of the National
League of Cities. Our fourth witness is Dr. Martin
Fenstersheib, who is the health officer for Santa Clara County
Public Health Department on behalf of the National Association
of County and City Health Officials. And our fifth witness is
the former Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, Mr. James Lee Witt, who is currently president of James
Lee Witt Associates, LLC.
If you'd all stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
MR. Ose. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative.
Now, as you saw in the first panel, what we do is we have
each of the witnesses from my left to my right summarize their
testimony in the form of a 5-minute oral statement. We'll then
entertain questions from the Members present. I do want to
remind everybody we have copies of your written statements and
they will be entered in the record, so if you could summarize
and allow us to get to our questions that would be great.
Mr. Kinghorn, you are first to be recognized for 5 minutes.
Welcome.
STATEMENTS OF C. MORGAN KINGHORN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY
OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION; EDWARD FLYNN, SECRETARY, EXECUTIVE
OFFICE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS; KAREN
ANDERSON, MAYOR, CITY OF MINNETONKA, MN, ON BEHALF OF THE
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES; MARTIN FENSTERSHEIB, HEALTH OFFICER,
SANTA CLARA COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT, ON BEHALF OF THE
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY AND CITY HEALTH OFFICIALS; AND
JAMES LEE WITT, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY, CURRENTLY PRESIDENT, JAMES LEE WITT
ASSOCIATES, LLC
Mr. Kinghorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to
appear before you today to testify on the Department of
Homeland Security's plan for the consolidation and co-location
of regional and field offices. I am the president of the
National Academy of Public Administration, which is an
independent, nonpartisan organization chartered by the Congress
to offer trusted advice to public leaders, including Members of
Congress and agency policymakers. The views presented today are
my own and do not necessarily represent those of the Academy,
but they are based on a forum the Academy held in late December
with DHS officials and fellows of the Academy who are expert in
intergovernmental relations.
There is little publicly available information on how DHS
specifically plans to co-locate and consolidate its regional
and field office structures, so I will focus my remarks on
issue DHS ought to consider as it develops and implements its
plans. My comments are centered on two topics. First, it is
imperative that all stakeholders fully understand that
intergovernmental relationships are rapidly evolving, and,
second, it is essential that regional and field office
structures are effectively pieced together and managed within
this changing intergovernmental framework, and both issues
directly affect training, one-stop shopping, and first
responder effectiveness.
I will now quickly highlight some key principles for
managing intergovernment relations under Homeland Security.
First, eliminate confusion. Many city, county, and State
officials do not yet sufficiently understand their functions,
mandates, roles, and responsibilities under Homeland Security.
To address those issues, DHS should: one, better articulate its
intergovernmental mission, vision, goals, and objectives; two,
obtain widespread buy-in from key stakeholders; three, widely
publicize this intergovernmental framework as a high priority;
and, four, as mentioned earlier, train and build capacity to
accomplish that mission.
Second, balance command and control with collaboration.
Intergovernmental relations have evolved from vertical,
stovepiped systems into a much more complex, overlapping
network that are both vertically and horizontally linked.
Within this very decentralized network system, command and
control are sometimes necessary, but DHS should use
collaboration, partnerships, and incentives wherever possible.
Third, test the system against probable scenarios. DHS has
conducted such simulations, but it should consider more
sophisticated capacity-building initiatives. This could involve
taking a set of multi-jurisdictional crisis scenarios and
asking the partners in the system to demonstrate how their
personnel, equipment, protocols, and procedures would respond.
Turning briefly to field and regional office issues, DHS
office structures must be derived from a clearly articulated
mission--or, in the case of DHS, missions--in order to
effectively organize training, technical assistance, and
information dissemination. Given the complexity of homeland
security, DHS may need a variety of field and regional
structures.
Next, DHS needs to consider advantages and disadvantages of
existing models. There is a wide range of structural models,
from strong regional directors such as at FAA to a coordinating
committee approach such as the DOT or some other issue such as
sub-agency differences within the Department. Each differ
primarily with respect to the extent to which the regional
office controls what goes on in the field. For DHS that control
might need to change, depending upon circumstances.
The Department should establish unambiguous lines of
authority. The authority for critical incident decisionmaking
should rest as closely as possible in field offices directly
affected by events. Regional office should play a role when,
one, multiple field offices face terrorist attacks or other
large-scale challenges; two, when serious interjurisdictional
disagreements arise; three, when a policy is being imposed over
multiple jurisdictions; or, four, when consolidating functions
in regional offices will achieve efficiency.
Headquarters must carefully monitor the field and regional
activity. Failure and ineffectiveness in some past Government
reorganizations have been attributed in part to lax oversight
of field and regional office activity. In most cases, DHS
should place career civil servants in regional management
positions because they have experience managing large Federal
organizations and responses to critical incidents. Political
appointees would likely experience difficulty maintaining long-
term intergovernmental partnerships, since political positions
typically turn over quickly.
DHS should ring out structural duplication while
maintaining necessary redundancy, and DHS as well as we should
not confuse duplication with the redundancy necessary to
replace failed or immobilized components.
The Academy stands ready to assist your committee and the
Department of Homeland Security in any way we can, and I thank
you for allowing me to share my views.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Kinghorn.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kinghorn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.044
Mr. Ose. Our next witness is Mr. Ed Flynn, who is the
Secretary of Public Safety for the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Welcome.
Mr. Flynn. Thank you very much. Good day, Mr. Chairman,
Congressman Tierney. Thank you for having me here. I am the
Secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety. In
Massachusetts, that is a Secretariat that includes 10,000
employees and $1 billion budget. It includes our State
Department of Prisons, our State Police, our Emergency
Management Agency, our Parole Board. It includes the National
Guard, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and a wide variety of
institutions and agencies. And in the last year it has also
started to include responsibility for Homeland Security. When
this administration took office, Homeland Security was a
separate stovepipe, a separate advisor to the Governor, and it
was certainly seen, if you would, to be a good idea to co-
locate that function in the Executive Office of Public Safety,
which already had responsibility for emergency management and
the State Police and the National Guard and things of that
nature.
To paraphrase a now-somewhat-discredited famous domestic
advisor, ``Co-location, it's a good thing.'' Now, I come to
that conclusion based on many years of police experience and
some very specific experiences of recent years. I have spent 33
years in the law enforcement business. I worked my way up in
the chain of command in Jersey City, NJ, before I became a
police chief, first in Braintree and then Chelsea, MA, and then
finally in Arlington, VA. I was the police chief in Arlington
on September 11, 2001, when the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, was
attacked. Certainly that has had an effect on my thinking when
it comes to Homeland Security.
I work for our Governor, who was the executive in charge of
the first national special security event post-September 11.
That's Governor Mitt Romney. The event was the Salt Lake City
Olympics. So the two of us have very practical experience as to
managing Homeland Security in a post-September 11 world, and we
come to these responsibilities with very specific concerns
about how this business is conducted.
First and foremost, one of the things I learned at the
Pentagon is what we all know now, which is any community has
the potential for being an incident commander for an act of
international terrorism. We also learned that everything police
and fire do at the scene of a terrorist event arises out of
their core mission. Finally, we learned that no jurisdiction
does this alone, that it is essential to have mutual aid
partners and an interjurisdictional response.
But certainly an interjurisdictional response in
metropolitan D.C., in which I had to coordinate the activities
of seven major sophisticated police departments, is profoundly
different than coordinating a similar response in, say, New
Jersey or Massachusetts, where there are 351 fiercely, proudly
independent cities and towns, each one of whose shoulder patch
proudly proclaims what decade in the 17th century they were
founded. Coordinating that response obviously puts a great
burden on the State to be strategic, to coordinate those 351
cities and towns, to have some sort of strategy that kind of
operationalizes the military dictum that he who tries to defend
everything defends nothing. And, so it is in Massachusetts
we've worked hard to leverage Homeland Security funding, which
is also spent through my office, to create interjurisdictional,
interdisciplinary partnerships, to create formulas that guide
our funding to make sure that the funding is risk based,
vulnerability based, and threat based, and, finally, to make
sure that we are in touch with our core constituencies. This
arises out of the fundamental principle of organization which
balances the desire to organize functionally with the need to
functionalize geographically.
If there's one thing the policing business learned in the
1980's and 1990's particularly as we tried to engage with our
communities and have a positive impact on the quality of life
and on crime, it is that we had to be close to our
constituents. Where possible, that meant physical
decentralization. That meant putting our cops in the
communities, be they in station houses or in storefronts, or at
least giving them geographic responsibility. We did the same
thing with our detective divisions. Why? Because we found out a
long time ago detectives don't talk to patrol officers and
patrol officers don't talk to detectives, and the fact is that
in policing we don't tend to share information with people we
neither know nor trust. And to achieve that, whether it is
within the precinct house or in an interjurisdictional drug
task force or gang task force, we've got to put those cops
together where they are going to talk to each other, where
they're going to learn to trust each other, rely on each other,
and, yes, ultimately actually tell each other things.
Now, this is true in police work and it is true in most
areas of government--that we work collaboratively with those we
know and trust, and if we have them in the same building
they're going to talk to each other, they're going to buildup
those trusting partnerships, and they are going to coordinate
their activities. Certainly we've tried to do that at the
Executive Office, where the Under Secretary for Homeland
Security and Public Safety are right next to each other, as
they are with the Under Secretary for Corrections. We think
they need to model the behavior that we'd like to espouse for
our Federal partners. We think there's no better way to
coordinate the central aspects of information flow than to have
the people responsible for that information in the same
vicinity in a situation in which they can communicate with each
other.
Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Thank you for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Flynn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.048
Mr. Ose. Our next witness is the mayor of Minnetonka, MN,
the Honorable Karen Anderson. Welcome. You are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mayor Anderson. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman
Ose and members of the committee. The National League of Cities
is very pleased to share our position on the Department of
Homeland Security's efforts to reorganize, restructure, co-
locate the regional and field offices of more than 22 agencies
that were merged in the new department.
I am Karen Anderson, mayor of Minnetonka, MN. I'm a past
president of the National League of Cities, and I am a member
of the Department of Homeland Security's State and Local Senior
Advisory Committee.
I understand our written testimony is already part of the
record, so I will just summarize some of that.
The National League of Cities is the largest and the oldest
organization representing local governments in the United
States. We represent over 17,000 cities, towns, and villages.
Our municipal leaders are concerned about any plans to
restructure the DHS field offices. They know that will impact
our local governments, our first responders, and our ability to
fulfill the expanded duties for emergency preparedness and
homeland security.
I want to highlight four points that we urge Congress and
DHS to consider for the restructuring process: the importance
of a centralized field office, the establishment of local task
forces to help in that, information sharing and best practices,
and then all hazards planning.
First, the importance of providing a one-stop shop in the
form of a centralized office when possible would be a valuable
benefit to local government. Having a centralized office with
the authority to quickly garner the resources needed during a
catastrophe, to perform the onsite coordination among Federal
agencies, that's all paramount to improving the readiness and
the response capabilities locally. A good example of a one-stop
shop is Minnesota's State duty officer, whose office is
available 24 hours a day 7 days a week to determine the
appropriate State agency and to identify and mobilize the
resources that are needed in an emergency. This model, when
applied to the consolidation of field offices, could provide a
one point of contact to determine the appropriate Federal
agency and identify the Federal resources that are available to
assist our local first responders in an emergency.
The field offices could also provide local governments with
the technical assistance needed to plan for coordinated
response, procure needed equipment, coordinate training and
exercises, and secure grants.
Second, NLC strongly supports the creation of local task
forces that include local elected officials and first
responders to facilitate the establishment of efficient and
workable co-located regional or field offices. It's a good
government approach to ensure that the input of all
stakeholders is included early in the process.
Information sharing and best practices, third, I would like
to emphasize the importance of sharing information and sharing
our best practices among all stakeholders. DHS can play an
important role in providing a centralized clearinghouse of best
practices that are drawn from all entities involved in
emergency response and homeland security. That clearinghouse
should be accessible to local governments and first responders
through both DHS, but also through the local field offices.
That could be a point of collection for the best practices, as
well.
All hazards planning, fourth. DHS must build on the
progress made through FEMA's focus on all hazards planning.
This model should be used in the consolidated field offices to
integrate planning for natural disasters with the expanded
duties for Homeland Security. Our folks are most concerned that
the resources already developed for responding to natural
disasters that we know are going to occur--we are going to have
tornadoes in Minnesota. We know that and we are prepared to
respond and we want to make sure that those capabilities aren't
diminished or lost with the new attention paid to homeland
security.
Finally, NLC urges Congress and DHS to ensure that there
are enough resources and flexibility in the consolidation
process to address the unique needs of every local
jurisdiction. Using a one-size-fits-all approach to disaster
preparedness is not the most successful way to improve homeland
security, and a careful analysis is needed to ensure that these
efforts don't create an added level of bureaucracy.
We want to congratulate Secretary Ridge and his staff on
the progress that has been made within the last year, and we do
appreciate the challenges that still lie ahead. To continue
this progress and ensure that the field offices are most
effective we need strong partnerships, collaboration problem
solving, and enhanced communication. Mr. Chairman, NLC looks
forward to working with you and the Department of Homeland
Security to build a national system of domestic preparedness
that is flexible enough to prevent and respond to all types of
emergencies.
Thank you. I would be available for questions.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Anderson follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.053
Mr. Ose. Our next witness is Dr. Martin Fenstersheib who
is, again, the health officer for Santa Clara County in
California. Welcome, sir. We do have a copy of your written
statement for the record. You're welcome to summarize in 5
minutes.
Dr. Fenstersheib. Thank you very much, Chairman Ose, and
greetings from the great State of California.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
Dr. Fenstersheib. It is my pleasure to be here speaking to
you about this very important issue today. I am representing
the National Association of County and City Health Officials,
and it represents the nearly 3,000 local health departments
across the country. I work at one such local health department
in Santa Clara County, CA.
We are really, really happy to be here, to be basically the
new kid on the block when it comes to first responders. I think
it was already--public health and health was already mentioned
I think by the chairman once today, so we're very, very happy
about that. But it is a shift. I think it is a paradigm shift
in the thought process and the perception of what first
responders are today, and clearly when we look at the issues of
biological warfare, bioterrorism, public health has played and
continues to play a major role in what we are doing.
Now, in California we are really proud of the way we have
basically worked our coordination efforts with our traditional
first responders, and through the efforts of the funding from
the Department of Homeland Security we have been able to secure
some of those funds, but it has been through the leadership
within California that has directed those funds to include
public health at the table to make sure that discussions and
integration and collaboration include the critical work of
public health, be included, and that we would also and I would
also suggest be perhaps a guiding force or some direction for
the Department in the future, to really require that public
health be at the table in all the negotiations for co-location,
for standardization, and for other types of planning within the
Department of Homeland Security.
I wanted to give you a couple of examples of how things
really work. Because of the integration and the work we have
been doing in actually sitting at the same table with the new
players that I consider not traditional in my field, which is
the sheriff, my local sheriff, my local police chiefs, my local
county fire people, because we have sat at the table, because
we know one another I think our response has been very, very
effective.
Almost 1 year ago today in San Jose at the airport an
American Airlines plane landed there, and the pilot reported to
us that there might be a couple cases of SARS on board. We got
that information from county communications and it was required
or requested of us in public health to be the lead in the
incident command. This has never happened before. And I don't
know whether that's a good thing or not, but we did speed out
to the airport and we entered the plane as the first first
responder to that incident. We actually evaluated the situation
on that airplane as it sat on the tarmac and determined that
there were a couple people that may meet the definition of
SARS.
This, again, was not a terrorist event, but certainly it
could have been any biological agent that we were dealing with.
It could have been smallpox that we were dealing. However, we
did evaluate those patients. We had the paramedics on board. We
had the police there. We had fire. We had HAZMAT units there.
But we directed the response. We had those patients get off of
the plane and get into the ambulances and go to our general
hospital, where they were evaluated.
Now, none of those patients turned out to be SARS; however,
as I said it could have been smallpox. Because of the training
we've had in public health, we have been vaccinated. We could
have actually entered that plane safely and evaluated that
incident had it been smallpox at that time.
We've also been able to deal with some of the white powder
incidents that have come up all across the country, and because
of the work, the integration, the collaboration that we've had
with traditional first responders, recently one of the fire
chiefs--one of the police chiefs at a local municipality called
me up and said that there was a questionable couple of letters
that had white powder in it, what should he do. Again,
unprecedented type of relations with public health, mainly
because this is the planning that we have been doing under our
directions down from Homeland Security.
We got that letter tested. It turned out not to be
anything, which was good, but we were able to do a risk
assessment and work with that local police agency to deal with
the local response, and everything worked out fine.
On the education side, we were talking about cross training
and different types of education materials. We developed
locally something which I think could be a national model. It's
called ``Disaster University.'' It is something that public
health has put together. Here's our brochure, first catalog.
Basically, it is different courses where we've served as a
clearinghouse to bring people together and train them. We have
mental health professionals, again, which should not be left
out in this equation. We've had fire and police trained in
many, many different areas, and I think it will serve again as
a way of cross training and providing different levels of
expertise to others. We might expand that to some of the
traditional agencies within the Department of Homeland Security
whom we don't really talk with. TSA at the airport--we have no
relationship with them whatsoever, and several other of the
agencies. And so I think, again, bringing some of those closer
to where the first responders actually work, where we work,
would be very helpful.
We think that, again, that we have provided some really
good models, and California has taken a leadership role again,
as I mentioned, really making sure that public health is at the
table and actually making sure that some of the funds from DHS
are expended in the area of public health. IN fact, it's 20
percent.
We welcome DHS's leadership, and we want to be at the
table. We want to be at the table during planning, and we want
DHS to be at our planning table, also. Remember that public
health is concerned with the health of the community, but we
also are concerned with the health of the first responders and
will be there to protect them, also, before they go out in
harm's way.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Doctor Fenstersheib.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fenstersheib follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.060
Mr. Ose. Our final witness on the second panel is Mr. James
Lee Witt, who is the former Administrator of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. He is the president of James Lee
Witt Associates, LLC.
Sir, welcome to our panel. You are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Witt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this
hearing today. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you
today to share my thoughts.
First let me say I am extremely concerned that the ability
of our Nation to prepare for and to respond to disasters has
been sharply eroded. I would urge that you look at the
consolidation of offices and other areas of concern at DHS. You
look at them for their effect on the local, State, and Federal
partnerships for an all hazard approach to emergency and
consequence management.
During my tenure at FEMA, the staff and the resources of
our regional offices enabled our agency to maintain strong
relationships with our State and local partners and other
Federal response agencies in the cities and States. These
relationships were critical for the effective communication and
coordination before, during, and after a disaster.
Relationships built over the years facilitated our ability to
preposition staff, resources in advance of hurricanes and flood
disasters, helped expedite efforts in catastrophic disasters
like Hurricane Floyd, the North Ridge Earthquake, the Murray
Building bombing, and many others across our Nation.
Through ongoing training and exercising of the
administration of our performance partnership agreements with
the States in their areas, our regional staff were able to
truly know the State and local capabilities, both strengths and
weaknesses, so that our FEMA team could hit the ground during a
disaster and support resources that State and local government
needed. Relationships that were built over the years during
disaster and non-disaster experiences allowed the regions and
the entire agency to accurately identify the needs of the State
and local governments' first responders and disaster victims.
I feel very strongly that these people in the front lines
of the defense of our homeland must have the input into the
policies of DHS, especially in the discussion of regional and
field offices. Everyone agrees that creating DHS has been and
continues to be a monumental and very difficult task. While
many elements are providing essential security for our Nation,
I and many others in the emergency management community here
and across the country are deeply concerned about the direction
FEMA's all hazard mission is headed.
I hear from emergency managers, local and State leaders,
and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew
and worked with has now disappeared. In fact, one State
emergency manager told me it's like a stake has been driven in
the heart of emergency management of this Nation. They are
suffering the impact of dealing with a behemoth Federal
department rather than the small but agile independent agency
that coordinated Federal response effectively and efficiently,
understands the needs of its local and State partners. They're
concerned that the successful partnership that was built and
honed over all of the years between local, State, and Federal
partners and the ability to communicate and coordinate and
train, prepare, and respond has gone downhill, and they are at
a loss as to how to work with the Federal Government now and
they fear for their community should a catastrophic disaster
occur.
So what is it that is causing this concern? First, FEMA has
lost its important status as an independent agency. Instead, it
has been buried beneath a massive bureaucracy whose main and
seemingly only focus is fighting terrorism. And, while that is
absolutely critical, it should not be at the expense of
preparing for and responding to natural disasters. While the
likelihood of another terrorist attack on our homeland is sure
to happen, it is an absolute certainty that our country will
experience more natural disasters, and there will be no
question that some will be catastrophic. It is not a matter of
if, it is a matter of when and where.
Second, the FEMA Director has lost Cabinet status, and with
it the access and the close relationships with the President
and Cabinet affairs. I assure you that we could not have been
as responsive and as effective during disasters as we were
during my tenure as FEMA Director had there been layers of
Federal bureaucracy between myself and the White House. Just
one degree of separation is too much when time is of the
essence and devastating events are unfolding rapidly.
I firmly believe that FEMA should be reestablished as an
independent agency, reporting directly to the President but
allowing for the Secretary of Homeland Security to task FEMA to
coordinate any type of response to a catastrophic terrorist or
manmade event.
Historically, duty of consequence management following a
terrorist event is important. We saw that in the Murray
Building. We saw it in September 11th. We saw it in several
others. But I think, Mr. Chairman, that the years that I have
served in public service, which has been almost 25, this
experience that I had from local, State, and Federal, and while
I have seen and witnessed over many years, partnerships working
together with State and local government and Federal agencies
is absolutely critical. We had one of the most dynamic Federal
teams in the Federal Government that I have ever witnessed.
In closing, let me say this. The 8 years as FEMA Director I
saw Federal career employees work unbelievable hours, made
sacrifices, and made a difference for this country because they
cared about what they were doing, and I will never, ever forget
that. So, thank you.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Witt.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Witt follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.065
Mr. Ose. As is our normal practice, we will now go through
rounds of questioning. Each Member will be given 5 minutes.
There is a clock there in front of Dr. Fenstersheib and Mr.
Witt to monitor your time.
Dr. Fenstersheib, you mention in your testimony the State
law that sets up the five-member county-based, what term did
you use?
Mr. Fenstersheib. Approval authority.
Mr. Ose. Approval authority--thank you--for the
expenditures of Federal grant moneys from DHS. Now you've
testified that it has been a phenomenal or at least a
reasonable success. Do you know of any other jurisdictions
outside of California that have used anything of a similar
nature?
Mr. Fenstersheib. I really don't. I know that there's
certainly close coordination for the urban area types of grants
that are coming from DHS, but I'm not aware of any that are
similar to California in this regard.
Mr. Ose. Besides Santa Clara, where else has this strategy
been particularly effective in California?
Mr. Fenstersheib. Well, I am part of a group that
encompasses all of the health officials in the San Francisco
Bay area, and we were just talking about this last week, and
everybody was agreeing and shaking their heads that it has
actually worked phenomenally well. In fact, I spoke to the
Office of Homeland Security's Deputy Director this morning to
tell him that I thought that it was working well and that I was
going to then pass that on to this committee, so I think it is
working quite well.
Mr. Ose. So there are eight counties in that?
Mr. Fenstersheib. Nine.
Mr. Ose. Nine?
Mr. Fenstersheib. Nine counties.
Mr. Ose. All right. And they each have their own five-
person adjudicatory body?
Mr. Fenstersheib. They sometimes call us the ``Gang of
Five.'' But yes, that's it. It's not under law; it is just a
directive by the Office of Homeland Security in California.
Mr. Ose. The State Office of Homeland Security?
Mr. Fenstersheib. State Office of Homeland Security called
OHS.
Mr. Ose. All right.
Mr. Fenstersheib. They also made it required that we have
20 percent, 20 percent, 20 percent for fire, law, and health,
and 40 percent discretionary funds that we can all agree on for
things such as training.
Mr. Ose. OK. Now, Mr. Flynn, in terms of your experience
both in Massachusetts and then onsite at the Pentagon, would
this kind of a body have helped in terms of pre-event type of
situation, helped in terms of resolving many of the conflicts
that you had to deal with kind of in the crush of the moment?
Mr. Flynn. Well, just for the record, even through the
pleasant haze of history we really didn't have a lot of
conflicts there, just by nature of this region. As you know
living here, there's an extraordinary amount of
intergovernmental collaboration already in place because
Washington, DC, metro has been at ground zero for 60 years, so
there were very, very few interjurisdictional,
interdisciplinary problems at the Pentagon because we had
worked and trained and drilled together, unlike most of the
rest of the country.
Similarly to what California does now, Massachusetts, with
its next iteration of Homeland Security funding, has pledged
itself in its Homeland Security strategy, which has recently
been approved by ODP, to distribute this money based on
jurisdictions that we have fixed that largely mirror the old
emergency management jurisdictions and regions of the State,
and those regions will each have a governing council made up of
police chiefs, fire chiefs, emergency management directors,
hospital officials, emergency management directors, and people
representing the city and town manager community, and that
group will, in fact, decide who the fiduciary is for that
money, they will identify someone to assist with a regional
plan, and they will be the ones making the decisions to
distribute those funds. So we're kind of taking a page from
California's book without knowing it, but we are going to apply
the same concept in Massachusetts.
Mr. Ose. All right. Now, Dr. Fenstersheib, I don't mean to
pick on you, but I just--this Disaster University concept that
you came up with--first of all, I want to enter into the record
the pamphlet you have there, but I also would like to have you
expand upon what the Disaster University concept does.
Mr. Fenstersheib. Well, it's not a building but it is a
virtual university, and what we've done is co-locate a lot of
the training efforts and serve as a clearinghouse or resource,
but we also provide--we have staff that oversee this. We put
out--and I think it is very useful just figuring out all that's
out there. I think a lot of people don't even know what's out
there for training. And so bringing everything together,
getting the information out to the appropriate people that
might benefit from those particular trainings, get that
information, sometimes bringing actual people out that we feel
need to be in our area to train, say, mental health
professionals which we just had a couple weeks ago, which was
very, very valuable. I mean, mental health is often something
that's lost. And actually the concept of just identifying
what's needed from all of the jurisdictions and then bringing
those and making those available, and then having something
really that you can put your hands around and look at like a
university catalog and say, ``This is what is offered,'' and
actually offer credits, too, for those professions that have
continuing education.
Mr. Ose. But that was not put together by the Public Health
Office; that was put together by the county, so it is holistic?
Mr. Fenstersheib. The Public Health Department is within
the county, and so we in Public Health actually have the staff
that are doing this.
Mr. Ose. But you have mental health, you have physical
health, you have law enforcement, you have fire.
Mr. Fenstersheib. We're doing it for them.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Mr. Fenstersheib. So it is happening in public health, but
it brings everyone together and gets all of their requests and
puts them all into one place.
Mr. Ose. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Witt, you have me concerned here with your testimony,
so let me ask. You're indicating to us, I believe, that even
before there's any attempt at consolidation or coordination
amongst the various DHS departments, you feel that FEMA has
sort of had its role subsumed and no longer able to respond as
quickly, no longer able to take charge of the consequence
situation, and no longer able to get a direct decision from the
White House or the top as they have in the past; is that
correct?
Mr. Witt. Well, I'm very concerned about it, particularly
as this consolidation occurs, that I think it needs to be
looked at very carefully because you don't want to lessen the
opportunity of the President to be able to make a decision very
quickly, directly to the head of FEMA or the agency that's
responding. I know in the past with experiences I had, that one
phone call and have that access, to be able to make that
decision very quickly makes a big difference, particularly for
a Governor of a State. I think it has lessened the importance
of an all hazard approach to consequence management. I know,
working with Congress and working with the White House, it was
absolutely important to be able to have access and to be able
to talk to chairmen, to be able to talk to Members,
particularly in Districts that have been affected. So yes, I
think it has been lessened, and I think the--I am concerned
about the regions, I'm concerned about consolidation. If a
consolidation is within the municipality that they're all in,
that's different and should be looked at. But if it is broader
than that, then that's where I would have questions.
Mr. Tierney. I don't speak for the chairman, but I know we
were originally talking about municipalities and local offices
and the benefit of tying them together.
Mr. Witt. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. That doesn't concern you----
Mr. Witt. Not within that----
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Drawing people in for an entire
region.
Mr. Witt. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Flynn, how do Mr. Witt's concerns impact
Massachusetts? And what is Massachusetts doing to sort of
confront those types of concerns?
Mr. Flynn. Well, we're certainly working very closely. The
Emergency Management Agency in Massachusetts is part of the
Executive Office of Public Safety. It has a long and rich
history of collaborating well with FEMA, as well as with the
regions of Massachusetts that report to it for emergency
management purposes. What our priority is right now is making
sure that emergency management works seamlessly with the rest
of our Homeland Security efforts, which means really helping
make it more intrinsic to the efforts of the State Police and
the Department of Fire Services and the National Guard by
making them a prime provider of incident command training for
all of those jurisdictions of a higher level. So we are trying
to get our Emergency Management Agency to move somewhat beyond
its historic responsibilities for consequence management and
mitigation and into a more proactive stance regarding Homeland
Security generally.
Mr. Tierney. If there was a natural disaster in
Massachusetts, who would the emergency management people report
to directly?
Mr. Flynn. Well, it would depend on who the incident
commander was, obviously, and the type of incident it was. So
clearly every community becomes an incident commander if they
have a disaster. In that context, whether it is a fire disaster
or a police disaster or overall disaster, the Emergency
Management Agency in Massachusetts plugs right into whatever
the incident command system that is in place. Functionally, of
course, they report to a Secretariat, but in the field, of
course, they are part of the incident command structure.
Mr. Tierney. Suppose we have a huge flood in Gloucester, a
lot of devastation on that and it becomes a national area of
concern up and down the coast. What would be the process there?
I mean, how would the process differ than it used to under FEMA
as it was constructed prior?
Mr. Flynn. Well, at the State level it doesn't now, in our
experience. I mean, certainly local emergency managers respond
to or report to or coordinate, I suppose is actually the best
term of art. Local emergency managers coordinate with the
regional emergency manager who coordinates with the Statewide
emergency manager, and they make sure that the appropriate
resources are brought to bear. Their job is to coordinate a
mitigation response, and they do so very well.
Mr. Tierney. Suppose it is large enough that you want to
get the national perspective or whatever, take another step.
Mr. Witt. The next step is the State Emergency Management
Agency connects to FEMA and activates their responses.
Mr. Tierney. And now, Mr. Witt, you're saying what happens
then under your concern.
Mr. Witt. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Explain to me what you think is the problem
there--that they contact FEMA and under the old FEMA what
happens and what looks like to be occurring, what happens now?
Mr. Witt. If it was an event that was large enough that the
State and local government were not able to respond to to
minimize a risk to that State or those communities, then that
State director of emergency management would make a request to
the FEMA regional director's office, the regional director's
office. That would come up to the headquarters or through the
Governor's office, and the Governor would make a request to the
President for either an emergency declaration or full
declaration.
The regional office then would work with the State in
conjunction with them in doing the very fast damage assessments
and analysis to see whether it was warranted for the President
to make a declaration.
That speed is very important because it could mean whether
or not lives are saved and property saved, and that is my
concern, particularly when it comes to the national level. If
Under Secretary Michael Brown has to go through two to three
layers of bureaucracy within the Department of Homeland
Security to advise the Cabinet and the President that the
Governor of Massachusetts has asked for an emergency
declaration for public health and safety, and that it is
important to get the President to declare this immediately, if
it goes through two, three layers of decisionmakers, that chain
can be broken very quickly and that speed could be stretched a
lot longer in getting something done.
So it is important that the Under Secretary, like the
Director of FEMA, be able to connect to someone to make that
decision immediately and not have a layer between that decision
process. That's my concern.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Witt, I'm going to get back to you,
and when the yellow light goes on I probably will, but I want
to get into some other issues because I think what you're
talking about right now as far as direct decisionmaking has to
do with anything that we have to do and any type of disaster or
whatever.
I was a former local elected official for 18 years, and I
was a county executive for 8 years and a county executive
during September 11, and I know your pain or know your issues.
And I think one of the things that is very important when you
deal with Federal Government, to be honest with you, I didn't
really care much about what the Federal Government did other
than when they gave us good grant money, and so what I found is
that when we got money directly from the Federal Government
that came directly to the locals without going through the
Federal and State bureaucracy, we would get the money right
away, we could put it out in the street, whether it was for
cops or whatever. It was there. And when I see a program that
is too bureaucratic and doesn't have that kind of system, we
need to look at it.
Now, Homeland Security really--the Department of Homeland
Security is a reality. We have to deal with it. It is broad. It
is very bureaucratic, and unfortunately it doesn't have the
resources that it needs. When you don't have the resources, you
have to pick your priorities.
Your comments, all of you, about being involved in the
front line, I mean, any good managers go to the front line and
ask the front line what they need.
In my District we did a--which is the 2nd Congressional
District and it has NSA, it has the Port of Baltimore, it has a
lot of different areas, a lot of water, and I want to ask about
Isabel. But anyhow, in that District we did a survey of all
local institutions--volunteer fire, career fire, governments,
whatever. Of all those institutions, 76 percent hadn't received
any money from Homeland Security. So we have a problem here. We
have an issue, and that's why we're having this hearing.
I would like to know--I guess, Ms. Anderson, we'll start
with you--what you feel needs to be--it's just a broad softball
question, but what you feel you would like to see from your
perspective as mayor on what priorities would you need. Now,
there are priorities. There's an intelligence issue where you
have your local people getting together with the State, the
Federal, and FBI, and Customs. There's one group dealing with
intelligence. Then there's the first responder issue. Then
there's a lot of the medical issues afterwards if something
does occur. So from a local elected official, what would you
recommend? And if you could address the issue of baseline. I'm
going quick because I only have 5 minutes. I don't see how we
can really have any standards until we have a baseline of
standards so that we know exactly what we need. What you need
in your jurisdiction might not be what we need in Gloucester or
need in other areas, and we need to be more specific.
I know Congressman Tierney and Congressman Shays and I have
a bill in, a standards bill, to try to develop that. I don't
know where the bill is right now, but you know hopefully we'll
be able to move forward and at least get people thinking of
standards.
Ms. Anderson.
Mayor Anderson. Well, as we know the resources are being
directed through the States at this point. The National League
of Cities did support that for the first year and a half. We
recently changed our position----
Mr. Ruppersberger. Good.
Mayor Anderson [continuing]. And said that we believe that
the resources should go through the States except for those
cities and regions of over 100,000 and larger population or
those with a specific, unique need that might need direct
funding. And the reason we changed our position is because the
money isn't getting to the local level.
I think we are encouraged by movement just within the last
couple of months that maybe some of that logjam is beginning to
be broken and being addressed. But, interestingly, the needs
are different in every State and in many unique regions and
areas, so I think it is difficult to have it based on a
national baseline or standard, and it may be very appropriate
to do that on a regional basis. But the locals need to know
about that. They need to know with some certainty where to go
and how the baseline and the standards, where they are being
developed and where they are and how to respond. That's where
we see that the consolidated field offices could be very
helpful, because they will be unique to each.
Mr. Ruppersberger. And have input from the local level.
Mayor Anderson. Yes.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Have you been working with NACO,
National Association of Counties, on this issue?
Mayor Anderson. We have been working with NACO on Homeland
Security issues. The discussions about co-location and
consolidation are very recent, so we have not, but we certainly
will.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Witt, the issue of Isabel, a lot of
the area that I represent was on the water in Baltimore and
different parts and a lot of people lost their homes and hadn't
had that kind of devastation in a while. FEMA eventually came
in, but one of the main reasons I think that we started to get
the attention is that we got Ridge to come. Once we got the
man, I mean, the leader to be there, then we were able to move
forward. And I agree with you. I mean, when you have a natural
disaster you have to move quickly. You can't wait. And, part of
FEMA's role pursuant to the Federal law is basically to help
people in the beginning stages to get them where they need to
be. And yet when you have Coast Guard, Customs, all these
different arenas, I'd just like to know that you have to take
care of, too, because Ridge has a really tough job. What would
your--what do you know about Isabel and how FEMA reacted with
respect to that disaster and what recommendations do you have
to make it better?
Mr. Witt. Well, two things. One, it was very interesting on
Isabel. We got a lot of calls from States. We got calls from
Virginia and Maryland and we advised them and helped them, some
of it privately. The response was not as good as it should have
been. The closeness of working with the State and local
communities was not as good as it had been in the past. I don't
think it is anyone's fault. I just think the fact that a lot of
the focus and attention that FEMA has had in the past on these
type of events has been lessened because of demand on them for
other priorities that have been placed through Department of
Homeland Security, which is important and critical. Don't get
me wrong, but I think what bothers me----
Mr. Ruppersberger. But there has been a dilution of where
it was and where it is now?
Mr. Witt. Yes. Priorities change during different times,
there's no doubt. But, what concerns me is the fact that, you
know, we had the Federal response plan in place, the national
Federal response plan that was amended after the bomb in the
Murray Building to include terrorist type events. Based on
that, every State and every local government prepared Statewide
plans and local plans in preparing for and responding to an all
hazard approach using the ESF function at the Federal, State,
and local level. So a system was in place.
The problem I had is to save time, save money, and to move
this process much faster is why are we trying to reinvent the
wheel instead of just adding more spokes in it that it needs.
That's one of my concerns.
Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Kinghorn, you talked in your testimony about
something to the effect of we're only as strong as our weakest
link, and I presume you're suggesting that we have some
specific points that you identify as most troublesome, and I'm
wondering if you would be willing to share those with us.
Mr. Kinghorn. I think one of the things that I'm certainly
hearing from this panel and our fellows who are involved in
this--a third of our fellows are from State and local
government, local health officials, and heads of most of the
county organizations and city organizations who have been
involved in looking at these issues--that the situation has
dramatically changed. There were two large scenarios done, one
before September 11 and one last year, Top Off and Top Off 2.
One of the key things that came out of that was the incredible
size difference in the number of organizations involved in
potential terrorism attacks other than natural disasters, and
the real requirement to develop, as Mr. Flynn and others
mentioned real relationships with different organizations.
I think it is not so much one city versus another as the
weakest link; I think it is this issue that was talked about
today, developing best practices from what is coming out from
all the localities, because there is really no and there
probably can't be any centralized control over what a best
practice is. But, I think what could be done is to share how,
in these kinds of situations, people can react better. There
were over 120 different entities in Top Off 2 that interacted.
Just like we heard from Dr. Fenstersheib, we had new people who
never had become leaders in incidents being thrust into those
positions. I think that's really what we meant by the weakest
link. When we have to really look at this in terms of unnatural
disasters, terrorism, the situation can be quite different.
Mr. Ose. OK. Mr. Witt, I want to go back a little bit here.
Congressman Ruppersberger brought up Hurricane Isabel. We've
had fires in California, things like that. I'm trying to figure
out, in the context of the discussion we had about standards,
what is the standard for response from the Federal Government?
For example, I carry around this little Blackberry all the time
and it's like I've got a 30-second response to anything that
happens. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't. But, I'm
constantly in contact with people in my office somewhere. So
when we're talking about FEMA having been subsumed at the DHS,
the standard for FEMA response should be----
Mr. Witt. Basically, using the fires in California as an
example, State director of emergency management, when those
fires begin, would contact the FEMA regional office in
Sacramento, in San Francisco, and say, ``We have a situation
that may expand. Would you get your team here in our emergency
operations center so they can be here working with us,'' and
they would be there. They would respond.
We had on the national, regional level, we had red, white,
and blue teams that were on duty for that particular month
that, if something like this was starting to take place, then
this team would automatically be there in support of that
particular State in the operations center. Then, if it
expanded, then the team was there supporting the State and
being able to communicate that back to not only the region but
also to Washington.
Let me just share this with you. I was in Chicago and it
was at night when the fires were going on, and I called Dallas
Jones, the State director, to see if there was anything we
could do to help him. Chairman Jerry Lewis called me from
California because it was in his District, a big part of it,
that night on my cell phone, and he was--he said, ``James Lee,
I need some help.'' I said, ``Mr. Chairman, what can I do to
help you?'' He said, ``Well, the fire is extremely bad. We're
going to lose a lot of homes,'' and he was very worried about
it. And, he said, ``Could you please tell me someone within
FEMA that I could call to talk to, because I cannot get anyone
to return my calls.''
Mr. Ose. Has FEMA's approach in terms of the standby teams
changed? Do you know if these teams are still in existence?
Mr. Witt. Mr. Chairman, I could not answer that question. I
do not know.
Mr. Ose. I'm wondering how----
Mr. Witt. I have not been working--Mr. Flynn might be able
to--you've been working with them on it?
Mr. Flynn. I haven't had any complaints yet.
Mr. Ose. Well, I am concerned. You've suggested that
perhaps there had been significant change, and I'm trying to
figure out what the change might have been.
Mr. Witt. There has been so much change, you know, I cannot
answer that if they have been dissolved or added to because I
don't talk to FEMA that much.
Mr. Ose. So we don't know if they are still there or not?
Mr. Witt. No, sir.
Mr. Ose. All right. My time has expired.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Flynn, in light of the reports this week
that the State and city officials in the Boston area might not
have been informed after September 11th about certain boats
carrying natural liquid gas, I'm interested in fleshing out a
little bit about how the communications system is working here.
Can you tell me how information on threats now gets relayed
from the Department of Homeland Security to the local first
responders? What's the process on that? Who does it go through?
Mr. Flynn. Well, I think it is important to note that there
are two sources of information now available to State and local
police officials. This can be good. It gives us more
opportunities to get more information. It can be bad when one
source of that information doesn't know about the information
the other source is providing and can't verify it. We had all
three experiences. We get information from the FBI, frequently
from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and that comes to us
through our State Police members on it, as well as the major
jurisdictions. That's certainly a robust and effective
investigatory task force. We also from time to time get threat
information from the Department of Homeland Security.
The difficulty is that sometimes it's not the same
information from both entities, and there are times that one
entity is unaware of the information the other entity has. I
would say some of this perhaps is structural and goes back to
the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, and
clearly a significant component of our law enforcement response
to terrorism is not located in Homeland Security, and so
therefore there are not perhaps the levels of coordination at
that level.
Mr. Tierney. That was a point back when it was being set
up.
Mr. Flynn. So, I mean, that's certainly been a challenge
for us. Obviously, as you know, back home the local media have
been all over this LNG issue and who knew what when. I can say
that I called in my office just before I came here and asked if
we'd gotten any spontaneous phone calls from our Federal
partners, and we hadn't yet, so I still don't have any
information to add to that which was revealed yesterday,
although I did buy a copy of the book to read on the airplane
to find out for myself what had gone on. So I know what you
know right now.
Mr. Tierney. Well, you know, ``I told you so'' is not a
policy, so I won't get into that too much, but there was a lot
of discussion at the time as to, you know, pick 22 out of 133
agencies and organizations and clump them together and sort of
somehow leave the FBI out, along with others, and put certain
other ones in.
The fire departments tell me that they're not in the loop,
that DHS may notify local police officers, whatever, through
the law enforcement, whatever, when there's a threat out there,
and the fire department doesn't seem to be indicated that they
should get the same level of detail that the police do, but
they feel they ought to somehow be included in notice of
threats out there because it would help them respond and they
should be part of that. What's your feeling on that, Mr. Flynn?
Mr. Flynn. Well, I think there's two ways to look at this
issue, and I'd really like to turn the paradigm around a little
bit after I respond to the primary question here.
We work hard to keep our fire departments in the loop
through a notification system known as ``SATURN,'' and what
that acronym means----
Mr. Tierney. You're talking about the State?
Mr. Flynn. That's correct.
Mr. Tierney. And, I guess, just to stop you, because I'll
be limited time, I'm really talking about the Federal flow of
information of threat assessment as it may go through the State
or not.
Mr. Flynn. Well, when DHS provides information to us we
send it out to our red, white, and blue teams, so, you know,
the boilerplate general threat information we provide
immediately to our fire partners as well as our State partners.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Witt, have you heard similar
things on that? Is there any issues on that, if you can tell me
about what you're hearing.
Mr. Witt. I have heard similar. I was in New York yesterday
and I visited with the fire commissioner of New York and some
fire folks, and I think it boils down to different States
having different systems in place and how they communicate,
because a lot of times you get into areas, particularly in the
major metropolitan areas and States with high population, you
get into situations where there's a lot of turf wars, there's a
lot of ownership.
Mr. Tierney. That would never happen in Massachusetts.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Witt. So I don't know if that is a fixable solution
right now. I think it is a doable thing in the future, but I
think it is going to take a little bit more time.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Witt, besides FEMA and the concerns you
have for it being sort of subsumed into a bureaucracy, of any
of the other 21 remaining agencies that are sort of connected
at the DHS, do you have a fear that any one of their missions
or goals are going to be put in the same sort of predicament?
Mr. Witt. I do have a lot of concern. You know, when I was
at FEMA we worked extremely close with SBA, HUD, Corps of
Engineers, DOD. It was really a unique Federal team of 26
agencies. And I do have some concerns. I had a lot of the
disaster medical teams across the United States contact me
because they had basically cut the funding to the disaster
medical teams that we had built over the years. These teams are
absolutely critical, particularly when you have catastrophic
events. They responded to September 11 in New York, the
Pentagon, and many other places. They responded in North Ridge,
Floyd. These teams are volunteer. They are like Doctors Without
Borders. They're like our national search and rescue teams, and
they train very hard. They're doctors. They're professionals.
They're paramedics. And they contacted me and they could not
get anyone at FEMA nor DHS or HHS to talk to them. So I have a
lot of concerns across the board in how it has been handled.
But, you know, Secretary Ridge has a huge responsibility and
Under Secretary Hutchinson, White House is a fellow Arkansan I
know well and have met with.
And let me just say, too, when Joe Albaugh was at FEMA and
now Michael Brown--and I met with him quite often and had lunch
with him and told him, I said, ``Look, anything I can do to
support you behind the scenes quietly that will help you to be
successful, I will do, because if you are successful then I
know that the American people are going to be taken care of,
because I'm worried about it, I'm concerned about it, and I
still want to help and do what we can.'' But it has to be a
partnership and it has to be from the local, State, national
level, because, you know, when Secretary Flynn in
Massachusetts, if something happens you know who is going to be
there at the first. It's going to be your local and State first
responders, emergency management, all of them. And you know
what's interesting? They're going to respond regardless of what
kind of equipment they've got because they care about the
community.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Ose. I want to thank our witnesses for appearing today.
It is interesting hearing the testimony, the challenges that
lay ahead of us. In its first year as a department, DHS has
made significant progress toward achieving its mission of
reducing this Nation's vulnerability to terrorism and preparing
the various levels of government for dealing with any such
disasters, whether they be natural or otherwise. It's clear we
have a long road ahead of us. We're not doing everything
perfect yet. You heard me ask Under Secretary Hutchison about a
followup hearing in 4 to 6 months. I think that would be
appropriate. We are going to leave the record open for 10 days
for Members' written questions. We'll get them to you and we'd
appreciate a timely response.
We thank you all for taking the time to come down and
participate.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of their respective Chairs.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4905.074