[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ASSURING THE NATIONAL GUARD IS AS READY AT HOME AS IT IS ABROAD
=======================================================================
(110-45)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 18, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon DON YOUNG, Alaska
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
Columbia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JERROLD NADLER, New York WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
CORRINE BROWN, Florida VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
BOB FILNER, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington Carolina
RICK LARSEN, Washington TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JULIA CARSON, Indiana SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri Virginia
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DORIS O. MATSUI, California TED POE, Texas
NICK LAMPSON, Texas DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa York
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina Louisiana
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
JOHN J. HALL, New York MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
VACANCY
(ii)
?
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency
Management
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine SAM GRAVES, Missouri
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania Virginia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota York
(Ex Officio) JOHN L. MICA, Florida
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Hoell, Doug, Chairman of the National Emergency Management
Association, Emergency Management Assistance Compact Committee,
and Management Director of North Carolina Division of Emergency
Management..................................................... 28
Paulison, R. David, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, Department of Homeland Security........................ 28
Sidwell, Major General King, Adjutant General, Missouri National
Guard.......................................................... 10
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania............................. 48
Mica, Hon. John L., of Florida................................... 49
Walz, Hon. Timothy J., of Minnesota.............................. 55
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hoell, Doug...................................................... 56
Paulison, R. David............................................... 64
Sidwell, Major General King...................................... 77
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, Representative from the District of
Columbia:
National Governors Association, letter to President George W.
Bush......................................................... 3
Adjunts General Association of the United States, Roger P.
Lempke, Major General, President, AGAUS, letter to Rep.
Norton....................................................... 52
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ASSURING THE NATIONAL GUARD IS AS READY AT HOME AS IT IS ABROAD
----------
Friday, May 18, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and
Emergency Management,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes
Norton [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] Presiding.
Ms. Norton. Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing.
This hearing responds to serious issues that have been raised
by Governors of several States and by the Commission on the
National Guard and Reserves and, increasingly, by others
throughout the Nation about the Nation's ability to respond to
disasters and emergencies at home as well as the ability of
States to defend themselves in case of terrorist attacks or,
for that matter, during civil disorders.
Today we will take testimony that asks directly whether the
National Guard is as ready at home as it is abroad. There have
been a number of reports that National Guard units and
equipment that would normally be used to respond to disasters
at home have been sent overseas, to the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan, creating hardship at home. Equally troubling are
reports that some National Guard units are being told to leave
their equipment overseas for other military units, depriving
Guard units headed home of needed equipment that possibly--of
equipment, excuse me--that possibly is needed stateside.
Today we will have witnesses elaborate on these issues and
hopefully identify areas where all involved can take action to
resolve these concerns. This hearing is timely and necessary as
the hurricane season begins. The National Guard is a mainstay
for more than 3,000 communities throughout the United States
for disasters and emergencies, including those declared by the
President as well as less serious events that do not receive a
Federal declaration. Guard units play a lead role in home
States and support neighboring States through various
mechanisms, including the Emergency Management Assistance
Compact.
For example, today we will hear from Doug Hoell, Director
of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management.
Frequently over the years as hurricanes approached the Florida
Keys, the North Carolina Air National Guard almost routinely
sent a special plane to Florida to evacuate hospital patients
in case of the threatening storm. Federal, State and local
emergency managers always work closely with the National Guard
on a day-to-day basis; 18 State emergency management agencies,
for example, are either in the State military department or
report to the State adjutant general who is, of course, the
commander of the State National Guard.
The indispensable role of the National Guard in hurricanes,
floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and other disasters that we see
every year is as important at home as the role that the Guard
is now performing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After 4 years at war, in which the Guard has participated
in unprecedented numbers, it is time to inquire whether the
National Guard is available and prepared to do the necessary
job at home as well.
I am going to put into the record a letter signed by all of
the Governors of the States, a letter written to the President
in February 2006.
In this letter, the Governors indicate that the National
Guard members have provided nearly 50 percent of combat forces
in Iraq, and, as well, the bulk of the U.S. personnel in the
Balkans and the Sinai Peninsula.
I want to quote from the letter I am going to put in the
record. "fulfilling the mission of the National Guard at home
and abroad requires both manpower and equipment. Unfortunately,
when our National Guard men and women return from being
deployed in foreign theaters, much of their equipment remains
behind. Attention must be paid to reequipping National Guard
units with the resources they need to carry out their homeland
security and domestic disaster duties while also continuing to
fine-tune their wartime mission competencies."
I am going to put that letter in the record.
[The information follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5927.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5927.005
Ms. Norton. And I want to indicate that Congress is
considering moves to curtail the power of the President over
the Guards and decry the Defense Department to analyze how
prepared the country is for domestic emergencies.
Recently we have had a dispute between the administration
and the Governor of Kansas, who--which you may recall was the
most recent disaster in Greensburg, Kansas, where effectively
an entire town was wiped out, and the Governor complained about
the lack of National Guard that she regarded as understaffed
and underequipped.
Governor Chris Gregoire of the State of Washington has said
that when his State experienced wildfires, key segments of the
Washington State National Guard was deployed in Iraq. He says
that the equipment shortages have sometimes left the State
struggling even to adequately train those who were left at
home.
The letter came because when the Governors had their
meetings, they found that many of them had the same complaints.
The Congress has got to pay attention to these complaints. The
Governors are now doing a great deal more of sharing among
themselves than they have traditionally done. And the fact is
that the administration has asked Congress for $22 billion more
for the Army National Guard over the next 5 years. However, the
GAO has said that it is concerned--and here I am quoting from
the GAO--that this equipment may be deployed to meet overseas
demands.
Those demands have to be met, but we have got to somehow
make sure we replenish the supplies at home, considering that
what we know will happen every year, what we are sure will
happen every year, are a fair number of natural disasters
because of the landmass and the climate of our country.
The GAO in 2005 found that almost every State's National
Guard had a fraction--had only a fraction of the equipment it
was supposed to have. The GAO said, and I am quoting here, "The
high use of the National Guard for Federal overseas missions
has reduced equipment available for State-Led domestic needs."
Recently there was testimony in the Senate by the top
commander of the National Guard, Lieutenant General Steven
Blum. He testified that the continuous use of National Guard
forces overseas has--and here I am quoting him--"resulted in a
decline of readiness for units here at home."
A large part of the problem has to do with equipment, not
only personnel that is shipped abroad. Among the States worst
off are Arizona, which has just 34 percent of its allotted
equipment; New Jersey and Idaho have just 42 percent of
allotted equipment; and Louisiana, where you might expect more
equipment now to be on hand, remains at less than 50 percent of
its allotted equipment.
The problem stems also from the fact that the Pentagon does
not, as a regular matter, measure the equipment readiness of
nondeployed Guard forces for their domestic missions. There you
can see a great big hole. What you don't know will certainly
hurt you. So now there is increasingly a push for information,
how to collect this information so that we at least have some
record nationally of what is needed, the way we of course have
of our Armed Forces that are used abroad.
The dependence of States, increasingly on neighboring
States, also has been found to leave much to be desired. An
example recently, again from the State of Washington, found
that during that fire, many neighboring States have had severe
equipment shortages as well, so much so that they were unable
to borrow equipment from those neighboring States. This is an
issue that deserves our most serious attention. And I am
pleased to call upon our Ranking Member Mr. Graves for his
remarks.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate very
much and I appreciate the witnesses all being here today. And
thank you for jumbling around the order, Administrator
Paulison, I appreciate that.
We are here today to talk about the National Guard's role
in disasters, and in particular I want to thank Major General
King Sidwell, the Adjutant General of Missouri's National
Guard. Major General Sidwell began his military career more
than 33 years ago and has served as Adjutant General of the
Missouri National Guard since January 27, 2005. As the Adjutant
General, he ensures the Missouri National Guard is trained,
equipped and resourced to deal with its dual State and Federal
mission.
He is also responsible to the Governor for the State
Emergency Management Agency. The Missouri National Guard has
done a great job in responding to disasters. And this has been
the most active disaster year for Missouri in the last decade.
The National Guard has responded six times in the last 13
months, and they are doing a tremendous job, in my opinion.
With the recent floods in my district, I have seen
firsthand the important role of the National Guard during
disasters. Just over a week ago, I was sandbagging on the
Missouri River, along with National Guard troops, to keep
floodwaters from coming into downtown St. Joseph. Just a decade
ago in the big flood, I was sandbagging with National Guard
troops up and down the river and some of the tributaries.
National Guard forces across the Nation have a dual
mission, the warfighting mission and role as emergency State
responders. When local resources are overwhelmed during a
natural disaster, that is when the National Guard obviously is
out there. The Federal Government needs to make sure that they
have the resources for both of these missions. This needs to be
a priority. If they don't have what they need, let's make sure
they can get it.
I want you to know that I am here to help and we want to
make sure that you do have everything you need. In most
disasters, the resources of the State are adequate. However, in
large disasters like Hurricane Katrina or a New Madrid
earthquake, which is what we are always talking about in
Missouri, the State resources will be overwhelmed. In these
situations, the critical issue becomes, how does the Governor
get the resources he or she needs at the right place at the
right time in the State?
There are two ways to get the needed resources. First a
Governor turns to other Governors to request resources like
National Guard troops and equipment, due to the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact or EMAC. Second, the Governor can
request Federal resources, like the Department of Defense
resources, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
During Hurricane Katrina, the first process worked
incredibly well. The second didn't. Approximately 50,000
National Guard forces were put in the command of Governor
Barbour and Governor Blanco through EMAC. Under the second
process, significant Active Duty forces did not arrive until
after the Superdome and the Convention Center were evacuated.
It took too long and it was not clear who was exactly in
charge.
Our Committee's reform legislation enacted last year
improved both of these systems. First we authorized additional
funding for EMAC to implement the lessons learned from
Hurricane Katrina to make a good system even better.
Additionally, we changed the Federal process in two ways. We
required FEMA and DOD to work out, ahead of time, the jobs DOD
would be requested to carry out during a disaster. We also
required the DOD to assign permanent Defense coordinating
officers to each FEMA region so that National Guard forces and
FEMA personnel in each region would know who to request
resources from during a disaster.
Again, I am here to help to make sure the National Guard
forces have what they need, and, when forces are overwhelmed,
they have a fast and effective way to get what they need when
they need it, whether it is through other States or through the
Federal Government.
Again, I thank the witnesses for being here. Thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Graves.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Carney, do you have an opening statement,
any remarks you would like to make?
Mr. Carney. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing today. The
readiness level of the National Guard is an extremely important
topic, obviously, with far-reaching implications. The National
Guard plays a vital role on protection of property and lives
right here at home. The brave and selfless men and women who
make up the Guard units are ready at a moment's notice to help
their fellow Americans in times of natural disaster and indeed
man-made disaster. We should do more to commend them for their
efforts, certainly.
It has been well documented that the National Guard is
taking on a great responsibility in the fight against
terrorism, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, and there is cause
to be concerned about this deployment, particularly with
respect to Guard missions here at home. Frankly, I am concerned
that the National Guard is being stretched too thin, and I am
worried this is having a negative impact on the ability of the
Guard to protect American lives here at home.
Madam Chairwoman, I look forward to hearing from the
witnesses you have assembled here today about the Guard's
readiness, particularly during times of natural disaster, and I
am eager to learn about their views and suggestions about what
we need to do to adequately address this problem. I yield back.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Carney.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Mica, the Ranking Member of the Full
Committee, I am pleased to have him here this morning. Any
remarks, sir?
Mr. Mica. Thank you and good morning. I am glad to see you
are addressing a very important issue before our Subcommittee.
And I am pleased to see that you have these witnesses before us
that can help us as we look at some of the issues.
And I heard our Ranking Member's opening comments. I heard
the Chairwoman's opening comments, and agree with some of the
statements that have been made. And I think all of us also
agree that the National Guard has done an incredible job, not
only the men and women of the National Guard, but their
families who have sacrificed to put up with the disruption in
their lives and having their sons and daughters and wives and
husbands serve us in a time of need.
I was in Congress during the 1990s when we started
dismantling the military after the fall of the Soviet Union.
And our numbers have dwindled and we have become more reliant
on our National Guard as an important force in taking active
military action wherever needed. And, unfortunately, it has
been needed.
I would say, yes, that our National Guard is stretched both
in manpower and also equipment. Yes, that we have had
incredible demands put on the personnel and on our resources in
the National Guard. I think that it is incumbent on Congress
the and House of Representatives--our Founding Fathers have all
appropriations measures start in the House--that we provide the
resources.
You know, I have been home in the last few weeks and I
heard--I met a lot of families, some that have National Guard
members serving in Iraq and around the globe. And I heard from
some of the Active military families too. And they said, we
don't mind sending our folks over here, we don't mind these
extended missions, but don't leave our men and women without
the equipment to do the job. They will do the job but don't
undermine their efforts.
And I think it is disgraceful that here we are, after the
Senate voted 93-0 for General Petraeus to take on the mission--
he came here down the hall just a few weeks ago, met with with
us, said he didn't even have half the surge personnel that he
needed to get a difficult situation under control--that we have
not passed a supplemental. The supplemental was loaded down.
There was a request for $90 billion, of which there is over $1
billion for the Guard that is still pending; still pending as
we are sitting here this morning in this hearing.
So the Congress has the responsibility to give the
resources. They will do the job, and their families are willing
to make that commitment.
For the Guard, I am just checking, they need about $29
billion to do the war mission, and they need about $4 billion
for domestic improvements. I checked with the National Guard in
Florida, my home State. They need about $340 million in
additional equipment to better meet the warfighting and
training requirements, according to General Burnette who heads
our Guard. However, he made it clear to me in checking on our
readiness that the Florida National Guard is fully prepared to
respond to domestic emergencies. Of course, Florida, my
district, was hit with three hurricanes, and they were ready
and they are ready, according to him.
And FEMA has also done a good job. They have had some
problems, but I think with the FEMA Reform Act and the
leadership that we have, we can do a good job there. I do want
to say, however, in closing here, that the utilization of the
Emergency Management Assistance Contract--and that actually
came out of my area, the southeast region evolved, I was told,
out of Hurricane Andrew. We can't all have all the resources to
deal with every huge disaster, but cooperatively between FEMA,
the National Guard, State and others being ready and bringing
those resources together, we can do a great job.
And then there are some States that are better prepared
than others, as we saw in Katrina. Florida was ready. Florida
ended up helping Mississippi. Louisiana was not ready.
Louisiana still has problems getting its act together.
We had Governor Blanco contrast the leadership, contrast
the States' readiness. Again I think we can do the job. I want
to hear where we are with the resources and any recommendations
to even better improve on the lessons we have learned. Because
it is important that we be ready but also that we give the
Guard the resources they need to do the job we have assigned to
them.
Thank you. Yield back.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Kuhl, do you have any remarks?
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for the opportunity to
address this body and present some opening remarks. But I am
one of those people who has heard it all before, and I am not
about to continue this process. I am anxious to hear the major
general's testimony so that we can help to accommodate the
Guard in what they need. So I would yield back my time.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Kuhl.
We are taking one witness out of order. So I am pleased to
ask Major General King Sidwell, the Adjutant General of the
Missouri National Guard-- that means the head man in charge,
everybody--if he would begin his remarks at this point.
TESTIMONY OF MAJOR GENERAL KING SIDWELL, ADJUTANT GENERAL,
MISSOURI NATIONAL GUARD
General Sidwell. Madam Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member
Graves, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the
Missouri National Guard's ability to provide military support
to civil authorities during disasters.
Eight hundred forty-two members of the Missouri Air and
Army National Guard are deployed in various theaters in support
of combat and peace enforcement missions. More than 10,000
soldiers and airmen remain at home to assist and support civil
authorities when called. In the previous 13 months, Missouri
soldiers and airmen have been called upon six times for State
emergency duty, to expand the capabilities of State, local, and
Federal agencies to respond to damages or life-threatening
events resulting from severe storms or heinous criminal
activity. In each case, we have successfully managed our
ability to match organized, disciplined, military manpower with
available military equipment or leased equipment to provide
essential support to our citizens.
Reflecting back to Hurricane Katrina and Rita, the disaster
in the gulf coast in 2005, Missouri National Guard units
quickly mobilized and responded to the needs of the Governors
of Louisiana and Mississippi, deploying more than 2,200 trained
and equipped soldiers and airmen within 72 hours after
receiving the call. When Missouri's Governor Matt Blunt
declares an emergency, he brings the full resources and
authority of all State resources to bear on a State emergency.
The priority of effort of each agency is directed towards
saving lives and protecting State and local governments'
ability to deliver essential services. And then to mitigate
property damages.
In the event that capability required does not reside
within either State agencies or the Missouri National Guard,
support--Guard or otherwise--can be requested through the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact EMAC system, as
recognized by House Joint Resolution 193 of the 104th Congress
of the United States.
If the appropriate resources are not accessible through
EMAC, the correct protocol is to request support through the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.
In my written statement I speak a little more to the
processes of EMAC and coordinating use of Federal assets. I can
speak to each later in this session, if you require. Through
EMAC, I fully expect my fellow adjutants general, upon the
authority of the Governors of the 54 States, territories, and
District of Columbia, will support Missouri in times of need.
Missouri, like other States, prepares and regularly reviews
response plans to meet challenges presented by a potential
spectrum of emergencies ranging from the most likely to less
likely, but perhaps the most catastrophic.
Missouri's most catastrophic natural disaster scenario
occurs with the event of a major earthquake along the New
Madrid/Wabash fault zone which passes through southeast
Missouri. We recognize projected devastation of a 6.5 magnitude
or higher quake, as measured on the Richter scale, will
immediately overwhelm our ability to effectively respond with
State needs only to the citizens in the impacted area, which
could include St. Louis City and St. Louis County.
The Missouri National Guard, in concert with State
agencies, regularly assesses our resources resident within a
State. Our planning process identifies the types and quantities
of National Guard capabilities required to ensure an adequate
response.
I have great confidence in the Chief of the National Guard
Bureau's commitment to fairly allocate the requirements of
current and future natural operations among the States so that
each State will retain adequate capability to respond to
disasters at home.
At the height of Missouri's involvement in deployments of
supporting missions overseas, we retain more than 59 percent of
our personnel. We currently have 53 percent of the total Army
National Guard equipment authorized within the kinds of units
assigned to our State.
In my written statement I speak to certain dual-use items
that we intensively manage to be prepared for the warfight and
to support needs at home. The National Guard Bureau has worked
closely with Missouri to honor its commitment to manage
overseas deployments in a way so as not to unfairly or
critically degrade our ability to support the citizens in times
of need.
In Missouri, the National Guard remains ready, reliable,
and always there. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear
before you today and to answer any questions you may have with
respect to the interface of the National Guard and our civil
authorities. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Our Ranking Member is from Missouri, so I am
going to defer to him first to ask the first questions. And I
thank you for that very important testimony, Major General
Sidwell.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate it very
much. I know that the past year--and I am keenly familiar with
how many disasters we have had and how many times you all have
sent out the Missouri National Guard--but I am curious about
your readiness and your current personnel--your current
personnel levels and your readiness to respond to a disaster,
how you feel about that. And basically, you know, what is
happening in terms of--I know Missouri has got--just like every
other State, we have got a lot of people deployed, we have got
a lot of equipment deployed. But if you could talk about any
disaster you have responded to, has there been a time when you
feel that you weren't adequately ready for it? Are you
concerned about that in the future?
General Sidwell. Missouri is roughly 103 percent of its
authorized strength by way of personnel. And although we talked
to the percentage of equipment, which is 53 percent, you have
to understand the metric from which that is derived. The 53
percent is from the table of organization and equipment for a
warfight. So it doesn't necessarily directly correlate to the
types of equipment you need for a State emergency duty.
As far as I know, there has not been a nationwide analysis,
or at least I have not seen one, of those specific items of
equipment that would be necessary for the national planning
scenarios that are identified in the National Response Plan.
For those emergencies that we have faced in Missouri, the
requirements have been well within our equipment capabilities.
Another thing that you need to understand in the metric of
measuring equipment is that prior to September 11 of 2001 the
equipment readiness was reported in what they call equipment
readiness code A and pacing items. And in any individual unit,
there might be four pacing items. So if you reported 75
percent, you had three of those four.
Today the equipment readiness levels are calculated
differently because it is all the equipment across the spectrum
of equipment that you are authorized. So there are some of
those line-items of equipment that are not necessary for State
emergency duty but are necessary for training or for
preparation for the wartime mission of the National Guard. An
example of that for Missouri would be that our five readiness
shortages in equipment, the SINCGARS radio is number one, and
we are at 54 percent fill. I am advised that we are to receive
the balance of fill in October of this year. The multirole
bridge company equipment is 28 percent of fill which means we
have only one bridge set because there are only four. And,
quite honestly, those were left in theater, but it is not
something that is going to significantly enhance my ability to
respond on a stateside mission.
Humvees, the up-armored cargo Humvees were at 30 percent of
fill. But that is not an item. You don't need up-armor in the
State of Missouri for a disaster. That is something you need in
theater and it is something you need for training readiness to
deploy to theater.
With regard to the family of tactical vehicles, I have 24
percent, but that is 127 in number. The constraint may be the
transportation infrastructure as opposed to the number of
trucks when responding.
I am also short on my palletized load system trucks, I am
at 38 percent, but that is 54, so I have almost 180 truck
transportation for my Guard units to respond to a State
emergency.
So there are two things to look at here. One is warfight
and the other is the domestic mission. My concern with
equipment more addresses the availability for training for the
Army forces generation policy that predicts the use of National
Guard forces in a warfight.
Mr. Graves. And I have one quick question, too. You know,
given the relationship Missouri has with Kansas--and I know we
work together on a lot of different things, but when the Kansas
Governor was concerned about the shortness of their equipment
over in Kansas, did they call you all to fill in that gap or to
help them out over there?
General Sidwell. We did not receive a call from Kansas. In
response to some news media issues, I received calls from
NORTHCOM, the Pentagon, the National Guard Bureau, some of
which asked, can you help Kansas? We did initiate two telephone
calls to their operations and training section to see if there
was anything they required by way of equipment or personnel
from Missouri. In response to those telephone, calls they
indicated there was nothing at that time that they needed in
response from Missouri.
We do maintain a close working relationship. In fact,
Missouri and Kansas share the 35th Infantry Division, the
division is located in Kansas. The commander actually happens
to be a Missourian, the deputy commanders are Kansas and
Illinois. So all of us work very closely together in training
and response.
Mr. Graves. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I didn't
realize we shared a division with Kansas. But thank you very
much.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. But your answer, Major
General Sidwell, may indicate that EMAC isn't working today,
the emergency compact, the way we might have expected, if only
because according to the 50 Governors, they all understand that
they are in the same boat, that everybody is lacking equipment.
And I wonder if you think there may be some reluctance to call
upon neighboring States who are in the same boat as other
States are?
General Sidwell. My experience is to the contrary. What
normally happens on--and in fact did happen during the last
flood--is when we have some sort of natural disaster which
makes the news media, I immediately get a call from some of my
counterparts or adjutants generals in other States,
particularly neighboring States, to ask if they can provide any
assistance to Missouri.
The EMAC system I think worked well with the response to
Louisiana. When I mentioned that Missouri Guard soldiers were
down there in 72 hours, that was--they were on station in 72
hours; 48 of that was transportation. We actually flew
vaccinations so that we could vaccinate the soldiers en route
and they were fully self-contained for 10 days. So all they had
to do was receive assignments and nobody had to--all they had
to do was task them.
In the EMAC system it involves not just the National Guard
but other State services and nongovernmental services. An
example of that would be during Louisiana, I received calls
from acquaintances who were nongovernmental or governmental who
said they wanted to help. And I would explain to them that--for
example, a municipality might call and say, I want to send my
SWAT team down there, or a trucking owner said, I want to
provide trucks to Louisiana. And I explained to them that the
way to do that is that we take their offer of assistance, we
log it as available resources through our State Emergency
Management agency, which then communicates to the State
Emergency Management Agency of Louisiana or identified State,
and they identify what resources they need and give it back to
us so that we can send them down there.
It creates a good working relationship, and my experience
with EMAC is that it has worked very well. But I have only
donated by EMAC. I have not had to request out-of-State for
EMAC. We have been able to handle the emergencies in Missouri
within our own capabilities without looking outside.
Ms. Norton. And we are very proud and pleased of the role
you played in Louisiana, and apparently every Guard was willing
to do all that was necessary in Louisiana. So it is clear that
the Guards will do what soldiers always do: go where they are
needed.
Your Governor, General Sidwell, signed this letter that I
mentioned in my opening remarks, and the letter requests that
the Department of Defense reconsider any proposed force
reductions in the Guard and work with Governors to reequip our
returning units. This was signed by all 50 Governors.
I am wondering how your level of personnel and--I am
interested in two questions. One has to do with recruitment and
retention of personnel, and the other has to do with the
equipment of a kind we have been discussing here. How does your
current level of personnel and equipment compare to levels, let
us say, in 2003 or 2000?
General Sidwell. We are about 1,000 more personnel than we
were at the time I took over, a little over 2 years ago, as the
Adjutant General.
Ms. Norton. You have not had any problems with recruiting
personnel?
General Sidwell. We are number two in the Nation in
recruiting, and I think number six in end strength against our
authorized. And as far as equipment is concerned, as I
indicated to you before, I do have concerns about the types of
equipment that I have available for training for the warfight.
It is more than an ARFORGEN issue, that is Army Forces
Generation policy. And in that, the projection is that each
State would retain 50 percent of its assigned personnel for
State duty missions, 25 percent would be in the ready phase.
That is the last stage of training before deployment. And 25
percent would be in the available stage, which is those who
would be called upon for deployment. And that has some flex
either way.
So the assurance from the Guard Bureau has been that we
will retain in each State 50 percent of our authorized or,
rather, are assigned to have available for State missions. And
thus far our experience is that that has hovered around the 50
percent range. I think that there may have been a State or two
that dipped into the 47 percent or 48 percent during times of
deployment.
The question, I think probably, when you talk about an
incident of national significance, such as Katrina was, you
can't--and the National Guard put roughly 50,000 boots on the
ground to assist in that response? You cannot equip each of the
54 States and territories with 50,000 people for the worst-case
scenario. You have to have, in the parlance of the Army,
agility to maneuver and the ability to mass at a critical point
in time.
Some general once said that if you defend everywhere, you
defend nowhere. So the ability to mass the response through a
system like EMAC is very important.
One of the things that probably would be of great
assistance to the National Guard, Federal Emergency Management,
and State and local official is if we had more training
exercises which integrated the planning and evaluation of our
plans together. So probably if some funding could be allocated
to that purpose such as the spills of national significance
exercise or the "Ardent Sentry" Guard exercises, where you get
together the principal players, State, local, Federal, to
interact in their planning as to how to accomplish the task,
that would be of assistance to us.
Ms. Norton. That is funding that is not available to you
now?
General Sidwell. An example would be the spills of a
national exercise which is scheduled for June in St. Louis,
Missouri. The scale of the regional planning has--it has been
scaled back considerably because of funding constraints. And
oft times you had a little trouble marrying up the funds in one
area and another on an exercise. And, quite honestly, one of
the institutional problems that exists is people tend to
stovepipe their planning, and FEMA tends to plan FEMA
exercises, and NORTHCOM tends to plan NORTHCOM exercises and
the Guard tends to plan Guard exercises. And there needs to be
an effective integration of all of those.
Ms. Norton. --needs money. That sounds to me as though it
needs--the players to get together and do it.
General Sidwell. There are money constraints on that, the
availability of money for exercises.
Ms. Norton. Well, we would be most interested in that,
because particularly since with all of our needs abroad, we are
not just talking about natural disasters at home. We are
talking about preparing for terrorist disasters that could come
anyplace in the United States. We need to make sure that the
National Guard is prepared not only in the District of
Columbia, for goodness sakes, but wherever such an attack could
occur.
General Sidwell. Currently the money that is available, as
I understand it, tends to center around homeland defense as
opposed to homeland security exercises. They tend not to be
geared to the disaster response, but the weapons of mass
destruction scenario, both of which are necessary to secure the
citizens of the United States.
Another area that might be of assistance--one of the things
that was identified in the post--the after-action reviews for
Katrina-Rita was problems with communication. And when you
look--on a local level you may have the police department and
the sheriff's department who can't communicate with each other
because they have bought equipment at different times, and
there has not been a standard equipment protocol and cross-
banding.
One of the items in the news I think you saw in Kansas'
response is they had gotten a brand-new trailer with cross-
banding equipment which turned out to be a very positive thing
for Kansas. But there is a significant issue I think across all
States and territories out there concerning the cross-banding
capabilities so that the local sheriff or police or the fire
can communicate with the military or FEMA, and that is--it is a
focal issue right now in a planning group in Missouri, but
money is always an issue.
Ms. Norton. Well, and that--I am on the Homeland Security
Committee as well, and the consistency of this problem and our
inability to handle this are perhaps the most troubling post-9/
11 issues that the States continue to raise. We have got to get
control of that. And it has been very, very difficult. I am
glad you raised it.
One more question on communications and other equipment.
You talk about dual-use equipment in your testimony at page 6,
and you mention among the dual-use equipment, of course,
communications equipment, medium and light trucks that you say
were in short supply before September 11. And you say that you
are optimistic that the current emphasis on procurement--you
use the word "procurement"--will enhance our warfighting
capabilities.
I mean, are you saying that you expect that we are now
procuring medium and light trucks and communications equipment
of the kind you need in Missouri?
General Sidwell. Yes, ma'am, I am.
Ms. Norton. Is that at the local level or are you saying
that some money has been allocated nationally that you expect
to be available at the local level?
General Sidwell. For example, a minute ago I mentioned the
SINCGARS multichannel radio that is being funded. We expect to
have that fielded to us, the balance to fill us up in
approximately an October time frame. And that was an issue in
the Katrina-Rita disaster because the Active component had Sync
guards. The National Guard did not. And it created a
communication gap between the two.
So those things are being addressed at the G-8 level of the
Army, and I think are being addressed through congressional
funding items. We just received $6 million for 915 tractors
this last year, which is a congressionally funded item, and
there was a report given by the Office of Legislative Liaison
on 26 February of 2007 which identified in that $4 billion
needed for the essential TO&E items, and those would be a
subset of the $23 billion which is being proposed for the
National Guard over 5 years. And, again, I remind you that some
of our shortages may be wartime shortages as opposed to
peacetime response shortages. Those dual-use items of equipment
are the ones that have been identified by the National Guard
Bureau to the Army for funding for the National Guard to meet
State response.
Ms. Norton. I am going to move to the Ranking Member of the
Full Committee. I do want to say I indicated in my opening
response that--in my opening remarks--that the administration
had indeed asked for, I think it is $22 billion more, for the
National Guard. I believe that the appropriators are going to
have to make sure that a fair balance of that equipment is
retained at home. And they know how to do that on the
appropriation itself because the GAO said that it is concerned
that that, or most of that equipment, would go abroad.
General Sidwell. I believe they have actually instituted
some new accounting protocols in the G-8 at the Army for
tracking those items that are funded for the National Guard.
Ms. Norton. Well, you can track them all you want to after
it is done. But if Congress allocates money and does not say up
front that at least a certain amount of money should go to help
reequip the National Guard at home, the GAO tells us that that
might not happen. Mr. Mica?
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you. General Sidwell, you probably
don't know me very well, but I like to cut right to the chase.
Probably one of the primary reasons you are here is there is an
accusation that because of the conflict in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the war on terrorism that we are engaged in, that
the Guard is not prepared to address domestic incidents. And,
quite frankly, you know, we had the Greensburg tornado, and
there were some questions as to whether you had the resources
to respond. Did you have adequate resources to respond?
General Sidwell. That was actually a Kansas issue as
opposed to a Missouri issue.
Mr. Mica. Yes.
General Sidwell. From the standpoint of Missouri in our
State emergencies, we have had more than adequate resources to
respond to those which have confronted us.
Mr. Mica. Okay. And right now you have enough--if you had a
Greensburg-type incident, you would have had enough resources
to respond?
General Sidwell. That is a correct statement.
Mr. Mica. And then you described the 50 percent 25, 25; 50
percent domestic sort of reserve, 25 percent readiness, 25
percent in deployment. And that is adequate? Is that what--and
what do you have? What are your percentages? Are they similar
to that?
General Sidwell. I am sorry, percentages of what?
Mr. Mica. You said that your force--you divided it up and I
thought you said that you had 50, 25, 25.
General Sidwell. That is a promise or a representation.
"insurance" would be a better characterization of how forces
would be--the States would be called upon to provide forces.
Mr. Mica. Forces, what do you have?
General Sidwell. Missouri is roughly 11,000 end strength
when I have Army and Air. And I have right at 8,500 Army. And
you mentioned Greensburg before, that is Kansas. And Kansas has
about 5,500. They are a little smaller State.
Mr. Mica. But you are within the range of the 50, 25, 25;
or are you short?
General Sidwell. Oh, I am well within--I only have got 142
deployed.
[Subsequent to Hearing, General Sidwell corrected the
following: I only have got 842 deployed].
Mr. Mica. You said in a couple instances we were below the
50. I thought you said some 47 or 48, 52 or 53 percent where
some have fallen below other States. Is that correct?
General Sidwell. During the high watermark, there was a
time when the Guard provided 50 percent of the combat forces
and 40 percent of the total force in theater. And at that time
from the Adjutant Generals Association--I think you have got a
letter from General Roger Lempke from Nebraska as part of--you
were saying as part of the record.
General Sidwell. Those figures usually--the Guard Bureau
will come in and review with us to show how each is deployed.
And, say, a State like Pennsylvania, if they deploy a brigade
combat team, or an Arkansas with a brigade combat team, that
gets up close to that 50 percent category because it is a
sizable unit.
Mr. Mica. Let me ask you a question. I don't know the
answer. What percentage of your equipment is paid for by the
Federal Government?
General Sidwell. Paid for by the Federal Government? All of
it. The act of 1903, the Federal Government pays for----
Mr. Mica. If you aren't getting the equipment, whose fault
is it? I mean, who is responsible?
General Sidwell. Well, the funding of the equipment comes
from the Federal Government.
Mr. Mica. The Federal Government. And again, we are
behind--the Congress is behind in funding some of the requests
that the Guard has made. And I think you have cited figures a
little bit different than I did. About in the $20 billion over
a 5-year range and about $4 billion domestically. Is that
accurate?
General Sidwell. That is correct. There is a funding
request, and certainly the representation has been made that we
wish to have the National Guard fully funded, fully manned,
fully equipped, fully trained. Now, when that request--and my
guess is, is that you get other Federal agencies coming to you
asking you for money. And Congress controls the purse strings
and determines the priorities. And if you give money for
equipment for the National Guard, then who doesn't get the
money that is available? And those tough decisions are the
tough decisions that have to be made by Congress, and I guess
that is why you have this hearing today to help you make that
deliberation.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. Two final things. One, we heard the
leave-equipment-behind accusation. What about Missouri? Is
there a lot of equipment left behind in Iraq, Afghanistan,
wherever? And if it is brought back, and I know it is a great
cost to bring it back, is it useable? Tell me your experience.
General Sidwell. When a unit deploys, oft times the
equipment which they take, other than small items, will be left
in theater for the follow-on unit to utilize. And then you may
either get a backfill for your individual State from the State
that provided forces for theater, or there may be new equipment
bought to replace, or, at some point in time, that equipment
may be returned----
Mr. Mica. Again, in your situation, are you short equipment
because equipment was left behind?
General Sidwell. There is equipment in theater that I would
have if it had not been deployed to theater.
Mr. Mica. But you don't have the replacement for that
because Congress hasn't appropriated the money for it?
General Sidwell. That is correct. An example would be my
bridge unit. Their assets were left in theater. And the 28
percent I had, we went out to get a bridge set to train on.
Mr. Mica. Okay. Again, just wanted to get the specifics of
relating to you our operation. Thank you so much.
I will give you one quick last one, since they are not
paying attention right now. We have got this little issue of
who controls the Guard, and we put, actually, ultimate control
in the President's hands. There is legislation before us now to
take that out. And I heard the Guard was opposed to having the
President make the ultimate decision on Guard activation,
utilization, and wanted it left with the Governors. What is
your position?
General Sidwell. That is one of the reasons I wore a
civilian coat and tie today instead of a uniform, so it
wouldn't appear as if I represent the interests or the decision
process of the Department of Defense, because there is a
difference in views between the National Guard--the Adjutant
Generals Association and the Department of Defense on that
issue. We would prefer that it be left with the Governors.
An example of mobilization that is practical to Missouri is
when we mobilized for Katrina. I established a State policy
that I was not going to take my college students out of school
to miss another semester after they had just come back from
Iraq. So there was a degree of volunteerism in mobilizing the
unit. That flexibility would not have been available to me if
the call-up were on a Federal basis. And I think it is very
important from a State perspective that we realize that the
State and local governments are being supported by the National
Guard and the military, and that the Governor and local
officials are in charge of the emergency response, because
ultimately that is who has to answer to the electorate as to
whether or not the response was appropriate.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. I think that is a very important
question, Mr. Mica. We are still trying to sort through that.
Mr. Carney?
Mr. Carney. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just a couple quick
ones right now. I grew up just north of you, in Iowa, and I
recall the floods of 1993. Does Missouri have the capacity now
to respond to a 1993 flood-type situation?RPTS CALHOUNDCMN
SECKMAN[11:00 a.m.]
General Sidwell. Yes, we do.
Mr. Carney. With the bridging equipment shortage and such.
General Sidwell. The bridging equipment really doesn't
provide us an asset that is needed or utilized, or we haven't
in the past. We didn't use bridging in 1993. It is a more
labor-intensive operation. We provide security, we provide
sandbagging, we provide shelter, and those are more labor-
intensive issues. So it is my belief that we--we are actually
better off today than we were in 1993, equipment wise. The
metric in 1993 just measured equipment readiness, code A and
pacing items, so our percentages of equipment are about the
same, we just happen to be a little bigger.
Mr. Carney. Did I understand correctly that your manning is
up from roughly the 1993 time frame?
General Sidwell. That is correct. Well, the 1993 time
frame, we are probably about similar in end strength. We had a
period from 1993 until 2005 where end strength went down and
nonvalidated pay went up, and we cured that. We also happen to
be number one in the Nation on people who attend real
nonvalidated pay.
Mr. Carney. What do you guys do in Missouri that makes
everybody want to show up?
General Sidwell. I think they are proud of their
organization. I am proud of them.
Mr. Carney. They should be. I want to come back to the
interoperability issue for a moment. How severe is it in
Missouri or if you want to comment from what you have heard
from your counterparts in other midwestern States? For,
example, radios, the ability to talk to other responders in
cases of disaster?
General Sidwell. I may be a little more robust in cross-
banding equipment than my other counterparts. And we have
provided some cross-banding equipment to the hurricane region
and States in anticipation of hurricanes. The interpersonal
relationships and working together, for example, the State
emergency management director and I are in the same building.
We eat lunch together. So the ability to work together is good.
Our practice has been, during a State emergency, we
immediately push out liaison officers to the local emergency
operations centers. And the SEMA liaisons have told me and the
locals have told me that they find that a very helpful practice
on behalf of the National Guard. So that works well. But from a
State perspective, on communications, we have a homeland
security committee of all the directorates in the State which
meets regularly and a Subcommittee which is on communications.
There is a lot that needs to be done in Missouri for local
officials' equipment to get everybody on the same protocol for
communications.
From the standpoint of FEMA, region 7 has been very
helpful. I go visit with them in Kansas City, they come to my
headquarters and visit with me. The FEMA representative happens
to be a former Missouri National Guardsman, so he understands.
And the Corps of Engineers, Colonel Rossi has been very good
about communicating their plans for emergency. So I feel good
about the intercommunication operability that we have. I am
pleased. I told you that I got calls when we saw the floods. I
got a call from the Pentagon asking to help. I got a call from
NORTHCOM asking to help. I got a call from the Defense
Coordinating Officer asking if they could help. And I thanked
them and told them, right now, we were well within
capabilities, but I certainly would go through FEMA through the
DCO if I needed additional assistance.
I think Katrina served as a wakeup call to the entire
Nation, and the degree and synergy of cooperation is much
greater today than it was 5 years ago.
Mr. Carney. I am very happy to hear that the upper-level
decision makers are talking to each other. That is great. My
concern is, can police and fire and rescue talk to each other?
General Sidwell. I think there are problems in that arena.
From a national perspective, we really need to look at the
protocols that assure that one community can communicate
adequately with the next community and that firemen and police
can talk together. I know some local jurisdictions in some of
the emergencies we have already had, had some difficulties in
their communication. It is a funding issue. The local
municipality can't afford to upgrade their equipment, but on
the other hand, they can't afford not to. So where are you.
Mr. Carney. I agree.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Kuhl has assumed the Ranking Member's chair, so Ranking
Member Kuhl.
Mr. Kuhl. Moving up the ladder fast here.
Thank you, General Sidwell, for coming here to testify. I
wish the entire Nation could hear the optimism that you bring,
I think, to this hearing, and certainly I think they would be
pleased to know what you are doing and feel satisfied about
your current situation in Missouri and the ability to carry out
the tasks that are your responsibility.
I just want to explore a couple of questions with you and
be brief about that because I am concerned that when you say in
your statement we currently have 53 percent of the total
National Guard equipment authorized within the kinds of units
assigned to our State, that if you take that statement out of
context, it would appear as though you are only half prepared
to do the job that is your responsibility.
So I am not so sure, and I just want to reassure myself
that the statements that you made, that you feel confident that
you can accomplish the task which you are required to
accomplish, given the fact that you have 53 percent of the
equipment necessary or assigned that's authorized, I should
say.
I guess my question to you would be, as another way of
putting it, have you ever in the history of the Missouri
National Guard and particularly during your assignment had 100
percent of the equipment that was authorized?
General Sidwell. No. We were, pre-9/11, about 58 percent.
That included a lot of authorized substitutes which are not
authorized substitutes today. For example, back then, a CUCV,
which is essentially a pickup truck with a radio mount in it,
was an authorized substitute for what we now call a Humvee, and
now we require an up-armored Humvee in order to meet that
percentage of requirement.
So it is really comparing apples to oranges to look at what
percentages were. They use a different metric. The metric, even
at both of them, is a wartime metric, not a peacetime metric.
And things that previously were concluded in that 58 percent
would not be included today.
Mr. Kuhl. So would you be in agreement with me that that
number of 53 percent is really kind of misleading as to a
designation of your capability to do your job?
General Sidwell. It is misleading with respect to response
to a State emergency issue. It would be accurate with respect
to a wartime measure of capability for deployment to theater to
engaged in combat. My 53 percent is above the national average.
National is 40 percent.
Mr. Kuhl. Would you recommend that there be two types of
classifications to better reflect to the general public your
capability in both of those scenarios of carrying out your
responsibility?
General Sidwell. Probably it would be more informative to
the public for local response if they understood that the
equipment necessary for a local response is different than the
equipment measure for deployment to a combat theater.
Mr. Kuhl. Okay. Good. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Kuhl.
Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. Thank you, General Sidwell, for taking time to
come here today. I appreciate your insight. I share a unique
insight maybe with you on this. I have the unique privilege of
being the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in
Congress as a command sergeant major. So I wish you would have
brought one along with you.
General Sidwell. In a reversal of roles, I salute you for
that.
Mr. Walz. So having been someone called up for fire,
tornados, floods and in support of Operation Enduring Freedom,
that is something that I look at very closely, how we are going
to deal with the guard as it assumes a new role and as it
changes in the new environment we are finding ourselves in.
Just a couple of things I would note, and in speaking of
the lack of equipment, it has always been an issue. I am an
artillery guy who taped Howitzers on the floor and used toilet
paper roles on the floor to simulate draining. You have seen
it. So that did happen.
We have always been in a make-do type of situation, and I
applaud the Guard because they have already found a way to do
that, and you epitomize that attitude. We were just discussing
also that it might also be of note that, Ike Skelton is from
Missouri, so we don't know because our States are somewhat
different in that because we are not hearing this across the
Nation.
My concern now is for the Nation as a whole but your unique
perspective, as I would agree with the current Ranking Member,
there is reason for optimism because, when it is the Guard,
they will get the job done. I have the utmost confidence in
them. Our job is to find out how to best maximize the use of
our resources to make you as effective as possible.
Your last couple of statements are where I get a little
concerned, too. I think probably we will make do the best we
could on statewide emergencies. My concern is, and just a
couple of questions to you, General, and I know this is
somewhat subjective, this level of deployment that we are
seeing, did we ever prepare for that? Did we ever foresee this
level of continuous deployment and the wear and tear on the
soldiers, the families and the equipment in general? I am just
asking you. I know we prepare for all things, but I left in the
spring of 2005 after having done--seeing this. I never
anticipated it to this level. So I am just getting your comment
as we look to the future.
General Sidwell. The character of the use of the National
Guard has dramatically changed and in fact the terminology used
in describing that has changed. Instead of being a strategic
reserve, where you presume that you would have a long dwell
time in postmobilization training before deployment to a
theater, we now have become an operational reserve, and as of
January 17 of this year, with the changes that the Secretary of
Defense has made in the regimen of training, much of the
training that we previously looked to postmobilization is now
trained and evaluated premobilization in order to shorten the
postmobilization dwell time at a training station and to
shorten the overall deployment time for individual soldiers and
units, and we deploy as units.
Certainly the Guard of today is vastly different than you
and I knew when we enlisted.
Mr. Walz. And I would also say this, I really applaud your
answer when the Ranking Member of the Full Committee was here,
on your flexibility, when asked about who should make those
decisions, your ability to depend on volunteerism or try and
make the impact spread out a little bit, not felt so heavily on
those that had maybe 6 or 7 children at home or were in school
or whatever in trying to do that. I know that has been
happening across the Nation from the Guard.
Is the National Guard Empowerment Act in your opinion--and
I know it is in your opinion, you have got the civilian suit
on, but you have got a lot of experience--is that going to be
helpful in some of these issues?
General Sidwell. It will be helpful. For example, the 4
Star position should be helpful in making decisions concerning
priorities for purchase of equipment and allocation of
resources. Because there is increased responsibility, the end
strength is about 358,000 in the Army National Guard; 102,000
in the Air National Guard.
The joint credit for adjutant general to then go on to be
able to serve in a joint billet to help integrate the National
Guard into the total defense force would be of assistance. So
certainly the impact of the Empowerment Act on behalf of the
Adjutant Generals Association uniformly support those changes.
Again, that is not something that is embraced across the
Department of Defense. I don't want that to be confused as an
official position of the Department of Defense, and as a matter
of fact, I think Secretary Gates endorsed a number of the CNGR
recommendations but not all of the CNGR recommendations, and I
certainly respect differences of opinion, and we end up with a
good result when we can accommodate all of the opinions into a
final decision process.
Mr. Walz. Well, I would just say, from my perspective, I
simulated too darn many of those toilet paper charges to not
think this is important. Just to let you know. I yield back my
time.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Walz. I have only two
more questions for you, and then I will ask if any other
Members have questions. We want to make sure we maintain a
balance here. The letter from General Lempke who of course is
the major general of Kansas and head of your own association of
adjutant generals says, and I am quoting him: The Army National
Guard was never fully equipped. Pre-9/11 States generally
hovered around the 60 percent range.
So, in a real sense, when there is a war, then, as you
said, the General said, well, there is a tendency to look at
the equipment then and perhaps bring in new equipment. The
problems we are dealing with here of course is this war is
going on longer than some have anticipated so the equipment is
left in the field, perhaps some you would prefer to have at
home. At the same time, Major General Lempke said unanimously,
we believe the National Guard's ability to support disaster
response and recovery is as important as its Federal mission to
provide trained forces to support national defense.
I assume you agree with that statement as well. You will
recall that I think I said the Pentagon has had to help us sort
this out. We have to get some kind of data base. We have to
know what we don't know now, which is, how much is equipment is
out there, so that we can measure how much equipment there
should be out there?
We know that equipment may grow old and equipment may seem
as much not needed when there hasn't been a disaster for some
time. When there is a disaster, we are all Americans; Americans
operate on an emergency basis for everything. When something
happens is when things begin to happen; otherwise we assume
things will always go well for us.
He says, however, Major General Lempke says that Lieutenant
General Steve Blum, who is the chief of the National Guard
Bureau has devised a list of 10 critical capabilities needed or
that should be quickly available to each State, he says this is
perhaps the best measure, at least available now, to assess
individual State capability from a national perspective.
Would you agree to that? Are you familiar with this list of
10 critical capabilities?
General Sidwell. Yes, ma'am. Those are the items which are
listed in the essential 10 equipment requirements for the
global war on terror, which is the Office of Legislation
Liaison Report of 26 February 2007. Specifically, it is page 5
of that report. It includes joint force headquarters, command
and control, civil support teams and force protection,
maintenance, aviation, engineer, medical, communications,
transportation, security and logistics.
General Blum has assured that he will place some, to the
maximum extent possible, make those capabilities resident in
each of the 54 States and territories, and it is part of the
backdrop which provided decision makers with input as to where
to place units when we went through the restationing and
rebalance. An example of that would be that, prior to the
rebalance, I had four engineer battalions in the State of
Missouri. There were other States who had no engineers. After
rebalance, I have two engineer battalions, but other States
that didn't have any now have some engineering effort. So it is
an attempt to spread that availability to a regional and State
basis for more rapid response in the State to emergency
response.
Ms. Norton. This becomes critically necessary when you see
the imbalance among the States. You feel you are ready, but as
I indicated in my opening remarks, if you live in Arizona or
you were adjutant general there, you had just 34 percent of the
allotted equipment. You might have a different answer. Or in
New Jersey where you had just 42 percent.
What General Lempke does is simply to use his own State as
a case in point, Nebraska. He said Nebraska is dominated by
transportation units, but he says I have half of the 5-ton
trucks authorized. Quote: This certainly limits my authority to
train and mobilize units. However, even down by 50 percent
leaves me with nearly 150 trucks to deal with disasters in
State, a quantity I believe to be more than sufficient.
So he says that: While his reported readiness level is
down, my assessment of the National Guard's ability to support
disasters in State is positive.
Again, this brings home the importance of some kind of
measure so that these numbers mean anything to us because some
layman or some Member of Congress looking at these figures by
percentage sees the kind of interpretation I am giving to
Arizona and New Jersey because I don't have any way to evaluate
what 34 percent and 42 percent means.
General Sidwell. Yes, ma'am. What further exacerbates that
problem is, for example, in Missouri my Army strength is
roughly 8,500. In Nebraska, their Army strength is 3,500. They
are not terribly different in geographic land mass than I am. I
am different in population and recruiting and the size that may
be allocated to, in the end structure, allocated to any
individual State impacts how they may respond to a local
emergency. For example, your district of D.C. is roughly 1,146
on Army. So, certainly, I have got greater ability with 8,500
than you do with 1,146.
Ms. Norton. But you are a State; we are a city. But can
people out of State belong to your National Guard across State
lines.
General Sidwell. That is actually a common practice. We
find that a number of Missourians will be in units in an
adjoining State. For example, for me, I don't have infantry in
the State of Missouri. I am a combat service, combat support
State. A lot of individuals who wish to enlist as an
infantryman within 11B may go across to Arkansas or Illinois or
Kentucky, and by the same token, I have soldiers who have come
across the State line to belong to the Missouri National Guard.
The National Guard is more tightly geographically contained
than the United States Army Reserve, which will typically have
a unit that will cross several States and you may have people
traveling 500 miles in a Reserve unit for a drill.
Theoretically, a Guard unit should be roughly in a 75-mile
circumference for manning. As a practical matter, I may have
people who travel 150 miles.
Ms. Norton. But it is their choice; isn't it?
General Sidwell. Yes, ma'am, it is.
Ms. Norton. We are proud to have members, citizens from
Virginia and Maryland in the D.C. National Guard, and of
course, they would tend to be from less than the 75-mile
radius. But that suggests that some of them of course may do so
because of the kind of specialty that is available, but it
suggests that members of the Guard understand the regional
basis makes sense and makes me wonder whether or not the Guard
itself, particularly after Katrina, ought to be organized on a
more regional basis. Some of those ideas come from your own
testimony.
General Sidwell. I probably would take issue with the
regional basis organization.
Ms. Norton. I am not saying break down the State unit, sir.
I am not trying to reorganization what the country began with,
which was every State had a militia and from there grew the
National Guard. But one wonders about whether or not, assuming
these are discrete units that ought to be having a discrete
amount of equipment. I mean, does it really make sense for
Uncle Sam to say that every State ought to have a certain
amount of equipment even though we know different things about
how the States operate and what kind of disasters come as
opposed to assuming certain kinds of sharing where we might be
able to replenish more easily.
General Sidwell. That is the function of the National Guard
Bureau. They, in fact, allocate structure among the States and
take into account that regional response, ten essential
capabilities so that you have those essential ten items
regionally available and accessible. They may need to access
those through an EMAC, but they are geographically dispersed
throughout the country to try to level the ability to respond
among the States and territories as opposed to solely being
resident in one State.
Ms. Norton. Very good. The final question, for me at least,
has to do with the National Guard Reaction Force. Would you
tell us about this? It sounds like a more supple kind of force
that is more generally and quickly available. Would you tell us
whether you have such a force, what the difference between that
force and how it is composed and the guard itself?
General Sidwell. There is what is referred to as a CERF,
which is to be a rapidly accessible force to do essentially a
search and rescue type of mission, which I believe is--I have
one in Missouri, and I believe it is residents in each of the
54 States and territories. There are some funds that are
allocated separate from our normal funding to train that force.
It tends to be, or at least in my State, the people who make up
that CERF mission come from different units. I think it is
still a process in maturation as far as its development and how
rapidly it deploys.
For example, General Blum and some of my counterparts, I
was not able to go, visited Israel not long ago to see how they
do their rapid reaction, and they in fact put pagers on
individuals so that they get paged and report to the scene of
the incident, whereas our construct is we bring people into the
armory and then send them from the armory to the incident.
Those are things that we continue to explore as ideas of
ways to improve the process, but we have identified individuals
who are on that CERF for rapid reaction and can be called to
respond to a localized event.
Ms. Norton. For lack of a better analogy, kind of like
Special Forces that go--that the Army uses when they have
critical missions, that they pull people out and send them in
with the Special Force Operations?
General Sidwell. Certainly they have special training to
address those issues, but I would remind you. And I think it is
a wise construct in the national response plan that the first
response to a local emergency is the local civilian responders
and then the National Guard when it exceeds that capability or
the State's capability can be called to assist.
An example of planning would be, in my earthquake, cracked-
earth scenario, I do not place a great deal of weight on my
soldiers who happen to be near the epicenter of the event
because I think they have got to take care of their own
families so I look to those more heavily to those outside the
epicenter as the responding force to provide assistance.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Sidwell.
Mr. Kuhl, any further questions?
Mr. Kuhl. Nothing further.
Ms. Norton. Any further questions?
Mr. Carney. Yes, Madam Chair. One more. General Sidwell, I
really do appreciate your candor and your comments this
morning. I feel very good about the Missouri case. It is great.
I read this morning with concern an article in the Harrisburg
paper, and I want to get your impression on this, if you have
noticed this in terms of what has gone on in the Missouri Guard
or if you have heard other anecdotal information on this, that
you are losing soldiers because of employment issues.
I want to read this little passage from the paper this
morning. It says, about 54 percent of employers surveyed said
that they would not knowingly hire members of Guard or Reserve,
though they know that would amount to discrimination, because
of disruption and cost to the employer.
Have you noticed that having an impact on certainly the
Missouri Guard?
General Sidwell. I think that an impact has existed for a
long time. I have been in for about 34 years, and that impact
has been there for 34 years, where an employer, especially the
small employers, not as much the large employer as the small
employer, when I take a third of somebody's workforce for a
mobilization, it is catastrophic to that employer, and
certainly, they are not supposed to, but they do take that I
think into consideration when looking at employing somebody who
is in the National Guard.
I believe there are things that can be done to help address
that on a national level. Sometimes an employer may be
motivated by patriotism, and I am certainly grateful to a lot
that the employers have done out there, but the Congress may
wish to consider some type of tax credit or incentive with
respect to a guardsman who is deployed. It may be that in the
health care, since there is TRICARE available to guardsmen, if
it is not, if TRICARE is the primary carrier instead of a
secondary carrier, then an employer may look more favorably on
a guardsman because it could reduce his costs. An employer has
got about a third of his costs tied up in employee benefits
when he has got an employee out there.
So it may be when some of those benefits are available to
the prospective employer through their National Guard service,
that employee becomes a more attractive employee to the
employer in the hiring process.
Mr. Carney. I certainly understand that, but have you
noticed, because of employment issues, in the Missouri Guard a
loss of personnel?
General Sidwell. It is hard to identify one-for-one. Nobody
is going to raise their hand and say, it is employment issues,
because they are going to have a USERA problem. So you have
losses which may be employer issues that may be identified as a
different issue when you do an exit interview with that
employee. And certainly no employer is going to raise their
hand and say, I am not going to employ a guardsman.
Mr. Carney. Right. No further questions.
Ms. Norton. They better not. Mr. Walz, do you have any
questions?
Mr. Sidwell, this has been invaluable testimony. We so
appreciate you traveling all the way from Missouri to offer
this testimony to us today. Thank you very much.
General Sidwell. On behalf of Missourians and the Missouri
National Guard, I certainly appreciate the interest this
Committee gives toward the health of not only our Nation but
the National Guard. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. We thank you for your service and the service
of the Missouri National Guard.
Could I call the next witnesses? And we have inquired and
appreciate they are willing to serve on the next panel
together. The next witnesses of course are the administrator of
FEMA, the Honorable David R. Paulison, and David Hoell, who is
the chair of the National Emergency Management Association,
EMAC and who also serves as director of the North Carolina
Division of Emergency Management. Thank you both for being
here.
TESTIMONY OF R. DAVID PAULISON, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY;
AND DOUG HOELL, CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATION, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE COMPACT COMMITTEE,
AND MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR OF NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT
Ms. Norton. Mr. Paulison, we will begin with you.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member,
now, Kuhl, and the rest of the Committee. I appreciate you
inviting me here. As the administrator of FEMA, I am proud of
the many reforms we have implemented in the past year. Today
FEMA is stronger and more nimble than it was in the past. The
proof is visible in our response to tornados earlier this year,
our multi-State efforts across the northeast in April storms,
and most recently our actions in Greensburg, Kansas. At each
instance, American people saw a FEMA that is leaning further
forward, moving quickly to respond and working closely with our
Federal, tribal, State and local partners to ensure a response
of which we can all be proud. This did not happen overnight. It
is the result of close review of our past practices and hard
work of the men and women at FEMA and across all levels of
government.
Following Katrina, the White House issued a report calling
the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina lessons learned which
recommended integrating the use of military capabilities into
catastrophic disaster response. The report specifically stated
that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland
Security should jointly plan for the support of Federal
response activities and that DOD should be included in all
Federal emergency plans.
DOD has a key role supporting FEMA in many of these areas
and overall planning, coordinating and integrating defense
support civil authorities with local, State, tribal and Federal
agencies. The DOD focus in domestic response is on providing
homeland defense, supporting civil operations and cooperating
in theater security activity designed to protect the American
public.
FEMA's partnership with DOD continues to evolve and the
disaster response support DOD and its multiple components bring
to FEMA is critical in enhancing our comprehensive
preparedness, protection, response, recovery and mitigating
capabilities in dealing with all types of natural and manmade
disasters.
Specifically FEMA has taken direct action to improve our
coordination with the Department of Defense, the National
Guard, the Coast Guard and other Federal tribal, State and
local government partners across the board. Joint participation
in training and exercises is a vital element in this improved
coordination.
FEMA and DOD have implemented numerous improvements based
on the lessons learned in Katrina as a result of changes
required by the post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act. Among those
changes, the DOD assigned liaison offices at FEMA headquarters
to promote effective coordination of activities and FEMA
reciprocated by providing permanent staff to serve at NORTHCOM.
We also have defense coordinating officers in every region in
this country.
FEMA is coordinated closely with DOD and many elements of
an improvement in the national logistics system. A key partner
in this relationship is the defense logistic agency, or DLA. In
the past year, the relationship has evolved from support to
disaster response, to proactive logistical and planning support
both before an event occurs and during the response efforts.
Similarly, FEMA has an agreement in place with the Marine
Corps systems command to support FEMA with emergency response
equipment that can be deployed to respond to a major chemical,
biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive or natural hazard
event. With the Natural Guard FEMA coordinates both the Federal
level with the National Guard Bureau as well as the State level
with individual adjunct generals.
FEMA continues to coordinate and cooperate with Federal and
State leaders of the Guard in a number of disaster response-
related areas to include improving situational awareness,
communications planning, force package planning, and overall
mission and disaster response planning.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security brought
the Coast Guard and FEMA into the same department. This has led
to a steadily increasing cooperation between the two across the
spectrum of preparedness planning, exercise and training,
response issues and identifying lessons learned and in tracking
and implementing remedial actions at the national level.
Today two Coast Guard liaisons are permanently assigned to
FEMA. In this cross-pollenization, both agencies have been able
to make a number of improvements to their respective
contingency plans. These new relationships are reflected in our
revisions of the National Response Plan or the NRP. The NRP
provide the structures and mechanism for national level policy
and operational direction for domestic incident management.
The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA value the
support of the Secretary of Defense and DOD components to
facilitate and support Federal, State and local disaster
response activities. In addition to direct support for disaster
response, DOD possesses the specialized testing and evaluation
and education facilities, training and exercise expertise,
medical capabilities, and technology programs that provide
important support to all levels of government in enhancing the
Nation's disaster prepared response capabilities.
Madam Chair, in conclusion, I would like to thank our
partners at the Department of Defense and across all levels of
government for their effort to make the system work better for
all Americans. FEMA has learned a great deal from our are
friends in the Armed Forces. The open lines of communication
and improved coordination will assure a stronger response and
recovery effort when our Nation calls in times of need. We have
taken the first important steps both inside FEMA and throughout
the Federal Government to improve our readiness posture. Thank
you. I would be happy to answer any questions.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Paulison. I thank you
for your graciousness in allowing General Sidwell to go first.
That was in deference to the Ranking Member, who had a plane to
catch. We appreciate you being back here in time for this
hearing. We know it took some doing.
We want to now go to Mr. Hoell. We appreciate your coming
from North Carolina.
I am the only one that everyone can hear because I have
learned from experience, at least since becoming Chair, that if
you do not talk directly into this, we do not hear you up here
even. So try to be as close and directly to this microphone. I
think it has to do with the high walls here, not so much with
the sound system.
Mr. Hoell. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton and Ranking Member
Kuhl, Members of the Committee, for allowing me the opportunity
to provide a statement for the record. In my statement, I am
representing both North Carolina Governor Michael F. Easley and
the National Emergency Management Association, NEMA, whose
members are the State directors of emergency management in the
States, territories and District of Columbia.
There are three key areas that I wish to discuss with you
today that need to be resolved in order to secure our
preparedness in partnership with the National Guard to address
disasters. First, authority to maintain and control the
National Guard should be restored to the Governors for their
use during disasters and other civil emergencies.
Second, the National Guard's utilization of the emergency
management assistance compact, EMAC during Hurricane Katrina
worked well and should continue to be a strong component of the
Nation's mutual aid system. Third, National Guard equipment
should be maintained updated to ensure that the Guard can
fulfill domestic missions.
Recent changes to the Insurrection Act may change the chain
of command for the National Guard in times of emergency.
Section 1076 of the act allows for the President to take
control of the National Guard during a natural disaster or
emergency without the consent of a Governor. Previously the
Insurrection Act provided for the Governor to maintain the
control over the National Guard and to allow the President to
take control in rare and exceptional circumstances.
The 2006 Defense Authorization language could confuse the
issue of who is in charge of commanding the Guard during a
domestic emergency. The bill as signed into law by the
President does not require the President to contact, confer or
collaborate with the Governor before taking control of a
State's Guard forces.
This language was included by Congress and signed into law
by the President despite the opposition of Governors, NEMA and
others. The current law could negatively impact the decision-
making process and speed with which the National Guard
currently acts in consultation with Governors to respond to an
emergency. The change exacerbates the current manpower and
equipment shortages in all States because of demands in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Governor Easley was in Washington, DC last week to discuss
this very issue and his concerns that the language currently
weakens North Carolina's ability to respond to disasters in our
State while expanding the President's authority over the
National Guard. These concerns arehighlighted in the recent
release of the Department of Defense implementation plan for
pandemic influenza. Under law as written now the President
would have the power to take control of the National Guard at
such a critical time, and the U.S. Secretary of Health and
Human Services and other federal officials have told each
Governor that in the event of a pandemic flu, Washington, D.C.,
would not be able to help every community affected. Therefore,
we will be responding with our own State's resources.
The result is that any Governor could be left without
National Guard resources that might be taken by the President.
These facts make it even more urgent that section 1076 be
repealed.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services
Committee took an important step by including language
repealing section 1076 in the markup of fiscal year 2008
Department of Defense authorization bill H.R. 1585. We hope
this provision will be maintained in the final conference
report.
Mutual aid assistance provided during 2005 vividly exposes
the interdependencies of the Nation's emergency management
systems. For hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the emergency
management assistance compact, EMAC, fulfilled over 2,174
missions with 49 States, the District of Columbia, the U.S.
Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, providing assistance in the
form of 65,919 civilian and military personnel and equipment
assets to support the impacted States. The estimated cost of
this assistance may exceed $829 million.
The National Guard sit in support of the response mission
under Title 32 status and remained under the Governors control
at all times. EMAC allowed for reimbursement, liability
protection, workers compensation protections, and allowed the
home State Governor to call back the units for other domestic
emergencies.
FEMA funded EMAC in 2003 with $2.1 million because of the
national interest in mutual aid. The EMAC grant will end on May
31st 2007. The post-Katrina FEMA authorizes $4 million annually
for the program. However, no funds have been appropriated for
fiscal year 2007. We hope we can count on this Committee to
support funding in the next budget cycle.
Our citizen soldiers can only be effective with training
and adequate equipment to do their jobs in both the domestic
and international theater. The North Carolina National Guard
has almost 12,000 members, approximately 750 are currently
mobilized in theater overseas and about 95 are in Arizona
working the southwest border mission. The North Carolina Army
National Guard has about 55 percent of authorized equipment on
hand. We are currently short about 50 vehicles, such as
Humvees, tractors, trailers and loading equipment. As we go
into hurricane season, our governor is concerned that our
troops and resources may not be enough if we have a
catastrophic event.
We appreciate Congress's increased attention and focus on
disaster preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation
efforts. We must ensure that Federal, State, and local
governments have adequate funding for baseline emergency
preparedness so exercises and training can ensure plans and
assistance are effective before a disaster. Preparedness
includes ensuring appropriate authority and funding for the
National Guard.
I thank you on behalf of the National Emergency Management
Association and Governor Easley for the opportunity to address
your Committee.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. One moment, please. I am
going to ask Mr. Kuhl, since I have got to do something for 2
minutes here, to save everybody's time, if he would proceed
first.
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you, gentlemen, for being so patient with
our questions and the testimony of the prior witness. Pressure
indulgence here. Obviously, Administrator Paulison, many much
us are very concerned with the transformation of FEMA obviously
because of the failures that we saw during the Katrina
catastrophe. I am certainly pleased to see in your testimony
today, and I apologize that you didn't have enough time to go
through all the written testimony, but I appreciate, given the
hour and the time here, limited time we have, your keeping your
testimony within the 5 minutes prescribed. But I am curious
about the ten Defense Coordinating Officers that were placed in
FEMA regions last June, and obviously, we look at those as
solving some of the major coordination problems that we saw
between the States and FEMA and DOD. I am just curious as to
what realistic and practical benefits you are seeing from that,
if you have had the time to have that experience.
Mr. Paulison. The benefits are very significant. The fact
that now we have a liaison not only at our regional offices but
also in our headquarters and we have people in NORTHCOM that we
can talk to on a daily basis, sharing information back and
forth, setting up exercises.
This last week we had a major exercise with the Department
of Defense that involved FEMA, Department of Homeland Security,
including the White House, involving a major hurricane up in
the northeast and also a nuclear explosion in a major city in
this country.
So having those Defense Coordinating Officers in the
regions, having the people in our headquarters, having our
people at that NORTHCOM is really making a major difference.
Along with that is the prescripted mission assignments that we
now have with the Department of Defense we did not have before
Katrina. So now the Department of Defense exactly knows what
our requirements are going to be; we know exactly what they can
give. It has been tremendous cooperation back and forth. Every
video conference that we have had, the National Guard has been
involved in, the Department of Defense, through NORTHCOM, with
the real-time disasters we have been having, they participate
fully with us and at a level of cooperation we have not seen,
in the history of FEMA anyway.
Mr. Kuhl. So those prescripted mission assignments, which
were I guess one of the requirements, are now in place?
Mr. Paulison. That is correct. We have quite a few in
place, not only with the military but across the Federal
agency. I think that, prior to a Katrina, if we are talking
across the entire Federal family, there were only 14. Last
year, there were 44; this year, over 180 prescripted mission
assignments. That goes along with all the contracts we put in
place, too. So we don't have to start doing these things after
a storm hits, they are going to be in place ahead of time. They
are in place ahead of time.
Mr. Kuhl. 144 in place now?
Mr. Paulison. 180.
Mr. Kuhl. I was going to ask you to tell me what they all
were, but I couldn't remember 5, much less 180.
Mr. Paulison. They range the gamut of getting heavy lift
helicopters from the Department of Defense, the National
Disaster Medical Team from HHS, housing from HUD. Right across
the Federal Government, almost for 21 different agencies we
have now prescripted mission assignments and are working very
hard and have been over the last 2 years to put those in place.
Just trying to put things in place I saw did not work in
Katrina and what stopped some of the ability to respond quickly
and nimbly; having those in place allowed us to do that. If you
want to give me a couple of minutes, let me just quickly tell
you what we did in Kansas during--we, within 72 hours, we had
the Army Corps of Engineers, National Guard Bureau, Small
Business Association, HUD, U.S. force service, Social Security
Administration, Veterans' Administration, EPA, postal service
and the Economic Development Agency on the ground within 72
hours in Greensburg, Kansas. That is the kind of partnership we
have been putting together and that is the type of response we
had. That is what these prescripted mission assignments do. I
know it is not just DOD, it is across the whole Federal family.
We are one government, we have to start acting like it.
Mr. Kuhl. Just to follow up on that, you had them on the
ground and I assume that the feedback from that is positive as
it relates back to contrasting feedback that you got on
Katrina. Of course you weren't there during Katrina. Just kind
of tell me what kind of feedback you are getting out of having
that prescriptive mission assignment in place.
Mr. Paulison. I should send you the news reports that we
got back the next couple of days from that whole area from all
the news media that were on the ground and saw what we were
doing. We put communication vehicles on the ground. The city is
actually operating out of one of our command posts. That is
their city hall, big sign on it that says city hall.
We were right there with them from day one. They got their
local urban search and rescue teams to respond but when they
asked from help from us, we had a team on the ground within
several hours. We were there helping them set up cell phone
communications, land mobile radios for their first responders.
They didn't need food at the time. They had plenty of food, but
we did move food and ice and water. Just to give them the tools
they needed to do the job. Everybody lost their homes there,
including the mayor, including the city manager, including all
the first responders, but they kept working so we were there to
back them up, and the response was what I want FEMA to be,
there early, leaning forward, not waiting for the declaration
before we start moving equipment. We started moving equipment
right away. But within 24 hours of the tornado hitting, the
President had signed a declaration. So we moved very quickly,
and that is what we are going to be doing.
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you. Just to follow up on that, out of
curiosity, obviously, compared to the disaster in New Orleans
and in the Gulf Coast that was a small catastrophe size wise,
certainly as tragic as the issue was in the gulf States. From
what you have seen and what you have put in place, can those
same kinds of activities occur in a larger geographical
disaster arena?
Mr. Paulison. You are absolutely right, it was not a
Katrina. It was a smaller event but it did take out the whole
town. And the answer is yes, it is a different philosophy, a
different culture that we are building inside the organization.
We have prepositioned supplies around the country but we are
also going to be predeploying them to move in things quickly,
setting up a communication system. I think everyone here today
understands the biggest failure we had was communications and
not having the right type of people on the ground who knew how
to manage disasters. Eight of my 10 regional directors offices
were empty when I took over at FEMA. They are now filled with
people with 25, 30 years of experience in dealing with
disasters. So we are going to put the right people on the
ground, move much more quickly. We have worked very hard to
instill a unified command system where we are sharing
information, so if you have a need for something like buses,
you know who is responsible, who is going to get them there,
when they will show up. You are not going to see the same
failures you saw in Katrina.
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you. I do have one more question if you
don't mind. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I.
Am very curious, because I think all of the finger pointing
that went on during Katrina, as to what the actual process is
for requesting military support, and I wonder if you can walk
me through the process as it starts from say the request coming
from the Governor's mansion as to who then makes the decisions
and who actually makes the calls as to how you get involved,
how any National Guard gets involved or anybody else. Just so
that you can, I think, kind of lessen my anxieties in fact by
your explanation and your answer as to my belief and feeling
that we have made significant strides ahead, or you have in the
department.
Mr. Paulison. The declaration process, really the process
has not changed. The Governor declares a State of emergency for
their State. They will either do preliminary damage assessments
with us if it is not a significant event where we can take a
couple days to do that. If it is an overwhelming event like,
the Greensburg, Kansas, our people will tell us on the ground
immediately to say it is going to be a declaration. The State
sends a request to the regional office through the President to
the regional office. They do a quick evaluation, send it to me,
and I send it over to the White House for the President to sign
with my recommendation. The President makes the final decision
obviously but I send it over with my recommendations.
Mr. Kuhl. So it comes directly through you, now to the
President. We don't have to worry about Homeland Security
approval or authorization.
Mr. Paulison. We copy Homeland Security on it. In the case
of Greensburg, we told them what was happening, they, said
don't even bother sending it here right away, send it right to
the White House. There is a communication going on constantly
between us, Homeland Security and the White House on the phone
before it even comes in. So everybody is ready. In the case of
Greensburg, I kept my staff literally overnight to work on it,
so did the White House staff, to process that, and we turned it
around within 24 hours of the time the storm hitting--actually
from the time we got it--the President had signed it within
just a matter of hours.
Mr. Kuhl. What about the actual request for military
assets, which is one of the concerns we have here obviously.
Mr. Paulison. There are two types of military assets that
we would use, one is the National Guard, as controlled by the
Governor. We do not prescript assign them; that is a State
asset at that particular time. But from the Department of
Defense we have these prescripted mission assignments that just
take a phone call or a memo over to the Secretary of Defense
that we are asking for this particular asset to be mobilized,
and they will start mobilizing it.
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the extended time.
Ms. Norton. Certainly so, Mr. Kuhl. So you are the Ranking
Member now and therefore you can get all the time you like. We
don't have many Members. This is important to bring some of
this out. Mr. Hoell, I do want you to know that in the defense
authorization passed just yesterday, there was the repeal of
the Insurrection Act, which you strongly advocate on page 2 of
your testimony, the need to restore to the Governor's full
authority to maintain the National Guard. What was the
difference? What difference did it make, or did you see that
difference over the time? Actually, it was just done, I
suppose. It was just done in the last appropriation. So I am
not sure if you had time to see what difference it made to have
that control shifted, but if you saw any difference, it would
be good to lay it on the record at this time. RPTS BINGHAMDCMN
NORMAN[12:05 p.m.]
Mr. Hoell. I think that our concern was that you know the
Governor relies very heavily on the National Guard as a support
force. And, quite frankly, our National Guard in North Carolina
has built the same kind of mission packages that Director
Paulison is talking about. So our forces are organized into
response packages that can come in and do immediate response
work for State and local government and the Governor needs to
have control of those resources to be able to bring them on
immediately, you know, when a disaster occurs and be able to
control those forces.
Ms. Norton. Well, General Sidwell spoke about, for example,
the discretion to say to students who just come from Iraq, you
are not going to be pulled out of school again, and apparently
that wasn't possible under this short-lived bill.
I think we ought to say, well, particularly when both of
you hear about EMAC, I am always impressed with what I--you
will have to forgive me, for lack of a better analogy, used in
another context in Major General Sidwell's response to his
testimony; for lack of a better word, I think it was Special
Forces people, people who can get there even quicker or who can
go across State lines.
I must say Mr. Hoell, when you indicated that you--the
amount that was available, $4 million annually for this
program, apparently it is authorized, but that the grant will
end on May 30th and you are not sure it was--it would be
appropriated again. I have instructed staff to make immediate
contact with the appropriators in the hope that we can make
sure that that appropriation is, in fact, there.
And the reason I do so, I think you could--both of you--
could help elucidate. The EMAC system that we funded allows, as
I understand it, units to cross State lines, emergency
management units. I take it that they could have some Guard in
it, some FEMA in it. They are designed to be nimble.
Could each of you give us some sense how the EMAC system
works, whether it works, or how it works--it must have worked
during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--why you consider EMAC, what
it is, why you consider it an important part of your work?
Mr. Hoell. The EMAC system, Emergency Management Systems is
a compact, it is a State-to-State mutual aid agreement
basically made between Governors that we can share resources
from State to State.
It has a well-defined operational system so that a State
that is in need of help can broadcast to all the other member
States what need they have. Other States then can look at that,
say we have got a response resource that we can deliver to you.
We write a formal contract between States such that when the
resource is delivered to the requesting State, it goes--it goes
under, you know, coverage for liability; you know, the people
are brought right into that requesting State's operational
capability. They carry out their mission. When they return home
to their responding State, we then turn around and send a bill
back for the service that was rendered to the requesting State.
So it is a well-defined system. It worked extremely well in
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We delivered over 65,000
personnel. Of that, it was said today, roughly 50,000, over
46,500 National Guard personnel that were delivered to those
events in the gulf region.
And, again, I think it was an efficient and effective
response, and details are proving themselves to be a very
responsible way to do business.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Paulison, what is a unit? How does FEMA
relate to what you put into such a unit?
Mr. Paulison. The thing Mr. Hall said, the EMAC system is
really a State-to-State mutual aid agreement to move resources
from one State to another in the event of a disaster that
overwhelms the State's capabilities.
During Katrina, particularly National Guards--and I think
the gentleman behind me will correct me--all 50 National Guards
contributed to responding to Katrina. And like Mr. Hoell said,
the system worked very well. It allows a lot of resources----
Ms. Norton. Does it have units, civilian and National Guard
units in the same unit responding across State lines?
Mr. Paulison. Whatever the receiving State requests. It may
be National Guard units. It may be bulldozers. It may be
firefighters. It may be police officers. It could be heavy
equipment. Whatever the State happens to need----
Ms. Norton. Who coordinates that? Once you know that is
going to happen, who is in charge of those people?
Mr. Hoell. It is coordinated by the States. The State is
asking for the resource. You know, the responding State then
delivers the resource to the asking State, and it is under the
control and direction of the asking State once it gets there.
And, again, we do move both National Guard assets, State
assets, and quite frankly we can also move local assets, you
know, through mutual aid, where we have a written agreement so
that that local resource can come on as an agent of the State
and be delivered to the other States.
Ms. Norton. So agreements exist easily among all States in
the same region, for example? Do written agreements exist today
among all the States in the same region so that Maryland,
Virginia, and D.C. Will have, for example, automatically almost
such an agreement?
Mr. Hoell. And 50 States and three territories are signed-
on members, plus Washington, D.C., with the exception of
California. They had a sunset law on their signatory to EMAC
and it ran out. So they are currently trying to get their
legislation reenacted.
Mr. Paulison. To answer your question directly, the
National Emergency Management Association is the one that
controls the EMAC system. It goes through their organization.
And we support them with that. As part of our whole ESF system
that we have, we can assign those resources. But this really
does go from State to State and it works very well, and we are
glad now we have all 50 States on board, and hopefully
California will sign back up shortly.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Paulison, I do not understand the
relationship of FEMA to the National Guard. I know you have
National Guard units and you talked about National Guard units
that are on site, the National Guard Bureau on site, now. And
in your headquarters, when the President declares a National
emergency and the National Guard is called out, has FEMA any
sense of the capacity of the National Guard to handle the
emergency? Or is that still a whole separate matter for the
National Guard?
Mr. Paulison. We do have the capacity to--we have the
ability to understand what the capacity is, because we are
working with them side by side.
Ms. Norton. Were you doing that before Katrina?
Mr. Paulison. We do it in exercises. We have been
exercising together. We need to do more of that. And now that I
have the exercise program back under FEMA, because of the Post-
Katrina Reform Act, that is going to allow me to have a better
hands-on in setting those exercises up. But we work with them
right at the State level. We move people right in the State
Emergency Management Center right away, so we know what the
States' needs are, including the capacity of the Guard and all
the other capacities of the State, so we can start assisting
them in backing it up in what the gaps are.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Paulison, could I ask you a question that
may seem parochial, except the entire Federal presence is
located here. Half of it is in D.C., the rest in the immediate
region. Have there been any of these exercises involving the
National Guard and FEMA in this region?
Mr. Paulison. That, I am not sure. I need to find out on
that. I don't want to give you a bad answer and say "yes" or
"no."
Ms. Norton. I would like to know. I would think that such
real-time exercises are imperative in this region; 200,000
Federal workers come into this City alone, every day, using
public transportation. Many of them are coming underground by
subway. We have crowded highways. Are you aware of the real-
time exercise that the District of Columbia did on July 4th? I
think it was done two July 4ths. I don't know if the National
Guard was involved. But it is, as far as I know, it is the only
real-time exercise ever done by a major city.
And what it said was since you have what can only--what I
am sure are hundreds of thousands of people that are here not
only for the sights, but because of a major concert that is
held that evening, we will use this as an exercise to see if
people can--will follow instructions about getting out of town.
And all they did was to put the red lights, held the red lights
longer than they otherwise would have, just to see what people
would do.
It was announced ahead of time that this would be an
exercise. But, for example, if you are used to waiting, I don't
know, 2 minutes for a red light, and for some reason in order
to--I don't know exactly what they were doing to get emergency
vehicles through. Everybody had to stand still for 10 minutes.
The point was to see if it worked. And each time it worked
just a little better than the next time. With all of those
folks it didn't work very well. I would like you to come see me
about doing such an exercise here and encouraging exercises of
this kind to be done all over the country.
I just don't believe that instructions much matter. This is
what you should do, XYZ. We believe, for example, in this
region most people would just flee, giving the National Guard
much more of a huge debacle than it would otherwise have, since
there is nowhere to flee to. You get on the roads trying to get
out of this city at rush hour, you are in bad luck. Imagine if
everybody who lives here is also trying to do the same thing,
particularly since the word is not altogether clear to people
that the first thing you ought to do is just stay where you
are; probably they are not blowing up the whole city, probably
it is compacted in a certain part of the city, so everybody is
probably better off just not moving.
I don't even think that is thought out, because they saw
Katrina, whoops, we are certainly not going to be caught if
there is some kind of disaster, and we are going to get out of
town.
Mr. Hoell, have you ever done any real-time exercises with
or without the National Guard in North Carolina, and has any
national official indicated that that would be a good thing for
you to do?
Mr. Hoell. We have done exercises with our National Guard.
In fact, we include them them in all of our planning efforts in
North Carolina. They are a vital----
Ms. Norton. I am talking about where you wouldn't involve
the civilian population. I am speaking about the kind of real-
time exercises of the kind I just described here on July 4th,
where, in addition to people who are trained, you are
implicating the civilian population who would be affected
almost surely if there were a natural or other kind disaster.
Mr. Hoell. We just recently did a major exercise in
Charlotte, our largest metropolitan area, where we did a
significant building collapse, and then that followed on with
an additional search-and-rescue exercise in a city outside of
Charlotte. And the National Guard was actively involved in that
mission, in that exercise.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. I have some more questions but I am
going to defer now to my colleague, Mr. Carney.
Mr. Carney. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Paulison, good to see you again. It has been a few
days. As you know, of course, one of FEMA's primary
responsibilities is emergency preparedness planning. How has
FEMA adapted to emergency planning to account for a reduction
in National Guard personnel and equipment?
Mr. Paulison. We haven't, quite frankly, seen an impact on
our emergency response because of the deployment of National
Guard's assets overseas. Even in Greensburg, Kansas, when I sat
down with the adjutant general, I said okay, what do you need
that you don't have? And the answer was, we have everything we
need. And I think you heard General Sidwell just say the same
thing. I asked him the same thing. There was plenty of
resources on the ground to do that.
However, he did say that if there was another disaster that
size in his State, back to back, he would not have the
resources. And so we talked about the EMAC system and how we
can draw resources from other States, how we could mission-
assign the Corps of Engineers to come in with heavy equipment
if you needed that. We have contractors, contracts in place to
bring in the same type of equipment.
So we have a backup system in place that, should something
happen catastrophic enough to overwhelm local resources--like
we saw in Katrina--that we can move things in from other States
and other areas to back that up. And that is how our system
works. That is how it has been working.
Now, what we have done now is just making it much more
robust, better communications, better systems in place where
missions assignments are already--where everybody knows what
they are going to do. There are contracts in place. Instead of
writing those after a disaster, where you don't get a good
contract, we have them in place ahead of time.
Mr. Carney. That is great. The EMAC response takes how
long? I know you respond, but there is timely response and then
there is simply response. What are we looking at if Greensburg
happened twice on the same day? How long would it take, just a
wag, from your point of view?
Mr. Paulison. Well, with Missouri right next door, I think
they could move equipment very quickly and the surrounding
States would move very quickly so, yes, there is going to be a
delay because it is not right there. But at the same time, a
lot of equipment that you would use in a disaster like that,
you don't necessarily want right there immediately. You know
you want to do basic search and rescue and those types of
things, system after system, to be able to set up a staging
point to be able to bring those resources in.
So, you know, any catastrophic event is going to have a
delay in it if it is a huge event. It is going to slow
everything down.
Mr. Carney. If you are not fortunate enough to have
Missouri as a neighbor--tip of the hat, General--but has FEMA
considered something that the military does, and that is
prepositioning of equipment in various regions?
Mr. Paulison. And we do a lot of that already. We have a
lot of prepositioned equipment around the country, and then in
a notice event like a hurricane or something like that, we are
actually predeploying equipment. We do have pre-stages, much
more than we did during Katrina, scattered across the country
to be make sure we can move things fairly quickly.
And, again, the contracts in place--like contracts with
with buses, contracts with ambulances, working with Defense
Logistics Agency--that we did not have before, is really more
of a partner to help us move supplies; is going to make a
significant difference in now how we respond.
Mr. Carney. So basically it is your testimony that you have
noticed no reduction in FEMA's ability to respond or with
drawdowns and National Guard personnel and equipment?
Mr. Paulison. I have not seen that. Again, the disasters
have been smaller in scale than a Katrina, but every time we
responded--Florida, there were tornadoes there; we had the
tornadoes in Georgia and Alabama; the ones in Greensburg; the
floods we had up in the Northeast. Every Governor I talked to--
and I talked to all of them--we have the right amount of
equipment. We need you here to help us on the public assistance
and individual assistance and communications equipment. And we
did that. But as far as National Guard's assets, none of them
have said to me that we don't have the right equipment.
Mr. Carney. Mr. Paul Hoell, can you echo that?
Mr. Hoell. I would say in Florida in particular in 2004,
and in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, those States were drawing on
National Guard assets of other States. And that is how adequate
numbers are delivered. So that is what we are going to do. If
we don't have adequate numbers in our State, we are going to
ask other States to deliver through the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact.
I think our biggest concern is, should we be faced with
another Katrina, you know, are there adequate numbers of
personnel and equipment that are readily available nationwide
to come to our aid. But, again, it will be done through the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
Mr. Carney. Thank you, gentlemen, that is all then. Nothing
further.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Kuhl, do you have anymore questions.
Mr. Kuhl. Thank you Madam Chairwoman. I just have one. What
happens if EMAC--if States ask EMAC to come forth with
resources that they don't have individually. And EMAC can't
respond? What is the next step?
Mr. Hoell. I think most States, certainly in North
Carolina, we have contracts for resources, just like FEMA does.
We would borrow from other States where those resources are
available. We are partnering, or at least attempting to partner
with the private sector, quite frankly. The private sector--I
met with them yesterday with the business executives for
national security, because they are very much used to engage
with the public sector on how we would respond to significant
disasters.
And the other option is for us to turn to the Federal
Government and say, we need help we can't find; are there in
the public sector, at the State and local government level or
in the private sector, that is readily available to us, do you
have something you can support us with?
And so I think, partnered with the Federal Government,
partnered with the private sector, and partnered with our local
counterparts and other States across the Nation, we are fairly
well positioned to respond to significant events.
Mr. Kuhl. So you don't envision any shortage of resources
ever, then?
Mr. Hoell. In a major catastrophic event, who knows? It
could happen. Pandemic flu, I think we are going to have
shortages. And I don't know where all the resources will come
from, because States will probably be reluctant to give up
their resources through EMAC if they feel like they are going
to be affected as well.
Mr. Kuhl. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Kuhl.
I note on page 7 of your testimony, you indicate that you
have members mobilized overseas, in Arizona working the
Southwest border mission. Do you know if North Carolina has had
the full complement of its National Guard or it has had any
difficulty in recruiting National Guard?
Mr. Hoell. I am not aware that they have had any problems,
no.
Ms. Norton. That is good to hear. You say on that same page
that the North Carolina Army National Guard has about 55
percent of authorized equipment on hand, that you are currently
short about 50 vehicles. And you name Humvees, tractors,
trailers and loading equipment.
Does that mean that even with those deficits, you feel that
you could respond at least to the kinds of emergencies that
most typically occur in North Carolina? You have large
hurricanes, we know, because they go from North Carolina right
up here.
Does it mean that you could continue through your--to
respond through EMAC to Florida, which apparently you have done
on a frequent basis? I mention in my opening testimony that you
are typically available to help evacuate people from Florida
hospitals. Could you comment on whether or not this report of
your equipment is enough to handle emergencies in North
Carolina today?
Mr. Hoell. When we activate for an event, we will have
Guard representation in our emergency operations center. And we
basically will, you know, call up certain numbers of resources
to start with, which wouldn't deplete all that we have. We
would start with the packages we feel like we need.
As we enter into the event and there is increased need for
resources, we would use the North Carolina resources first. If
we see that we are going to run out of North Carolina
resources, we may turn to our FEMA counterpart and the Defense
coordinating officer to ask for military support. We may turn
to EMAC to ask for other States to deliver resources. We may
even turn to our own contracts to bring in transportation
resources. We do have a contract for transportation resources.
And not necessarily in that order. It depends upon, you
know, how the events unfold and what resources we would want to
bring up to support those resources that we had in the State of
North Carolina.
Ms. Norton. I don't know how civilian and National Guard
forces can adequately prepare without some kind of baseline
indicating what people ought to have. This is where this
Committee and the Homeland Security Committee are going to have
to work together. Again, I am using these statistics. That is
all you have are these statistics about 55 percent of
authorized equipment. And all you can say is if you don't know
what is going to occur, is, well, we would reach out for more
equipment. And that, of course, is fine and it ought to be
done, as we have learned from Mr. Sidwell, that it is done on a
regional basis. Again, that kind of knowledge and information
would just help everybody to feel better about coming
disasters.
Mr. Paulison, I must ask you about recent reports, press
reports about formaldehyde in Federal Emergency Management
Agency trailers, I know that you yourself requested a report
from the Agency for toxic substances and that that report
cautioned about generalizing to a larger population of
trailers.
But your statement of May 15th in response to formaldehyde
found in trailers was--in a Homeland Security hearing--seemed
to indicate that everything was normal, although you apparently
had sampled air in only 96 trailers.
There was some concern that you indicated people should
open their windows. I am sure they did that if they smelled
formaldehyde. But then experts say that that can have the
effect of--certainly if you put on air conditioning--of
increasing the amount of formaldehyde.
I wish you would elaborate on the safety of trailers which
are now being used. Many of them are, of course, old trailers
that you put out, or trailers on hand that you put out, I
should say, as the need arises. And how you can assure those
who use the trailers that formaldehyde levels for those
trailers in particular are safe, whether they are running their
air conditioners or not, and particularly considering what the
heat is likely to be, the temperature is likely to be in the
southern States where many of these trailers are in use.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Madam Chair.
We have been concerned about this for a long time. We have
been on top of this for a long time. This is not something new.
We have been dealing with the formaldehyde issue with the
travel trailers for 6 or 7 months, maybe even longer. We have
brought in the EPA and CDC to give us some very clear advice on
what to do.
Ms. Norton. Was that after the report of formaldehyde in
the trailers, I guess, in Louisiana?
Mr. Paulison. No, this was months and months ago that we
did this. We have been working on this for a long time and the
advice they gave us--and I can give you copies of the report if
you don't already have it--is that if they air the trailer out,
the formaldehyde dissipates over time. They said formaldehyde
is in everything we produce. It is in travel trailers. It is in
wood.
Ms. Norton. That is like saying arsenic is a natural
substance.
Mr. Paulison. So we have done a couple of things. One, we
have--first of all, out of the 115- or 20,000 travel trailers
we put down on the ground, we have only had around 100
complaints.
Ms. Norton. Of how many you put on the ground? I am sorry?
Mr. Paulison. 115,000 or so. Is that the right number? Yes,
give or take a few, over 100,000.
Ms. Norton. Does that mean you have tested before you put
them on ground and found they are free--or at least have levels
below the dangerous level of formaldehyde?
Mr. Paulison. No. What I am saying is we have installed
over 100,000 travel trailers and we received around 100
complaints.
Ms. Norton. I am asking, therefore, since you have not
received complaints, does that mean you have tested them before
they were, in fact, leased out to people to use?
Mr. Paulison. No, we did not. When we installed them, the
formaldehyde was not an issue. We were not aware of the issue.
Put it that way.
Ms. Norton. How do these emerge just this month with
formaldehyde?
Mr. Paulison. I think it is an old issue----
Ms. Norton. I think it is that it is hot in Louisiana, is
what I think. I think that it emerged because the heat may
have--here I am doing what scientists do. Of course then they
do a test to see if it is true or not. You put any trailer that
has some formaldehyde in it, it might be a new trailer but it
is in storage for some time, you expose it to the kind of
deathly heat that you have in Louisiana, then the formaldehyde
may come out.
So my question is, how can we assure people in those
areas--and those are the areas where we have most of the
trailers--that you have looked at such trailers for
formaldehyde before they are leased out, and that any
formaldehyde at that time in those trailers is below the
dangerous level?
Mr. Paulison. We have had a couple--first of all, we are
bringing in our Department of Homeland Security's medical
officer based on the report that we saw the other day, Dr. Jeff
Runge, to work with us and get with that doctor and look at
those case studies that he said he has, and see exactly what
the issues are.
Secondly, we have----
Ms. Norton. You bring him in to look at the trailers where
the reports have been made?
Mr. Paulison. He is going to talk to the doctor that
reported on CBS. Talk to him, find out what his findings are,
look at those. The trailers that people continue--we have had
several that we have replaced that people are sensitive to
formaldehyde, and if they continue to complain even after we
have aired the trailer out and air conditioning, like the CDC
told us to do, we will change those trailers out. We will
continue to do that. Also----
Ms. Norton. You change those trailers, meaning you put
those out of use, you no longer use them?
Mr. Paulison. Took it out of use and gave them a new
trailer.
Ms. Norton. Does that mean the trailers are then put back
into your stockpile of trailers?
Mr. Paulison. No, we won't do that. We have also changed
the specification----
Ms. Norton. I don't mean to say--I just want to say for the
record, taxpayers have paid for those trailers. I don't mean to
say those trailers are useless. I would rather see those
trailers--I think they should be taken out of service, just as
you are doing. But I would much rather see somebody look at
those trailers and deal with formaldehyde than to have those
trailers just carted off as no use to anybody, and we write it
out.
Mr. Paulison. In most cases, airing the trailer out reduces
the amount of formaldehyde very quickly and then, over time,
the formaldehyde does dissipate----
Ms. Norton. Or you might in fact find--and here is where we
need scientific study. We might find that if there is a need
for a trailer in Maine or in New York, that this is simply not
a problem; that subjecting a trailer to intense heat of the
kind we have in some States makes this an issue.
And I would just--and here I am doing the kind of
hypothesizing that scientists do, they just hypothesize various
scenarios and then they test them out. I would ask that that
there be some kind of testing by scientists so that this
disappears, particularly since you say this is an old
complaint. If it keeps coming back, we have got to find a way
to deal with it.
Mr. Paulison. That is what we are trying to do. Also, the
mobile homes has a--HUD has a specification for the amount of
formaldehyde they can have there. Was no specification for
travel trailers. Our new contracts for travel trailers have to
meet the same specification that HUD sets down for mobile
homes----
Ms. Norton. And does that include--does that say something
about formaldehyde?
Mr. Paulison. That is what I am talking about, the
formaldehyde issue. I am sorry, I should have said that up
front--that deals particularly with formaldehyde. There are
specifications for mobile homes. There were none for travel
trailers. So our----
Ms. Norton. And these were travel trailers?
Mr. Paulison. That is correct. The new travel trailers that
we are going to be purchasing, if we buy new ones, will have
the same specification as a mobile home does. So we won't have
the issue in the future.
In the meantime, we are telling people how to mitigate the
formaldehyde in their trailer, if they have a complaint--it is
usually just people who are sensitive to that--air them out,
turn the air conditioner on. I know it sounds simple, but
according to CDC that works very well.
If it doesn't work for them, we will change their trailer
out and give them a new trailer and test it before we give it
to them. We are on top of it. We do understand this issue and
we are taking it very seriously. We are not making light of
this at all.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Paulison, one more question. You are going
to get this question--first of all, I will not ask you a
question on the disposition of trailers here. I will ask you--I
asked for a report within 30 days. I need to know the
disposition of trailers, about which we had a hearing earlier,
about whether we are disposing of them, how we are treating--
how we are retaining them, how taxpayers are being relieved of
what may be excess trailers.
But I will ask that report to come to--and I will ask staff
to give me what the status of that is.
But this is a question you are going to get. You got it
from Homeland Security just last week, and here it comes from
us. And that is the status of the National Response Plan. This
is a plan where essentially all of the assets on the ground,
public and private, be a plan, not a tailored plan but an
overall plan of how we will deal with disasters of every kind.
What is the status of the plan and when will it be ready for
public comment?
Mr. Paulison. Okay, we have--the National Response Plan is
in place, and it has worked. It is a good solid plan and we are
using it. Everyone knows who is going to report to whom and how
we are going to manage this.
What we are doing is rewriting that plan. We are going to
make it more user friendly. We want to make it bottom up, so it
is much more easy for people to understand, and how they are
going to use that. We are currently working on that. It will
not be done by June 1st, but it will be done in the June time
frame.
We are moving very quickly on it. We are going to put it up
for review as soon as we can get the draft done. So we have
staff working literally almost around the clock to get the
thing. We have a lot of input from our users out there, and
NEMA is helping us with this. Other agencies are making sure
that we get this plan out and get it done right.
Ms. Norton. A final question for Mr. Hoell. You praised the
EMAC system. You indicate it is not a perfect system, since we
are trying to find ways and recommendations to offer for the
EMAC system which we, too, are very impressed with. I would
like to ask you what recommendations would you make to make it
a more perfect system?
Mr. Hoell. Well, I think what we truly need is some funding
support through FEMA to the EMAC system, so that we can do
better planning and better education across the board of all
our component parts, you know, so that everybody understands
how EMAC works, and it can be appropriately activated and
utilized in disaster time.
We believe strongly that, as the Nation's mutual aid
system, it is a very valid program. And that is what EMAC is;
it is a Nation's mutual aid system. But it does need some
funding support and that is something we would ask for.
Ms. Norton. Well, we strongly support it. This Committee
has always supported those grants and we will support the
appropriation based on your testimony that said that the
appropriation was running out at the end of 2007. I will ask
Mr. Kuhl if he has any further questions.
Mr. Kuhl. Actually, I have just two.
And I am not sure, Mr. Hoell--or Mr. Paulison can answer
the first one. And it comes back, it is a continuation of the
EMAC system. Your percentage of equipment authorized and every
other State's doesn't appear to be 100 percent. And the
question would be from your perspective, I guess in your
National Association role, would be: Do you have a dollar
figure, if every State was to have 100 percent of its
authorized equipment, what that dollar number would be? In all
50 States?
Mr. Hoell. I don't have an answer to that. No, sir, I
don't. Can we get that, Kristen?
Through the National Guard Association we can probably get
that information, but we do not have it.
General Sidwell. Actually, I think the National Guard
Bureau could provide that number. I can get together with them
and get back with you.
Mr. Kuhl. That would be great if you had that.
[Subsequent to Hearing, General Sidwell added the
following: We would need $50B worth of equipment to bring all
50 states to 100 percent of its authorized nationwide fill]
Mr. Kuhl. And then relative to the National Response Plan,
Mr. Paulison, can you tell me who actually is involved in the
development of that? Is that something you personally are
doing, or is there somebody within your agency or Homeland
Security?
Mr. Paulison. A combination of several things. One, input
from the user groups out there, having input into what they
seem to need to be in the plan. The information from the post-
Katrina format. FEMA has the overall responsibility for putting
that plan together and getting it out, working with Homeland
Security, working with people out of the White House. It is a
combination of Federal agencies that have them put into the
plan, including the Department of Defense. But FEMA is the one
that is coordinating the actual writing of the plan and making
sure we get all the things in there the other agencies see we
need to tweak and change for the plan.
Mr. Kuhl. Is there one person who has, really, the overall
oversight?
Mr. Paulison. Right now, I have--Bob Shea has the oversight
for FEMA, and also I just assigned my deputy, Harvey Johnson,
Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson, to also assist with that plan to
make sure we get it in a timely manner.
Mr. Kuhl. Okay. Thank you both for your testimony. I really
appreciate your being here.
Ms. Norton. I thank you, Mr. Kuhl, and I want to thank you
as well, both Mr. Paulison who had to fly back in order to
testify today--we very much appreciate that sir--and Mr. Hoell
who had to come all the way from North Carolina for testimony
that proved very valuable to us. We appreciate that both
witnesses have testified. And we apologize that when you are on
the second panel you have to wait.
But as you can see, Mr. Hoell--with Mr. Paulison, who is
the agency head on the second panel with you--that certainly
did not say anything about the importance or the priority of
importance to this Committee. I thank you both for coming.
We will hold the record open for 30 days, especially
considering the material that General Sidwell promised to get
in response to Mr. Kuhl's questions, and any of the materials
that we have requested.
The hearing is adjourned and I thank all the witnesses once
again.
[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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