[Senate Hearing 107-310] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 107-310 THE LOCAL ROLE IN HOMELAND SECURITY ======================================================================= HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ DECEMBER 11, 2001 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 78-046 WASHINGTON : 2002 ________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio MAX CLELAND, Georgia PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MARK DAYTON, Minnesota JIM BUNNING, Kentucky Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Staff Director and Counsel Kathryn Seddon, Counsel Michael L. Alexander, Professional Staff Member Hannah S. Sistare, Minority Staff Director and Counsel William M. Outhier, Minority Investigative Counsel Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Lieberman............................................ 1 Senator Thompson............................................. 3 Senator Collins.............................................. 4 Senator Levin................................................ 18 Senator Domenici............................................. 29 Senator Cleland.............................................. 34 Prepared statement: Senator Bunning.............................................. 57 WITNESSES Tuesday, December 11, 2001 Hon. Marc H. Morial, Mayor, City of New Orleans, Louisiana and President, U.S. Conference of Mayors........................... 6 Hon. Javier Gonzales, Commissioner, Santa Fe County, New Mexico and President, National Association of Counties (NACo)......... 8 Jay Fisette, Chairman, Arlington County Board, Virginia.......... 11 Richard J. Sheirer, Director, Office of Emergency Management, New York City Mayor's Office....................................... 13 John D. White, Jr., Director, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency......................................................... 16 Chief William B. Berger, President, International Association of Chiefs of Police............................................... 36 Michael C. Caldwell, M.D., M.P.H., Commissioner of Health, Dutchess County Department of Health, New York, on behalf of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)....................................................... 39 Michael J. Crouse, Chief of Staff for the General President, International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).............. 42 Major General Joseph E. Tinkham, II, Adjutant General of Maine and Commissioner of the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management....................................... 44 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Berger, Chief William B.: Testimony.................................................... 36 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 118 Caldwell, Michael C. M.D., M.P.H.: Testimony.................................................... 39 Prepared statement........................................... 129 Crouse, Michael J.: Testimony.................................................... 42 Prepared statement........................................... 144 Fisette, Jay: Testimony.................................................... 11 Prepared statement........................................... 93 Gonzales, Hon. Javier: Testimony.................................................... 8 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 83 Morial, Hon. Marc H.: Testimony.................................................... 6 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 58 Sheirer, Richard J.: Testimony.................................................... 13 Prepared statement........................................... 96 Tinkham, Major General Joseph E., II: Testimony.................................................... 44 Prepared statement........................................... 150 White, John D., Jr.: Testimony.................................................... 16 Prepared statement........................................... 109 Appendix Ellen M. Gordon, Administrator/Homeland Security Advisor, Iowa Emergency Management Division, prepared statement.............. 155 The National Association of Regional Councils, prepared statement 162 The United Jewish Communities and The Jewish Federations of North America, prepared statement.................................... 165 THE LOCAL ROLE IN HOMELAND SECURITY ---------- TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2001 U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:06 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Cleland, Carper, Levin, Thompson, Collins, and Domenici. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will come to order. Good morning to everyone. Thanks for being here and being here a bit early. I apologize that Washington traffic made me a few minutes late. It is a pleasure to welcome everyone to today's hearing on the local role in homeland security, which is part of an ongoing series of hearings by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee intended to both oversee and, hopefully, improve the Federal Government's response to the urgent set of terrorist threats our country and our people now face. On September 11, as we watched the attacks with horror and disbelief, we also, fortunately, were able to watch with increasing appreciation and admiration as local and State governments rose to this extraordinary occasion to protect and serve their people. That response, I think, dramatically demonstrated what is true no matter the nature of the emergency or the size of the locality. In America's war against terrorism, it is city, county, and State governments and their workers who will bear the primary responsibility for providing our citizens the safety and services that they need. The local role, of course, is much deeper and broader than emergency response. State, county, and city agencies are the primary providers of public health, transportation, and social support services, and as the daily law enforcement presence in our communities, they play a lead role in helping to prevent terrorist acts from happening in the first place. After September 11, all of this means that in order to fight terrorism effectively, counties, cities, and States need not only new technology, training, and talent, they need new funding. This morning, the U.S. Conference of Mayors is releasing a detailed inventory of the needs it has identified. The National Governor's Association and the National Association of Counties have recently issued similar reports. The governors, in fact, estimate that the cost to our States of guarding against threats to the public health and critical infrastructure will be approximately $4 billion in the coming fiscal year, and county officials have suggested the need for a new $3 billion Federal block grant for localities to meet these challenges. This morning, we want to talk as much about improving methods and relationships as about providing money. This Committee wants to learn what Federal policies, practices, and procedures should be put in place to help States and localities do their job better, and in what ways can we, all branches of government, work together to meet and defeat the terrorist threat. Our goal is to leverage the strengths of each branch and level of government so that we are doing everything in our power to protect our people against terrorism, and if the terrorists do strike again, that we will be able to count on a swift, sure, and seamless response. From recent events, we have reason to be proud of the role that has been played, but also reason to acknowledge that we have some way to go in the coordination of government responses to terrorism at the various levels. Too often in responding to the homeland security threats we have faced so far, the Federal and local governments have not worked hand-in-hand but have tripped over each other's feet. A number of local officials, for instance, have expressed great frustration with what they perceive as a lack of information sharing by the FBI, although I am pleased to note and I will be interested to hear from the local officials today that FBI Director Mueller has convened an advisory group of State and local law enforcement officials and indicated a willingness to speed up security clearances for local officials and to establish more joint terrorism task forces. Similar gaps and communication breaches were revealed during the response to the anthrax attack. The CDC and other Federal agencies, including the Office of Homeland Security, the Secretary of HHS, and the Post Office seemed to send inconsistent, certainly confusing messages to States, counties, and cities, and, I might add, even to Members of Congress. There was a very interesting article in yesterday's New York Times about what we are holding the hearing on this morning, and I quote this sentence from it: ``For all the calls to vigilance in a domestic defense drive like no other, many State and local governments are starting to balk because of the costs and the frustration over what they see as the Federal Government's confusing stream of intelligence information and security alerts.'' Whether or not this feeling remains on the front page, the fact is that all levels of our government need to get on the same page and to do so without delay. The challenge is exacerbated, I think, by the approach to counterterrorism that is being taken at the Federal level, an approach that I believe would be greatly improved by the creation of a full-fledged cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security with clear lines of authority and the power to get things done. Until that happens, the Office of Homeland Security under Governor Ridge, as it is constituted now, has the primary responsibility, and I certainly hope and believe that Governor Ridge, because of his experience at the State level, will act in a way that makes clear that he knows that State and local governments have to sit as equals at the table of anti- terrorist planning with the Federal Government. Encouragingly, Governor Ridge, in fact, has announced his intention to form a State and local government committee to advise the Office of Homeland Security, and that, I think, is the first good step. I hope we on this Committee across party lines can be advocates here in Congress for local government efforts, so that from the grassroots to the top of the Federal organizational tree, we are all working together to make the ground on which Americans live and work as safe and secure as possible. I will just say a final word in a historical context. Our founders understood that the Federal Government would be better at some things and that State and local governments, which are closer to the people, would be much better at other governmental functions. Because this is the first modern war that is being fought simultaneously both abroad and on our homefront, the war against terrorism really represents in a new way the intersection of one traditional national Federal responsibility, which is waging war and securing the Nation, and one traditional local government responsibility, which is providing for the health and safety of our communities. As a result, this war on terrorism challenges us to rethink and, if necessary, revise some traditional Federal and local relationships even while we reaffirm others, with the overriding goal of leveraging our strengths to make us a more secure society. But in any case, on the front lines of that preparedness will be the State, county, and local officials, including those we are pleased to have with us today. Senator Thompson. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON Senator Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We have held a number of hearings on homeland security and bioterrorism and one theme that keeps coming up is the importance of local officials in responding to a terrorist attack. We have been reminded repeatedly throughout our recent hearings that local fire fighters, law enforcement officers, emergency management officials, public health officials, and health care providers will be the first to respond to a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, we have also heard that our focus at the Federal level has been primarily on programs, some of which overlap and are spread over 40 different agencies. One of our witnesses at the bioterrorism hearing, Dr. Amy Smithson, made an observation in a report that I think bears repeating and which reflects what we will be hearing from our witnesses today. Dr. Smithson noted that only $315 million of the total of the $8.4 billion counterterrorism budget in 2000 went to the front lines in the form of training, equipment grants, and planning assistance. That is a remarkably small piece of the pie. I am glad that we will have the opportunity today to hear from John White, the Director of Emergency Management in Tennessee. Mr. White has worked in emergency management for 35 years and certainly has an excellent perspective on this issue. One point that Director White makes in his written statement and that I think is very important and insightful is that local and State emergency officials have, in effect, been preparing for terrorist attacks for years. For example, many have expressed concern about the safety of our nuclear plants in the wake of the events of September 11. But as Director White points out, his office has been conducting exercises to prepare for accidents at nuclear plants for years. People are now becoming more concerned about chemical attacks, but his Emergency Management Agency was conducting training and response exercises to deal with hazardous waste material spills and accidents well before recent attacks. So we have infrastructures in place at the State and local levels already, at least somewhat prepared to respond to attacks. Perhaps rather than pouring more money into more Federal programs and response teams, the first priority should be to determine how we can best coordinate and support training and exercises with local officials to take advantage of the programs that are already in existence. As we have heard previously, and I believe that Dr. Caldwell will testify today, the same point can be made about our public health systems. Clearly, we need to take steps to improve the detection, surveillance, and response capabilities of our public health departments and our private health care providers. We can build on systems already in place and reap the additional benefit of strengthening our preparedness in the health care arena overall. Finally, I believe we will also hear today about the need for better communications in the law enforcement area. We have all read about some confrontations between the FBI and local law enforcement. Both Director Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft have announced efforts to try to facilitate communications between local and Federal officials, as well as to share more information when necessary. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on this subject, as well. Again, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our discussion today about how best to support our very valuable local resources. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your convening this hearing and for inviting a witness from Maine, Commissioner Joseph Tinkham, to participate. Our purpose to examine the local role in homeland security is of utmost importance, for one of the lessons of September 11 is those first on the scene are local officials--police officers, fire fighters, EMS and other medical personnel. They are the ones who are the first responders. We are here today to learn about the efforts of State, county, and local officials to prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism. We need to assess the effectiveness of communication and coordination among Federal, State, and local agencies, and also to evaluate the extent of assistance that is needed from the Federal Government. Critical to the homeland defense of our Nation as a whole is the security of individual States, and securing a State presents significant financial and logistical challenges. Let me illustrate these challenges using my home State of Maine as an example. As Commissioner Tinkham of Maine's Department of Defense, Veterans, and Emergency Management has noted in his written testimony, Maine has more than 3,000 miles of coastline. It has the longest international border with Canada in the continental United States. The State has more than 250 air strips, military bases, and two major shipyards, more than 800 dams, a deactivated nuclear power plant with spent fuel rods on site, and the second largest petroleum tank farm on the East Coast, located in the very heart of the State's largest population center. According to Commissioner Tinkham, the State of Maine has identified 25 vulnerabilities that could result in a large loss of life or environmental catastrophe. To meet these challenges and those facing other States, we must improve coordination among Federal, State, and local governments as well as the private sector. We must avoid wasteful duplication. We must have realistic plans and conduct effective training and exercises. We also must ensure that appropriate information about the presence of terrorists and potential threats is shared by Federal law enforcement agencies with their State and local counterparts. Portland, Maine, Police Chief Michael Chibwood has expressed many times his frustration at not being told of the presence of individuals on the FBI's watch list. As he put it, if there is something that impacts the public safety of a community, the police chief ought to know. Finally, we must have adequate funding for homeland defense. While the responsibility for homeland security is not the Federal Government's alone and must be shared by local and State governments, I fully support additional Federal financial assistance for States and communities. For example, I recently joined with Senators Frist, Kennedy, and several others in introducing the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act, which not only strengthens our Federal response, but also authorizes substantial new funding for States, local governments, and hospitals, the people who are, indeed, on the front lines and would be called upon first in the event of any new bioterrorist attack. Our legislation authorizes $1.5 billion to improve State and local preparedness capabilities and also authorizes an additional $60 million to improve the public health laboratory network through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is important that we allow Governor Ridge the opportunity to assess needs and priorities carefully. After that assessment, however, I fully expect that the President will propose billions of dollars in his next budget, which we expect to be released in early February. In that regard, this hearing and the testimony of Commissioner Tinkham and the other witnesses today will be very helpful in identifying the gaps in the system and the priorities for this additional funding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We clearly have a lot of work to do together. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. I am delighted with the witnesses we have here this morning. It is really a first-rate and very representative group and I thank you for being here. First is the Hon. Marc Morial, who is here this morning as President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayor of New Orleans, obviously, first elected in 1994 at the extraordinarily young age of 35, now in his second term, and, therefore, still very young. [Laughter.] Mayor Morial, thanks for being here. I look forward to your testimony. TESTIMONY OF HON. MARC H. MORIAL,\1\ MAYOR, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA AND PRESIDENT, U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS Mr. Morial. Thank you. Good morning. I am Marc Morial, Mayor of New Orleans and President of the Conference of Mayors. I want to thank Chairman Lieberman as well as Senator Thompson and the entire Committee. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Morial appears in the Appendix on page 58. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am also very pleased to be here with fellow local leaders, especially our NACo President, Javier Gonzales. Mayors have always attached a high priority to preparing our cities for the possibility of disasters. In the wake of September 11 and the anthrax mailings, efforts to strengthen emergency management plans have been redoubled and there have been significant additional deployments of local public safety resources. As I stated in a recent meeting with Governor Ridge, we are the domestic troops, and today, I am here representing not only mayors, but police officers, fire fighters, public health workers who are on the front line on the domestic side of this war against terrorism. In October, the Conference of Mayors sponsored an unprecedented safety and security summit which brought together more than 200 mayors, police chiefs, fire chiefs, emergency managers, and public health officials. Today, I am proud to release this national action plan which emerged from the summit which I want to briefly summarize. First, in the area of homeland security, we have been concerned, as each of you has mentioned, about the multiplicity of Federal agencies which have responsibility for helping cities, counties, and States prepare for and respond to a possible attack, and we are extremely encouraged by our conversations with Governor Ridge, who we think understands the importance of intergovernmental partnership and the need for better coordination. To strengthen his efforts, we strongly endorse the idea that the Office of Homeland Security be given cabinet-level status, should be fully authorized and given budgetary authority over Federal programs related to homeland protection. Without this, the Office of Homeland Security will be unable to fulfill, we believe, the mission that President Bush has so aptly placed under the responsibility of Governor Ridge, and I understand that you, Senator Lieberman, have introduced legislation on this. Second, and this is important, right now, of the approximately $10 billion which is in the Federal budget related to terrorism, and that has recently been identified by OMB--only 4.9 percent is allocated for State and local first response activities. And of this limited amount, most is provided to States. To ensure that heightened security can be maintained and that traditional public safety needs do not suffer, we have called, and our national action plan includes, a new flexible homeland security block grant to be used for additional deployment expenses, training, communications, rescue equipment, and the protection of public infrastructure. We are very pleased that such legislation, S. 1737, was introduced by Senator Clinton, along with Senators Feinstein, Mikulski, Durbin, and Schumer, to authorize $3 billion for a targeted block grant, and I want to urge the Senate to pass this bill. Unfortunately, Congress took a major step backwards recently when it approved a $122 million cut in the local law enforcement block grant. This 24 percent cut in funding provided directly to local governments and which we use in most instances for police overtime comes at the very time when our police departments are facing extraordinary and unbudgeted costs as a result of moving to a heightened state of alert as requested by the Federal Government and as demanded by the people we represent. I want to strongly urge the Members of this Committee to work with us to help restore this cut in the local law enforcement block grant, which program helps cities big and small around the country. Third, it is acknowledged that the Nation has failed to invest adequately in local public health infrastructure. Resources are needed for 24/7 disease surveillance, on-the- scene investigations, local bioterrorism preparedness, planning, increased interagency communications and surge capacity. There must also be adequate regional stockpiles of vaccines and a rapid response testing network must be deployed. Let me talk a little about transportation security. Our own task force on airport security, chaired by L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn, has drafted detailed recommendations which are included in our national action plan. We want to compliment the Senate and the Congress and President Bush for embracing our recommendations that airport screening security personnel be federalized. We think this was an important step in the right direction and we want to work very closely with the executive and legislative branches to make sure that the time lines in the legislation are met. It is very important that baggage screening not be delayed. It is very important that the creation of the new Federal agency which is going to oversee aviation security not be delayed. We continue to work very closely with Secretary Mineta and we want to urge you to provide him with all of the resources necessary to fully implement this legislation on time. Several other areas, very quickly. Transit security, passenger and freight rail security, and port security are also areas of great concern. My city is a major port city, as are many coastal cities around the Nation. We must pay close attention to port security and develop initiatives in that regard. Finally, I want to talk a little bit about Federal-local law enforcement cooperation. We represent 650,000 local police officers, a powerful force in this war against terrorism, and I think our plea is that these local forces be fully integrated into our national homeland defense planning. We must create a new communications system between Federal and local public safety officials with a 24/7 threat assessment capability. In many meetings and discussions held on this subject since September 11, it has become clear that many barriers still exist at the Federal level. The Attorney General, we think, should be complimented on initiating a number of important steps to strengthen and alleviate these barriers through the anti-terrorism task forces, and our discussions with Director Ridge, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Director Mueller have been constructive. We strongly believe that any institutional barriers to greater intelligence sharing should be addressed. Senators Schumer, Clinton, Leahy, and Hatch have introduced a Federal-Local Information Sharing Partnership Act which we believe would allow the Federal Government to increase intelligence sharing with local and State governments and we urge its passage. Finally, in addition to these issues, there are many other areas that are covered in our national action plan, including border security, water and wastewater security, communications interoperability, and highway security, and I want to thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify today and I look forward to continued discussions as together we work to strengthen this Nation's homeland defense. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mayor, for an excellent statement and for the report that you have issued today, which we look forward to reading. I look forward to the questions and answers, too. The Hon. Javier Gonzales is the President of the National Association of Counties and a County Commissioner in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. He was elected to the Board of Commissioners in November 1994 and then reelected to serve a second term in 1998. I, being personal and not partisan in mentioning the great honor and adventure that I had last year running for national office. One of my favorite stops was in Santa Fe, where we had a wonderful rally. Probably my favorite sign of the campaign was a woman in the front row who held up a big hand-lettered sign that in three words said it all for me, ``Viva la chutzpah.'' [Laughter.] So it is in that spirit that I welcome you this morning. TESTIMONY OF HON. JAVIER GONZALES,\1\ COMMISSIONER, SANTA FE COUNTY, NEW MEXICO AND PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES (NACo) Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Senator Lieberman and Members of the Committee, and we certainly enjoyed having you in Santa Fe last year, as well. Thank you for inviting me to testify on an issue of paramount importance to counties across the country, securing our homeland against the threat of terrorism. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gonzales appears in the Appendix on page 83. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My name is Javier Gonzales and I am an elected County Commissioner from Santa Fe County, New Mexico. I currently serve as President of the National Association of Counties. As you stated in your opening comments, counties are the first responders to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other major emergencies. County public health, law enforcement, fire, and other public safety personnel are responsible for on- the-ground response and recovery action. Counties also own, operate, and secure key aspects of the Nation's infrastructure, such as airports, transit systems, water supplies, schools, and hospitals. Elected county officials like myself, along with emergency managers, provide the essential regional leadership, planning, and coordination function in preventing, preparing for, and managing our community's response to emergency events. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 3 months ago today, I appointed a NACo task force on homeland security. The task force, comprised of 45 top county officials from across the country, was formed to provide a forum for county officials to advise the Federal Government about the roles and concerns of counties regarding homeland security and to identify model county programs for our colleagues as we increase security measures and preparedness in our communities. The task force has met twice this fall and I would like to share a few relevant outcomes from those meetings with you. First, the importance of coordination has been a recurring theme. County officials believe it is critically important that emergency preparedness plans be coordinated and rehearsed among local, State, and Federal levels, as well as across the various agencies with a role in emergency response. In the event of an emergency, county officials strongly believe that the local first responder should maintain control of the scene at the ground level. In the case of involvement and support at the scene by multiple Federal agencies, we believe that the Federal Government should quickly identify the agency that speaks for the Federal Government and that all Federal agencies should diligently follow the lead of that controlling Federal authority. NACo, along with its sister State and local government organizations, has formally requested that Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge create a State and Local Advisory Committee to the Office of Homeland Security. The committee, comprised of elected officials from State, county, and city governments, would provide input and assistance to Federal homeland security activities and facilitate coordination among levels of government, and we have received a commitment from Governor Ridge that he will form such a committee and we look forward to the committee being established as soon as possible. NACo also has some specific recommendations in the areas of law enforcement, public health, communications, and emergency planning and preparedness. On law enforcement, it has been the longstanding concern of counties that intelligence information obtained by the Federal Government is not shared with appropriate local officials in a timely manner. Ultimately, this hampers our ability to track suspicious persons and prevent crimes from being committed. NACo has made a specific request to the Department of Justice that the composition of its anti-terrorism task forces specifically include elected representatives of county governments and that security clearances be provided to county officials for intelligence information commensurate with their responsibilities. We have seen some progress on this front. In a letter dated November 13, Attorney General Ashcroft informed county officials that he is setting up a system to share information with State and local officials through each U.S. Attorney's Office, and as I understand it, this system will provide a mechanism for Federal intelligence to reach appropriate officials at the local level and for information collected locally to be communicated to Federal law enforcement. In the public health area, there are two major points. First, county officials are calling on the Congress to provide adequate funding for the Public Health Threats and Emergencies Act. NACo believes that an appropriation of a minimum of $1.8 billion is needed to implement the law fully and effectively with at least $835 million dedicated to building and maintaining local and State public health infrastructure. The second point relates to information dissemination via the Health Alert Network. NACo believes that the Centers for Disease Control Public Health Practice Program, the CDC office that best understands local dynamics, should continue to coordinate and communicate with county health departments and that there should be a focus on improving the Health Alert Network and on assistance with technological upgrades for county health departments. To enhance coordination among local jurisdictions, communications interoperability, the ability of one jurisdiction to talk to its neighbor during crisis must be increased. In this regard, NACo is requesting that the Federal Government help improve interoperability by releasing additional spectrum in the 700 megahertz band for public safety and emergency management use. Finally, as I mentioned toward the beginning of my remarks, counties as regional governments are in the unique position to provide the leadership, planning, and coordination function needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage the response to emergency events. While the survey we conducted in late September found that 95 percent of counties have emergency response plans, and 100 percent of large urban counties have both plans and mutual aid agreements with surrounding jurisdictions, there are still improvements to be made. Since October, NACo has been calling for the authorization of a local anti-terrorism block grant at a minimum of $3 billion. NACo believes that these funds should flow directly from the Federal Government to local governments and that funding decisions under the block grants should be made county- wide as an outgrowth of an existing all hazards emergency management planning process. Senator Lieberman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. Counties have a significant role to play in our new national strategy for homeland security. We are the public's first defense, but we do have limited resources and will need additional support and cooperation from the Federal Government in order to succeed. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you might have. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Commissioner Gonzales, for your very thoughtful testimony. The next two witnesses in some measure represent the heroes of September 11, coming as they do from Arlington County and embracing the attack on the Pentagon, responding to it, and from New York City. So we thank you both for being here and look forward to your testimony. First is the Hon. Jay Fisette, Chairman of the Arlington County Board. Mr. Fisette was elected to the Board in 1997 and became chairman in 2001. Good morning, Mr. Fisette. TESTIMONY OF JAY FISETTE,\1\ CHAIRMAN, ARLINGTON COUNTY BOARD, VIRGINIA Mr. Fisette. Good morning, Senator Lieberman, Members of the Committee. You just stated why I am here, because Arlington County and New York City were the two targets, and as you all know, I was not one on the front lines. I was the chief elected official. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Fisette appears in the Appendix on page 93. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the case of the Pentagon, the local government was Arlington. This meant that our mutual aid partners came together with us throughout the region to respond. Our fire department was, in fact, in charge and coordinated the fire rescue and recovery for the first full 10 days of the incident and thereafter, and the reality is they did their work. They are professionals. They did an outstanding job. Over the course of the event, staff from literally every county agency came together to respond, and I look at it as three attacks, in fact. We had the Pentagon, we had Reagan National Airport, and then we had the anthrax issues thereafter. We learned many lessons from this and we have been spending a lot of time hashing that out, and what became extremely clear to us was the important partnership between local government and the Federal Government and the increased emphasis that needs to be put on that, so I would like to share with you four recommendations that we have to put forward to you. One is there must be clear articulation of roles and responsibilities among Federal, State, and local agencies in emergencies, especially on Federal installations, such as the Pentagon, or Congress. This includes roles for FEMA, CDC, local fire and health departments, and others that you have already heard about. Arlington fought a fire at the Pentagon several weeks before September 11 and we have also responded to two fires since. In calendar year 2000, Arlington responded to 251 fire and EMS calls at the Pentagon. That created a history of respect and cooperation that was very instrumental in our response on September 11. We recommend, however, that the Federal Government work to establish formal memorandum of understanding with local and State officials for emergency responses at all major Federal installations, an MOU. We do not have one in place now. The second suggestion, as part of the development of these MOUs, an assessment should be made of local capacity to respond to different events in support of the Federal Government and to provide financial support to fulfill that capacity. As noted earlier, we have responded to the Pentagon continuously over time. However, we have never received any financial support, capital or operating, to meet those needs that go beyond the normal needs of our community. We are proud to serve the Pentagon and other Federal installations in the community, as are other communities. However, given the new reality and the new threats we face, we feel it is appropriate for the Federal Government to accept some role and responsibility in this, as well, and I support the recommendation I just heard from Mr. Gonzales, that those funds be made directly to the local governments. The third issue is really one that focuses here in the Washington region and that is an issue of indemnification. In the case of the greater Washington area, Congressional action is especially needed to approve legislation to eliminate issues of local liability in providing mutual aid. During the inauguration and other pre-planned events, local police are deputized as Federal marshals in order to avoid such local liability concerns. In an emergency, there is no time for such action, nor has there ever been an ability to address issues in the case of fire mutual aid. Congress needs to put this issue to rest by passing legislation that has since been drafted by the Washington Council of Governments. And finally, and, of course, the largest challenge before all of you, is the development of a national strategy for terrorism preparedness. As the Nation pulled together at all levels, and I believe we responded very well to September 11 and afterwards, that may not always be the case. A major reason we did, however, is because we did not have more casualties. Despite the horrific nature of the attacks here in Arlington, we did not have mass casualties flooding our limited hospital capacity, and you have heard Senator Thompson and others refer to this. We would like to put some increased emphasis and believe it needs to be placed on the hospital system's capacity and the public health sector capacity, as well. It was a wake-up call to the Federal Government about the limited capacity of our hospitals that health care competition and cost containment may have contributed to. At the same time, with the development of antibiotics in the last century, there has been a steady erosion of our public health capacity, those who are on the front lines of a biological attack. These are the disease police. So a national strategy or standards for preparing or responding to biological and chemical attacks needs to be put in place. Now that we know that they are not theoretical, we need to be able to do better. We need to address protocols for the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. We need to train and practice in deployment. And we must have a way to get consistent, accurate, and authoritative information, I think a theme you have already heard. So in closing, I think there is a window of opportunity we have not had before. People's awareness is high. At the local level, we know that we will always be the first responders and we are working hard on our own planning and development capacity, but no local government will be able to respond to a major event alone, especially on Federal installations, and the Federal Government needs to be fully engaged in the preparedness, assessment, and planning, and in providing the resources necessary to make that happen. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Fisette, for your leadership and also for very interesting testimony. I had not thought about the problem of liability and it is an important one. I regret to say that we are in the middle of a vote on the Senate floor, so we are going to have to recess the hearing. This is one of three votes. We will see if we can work it out so that we come back in the middle for a little bit more, hear the two witnesses, and then go back for the last one. In any case, the Committee will stand in recess for a few moments. Thank you. [Recess.] Senator Lieberman. The Committee will reconvene. Thanks very much for your patience. We caught a break that the Senate decided to voice vote the second two judicial nominations, so we were able to come back a bit earlier than we might have been. Our next witness is Richard Sheirer, who is the Director of the Office of Emergency Management for the City of New York. We have all watched with tremendous admiration the city's response to these attacks. If Mayor Giuliani has been the Commander in Chief, maybe perhaps it is appropriate to say that Richard Sheirer is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in this particular response and they have had great help from the fire commissioner and police commissioner and others, as well. Mr. Sheirer continues to be involved in the response right to this day, so we appreciate the time you have taken to come down and share your experiences with us. I know they are going to be helpful to us in the future of planning responses to what we hope will not happen again, but we have got to plan in case they do. Mr. Sheirer, thanks. We look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF RICHARD J. SHEIRER,\1\ DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR'S OFFICE Mr. Sheirer. Thank you, Senator. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, and Members of the Committee. I am Richard Sheirer. I am the Director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management and I come with a unique background. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Sheirer appears in the Appendix on page 96. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I spent 28 years in the New York City Fire Department, followed by 4 years as Chief of Staff at the New York City Police Department, and in February 2000, I was appointed the city's Director of Emergency Management. I think that background gave me the opportunity to handle the situation we faced from September 11 on with a full hand, and I think it is important that we talk about the things that we did and how they impact homeland security and how OEM in particular impacts the local role of homeland security. In 1996, recognizing the need to enhance interagency and intergovernmental coordination for planning, preparing, and responding during any emergency, Mayor Giuliani established the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management through an executive order. OEM in New York City is a multi-jurisdictional agency comprised of personnel drawn from city agencies, including fire, police, health, environmental protection, emergency medical services, and other agencies. OEM was recently described by the Mayor as New York City's Office of Homeland Security and has been crucial in managing and coordinating the city's response to the World Trade Center attack, the anthrax incidents that occurred, the ongoing recovery efforts at the World Trade Center, and the November 12 crash of Flight 587. OEM is responsible for monitoring and responding to all potential emergency conditions and potential incidents, whether they be emergencies or not, where there is a multi-agency response. We operate the city's Emergency Operations Center, the EOC, which enables the Mayor and the city to manage any multi-agency emergency condition and any potential incident. It is used for weather. It is used for good events, like the new millennium. And it was critical to our ability to address the incidents of September 11. We research, we compile and evaluate the contingency plans of every agency of the city. We have drills on every type of emergency we can possibly have and we prepare and organize and conduct those drills with the help of every agency of the city. And we coordinate special interagency and intergovernmental responses. As I said, the backbone of OEM is its Emergency Operations Center. We activate it in times of any multi-agency incident or the anticipation of it. Anything that affects the lives and safety of people who live, work, or visit New York City, it is our job to make sure that we respond to it. During and after the World Trade Center attack, the EOC operated on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis, with representatives of 110 local, State, and Federal agencies, the voluntary organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and the public utilities which provide gas, electric, steam, and telephone communications. These 110 agencies were represented by anywhere from 300 to 1,000 people in the EOC at any given time. We had to feed them. We had to provide them with rest areas. We provided medical and mental health services. In short, the EOC became a small town. In fact, the Mayor even performed the marriage of a Marine who was working in the EOC during his time there. On September 11, after the first airplane flew into the north tower of the World Trade Center, OEM immediately activated its Emergency Operations Center at Seven World Trade Center and began to coordinate the emergency operations in conjunction with the fire department, the police department, Port Authority police, numerous other emergency agencies, the health department, our mutual aid plan from the surrounding areas, and others. Despite the loss of OEM's EOC in Seven World Trade Center at the very moment when we needed it most, we were able to quickly reestablish an Emergency Operations Center and continue to coordinate the emergency response to the World Trade Center attack. The importance of a fully equipped, technologically advanced Emergency Operations Center to coordinate Federal, State, and local responses to the September 11 attack was immeasurable. It was possible to immediately share and gather information among the various Federal, State, and local agencies to address the issues and needs of the emergency workers and of our citizens as they arose. It made it possible to coordinate the various multi-agency responses. It was possible to coordinate and assist the utilities and the various agencies to rebuild the damaged infrastructure, while at the same time providing resources for the rescue efforts. The effort was critical to reestablishing the world financial markets of the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the Mercantile Exchange, the NASDAQ as quickly as possible to make sure that the world knew our resolve to get back to normal as much as we could, no matter what happened. OEM is responsible for preparing for the unexpected. We have a very significant medical surveillance system which monitors emergency responses by ambulances based on systems. That system allows us to identify trends and abnormalities very quickly and have Department of Health epidemiologists start to work to find out what is causing it. We also monitor purchases of over-the-counter drugs from various pharmaceutical chains to see if there is any unusual usage of flu medications, diarrhea medications, those medications that could possibly indicate that the public has been faced with an attack like we did during this time with anthrax. We use that and we compare everything to the historical data we have collected to see where there is an abnormality. From October 12 to November 9, we faced the additional incident of the anthrax letters sent to various media locations and outlets. We coordinated Points of Dispensing. On September 12, we were scheduled to have a drill called the TriPOD. It is a point of dispensing to test our bio plan, our ability to distribute medication to the public as needed. Ironically, the location of that drill is where we now have our EOC. We took it from one thing to another. But our plan worked. We used it at NBC and ABC. CDC is looking at it as the model to use across the country. It all boils down to one thing, planning and preparation. The old adage, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. It could not hold truer for what we do. There are times when people say, why are we having another drill? Why are we having another planning meeting? Why are we having another exercise? I think those questions will not be asked again. We have learned very significantly how important those items are, and there are a number of lessons we have learned from the city's ability to respond to the attack. Before September 11, as I said, the city was amongst the best prepared in the country, with plans and exercises and drills on every imaginable emergency. We used all those preparations to address the issues we faced from September 11 on. We took a little piece of our coastal storm plan, a little piece of our all hazards plan, and we were able to address the issues as they arose. The preparation of enhanced degree of communication that has been spoken of before, it is critical that we communicated with our State and Federal partners. The State Emergency Management Agency of New York and FEMA have been our partners from day one. They have walked with us hand in hand. They have been supportive. They knew that New York City was one of the major cities in this country that could handle this on a local level and they provided the backbone of support in terms of logistics and advice, but they have not gotten in our way, which is very important. Many of the officials who visited New York City before September 11 would come to our operations center and they would comment on how they wished they could afford to have such a facility. If there is one thing we have all learned is that the reality is they cannot afford not to. I believe that you have heard this before and you will hear it again. Mayor Giuliani and the police commissioner have said, and I believe critically, that one of the most essential elements in effectively protecting not only our city but every locality from terrorist attacks is the communication of information sharing between the Federal, State, and local law enforcement. In New York City, we have created a multi-agency intelligence sharing network of the New York City Police, the Port Authority Police, the New Jersey State Police, the New York State Police, to share information as much as we can. But it still is not the sharing we need and we need more of it with the Federal agencies and we are all working towards that. After September 11, we have increased the number of New York City police officers in the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the New York FBI Task Force. Those task forces are our first line of defense in terms of terrorism, and having worked with them in a past life in the police department, the value for every jurisdiction that has a Joint Terrorist Task Force is exceptional. They provide you the best information of the best and the brightest that the Federal agents that are available and your people become critical. We are expanding our participation to agencies beyond the police department. In closing, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the city's role in national and local homeland security and that role in response to the World Trade Center attacks and to again emphasize the crucial need of sharing intelligence among the Federal, State, and local law enforcement authorities. An open flow of intelligence information is vital for us to be prepared for whatever may happen. Also, the need for localities to have a full-functioning emergency operations center cannot be overstated. If they have to combine resources, they should make them multi-jurisdictional, but they need that resource when something strikes. And finally, I want to thank you for holding this hearing to see what we can do to make sure that the lives of our citizens on a daily basis are protected from the evil people that struck New York City and Arlington and Pittsburgh on September 11. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Sheirer, thanks for all you have done and for very thoughtful testimony today. I look forward to the questions. Our final witness on this panel is John White, Director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, a real professional in this field. He has been with TEMA since 1967 and director since 1994. Mr. White, thanks for being here. TESTIMONY OF JOHN D. WHITE, JR.,\1\ DIRECTOR, TENNESSEE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Thompson, and other Members of the Committee. I sat here and listened to the other members of this panel and determined that my reading of this speech will probably not do any good. They have echoed everything that I feel that you should know. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. White appears in the Appendix on page 109. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think that one of the things that we all wonder about, and I was listening to different members here, is where we are at and where we are going to and how we are going to get a little further along. Since September 11, I think that you have seen the things that have come together, that have been practiced across the United States for a long period of time. Since 1968, we have had Emergency Operations Centers. We have had other types of emergency plans and exercises. I think that Richard said testing and exercising is so important. The funding of that is tremendously important and there is not enough of that simply because the funding is not available. Since September 11, I think that the State and local governments have just absolutely been overwhelmed by studies. I brought a copy of just one study. This was the study that the Department of Justice requested. That is one study. I reduced it where it was a little bit manageable. The FBI requested another one that we did that is actually 12 notebooks thick. We have had the same type of studies from FEMA, which I brought a copy, DOJ, FBI, National Guard Bureau, the Fire Association, DOT, CDC, DOE, and NSF, every one of them different, every one of them since September 11, and none of them asks the same questions. None of them have the same criteria. I am in a unique position that I got to see all the different ones, but I doubt that anyone on this panel has ever seen this from their locale. I do not know why we cannot do one for everybody. I do not know why we cannot set a standard that is there. We have done in the past all kinds of assessments on sensitive facilities, emergency facilities, medical facilities, evacuation shelters, but yet we redo them again. It is another requirement. We were talking about information going up and then intelligence coming up and no information coming down. I hold a ``secret'' clearance. I hold a ``top secret'' clearance. I hold a ``top secret departmental'' clearance, a ``Q'' clearance, yet I do not hold a clearance to know anything about terrorism. FEMA's clearances are not good with DOE. DOE's clearance is not good with NSF. NSF is not good with the military. The military is not good with anybody. And then DOJ is not good for any of those. I asked the other day--I just got through redoing my ``Q'' clearance--what does it cost to do a clearance? Initial step, $5,000 per person. How many clearances do we have and how many different types? Did they spend $5,000 on me on each security clearance I have got? And nobody knows--I can give you all kinds of things like that. I doubt there is a security clearance you can get to see the information. I think that you find if you do not work for the FBI, the information is not passed down. You pass it up when you get information. If you are lucky, when it happens, then they are there. You look at exercising. FEMA is really good about exercising and the Federal Government is really good about exercising, but they never play. You never know exactly what you are going to get. We have two nuclear plants within the State. We have to, every year, exercise in the nuclear plant where they would be relicensed. That is some approximately 3,000 people play in that exercise. That is State and local government. There has never been a Federal agency play in the exercise. They grade it. Do we know what we would see from the Federal Government if we had a nuclear accident? We guess at it. When you are looking at exercising at that level and the exercising that is required, you must put some type of funding for local government and for State Government to be able to do it. They cannot afford it, to pay the overtime, to pay the other people that are required in there just to do it. Tabletops cost a tremendous amount of money, but the real exercise costs a lot. I look forward to answering some of your questions. I look forward to helping out in this problem. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. White. You actually posed the questions, and I think you did them very well from your experience. Senator Levin. Would you yield for 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, just to put my statement in the record? Chairman Lieberman. You are asking a lot of me this morning. [Laughter.] Yes, of course, I will. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN Senator Levin. Thank you. If I could just put this statement in the record, and I hope to get back before the end of the hearing. If I could take 10 seconds, one part of my statement has to do with this intelligence sharing between Federal and State, which I just heard these last two witnesses talk about. A former assistant district attorney told my office he would rather have needles poked in his eyes than to have to work with the FBI on an investigation. [Laughter.] I will put the balance of my statement in the record. Chairman Lieberman. That is pretty graphic. Thanks, Senator Levin. [The prepared statement of Senator Levin follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN In the minutes, hours and days after the terrorist attacks on September 11, the people we saw on the front lines at the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon here in Washington--the first responders everyone was watching around the globe--were local firefighters, police officers, and other emergency personnel. They were the ones charged with the responsibility of responding to the injuries, the developing threats, and the public reaction. Nothing tells us more clearly how important state and local governments are in our fight against terrorism than our experience of September 11. We owe our local personnel a great deal of thanks and respect. But we also owe them the commitment to try to make our intergovernmental systems work better in the future. I imagine all of our offices have heard concerns expressed by our state and local governments back home of communication and information problems. Local police officials in Michigan have told my office, for example, that they are not receiving the information they need. Our witness today, the President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police expresses a similar concern, particularly with respect to classified information, and has identified several areas where state and local police officers could greatly benefit from training, in such areas as responding to biological, chemical and nuclear incidents. We need to address these requests with meaningful action. I also want to add that most importantly, our Federal agencies have to see state and local governments as equal partners, people with whom we are working together and collaborating to make progress against terrorism. I have heard too many stories in the past about the arrogance of agencies like the FBI when they interface with local police. A former assistant district attorney recently told my office that he'd rather have needles poked in his eyes than have to work with the FBI on an investigation. Instead of sharing information, they apparently often hide it. Instead of working as a team, they work as competitors. To the extent that is still happening, and I hope it is a thing of the past, we have to stop it. In these new times, old practices like that have no role to play. Communicating within a state is also key. My own state of Michigan completed and submitted its three-year Statewide Domestic Preparedness Strategy report to the Department of Justice in October. States were required in 1998 to prepare a statewide assessment that shows the needs and vulnerability assessments of the state. Each state's study will then be used to channel future Federal assistance through state governments to enhance state and local emergency preparedness. Every state is either working on their own self evaluating report or has submitted such a report. These reports will hopefully be helpful, not only to the state, but also to Governor Ridge and his Office of Homeland Security. No one has more responsibility for the inter-governmental relationships around terrorism than Governor Ridge. Governor Ridge has done a good job so far. He responded positively when I asked that National Guardsmen remain in place at the international border crossings in Michigan when their funding was set to expire. I am hopeful that he will continue to seek input, not only from Congress, but from local entities, both private and public, in creating an organizational structure to fight terrorism. Although today's hearing is focusing on the role of public officials, it is crucial that private companies are also consulted. My staff recently met with an association based in Detroit that represents independent pollution spill response companies across the U.S. They offered to provide their expertise and help to train local officials in remediation including chemical and biological hazards. Yet, they were unsure where to go to offer their assistance. My staff directed them to Governor Ridge's office and they are attempting to meet with his staff. The point is: we have private resources here that should not be overlooked. Many citizens tell me that they desperately want to help their country in some way besides spending money, and private companies may offer a way for citizens to help in what they may see as a more tangible way. It is a terrible force that we are up against--hatred always is. But we have a lot of good people willing to help and a lot of hard work to do. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses who can teach us a great deal from their own real life experiences. Chairman Lieberman. Let us talk about that one a little bit, because we have heard that. I have heard it a lot, and probably all the Members of the Committee have. There are real concerns nationally, particularly from mayors and people in local law enforcement, about the difficulty in getting information from the FBI, and I presume here we are talking about intelligence information that might lead you to know about whether your local area is maybe vulnerable or subject to attack. Even though we have heard every time Attorney General or Governor Ridge has put out one of these national alerts that they have notified the 18,000 law enforcement officials around the country. So my question is, and maybe I will start with you, Mayor Morial, have you had that problem? Is it as widespread as the anecdotal evidence that I have had? I did mention in my opening statement that Director Mueller of the FBI has formed a committee or a task force of some kind. Are you hopeful that can solve this problem? Mr. Morial. It is a concern by mayors and police chiefs around the country. I think the experience is if there is a working relationship between local government and the special agent in charge in that jurisdiction, then based on those relationships, those working relationships, the information may flow. If there is no working relationship, then the information does not flow---- Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Morial [continuing]. And I think it calls out for there to be a protocol established in terms of how and what information is going to flow and to whom. For example, 2 weeks ago when Governor Ridge announced his non-specified threat, the first thing--the thing he did before announcing the threat publicly by way of a press conference was to convene a conference call with the Nation's 50 governors, and those governors, I take it, were not in turn advised as to what they should do with the information. In my own view, the appropriate thing for the governors to do would have been to hold a follow-up conference call with the chief law enforcement officers of every county, or in the case of Louisiana, the parish in their State to provide the information to them and then they could, in turn, transfer it to local police, chief elected officials in those areas. I found out, because when the threat--when I saw Director Ridge on television, I called my chief of police and asked him if he had received the information. Lo and behold, I found out only after asking him that the information was being communicated to local law enforcement through their NCIC computer hookup, which is not commonly monitored for this kind of information by local law enforcement. So, Senator, what it calls out for is there needs to be a protocol established by administrative rule, by administrative regulation, by statute, if necessary, as to what information should flow and how it should flow and the time frame in which it should flow. Chairman Lieberman. That is a good recommendation. I wonder if any of the rest of you want to comment on that, and if you do, help us understand what the problem is. Is it that the FBI is not sharing information in advance or is it that once there is a crime, there is a joust for jurisdiction or cooperation? Commissioner Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales. I would just say, Senator Lieberman, there is no doubt that the thousands of public law enforcement officials around the country, public safety officials, are gathering information. Part of the frustration we are hearing from our sheriffs around the country is that the information is moving up but it is not coming down, that the information becomes very fragmented. They are gathering information. The city police officers are gathering information. They are sending it somewhere. Someone is making a decision as to whether there are threats that are being accumulated and then nothing is coming back. And so I think it comes down to the simple relationships, as Mayor Morial indicated, that the local FBI has with the local law enforcement. If you have an established relationship, you are going to share information. I was told by our own local law enforcement officials that the FBI has indicated there is some information that they do not know and that they cannot pass down---- Chairman Lieberman. Yes. Mr. Gonzales [continuing]. And so there are different classifications that exist, and so what they are receiving may not be the entire picture. So it is very difficult for our local law enforcement community to operate on fragmented information. They are doing the best they can, but it is almost a wait and see type of deal. And so as Mayor Morial indicated, I think it begins first with the local relationships, but it has got to start from the top. They need to know that there is going to be some type of uniform effort to assure that level of communication is occurring all across the board. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. I wonder if, Mr. Sheirer, if you care to remark on how working relationships were with Federal law enforcement during the crisis that both of your governments responded to so well. Mr. Sheirer. We had a very good working relationship with the New York office. Barry Mawn and the Assistant Deputy Director, and prior to him, Jimmy Kallstrom and Lou Schlero have had an exceptional relationship with the Police Commissioner and the Chief of the New York City Police Department, and the Joint Terrorist Task Force works very closely. It is very well mixed with police officers and FBI agents. Our experience in this incident was that there was a lot of information coming from a lot of different sources that was not filtering down to us what we felt was quickly enough, and I think you experience that in any crisis. But particularly when it comes to law enforcement information, probably one of your biggest sources is the street cop, whether it be a street cop in L.A. or a street cop in Brooklyn. That information that gets to the FBI has to be--they have to find a way to disseminate that to the right jurisdiction. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Sheirer. It is an enormous undertaking, but it has got to be done. It is critical that we have the information that they know as quickly as they can possibly share it with us. It is not something that can sit on someone's desk or someone should be evaluating it without talking to the jurisdiction for whom a threat is pointed at, because there are local issues that that person in the city, in the jurisdiction, in the county would understand maybe better than an FBI agent who is not from that area. There are a lot of individual things and that sharing has to improve, and I think everybody acknowledges it. It is just the way to get it done. Chairman Lieberman. Well said. Mr. Fisette. Mr. Fisette. I would only agree, I think, with Mr. Sheirer that our police department has a quite good relationship with the FBI. On the other hand, I think the suggestion of a protocol where you find that balance between providing sufficient information so that we at the local level can, in fact, fulfill our responsibilities, yet not compromise the FBI in a way that in the long term would be detrimental. So having that discussion, creating the protocol seems to be--there will always be tension in any emergency situation. I think that is inevitable. However, it can be made better. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Mr. White, let me take you to another question that you raised that I wanted to ask you is with your example of the reports. I just have a minute or so left on my time. Obviously, in the existing framework, you have the Department of Justice, HHS, FEMA, a whole range of Federal agencies that deal with the terrorism problem now that are interacting with State and county and local governments, and your example of the various reports that are quite similar being asked by the different agencies is very graphic and illustrative. What is the way, from your perspective as a State official, to make this work better? I mean, should we be creating an overall block grant of some kind? Should there be more coordination in the relations on this subject of anti-terrorism through the Department of Homeland Security? What ideas do you have about how to make this part of it better, because it sure seems like a waste. Mr. White. It would seem to me that there has been an agency established, be it Homeland Security or FEMA. FEMA is more than the Department of Justice, more than any of the other agencies that I know of, dealing with State and local government every day. They have a conduit by which money can flow to local government to produce, to abstain, to train people, for equipment, for exercising, and other things. Also, I think that we have done all these different types of studies, and for some reason, they are not shared at the Federal level. In other words, I doubt that DOJ has asked FEMA for anything. I sure know that NGB has not asked any of them for anything. They just do not talk. That is alarming in that when you get to comparing the questions, you get to looking at the answers, and remember, the answers are kind of arbitrary, so you can make it look as bad as you want to or as good as you want to with a number. I kind of wish they had come to one agency in the State and said, coordinate--this is what we want to know, coordinate this for us, and let one group help them through it and set a standard. But that is not the way it is happening. Chairman Lieberman. Those are some good ideas, Mr. White, and I thank you for them. Senator Cleland just arrived. It reminds me that at an earlier hearing after September 11, we had, if I am not mistaken, your counterpart in Georgia, who is the head of emergency management. As his illustration--no joke--of the problems that the Federal agencies have in not communicating or in sharing jurisdiction, apparently at the scene of the bombing in Atlanta during the Olympics, this gentleman witnessed the beginning of a fistfight between two representatives of two different Federal agencies who were jousting for control over the site, so we have got some work to do. Senator Thompson. Senator Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. White, thank you very much for your insight. I think you have really put your finger on the crux of the problem that we are facing here. Following up on Senator Lieberman's last couple of questions, what is your feeling as you look at the Office of Homeland Security as it is being set up now? It is awfully early in the game. Governor Ridge has just really had an opportunity to get into it. He has all these agencies to deal with, all these problems, duplication, overlap, and he is hearing, I am sure, from all over the country some of the same things that you have been saying. Would you have any suggestions to him? Should the problem be given to FEMA within his jurisdiction, under his umbrella? Do you see anything that they are doing or not doing that you would comment on as to whether or not you feel they are going in the right direction with regard to some of these problems you have just been talking about? Mr. White. I think Governor Ridge has not been there long enough to really get a handle on the different areas that are going to come up by anyone new in that type of position. In reading his charge, it's certainly an astronomical task that he has to do. It is going to be remarkable to see him do it. Senator Thompson. It would seem like that would be the place where all of this has to come together, would it not, and resolved? Mr. White. I would probably say yes, but I do not think it can happen, the reason being is that one State, right here, what happens is what I call smoke and mirrors. Who is in charge today? So we give him 50 States this thick and say, OK, now when you get through, when you know what this means, come talk to me, well, guess what? It will never happen. We multiply the amount of paper and the other agencies do what they normally do, will get another survey. The next thing is that there are no requirements that he can lay out for things to happen. I am exercising--for a fixed nuclear facility plant, I am exercising all the local PDs. If something happens, what is the difference in a release at a nuclear plant, be it because of a failure of a piece of equipment or because of terrorism? There is not. But that is not impacted into what we are doing. The money that we need to do that for the other locations are not there. When you look at the City of Memphis, which is a wonderful, a very robust city, we have got the urban search and rescue task force there that came to the Pentagon. We have got probably more resources than the entire State. But to exercise it, there is no money. There is no criteria there except for FEMA. I am not sure Governor Ridge can ever get to that, and I am not sure that the other Federal agencies will let him have that kind of jurisdiction anyway. You are talking about turf now. That is important. Senator Thompson. You are addressing the same things that we have been talking about here for a long time now. Clearly, the President is going to have to make it clear that he has the authority and he is going to have to exercise that authority. Mr. White. I think FEMA has done one thing. FEMA is an agency that is not in charge of anything when you really think about it. What they are is a very good turf walker. We coordinate and emergency management coordinates a lot of agencies that have legal responsibility to do something. We coordinate them together. We do not want what they do. I do not want to be a fire fighter. I do not want to be a policeman. I do not want to be a lot of things. But I coordinate what they do in one direction. It is a very unique thing to walk on somebody else's area and get their help. FEMA does that well. Now we have got to train someone else how to do that. Senator Thompson. I am going to make sure that the people in the Office of Homeland Security get the benefit of your thoughts on all of this. Is this one report--did you say you had to send several reports like that in? Mr. White. Yes. Senator Thompson. To all the various agencies? Mr. White. These reports, you know, it is not only us, but local government. There are some 10,000 questions in here. Even once you read it, and I have read through it twice, you really have nothing because there is no thread through it that makes it seamless to mean anything. This was with the Department of Justice, another one with FEMA. Senator Thompson. And they accumulate? Mr. White. And they accumulate and they never--I cannot let some of my people see the National Guard Bureau's report. Some of them cannot read this. Some of my planners cannot look at the DOE reports. And they are dealing with---- Senator Thompson. Well, do not feel too bad. We have had, for a decade now or more, we have accumulated reports here in Congress, GAO reports and Inspector General reports and in some cases intelligence community reports, laying out for us the terrorism threat and the threat of weapons of mass destruction and all the things that can happen and how vulnerable we are, time and time and time again. So something finally happens and we are still trying to figure out how to get anthrax out of one of our buildings here because we cannot agree on the nature of the matter. It is all up and down the Federal Government. The FBI is now scrambling and trying to, I think, get its arms around all this, but the FBI is used to solving crimes after the fact. They are not used to having to deal with threat assessments, risk assessments, training, exercising, all these issues now that we have to deal with. So it is a whole new culture for them. We are having to learn how to walk again in a lot of these areas. You mentioned these nuclear plants. Are you getting any assistance? Are you having any communication? Are they requiring you, for example, to make your threat and risk assessments with regard to those plants in your reports, and if so, are you getting any feedback? Are you getting any help or assistance in terms of planning in case we had a disaster of that kind with regard to those nuclear plants? Mr. White. Not from the Federal Government. It comes from the plant site specific to the State. That is done by the utility. It just so happens in Tennessee it is TVA. That is non-Federal money comes from the generation of power. Senator Thompson. Do you need that kind of additional assistance? Mr. White. Yes, sir. When you look at the money that the State and local governments around that area put in for that plant to operate, it requires more assistance than what is there. You do what you do with what you have. We were very fortunate in the licensing of those plants, the first to license after Three Mile Island, then the last plant to get a license of that type in the United States, which was very fortunate. But that is the type of planning that is there also that you use for homeland security. That is what you are looking at. There are other things. I think that the individual counties, we handle in the State some 3,000 to 3,600 missions and incidents a year, in 1 year's period. That is stuff that we respond to with the local governments. We handled 3,000 hoaxes of anthrax. Where does that come from? We had to treat every-- where does the money for that come from? There has been no talk of any kind of help for that. What we are looking at we have upped the security in the airports, yet the Governor and mayors and chief executives have had to up the security around courthouses, overtime. We have had to put National Guardsmen around the Capitol. This is another security threat. Yet, there is no money there for that. Does the State try to pay for it? I do not know. We are paying $10 million since September 11 for extra security and for things like this right here that we did not program, and I know that you all did not, either. Senator Thompson. Mr. Chairman, I think we are just beginning to get a slight feel for what the financial impact of all of this is going to be on the Federal Government and on the State and local governments. We have got training and threat and risk assessment and exercises that need to be done, and nobody really can tell what all this is going to cost. We have a few bills around, each one of them has a few billion here and a few billion there, but it is going to affect our fiscal picture here in tremendous ways that we are just beginning to have an appreciation for. Mr. White. I do not pretend to know, Senator, the challenges that you all have on a day-to-day basis. Also, I was looking at some of the bills coming out, you know, and you said it, that we are putting a little bit of money here, a little bit of money there. I would say to you, out of each one of those little bit of monies, there are a lot of people that take it off the top. And when you look at what comes off the top to get to the bottom, by the time it gets to the bottom, there is not any. Senator Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson. I could not agree with you more. Hopefully, the Committee can play some role in creating more clarity and better organization and more efficiency in the use of Federal resources. But the reality is, we did enter a new chapter of our history on September 11 and we have a requirement to focus on homeland security which is greater than we have ever had before, a whole new dimension. And you all represent--you have said it over and over again--the front-line troops. We do not have to create a domestic security force, or as other countries have, an interior department with internal security. We have got it. You are out there. Now the question is--and you are performing a national function and the question is how we can come to some appropriate level of support for what the Nation is asking you each to do and how we can better coordinate the relationship between the various levels of government, and that is the challenge we all have together. There is no question we can do it, because we have got to do it. Senator Cleland, thank you for being here. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding the hearing. Before I get into my opening statement, which I understand I can do before the next panel-- -- Chairman Lieberman. Or if you want to do it now, go right ahead. Senator Cleland. Actually, I would just like to follow up with Mr. White's observations. Mr. White, you have such a clear and an unvarnished understanding of how things work, I wondered where you are from. I know that you are from New Georgia, so I think that---- [Laughter.] Mr. White. Senator, I am from Tennessee. Senator Cleland. I know. [Laughter.] I was just sitting here absorbing your insight. We have an outstanding emergency management operation in Georgia. Gary McConnell, your counterpart there, he is the kind of person who, when the popcorn hits the fan, or as Jeff Copeland says, the head of CDC, when the anthrax hits the fan, he is the kind of person you want in the foxhole with you. He has a great sense of where things are and what ought to be done and anticipating the command, all those things, and I have seen him perform in the wake of tornadoes, in the wake of floods, in, shall we say, natural disasters, natural attacks, so to speak, on our State. Now, in the wake of September 11, I guess we have all been searching for a formula with which to, or a key to unlock the secret of how we ``defend our homeland.'' We have been struggling, quite frankly, with the things that you have already articulated. It does seem to me that the big bugaboos here in terms of homeland defense are not uncommon to other areas of our defense, that is, coordination, cooperation, and communication, none of which is rocket science. But it does seem that, particularly at the Federal level, there is a great inability to go outside one's turf, to share information, to coordinate operations, to communicate, and so forth. We see this, and I am painfully aware of it because the CDC is located right there in Atlanta, we see this with the whole anthrax threat here, where once the FBI gets on the scene, they declare it a crime scene and, in effect, confiscate the evidence, shut it down. They send their anthrax samples to Fort Detrick, Maryland, not to the CDC, and that has put us in several binds from time to time. There are two cultures. Just for instance, CDC is designed to, shall we say, communicate openly to the public all the time, to local and State health departments, and share every bit of information they have got and tap the great resources there of the 8,000 people that they have and say, Professor so- and-so or Dr. so-and-so is the expert on this and talk to him, whereas the FBI does not share any information with anybody, ever. I mean, there are two cultures. Both are right in their own setting, but to try to get them both to attack the same problem is like oil and water, and we have seen that. Your point about turf walkers, I have never thought about FEMA in that regard but maybe that is what we are talking about here in terms of homeland defense. Maybe we already have an agency with budgetary authority, with troops in the field, with some background and training in response to emergencies and maybe we already have basically a homeland defense agency. It is called FEMA, expert in doing the very kind of things, coordination, cooperation, communication, that we are so lacking in and have struggled to bring about by other means. I do not really want to put you on the spot, but do you think we ought to seriously look here in Washington, all of us, at maybe either using the FEMA model or using FEMA in some way as an anchor or using this wonderful agency that works, and our mayors and our governors out there all, I think, would swear pretty much by it. They have got a central command post. I have been down to the central command post when a hurricane was moving onto the Southeast coast of Georgia. I mean, I went in there and it was like, in effect, a Pentagon war room. I mean, they had it. They had it nailed. They were on top of it and they were coordinating and they were cooperating and they were communicating. Anyway, do you think we have the kernel of a homeland defense agency in FEMA and maybe just maybe build on that? Mr. White. I would suggest to you that is where they came from. It was called civil defense, and that is what that was. Senator Cleland. Yes. Mr. White. It was just a different time. It was just a different, smaller threat. I just do not, and maybe it is from being a Southern boy and just kind of being in Tennessee all the time, I just do not see the difference between an Oklahoma City and a New York. I do not see a difference between a hurricane that wipes out all of Florida and New York. It is done by somebody else. It is done by something different. But the consequences are the same. The recovery is the same. You still have to provide the people with funding. You have to provide the local government the capability to do it. You have to assist them, stand back and let them work as far as they can. Then the State comes in and helps them. If I cannot do it, then FEMA comes in and helps me. Then that is the way we get things done. It would seem to me that Governor Ridge would be very well served by looking at some of the things that FEMA has done. I have been around a long time with FEMA--FEMA has not always been what it is today. But I would say to you that today is a model of something that will work, a model of how to get money to local governments and get it to them fast, a model of how to respond to a disaster and how to get information to governors, to the people on the front lines. Do I think that you will ever solve the security problem? No, sir. It will not happen because they are not going to tell you. Senator Domenici. Could you repeat that, please? Mr. White. I said, do I think that you will ever solve the security problems between the CIA, the FBI, or NSF? No, because they do not talk to each other now and are not going to talk to you. If they talk to you, then you know as much as they know and you have got to have it for the funding. In other words, there is always going to be a black program. That is the way they get their money. But you have to have a turf walker, someone that is not going to offend or not try to take over somebody else's job and to get the money out there, and also gently hold them accountable. That is very important, too, because OMB is going to send an auditor 26 years from today and want to know where that piece of equipment is, and you say, ``I do not know where it is at.'' Well, guess what, you are going to pay for it 17 times. [Laughter.] So you have got to have also, then, accountability. The Department of Justice has learned their lesson. Out of the $1 million that they gave out in Tennessee, they cannot find one piece of equipment. They did not bother to know that it was disposable equipment. Once you used it, you had to throw it away. We had not figured that out yet. But they will when OMB gets through with them. Senator Cleland. Before we go to Mayor Morial, who wants to say something, is it not true that in terms of this emergency preparedness, we will call it, the old civil defense operation, that there is an established protocol already, that when the popcorn hits the fan, all the players of the team know exactly what their responsibility is. For instance, something hits the State of Tennessee or Georgia. There is a protocol there. Ultimately, the governor asks the President, I guess, to declare X area a disaster area. The moment the President does that, there is an established protocol for money, for small business loans, for emergency assistance. I mean, people are on the plane. Things are happening right then, and I have seen it happen. The problem with, say, this bioterrorist attack we just went through, we found that there was no real established protocol. The Postmaster General testified he did not understand the protocol about what happened when he got hit with an anthrax scare, so I think that is something we could look at. Mayor Morial. Mr. Morial. Thank you, Senator Cleland. I could not agree with Mr. White more. FEMA does an excellent job. We have had great experiences with FEMA in connection with weather emergencies, but I wanted to make this point. FEMA is a response agency. Homeland defense includes prevention, working to prevent future attacks, developing intelligence and coordination. FEMA's role and the role of most successors to the old civil defense systems that exist are setting up the appropriate response once you have an emergency situation, and I think in your conversations, in your considerations, and in your deliberations, we would ask you to also keep in mind the need for a system of prevention, resources for prevention. I think that is where I hope Governor Ridge, the Office of Homeland Defense, will focus and will go. Let me give you an illustration. We are preparing right now for the Super Bowl, and in our preparations, we have, in effect, divided our preparations into two components. One is prevention. What do we do with traffic, with people, with security, with special events, with deployment of police, fire, and EMS officials? The other is, what are the protocols to respond in the event there is X type of problem over here or Y type of problem over there? Both components have to be adequately addressed, and I would think that the FEMA model, because they are an excellent coordinator, they work with State and local government, they try to marshal resources, might be a model that could be employed on the prevention side, too. Whether it could be carried out by FEMA, I do not know. Whether it needs to be carried out by the Office of Homeland Defense with the appropriate staffing and personnel, that would be a consideration. But I think that local government is acutely aware of both components of the challenge we face. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mayor Morial, for a very good statement. I would say, for the record, you were kind enough to refer to the bill that Senator Specter and I have put in to create the Homeland Security Agency, give it budget authority, cabinet status. We are building here on a lot of work that has been done, particularly by the commission headed by Senators Rudman and Hart. But in our bill, we have actually three directorates under the Secretary of Homeland Security and it follows your model. Prevention, in our case, we had one called protection, which was the ongoing business of protecting critical infrastructure, and then response, and the vision we had in the response, FEMA is really the heart of it because it does such a great job, as Mr. White said. Senator Domenici, thanks for being here. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI Senator Domenici. Thanks very much. First, Mr. Chairman, I really do compliment you for holding this hearing. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Senator Domenici. I am not quite sure how we are going to go beyond the hearings into changing things that are desperately in need of change, but we have got to start somewhere, and it seems to me that as we talk up here, it becomes quite obvious that one of the reasons we are going to have a hard time getting ourselves into a different management mode on all the fronts we have been discussing is that there are great conflicts of interest. There is no committee with jurisdiction to solve it and come up with a bill. In a subtle way, all the committees are going to want to keep some of their jurisdiction even if they are not quite sure what it does for the country. If it is something that they are charged with doing, you are going to have difficulty--if you perceive in this Committee under your leadership and our good friend who used to be Chairman, what you ought to do. I am not sure that you will not have to go to so many committees that it is going to be hard to get the job done. I can tell you that at every level that has to do with security, our country is in a big muddle and we did not do much about it before this terrorist attack. Will we be able to do something about it? I think the President wants to, and that is the starter. I think he put in a governor who has obviously managed some big things. Now the question is, what is his authority? Frankly, if we try to draw something to set out his authority, I am very concerned that it would take us forever to get the legislation done and the claims on jurisdiction would be three or four committees. But nonetheless, the President has started out right by saying we need a new level of defense and it is homeland defense. We should all remember that if homeland defense is important, we ought to know how much we spent on the defense of our Nation without due consideration to homeland. We spend over $325 billion to defend ourselves in this world we live in. I believe we are going to have a very large budget for homeland defense. It may not be very large now, but we will be spending a lot of money on homeland defense once it gets coordinated right. I hope that the precursor is that we have got to find out how to organize it. But we have got to spend some money, there is no question about it. I want to say to all of these witnesses: I very much appreciate, as one Senator, your coming and the excellent understanding of the problem from the local level. Sometimes we just keep talking to ourselves. It is really good that that stops and somebody that is out there experiencing it gets into the loop. You all have been in that loop today and you are going to stay in it in trying to help us get our job done. I want to personally thank Javier Gonzales, the County Commissioner who came up here and has a national role. I thank you very much for the time, the effort, and what you have said. I have a statement that is in the record, but I would like to just talk for a minute to the Committee about some things. In 1996, quite a while ago in terms of reference to the towers being bombed, almost an eon before, we passed a piece of legislation up here. Its nickname is Nunn-Lugar-Domenici. It included a domestic homeland initiative where the U.S. Government attempts to help first responders. Last year, we completed 120 cities, Mr. Chairman, 120 American cities, and some of you are aware of this. Those cities came together under Nunn-Lugar-Domenici and prepared to communicate among themselves and organize for the eventuality of a mass accident, either nuclear or a huge accident that occurs because of nature. Now I think we have to decide to take a look at that legislation and see, in light of terrorism, does it do the right thing? I think we did a pretty good job, considering it was so many years ahead of things to set up a first responder organization and communication. It just about does your three C's. It does not do it for everything, but in a limited way. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, it suffered after it was passed from the typical difficulties that anything in America that is different and that is preventative and that is ahead of the time suffers. We could not get the administration to decide who ought to run it, so we put the Department of Defense in the first time through. That caused all kinds of flaps, with concerns that the Department of Defense was going to come into cities and help them prepare their first responders. It took 1\1/2\ or 2 years and we finally said, let the Department of Justice do it. The Department of Justice does not like to do it, but they do it. Now, it is getting pretty healthy because we spent $667 million on that legislation in the year we are in now, a pretty healthy chunk of money to help cities and institutions prepare themselves for communication, and for first responder efficiency, then firemen will know what their job is and the police will know theirs. As a matter of fact, fellow Senators, I am not sure that we know the impact of that program on New York City, but it is commonly thought that they were much better prepared because they had for 2 or 3 years been annually preparing their responder organizations under the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act and had trained them, got them ready, with much better communication capacity and skills. It might indeed be wise for our staff, bipartisan here, to take a look at that legislation. They should see if maybe you can build on it in a way that would expand what it does so that it will do more of the things that Mr. White (and I greatly appreciate your observations) and Mr. Sheirer and all of you have given us. Let me close by saying that Tom Ridge has one of the toughest jobs anybody could have. How we are going to be able to shake these organizations that have been complacent and, when we give them money, for them to do the right thing with it and get it spent on the right things is not going to be easy. But I also think that this Committee under your leadership has a rare opportunity to let people know what we do and what you can do. You have very broad jurisdiction in this area. I close by telling you that we were not capable in this country, prior to this big accident of clearing Federal employees for jobs in secret establishments. Sometimes it took 2 years. I can tell you, for the record, that in my State, for jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, there are many great scientists hired and, in a sense, put in a bullpen. In other words, they are hired but they are not hired in that they cannot work in secure areas of the laboratory because they are awaiting their clearance. And sometimes, they meet me on an airplane and they say, ``Well, I sure would like to be working at the job I was hired to do. I am so-and-so. Here is my expertise. But just so you will know, I am not working at that job. I draw a paycheck, but it has already been 12 months and they have not cleared me.'' Is that not pathetic? Now we have reason to do a lot of these things better, just to ask the administration, how do you fix that? What is a reasonable time? Do you think it is 6 months? Surely if you have machinery and equipment, you ought to find out in 6 months whether a Ph.D. that came from Georgia Tech in research in nuclear this, that, or the other, can be cleared as an American to work on nuclear weapons? Why 2 years? And this is the problem everywhere you go. All the things we are going to try to solve are going to run into these kinds of administrative nightmares. But now, it is life or death, so it may very well be that we will change. If we do not change, we are going to have another one of these events and everybody is going to say, ``Why were we not informed?'' And somebody is going to say, ``Well, we should have been. Why did so many people die? Well, if we had just been able to do this, they would not have.'' And somebody will say, ``Well, we know how to do that. Why did we not do it?'' So I urge that you and the Ranking Member decide what your role is going to be. I, for one, do not have a lot of time, but I will pledge to you that I will join you if you undertake in a major way how to put this together and challenge these other committees who want to continue to say they have the power and the jurisdiction. We want somebody to do something. Is that not what you want? Chairman Lieberman. Amen. Senator Domenici. I do not think you want to sit around and have hearings that people have rave reviews on because we got the facts. I think you want a result, and we are not getting results. In fact, it is terrible. Some would have to say, we may get results because we were bombed in our homeland and we will never have the same America because nobody can any longer kid anyone. We could have--in your hometown, or in your State, Senator--a major terrorist event within the next couple of weeks. Who knows. We did not think of that 2 years ago. If you brought up a bill to spend money to prevent that, people around here would have said we were crazy. Nobody is going to do anything to America. Well, that is over with, is it not? I mean, they can do anything. In fact, I am worried about just which is their next target. I cannot believe they are not going to do anything, except we have taught a few of them a lesson. They do know we will fight. Chairman Lieberman. That is right. Senator Domenici. So I thank you, and again, I will read your testimony and I will just close by telling you, there is a piece of equipment manned by scientists. It is called NISAC, National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center. I must tell you, it is the most phenomenal production in terms of the infrastructure of America that you would ever think we would do. The scientists at two nuclear laboratories took their big computers, the ones that have more capacity than anybody ever thought. They have put a little bit of the time into NISAC. They now are trying to put together a center where they can apply this equipment in a way you would not believe, Mr. Chairman, to all of the infrastructure of America of any significance. The NISAC computers will permit you to relate one piece of infrastructure to another, so that if a big dam is blown up here, what is the consequence to the country? It will tell you now. And now it needs to be continued year by year to be a predominant fixture for information dissemination or prevention by doing things that this software will tell you. I know you will wonder, where has this been, this wonderful equipment? I would tell you, it has been rather difficult to get it funded. Now, somebody in the administration has agreed that it is a whopping great, great thing. Still, I am not sure that the $20 million is going to be appropriated for it to become part of the civilian network of America, but I think it will. Anybody that will listen and see it will know that the greatest scientists in the world have pulled something out of a hat again for us. With it, we will know so much about the relationships of one piece of infrastructure to another that it is almost unimaginable. I am very grateful that some Senators helped me do this and I did not come to all of you because it was moving along. You will know, all of you and Mr. White, when this is all set up. If we can then establish who is entitled to the information, it will be an incredible thing for the counties and cities and States to be able to look at their infrastructure and see what are the risks, which things are really dangerous, what is the consequence if they get this, to our State on this? I think it will be exciting for everybody. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Senator Domenici follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing as your Committee continues to explore issues associated with Homeland Security. The focus of this hearing, on local roles, highlights the critical contribution from the first responders and local jurisdictions who represent our first line of defense against terrorist actions. I'd like to add my welcome to Javier Gonzales, Commissioner from Santa Fe County. Thank you for traveling here for this important hearing. In 1996, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation focused on two key issues, stopping proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and on domestic preparedness in case these weapons are used. That bill charged the Department of Defense with responsibility for training ``First Responders'' for potential attacks. Later the responsibility for that program moved to the Department of Justice. I'm pleased that 120 cities have received this training. I'm told that the training in New York City contributed to their ability to respond to the events of September 11. That 1996 legislation was a good foundation, but we in Congress need to build upon it. In fact, the exercises--both practice ones and unfortunately in response to real attacks--have highlighted areas that need additional legislative focus. For example, it is clear that better coordination is required for all domestic preparedness efforts. I anticipate that Governor Ridge will provide that coordination. I'm pleased to note in the testimony of Javier Gonzales that the National Association of Counties has been working directly with Governor Ridge toward creation of a State and Local Advisory Committee within his Office. I support that proposal. It is also clear that follow-up training is needed after the initial exercises for the first responders. Certainly those exercises are important. But, there has not been a mechanism or program for further training and ensuring the sustainability of first responders' capabilities. And finally, it is abundantly clear that our public health infrastructure needs significant enhancement to respond to the range of risks presented by terrorism. On a local note in New Mexico, I'm proud of the role played by New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with their first responder training program. Mr. Chairman, the original Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation provided the foundation for training of first responders for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. I stand ready to work with you and this Committee as legislation is crafted to build on that vital foundation. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Domenici. Thanks for your offer of help. I think we have got a job to do here and it is an important one. The program you mentioned at the end is exactly what we should be doing, bringing technology to bear on this new problem. Thanks also for the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici law, because after September 11 when people said, why did the Federal Government not do anything, in fact, we had done some things, thanks to leadership like that. We did not do enough. We did not expect the attacks in exactly that way, but it helped. We do have to move on to the next panel, but while you were talking, I saw Mr. Sheirer looking for recognition. I assume that you wanted to talk about your experience under the Nunn- Lugar-Domenici law. Mr. Sheirer. Under Nunn-Lugar-Domenici, in May of this past year, we had a tabletop exercise called Red X, which was a bioterrorist incident in New York City where we had about 75 different agencies and hundreds of observers up at the EOC. The mayor came and participated, and 5 minutes into this exercise, you forgot it was an exercise with our mayor. We virtually quarantined Manhattan and we went through this step by step what we would do. What was interesting in the critique of it right afterwards, some people criticized us for closing the city, Manhattan, so quickly. It was interesting to try and reach out to them after what happened with both the bombing on September 11 and the anthrax to see if they had changed their critique in any way. But the second part of that same drill was the TriPOD exercise, the point of dispensing, which had a direct impact on our ability to deal with the anthrax situation and how we handled those people that were exposed. Thank you very much. That bill has done exactly what it was intended to do. Chairman Lieberman. That is great. Go ahead, Mr. Sheirer. Mr. Sheirer. One other observation, a very quick one. I had fully expected that we were going to run into the turf problems somewhere along the line as we got further and further away from September 11 and I am happy to say, to this point, with the help of FEMA, with the help of the State Emergency Management Office, and with every agency, we have had a few bumps in the road, but nothing, absolutely nothing that would deter us from getting our job done in terms of the September 11 incident, funding all the local ones we can and recovery from that, the anthrax incident, and Flight 587. It has just been a tremendous cooperative effort from the agencies, and where you had expected some problems, they have not come up. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks for that good report, Mr. Sheirer. You know, one of the things that I think we might most readily do in this Committee is to lead an effort to expand Nunn-Lugar Domenici. If we continue the military analogy, and it is not far-fetched at all in this case, it is training exercises that make our military what it is and helped us to perform as successfully as we have thus far in Afghanistan. The truth is, every State, county, and metropolitan area in the country today ought to have the support that you got under Nunn-Lugar-Domenici to carry out training exercises. Mr. Sheirer. Exactly. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you all very much. You have been an excellent panel, very helpful. I really want to ask that you stick with us and continue to be engaged with us. We are going to share whatever products we have of this set of hearings and we are really going to welcome your response because we want it to work from your level of government. Thanks very much. Have a good day. I will call the second panel now. I want to indicate that I have to go off to a meeting of the Education Conference Committee and I am very grateful that Senator Cleland has agreed to Chair the hearing in my absence. I hope to return as soon as I possibly can, certainly before the hearing is over. Senator Cleland, thank you very much. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND Senator Cleland [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As our second panel is taking their seats, I would just like to provide an opening statement. This hearing is, I believe, one of the most critical hearings we can have on the subject of homeland security because it gets at an issue that resonates from almost every major era of our Nation's history, the issue of integrating the role of the Federal Government with that of State and local government. Philosophically, I think it is fair to say that the roots of America lie in the ideal of giving back some autonomy to State and local governments, consistent with the efficiency, coherence, and equity necessary to ensure a successful response to the challenge at hand. The issue we are here to discuss today of securing our homeland against a diverse range of potential challenges is as complex as any I am aware of in our Nation's history. The scope of the attacks that are possible and that we have already witnessed cries out for standardization and economies of scale that are the hallmark of a strong Federal response. At the same time, the diversity of geography, of population density, and of infrastructure that exists in our Nation at the present time makes it impossible to envision a one-size-fits-all solution. For these reasons, it is critical that we accurately survey and monitor the capabilities available at State and local levels and tailor Federal resources to provide complementary capabilities that ensure every region of our Nation has the supplies, personnel, and infrastructure needed to meet an acceptable benchmark of care for the entire population. To this end, I am extremely proud that my home county, DeKalb County in the State of Georgia, was the very first county in the country to establish an independent Office of Homeland Security. I note that several witnesses have cited the need for additional funding to assist first responders in their efforts to prepare for incidents involving hazardous materials. Your testimony could not come at a better time. I will introduce this week the Heroic Emergency Response Operations, or HERO Act of 2001. This legislation will allow the Department of Transportation to access $15 million in surplus funds that have accumulated in the emergency preparedness grants program due to appropriations restrictions. The purpose of the bill is to disburse the surplus funds to State and local governments for hazardous material training of the men and women who are at ground zero during emergencies involving hazardous materials. The HERO Act would also authorize $1 million of the surplus to go to the International Association of Fire Fighters to help fund the specialized training that the IAFF provides free of charge to local fire departments. According to the IAFF, this will quadruple the number of fire fighters who receive this HAZMAT training. I call on my colleagues in this Committee and in the Senate to cosponsor the HERO Act of 2001. I have introduced several other measures to enhance the coordination and integration of our response to likely attacks and I have attempted to prioritize resources to those entities, areas, and infrastructures that have the potential to provide the greatest enhancements against the most likely threats. The Public Health Emergencies Accountability Act, introduced just last month, puts in place a procedure that allows clear assignment of responsibility in cases where the public health is threatened. It further mandates the exchange of information between Federal entities primarily responsible for public health, such as the CDC, and those primarily responsible for countering criminal and terrorist activities. I have and will continue to advocate for increased funding for the CDC, an organization absolutely critical to our national capability to sustain the integrity of our society in the event of a significant biological attack. I suspect this hearing will highlight once again the need for greater coordination. Local officials in my own State have told me that they need a better understanding of what resources they can expect from the Federal Government in a given situation. They have also identified the need to be buffered from the unintentional secondary effects of Federal actions, such as the loss of key personnel from local public health, police, and fire organizations caused by the call-up of the National Guard. To provide clarity on these issues, I will solicit the views of our witnesses, either directly or for the record, regarding what is needed to provide an adequate level of response capability. I would like to thank the Chairman and Members of the Committee for their attention today, and now I would like to introduce our witnesses here. Chief William Berger is President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Chief Berger was named the Chief of Police in North Miami Beach, Florida, in 1989. His previous experience includes 15 years with the City of Miami Police Department. He joined the board of the International Association of Police Chiefs in 1995. Joseph Tinkham, II, is Commissioner, Maine Department of Defense, Veterans, and Emergency Management. General Tinkham serves as both the Adjutant General of Maine, commanding the Maine Army and Air National Guard, and is the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans, and Emergency Management. Dr. Michael Caldwell is Dutchess County Commissioner of Health, here on behalf of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Dr. Caldwell became Commissioner of the Dutchess County, New York, Department of Health in 1994. Michael Crouse is Chief of Staff for the General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Mr. Crouse is a veteran fire fighter and former District Vice President for the International. He is here on behalf of IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger. Senator Collins asked that Mr. Tinkham's introductory statement go last so she has time to return from another hearing, so we will go to Chief Berger now, if you will. We are glad to have you. TESTIMONY OF CHIEF WILLIAM B. BERGER,\1\ PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE Mr. Berger. Good morning, Senator Cleland. How are you, sir? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Berger appears in the Appendix on page 118. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, the IACP is the world's oldest and largest organization of police executives, with more than 19,000 members, over 100 countries being represented. Our mission throughout the history of our association has always been to address urgent law enforcement issues, develop policies, programs, and training, technical assistance, and to help with whatever problem may be contemporary. As I appear before you today, combating terrorism looms as our most urgent issue facing the membership and, of course, all our communities. The initial response of law enforcement and other public safety agencies in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and throughout the United States to the terrible incidents and events of September 11 was outstanding, and I can assure you that the actions of the brave men and women of the New York City area police departments would be duplicated by any of the more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States today because that is what we do. After September 11, Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies immediately began working together in a massive effort to respond to the attack and to prevent additional attacks. However, in the weeks and months that have followed, it has become apparent that the critical partnership between Federal, State, and local law enforcement is being hindered by difficulties in cooperation, coordination, and information sharing. This, of course, is unacceptable. Now at a time when communities across the United States are turning to their law enforcement agencies for guidance and protection, we must all do what we can to ensure that law enforcement agencies work together and overcome those artificial walls that sometimes divide us. The IACP is certainly not alone in this belief. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other Federal law enforcement agencies have also realized how critical working with State and local law enforcement is to the success of their efforts and they have taken several positive actions to make this happen. In addition to addressing this critical information sharing issue, there are other steps that the Federal Government can take to ensure that State and local governments and law enforcement agencies are active and effective partners in homeland security. Although the primary mission of law enforcement agencies has been to ensure public safety, the events of September 11 have dramatically and significantly changed the focus of law enforcement operations. Suddenly, agencies and officers who have been trained and equipped to deal with traditional crimes are now focused on apprehending individuals operating with different motives, who have different objectives and who use much deadlier weapons than traditional criminals. As a result, law enforcement agencies and officers will need new training, new equipment to meet this new threat. For example, State and local officers would be greatly benefited from training on certain topics, which are, one, recognizing possible threats to public safety and terrorist tactics; two, field interrogation techniques to better enable them to recognize and respond to terrorist attacks; three, Federal immigration law, sources, and documentation; four, to respond to biological, chemical, nuclear incidents; and five, detecting false identification documents, such as driver's licenses, passports, and visas. As for the equipment needs, it has become clear that law enforcement agencies will need to obtain protective clothing and isolation equipment for those critical first responders. Radio spectrum, I know it has been commented about here but it is a top priority. As demonstrated on September 11 and during the numerous other large-scale incidents that have occurred in the last several years--Hurricane Andrew, which I was involved in in South Florida, Hurricane Hugo--there has been a critical need to address communications problems caused by limited radio spectrum available for public safety use. Because the spectrum is currently in use by public safety agencies, it is both fragmented and limited. Agencies from different and even neighboring jurisdictions are many times unable to communicate with each other. This communications failure obviously complicates the ability of law enforcement and other public safety agencies to coordinate an effective response in emergency situations. The IACP urges the Congress and FCC to take immediate steps to ensure that public safety agencies receive additional radio spectrum allocations that is sufficient to provide for interference-free and interoperable communications between emergency service personnel. Threat alert protocols need to be established. Finally, a last area of concern I would like to address before I conclude this matter in which the Federal Government issues terrorist threat alerts. After having conversations with Governor Ridge this Saturday and FBI Director Robert Mueller, it has become apparent that the establishment of an effective notification system is imperative. While State and local law enforcement agencies appreciate receiving threat advisories from the Federal Government, the vague nature of the information and the lack of clear response protocols often leave State and local law enforcement executives uncertain as to what, if any, action should be taken. This uncertainty is especially troublesome at a time when communities across the Nation are turning to their law enforcement agencies for both guidance and protection. Therefore, the IACP believes that the Office of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the FBI, the Department of Justice, and representatives of both State and local law enforcement, should immediately address this area and develop clear and concise protocols for issuing threat alerts and providing guidance for law enforcement responses. At our recently concluded annual conference in Toronto, the IACP leadership addressed this critical issue and discussed the creation of a national threat level and law enforcement response protocol. This protocol concept, modeled after the U.S. military threat alert system, calls for the development of graduated alert systems that would categorize the threat level confronting the United States and provide guidance as to what law enforcement actions would be appropriate for each threat level. In order to facilitate the discussion of this concept, a chart outlining the protocol framework is attached to the record of this discussion. It is the belief of IACP that such a system would provide State and local law enforcement executives with a clear understanding of the threat confronting their communities and the actions required that their agencies must take in this response. The events of September 11 have opened a new chapter on terrorism for all governments and their law enforcement agencies throughout the entire world. If we are to be successful in our efforts to combat terrorism, we must work together, efficiently and effectively. We can no longer let affiliations or jurisdictional squabbles interfere with our mission of protecting our most sacred communities, the citizens we serve who expect in no other fashion and actually demand it from us. I thank you on behalf of the IACP for the opportunity to appear here this morning, and, of course, later on be glad to answer any questions. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Chief Berger. We will wait for questions until everybody finishes, but I cannot help but articulate that I would like to hear you expound a little bit more on the spectrum problem. As an old Army signal officer, one radio not talking to another, I cannot raise you, and the problem is always on the other end. I think probably in metropolitan Atlanta, what have we got, 68 police departments? I would be surprised if they were all on one frequency at any given moment. Mr. Berger. They are not. Senator Cleland. That is just an example, but thank you for that and we will get into that a little bit more. Also, I am fascinated by the, shall we say, adopting the military model, threat condition alpha or threat condition beta or 3-2-1 or whatever. You are right. When a Federal official just says, ``Now you all watch out there, now, you hear. Good luck.'' I mean, what are you supposed to do with that? You are right, so we can get into that. Mr. Tinkham, we are going to wait on Senator Collins, if you do not mind. Dr. Caldwell, welcome. TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL C. CALDWELL,\1\ M.D., M.P.H., COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, DUTCHESS COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, NEW YORK, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY AND CITY HEALTH OFFICIALS (NACCHO) Dr. Caldwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cleland, and Members of the Committee. I am Dr. Michael Caldwell. I am the Commissioner of Health for Dutchess County in New York, the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Thank you for inviting me to speak here today on behalf of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represents the 3,000 local public health departments across our country. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Caldwell appears in the Appendix on page 129. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are we prepared for bioterrorism as a Nation? Not nearly enough. Though we have made progress and learned important lessons in the last few years, we have a long way to go to be able to detect and respond to an act of bioterrorism quickly, prevent the spread of disease, and save as many lives as possible. Bioterrorism preparedness requires a combination of the resources and skills of public health with those of other public safety and emergency preparedness disciplines. While public health preparedness is a shared joint responsibility between the Federal, State, and local governments, we believe the planning must focus at the local level and on the local level. We have identified four core capacities for public health preparedness for bioterrorism. We need to increase surveillance and epidemiologic investigation capacity. We need to increase our laboratory capacity. We need to increase our communications capacities. We need to increase our planning and response capacities. I can tell you, as a local Commissioner of Health in New York State, that I typically get disease reports that are 2 and 3 years old. That does very little to help me in my planning for today or the future. We need to develop new data systems that give us real time data of emerging diseases, not just the diseases but the surveillance of symptoms which might uncover patterns of disease or types of diseases. Rather than just giving me a report with the name already, I want to know what the symptoms are, because if we see patterns across the community, that may indicate an outbreak. I can tell you, a couple of years ago, we dealt with the problem of West Nile virus in crows. We had so many crows across New York State, we just did not know what to do with them all, and certainly when we sent them to our State lab, they did not quite know what to do with them all, either. They had to develop quickly a prioritization system. There was not a reserve capacity. We saw that again with the anthrax problem. We were quickly overwhelmed in New York State and across the country with environmental samples being sent, from a new pair of blue jeans to some kitty litter to other things that you would think are maybe not so suspicious, but yet the lab did not have a priority process set up. They did not have capacity. You have heard of the Health Alert Network. Well, it is in its infancy. Only 13 States have all local jurisdictions connected. We need to have 3,000 local Health Alert Networks so that we can then take this Federal information and give it to our localities. Now, do we need one in every health department? Maybe not. We need to look at regionalization. But every local jurisdiction must be covered. What about our planning and response capacity? We need to perform routine drills. We have heard this over and over again. And once again, they need to be done from a regional standpoint. Local public health departments and their communities are learning that local partnerships between agencies can be built and are essential for further progress. But first, these agencies must know each other and have planned together well in advance. They should not be exchanging business cards of introduction during a real crisis, and let me tell you, Senator, this, unfortunately, has happened. Local surveillance and response systems will not work unless we have thoroughly trained professionals to use them and those people knowing exactly what to do and knowing what the other people do and do not do and have sufficient practice doing it in advance. Certain agencies will say, oh, well that department does that, and that department says, well, I think that department does it, and so you have gaps, and then others times you have duplication, where agencies say, no, I do that, and the other agency will say, oh, no, I do that, too. So we need to work through all of this. In Dutchess County, we have been quite busy recently. Yes, we were devastated by September 11. The spouse of our mayor, Collette LaFuente in Poughkeepsie, was lost in the financial district that day. But also, we have been very busy with anthrax. Whether it was the worker at NBC Studios who lives in Dutchess County that presented to a local doctor and the doctor called us up and said, ``What do I do?'' or the father of the Eagle Scout who just received a congratulatory letter from Senator Daschle and said, ``This letter was dated on October 15, 2001, the day all the news broke. What do I do with this letter?'' We are the natural first responders in a case of suspected bioterrorism. Your local public health department is on the front line with the professionals of this distinguished panel. The local public health system finally has emerged as a core component of our national security. We are looked to for leadership. We coordinate response and communication. We provide information to the community and all involved parties. People expect us to have action. Get that sample to the lab. What are the tests for the lab? They want follow-up. They want to know things are complete and accurate. You asked me to come here today to tell you what actions could be taken by the Federal Government to support our efforts of local public health agencies, and I have two answers. One, the National Association of County and City Health Officials already recognizes that the Senate voted to provide $1 billion for State and local public health capacity building and we applaud you for that. Thank you. So, yes, we do need financial resources. But my county executive, William Steinhaus, wanted me to send you a message. He said, ``We do not expect the Federal Government to pay for everything. There is a fair local share and a State share and we are willing to ante up.'' But let me tell you that, to date, Dutchess County has not received one penny of Federal assistance, nor have 55 of our 58 counties, not one penny of bioterrorism or Health Alert Network assistance. But finally, we need technical assistance and consultation. We do not just need a manual with money. We need someone to help us, walk us through it. We want the planners from the Federal Government to come sit with us at our planning meetings and make sure that we are doing it right. Overall, we need to strive for a seamless and coordinated effort from local to Federal, across agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels, and we want to make sure that everyone is informed on a continuous basis. Finally, my colleagues at local public health agencies across the country know that you appreciate the funds that you will appropriate for bioterrorism preparedness will be used to strengthen our collective local public health infrastructure in many other valuable ways, as well. So thank you for helping to build a safer and healthier local community. Senator Cleland. Thank you, Dr. Caldwell. Several images you gave me there, that when an emergency happens, people in the business of responding should not be just introducing themselves at that point with, ``Here is my card. Call me when you need me,'' that kind of thing. This protocol needs to be established beforehand. That is a powerful point here in all this and we want to go back to that. Thank you very much for your testimony. I am reading Doris Kearne Goodwin's great Pulitzer Prize winning book, ``No Ordinary Time,'' and in so many aspects, the book is like reading yesterday or today's headlines. In terms of Dutchess County, New York, apparently the only paying job Eleanor Roosevelt ever had was working for the Office of Civil Defense in New York. Mr. Crouse, welcome very much. Thank you. TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL J. CROUSE,\1\ CHIEF OF STAFF FOR THE GENERAL PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS (IAFF) Mr. Crouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee today. My name is Michael Crouse and I am the Chief of Staff of the International Association of Fire Fighters. I am here today representing the interest and views of our General President, Harold Schaitberger, and the 245,000 men and women professional fire fighters, EMTs, and paramedics who are members of the IAFF. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Crouse appears in the Appendix on page 144. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I spent 17 years as a fire fighter employed by the Federal Government protecting U.S. military installations. For 10 years, I was an IAFF District Vice President representing the interests of those Federal fire fighters. Mr. Chairman, exactly 3 months ago today, our Nation lost 344 of its bravest. For fire fighters, it is still September 11. Every time the alarm goes off, we steel ourselves to the possibility that we are responding to the latest act of terrorism. In the first war of the 21st Century, the battle lines are drawn in our communities. Senator, your home State of Georgia has already suffered from terrorism, and unfortunately, there are still many high- profile targets vulnerable. In this war, we must not only support our troops abroad, but also with equal zeal and financial resources support our fire fighters who are our Nation's domestic defenders. The first thing the Federal Government must do to shore up our homeland security is to assist local communities with the hiring of additional fire fighters and providing all fire fighters with specialized HAZMAT and weapons of mass destruction training. Second, establishing a single point of contact to help localities access the various Federal programs can have a positive effect on terrorism response. The first and foremost need of the fire service is adequate personnel. Today, two-thirds of our fire departments operate with inadequate staffing. In your own State, Senator, jurisdictions such as the City of Augusta and Richmond County operate with only three fire fighters per apparatus. Responding to a fire with only three people makes it impossible for first responding units to comply with OSHA's ``two in and two out'' standard for safe fire ground operations and places the lives of those fire fighters in jeopardy. Congress would never allow our Army to engage in war with two-thirds of its divisions understaffed. Incredibly, this is exactly what we are asking our local fire departments to do every day. That is why the IAFF, along with the International Association of Fire Chiefs and several members of Congress have strongly endorsed the Safer Fire Fighters Act, S. 1617 and H.R. 3185. The Safer Fire Fighters Act uses the procedures established by the highly successful universal hiring program for police officers to place 75,000 additional fire fighters in our communities. The second most pressing need is specialized training in weapons of mass destruction and HAZMAT mitigation response. From the vantage point of front-line emergency responders, the two crucial components of any WMD or HAZMAT training program are that training is conducted in a local jurisdiction incorporating the unique aspects of the communities and that it uses trainers who are both certified instructors and professional fire fighters. Training for a terrorism event in your own community allows first responders to not only learn the tactics and methods of effective response, but it also applies these theoretical concepts to concentrated targets in their jurisdictions. The value of qualified fire fighters teaching other fire fighters is in the benefit gained by shared experiences. The bond of common experiences allows fire fighter instructors to more effectively communicate the lessons of a training course than, say, a person from academia or the military. I am proud to note that the IAFF offers training programs to fire departments free of charge in terrorism and HAZMAT response that have all the elements of a successful training program. Our training utilizes skilled instructors who are both HAZMAT technicians and certified instructors to train fire departments to safely and effectively respond to weapons of mass destruction terrorist attacks. Additionally, our program conducts the training in the community and incorporates the unique aspects of the localities. The IAFF's programs were developed in partnership with the Department of Justice, Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Health and Human Services. We have trained tens of thousands of fire fighters, both professionally and volunteer fire fighters, union and unorganized departments. Especially since September 11, the demand for our training program far outpaces our funding to deliver it. The IAFF can dramatically increase the number of fire departments trained if our grants from these various Federal agencies are increased. We agree that a single point of contact will help localities. However, clarifying the lead agency's mission is more important than determining which agency should serve as the point of contact. While there is unquestionably a need for a Federal agency to coordinate the various counterterrorism programs that exist throughout the government, we do not believe that this lead agency should subsume the functions of those other agencies. There is value in several agencies being involved in terrorism response. For instance, in the area of training, many of the so- called duplicative programs are, in fact, specialized training to address specific needs. EAP, DOT, and DOE all offer hazardous material training. However, the EAP program focuses on responding to HAZMAT incidents at Superfund sites. Likewise, the Department of Transportation's program focuses on the unique challenges posed by the release of hazardous materials while in transport. Last, the Department of Energy's program is specific to HAZMAT issues at nuclear facilities. Each setting presents distinct challenges and needs to be addressed in separate training programs. Too often, the fire service has been neglected when it comes to planning for and devoting resources to respond to terrorism. Our ranks are thin and reinforcements are needed quickly. Congress must take the lead by providing the fire service with the resources to ensure adequate staffing so that we can operate safely and effectively and providing fire fighters the necessary training so that we will be able to play our role in fighting the war on terrorism. Thank you for the time to present our views of the IAFF and I will be available for questions. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, and thank you to the fire fighters around America. You may have heard me a little bit earlier today. I am introducing legislation, I think, that might be of some interest to you and maybe respond to some of the things you just pointed out. It is called the HERO Act of 2001, which will allow DOT, the Department of Transportation, to access $15 million in surplus funds that have accumulated in something called the emergency preparedness grants program, accumulated due to appropriations restrictions. The purpose of my legislation is to disburse the surplus, the $15 million, to State and local governments for hazardous material training of men and women who are at ground zero during emergencies involving hazardous materials. The HERO Act would also authorize $1 million of the surplus to go to your organization, the International Association of Fire Fighters, to help fund the very specialized training programs you just mentioned that you provide free of charge, and that now those programs, in terms of training, are so much in demand you cannot really afford the demand on you. But this would provide you $1 million to provide this kind of training free of charge to local fire departments. This apparently, according to your statistics, will quadruple the number of fire fighters who actually receive this hazardous material training, is that correct? Mr. Crouse. Yes, sir, that is. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much. Senator Collins is wrapped around an axle in a conference meeting on education and she apologizes for not being able to return right now for your statement, Mr. Tinkham. Why do we not proceed with your statement and know that Senator Collins would love to be here if she could and she will make it when she can. TESTIMONY OF MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH E. TINKHAM, II,\1\ ADJUTANT GENERAL OF MAINE AND COMMISSIONER OF THE MAINE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, VETERANS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT Mr. Tinkham. Very well. Thank you, Senator Cleland. I am Joseph E. Tinkham, II, here from the great State of Maine, and I am honored to have been called to testify before the Committee today. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Tinkham appears in the Appendix on page 150. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my professional life, I serve as both the Adjutant General of Maine, commanding the Army and Air National Guards, and also as the Commissioner for the Department of Defense, Veterans, and Emergency Management. Additionally, since the events of September 11, I have been tasked by Governor Angus King to coordinate Maine's governmental plans and procedures to protect our citizens from terrorist attack. I appear before you here today in my civilian commissioner capacity. I would like to thank this Committee, and particularly Senator Collins, for the opportunity to appear here today. The State of Maine presents those who would wish to attack us both a variety of options for illegal entry into our Nation and a significant number of vulnerable targets upon which to wreak their evil intentions. Maine is virtually an open door to the United States. She has, with her rugged, jagged shores, over 3,000 miles of Atlantic coastline and is the State with the longest international border with Canada after Alaska. We have 86 Canadian-American points of entry, most of which are unmanned and uncontrolled, save for a sign instructing the visitor where to report for Customs processing. Our vulnerabilities are many and diverse. Maine has several international and domestic airports, including 250 uncontrolled airstrips just moments from Canada. We have military bases, to include unprotected radar and communications installations. There are two major shipyards serving the U.S. Navy and other national defense industry facilities in Maine. We have over 800 dams, 49 of which are large enough to produce electricity. There are gas and oil pipelines criss-crossing the State. We have a deactivated nuclear power plant on our unprotected shore with its spent fuel rods stored on site, and the second largest petroleum tank farm on the East Coast is on the shores of our most important commercial harbor in the very heart of our largest urban population center. The current situation in Maine lends the phrase, rich in diversity, a whole new meaning. On the evening of September 11, in the Emergency Operations Center of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, Governor King and I participated in a brainstorming session with our emergency response team to identify possible threats from terrorist attack. We listed literally hundreds of vulnerabilities to terrorism within our borders. Over the course of the next few days, I scrubbed this list, with the concurrence of the governor, to identify just those targets that would result in either a large loss of life or environmental catastrophe. We have some 25 vulnerabilities in Maine fitting that category. We then formed a joint National Guard-Maine State Police security team to visit these 25 sites, and in coordination with local law enforcement, assess their specific weaknesses to terrorist attack. We found that security measures, while probably sufficient for any perceived threat as we understood them on September 10, were not adequate after September 12. We found one site, Senator, that takes some rather nasty chemicals and stores them. They transfer them from rail cars into a storage facility, and then when the paper industry needs these chemicals, they call for them. The fence was downtrodden. There was no security guard. Our security team asked the manager, ``What do you do in an emergency,'' and he pointed to this button on the wall. He said, ``We ring that siren. The employees are instructed to run outside, look at the windsock, and then run in the opposite direction.'' On many of these sites, we wish desperately to put in place an armed security force, and while we had the manpower and the equipment, we lacked the financial resources. We had to satisfy ourselves with developing plans to guard these sites, were we to receive the intelligence to do so, and regretfully, plans to respond, to pick up the pieces and to put out the fires, if you will, were the sites attacked without warning. I am convinced that lack of monetary resources greatly impedes our ability to address real security concerns in Maine. On September 11, there was no line in the State or in the county or in the local budgets reading ``national defense.'' And while we in the States take great pains to protect our citizens from the natural perils which may befall us, protection from attack by a foreign enemy upon our people in their homes and in their places of business has for almost two centuries been within the purview of the Federal Government. Most of us with experience in emergency management were convinced, wrongly thus far, as it turns out, that the Federal Government through FEMA or through some other vehicle would come to our assistance. Large special appropriations were being passed, it appeared to us, for that very purpose. The U.S. Capitol complex was being secured, as was the Kennedy Space Center and Federal courthouses. The airports and the airline industries and even the concessionaires at Reagan National Airport were receiving assistance. Surely, help for the States must be, and I hope is, forthcoming. What do we require? We need financial assistance, for the most part, and the flexibility to tailor its expenditure to our unique needs in Maine. We do not need a lot of money in the larger scheme of things, something approximating $25 million which we would share with local governments to strengthen our vulnerabilities. In conclusion, I would just like to say that, arguably, the best American contemporary artist of the mid-20th Century was Norman Rockwell. During the dark days of World War II, he painted a series of works he called the Four Freedoms. Perhaps you know them. As I recall, the first three depicted freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want. The last painting has an American mother and father gazing lovingly down upon their sleeping children tucked safely into their beds. The father holds a folded newspaper with a headline from the war. The children sleep blissfully, safe and unaware of the terrors ravishing much of the world. Rockwell titled this painting, ``Freedom from Fear,'' and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the most basic responsibility of government on every level, the responsibility of ensuring that our citizens, our children, can live peacefully in their homes, free from fear. To that end, we must strive, setting all else aside until we have done so, and to that end, we in Maine, and I am sure other States, as well, are striving mightily. We have the will and the ability to counter most of these terrorist threats to our citizens and we are in the best position to do so, but we lack the financial resources and the means to gather the intelligence on threats from outside our borders. For that help, we turn to the solemn and enduring contract we signed in Philadelphia in 1787, which was, in great measure, to provide for the common defense. It is time we dust off that most honorable pledge. Again, my thanks to you, Senator Cleland, and to the Committee for affording me this opportunity to share my thoughts. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Mr. Tinkham, and we thank you for those eloquent words. I cannot help but feel that there is a powerful connection between you and Dr. Caldwell. It was Franklin Roosevelt right out of Dutchess County that had the famous four freedoms speech in 1940-1941 that so impressed Mr. Rockwell that he did those four freedoms for the Saturday Evening Post, and I have a copy of those in my office, so I thank you for reiterating that. I have often thought in the wake of September 11 about Franklin Roosevelt's comment in 1933 that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, blind, unreasonable fear, and, of course, that is what the terrorist deals in, fear, not knowing where the next strike or incoming round or whatever might occur. That is part of the psychology of dealing with all this, but thank you for bringing that up. We have Senator Levin with us today. I am glad you could join us. We have a distinguished group of panelists here. They have all issued opening statements, and if you would like to issue an opening statement or make a comment, we would be glad to recognize you. Senator Levin. Senator Levin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I made a very brief comment before, which was relative to the lack of cooperation between the FBI and local law enforcement. I hear a lot of it. It was a very pungent comment, the one that I heard before which had to do with a local law enforcement guy saying he would rather get sticks in his eye than to work with the FBI in an investigation, and I have heard that, I am afraid, from many local law enforcement people. I would like to talk to Chief Berger, perhaps, to start with. I have a New York Times article here from November. I do not know if you have been asked about this or not, Chief, but you were quoted as saying this, ``that there is real frustration relative to the cooperation level between local law enforcement and the FBI.'' You said that even after September 11, you were still hearing complaints from fellow chiefs. ``I do not think that we can afford to have these impediments to information any longer. Some of these terrorists were living in our communities.'' And there are a lot of other quotes in this article, as a matter of fact. The chief of Portland, Maine, ``I understand what the FBI is about. It is all about culture and elitism,'' and on and on. It is really quite an extraordinary series of quotations from people who are frustrated in working with the FBI, and one of them happens now to be the police chief in Ann Arbor, Chief Oates, who I have talked to, who used to be with the New York Police Department, who had a lot of work assignments with the FBI and just was totally frustrated in terms of working out joint cooperative ventures, getting information, getting intelligence, which is important, to local police. This is simply not shared. Now, this may be a matter of culture. It may be a matter of procedures being different. It may be bureaucracy. It may be--I am not sure what all the reasons for it are, but it obviously has been going on a long time. Again, according to this article, it is, ``Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, State and local officials have complained that the Bureau is high-handed with its local counterparts and that the FBI looks for any excuse not to share even the most innocuous intelligence information.'' So, Chief, if you have not already been asked about this, let me ask you, is it still true? Are there any improvements you see? Is there anything we can do to change that culture or whatever it is? Mr. Berger. I have seen drastic improvements in the area that the director himself, Director Mueller, has been very open. He came to Toronto for our international conference and was very genuinely, not only embarrassed, but open to any suggestions that we, the International, or any law enforcement had. As you know, he has empaneled a committee of local law enforcement, State, Federal people to basically advise him on a one-to-one basis. I think that is very, very important. I believe his heart is open. I do not believe this is just mirrors. I truly believe that he wants to improve this. I know there are some pending changes to actually put a liaison person specifically there. He or she would communicate with law enforcement on a need-be basis. Let me just say, I have been in law enforcement 28 years. I was the commander of the Miami homicide unit for years. And I can tell you, there has always been this culture in law enforcement, a need to know. Homicide did not talk to robbery. Robbery did not talk to burglary. It is not just a Federal problem. It has been a law enforcement problem, and I wish I could say where we could trace it back to, but there has always been this need to know. Certainly with national security, this ups the stakes. We certainly do not want to put critical information for distribution. What we talked about with the Bureau that we were very frustrated with was the fact that, initially after September 11, there was a tremendous surgence of FBI agents going to the communities, securing evidence--as you know, the residents were, many of them in Florida and throughout the country. And in this urgency to get the job done, what was happening is news media would see the Bureau at certain locations and then mayors and citizens would talk to their police chief and say, ``Wait a second, why is the FBI in my neighborhood, in my building, in my condominium?'' And, of course, the response is, ``I have no idea,'' and that is very frustrating. That is what we told our special agent in charge of the Miami office, our U.S. Attorney down in the greater Florida area. That is what my members told their special agents in charge of the various offices. Just give us the courtesy of telling us that we are going to be in your community and we are effecting, whether it is a search warrant, whether an arrest, just so that we know. We do not need to know in many cases the particulars for that arrest. Certainly, they have the people power to take care of that particular incident or search warrant or whatever that needs. But that is that frustration, and I saw the frustration from the local special agent in charge, Hector Fitzgeros, because, basically, after September 11, he was doing truly a million things, trying to get the job done as quickly as he could and the people that work for him, and many times, those things occur where you just do not talk to people and it is wrong. It is wrong because of the pressures that each one of us have in our individual communities, who we have to report to, and it is just basic information. I think there is going to be--I know there is going to be a tremendous change in that attitude to at least share initial information, and then later on, as we have talked about these security clearances, maybe more specific information regarding operatives in individual communities. Senator Levin. By the way, I have talked to Director Mueller about this issue shortly after he was sworn in, because I was so bothered by it, and even talked to local law enforcement and they feel so strongly about this disconnect that I felt that I just had to really meet with him on this subject, which I did. And he, again, as you pointed out, I think, indicated a determination to change that culture and to improve those relationships and it is very important that happen. I do not know how many tips came into the FBI following the attack on the Trade Center and the Pentagon, but it is a huge number. I think it was over 100,000, although I---- Mr. Berger. Over 100,000. Senator Levin. There is no way, I do not think, that the FBI can possibly even screen these. I do not think they are large enough. I think they have to rely on local law enforcement to do it. Are they relying on local law enforcement to screen, in some preliminary way, at least, the 100,000 or so tips which have come in since the September 11 attacks, do you know? Mr. Berger. The answer to that is yes, but I cannot speak nationwide. I know in Florida, that has already started. We have developed regions, regions based on county boundaries. Those regions are actually effecting the following up of many of these leads that are occurring. The one thing we do not want, though, is to be given tasks that are just not important, just this is a preliminary task, and I have echoed that to powers to be. It would be insulting to use local law enforcement just to go ahead and follow up these non-important things. Senator Levin. Does the same problem exist in terms of lack of sharing of information with other Federal agencies, or has it been true with the Border Patrol, DEA, Customs, U.S. Attorneys, or Coast Guard? Is this true generally or has it been sort of something which is more identified with the FBI? Mr. Berger. I certainly do not feel qualified, only because all my experience has been at the local level. But having dealt with task forces, having dealt with the HIDA programs down in South Florida, certainly, there are communications problems even between Federal agencies that work with themselves on a regular basis, again, this kind of concept of ``need to know.'' We need to work harder. I think that is something, as you mentioned, that is a culture. It is ingrained. It is ego. A lot of it is ego, and that is at all levels. Senator Levin. On these task forces, these joint task forces, are they always chaired by a Federal official? Mr. Berger. The answer to that is no. Senator Levin. Are they rotating chairs? Sometimes it is a State or local official that chairs it? Mr. Berger. Down in South Florida, there happens to be a Sheriff of Broward County, but there are two co-chairs, a State officer and a U.S. Attorney is the other co-chair. Senator Levin. I am glad to hear that. I think it is useful. I do not know that has been true, generally, until recently, but if it has not, I am glad to see the change and I hope that is true across the board, because the local contribution here is major and we have got to find a way to coordinate better and that is what Governor Ridge's challenge is, in part. Just one other question. I do not know if any of you might have information on this, and that has to do with the fact that we have, in the private sector, companies that specialize in responses to disasters, including pollution, biological problems, and spills. Are any of you in a position to know whether or not we have got good coordination between our local, Federal agencies and the private sector which has been focused on these issues? We talk about biological or chemical attacks. There are spill pollution problems which have been focused on for a long time which have a lot of similarities. They are not exactly the same, but a lot of similarities. Would any of you be in a position to know that or have you commented on that? [No response.] Senator Levin. OK. That is something, then, that, Mr. Chairman, I will take up with the member of our first panel that I was not able to come here to attend, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to thank our panel. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much. Chief Berger, I would like to follow up here. Mayor Morial just sat right there in that seat less than an hour ago---- Mr. Berger. It is still warm. [Laughter.] Senator Cleland. He said, we must not only think about response, and we had been talking about FEMA, and I think Senator Lieberman and Senator Specter have legislation, which I think I am actually a cosponsor of, to maybe create an Agency of Homeland Defense with a budget and people and so forth and part of the core of that is the response aspect of FEMA. And the mayor said, we must not only think about response, we must think about prevention, and I was just sitting here thinking, he has got the Super Bowl, a big target, all the things that terrorists like, one particular place where a lot of people are going to be. How do you work on prevention? It seems to me it was the same challenge of September 11, not only response, but intelligence to pick up the threat or threats that might come your way. In other words, if you are the Chief of Police in New Orleans, it seems to me that one would love to have any credible intelligence the FBI or any other agency of the Federal Government might have certainly passed on to him so he can evaluate it and take some action. I do not see how we can prevent a terrorist attack unless we have better intelligence. If you do not have better communication, State and local to Federal, particularly in the FBI's case, they are the Nation's CIA. Outside the borders of the United States, it is the CIA, and that is a whole other kettle of fish, whether the CIA and the FBI properly coordinate. But if you are chief of police anywhere in America and you have got a target, or if you are the General here and you are sitting on miles of untended border and nuclear installations and so forth, you have got to be looking for all the battlefield intelligence that the FBI, particularly, could provide you so you can put your people on alert and check out some things. So in terms of prevention, I think the key to that is intelligence, but if you are not sharing information, I do not know how we can help our chiefs of police prevent things. Is that a view that you support? Mr. Berger. I have a lot of experience in that. When Pope John Paul, remember, he came to America--he has come a couple of times, but the one he came down to South Florida, I was responsible for his security when he had his very large mass. I have been involved with Super Bowls of the past when they were held at the Orange Bowl. That is how long ago it was. I can tell you, in specific events, I think pre-planning, we do a very good job. I have never seen Secret Service nor the Bureau or anyone that may have intelligence information ever share it. Of course, I would not know if it was not there, but on those specific events, I have even run Grand Prix, those, we have many pre-meetings before. Many things are worked out. Escape routes are worked out. We can isolate the event and plan specifically for it. I was just in Salt Lake City. As you know, the Winter Olympics will be there. The pre-planning started 2 years ago. Those things, I think we do a very good job in coordinating that. Certainly the World Trade Center was something that probably, without intelligence to talk about, we could have really never planned for something to that effect. But I assure you that security at this upcoming Super Bowl or any major event, as the Olympics will follow that, shortly after, will be premium. I am convinced of that, that it will be a very safe place for Americans to visit and a very peaceful venue during those situations. But that is because, like I said, we know we have the purpose, the intent has been designed, and that is our mission, and we do very good at creating security for missions. Senator Cleland. Thank you. That is good to know. Mr. Tinkham, thank you very much for being here. Mr. Tinkham. Yes, sir. Senator Cleland. Your description of your ``security situation'' is quite challenging, shall we say. Mr. Tinkham. Well, we here with a military background, Senator, as you know, would note that when you try to guard everything, you guard nothing, and so we must rely on intelligence. Intelligence is one of those things that we can gather perhaps bits and pieces of what is going on inside our border, but we need to turn to the Federal Government for anything outside the border and put the pieces together. I know that while, as far as we know, there has been no specific intelligence threats in Maine, it would be very comforting to hear that every day. In Vietnam when we put patrols out or we put out outposts, they would report back periodically that things were negative. It was heartening to know that at least they were still out there watching. That would be helpful, if our intelligence gathering agencies could at least on a daily basis say, hello, and by the way, we have not forgotten you up there. We have checked and there is currently no specific threat to Maine. I think our people would appreciate that, more to counter that fear in their homes. But as far as law enforcement is concerned, I have seen barriers fall in the last 3 months that I thought would never fall. I mean, the cooperation between many departments in both State and Federal Government and between the various levels of government has been much greater than it has ever been in my experience since the events of September 11. Senator Cleland. Thank you. That is good to know. Dr. Caldwell, talk to me a little bit about the CDC. You are there at the bottom of the threat, in effect. Dr. Caldwell. Or the top. Senator Cleland. That is right. That is one way to look at it. You are closest to the problem and the CDC is, in effect, the B-52s on call up there. Dr. Caldwell. See, we look at the CDC as the foundation and we look at ourselves as the eyes and the ears. It is the patients who walk into doctors' offices or present to school clinic and school nurses. There may be some unusual symptoms or questions or anxiety or fears, and then they call the local health department. The local health department then, if they are lucky, can quickly go to their Internet site and look at the Health Alert Network and immediately transmit some information, answer a question, call somebody up from the CDC to ask some advice. So I think we are, in some ways, an extension of the CDC, so we get frustrated at the local level when we see the CDC having struggles with sister Federal agencies, because at the local level, we try not to replicate those problems. And I think that you will find a diverse number of good and not-so- good relationships at the local level. In Dutchess County, I could say we are very fortunate with the leadership of my county executive. He has been able to put in place a position of an epidemiologist in Dutchess County, New York, population of 280,000. There are a number of States that do not have an epidemiologist. So on January 1, I will have a bioterrorism coordinator. But even luckier than that was 2 years ago, my county executive recognized with West Nile virus we needed a biostatistician. We never had one before. We used that person on September 11. We reassigned her with this capacity and said, you are now our bioterrorism coordinator. When this other position opens, you can go into that. So what we need to do is try to replicate that, maybe not at all 3,000 local health departments, but at enough of them so that they are all covered, and we need that at the local level because if you just, as I say, give us money or give us guidelines and don't provide us with the staff capacity to be able to know what to do with them, that become a real problem. One more example. Let us say there is a problem in Dutchess County or in New York City, since we have about 5,000 or more commuters to and from New York City each day. Somebody comes in with some unexplained symptoms and suddenly it turns out to be smallpox or something horrible like that. Well, I have confidence that the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, these pushpacks will be activated. They will get there in 7 hours. But we are going to have to know what to do with them. ``Dr. Caldwell, the pushpacks are here. Where do we put them?'' And it is not just me. It is departments of emergency planning--fire and police. But I think for now, we have really emerged as equals and I want to thank you for putting us on this panel because I think, before, people did not recognize the value of local public health. So the CDC has the beginnings of a foundation. We are not starting from scratch. Let me tell you one final comment about Health Alert Network funding in the State of New York. We got a few hundred thousand dollars, the State of New York, and in the law, it was crafted that some of it must go to the local level. Well, I just told you 55 out of 58 counties got nothing. But I can understand the States' predicament. They need this much money and they got this much. So they said, if we take this much and give it to all of the counties, you will basically have enough to print pamphlets. So let us take this amount and try to create a model in one or two counties. Let us get the State up to speed, and that is what they have done. But now we need to replicate that across all of New York State and across the country so that we do not leave any jurisdiction behind. So we have a lot of work to do, and one more quote from Franklin Roosevelt, he said, ``Never before have we had so little time to do so much,'' and that is, I think, the way we all feel. We all feel a little behind in public health, but we know we are on the right course, and with your assistance and help, we know we are going to get there, not in a 5- or 10-year plan, but in a 5-month plan. Senator Cleland. It is interesting that you just said that, because 3 years ago, a private group that supports the CDC in Atlanta came to me and they said, ``We have got a 10-year plan.'' This is 3 years ago. And they said, ``But we really need to make it a 5-year plan because the CDC is vulnerable to a terrorist attack, it is spread out in 22 different offices, some of them date back to World War II, we have got rain coming through the roof on million-dollar computers and on world class scientists. This is an untenable situation.'' So I went to work on the problem and we got money each year. But then all of a sudden comes September 11. The point is, we cannot wait 10 years to upgrade the CDC. We cannot wait 5 years. So I have called for a Manhattan Project to, in 36 months, dramatically upgrade the CDC in every sense of the word--facilities, labs, communication capability, and security. So I think we are on the right track here. You are right. I do not think we have a whole lot of time to wait. Dr. Caldwell. And strengthening the CDC will strengthen the local public health department, but you cannot leave us out completely, out of the funding stream. What we have seen with previous Health Alert Network funding, so much has been siphoned off at the Federal and State level, just a trickle has gotten to us. But that, as I said, is just because of the amount that was given. I think they made the best choices that they had available, but now they need to do it all. Senator Cleland. Mr. Crouse, any final comment as we wrap up the hearing here? Mr. Crouse. No, sir. Thank you. Senator Cleland. Dr. Caldwell, Senator Lieberman has asked me to ask a question. You identified the need to integrate public health experts and their activities with that of other emergency responders. How can that best be done, and is there an appropriate Federal role? Dr. Caldwell. We have planning going on at the local level all the time. I think that if local public health agencies are not being included in those plannings, that they need to hear the message that they should be included. I believe that they are, and if they were not before, they are being included now. But more importantly, I mentioned to you that we need technical support, not just money but technical support. I find it valuable as we go through our planning committees to have somebody from the FBI and the CDC sitting at those planning committees with us from time to time to help ensure that we have a standardization, this protocol development, I think, that Mayor Morial was speaking of earlier, so that every community will respond in a similar way based upon its population. But I think that we need to hear redundant messages going back and forth from the local up to the Feds and then from the Feds down to the locals. Set a good example. Let us see the Federal Government have interagency collaboration, and just like kids who see their parents do bad things tend to follow those behaviors, maybe if we see them do good things, it will trickle down to us. But let us see, set by example, have some of those Federal agencies get together, sitting at our local table helping us plan locally. So for the Dutchess County Government's comprehensive emergency response plan, we can have representatives from the Department of Justice, the CDC, etc., with us, and I say not at every meeting, but at least to have a presence so we are not handing those business cards out the day that that disaster is there. Part of the problem, as well, is people do rotate over time, positions. These personal relationships, if they are there, as I think that Mayor Morial said before, they work. If they are not there, they do not work. We should not have to rely solely on personal relationships for our Nation's defense. I need as Commissioner of Health of Dutchess County to have a list of all the positions I need to know and who is in those positions and make sure they have my business card, the local FBI director, the regional Health and Human Services director, etc. And I think that is a beginning for us to know who we should get to know. Then it is my responsibility if I do not. But if we all have that list, I am not just sort of sitting around saying, gee, I think that would be a good person to know, or maybe I will call up my colleague in Orange, County, New York, see if they know their person, etc. So we need guidelines, and I think they are coming around, but we need to hear them over and over again. It has to become a natural way of doing business and we are a long way from that. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much. That is one of the reasons we are having these series of hearings about coordination, cooperation, and communication of Federal agencies along with our local entities. We thank you all very much for your patience and for coming today to testify. The record will remain open for a week after the close of the hearing. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X ---------- PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR BUNNING Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today as we discuss the role of state and local governments in homeland security. The events of the past 3 months have illustrated how important it is for Federal, state and local governments to work together in responding to terrorist attacks. On September 11, our country responded to one of the worst terrorist attacks in our nation's history. Within a month, we were attacked again--this time by someone sending anthrax through the mail. Since that time, this Committee has held several hearings on security, including improving the security of our ports and airports, combating bioterrorism, and protecting our mail. Today we are looking at the local role in homeland security. State and local governments have tremendous responsibility in protecting their citizens. Many times, their employees--the police officers, firemen and women, and other emergency personnel--are the first to respond to a disaster. In light of recent events, many of our state and local governments, along with the Federal Government, are now taking a second look at the disaster plans currently in place to handle a terrorist attack or disaster. Many communities and states will need to make some changes so they can adequately protect their citizens. The Federal Government will also be making some changes, particularly through the new office of homeland security. Several of the witnesses we will hear from today will discuss ways the government can better respond to attacks, including hiring more personnel, providing better communications and coordination, and providing more funding for various programs. As we all work to strengthen our security, it is important to remember that each level of government has an important role to play, and that we do need to work together to make sure we get the job done. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I thank them for being here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.030 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.069 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.074 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.081 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.082 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.084 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.086 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.087 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.088 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.089 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.090 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.091 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.092 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.093 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.094 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.095 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.096 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.097 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.098 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.099 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.100 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.101 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.102 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.103 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.104 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.105 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.106 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.107 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.108 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.109 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8046.110 -