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PUBLIC SAFETY INTEROPERABILITY: LOOK WHO’S

TALKING NOW

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 20, 2004

Serial No. 108–257

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

DIANE E. WATSON, California

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 20, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Jenkins, William O., Jr., Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues,

U.S. Government Accountability Office; David G. Boyd, Director,

SAFECOM Program Office, Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security; John B. Muleta, esq., Chief, Wireless

Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission;

Stephen T. Devine, chairperson, Missouri State Interoperability Executive Committee, patrol frequency coordinator, communications division,

Missouri State Highway Patrol General Headquarters; and Glen S.

Nash, senior telecommunications engineer, State of California, Department of General Services ............................................................................. 10

Thomas, Hanford C., Director, statewide wireless network project, New

York State Office for Technology; William J. Gardner, supervisor, Suffolk County Police Department, Technical Services Section, Suffolk

County, Long Island, NY; and Professor Glenn P. Corbett, John Jay

College of Criminal Justice .......................................................................... 110

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Boyd, David G., Director, SAFECOM Program Office, Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 44

Corbett, Professor Glenn P.m, John Jay College of Criminal Justice,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 143

Devine, Stephen T., chairperson, Missouri State Interoperability Executive Committee, patrol frequency coordinator, communications division,

Missouri State Highway Patrol General Headquarters, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 77

Gardner, William J., supervisor, Suffolk County Police Department, Technical Services Section, Suffolk County, Long Island, NY, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 135

Jenkins, William O., Jr., Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ............... 13

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 153

Muleta, John B., esq., Chief, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, prepared statement of ....................... 60

Nash, Glen S., senior telecommunications engineer, State of California,

Department of General Services, prepared statement of .......................... 86

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Thomas, Hanford C., Director, statewide wireless network project, New

York State Office for Technology, prepared statement of .......................... 114

(1)

PUBLIC SAFETY INTEROPERABILITY: LOOK

WHO’S TALKING NOW

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Kucinich, Turner, Maloney,

Ruppersberger, Tierney, and Watson.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R.

Nicholas Palarino, senior policy advisor; Robert A. Briggs, clerk;

Grace Washbourne, full committee professional staff member; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Cecelia Morton,

minority office manager.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘Public Safety Interoperability: Look Who’s Talking Now,’’ is called to order.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 exposed dangerous

gaps and failures in essential communication systems. Cell phone

networks collapsed. First responders using incompatible radios

could not relay vital information. The New York Stock Exchange

shut down, but the Federal Reserve System and the Nation’s banking network continued to operate.

Why? Because standardization, technical interconnectivity and

redundancy at banks protected that critical communication infrastructure. Almost 3 years later, the critical telecommunications

networks first responders bank on every day to save lives remain

fragmented and vulnerable. Despite significant expenditures and

some progress, public safety and emergency response communications still lack the bandwidth and connectivity needed to sustain

essential capabilities in a major crisis.

So today we revisit the status of Federal efforts to improve first

responder interoperability. As we will hear in testimony, forging

links between more than 44,000 State and local agencies and over

100 Federal programs and offices poses daunting challenges. The

lack of interoperability accurately reflects a lack of intergovernmental consensus on the urgency, feasibility and affordability of

communication upgrades.

2

Uncoordinated planning and funding cycles seem to keep the consensus beyond reach. Disjointed Federal grant programs do little to

guide State and local programs toward effective short or long term

solutions, and the push for interoperability further complicates the

already intense competition between public and commercial users

for choice radio frequency spectrum bands.

A recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to

clear interference from the 800 megahertz public safety bands

should help improve the performance of critical systems. But

crowded spectrum is only one aspect of the problem. Another serious impediment is the lack of standardized information on the capabilities of current systems. Without broadly accepted technology

and performance standards against which to measure progress, it

is difficult to determine where we are, and all but impossible to

know if we’re getting anywhere.

After our hearing on these issues last November, we asked the

Government Accountability Office, newly named but still GAO, to

examine current Federal efforts to foster interoperability. The report issued today finds intergovernmental corroboration lacking

and calls for standards, benchmarks and funding discipline to focus

the currently rudderless process.

All the technical and regulatory jargon should not be allowed to

obscure the central fact that lives are at stake. Selfless work on

these issues by Monica Gabrielle, Sally Regenhard, Beverly Eckert,

Mary Fetchet and so many other September 11 family members reminds us of our solemn obligation to speak with one urgent voice

to avoid future tragedies.

We appreciate the time, expertise and dedication of all our witnesses who bring to us a very important discussion, and we look

forward to each and every one of their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

3

4

5

Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize the

gentlelady, the very effective lady from New York, Carolyn

Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, Chairman Shays, and for

your continued work on public safety and interoperability specifically. Your commitment to our Nation’s first responders is evident,

not only by the number of hearings, the report you requested on

this subject, but also the legislation that you sponsored with me in

May, the 9/11 Can You Hear Me Now Act, H.R. 4386.

Today we will have the opportunity to discuss the current state

of interoperability in New York’s metropolitan area, and we will

have the opportunity to hear from Dr. Glenn Corbett, who is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City

and a constituent that I’m proud to represent. He, along with the

Skyscraper Safety Campaign, provided some of the technical assistance in developing the 9/11 Can You Hear Me Now legislation.

I introduced the legislation and the Act because the current state

of first responder communications in New York City is not anywhere near what it needs to be. While there have been a number

of improvements since September 11, nearly 3 years later the New

York City Fire Department still lacks the basic infrastructure to

communicate effectively and true interoperability simply does not

exist.

At the same time, we all know that New York continues to be

a top terrorist target, and the protection of New York City must

be a national responsibility. The lack of a fully functional communication system for the New York Fire Department is not only a

threat to our firefighters’ and New York residents’ lives, but to all

who visit the city.

The legislation that Chairman Shays and I introduced would

mandate the Department of Homeland Security to provide a fully

functional communication system to the New York Fire Department within 1 year of its passage. This communication system

would include four components: radios, dispatch system, critical information dispatch system and a supplemental communications device for individual firefighters. This communications system would

be required to work in all buildings and in all parts of the city,

something that unbelievably does not happen now, and tragically

did not happen on September 11.

The proposed legislation requires coordination with the city of

New York and their planned upgrades of the emergency September

11 system and any interoperability initiatives with other public

safety communications systems. If this system in New York was

developed, it could be a model for large cities across the country,

cities that are frequently mentioned as under the greatest threat

of a terrorist attack.

Beyond doing whatever it takes to prevent future attacks, one of

our greatest fears is that we will not have taken the lessons from

September 11 and be prepared for the future. We know that there

were terrible communications failures on September 11. According

to an independent report by McKinsey and Co., it may have cost

upwards of 100 firefighters their lives on September 11, and obviously many other independent residents and workers that were in

the buildings.

6

I can tell you that when I arrived at the Ground Zero central

command on September 11 and asked what it was that was needed, they said, get us radios, we don’t have any radios that work.

Bill Young, at my request, and others, flew down radios that could

work on the work site the next day.

The time to act is now. We need to do absolutely everything to

ensure that we invest in the infrastructure and technology necessary for our first responders to communicate during every disaster. And that is why I’m also a co-sponsor of H.R. 440, The CONNECT First Responders Act. This legislation will significantly enhance the Federal Government’s effort to achieve this critical objective by creating, first of all, and fully authorizing, the Office of

Wireless Public Safety Interoperability Communications within the

Department of Homeland Security. And giving this office the authority and annual budget to work with Federal, State, and local

stakeholder to develop and implement a national strategy to

achieve interoperability.

Second, establishing a new grant program dedicated to achieving

communications interoperability nationwide. We need both of these

acts to be passed and brought into law, because we need to do absolutely everything to protect our citizens from any future attack.

It is obviously 101 to say that we need to have a radio system that

works. We did not have one on September 11. We still do not have

one.

I hope we hear some answers today from our distinguished panelists. Thank you all for being here, and thank you, Mr. Corbett,

for coming, too.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlelady.

At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for

holding this hearing, and for your continued effort to make certain

that our country’s response to the terrorist threat is appropriate.

The need for communication interoperability took center stage following the terror attacks in New York and Washington, DC. That

event showcased the difficulty of first responders even in the same

community to communicate with one another.

The inability to communicate becomes an even larger issue as

you look at Federal and State agencies working together. This subcommittee, under the chairman’s leadership, held a field hearing in

Stamford, CT, where Mrs. Maloney was present. And there it was

clear that the issue for agencies to talk to one another was very

important in the issue of responding to a terrorist threat. My community, Dayton, OH, held a weapons of mass destruction attack exercise prior to September 11th. And there the inability to communicate was identified as a major hurdle in providing a coordinated

response.

The Federal Government has a very important role to play in ensuring that communication interoperability exists among Federal,

State and local agencies. However, it is important that the Federal

Government does not operate in a vacuum, ignoring the lessons

and advice of local first responders. Local and State governments

should be active participants in any effort to ensure seamless communication.

7

And we thank the chairman for his continued effort in not only

looking for a solution but continuing to focus on this process as we

move forward.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Ruppersberger. I too thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your

leadership in the critical homeland security priority. Both Republican and Democratic leadership of this committee have committed

to keeping this issue on the congressional radar screen. I think it

is entirely necessary and appropriate.

Until now, my background has been local leadership. Along with

many of my colleagues on this committee and throughout the

House, I am concerned about the needs of local first responders,

our front line soldiers in the war on terrorism. We learned many

expensive lessons on that tragic September day almost 3 years ago.

One of the most correctable was the need for first responders to be

able to communicate.

Terrorist attacks and all other hazards requiring police and firefighters to respond do not know county, city, State or even regional

boundaries. So when an event occurs and people run into danger

to save innocent lives, they should be able to talk to one another.

It doesn’t get any more basic than that.

This revelation is not new. Yet we are almost 3 years later in

trying to decide how this should work. There are three fundamentals to determine regarding interoperability: what are localities

doing now; what sort of national standards should we set to transcend inherent jurisdictions and boundaries; and how will we pay

for this technology. We need a national status report that shows us

what is happening at the local level. Progress requires a clear and

accurate picture of what is happening in each State, how local

elected and local first responders have been involved in the development of State plans and how much of that effort has focused on

the big issues of interoperability.

At a time when we have incredible spending levels to fight the

war on terrorism abroad, as I believe we should, I think we need

an equal commitment to prioritize Homeland Security needs. Our

first responders, our hometown troops, need our help, and I look

forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle

to move this issue forward.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to join my

colleagues here in acknowledging the extent of this particular problem and knowing that since the events of September 11th, we have

exposed what’s been a longstanding and complex problem with our

public safety agencies.

Even the 9/11 Commission’s recent report indicates that many

lives possibly could have been saved had we had the system in

place. It goes back, of course, to the Oklahoma City bombing,

where after that study showed that the first responders had to use

runners to carry messages from one command center to another because the responding agencies used different emergency radio

channels, different frequencies and different radio systems.

In order to achieve communications interoperability, which is

probably the highest priority issue for our public safety community,

we have to a lot more than we are currently doing right now. The

8

April report from GAO reported that project SAFECOM had made

very little progress. The most recent report indicates that there is

still a great distance to go. It cited a lack of consistent executive

commitment and support and an inadequate level of interagency

collaboration.

So 8 years after the final report and detailed recommendations

to improve interoperability from the Federal Government’s Public

Safety Wireless Advisory Committee, and over 2 years after the initiation of Project SAFECOM, it doesn’t seem that we’ve made much

progress on this front. Secretary Ridge has stated that there are

immediate steps the Departments can take while we focus on long

range integrated solutions. We agree with that.

The Department of Homeland Security should be providing dedicated annual funding for both short term and long term enhancements to State and local interoperable communications systems.

The administration has to address the disjointed Federal approach

to interoperability by clearly assigning principal responsibility for

communications interoperability to one office in the Federal Government.

Along with Mrs. Maloney and others, we’ve introduced Connecting the Operations of National Networks of Emergency Communications Technologies for First Responders Act, the so-called CONNECT for First Responders Act, that should address most of these

issues. The act would replace the ineffective interagency group, at

least as the GAO says it is, known as Project SAFECOM, that currently oversees the Federal interoperability efforts with a unified

office within the Department of Homeland Security. It would provide this office with a dedicated annual budget, charge it with

working with Federal, State and local stakeholder to develop and

implement a national strategy to achieve interoperability. That

should provide us, at least head us in the right direction.

Without a robust, consistent budget and the necessary authority,

I think our efforts are going to continue to fail in this area. So this

legislation would substantially increase the role of the new office

in accelerating and implementing nationwide interoperable communications. It would authorize $50 million for fiscal year 2005 for the

administration of the office. That would be more than double the

$22 million that the administration has requested for SAFECOM

in fiscal year 2005.

The bill would establish a new Department of Homeland Security

grant program dedicated to achieving communication interoperability nationwide, funding both immediate and long term solutions

for our communications needs. Like the Assistance to Firefighters

grant program, the bill authorizes the Secretary to make direct

grants to local governments and public safety agencies, but also authorizes grants to State governments.

I for one, and I think others joining me, continue to be disappointed that this administration insists on adding an extra level

of bureaucracy by putting these matters through the States instead

of down to the local communities. The Fire Act, the COPS grant

with the grants directly to the local communities in my estimation

has worked far more effectively than the process that we now see,

working on Department of Homeland Security grants.

9

We know that achieving nationwide interoperability will require

a significant financial commitment to all levels of government. Previous estimates for upgrading communications systems nationwide

have ranged as high as $18 billion. Recently, the private sector estimated that approximately $350 million is necessary to implement

a comprehensive patching system throughout the country. The bill would authorize $5 billion over 5 years for the grant pro- gram, starting at $500 million for fiscal year 2005 and increasing

funding by $250 million per year. The reason we increase the authorization level each year in the bill is in order to first facilitate

the immediate acquisition of short term communications equipment

to link existing communications infrastructure and second, to initiate the development of comprehensive interoperable communication plans prior to more extensive equipment purchase in the latter

years of the program.

Purchasing and implementing new technologies, such as patching

or switching systems, will only provide us with a short term solution to a critical problem. Ultimately, we would like to see all communication systems sharing open architectures and standard technologies, so that different radio systems made by different manufacturers can communicate on demand. The bill indicates our belief

that we can achieve this goal in cooperation, not competition, with

the private sector radio systems manufacturers.

I’d like to close with one last concern, and that is that in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we’ve had a number of individuals connected with MIT and other institutions up there who actually have

an open system on the internet with security provided that the

military has been using now for some time as a pilot program. That

program was offered to the Department of Homeland Security for

pilot programs and I can’t tell you exactly what the delay was in

that, but it took months and months before we could get anybody’s

attention.

My fear is that there was more of an attitude of looking to see

if a larger contract worth far many more dollars could be given to

a larger contractor than to go with a system that in order to have

been performing well with the military would cost far less and be

implemented in a more expeditious manner. So I hope that the Department of Homeland Security is really looking to do this the

right way, do it as economically and soundly as possible, and not

let the political or the prior connections with other companies get

in the way of getting this job done as soon as possible and in the

best way possible.

I yield back.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER [assuming Chair]. I ask unanimous consent that all

members of the subcommittee be permitted to place any opening

statement in the record, and that the record remain open for 3

days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

Further, I ask unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in the record. And without objection, so ordered.

Today, I would like to introduce our first panel of witnesses. We

have Mr. William Jenkins, Jr., Director, Homeland Security and

Justice Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office. We have Dr.

10

David Boyd, Program Manager, SAFECOM, U.S. Department of

Homeland Security; Mr. John Muleta, Chief, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission;

Mr. Stephen Devine, patrol frequency coordinator, Communications

Division, Missouri State Highway Patrol General Headquarters;

and Mr. Glen Nash, Telecommunications Division, California Department of General Services.

Gentlemen, we do swear in our witnesses for this subcommittee.

Would you please stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TURNER. Note for the record that the witnesses responded in

the affirmative.

Before we proceed, we have a comment from our chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to say that

we really have an outstanding panel before us. As I was walking

in, I want to just emphasize the fact that we’re very fortunate to

have all five of you here. Obviously having the Government Accountability Office here, the GAO here to set the stage is helpful.

To have both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Communications Commission folks in the same room talking

together is vital.

I particularly want to say to Stephen Devine and Glen Nash, I

know as State officials, that you have become national experts on

this issue. You’ve devoted a number of years to trying to work this

out. So while you’re from Missouri and while you’re from California, you really are carrying the weight for all the States. We wanted to get the best and we were told the two of you are. So we thank

you both for being here.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Gentlemen, we’re going to ask, because of the size of the panel,

that each of you try to limit your comments to the 5 minutes that

are allocated. You can see the lights in front of you that will be

counting down for you. We will begin with Mr. Jenkins.

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM O. JENKINS, JR., DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; DAVID G. BOYD, DIRECTOR,

SAFECOM PROGRAM OFFICE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DIRECTORATE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY;

JOHN B. MULETA, ESQ., CHIEF, WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION; STEPHEN T. DEVINE, CHAIRPERSON, MISSOURI STATE

INTEROPERABILITY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, PATROL FREQUENCY COORDINATOR, COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL GENERAL HEADQUARTERS;

AND GLEN S. NASH, SENIOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEER, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL

SERVICES

Mr. JENKINS. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss our work

on wireless interoperable communications for first responders.

In November 2003 testimony before this subcommittee, we outlined three challenges in achieving interoperable communications

that remain the principal challenges today. They are, one, clearly

11

defining and identifying the problem; two, establishing performance goals, requirements and standards; and three, defining governmental roles in addressing the problem.

This morning I’d like to highlight some key points from our report being released today that focuses on these challenges and the

extent to which Federal grants support interoperable communications improvements. First, with regard to problem definition, the

current status of interoperable communications capabilities nationwide, including the scope and severity of any shortcomings, has not

yet been determined. To assess those capabilities, a set of requirements is needed that can be used to assess what is compared to

what should be.

In April 2004, SAFECOM issued a document designed to serve

as a set of requirements. SAFECOM expects to complete a baseline

assessment of current interoperable capabilities by July 2005, but

is still refining its methodology for developing that baseline.

Second, with regard to intergovernmental roles, Federal, State

and local governments all have important roles in assessing interoperability requirements, identifying gaps in the current ability to

meet those requirements and developing and implementing comprehensive plans for closing those gaps. The Federal Government

can provide the leadership, focus and long-term commitment needed. It can take leadership in developing a national architecture for

interoperability, a national data base for interoperable frequencies,

a national standard nomenclature for those frequencies and supporting State efforts to develop and implement Statewide interoperable communication plans.

SAFECOM was established as the Federal umbrella program for

coordinating all Federal initiatives and projects on public safety

interoperable communications. According to SAFECOM, there are

more than 100 Federal agencies and programs involved in public

safety issues. SAFECOM’s ability to provide the needed Federal

leadership and coordination has been hampered by its dependence

upon other Federal agencies for funding and cooperation. DHS has

recently created the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility to

be fully established by November 2004, and which will include

SAFECOM. But the office’s structure, funding and authority are

still being developed.

With broad input from local governments and first responders,

States can serve as the focal points for statewide interoperability

planning and implementation. The FCC has recognized the States’

importance by providing the States authority to administer the

interoperability channels within the 700 megahertz spectrum.

Some States are working to develop statewide plans, but there is

no established structure or funding for supporting such efforts. Nor

is there any guidance for States on what should be included in

such plans.

And of course, such plans would need to encompass cross-State

interoperability issues. New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati are

examples of metropolitan areas that cross State boundaries and

where cross-State communications must be encompassed in any regional or State interoperability plan.

Third, the fragmented Federal grant structure for first responders does not effectively support statewide interoperability planning.

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SAFECOM has developed recommended grant guidance for all Federal grants whose moneys could be used to improve interoperability. The guidance has been incorporated in part in some grants,

but SAFECOM cannot require that consistent guidance be included

in all Federal grants for first responders.

Moreover, the structure of some grants does not support longterm planning efforts, because for example, the grants do not require any interoperable communications plan prior to receiving

funds. Or, the grants may also include a 1 or 2 year performance

period that may encourage a focus on equipment purchases rather

than comprehensive planning to guide those purchases.

Finally, Federal and State governments lack a coordinated grant

review process to ensure that funds allocated to local governments

are used for communication projects that complement each other

and add to overall statewide and national interoperable capacity.

One result is that grants could be approved for bordering jurisdictions that propose conflicting interoperable solutions. We recognize

that SAFECOM has made progress in bringing leadership and

focus to the Federal Government’s interoperability efforts and

many State and local officials are working diligently to assess and

approve interoperable communications.

However, as we said last November, the fundamental barrier to

effectively addressing wireless interoperability problems has been

and remains the lack of effective, collaborative, interdisciplinary

and intergovernmental cooperation and planning. Our report includes recommendations to the Secretary of DHS and the Director

of OMB for enhancing Federal coordination and providing assistance and encouragement to States to establish statewide interoperable planning bodies that draw on the experience and perspectives

of local first responders.

That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman, and I’d be happy

to answer any questions you or other members of the committee

may have.

[NOTE.—The GAO report entitled, ‘‘Homeland Security, Federal

Leadership and Intergovernmental Cooperation Required to

Achieve First Responder Interoperable Communications,’’ may be

found in subcommittee files.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Dr. Boyd.

Dr. BOYD. Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chairman and

members of the committee for the invitation to speak to you today.

Whether fighting a fire or responding to a terrorist attack, emergency responders need coordination, communication and the ability

to share vital information and equipment among a wide variety of

public safety and security agencies. Unfortunately, the reality

today is that agencies too often cannot communicate by radio because their equipment is incompatible or the frequencies they are

assigned are different. They operate on 10 different frequency

bands and run communications systems which are often 30 years

old in an era with the technology life cycle of only 18 to 24 months.

Earlier this year, the Secretary of Homeland Security asked the

Directorate of Science and Technology within DHS to lead the planning and implementation of a program office to significantly improve the coordination and management of the Department’s interoperability programs for equipment and training as well as for

communications, so we can make it possible for firefighters, police

officers, and other emergency personnel to better communicate and

share equipment during a major disaster. This office will reduce

unnecessary duplication in programs and spending and assure consistency across Federal activities related to research and development, testing and evaluation standards, technical assistance, training and grant funding related to interoperability.

Since DHS assumed responsibility for SAFECOM 13 months ago,

5 principals have been put in place by SAFECOM to drive this new

office. First, emergency response providers and homeland security

practitioners who own, operate and maintain more than 90 percent

of the Nation’s wireless public safety infrastructure must be integrated into the program from its beginning to ensure the solutions

we create actually meet their needs.

Second, coordination of existing Federal programs is essential to

reduce unnecessary duplication of effort, permit the most efficient

use of Federal resources and allow us to leverage the investments

that many public safety agencies have already made. Third, properly designed non-proprietary open architecture standards are required to maximize competition across industry, encourage technology innovation, reduce costs and help to ensure compatibility

among public safety and Homeland Security agencies.

Fourth, compliance with the National Incident Management System, the National Response Plan and relevant Homeland Security

Presidential directives will provide a consistent, nationwide approach for agencies at all levels of government to work well together to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from major

incidents. And finally, outreach efforts will emphasize the need for

interoperability and provide tools for its implementation to practitioners and policymakers at all levels of government. We will model

the operations of this office after the successful SAFECOM program. As a public safety practitioner driven program, SAFECOM

is working with existing Federal communications initiatives and

key public safety stakeholders to address the need to develop better

technologies and processes for the cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary coordination of existing systems and future networks.

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SAFECOM developed the first national grant guidance already

incorporated into grant programs of the community oriented policing services, Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Office for Domestic Preparedness to direct Federal programs funding

public safety communications equipment in State and local agencies. In January of this year, the major associations representing

the police chiefs, fire chiefs, sheriffs, mayors, cities, counties and

public safety communications officers observed in a joint letter that

with the advent of SAFECOM, public safety, and State and local

governments finally have both a voice in public safety discussions

at the Federal level and confidence that the Federal Government

is coordinating its resources.

In April, SAFECOM published the first national statement of requirements for wireless public safety communications and interoperability which constitutes the first national definition of what

interoperability must accomplish. It will drive the development and

creation of interface standards that will satisfy public safety practitioner needs, offer industry a resource for understanding user

needs, guide the development of new technologies and serve as a

guide in developing SAFECOM research, development, test and

evaluation programs.

Within a month of its posting, over 5,000 copies of the statement

of requirements were downloaded, and manufacturers have begun

to show us how they were mapping the capabilities of their equipment, especially new designs, to these requirements. We established a Federal interagency coordination council to bring together

all the Federal players who provide grants to States and localities,

operate communications systems that need to be interoperable or

that have regulatory functions touching on interoperability. We’ve

engaged in discussions with the FCC and recently agreed to form

a task force to allow continuous interaction between the new interoperability office and FCC staff.

The Nation must continue to pursue the current, comprehensive

strategy that takes into account technical and cultural issues associated with improving communications and interoperability. In

doing so, it addresses research, development, testing and evaluation, procurement planning, spectrum management, standards,

training, and technical assistance. The approach recognizes the

challenges associated with incorporating legacy equipment and

practices, given the constantly changing nature of technology.

It is imperative that this new Office of Interoperability, with its

partners, work toward a world where lives and property are never

lost because public safety agencies are unable to communicate or

lack compatible equipment and training resources.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Boyd follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Muleta.

Mr. MULETA. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear

before you on behalf of FCC to discuss our work in facilitating

interoperability between the Nation’s public safety communication

systems.

As an initial matter, I commend your decision to request GAO

to study the critical issues related to public safety interoperability

and its importance to homeland security. Our staff at the FCC is

committed to participating in the initiatives of other interested

stakeholders designed to identify, assess and analyze interoperability successes and challenges. I look forward to hearing this

committee’s views regarding the findings and the recommendations

of the report.

The FCC’s experience working with public safety entities and

stakeholders is expansive and far-reaching. Today there are more

than 40,000 spectrum licenses designated for public safety systems

under the Communications Act. The FCC has a unique role of providing spectrum that State and local governments use as an integral part of these systems. Under the leadership of Chairman Powell, the Commission has intensified its efforts in this area and designated homeland security and public safety issues as one of the

Commission’s six core strategic objectives.

As September 11th vividly demonstrated, the ability of public

safety systems to communicate seamlessly at incident sites with

minimal onsite coordination is critical to saving lives and property.

The FCC is therefore committed to use all of its resources to promote and enhance the interoperability of the thousands of public

safety systems that make up the critical part of our Nation’s homeland security network.

Our experience indicates that a holistic approach is the best

method for fostering interoperability. Achieving interoperability requires focus on more than spectrum, technology and equipment

issues. It also requires a focus on the organizational and the personal coordination and communication necessary to make it available in the times of our greatest needs. For its part, the Commission directs its efforts toward providing additional spectrum for

public safety systems, nurturing technological developments enhancing interoperability, and providing its expertise and input to

interagency efforts such as SAFECOM to improve our homeland security.

It is important that despite all its efforts, there are limits to

what the FCC can do. The FCC is only one stakeholder in the process, and many of the challenges facing interoperability are a result

of the disparate governmental interests, local, State and Federal,

that individually operate portions of our national public safety system. Each of these interests has different capabilities in terms of

funding and technological sophistication, making it difficult to develop and deploy interoperability strategies uniformly throughout

the country.

Regardless of these problems, we at the FCC continue to advance

policies that enable all of the stakeholders to do their best in maintaining a strong and viable national public safety system.

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In terms of additional spectrum for public safety, the Commission currently has designated throughout the country approximately 97 megahertz of spectrum for public safety use. The Commission has also designated certain channels on these public safety

bands specifically for interoperability, and a public safety licensee

may use these designated frequencies only if it uses equipment

that permits inter-system interoperability. The frequencies that

have so-called use designations include 2.6 megahertz in the 700

megahertz band, 5 channels in the 800 megahertz band, 5 channels

in the 150 megahertz band, which is a VHF band, and 4 channels

in the 450 megahertz band, which is the UHF band.

In addition, and very importantly, starting next January the

Commission will require newly certified public safety mobile radio

units to have the capacity to transmit and receive on the nationwide public safety interoperability calling channel in the UHF and

VHF bands in which they operate.

In the last few years, the Commission has made two additional

spectrum allocations that illustrate the importance placed on ensuring public safety entities have additional interoperable spectrum

to carry out their critical missions. First, consistent with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the FCC identified and allocated 24

megahertz in the 700 megahertz band for public safety use. In particular, we also dedicated 2.6 megahertz of the spectrum for interoperability purposes.

Given the central role the States provide in managing emergency

communications and consistent also with the GAO’s findings, the

FCC also concluded that States are well suited for administering

the interoperability spectrum, and that State level administration

would promote safety of life and property through seamless and coordinated communications on the 700 megahertz interoperability

spectrum.

Second, the FCC designated 50 additional megahertz of spectrum

at 4.9 gigahertz for public safety users in response to requests from

public safety community for additional spectrum for broad band

data communications. The 4.9 gigahertz band also fosters interoperability by providing a new regulatory framework in which traditional public safety entities can pursue strategic relationships

with others, such as critical infrastructure entities, for the completion of their mission.

In addition to using its resources to identify additional spectrum,

the FCC has also provided innovative licensing methods, creative

planning methods that encourage better coordination, and advocated new technologies in order to promote the effective, interoperable use of public safety spectrum. Foremost, the Commission

adopted the regional planning approach spectrum management as

an alternative to the traditional first in the door approach to spectrum licensing and management in the public safety context.

The Commission has also developed new rules permitting two

types of spectrum sharing in order to promote interoperability.

First, the FCC’s rules specifically provide for shared use of radio

stations where public safety licensees may share their facilities on

a non-profit cost shared basis with other public safety organizations that use it as end users. This rule has now been expanded

to also include Federal Government users.

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A second type of sharing is unique to the 700 megahertz public

safety spectrum. In this spectrum band, State and local public safety licensees may construct and operate joint facilities with the Federal Government.

In terms of coordination, the FCC recognizes interagency coordination as an essential factor in developing effective interoperability. In 1999, the FCC organized a public safety National Coordination Committee as a Federal advisory committee, and asked it to

recommend technical and operational standards that provide for

interoperability in the 700 megahertz public safety band. The NCC,

which finished its charter last year, also worked with the Telecommunications Industry Association, an accredited open standards developer, to develop interoperability technical standards that

are open and non-proprietary, that are lowering costs and increasing the rate of adoption by public safety licensees.

The Commission staff also routinely confers and does outreach

with critical organizations, including the Association of Public Safety Commissions Office, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and

the International Association of Chiefs of Police, some of whose representatives are here today. Moreover, the staff is closely working

with the Department of Homeland Security SAFECOM, as we both

share the common goal of improving public safety communications

interoperability.

We are continuing our collaborative efforts to develop a strong

working relationship both formally and informally. Dr. Boyd and I

are also continuing to work together at a personal level to promote

and ensure effective coordination regarding homeland security and

public safety communications initiatives.

In addition to our regular meetings, we recently committed to establish an informal working group comprised of representatives of

our respective staffs to meet and share information on a regular

basis on issues of interoperability.

I’d like to thank you again for the opportunity to testify in front

of you on this important issue affecting our homeland security, and

I’ll be glad to answer any additional questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Muleta follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Devine.

Mr. DEVINE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to share

my thoughts today on this important topic.

In Missouri, I am involved in public safety communications, regional planning initiatives. I serve as the local APCO advisor, and

I chair the Missouri Statewide Interoperability Executive Committee.

The Missouri State Interoperability Executive Committee, with

its participation from across the State, has made great strides in

developing a locally integrated interoperability environment within

Missouri. My most important duty is working for the Highway Patrol, or actually outside of my official job description. My description as patrol frequency coordinator has gradually evolved into an

overall public safety communications resource for police, fire and

EMS and local government concerns in Missouri sponsored by the

State.

These duties identify me as the initial contact and resource for

all public safety communications issues, such as homeland security

grant process and interoperable communications issues, State

interoperability executive committee advocacy, regional planning,

promoting a dialog for operational and technical interoperability solutions, frequency coordination, FCC regulatory topics and other

issues, including updates, seminars and training.

Prior to my appointment to this position at the State level, no

one entity or person provided these services to Missouri’s public

safety community. This caused a lack of dialog that impaired each

community’s ability to serve its constituents. It is effective for

interoperable guidance and administration to come from the State

level of government in many instances, which has responsibilities

throughout the State, not just in portions of it.

Today I’d like to briefly discuss two particular communications

outreach and planning mechanisms beneficial to public safety at

the regional level, and how interaction with both the FCC and the

Department of Homeland Security can improve the overall interoperable potential in each State. I generally look toward the Department of Homeland security through Project SAFECOM to promote training, implementation, direction and the encouragement of

a consistent communications dialog at the local level and to the

FCC to cerate the enabling regulatory environment that will public

safety to best utilize its assigned resources and promote interoperability for its end users.

The first mechanism is the mandatory development and expansion of Statewide Interoperability Executive Committees. Within

the NCC committee, the FCC supported but did not mandate the

creation of an SIEC in each State. The NCC has since recommended that SIECs be mandated by the FCC and expanded to

include the administration of all interoperability spectrum, not just

that of 700 megahertz.

The expanded role of the mandated SIEC would allow the conclusions identified in the NCC to improve interoperability in other

public safety bands. NCC recommendations on SIEC expansion and

other interoperability issues are currently pending FCC action.

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In concern with SIEC development, the Federal Government,

with support from the Department of Homeland Security, shall provide the States spectrum management training. This is consistent

with conclusions reached in the recent MTIA report that indicates

a lack of spectrum planning resource at the State level. MTIA previously provided a spectrum management program to States, but it

is no longer offered. In many areas, receiving this training will initiate SIEC interoperable development in States and promote a dialog within States as well.

The second issue crucial to the furthering of interoperability is

the promotion of common national interoperable parameters and

conditions that enable continuity and positively impact communications within the first responder community. These recommendations are all included in the NCC recommendations under FCC

Docket No. 96–86. They are the development of statewide interoperability plans, the institution of standardized interoperability

channel nomenclature, the requirement of standardized technical

interoperable parameters and the utilization of standard incident

management or incident command systems.

The end result has public safety, after an implementation period,

using managed nationwide interoperability channels from all public

safety bands with common technical parameters and common channel names within a standardized operating environment. How

these channels are used in each State is then documented and

made available to other States and Federal users in the form of

State interoperability plans to promote an interoperability dialog

across the country which currently does not exist.

The establishment of Federal, State and local communications

planning and implementation dialog needs improvement. One

method would be to establish an interoperable dialog between the

Federal Government and State and local entities through memoranda of understanding. An MOU could be created between Federal

users in each State outlining acceptable parameters for use between the parties and then allowing the States to distribute the parameters to the local communities. The State would then disseminate the MOU information and its conditions to local users through

a new MOU. This method of sharing and interoperability for all

users is outside the FCC’s current rules in some spectrum, but it

will allow more effective interoperable resources to the local user.

States should also communicate with each other in the form of

biannually published State interoperability plans created by their

SIEC via Web access, such as Denver University’s CAPRAD data

base, which is being utilized as a planning tool within the 700

megahertz regional planning initiative.

I recommend continued Federal dialog and outreach between

DHS and planning groups, such as NIPSTICK and other State

SIEC groups to help regional and local users become more aware

of their needs and abilities regarding interoperability. At a time

when significant grant moneys are being distributed to the local

community, there is an opportunity for the Federal Government to

require the standardization of certain communications parameters

at the local level, in the implementation of interoperability resources as a condition to the grantor.

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The State of Missouri has used the Missouri SIEC as a resource

to review grant funding and make recommendations regarding applications. The result is local users better equipped to expand their

potential interoperability.

Public safety communications at the local level has no required,

structured, centralized management mechanism with a focus on

interoperability. A suggested method of improving discussion between Federal, State and local users would be for Federal entities

to use a State SIEC as a point of contact within each State. State

contacts could then communicate with each other to achieve regional needs.

In conclusion, interoperability in the public safety community

starts and ends at the local level. Currently, the freedom offered

to State and local agencies to implement new regulatory decisions

in any fashion they deem appropriate often inhibits the very interoperability we seek due to each agency’s interpretation of how

those regulatory decisions should be implemented. Pushing good,

positive rules into the local community, in the absence of followup,

structure and enforceable guidelines, can inhibit interoperable communications. Supporting the communications needs of local, county,

State and Federal users cannot be accomplished without an ongoing public safety interoperability dialog, resulting from a program

in each State.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m available for any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Devine follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Nash.

Mr. NASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Glen Nash. I

am a senior telecommunications engineer working for the State of

California, Department of General Services, where I have over 30

years experience in the design, installation and maintenance of

public safety communications systems.

I am a past president of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International, also known as APCO. I served as

the Chair of the Technology Subcommittee of the FCC’s Public

Safety National Coordination Committee, served on the joint FCC/

NTIA Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee, served on the

National Task Force on Interoperability, and have otherwise been

very active on matters related to interoperability between and

amongst public safety agencies. I am here today representing the

State of California and as a general spokesman for the public safety community.

Communications, and in particular radio communications, is a

vital tool used by public safety agencies to exercise command and

control of emergent events in the community. Those events range

in scale from routine traffic stops by police agencies and calls to

EMS agencies for medical assistance to large disasters such as the

wildland fires experienced each year in California and in other

States and the events our country experienced on September 11,

2001. Public safety radio is the mechanism by which operational

commanders and government officials gather information about the

event, deploy forces to respond to the event and direct the actions

of our Nation’s first responders. It also serves as a lifeline in protecting the safety of those first responders. Without effective communications, our Nation’s police, fire and EMS personnel cannot

perform their primary duties of protecting the American public’s

life and property.

While the term interoperability has received significant interest

since the events of September 11th, it is neither a new issue nor

something that the public safety community has not been addressing for many years. Things are far from perfect, and there certainly

are many ways that interoperability can be improved across the

country. But let us not ignore the successes.

In California, we have implemented mutual aid systems for

many years. These have included the California Law Enforcement

Mutual Aid Radio System, commonly called CLEMARS, in which

the State contributed and licensed radio channels statewide that

can be used by any law enforcement agency. All that a local agency

need do is sign a standardized agreement regarding use of those

channels, then program those channels into their mobile and portable radios. Upon doing so, they are able to talk with personnel

from virtually any other law enforcement agency that has similarly

joined its system.

This system has been in existence since the early 1960’s. And I

am proud to say most, if not all law enforcement agencies in California are participants. Is the CLEMARS system perfect? No, it

still suffers from technology problems related to the fact that the

public safety agencies are spread across multiple frequencies that

are mutually incompatible with one another and from training

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issues, both of which I will discuss in a moment. Also, it provides

only one channel in each major band, which obviously would be inadequate in anything resembling a very large event.

While we are working to resolve some of these limiting issues,

the solutions will require the expenditure of time, effort and public

tax dollars that are vitally needed in many other areas.

Another success story can be found in the fire community. As

many of you are aware, California suffers from several large

wildland fires each year. Besides the obvious devastation caused by

these fires, the effort required to fight these fires is tremendous.

A single agency may deploy a thousand or more firefighters along

with hundreds of pieces of apparatus, aircraft and logistical support from local, State and Federal agencies. The State, in conjunction with representatives of local fire agencies and representatives

of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, have

developed a communications plan known as FIRESCOPE that lays

out procedures for communicating with all these resources. The

plan calls for the integration of frequencies licensed to the State

and local agencies, along with frequencies controlled by the Federal

agencies, and the integration of both the frequencies and the equipment from the National Interagency Fire Center to create an overall communications system that supports the efforts directed toward controlling the wildland fire. While this system has enjoyed

great success, it too is being challenged by technological and training issues.

I would like to mention two other efforts underway in California

because they are being driven by local agencies coming together to

develop a communications plan that addresses their response to

events that occur within a more localized region. Those efforts are

the Los Angeles Tactical Communications Systems and the Bay

Area Tactical Communications System. In both of these efforts,

command personnel from the local agencies are coming together to

discuss the operational issues that must be resolved so that they

can work together as a team on an event; to catalog the capabilities

and limitations of their communications systems; and to develop

plans that can be readily implemented when the need arises.

These events, by the way, do not need to be large scale events.

They could include a pursuit that moves from one jurisdiction to

another or the automatic response of the nearest fire unit to a call

rather than the unit within whose jurisdiction the call originates.

If I were to characterize these events, I would have to say they can

happen at any time and any place, often without warning. They

start out as local response events and grow into something larger.

I mentioned before that there were technological and training

issues that limit public safety agencies and personnel at the State

and local levels from implementing the ideal solution. What are

some of those issues?

First and foremost is an issue related to the radio spectrum.

Local, State and Federal agencies operate across five major frequency bands. Each of these bands is mutually incompatible with

the others. In some cases, individual agencies were able to select

the band they used based upon operational advantages. But more

often than not, the frequency band was determined by what was

available at the time they built their system. In many regions of

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the country all the agencies have built their systems on frequencies

that come from the same frequency band, thus they have an inherent ability to create interoperability, assuming that channels can

be identified.

There is a major problem with the interoperability spectrum created in the 700 megahertz band. Don’t get me wrong, the 2.6 megahertz of spectrum is a tremendous asset that will be useful in the

future. But realize also that no radio currently in use by any public

safety agency in America is capable of operating on those interoperability channels.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Nash, your written statement will be entered

into the record. Do you have any other comments you want to sum

up at this point?

Mr. NASH. No, that’s fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nash follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you so much.

I want to go then to a series of rounds of 5 minutes of questions

from members of the committee. I’d like to start with a question

really to all of you that you can respond to.

In listening to the opportunities and also the definitions of the

problem and how you each have been, and the agencies have been

working this issue, there does appear to be a distinction between

the issue of equipment, what equipment needs to be put in place,

and processes or systems. We’ve heard the term legacy systems and

legacy practices.

And in part, you have an equipment issue and in part you have

a management issue. I’d like for you to talk about the management

issue aspects of that. You certainly have issues such as, Mr. Nash,

you mentioned the issues of culture of command and control. You

have structural, local, State and Federal. That seems almost to be

a greater impediment than the issues of just equipment.

So you’ve approached this issue. Could you talk a moment about

the issue of the practices, the management versus the equipment

aspect?

Mr. JENKINS. Well, I think that the equipment, from our perspective, follows the management. It’s not the lead issue. It’s the issue

of what, after you’ve decided what you need, after you’ve decided

what the gaps are, the equipment is the alternative solution.

You’re looking at what the alternatives are and how that equipment helps meet those particular requirements.

But the equipment itself is a means to an end. It’s not the end.

And the really important part is being able to establish what the

needs are and then what the gaps are. And those needs themselves

follow from a command incident structure defining who’s going to

be in charge, who needs to share what information with whom

under what circumstances in what kind of event. If that’s not laid

out, if that foundation is not laid out, the equipment issue is almost irrelevant. Because even if you have the right equipment, as

we’ve said, one of the reasons we’re suggesting a common nomenclature is, even if you have the right equipment, if I call it red

channel two and you call it purple dot channel five, we don’t realize

that we can talk to each other, because we use different names.

So these issues of being able to agree on what the nomenclature

is, everybody knows, having these data bases that people will

know, those are very important issues and they really are sort of

external, if you will, to the equipment itself. And the reason that

we’re suggesting that the States be the mechanism is exactly what

Mr. Devine said and others have said, is that to the extent to

which local governments have developed their own, and local first

responders developed their own systems, they’ve tended to develop

them for their own needs and not looked across jurisdictions,

looked on a regional basis. And the States are a mechanism that

allow you to do that, that allows you to look beyond individual jurisdiction and how does it fit together.

On a day to day basis, if I’m just responding to an automobile

accident or something, this may not be much of an issue. But if

you’re dealing with a much larger event, like a wildfire that goes

across multiple jurisdictions or a plane crash, or September 11th,

then these issues that cross jurisdictions become very important in

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being able to look at them and have a mechanism in place, an incident command structure for how we’re going to deal with that.

So in our view, the management issues are fundamental and

have to be addressed before you get to the equipment issues.

Mr. TURNER. Dr. Boyd.

Dr. BOYD. We would agree that the human factors, which includes more than just management issues, has to do with all the

cultural relationships at the local level; turf issues involving who’s

going to control the system, who gets to decide when you get to get

on a channel other issues, have to be a first and key component

of that. We think all of this needs to be approached through what

we call a governance approach.

And that governance approach needs to be one that begins at the

lowest level and works up, so that the localities who own, operate

and maintain the vast majority of the equipment and have the vast

majority of the money and the vast majority of the people have a

real incentive to be part of larger, county-wide, State-wide systems.

It has to be more than just going through the motions, just saying,

you can come in and come to a meeting with me. planners have to

listen to those users at the local level first. They’re the people who

are going to respond, they have most of the people—even when the

State level is considered. So you have to start with a structure that

builds from the bottom up in order to build a serious State-wide

plan that everybody really wants to sign onto. Mr. Tierney made a reference to an $18 billion figure mark that

came out a study some years ago by PSWAC. That study now is

very old, and it only looked at land mobile radio systems, that is,

the equipment that goes into a car and the equipment an officer

carries. It covered none of the infrastructure. It covered none of the

new towers, none of the new repeaters, none of the other things

that would need to go with it.

So one of the things you also have to understand is that another

part of the problem really is a funding issue, because the local communities are going to have to come up with the money. They have

to make a decision that they’re going to help pay for some of this,

which means that whatever strategy you develop has to be one that

takes into account legacy equipment. We can’t leave it out, even as

we try to move in a coordinated direction to get to modern systems,

because communities cannot afford to abandon these older systems.

So the human management piece is first and foremost. The technology piece then follows almost naturally. But you can’t lose track

of either of them. You can’t lose track of the fundamental costs of

decisions that may be made at a higher level that don’t meet the

immediate needs of the first responder in their locality. They have

to be part of however you design the national or the State structures.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Muleta.

Mr. MULETA. My colleagues here have explained the situation. I

think the FCC, we have since the late 1980’s been working on promoting interoperability while being cognizant of the fact that there

is a lot of sort of local involvement in trying to not overly mandate

a solution that might be over-inclusive or under-inclusive. So what

we’ve developed is a system in which we are asking States and the

representatives to participate through these, like the National CoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:49 Feb 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98118.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ordination Committee to develop interoperability in effect allowing

the local folks to opt into solutions that we’re providing.

So we think that’s the right approach, and I support the statements that all my colleagues here have made.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Devine.

Mr. DEVINE. I think planning can’t be underestimated. Often

people talk about a national interoperability plan, and indeed, we

have one. We have 50 individual plans that are stuck in somebody’s drawer some place that we don’t communicate across State

lines or even in many areas within those States.

In Missouri, I’ve got Kansas City and St. Louis who don’t agree

on much. I don’t really need for them to do the same thing, I just

need to identify with what each of them do that there is some commonality between them. They don’t necessarily have to do everything the same, there just has to be some continuity. I think that

dialog at that human level, as Dr. Boyd indicated, the planning

level, is what promotes that. They’re more than willing to share

what they’re doing. And the disparities are one thing. But to find

that common thread that when people from St. Louis have to go

to Kansas City, it’s probably a drastic incident and there will be

some commonality there.

So it’s all about local planning and getting them involved, not as

much changing what people do but finding out what they do, identifying it, laying it all out on the table and finding where the common threads are.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Nash.

Mr. NASH. I totally agree with those comments. We’ve often

talked about interoperability really as being a system of systems.

And we take the local systems, we integrate them together,

through a county-wide or State-wide overlay system that brings

them together. You can then integrate that into a nationwide system. I think one of the things we need to keep in mind is that we’re

not looking for the ability of the officer on the street to talk to the

firefighter on the end of the hose. That kind of communication usually is, quite frankly, in appropriate.

We do need to have a way for commanders to integrate and talk

amongst themselves. And just as a good example, again, of something that happened just recently, the funeral of President Reagan

in the Ventura area brought a lot of people and a lot of resource

requirements to a very small community. But they developed a

plan, they worked it out, they had some ideas in place. And it

wasn’t a matter that everybody talked directly with each other. But

they all had an agreement that they would communicate with each

other.

And there was a system of systems there with different agencies

operating on different systems, performing their part of the job and

doing it very effectively and for some very good reasons. For example, the Secret Service and the FBI would not want to be integrated directly with locals, for security reasons. So there are some

very valid reasons why we need to be thinking about a system of

systems that allow us to communicate at the levels at which it’s

appropriate to communicate.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you all for your testimony here.

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Dr. Boyd, I understand that within the Department of Homeland

Security now there is the Office of Interoperability and Coordination, but it seems tom e that the mission and the structure of it

may not be completely defined. There’s also SAFECOM, there’s the

Office of Domestic Preparedness and the Office of State and Local

Coordination and Preparedness. Of those groups, who’s in charge

of this interoperability aspect?

Dr. BOYD. The Secretary has indicated two things. One is, at the

executive level, that SAFECOM is in charge of accomplishing its

three fundamental missions, which are a national architecture, a

standards process and the coordination of Federal activities. So direction from OMB has gone in the passback to every agency to include that common grant guidance.

With the creation of the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility, the Secretary has made clear that interoperability management and interoperability standards will be the responsibility of

the new office. To that end, we work directly with the Office of Domestic Preparedness, with the State and local government coordination office and in fact, with all of the activities within the Department.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have a target date for completing your

work?

Dr. BOYD. Let me break that into two parts. Our target date for

when the office is fully operational is not later than the end of this

fiscal year. The reason I put you off on the other is that interoperability is something that’s going to take a very long time to accomplish correctly nationally. So I don’t want to provide an end date

for that. In fact, one of my favorite stories is to point out that when

I was first commissioned as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army—

and I won’t say how long ago that was, but it was quite a while—

the Department of Defense had really decided that DOD was going

to become interoperable. I retired from the U.S. Army after a full

career 12 years ago, and DOD is today almost interoperable. That’s

a single department, with four Federal agencies, funded essentially

by one committee. And still, more than 40 years later, they’re not

fully interoperable.

So this is going to take a while. We don’t intend to take 40 plus

years. We think we can do it a lot faster than that. But it’s not

going to happen in one or 2 or 3 years either.

Mr. TIERNEY. I wouldn’t expect it to happen as rapidly as that,

but I’m certainly discouraged to hear that it may take as long as

you think.

Let me ask you, your first date was that for the target date of

actually collecting the data? Do you have a date where you figure

that you’re going to get all the data you need to start working

with?

Dr. BOYD. We expect to release the RFP, the solicitation to bring

on board the research activity that will actually do the baseline research this month. So I would expect we would have an award before the end of this fiscal year. We’ll have the report back probably

mid to late fiscal year next, in 2005.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Jenkins, what does GAO think about that scenario and that process? Does that seem to be moving reasonably on

a good timeframe?

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Mr. JENKINS. It’s difficult for us to make an assessment of that.

Part of the reason is what Mr. Boyd said, the real functions of this

office, what its funding is going to be, what its authority is going

to be, what its structure are going to be is still being developed.

So whether or not they can do what Dr. Boyd says and do it within

a particular timeframe depends very much on how that office is

structured, what its authority is, what its funding is. Those are all

open questions at the moment.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Boyd, what do you think about that?

Dr. BOYD. That’s part of why I broke it into two parts: the when

we’ll have the office stood up rather than when we would complete

the mission. We had a meeting just this week with the Assistant

Secretary for Science and Technology so that we can lay those

dates out. We have put in a mark for 2006—we’re little late for the

2005 process, because the decision to create the office was made

later—so now we’re dependent for how much we’re going to be able

to do in 2005 on what happens in the final appropriation this year.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony.

Mr. SHAYS [resuming Chair]. First, if you gentlemen would like

to take your coats off, feel free. I’m serious.

What I’d like to do, Mr. Tierney, do you have other questions

you’d like to ask?

Mr. TIERNEY. No.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. What I’d like to do is ask the professional staff,

Grace Washbourne, to ask a few questions, then I have questions

of my own.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

Mr. Devine, you talked about the importance of having an understanding about the state of interoperability or the state of communications that are around you, whether it’s in your State or across

borders. I understand, Dr. Boyd, that DHS intends to assess the

state of interoperability by the year 2005 by means of a nationwide

survey. Can you tell us a little bit about what questions this survey

will contain and how does DHS plan to establish a baseline measure of first responder communications capabilities nationwide?

Dr. BOYD. Part of what the research will be responsible for is developing the specific questions to be asked in the fields. In general,

these are the kinds of things that we’re asking them to do as part

of this baseline. We want to know the degree to which they actually have interoperable equipment, if they actually have plans for

interoperability, the degree to which they have both agreements

with adjacent jurisdictions and the degree to which they’re actually

able to communicate with them. And we’re also going to ask them

about future funding plans, where they’re either putting together

plans they’re going to propose, or they’re putting together plans

which they actually knows will be funded.

This will probably be a scientific sample survey, but it won’t be

a written survey. I have a bias against written surveys because in

the Justice Department, we learned very early on that if you use

a written survey, it tends to go to the person the agency can spare

to fill the survey out, because they get lots of requests to complete

surveys.

So we’ll actually be putting teams on the ground, going to, looking at and helping agencies to identify what this model level of

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interoperability is. Because we want to be able to characterize

where the Nation is now so that we actually have a starting point

against which to measure our performance and against which we

can take the statement of requirements and figure out what the

real shortfalls are nationally, so when we come back to you we can

answer some of those questions that Congress is regularly asking

us, and that is, what is the scope of the problem and what is the

cost of fixing it. No one can reliably do that now. We will be able

reliably to make that kind of identification by the end of next year.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. I know a data base will probably be highly

technical. Is it the FCC or DHS that will be responsible for this

data base, and who will fund it and upgrade it and require that

people put information in it that’s helpful in their communities,

since it’s going to take long for us to get our act together on this?

Dr. BOYD. Well, there are two data bases that we’re concerned

about. One of them is the data base for the baseline. We will create

that data base. Out of it we intend them to create as well a set

of self assessment tools that localities can use to determine for

themselves what their interoperability gaps are. Then we intend to

try to create a voluntary reporting process, we have no authority

to require one, but to ask the States if when they’re able to collect

and use this information, they would also share it with us.

The other data base is the CAPRAD data base, which of course

is a frequency data base. We intend to continue to support that.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. Mr. Muleta, do you have a responsibility to

collect this data or are you interested in it?

Mr. MULETA. I think, we have a licensing data base in which as

we issue licenses we record the information, the sort of core information as to who the licensee is, whether or not they’re a public

safety agency. Because a lot of different rules and regulations are

triggered by whether, under the Telecommunications Act, based on

the definition of the licensee.

I think the underlying issues are data bases don’t go to actual

use and actual types of systems that are being used. We can sort

of guess fairly well if somebody’s signing up for 800 megahertz or

for 450 what kind of systems they’re using. But their technology

choices and things like that are not recorded, they’re not required

because we don’t go to regulating specific types of equipment. We

do, as you use certain channels, we do have that.

I think we also try and balance sort of mandatory reporting of

this, because we have an obligation not to be overly burdensome on

the localities that are using it. So we are using, like I said earlier,

the sort of planning and the State coordination committees to help

us develop and provide opt-in information to the extent people feel

this is important that they want to provide us with that education.

That’s the process we’ve been using in the past.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. Thank you. I have one more question for all

of you. With the recent advances in technology and the push from

the FCC to implement systems having greater spectral efficiency,

public safety agencies will be migrating to digital technologies. Mr.

Nash, in your written testimony you stated that most digital technologies currently being marketed are mutually incompatible and

therefore just designating channels or allocations for public safety

users is not enough, that for interoperability to occur, one and only

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one digital technology can be employed on each channel. And the

FCC must regulate technical rules for all public safety bands.

Can each one of you comment on Mr. Nash’s observation?

Dr. BOYD. We like the standards based approach, because we believe there needs to be some minimal level of communications capability. We would, however, encourage some caution in establishing

any kind of standards or rules that are too rigid, because we don’t

want to interfere with innovation.

The approach we likely would take is to try to ensure that as

people build new systems, that they ensure that they also build in

a capability to be interoperable with other disciplines and other jurisdictions. But we would not want to limit too much what the new

technologies, which may be dramatically improved, in the future if

we don’t cripple innovation.

But it’s conceivable that something we haven’t thought of might

also come along. So we wouldn’t want to limit that innovation, even

though we would want to make sure that they took into account

interoperability requirements as they put the systems in place.

Mr. MULETA. As I stated in my testimony, starting January 2005

we will require new systems that have interoperability built into

it. I think that the sort of bigger issue is something that, as part

of both the personal level coordination, there’s a need to do sort of

backward compatibility. Because a lot of local authorities have sort

of long term funding cycles. So you sort of get a bond issue and it

takes, it’s designed for a 10 year system. And we’re in an environment for which the technology for radio communications is rapidly

evolving. It’s down to about 3 to 5 year life cycles. So part of the

challenge is, if you mandate something, and say you have to move

in 5 years, you might leave a whole bunch of people behind, because they might not be in the right funding cycle to be able to

support these things.

So we have to deal with legacy systems. So the Commission has

in the past adopted transition mechanisms that have provided a

long lead times and we hope, through all of the initiatives that Dr.

Boyd and other folks, both at the State and local and Federal level

are doing, that we can provide positive incentives for people to

adopt technologies a lot faster. Our rules are really designed to get

that as an opt-in measure to get everybody to buy in and move

along as fast as possible.

But we are concerned not only about new technologies, but making sure that old technologies can work with new technologies.

Mr. DEVINE. The identification of the baseline and the interoperable quotient, as it were, is something that’s important. Different

areas, California has different needs than Missouri than Connecticut. It’s important that while we find the common thread we don’t

necessarily try to put users in those areas into boxes that aren’t

appropriate for them to be effective.

So the systems that are out there, funding, as Mr. Muleta indicated, you’ve got fire departments that generate revenue from bake

sales. You’ve got to keep in mind their funding mechanism, and if

they need to be elevated to a different interoperable baseline, then

they’ll need some assistance in funding. But every area has to be

looked at as its unique needs move on. And then of course look toward the future and whether technology will be available for them.

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Mr. NASH. It’s my comment, so I obviously support it. I think we

are faced here with this dilemma that we move to digital technology, it is very desirable to be able to migrate our systems with

the advance in technology. But we’re also faced with the reality of

government funding. And government funding at a local level,

where money is just not available. We often talk about a 10 year

replacement cycle. The reality, when you get down into the very

small communities, is yes, they have a 10 year replacement cycle,

they’re buying the equipment that the State just discarded after

being 10 years old. So their equipment is now 20, 25 years old.

When you’re dealing with those kinds of time lines, it’s critical

that you have a stable standard that you’re using for interoperability purposes. Because as we look to interoperability requirements and bringing together people from not only widely dispersed

geographic areas in a very large event, but we’re bringing together

people from many different levels of jurisdiction on a localized

basis.

If we look simply at a wildland fire, those fires often, they occur

in forest lands. The first people on the scene are often a volunteer

fire department of the people that live in that community. They are

then augmented by State and Federal forces that come with more

resources. But a large number of the people there are, they’re local

volunteers, they don’t have the money to be buying equipment

every 3 years.

So we do need that stable level of interoperability. We need to

set the standards, and we need to have a process that says yes,

we’re going to review those standards and periodically update

them. But we need to give serious thought to the impact that a

change in the standard is going to have on the broad community

that is using it.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize Congresswoman Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank the Chair. And also the gentlemen

at the table for providing us with what I feel is most needed information.

I represent Los Angeles, California. And Mr. Muleta, I am addressing my comments to you and I would like to extend an invitation to possibly all of you. Being a part of Pacific Rim, and the city

of Los Angeles, the largest city in our State, as Mr. Nash knows,

we have a lot of vulnerability. I hosted a meeting at the Culver

City city hall last year where we brought together the first responders. Culver City is in my district as well.

And we were talking about a radio and that will be used for

homeland security, for first responders independently of the others.

And I suggested to them that we look at our major organizations

beyond first responders, like school districts that roll out hundreds

of thousands of students per day, and being able to communicate

with enroute and being able to communicate with these school districts. Because if there is a biological attack, for instance, they certainly are in jeopardy, and I would think that those who meant to

do us harm would probably go to places where the most people congregate. We want to tie not only first responders together but other

large organizations.

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So Mr. Muleta, would you comment on what kinds of communication systems are already in place? We feel that we, being so far to

the west, we’re the last to receive our full funding for homeland security. They tell me it’s in the pipeline, I want it there at the destination. And we need to have a system. Our State could be divided

up into three States, Mr. Nash knows that well. And we’re at the

southern part of the State. But we are the major city, like San

Francisco is the major city in the midland part of the State.

So it’s absolutely critical that we focus on securing our communications. And I’ll just, in my comments for now, the fact that on

September 11 my office was at Carpet Point, which is near the airport, and we were evacuated. The plane of course never reached its

destination. But it was so sensitive, that area was so sensitive that

they evacuated every facility near the airport.

So who knows where and when the next attack will be? But I

know now we need to look at our communication systems, and I’d

like you to comment, please.

Mr. MULETA. Thank you. I spend a lot of time in California. I’ve

built a personal relationship with one of the public safety officials

in Los Angeles, and also with the folks in San Bernardino County

and Mr. Nash here as well. The issue that you talked about is, do

we have systems for dealing across other organizations that influence the public safety system, such as schools and other things.

The FCC is looking comprehensively at how all these systems

interact with each other. One of the key steps is not that there is

not a lack of spectrum. I believe most school systems have probably

a private wireless system that they use to communicate with their

buses and things like that.

I think the key step that’s actually needed is something that

we’ve all focused on here, which is sort of integrated planning, so

that if an incident takes place, I was in Pasadena in April and

there was an incident at a school. I was watching it on TV, in

which somebody had come in with a gun or something like that,

and the whole school system was shut down. So you had all the

worst possible kinds of things, parents trying to get their children,

schools under lockdown and nobody knowing what the incident

was. All you had were these terrible visual images.

I think yes, it’s necessary. So I think there are enough resources

and enough communication systems available, but what’s really

needed ultimately is a plan that says what do we do with our children if we’re under a lockdown situation, and how do we communicate that to all the commanders that need to take action, whether it’s fire department, it’s hazmat, it’s Federal, State, local, police,

fire, whatever it is.

So I do think there are enough resources, but the planning

around the kinds of incidents we have to worry about is, I think,

probably the most important ingredient. Part of what we have been

driving at the FCC is to force and sort of opt in all of the organizations that are involved to participate through the statewide planning. Because that’s where it’s got to start. You’ve got to have all

the regional groups understand, here are the kinds of threats,

here’s how we respond to them and here’s all our communication

facilities, such as the baseline that Dr. Boyd described. How do we

make it all work for us seamlessly the day we need it.

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So I believe that thinking is beginning to permeate across the

40,000 public safety agencies and all of the things we’ve talked

about today will encourage that and help that along.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you for that.

We are used to all kinds of natural disasters, we throw an earthquake, we have a fire going here and we have floods when it rains.

All these things we get used to, and we do a pretty good job in responding. The sheriff in L.A. County started this dedicated radio

band. And when we met last year, I suggested they bring other organizations. So I really need you to probably come out again and

let’s do it. I think a dedicated radio band, because you don’t have

a television always available, but you can have a transistor radio.

But a band dedicated, so nothing else comes on that band but responding and directing under homeland security.

It has already been started by our county sheriff, Sheriff Baca.

But I think we need to have other entities brought into it. And I

would be willing to hold a meeting, I did tell them I’d followup with

a meeting, bring some of the Feds in to talk about it, and I’d like

to invite you to take part in that and we’ll talk.

Mr. MULETA. I’d be happy to participate. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. In my community that I represent, the Fourth Congressional District in Connecticut, it’s near New York City, it’s 17

towns. A few years ago we had a tabletop exercise in Bridgeport,

Connecticut. The thing that was most stunning, it was a great tabletop exercise, lasted 2 days and had about 200 participants. It

was really amazing. We had a chemical explosion on an Amtrak

train in Bridgeport, and we had people who were first responders

become ill and some of them were theoretically killed.

But the thing that came out there was, the Department of

Health had no communication, forget whether it was interoperable.

And it was stunning, because they were a huge part of the challenge.

And we had another tabletop exercise in Stanford, Connecticut,

and there it was an explosion at the railroad station that was so

close to the railroad tracks, obviously, but also I–95, that both became inoperable, the transportation network. The thing that was

so stunning in that one was that the Department of Education

wasn’t even at the table. And the first thing that came up, in the

middle of the day, was all those workers who wanted to find their

kids. And there was no communication available to call the schools,

to direct and so on.

It pointed out the value of these tabletop exercises, both communities are a lot better off because they’ve gone through that. But

it also pointed out some major weaknesses.

The GAO, in their report, says lives of first responders and those

whom they are trying to assist can be lost when first responders

cannot communicate effectively as needed. So we’re obviously talking just about first responders, we’re talking about their mission.

It may fail.

And then GAO recommends that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security continue to develop a nationwide data

base and common terminology for public safety interoperability

communications channels, two, assess interoperability in specific

locations against defined requirements and, three, through Federal

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grant awards, encourage States to establish and support a statewide body to develop and implement detailed improvement, and

four, encourage that grant applicants be in compliance with statewide interoperability plans once they are developed. Those are just

pretty sensible recommendations.

I’m curious, and I want a candid answer, I know it would be honest, but do you think that if we had this hearing in 5 years that

we would be a long way from where we are today? Do you think

honestly, given the challenge and given the resources and given the

attention that we’ll be pretty close to where we’re at right now?

And 5 years from now, if you say it’s different, I want you to tell

me what will be different. I’m going to start with you, Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. JENKINS. I think in the absence of some changes that will

be not much further along than we are, and those two changes that

have to be made, or one is that there has to be some clear notion

of how all the participants are going to get together to address this

issue.

Mr. SHAYS. How the what get together?

Mr. JENKINS. How all the participants, Federal, State, local, first

responders get together to address this issue in a comprehensive,

coordinated way. There’s still not a real way to do that. There is

some progress that has been made, but there is still not a real way

to do that.

This Office of Interoperability and Compatibility can possibly——

Mr. SHAYS. OK, let’s go to the next one. Go to the next one.

That’s one. It will depend on how all the participants get together.

Mr. JENKINS. How all the participants get together, if they can

overcome these cultural barriers. The cultural barriers being that,

if it’s not my system, I don’t want to play, essentially. I want to

be, or if I can be in control, I want to play. But if somebody else

is in control in a particular incident, I don’t want to play.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, that’s one. What’s the other one?

Mr. JENKINS. The other one has to do with setting time lines,

target dates. There need to be very specific target dates for getting

certain tasks done. And that there has to be some sort of carrot

and stick approach in terms of accomplishing those tasks. That’s

one of the reasons we recommend that grant guidance is one mechanism in order to do that.

For example, right now it’s not possible really for people to not

be able to buy equipment because they don’t have a plan. So we

don’t recommend that you not get the money to buy equipment because you don’t have a plan. But there should be a point in the future where if you don’t have a plan, a clear, comprehensive plan,

then you shouldn’t get money to buy equipment.

Mr. SHAYS. Before I go to the others, who can get all the participants together? Whose shoulder does that rest on?

Mr. JENKINS. In terms of getting the people together, right now

it rests on the States and Federal Government together, I think.

Mr. SHAYS. I may not hear you well. But I want to know, is it

like everyone’s in charge so no one’s in charge? Does someone, if

a commission was looking back 5 years from now and they were

saying, well, nothing happened, would they be able to identify one

person at this table or one organization, say, it was your job to

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bring people together? Or is it just not defined? Is that part of the

problem?

Mr. JENKINS. I think it’s the latter. I don’t think it is defined. It

is not really defined who is in charge and what their authority is

to make it happen or to get people together. It’s a very amorphous

thing.

Mr. SHAYS. Is that a failure of our designing the Department of

Homeland Security? Because the Department of Homeland Security is clearly responsible.

Mr. JENKINS. I think it’s partly inherent in the structure of it.

We have some work ongoing now in terms of how the Department

is trying to look at and implement an all hazards approach in its

programs across the Department. But there are instances where

it’s difficult to say who’s in charge. When we were doing our work

on this job, the report that was issued today, there did seem to be

some disconnect between ODP and SAFECOM with regard to a

couple of projects, the ODP project in Kansas City and the

SAFECOM project in Virginia.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. JENKINS. Those two efforts did not seem to be coordinated.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m really happy I asked the question I asked, I’m

happy you gave me the answer you gave, if it’s right. Because it

depends, I don’t want to be here—I want to be here 5 years from

now. Let me say that again. I would like to be back. I would like

to be here 5 years from now, but I don’t want you all back here

5 years from now saying the same thing.

And so, Dr. Boyd. The question is, where will we be, will there

be much progress in the next 5 years, and if not, why not?

Dr. BOYD. I think the answer to that is that things are already

significantly different. Let me talk a little bit about my history

with interoperability. Back in 1993, while I was still in Justice, we

thought it would be useful based on what the public safety guys

were telling us to create an interoperable solution for law enforcement, just for law enforcement.

Mr. SHAYS. When was this?

Dr. BOYD. This was in 1993. And we decided we would try to do

it in a single county, just to see what was involved in doing it, to

see whether it was feasible to achieve interoperability in a practical

way because it had already been identified, a considerable time before that as a fairly serious issue.

We worked with the Navy the fire dispatch center, who provided

us a panel on the condition that we would provide the funding to

implement a fairly straightforward and fairly primitive switching

system which nevertheless, provided more interoperability than existed in the county. Implementing the technology took about 30

days. Getting the players in the county to work together—the local,

State and Federal players—took 2 years. That was just to get everybody to agree they would be part of it.

Now, let’s move forward—at that time, the money I had to use

to fund that was general money that we could scrape off other programs. Now, let’s move forward to now. DHS stood up, of course,

in March. We just took formal responsibility in S&T for SAFECOM

in July.

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Here’s how dramatically things have changed. At the direction of

the Secretary of Homeland Security, we have a program called

RAPIDCOM 9/30. What we’ve been asked to try to achieve, is a

command level incident based interoperability capability for emergencies, something the footprint of about a Twin Cities, and to be

able to do that by the end of this year in the 10 cities where the

intelligence tells us the threat is greatest. We’re not going to stop

there, but that’s where we’re going to try to be by the end of September.

Mr. SHAYS. You’re losing me a little bit. Where is this story

going?

Dr. BOYD. The point I want to make is now when we go to these

cities, we’re accepted immediately by all the players who are involved. All of them want to work with us to fix the problem. There

is, I think a much, much better understanding of the importance

of interoperability, and of course, we’ve had interoperability money

from Congress for the last 2 years for the first time. Before there

was never any money designated specifically for that.

So I think you’ve seen some dramatic changes. And in the Department, with the creation of the Office of Interoperability and

Compatibility, I think you’re looking for the first time at the development of a serious central office that’s going to be responsible for

pulling all of these things together.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I’m going to come back to you, but I want you

to respond to Mr. Jenkins’ comments about it will depend on if we

get all the participants together, and that we need to set targets

and dates. I want you to tell me who gets all the participants together.

Dr. BOYD. We frankly think that it’s in large measure our role

to bring together folks at the national level, at the Federal level,

and to provide a model to help the States actually bring people together in their States. In the State of Virginia, for example, we

were asked to come in and help to use the SAFECOM model to

bring folks in from the bottom up in the development of a model

State interoperability plan for Virginia. We’ll be publishing that report probably within the next month or so.

And we hope to use Virginia as a model that we can provide to

others, in particular to those States that don’t yet have statewide

interoperability plans, to help them understand——

Mr. SHAYS. It makes me a little uneasy though, as I think about

it, you were asked. I mean, it’s nice you were asked. But if you

weren’t asked, you wouldn’t have done it. And that’s what makes

me uneasy. And it may be you weren’t given the authority.

Dr. BOYD. We have no authority. We had to be asked in this

case, because we have no authority to cause any of these things to

happen.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Muleta.

Mr. MULETA. I’m a glass half full kind of guy. So I have to tell

you, actually, I think in 5 years at least at one level we will have

a lot of success, which would be on the planning level. I think there

is a wide level of recognition across all of the people that are involved that planning is integral and we have to do all the things

we’ve been talking about.

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I think the actual systems implementation is a very long cycle.

I don’t think in 5 years it would be fair to actually even measure

whether we’re successful or not. I think we can look at the highest

density population, New York City types of areas, and we can actually probably make some measurement, Kansas City, L.A. are all

places we can probably see some significant advances in terms of

systems implementation.

But on the planning level, I actually do think interoperability is

something that all of the public safety officials are always now

talking about, whether it’s e–911 interoperability or public safety

radio interoperability. It is a focus of all of our attention. And that

is, primarily because I think Congress is now focused on it and has

provided the funding, has provided the guidance.

Mr. SHAYS. I thought you had the capability to clear bands and

to make some extraordinarily significant decisions that would protect communication bands.

Mr. MULETA. I think we’re already putting those in place already. However, I don’t think we can compel any one individual

actor whether or not to use their system. So if they decide to use

it, yes, our rules, for example, 700 will provide that mechanism for

doing that.

Mr. SHAYS. Is that the be all and end all, or is that just an indication that you did something dramatic that was helpful and that

you could do more of that?

Mr. MULETA. I think we need to do more of that. All of the FCC

decisions are driving toward that. The focus on the States for planning purposes, the issue of moving to mandatory, I think one of the

core issues that Mr. Devine mentioned was should we make State

planning mandatory. It’s under our system of government, mandating that the States do something is something that I think requires

close, careful deliberation. I think Congress can also be helpful, like

I said, by providing funding and guidance. We will do what we’re

authorized to do under the Communications Act.

Mr. SHAYS. If we just see progress in terms of planning in 5

years, I’ll consider that a gigantic failure. It’s got to be more than

just planning in 5 years. And the glass if half full to you. But I

don’t think the glass would be half full. I think it would be one

quarter full.

Mr. MULETA. If I can respond to that. I have, there are 40,000

public safety agencies, different geographies. So I just want to

make sure that we set out reasonable targets for folks to achieve,

if we plan. I would say that’s 80 percent of the issue. For us, 80

percent of the issue comes to people not knowing what to do when

an incident happens.

Mr. SHAYS. But right now you have 40,000 agencies that are

planning and implementing. And if they’re just waiting for you to

plan, it just strikes me that they’re going to be implementing bad

things.

Mr. MULETA. I think we’re all in agreement, sir, that the planning today is uncoordinated. When I say planning in 5 years will

be the fact that everybody here on the table can actually hopefully

pull out and say, here’s the incident response and the systems that

we’re all using, the baseline is there and everybody can work off

of that. I think that’s a different type of planning than what’s done

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today. What’s done today is very local, doesn’t take into account all

the types of incidents that we have to worry about. I think if you

look 10 years back and say, what were we worried about, it would

be a very different set of things locally than what we do today.

That’s why I think in 5 years it will be a significant achievement

for us to get the planning right.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Devine and Mr. Nash, I’d like you

both to jump in. Where are we going to be in 5 years, as you see

it now, not trying to be optimistic or pessimistic, just realistic.

Mr. DEVINE. I’ll go first. To me, it’s directly proportional to the

mechanisms and the way we do business. If outreach and dialog

are increased and, such as Mr. Muleta indicated, the planning,

when a State has to create a plan, and invites the local people to

it, that’s far more receptive at the local level than somebody saying, you will do this. When it’s an inclusive environment and they

come and they want to participate in the creation of that plan, I

think all of a sudden you’re ahead of the game, because now people

want to contribute and they realize that in the contribution, there’s

a betterment and something for them in it.

So in that type of mandatory planning, I think all of a sudden

now you’ve got a dialog. Without the dialog, we will be at the same

place we are now in 5 years or worse. Any dialog and outreach is

an improvement. Then people begin to realize, you know, we have

these things in common, and the only thing that stopped us from

identifying that previously is because we never talked to each

other.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, let me just say to you that Senator Nunn said

that, I’m describing a little bit of progress here, is what, people are

starting to talk. But Senator Nunn said, a cheetah chasing a deer,

a deer running away from a cheetah may be running in the right

direction. The question is, how fast is it running and how fast is

the cheetah running. I’m not encouraged by what you’re telling me.

I want some concrete sense of where we are today versus where

will be, then which is more than just that we’re communicating

with each other. What that says to me is things are so pathetic

that gosh, if we just started to talk with each other we would be

a lot better off.

Mr. DEVINE. I think that’s the greatest impediment, frankly. The

lack of dialog is non-existent.

Mr. SHAYS. But the dialog is a process to get to something else.

And you’re telling me that we don’t even have the dialog.

Mr. DEVINE. Correct. What I’m saying is once the dialog is created, I think we’ll find that in many areas, they are not too far

part, the solutions aren’t that far away. But until it’s ever communicated, they’ll never realize that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Nash.

Mr. NASH. I would agree. I think what’s going on right now is

that there are several funding programs——

Mr. SHAYS. You would agree with what?

Mr. NASH. I don’t think things are going to be much better. In

some ways, I think they could be worse, because we think they’re

better. And that’s what concerns me, is that funding programs

today are very short cycled. People are throwing money at it.

They’re buying equipment based on some salesman’s promise that

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it’s going to make things better. Yet they really don’t understand

what the problem is, or how the solution fits the problem. But they

have a solution. So now they believe they have it taken care of.

And that’s what really concerns me.

I think we really do need some serious level planning, and we

need to have people sit down and whether it’s tabletop exercises or

what it is, that you sit down and work through some of these

things, and you figure out who do you need to talk to and why do

you need to be able to talk to them. Then you look at how can I

do that. It is not necessarily everybody together on one big radio

system. Because quite frankly, one big radio system, where

everybody’s trying to talk at once, you have no communication.

I mentioned that I was recently at a presentation about the communications aspect of President Reagan’s funeral. Something that

really caught my attention there was, the comment was made that

the different agencies came together and they agreed to communicate with each other. That was the essential point. It wasn’t a

matter of they were all on one radio system or that they could all

talk to each other. They agreed to communicate with each other.

And in some cases that meant they were in different rooms of a

building, they were in different trailers parked around that building, they were on different radio systems.

But it all came off very well because they had agreed to communicate with each other and expressed their needs, and asked each

other for help to do those things. That’s what’s critical. I really

think the planning aspect of it is very critical, and we need to support the planning aspect and get not just public safety officials, but

as you mentioned, when you deal with a big disaster, it goes beyond simply police, fire and EMS. You now have utilities involved,

you have the telephone companies, you have businesses, you have

the schools, you have the hospitals, you have health care officials,

you have disaster organizations. It gets huge very quickly.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I’m left with the fact that 5 years from now,

it’s not going to be all that different. And I’m a pretty optimistic

person. Because what I think is happening right now is, I think the

Department of Homeland Security has to exert authority almost

like the courts did a long, long time ago, and then have someone

say they don’t have the right to do it. They have to just, I think

when I voted for the Department of Homeland Security, I voted for

believing that we had this huge challenge and that the Department

needed to be there to get all these disparate players cooperating.

So that’s one view I have. The other view I have is the FCC’s

got to make some decisions. And every year they wait, it’s going to

be more costly. And that they are going to be tough decisions, and

they are going to be criticized by a lot of people. You’re going to

be criticized anyway.

So that’s kind of what I’m getting from this panel. I mean, I’ve

got a lot of important information, but that’s kind of what I’m left

with. And it tells me I think what our committee could, the full

committee could be recommending when we write a report.

Any comment? I’d like to get to the next panel. This room is

going to be used at 2 by another subcommittee. There’s lots more

we could ask. Is there anything that any of you would like to put

on the record? Mr. Devine.

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Mr. DEVINE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Muleta indicated earlier

that with regard to SIEC and mandating of that, in many States

there are planning committees. And to make sure, I think what he

had indicated was, the FCC is probably hesitant to require something of a State, whether it has something or not. But if it has

something currently existing, they are hesitant to duplicate that or

force that down upon the State in the form of a mandate.

So what it might require is some communication with the States

to say, you need one of these bodies. If you have one, it should be

inclusive, it should include locals, it shouldn’t be just State government. It should include everybody, all of the people who are going

to be responding, and maybe they can use that in a way to communicate to the State and say, if you have one, just make sure it does

these things, rather than forcing another entity on them or another

body.

Mr. SHAYS. I hear you. And I also am struck by the fact that

maybe the Department of Homeland Security, it gets criticized by

local communities. But maybe it needs to step in and acknowledge

what States are really doing a great job and are good models, and

which States are just simply dropping the ball.

Mr. DEVINE. We agree entirely. In fact, part of what we’re working to do now and as we’ve done with Virginia and other States,

South Dakota, some of the experiences out of California and Missouri, is to try to collect those best practices. Because they provide

a variety and enough range of flexibility among them that we think

a lot of States could take some really valuable lessons from these.

So a key part of what we’re trying to do is sort of bottle that information so we can share it with all the rest of the States.

As you’ve heard, a number of States not only don’t have a body

to coordinate this, they don’t have an SIEC, neither do they have

any other kind of a structure to help coordinate these things at the

State level.

Mr. SHAYS. And in the State of Connecticut, we don’t even have

counties to help organize.

Anybody else who would like to put something in the record? Mr.

Jenkins.

Mr. JENKINS. This point has been made in our report, but I think

it’s very important, and that is that to the extent that the grant

guidance itself and the way the Federal grants are structured actually encourages this sort of fragmented approach, and they do, the

way that they’re structured. They’re part of the problem, they’re

not part of the solution. And I think one of the things that needs

to be looked at is the way that grants are structured, the number,

the purposes that they can be used for and the accountability for

them.

Right now, the fragmented nature of Federal grant structure actually makes it difficult for localities or regions to come together

and use those different grants for a common purpose. That is something that needs to be addressed as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Devine.

Mr. DEVINE. Just one more quick note, with regard to Mr. Jenkins’ comment. In Missouri, we had an 18 county region wanting

to apply for communications equipment through the grant process

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as a region. And literally, the guidelines didn’t allow that. It required up to a county level.

So here you’re actually negating the cooperation and coordination

between these people by the regulations saying, no, you can’t apply

for that as one, as an 18 county entity. It has to be 18 separate

requests, which bleeds down into a whole bunch of other complicated matters. So it’s an interesting point.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we have our work cut out for us. We’re all people of good will here, I know. But ultimately, I’m struck, Dr. Boyd,

by the fact that somebody has to be in charge of this. And I will

tell you, I believe ultimately, most Members of Congress thought

it was the Department of Homeland Security that would help be

the basis of it. If you are so inclined to start to exert more authority on this, you’ll find a number of people, or at least get the Department to, that will say you’re doing your job.

Thank you all very, very much. We appreciate it a lot.

We have our second panel, which is Mr. Hanford Thomas, director of the New York Statewide Wireless Interoperability Network;

Mr. William Gardner, radio shop supervisor, Suffolk County, NY,

Police Headquarters; Mr. Glenn Corbett, Department of Public

Management, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University

of New York. We invite all three to stay standing and we will

swear you in.

Thank you very much. I’d just like to say, for the first panel and

second panel, we will be writing letters of questions that we didn’t

get to and it would be helpful to get a response. Thank you all.

Mr. Thomas, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Corbett, if you’d stay standing,

please. If there is anyone else that is joining you in that dialog, we

have Mr. Gardner in the middle.

Please raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all three witnesses have responded in the affirmative.

You all have been here for the first panel and that’s helpful, because you might want to make comments about that as well. Mr.

Thomas, we’ll go with you and then Mr. Gardner and then Mr.

Corbett. We welcome your comments, your statement will be on the

record if you want to just ad lib based on what you’ve heard already, feel free. It’s your choice.

Mr. Thomas.

STATEMENTS OF HANFORD C. THOMAS, DIRECTOR, STATEWIDE WIRELESS NETWORK PROJECT, NEW YORK STATE OFFICE FOR TECHNOLOGY; WILLIAM J. GARDNER, SUPERVISOR, SUFFOLK COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT, TECHNICAL SERVICES SECTION, SUFFOLK COUNTY, LONG ISLAND, NY; AND PROFESSOR GLENN P. CORBETT, JOHN JAY

COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Mr. THOMAS. Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I want to thank the subcommittee chair for the opportunity to testify today regarding the New York State statewide

wireless network, an integrated, statewide land mobile and radio

network for both State and local emergency first responders.

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My name is Hanford Thomas. I’m the Director of the Statewide

Wireless Project under the Office for Technology. I was appointed

in January 2000 and I’m responsible for the development and implementation of an integrated wireless land mobile radio network

with statewide coverage, which will provide a common communication platform for New York State’s public safety and public service

agencies.

The project is one of the largest technology projects ever undertaken in the State, and the first comprehensive upgrade of statewide radio communications in more than 30 years.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Thomas, I’m going to interrupt you. We have

Carolyn Maloney, who wanted to make sure that this panel was

going to be part of our hearing. Regretfully, the stock option goes

to the Floor and she has an amendment. I would like her to be able

to make a statement then I’ll come right back to you.

Mrs. MALONEY. I made an opening statement. I just want to

thank the chairman again and all of you for your work. I can’t

think of anything more important than having a communication

system that works. I just find it, I’m mystified that there hasn’t

been more of an effort focused on communications and to getting

the systems working.

I specifically asked for a panel on New York, because we still remain target No. 1, and we still have radios. The radios that didn’t

work on September 11 still do not work. And any insight that you

can give us on how we can move this forward will be greatly appreciated.

I am saddened that I can’t stay to hear your testimony. I have,

literally I have to debate on the Floor on something that I feel is

very important to the safety and soundness of our financial markets. So I regret that I have to leave. My staff assistant is here,

and I thank the chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. We’ll make sure they pay close attention. [Laughter.]

Thank you.

I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas, I wanted that to be on the record. Thank

you.

Mr. THOMAS. The State of New York is working on many fronts

involving enhanced operability. With the Canadian border to our

north and New York City in the south, we are working to develop

operational plans and technical capability to address all issues.

The Canadian border activity brings together New York State

Police, Federal agencies and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to

control border crossings and apprehend terrorists. These activities

required shared, secure radio communications. My office is engaged

in the development of a statewide wireless radio network. We are

near the end of an extensive procurement practice. We have selected a prime contractor for the proposed award and are currently

in final contract negotiations. SWN will be used by all State agencies and will also be available for use by other government entities,

including authorities, counties and other local government and

Federal agencies.

The systems that exist today do not provide adequate coverage

throughout the State. As a matter of fact, there are areas where

coverage is spotty or non-existent. It is currently possible in some

areas of the State that an emergency medical services team

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enroute to a medical facility with a critically ill patient might at

times be unable to communicate or a police officer would be unable

to relay vital information regarding a pursuit.

To address these issues which place both the public and the public safety community at risk, the Statewide Wireless Network specifications require that the network provide 90 percent coverage on

road and navigable waterways and 95 percent area coverage in

each county in order to eliminate any potential for lost communications. In addition, the Statewide Wireless Network requirements

call for 97 percent portable coverage in street in New York City.

Just as standard voice communications have given way to electronic transfer of data in the office environment, the need for data

transport to supplement voice and mobile communications is equally important. The purpose of interoperability is not whether government agencies can communicate, but whether or not they can

communicate in a way that enhances their ability to respond effectively in a public safety crisis. Today, that capability is severely

constrained by outmoded technology and disparate radio systems

operating on different frequency bands. Individual agencies in New

York State have a basic ability to communicate, but their ability

to communicate between agencies in real time over wide areas is

extremely limited.

The most robust form of interoperability today is achieved by

having all or a large number of agencies operating on the same or

similar communications networks. Interoperability is seamless with

no technology or geographic limitations. For those agencies whose

current communications systems require replacement, joining a

multi-agency shared network such as the Statewide Wireless Network is a cost effective way to achieve the highest level of interoperability. For those agencies that elect to maintain their own networks, the wireless network will offer them the option of linking

to the statewide network. This will allow those agencies to communicate to other public safety agencies which they otherwise would

not be able to do easily or on an expansive basis.

An important public policy goal is fostering State and local partnerships. The Statewide Wireless Network encourages voluntary

partnerships with local governments. The SWN advisory council

and other outreach activities have been and will continue to be

used to identify and address local government needs.

The Statewide Wireless Network will replace the outdated standalone State agency systems and will be used for day-to-day operations, as well as disaster and crisis situations. The new radio network will make it easier for all agencies to communicate in both

day-to-day and crisis situations and allow agency to agency communications where none exist today. New York State’s Statewide

Wireless Network will bring public safety communications in New

York State into the 21st century by bringing as many as 65,000

Federal, State and local government users under one modern communications network, and providing links into other existing Federal and local government communications and data networks.

SWN will facilitate full, seamless interoperability between the

Statewide Wireless Network participating agencies any time, any

place in New York State.

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New York State continues to seek use of public safety communication spectrum promised under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act

in the 700 megahertz band width as part of crucial homeland security planning. To gain useful access to the spectrum, two actions

must occur. First, the commercial television broadcasters must be

compelled to vacate the spectrum no later than the current 2006

deadlines. Second, the FCC must facilitate frequency harmonization with Canada.

To date, the FCC continues to license use of 700 megahertz public safety spectrum to low powered television stations in the New

York City area, even though the wireless network is already licensed to operate on these same frequencies. This will only create

additional obstacles which must be overcome as we build out the

statewide wireless network.

The FCC is currently negotiating with Industry Canada to harmonize use of 700 megahertz public safety band frequencies across

the U.S.-Canadian border. It is critical that these negotiations be

completed as soon as possible. At the same time, resolution of this

issue alone will not allow New York State public safety agencies access to the new spectrum. Commercial television broadcasters must

be compelled to vacate the spectrum again no later than the 2006

deadline.

The Office for Technology has supported the development of the

consensus plan and anxiously awaits the final details. The Statewide Wireless Network holds approximately 450 licenses that will

be affected by the plan, and is one of the major public safety license

holders in the country. As was accommodated within the FCC 700

megahertz plan, New York State would like the FCC to issue New

York State’s 800 megahertz frequency replacements in a block for

statewide use.

Large scale shared-use systems provide optimum efficiency in the

use of spectrum. Trunking systems provide better spectrum utilization. In addition, the system can be designed and built for the future, which presently includes benchmarks for mandatory conversion to narrow band channels. By participating in a single large

scale system, interoperability between the multiple agencies’ systems users is inherently optimized.

Interoperability systems to date have been constructed on a limited basis to meet minimal requirements. Systems that have been

implemented for mobile coverage will be inadequate for portable

coverage inside buildings. However, this limited deployment does

not ensure that units arriving from distant areas will be equipped

for operation on the implemented channels. In order to acquire the

significant quantities of equipment necessary to build large area

radio coverage on the FCC and NTIA designated interoperability

channels, funding support will be required.

That is the conclusion of my comments.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thomas follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Gardner.

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you for the opportunity to submit my testimony and to be present at this meeting. My name is William Gardner, and I’m a lifelong resident of Suffolk County, New York. I’m

the Supervisor of the Technical Services section of the Suffolk

County Police Department, 13th largest police department in the

country.

When I joined the Department in 1977, we had five single site

base stations for police communications, one shot of microwave

radio and a handful of computers. In the year 2004, today, the police communications system has a 22 channel, 800 megahertz trunk

system with 8,000 users on it, 179 different base stations at 13 different sites, we have a mobile data computer system with 700 computers in sector cars.

There is also a separate infrastructure that runs that mobile

data computer system using 13 UHF frequencies at 13 different

sites. In addition, we have a digital microwave radio system with

a 6,000 channel capacity at 17 different sites. Since 1993, Suffolk has invested more than $50 million in these

systems. Some of that money has come from COPS MORE grants.

We had a $15 million grant back in 1997 or 1998, but at that level

of investment, I was picking up on what the gentleman from New

York was saying, the State, I think we’re at odds a little bit about

building the statewide infrastructure. We’ve got $50 million invested in our system. Our neighbor, Nassau County, currently has

an RFP out on the street. They’re looking to spend $48 million to

build out their system. I think this problem of communication and

who’s in charge here, who’s running the show, gets to be problematic.

As our systems expanded, so did interoperability. The trunk system ties together, the Suffolk County trunk system ties together

Federal, State, county, town and village agencies. All 23 individual

police departments in our county have access to the trunk system.

Any of the 8,000 users can talk to any other user on that system.

For mass response situations, there are law enforcement only

talk groups, for county-wide disasters, we have county-wide talk

groups that allow all agencies access to any other agency. We also

have the capability of direct communications to fire rescue dispatch. This has all been done since 1995.

Radio communications with our neighbor, Nassau County and

New York City still are very much lacking. I’m sorry to say that

if a similar event to September 11 happened tomorrow, we would

be in exactly the same communications problem that we were almost 3 years ago. We have no radios that are compatible with the

system. Nassau County has only a handful of radios that are compatible with the system.

Only recently, we established a radio link to Nassau Police headquarters. But without some intermediate intervention, such as that

by a duty officer or watch commander, there is no direct radio communication between the departments. Similar circumstances exist

for communications with NYPD.

There are many reasons and causes for this lack of interoperability. Agencies build or are forced to build systems that they

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know cannot communicate with other agencies due to their own

frequency, monetary or operational constraints. To improve our

own interoperability in our area, the Suffolk police requested and

were granted a Federal grant through Congressman Steve Israel’s

office, specifically to assist with interoperability with NYPD and

Nassau County. The grant will allow the Suffolk police agencies to

utilize the NYMAC UHF channels. Those channels were granted to

us by the FCC.

This grant request was a direct result of the events of September

11 where some 200 police from Suffolk County traveled to New

York City, only to find a black hole of communications. The officers

were out of range of the Suffolk system and they could not talk to

any New York city officers, as we did not have any radios that

were compatible with their system.

Again, should a similar situation arise today, utilizing the grant

radios which, if I can just backtrack a bit, it took 2 years from

grant approval to grant procurement. We only got the final OK

from our own legislature last month in June. It took us 2 years

from start to finish to make that grant and get the money. And we

still don’t have the equipment on the street.

With the grant money, should a similar situation arise today, utilizing these grant radios, officers will now be able to communicate

directly to any of the five city boroughs and directly to New York

City police dispatch. The grant will also extend that UHF system

out into Nassau and Suffolk Counties. This will allow NYPD officers and NYPD personnel as they come out onto Long Island, they

will be able to utilize their own radios to talk on a system that we

will maintain. They can commenced to us and we can communicate

to them.

Finally, the grant will also enhance the coverage of the 800

megahertz national channels. We will extend the backbone of the

national channels to three new locations, one in Nassau and two

in Suffolk. NYPD will be provided with radio control stations which

will tie in directly to these national channels.

State participation, from my point of view, up to this point has

been minimal, almost non-existent in the metropolitan area. Now

it is pursuing a statewide wireless system intended to provide

connectivity throughout the State for certain State agencies and

local agencies and provide improved communication to other localities. Personally, I have reservations about this from a local perspective, but the general idea of improving interoperability and

interconnectivity is a worthwhile pursuit.

The FCC has been active locally through the efforts of Region 8

planning committee. By opening up the 800 megahertz spectrum,

much needed new spectrum became available in the region. However, that available spectrum was quickly used up and there are

no new frequencies available in the region on the 800 megahertz

spectrum.

Fire departments in Suffolk County, for example, cannot be accommodated without additional frequencies. This and similar problems led to the opening of they 700 megahertz spectrum and the

4.9 gig spectrum, and Region 8 is now setting rules and guidelines

for its use. We desperately need this new frequency spectrum.

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In my opinion, a major component of the FCC’s future involvement is the adoption of the consensus plan for rebanding users

within the 800 megahertz spectrum. Public Safety is a strong advocate of the consensus plan, which will separate the useable spectrums of commercial and public safety, greatly reduce interference,

add more frequencies to the public safety pool, and make the 800

and 700 megahertz spectrums a contiguous spread of public safety

only spectrum. I consider the consensus plan to be an extremely

critical component of improving communications period, as well as

having the capability of greatly improving future interoperability.

I just want to take 1 second and say personally, this is, while it’s

not totally analogous, I think back to what we did in Y2K. I hear

these stories about planning for 3 years and 5 years and 7 years,

and why we can’t do this and we can’t do that now. I know that

when we worked to solve what was really a Y2K problem, we came

together, we discussed issues at all levels of government. We had

meetings, conferences. We brought together State, local and Federal Governments, commercial agencies, public agencies. We exchanged ideas, discussed issues. We identified problems and solutions and we implemented them.

Much was made of the alleged scare tactics relative to Y2K when

nothing of major proportions happened. However, I am firmly convinced that nothing major happened because of the efforts at all

levels of government. We did such a great job that we overcame

those obstacles in our path. If we can apply the same dedication

and same level of cooperation, we can also overcome the obstacles

of full interoperability.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gardner follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Gardner.

Mr. Corbett.

Mr. CORBETT. Chairman Shays and members of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, my name is Glenn P. Corbett. I’m the Assistant

Professor of Fire Science at John Jay College in New York City. I

also serve as a captain in the Waldwick, New Jersey fire department and as technical editor of Fire Engineering magazine, a 127

year old fire service trade journal. I want to thank you for inviting

me to speak on this very important topic of public safety communications. I’d like to provide yo my observations of emergency communications in the New York City metropolitan area as well as

provide you with a set of general recommendations.

As has been noted before, effective communications are the life

blood of all emergency responses, determining the level of success

that is achieved. As has been well documented, gaps in communications had disastrous results at the World Trade Center on September 11. More than 100 firefighters likely never heard evacuation orders to leave the north tower, although police officers in the same

structure were able to escape. Lack of radio interoperability and

separate command structures in New York City’s fire department

and police department stood in the way of survival of these firefighters.

Nearly 3 years have passed since the disaster at the World Trade

Center, with some progress having been made in New York City

and the metropolitan region. We still have a very long way to go,

however. Significant monetary, technical, bureaucratic and political

hurdles are in our path. Since September 11, the NYPD and FDNY

have taken steps to integrate their communications at large scale

incidents. They have for example ensured that NYPD helicopters

will carry FDNY chiefs, who can then communicate to FDNY units

on the ground. They’ve also provided radio equipment to senior

level FDNY and NYPD officers who can communicate with each

other.

The FDNY itself has instituted the use of a post-radio system,

a portable signal amplifier that allows for better communications

in high rise structures. The unit is, however, currently limited to

command officer to command officer radio transmissions and must

be physically taken up in the building to a floor near the fire floor

or floor where the incident is taking place.

Utilization of this equipment replaces an extra middle man in

the communications chain. For example, orders to evacuate a building from the lobby command post must first go through the chief

officer on the fire floor and then be re-communicated to the firefighters themselves. Many consider this to be, this post radio to be

a temporary fix with a long term permanent solution still years

away.

These improvements still leave significant problems to overcome.

The FDNY still cannot communicate effectively in subway locales,

although plans are apparently underway to improve the situation.

This is the case despite the fact that the metropolitan transit authority has had subway communication system radio capabilities

for some time. It must be pointed out that poor communications are

not just a radio problem, but an issue involving radios, antennas,

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signal amplifiers, repeaters and the like. For example, achieving

proper communications in a tall high rise building may necessitate

the use of powerful radios in conjunction with a repeater installed

inside the building.

Who pays for this equipment is also at issue. While the radio is

typically a city purchase, the repeater may need to be purchased

and installed by the building owner.

Perhaps even more problematic is the issue of interoperability in

the context of New York City’s new city-wide incident command

system, or CIMS. This new response protocol in my opinion greatly

complicates response to chemical, biological and radiological terrorist attacks and what would be considered to be normal hazardous

materials releases. It places the NYPD in charge of assessment,

while placing FDNY in charge of life safety of such incidents. The

net result is that both the FDNY and NYPD have personnel operating in dangerous hot zones of the incident, both under separate

tactical level commanders and operating with different communications equipment.

Communications problems are woven throughout this New York

City battle of the badges, most recently surfacing during a mock

drill involving a subway attack. A firefighter was thrown to the

ground when he attempted to pass a police officer who was securing an area due to the presence of a suspected secondary explosive

device. It’s very possible that firefighter never understood that because it wasn’t communicated to him.

Communication challenges remain outside New York City as

well. Bergen County, where I serve as a fire captain, has 69 fire

departments and over 100 police and emergency medical service

agencies. This multiplicity of emergency response organizations obviously complicates communications. While nine mutual aid organizations have existed for decades to coordinate the 69 fire departments within Bergen County, radio frequency and channel standardization has been difficult at best. Although Bergen County has

established a common frequency for all fire apparatus, this single

one frequency would be quickly overloaded in any major disaster.

Only recently have portable radios been issued to coordinators of

these nine mutual aid groups to organize large scale responses.

These radios, however, only allow for communication between the

mutual aid coordinators and Bergen County’s Office of Emergency

Management. Interoperability between the multitude of agencies

within Bergen County at a large scale incident, especially at the

tactical level, remains an elusive need.

Considering that another major terrorist attack on the order of

September 11 in the New York City area would necessitate a region wide response involving multiple counties and possibly States,

the problems grow exponentially. Although some progress in terms

of integrating a multi-jurisdictional response has been made at the

State level in both New Jersey and New York, I do not believe that

the tangled communications snake pit has been straightened out.

While New York City and its metropolitan regions are unique in

many respects, many of the public safety communications issues

that I have identified are applicable across the country. I have prepared the following recommendations to address these concerns.

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The first one is that the Department of Homeland Security Office

of Interoperability and Compatibility must take a proactive role in

equipment purchases at the State and local levels. Secretary Ridge

recently announced the creation of this office within DHS. There is

a critical need for this entity to take a close look at how Federal

funds are being disbursed for acquisition of communications equipment at the State and local levels, specifically how these purchases

fit into the region wide big picture in each State.

This review could take place as part of DHS’ role in the review

of local emergency operations plans through the enactment of the

National Incident Management System protocol. DHS also must

play a more forceful role in encouraging interstate communication

agreements where appropriate.

The second idea is that States should be more forceful in assuring proper communications planning at the county and local levels.

The States play a crucial role in overcoming turf battles within the

borders. Too often, inter-jurisdictional jealousies lead to improper

response protocols with a corresponding communications gap.

A third idea would be that we need to ensure interoperability at

the responder tactical level. This is something I didn’t really hear

a lot about today. This is the issue where basically, we have a concern that although one jurisdiction can talk to another, we don’t

have the interoperability between jurisdictions at the lower levels,

the firefighters and police officers.

Not that police officers and firefighters have to talk together, but

if I would find myself, for example, in Stanford, Connecticut responding from Bergen County for whatever reason, I have no idea

what channels or radios or equipment would even be utilized there.

So we’ve got to make sure that this is not just a senior level State

or county-wide situation, that this is in fact something that goes

all the way down to the actual people where the rubber meets the

road, basically.

And the fourth suggestion I would have is that SAFECOM

should increase their efforts to ensure the equipment is interchangeable. Proprietary technology creates immense barriers to

purchases by State and local governments. Jurisdictions should not

find themselves locked into a particular vendor and equipment purchases should not be an impediment to interoperable communications.

That’s something also I didn’t hear a lot about today but I would

encourage it. That’s a very important thing, that whatever equipment is purchased needs to be interchangeable, that we can’t have

operating platforms, radio platforms that don’t match across jurisdictions.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I welcome

any questions that you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Corbett follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Professor Corbett, because of your honesty, I’d like to ask unanimous consent to bestow on Professor

Glenn Corbett an honorary doctorate in national security communication. Your degree will be your name plate that says Dr.

Corbett.

Mr. CORBETT. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. CORBETT. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s great to have this power. [Laughter.]

I want to ask you, Mr. Gardner, the communications that you

have with Nassau, should I in a sense visualize it like a red phone

that you pick up and the only way you can communicate with Nassau is through that red phone? Or do you have the capability just

integrated into your existing system and can Nassau communicate

with any of your players or just the one holding the phone?

Mr. GARDNER. Two parts. It starts out as a hot phone, basically.

It’s from duty officer to duty officer. It cannot be activated by anybody out in the field, it has to be requested of somebody at the duty

officer’s position, for instance, in Suffolk County they can get on a

talk group which is a radio channel dedicated specifically to talk

only to Nassau County duty officer. On the Nassau County end, the

Nassau County PD can then take one of their frequency bands,

highway band, precinct band, whatever they want, patch it onto

that talk group, patch it onto our system through the patch that

the duty officers just made, and they can talk to any player in Suffolk County.

Mr. SHAYS. So if the two gatekeepers choose to, almost anyone

in Suffolk can talk to anyone in Nassau?

Mr. GARDNER. Correct. But it must have that third party intervention. It must be activated on both ends. But those are both,

those are 7 day, 24 hours a day positions. There is always someone

there at both of those positions. And basically it’s not a phone, it’s

actually getting on a radio.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand.

Mr. GARDNER. It’s just basically me talking to you, when you

hear that radio, you know it’s me talking to you, pick it up, activate a patch on your end, and I do it on mine and we’re in business.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Would both of you comment about the SWN system, what New York is doing? What are its positives, what are its

negatives?

Mr. GARDNER. The hangups that I see is, and again, this is only

my personal opinion, and I’m not nearly as smart as I’d like to be,

we have invested locally, and I’m going to say Nassau and Suffolk

County, over $100 million if you include Nassau’s bid that just hit

the street last week. We have an extremely robust infrastructure

that talks for the length and breadth of Suffolk County. We have

Federal, State and local agencies on it. There are 8,000 radios already utilizing it.

I can’t see a statewide system coming in and replacing that and

doing anything better than we do. I don’t know the full extent of

what they’re going to do within Suffolk County, whether they just

want to talk or latch onto our system. But then if that’s the case,

then from a personal and taxpayer perspective, the amount of

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money that it’s going to cost to build this system statewide does not

benefit me to the amount of investment that I’m going to be getting

from Nassau, Suffolk and New York City to put into this project.

Mr. SHAYS. Professor Corbett.

Mr. CORBETT. I’m not knowledgeable enough, I think, to speak on

that issue as far as statewide communications within New York

State goes.

Mr. SHAYS. In New York City itself, can someone speak to this

issue, have they resolved how you communicate around buildings

and the obstructions that occur? Is that a solvable problem without

a lot of expense?

Mr. GARDNER. If I may, I’m a member of NYMAC, New York

Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee for the FCC. We work fairly well together with the city. The city doesn’t necessarily have coverage problems as much as they have the interoperability problems. Their coverage problems are not nearly as bad as they used

to be. Their system has gotten more robust, and robust to the point

where they can almost fully operate on portable radios throughout

the city. That’s always been their intention. And that is not nearly

as much a problem as the interoperability questions.

But we’ve even approached them, the FCC almost

serendipitously, the day before September 11, those licenses,

they’re called the INTEROP channels in New York City, they operate in the UHF range, because those are radios that New York City

already had. It was a question of the tail shaking the dog here.

We have an 800 megahertz system that they can’t talk to. We

can’t talk to their UHF system. Nassau couldn’t talk to us. But you

had this big 8,000 pound gorilla in New York City with almost

30,000 radios. You weren’t going to ask them to change and go to

the national system.

So what we did is through the efforts of the NYMAC committee

and the FCC, we got 6 INTEROP channels specifically for interoperability with and within New York City. Those channels are

dedicated to interoperability and are manned 24 hours a day by the

city.

Going back to one of the problems that was mentioned earlier,

these timeframes that it takes to get this things going, those frequencies had only been established for probably 7 or 8 days as

being legally usable within the city by the FCC. If they had been

done 6 months prior, maybe other radios could have been programmed in time to utilize them while we went into the city.

Maybe other city agencies could have used them. Maybe the fire

department could have used them.

We worked at that problem for almost 7 years to get it resolved.

It did ultimately get resolved, but it just takes so long to get these

things done.

Mr. SHAYS. Professor Corbett.

Mr. CORBETT. I would actually disagree with Mr. Gardner as far

as the city goes. The fire department, I don’t believe, is anywhere

near where they need to be as far as communications within the

subways.

Mr. GARDNER. I don’t want to argue, but we were talking police.

I didn’t mention fire.

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Mr. SHAYS. OK. I know, you were talking police. So let me just

say, so the police we think are OK but the fire we think we’ve got

a challenge?

Mr. CORBETT. Yes. And I think that was, the police have a much

more robust system within New York City. The fire department

doesn’t have near as much ability to communicate throughout the

city. That’s one of the major challenges that they have before them.

And again, this post radio was an attempt, I guess a temporary fix

to try to address that issue, at least in high rises. But they have

significant gaps.

To tell you the truth, I mean, I haven’t seen evidence that

they’ve actually identified where all these areas are within New

York City. I mean, the logical places, but I don’t know that they’ve

done a comprehensive effort to try and identify every square inch

of New York and where those problems are.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gardner, is there within Suffolk County the capability for fire and police and everyone to communicate with each

other?

Mr. GARDNER. Yes, we can. Not on an individual radio to radio

basis, but we can talk to fire dispatch and fire dispatch can communicate on all the police precinct channels and all the police county-wide channels.

Mr. SHAYS. Is that same gatekeeper model where——

Mr. GARDNER. No, sir. Those are established talk groups on the

radio system. They are usable without any level of intermediate action. They are in the radios and ready to go.

Mr. SHAYS. So the $50 million you’re talking about is just basically within the police department in Suffolk?

Mr. GARDNER. Not necessarily, sir. I am a member of the police

department, but we also manage, because of the money invested in

it, our system, as I said earlier. It takes in Federal agencies, State

agencies, county agencies, town and village agencies.

Mr. SHAYS. But it doesn’t include fire?

Mr. GARDNER. It doesn’t include any of the local fire departments, no. When the system originally was designed and requested,

there were not frequencies available to accommodate that extra

loading that the fire departments would have had on the system.

And in addition, because it had big brother and cultural issues that

were mentioned, they didn’t want to be part of it as a whole. They

actually opted out of it when we designed it.

Mr. SHAYS. Interesting. They opted out.

Mr. GARDNER. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. How long ago did they opt out? When was this decided?

Mr. GARDNER. Our system went on line in 1993.

Mr. SHAYS. So pre-September 11th?

Mr. GARDNER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Thomas.

Mr. THOMAS. The Statewide Wireless Network was never conceived as a, or scaled to replace all the radio systems in the State

of New York, one, just due to cost. It’s also in recognition of the

fact that a lot of municipalities, a lot of counties, public safety and

emergency first responders, agencies within that sphere have very

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good communications systems. They have, like Suffolk County, a

modern digital 800 megahertz radio system.

The purpose of the Statewide Wireless Network as it was initiated was to replace the State’s aging infrastructure for its public

safety and emergency first responder agencies, New York State Police, Department of Transportation, DAX, ENCON and several

other agencies.

Decisions were made at the front end that once this network was

put out, or as it was put out to cover the State agency needs, and

to upgrade our systems, that because it had a statewide footprint

with statewide coverage, it would also serve to enhance interoperability between agencies on a statewide basis, either through gateways with existing modern systems or for those agencies in other

parts of the State which unfortunately aren’t as sophisticated as

Suffolk County’s, and where there is not enough funding to adequately upgrade those systems that we would offer them the opportunity on a voluntary basis to partner with us in the wireless network and come onto the network and have us be their radio system. But again, on a voluntary basis.

Having this statewide footprint out there creates a radio umbrella for us on a statewide basis where we can, using a digital

trunked radio system, set up talk groups, set up interoperability

with any locality that needs it. It also provides us the opportunity

to foster those partners and produce efficiencies such as the ability

to coordinate upstate resources as we move them or downstate resources as we move State resources around the State, whether

we’re involved in a problem in the western part of the State in the

Niagara Frontier, the Adirondacks or the greater metropolitan New

York area.

We’ve also got several other things going currently with respect

to the city of New York. We have a partnering arrangement we’re

working on now with the MTA in New York City. I spoke earlier

about the use of the 700 megahertz frequencies that we’ve been allocated, and the need to have the DTB transition completed so that

we get better access to those frequencies. For the purposes of the

MTA, those are available right now, and we are working with the

MTA to assist with their radio system in the tunnels within New

York City, where we can in fact use those frequencies right now.

Mr. SHAYS. Professor Corbett, you don’t have any horse in this

race. How do you react to what Mr. Thomas said?

Mr. CORBETT. Well, I think he pointed out, made a very important point that this seems to be a system where they’re trying to

get coverage across the State as far as point to point goes. But

again, I go back to the issue of when it comes down to moving

groups of people, firefighters, police officers, what have you, I think

that’s where it drops off the map here. Because we’re still lacking,

again, at those lower levels, that interoperability to talk to each

other.

This is a system where, and there are other systems out there,

I know for example in New Jersey they’ve connected all the hospitals together. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can go

hospital to hospital, it doesn’t mean that we can take a group of

people in one area and talk to another. I think that’s my observation, I think that’s where we still lack a lot of capability basically.

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Mr. THOMAS. This is not a point to point radio system. This will

support any level of interoperability right down to individual and

users. It will support 65,000 users at any given time on a statewide

basis. It will support a quarter of a million pieces of equipment or

unique addresses. It is specifically designed to provide that level of

interoperability.

Mr. SHAYS. We’re not having a debate, so what’s interesting is

what you hear him say then he can clarify, then I’d love you to just

react to that. Does that make it a more valuable effort?

Mr. CORBETT. Yes, I mean, that certainly explains it a little better. I think I understand it a little better now. But again, this, and

correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the issue is not that the platform perhaps is there to communicate, but we actually don’t have

that communications capability. I mean, radio to radio, if one particular jurisdiction said, I want to be able to communicate from one

group of firefighters to another, is that possible. I think the system

exists, but I——

Mr. THOMAS. For one, the system doesn’t exist. But ultimately

yes, it will do what you’re talking about.

Mr. CORBETT. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. So before we close, give me an assessment of what

I should learn from this panel. Hearing what we learned from the

first panel, I’m kind of thinking that there may be some valuable

pieces of information that I may not be picking up. What do you

think this panel is sharing with the committee? In general, we

have a statewide system—I’ll tell you what I’m hearing. I’m hearing that we have a statewide system that will allow communities

to communicate, that you can provide specific communication between community A and community T, I’m making an assumption

that could mean fire or police communicating from place to place.

I’m hearing Mr. Gardner tell us that they’ve got a pretty robust

system in Suffolk, particularly as it relates to police, that it is totally modernized, digital and so within the county, they’ve got a

pretty good communication, and now they have an agreement with

Nassau to basically be able to tap in and vice versa. They can tap

into your good system and you can tap into their good system and

basically accomplish the same thing county by county. That’s what

I’m hearing.

What is the negative I’m hearing and what’s the positive? All

three of you jump in. Mr. Thomas, what isn’t happening that

should happen? And let me put it this way, all of you think about

it. Given what you heard in the first panel, where are we? Should

I say, this is pretty good, we’ve got a good statewide system in New

York, an important State, we’ve got an important county that’s got

a good system, we’re on our way? What should I be hearing?

Mr. THOMAS. Well, I would think, I would be encouraged at the

fact, the work that Suffolk County has already done. One thing

that needs to be said with respect to the wireless network, we have

had an advisory council for a very long time with different people

involved. In fact, we’ve had Suffolk County serving on the advisory

council, as we’ve produced the specifications for this system. A procurement of this size and magnitude, it’s actually unprecedented.

Mr. SHAYS. On a statewide basis?

Mr. THOMAS. On a statewide basis.

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Mr. SHAYS. What are we talking about in terms of dollars?

Mr. THOMAS. Estimates for the project run well over $1 billion.

Mr. SHAYS. Wow!

Mr. THOMAS. Now, having said that, I can’t give you any more

detail, because we’re currently in contract negotiations. What I’d

like to point out to public safety community here and in New York

State, is we have, because of the procurement, and the way procurements are structured, had a need to not discuss the technology

solutions that we are working on here that have been proposed by

the vendors and so on. Those will be available as we conclude our

negotiations and get this contract signed in the next few months.

It is our intent and I think it will serve a lot of people’s purposes

once we can get out there, tell them exactly what the technology

is, and they can avail themselves of this network to the extent that

it serves their best interests, or they don’t have to use it at all.

Mr. SHAYS. If you haven’t designed it well, or it will be outdated

shortly, that will be one heck of a billion dollar expenditure.

Mr. THOMAS. This has been a very long procurement, and it has

been very long because we’ve put an extensive amount of effort into

correcting every problem we’ve seen develop in other States to ensure that we have a system that is current, it is sophisticated with

respect to the technology, is spectrally efficient, but also that will

be refreshed over the term of this contract, so that we’re never

again in the position of having 20 year old technology and having

to do this type of upgrade again.

Mr. SHAYS. When we’ve tried to upgrade our computer, IT systems in the Federal Government, it is a continual process of taking

so long by the time we get it, it is an outdated system. It really

is kind of pathetic.

Any other reaction?

Mr. GARDNER. I would echo what we heard earlier from the earlier panel, too. The crying need is for frequencies. We have the

need for frequency and frequency spectrums. And to make those

spectrums able to talk to each other.

The 700 megahertz, for instance, right now, there is no equipment made that will operate in those frequency ranges. So we can

talk all we want about them and where they’re going to be and

who’s going to use them. But there is no equipment you can buy

today that will operate on those frequencies. We need to do things

today and we also know what we can do 2 or 3 or 4 years from

now.

We need the FCC, if at all possible, to speed up their decisions,

speed up their regulatory process. We can’t be waiting 3, 4, 5, 10

years, even when they make guidelines you’d like to be able to

budget out what can I do 3 years from now, what I can do 5 years

from now. If I don’t know that they’re going to make a decision, for

instance, at all, new radios must be digital by year whatever, I

can’t plan now to upgrade my system, to begin changing out my

system, to begin buying radios.

If I had to go home today and buy radios, I couldn’t because it

would be a capital project, I’d have to put it in next year, and the

earliest I would see the money would be 2006. So these processes

need to work hand in hand, and we need to get things in place as

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quickly as we can as far as planning goes and implement those

plans.

I also agree with what the panel I think earlier came up with

about there needs to be some leadership, either at a Federal level

or within the State. We have systems that can talk to each other

that don’t because they chose not to. We have systems that could

have talked to each other but frequencies weren’t available for

them to buy or purchase or use, whether it’s a commercial system

or another town or a local government.

Nassau County, again, our neighbor to our west, they’re putting almost $40 million into a UHF system. We are a trunked system.

They’re going to be trunked with UHF, we’re going to be trunked

800.

In a perfect world, every one of those radios should be able to

talk together with just a flick of a switch or a changing of the channel on a radio. Right now it’s not going to be able to be done.

I have another town to the east of us that built an 800 system

but chose not to build it onto ours. And I mean ours by Suffolk

County. God bless them, they can make their own decisions and do

whatever they want. But they made the deliberate decisions not to

be part of a bigger county-wide system and enjoy the benefits of

that. That would have allowed them access to the 8,000 radios on

our system. They can’t do that now, because they chose to build a

standalone system.

Same county, different towns, same State. There needs to be

somebody who can sit and say, you will do this, you should do this,

be sure to look at these options, have you looked at this, have you

thought of this. Too much money is being spent, too much money

in my opinion is being wasted.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody else want to make comments before we adjourn?

Mr. CORBETT. Yes. I would just echo what Mr. Gardner just said,

but I would mention that DHS has to take that active role, as you

mentioned earlier. That’s the critical point.

But it’s got to get all the way down to the local level. It can’t just

be the States. Because I don’t think the States have stepped up to

the plate, at least in New Jersey, I don’t believe we have, to address these issues. It’s got to get all the way down, and I think

there’s mechanisms that do that, as I mentioned earlier through

the NIMS enactment as well as through the funding that they provide. There’s a mechanism to ensure that this is taken care of.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you all very much. You’ve been a wonderful

panel and been very helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you.

With that, this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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Æ