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87–016 PDF 2003

HOW EFFECTIVELY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

ASSISTING STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

IN PREPARING FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL

OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 2, 2002

Serial No. 107–211

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

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

DOUG OSE, California

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

BONNIE HEALD, Deputy Staff Director

JUSTIN PAULHAMUS, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 2, 2002 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Reardon, James P., fire chief, Northbrook, IL; Raymond E. Seebald, Captain, U.S. Coast Guard, Port of Chicago, accompanied by Gail Kulish,

Commanding Officer, Atlantic Area Strike Team; Edward G. Buikema,

Regional Director, Region V, Federal Emergency Management Agency;

and JayEtta Hecker, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office .................................................................................. 60

Wilkinson, John D., chief, fire and life safety services, city of Evanston

Fire Department; Dennis L. Nilsson, commander, field operations division, Evanston Police Department; Patrick J. Daly, Assistant Special

Agent in Charge, Chicago Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation;

Quentin Young, M.D., chair, health and medicine policy research group,

Hyde Park Associates in Medicine; John R. Lumpkin, M.D., director,

Illinois Department of Public Health; Pamela S. Diaz, M.D., director,

emergency preparedness and infectious disease control, Chicago Department of Public Health, accompanied by John Wilhelm, M.D., commissioner, Chicago Department of Public Health; Arthur B. Schneider,

M.D., professor of medicine, chief of the endocrinology section, University of Illinois; and David A. Kraft, director, Nuclear Energy Information Service .................................................................................................... 6

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

Buikema, Edward G., Regional Director, Region V, Federal Emergency

Management Agency, prepared statement of ............................................. 77

Daly, Patrick J., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Chicago Division,

Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ........................... 10

Diaz, Pamela S., M.D., director, emergency preparedness and infectious

disease control, Chicago Department of Public Health, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 38

Hecker, JayEtta, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. General

Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................... 88

Kraft, David A., director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 49

Lumpkin, John R., M.D., director, Illinois Department of Public Health,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 24

Reardon, James P., fire chief, Northbrook, IL, prepared statement of ........ 64

Schneider, Arthur B., M.D., professor of medicine, chief of the endocrinology section, University of Illinois, prepared statement of ......................... 46

Seebald, Raymond E., Captain, U.S. Coast Guard, Port of Chicago, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 68

Young, Quentin, M.D., chair, health and medicine policy research group,

Hyde Park Associates in Medicine, prepared statement of ....................... 21

(1)

HOW EFFECTIVELY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASSISTING STATE AND LOCAL

GOVERNMENTS IN PREPARING FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK

TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Chicago, IL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room

2525, Dirksen Federal Building, 219 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL, Hon. Steve Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn, Schakowsky, Biggert and Kirk.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;

Bonnie Heald, deputy staff director; Justin Paulhamus, clerk; Chris

Barkley, staff assistant; Michael Sazonov, Sterling Bentley, Joe

DiSilvio, and Yigal Kerszenbaum, interns.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and

Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.

On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most devastating attacks ever committed on U.S. soil. Despite the damage and

enormous loss of life, the attacks failed to cripple this Nation. To

the contrary, Americans have never been more united in their fundamental belief in freedom and their willingness to protect that

freedom. The diabolical nature of those attacks and then the deadly

release of Anthrax sent a loud and clear message to all Americans:

We must be prepared for the unexpected. We must have the mechanisms in place to protect this Nation and this people from further

attempts to cause massive destruction.

The aftermath of September 11th clearly demonstrated the need

for adequate communications systems and rapid deployment of

well-trained emergency personnel. Yet, despite billions of dollars

which Congress has produced in spending on Federal emergency

programs, there remains serious doubts as to whether the Nation

is equipped to handle a massive chemical, biological or nuclear attack.

Today, the subcommittee will examine how effectively Federal,

State and local agencies are working together to prepare for such

emergencies. We want those who live in the great State of Illinois

2

and the good people of Chicago to know that they can rely on these

systems, should that need arise. And we hope it does not happen.

We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose valuable experience and insight will help the subcommittee better understand the

needs of these on the front lines. We want to hear about their capabilities and their challenges. And we want to know what the Federal Government can do to help. We welcome all of our witnesses

and look forward to their testimony.

We have with us today the ranking member for the minority, Ms.

Schakowsky. This is her turf and I yield to her for an opening

statement.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me express

my appreciation to you for scheduling this hearing in Chicago so

that we could get the local input that we so desperately need in

order to craft a plan that will help all of our cities. Homeland security really is dependent on hometown security and that is what we

want to focus on today.

My blackberry has been going off to announce—that is my email—an evacuation that is a drill in Washington right now of the

Rayburn Building, to make sure that everyone can get out there.

And there has been a lot of changes that we see every day in

Washington, DC. But today, we want to know how are we doing

here at home. The title of this hearing is ‘‘How effectively is the

Federal Government Assisting State and Local Governments in

Preparing for a Biological, Chemical or Nuclear Attack.’’

Without adequate and appropriate information, direction and resources flowing from the Federal Government to the local and

State authorities, Illinois, Chicago and other cities across the State

cannot be expected to contribute the resources necessary to prevent

and respond to a terrorist attack.

Today’s hearing is extremely timely. The FBI’s latest warning of

possible attacks over the Fourth of July holiday begs the question

‘‘Are we prepared?’’ Have Chicagoland authorities received the necessary information, cooperation and direction from the Federal

Government to guarantee public safety or, at the very least, to minimize public risk?

Has the State of Illinois been provided with what it needs from

the Federal Government to develop and implement a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan? And in turn, are those resources making it to the local law enforcement and emergency responders who are on the front lines in the effort to prevent and respond to terrorist threats?

We are here to find out the answers to those important questions. We are in Chicago today to hear the voices of local officials

and to make sure their message is heard in Washington, DC. A

successful blueprint for homeland security must begin with input

from those on the front line. They are the ones who will assure that

our 4th of July celebrations are safe and secure. They are the ones

who will respond first to any incident. We cannot secure our Nation

without their input and expertise.

Since September 11th, the way we conduct the business of national security in this country has changed. Today, our Federal,

State and local authorities are even more aware of potential

threats. Additional steps are being taken to protect a more alert

3

and concerned public. For most Americans, the thought of biological, chemical or nuclear terrorism is, for the first time, a real possibility. This is our new normal.

In Washington, we are deliberating over the President’s plan to

create a massive new Government agency, the Department of

Homeland Security. The full Government Reform Committee has

primary jurisdiction over the creation of that department and hearings are scheduled next week on Capitol Hill. At each step of the

way, we will continue to ask important questions, including whether this plan will make us safer. We must also determine whether

critical non-security functions of agencies like the Coast Guard and

FEMA and the INS will be compromised under that plan. We need

input from the local level to make sure that all of this is done

right.

Today, we are focusing on the possibility of chemical, biological

or nuclear terrorist attacks. Illinois has more nuclear power facilities than any other State. We need to be sure that adequate security and contingency plans are in place to deal with possible attacks on those facilities. The Federal Government has offered considerable resources and information to help with that effort and we

will need an assessment as to how the coordination process on that

front is progressing.

Biological terrorism has already occurred. The Anthrax attacks

that were delivered through the mail were a wake-up call for us

to check the state of our public health infrastructure.

As many of our witnesses today will explain, our public health

system would be challenged in responding to a large-scale disaster,

either natural or man-made. The capacity of our public and private

hospitals is strained each year during the flu season. A disaster

with 10,000 injuries that required hospitalization would be very

difficult for that system to handle.

The front line of response in most disasters is local government.

We see this again and again as hurricanes, tornadoes and heat

waves strike the cities. Local firefighters, police officers and emergency medical personnel are the first there to tend to those in need.

Any response we make now must keep in mind that fact. Training,

resources, and communications are key to disaster response and

should be the centerpiece of our investment. The majority of that

investment should be made at the local level.

Past experiences have shown that our public health system is

also on the front line. Once the disaster scene is surveyed, the injured are moved to hospitals. It is often the case that the hospital

capacity is reduced by the same disaster. We have taken our public

health system for granted for some time now and it has suffered

as a result. We must invest in personnel, planning and reserve capacity.

Again, I want to thank each of our witnesses for taking time

from their busy schedules to be with us today. I look forward to all

of your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And now I yield time for Ms. Biggert, a

neighbor in Naperville in Illinois and a very hard-working Member

of Congress. We thank you for being here.

4

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

start by welcoming you back to the ‘‘second city.’’ I also want to

thank you for inviting me to participate in this important hearing

on Federal, State and local efforts to prepare for a biological, chemical or nuclear attack. I am especially pleased to be here with my

Illinois delegation colleagues to get the local perspective on our

Federal counter-terrorism efforts and to find out how the Federal

Government can better serve our first responders.

I also want to take this opportunity to welcome a constituent of

mine, Captain Ray Seebald of the U.S. Coast Guard, Captain of the

Port of Chicago.

Believe it or not, the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office, Chicago, is not located in Chicago at all, it is headquartered in Burr

Ridge, in my landlocked district. Regardless of the location of the

offices, the Coast Guard has always played an important role along

Illinois’ waterways and in Lake Michigan, but since September

11th, the importance of that role has become even more obvious.

I was happy to work with Captain Seebald long before September

11th to help secure money for the Coast Guard to construct a new

Marine Safety station near Navy Pier. With the announcement of

funds for the new station, Chicago’s lakefront will become even

safer for recreation and commercial traffic, but first, we have to get

it built. Is that not right, Captain Seebald?

So I am looking forward also to the testimony of many local public health officials and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction requires our hospitals and clinics to plan for the unthinkable, which can be a daunting task. I hope our local public health

officials will share with us today what the Federal Government is

doing right and what it is not doing right to help them with this

task.

As a former member of this subcommittee, I remember when

Chairman Horn last visited Naperville back in 1999, to discuss the

ways the Federal Government could help States, municipalities and

even private industry prepare for the Y2K bug. As we all know,

Y2K came and went without incident. I believe catastrophe was

avoided because we spent so much time and energy planning and

preparing for it, and worrying always helps a little bit too.

I can only hope the more time and energy we put into planning

and preparing for future terrorist attacks, the more likely we are

to avoid another catastrophe like that of September 11th. Unfortunately, we will never know if our efforts have been truly successful

like we did on January 2000. We will not be able to breathe a sigh

of relief like we did on that New Year’s Day. The threat of terrorism is permanent and it is constant. But the memory of that fateful

September day seared in our minds and hearts will always motivate us to try any and everything possible to see that it never happens again.

In this process of planning, preparation and prevention, congressional hearings like this one in places other than Washington, DC,

are extremely helpful. This is especially true as the House prepares

to consider the President’s plan to establish a new Department of

Homeland Security to protect and defend our land and our way of

life.

5

It is our responsibility as Members of Congress, to ensure that

the Federal agencies continue to develop a national approach to

homeland security and that they have the resources to do so. That

is why we are going to provide funds in fiscal year 2003 to identify

and confront terrorist threats before they can get off the ground.

In many ways, September 11th was a wake-up call for our Nation and we have taken several steps to answer that call. At the

end of the day, we must take action to preserve the values that

make the United States the greatest and the most powerful country in history and I think that we are.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And we now are delighted to have Mr.

Kirk, a very hard-working member and he has given us a lot of legislation which we will be acting on in a few weeks on accounting

and fiscal problems to increase better things for the taxpayers, and

we are glad to have him here.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman

Schakowsky for having us. I also am very pleased that this is the

room that I was sworn into the Illinois Bar in, and it is good to

be back here.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that September 11th gave us fair warning that Chicagoland could be the next ground zero of a terrorist

attack. We are home to America’s tallest building, there are more

nuclear reactors in Illinois than any other State, we are home to

the busiest airport in the world and we are headquarters to most

Federal offices controlling affairs in the midwest. We need to do a

better job on homeland defense.

Just a few weeks ago, we gathered 27 police and fire departments in northeast Illinois with the White House Office of Home

Defense and I can say that first-responders there are looking forward to the $3.5 billion White House first responder initiative

when it kicks off next month. The report will be received by the

Congress later this month detailing how local police and fire can

apply for these funding streams.

The key, I believe, is communication. In the District of Columbia,

as September 11th unfolded, cell phones collapsed first, followed by

landlines. Some first responders were forced to use only four available frequencies in responding to the Pentagon fire. One system

survived, which is wireless e-mail, it handled the whole load, even

after a 100fold increase. I believe the Federal Government should

help upgrade first responder communications.

I am very happy that we are joined here by Chief Jay Reardon

of the Northbrook Fire Department, but he is also President of the

Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, which is northeastern Illinois’ mutual aid society between fire departments. It is this organization

which can help us respond anywhere from a 1 alarm to a 25 alarm

fire, which a weapon of mass destruction would certainly result in.

So I applaud you for holding this hearing and look forward to the

results. And thank you for coming to Chicago.

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman.

We, as you know, are an investigating committee and, therefore,

we do put witnesses under oath. And so if all the witnesses this

morning and the people that will support them would please stand

and raise your right hand.

6

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. Thank you. The clerk will note all, not just at the

table but the ones back of the table.

So we will start then with the panel one, we called it, and we

are trying to get both the State, the local, the Federal, all moving

along. We are going to start with Chief John D. Wilkinson, Fire

and Life Safety Services of the city of Evanston Fire Department.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, if I could just give a special

thanks to Chief Wilkinson. Because we are so concerned about

hometowns, I thought we would start with my hometown and so

both Chief Wilkinson and Commander Nilsson are from Evanston,

where I have lived for 30 years. Thank you for being here.

Mr. HORN. OK, Chief.

STATEMENTS OF JOHN D. WILKINSON, CHIEF, FIRE AND LIFE

SAFETY SERVICES, CITY OF EVANSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT;

DENNIS L. NILSSON, COMMANDER, FIELD OPERATIONS DIVISION, EVANSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT; PATRICK J. DALY,

ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, CHICAGO DIVISION,

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; QUENTIN YOUNG,

M.D., CHAIR, HEALTH AND MEDICINE POLICY RESEARCH

GROUP, HYDE PARK ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE; JOHN R.

LUMPKIN, M.D., DIRECTOR, ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH; PAMELA S. DIAZ, M.D., DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY

PREPAREDNESS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE CONTROL, CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH, ACCOMPANIED BY

JOHN WILHELM, M.D., COMMISSIONER, CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH; ARTHUR B. SCHNEIDER, M.D.,

PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, CHIEF OF THE ENDOCRINOLOGY

SECTION, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS; AND DAVID A. KRAFT,

DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR ENERGY INFORMATION SERVICE

Mr. WILKINSON. Well, in a more global sense, Chief Reardon will

be able to speak to the MABAS portion of it, but our experience at

the local, basic, first-responding level initially from September

11th, that period of time, was communication was coming from all

directions. We didn’t know for sure what to believe.

We do some high-risk analysis in our community, we have been

doing this for a long time and we have a structure in place. But

initially, I think we felt lonely, there was not a lot of other communication coming down to us. Since then, the Government has provided a lot of resources that go into our MABAS organizations and

our special teams and communications is definitely an issue, and

that communication problem is still there and it is inter-agency,

both from law enforcement to fire and from various law enforcement and various fire departments among themselves. Communication is a big one to overcome.

What I would like to see and what I am looking for and think

is coming down the road is preparedness at the actual first-responding level. Resources are available to us, we can get them, but

not as timely as if we had them right at the first very responding

level. We are using the same technologies and the same personnel

for situations that could be significantly different than they were

in the past. And I think it is going that way, but speeding that

7

process up in the funding so that we can get it to the local level

is going to make a difference for us.

We are still maintaining the same services we did before plus living under this threat. And the threat is not just an international

thing either. I mean we have had a number of incidents in the

United States that were not from any organized foreign soil. Oklahoma City was an example that taxed them completely. And that

is the incident that we are concerned about, the one that has no

warning. And that potential is out there.

So that is essentially where we are at. Things did not seem to

work quite as well, things have been I think a little bit slow coming, but they are coming, and we still have—at first responding

level, we need some better education, better training facilities.

There really are not too many of them out there and, of course, the

communication issue.

That is essentially a snapshot as I see it.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much. You are on the firing line

and we listen to people that are on the firing line.

The next presentation is Commander Dennis L. Nilsson, Field

Operations Division, Evanston Police Department.

Mr. NILSSON. Good morning.

On September 11th, we all had a very rude awakening, as everybody in this room knows. Myself, like everybody else, the first thing

we did was we went to a television to see what was going on. And

then as the realization began to settle in, we had to start looking

at our home, where we are, what did we have to do. We had to

start looking at our vulnerability immediately because in our community is looking at us, pubic safety, police and fire, to reassure

that safety and security is in fact in Evanston.

What we started to learn that morning was just what we did not

know and what we did to have available to us. Evanston is very

fortunate, we are a well-trained police and fire department, but we

realize that our equipment that we respond with is equipment that

we respond to suppress fire and our officers are trained to handle

crime on the street, crime in the home, not terrorism at the level

that we were seeing.

The community looked toward us, when they were coming home

that night, getting off the public transportation, they were actually

greeting our officers and thanking them for being there. But what

we found out was we had nobody to call at that time. We were beginning to pool our resources in our city, our health department

came together, our emergency operations center, police and fire and

we began to assess what we had available to us and what communications we had, how to keep the communications open amongst

ourselves so that we could provide these services to our community.

So we found out in retrospect and looking back, it has already

been said, communications is key.

Training, we are going to need more training. Our police officers

are trained as crime fighters and problem solvers, they are not

trained to handle terrorism. Our first responders, when they are

going to go in, they are going to go in as they go into any issue

that we go in on, a fire, a call for the police, they are going in there

pretty much without equipment. They are not going in with

hazmat suits, so they are very vulnerable. So we need to begin to

8

train our police officers on how to handle situations and be more

aware of these situations, because we have never experienced this.

In 32 years of law enforcement, it was my first experience feeling

that we really needed more training.

We need help at the community level to provide extended assistance in the event that a critical incident happens that goes beyond

the agency’s ability to sustain long-term commitment to the incident, something that goes beyond the agency’s ability to provide

adequate manpower and resources. We are well-equipped to handle

the day-to-day stuff, but what we are looking at now is we are looking at having to handle something that goes beyond the day-to-day

stuff and something that goes on to the extended. We need to bring

in other resources, we need to know what other resources are out

there and available to us and we need to begin to pool that information so we do not make blind phone calls like we were making

on September 11th, trying to contact our resources that we use on

a day-to-day basis, only to find out that they’ve already been overtaxed with calls from other agencies.

That is basically what we were faced with that morning.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you for telling us that tale.

The next presenter, I want to say that this subcommittee, over

the last few years, we have depended on those in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whether it was Y2K or whether it was fraud

or whatever. Patrick J. Daly is the Assistant Special Agent in

Charge, Chicago Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation. We

thank you for all the help you and your colleagues have given us.

Mr. DALY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the FBI’s efforts in northern Illinois to address

the problems of weapons of mass destruction or WMD.

The mission of the FBI’s counterterrorism program is to detect,

deter, prevent and swiftly respond to terrorist actions that threaten

the U.S. interests. Director Mueller identified the first priority of

the FBI as protecting the United States from terrorist attack.

The Chicago FBI covers the northern portion of the State of Illinois, it contains 18 counties and has more than 370 law enforcement agencies. Chicago FBI has approximately 434 special agents

and 282 support employees.

The FBI has developed an enhanced capacity to deal with acts

of terrorism. This has been accomplished by one, increasing number of FBI and task force personnel investigating terrorism; two,

establishing partnerships with law enforcement, first responders

and public health communities to combat WMD threats; and three,

improving information sharing with local, State and Federal agencies as well as with the private sector.

The Chicago FBI has been extremely active in the WMD program

area with an emphasis on strong liaison with State and local agencies. Since 1999, Chicago has participated in more than 200 field

and table-top exercises with area first responders. Chicago has one

of eight regional enhanced hazardous material response teams composed of FBI special agents trained to gather evidence in a contaminated crime scene. FBI bomb technicians are also hazmat

trained.

The Chicago Division participated in a terrorism threat assessment team consisting of the Chicago Police Department, Fire DeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87016.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
9

partment and Illinois State Police. This team identified key infrastructure components throughout the city of Chicago.

The Chicago Division recently began an information sharing

project with Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies

using the Law Enforcement Online [LEO], Web page. This information sharing project is a result of a task force on terrorism initiated

by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Chicago FBI

after the September 11th attacks.

The Chicago Terrorist Task Force was founded in 1981 by members of the Chicago Police Department, FBI, Secret Service and Illinois State Police. Today, member agencies include the FBI, Chicago

Police, Illinois State Police, Secret Service, ATF, INS, Customs,

IRS, Postal Inspectors and State Department Diplomatic Security.

Other agencies providing close cooperation with the Chicago Terrorist Task Force include the CIA, FEMA, Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Chicago Fire Department, Department of Health

and Human Services, Illinois Department of Public Health, Department of Energy and various local police and fire departments.

The Chicago Division enjoys an excellent relationship with the

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The

present U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, is recognized for his extensive knowledge of terrorist groups and his ability to successfully

prosecute them.

Life has changed for all of us in the United States as well as

throughout the world. Major acts of terrorism are no longer confined to Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America. The terrorists have struck hard within our borders and have brought the

violence to our neighborhoods, to our citizens, to our families, to all

of us. We are threatened by a man in a cave thousands of miles

away and by a former Chicago resident named Padilla, who returned to his city and this Nation seeking to carry out a plan of

mass destruction. We are improving our WMD capabilities, our intelligence sharing, our willingness to dedicate personnel and resources to this fight. We, the FBI, the Chicago Terrorist Task

Force, the public safety community, the public health community,

the military, the intelligence agencies and our allied countries are

joined in a battle that may last years, but the alternative of not

entering the fight is unacceptable.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And we know you have other appointments and we thank you for giving us that statement.

Our next presenter is Dr. Quentin Young, chair, Health and

Medicine Policy Research Group, Hyde Park Associates in Medicine.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Daly follows:]

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Dr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Again, Mr. Chairman, if I could—also past

President of the American Public Health Association, former medical director, Cook County Hospital and my personal physician.

[Laughter.]

Dr. YOUNG. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am really honored to be invited to present to you.

In contrast to all the other members of this panel, I am not a

full time professional devoted to defending us in all the ways they

are. I rather am a physician celebrating 50 years of practice in my

community, whose life has been punctuated by a number of exciting experiences in public health ranging from chairing the large department of medicine at our big public hospital here to service in

the Public Health Service when I was much younger. My remarks,

Mr. Chairman, will be rather global in an effort to talk about public health policy rather than what I am not qualified to talk about,

the delivery of services as my colleagues have been doing.

To proceed, the Federal Government must be the mainstay of

public health, including the threats from terrorist sources. As such,

it is failing to meet its responsibilities in a manner commensurate

to the challenge.

The inadequacies and weaknesses of our U.S. public health system spring from long-term neglect or policies that do not enhance

systemic strengths.

Our national, State and local health agencies are underfunded

and poorly coordinated. Elementary modern capabilities in computer information systems, round the clock personnel in place, laboratories of a uniform high quality and speedy accessibility, a full

public health professional work force—are all deficient in various

degrees across our country and our State.

These deficiencies are the result of decades of inattention and

misdirection of resources, stemming from the post-World War II

focus on the perceived terror of that day—bacteriological warfare.

Overall our policy decisions produced no practical protections

against this biological threat. We did buildup stockpiles of our own,

only to destroy them during President Nixon’s watch, because they

could not be used by us. In the latter half of the 20th century, our

chronic poor funding and narrow policies for public health resulted

in our current plight. And let me underscore that by saying I am

fearful that in moving, as we must, to defend ourselves against this

new unprecedented threat, that we may abandon principles that

can really protect us. And I will go forward with that.

In addition to prompt upgrading of our public health capabilities—and I am aware that much of the legislation you have before

you and have already passed attempts to do just that—we have

several other tasks to achieve optimum protection for our people:

We need a health care system that is financed by an insurance

benefit that is universal and managed by the government in simplest terms, Medicare for all. It may not seem responsive to terrorist threats to call for universal health care, but as a practicing physician for half a century, I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that

it is crucial to our defenses against an unexpected catastrophe.

We need to untether the directors of our public health agencies

from the present arrangement of subservience to the political inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87016.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cumbent at the Federal, State or local health department level.

That is the way we do it in this country. My distinguished colleague worked for Governor Ryan and the Surgeon General for the

President. Now it is logical, but we need to have more freedom for

these crucial professional jobs. It would mean a change in the way

we have done things over the years, but unless we liberate—I use

the word advisedly—our health system from that political control,

which is not necessarily negative or obnoxious, but is always subordinate to other considerations, we can see at moments like this how

contrary that can be. And I suggest a separate board like the SEC

or the FTC could facilitate achievement long term of public health

objectives at all levels in a coordinated fashion, and not be immediately subordinated to the political realities of the moment, which

are always important.

Finally, we should foster the development of a supportive citizen

constituency advocating for a strong public health system. And if

I may, Mr. Chairman, that is the essence of my learning over the

decades. We do not have a public health constituency in the way

we have constituencies for every other kind of issue in this country.

We have quasi-public health constituencies. The American Lung,

the American Heart and American Cancer support the control of

the tobacco scourge—public health issue if ever there was one—but

I have to return to the generalization that we do not have in place

on a regular basis people who can petition Congress in behalf of

the public health system in an orderly fashion. We have, in a word,

made our public health system the Cinderella of our health system.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And we now go to the Illinois Department

of Public Health, its director is Dr. John R. Lumpkin. We are glad

to have you here.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Young follows:]

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Dr. LUMPKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee for the opportunity to be here and speak. Today—actually

just yesterday—our agency celebrated our 125th anniversary as an

agency. Our agency was created in 1877 in response to a threat of

yellow fever. Now, just as then, we are addressing concerns; this

time it is man-made epidemics.

In 1988, the Institute of Medicine Committee on Public Health

stated that the current state of our ability to effect public health

action is cause for national concern and for the development of a

plan of action for the needed improvements. In the committee’s

view, we have slackened our public health vigilance nationally and

the health of the public is unnecessarily threatened as a result.

That report was issued and basically went on the shelf. It was not

until the events of September 11th and the following October 4 disclosure of an outbreak of anthrax that we as a Nation began to look

and identify that maybe we have major problems in our public

health system, which the Institute of Medicine Committee noted

some 14 years earlier. As a result, we have had major increases in funding. The $1.1

billion allocated for the public health system is a dramatic shot in

the arm, one of the largest increases in public health funding that

we have seen, at least in my lifetime and I think perhaps in the

history of our public health system.

We have taken this task very seriously and we have moved

ahead. This funding is crucial to rebuild an eroding infrastructure.

It is an infrastructure that has to be rebuilt not only in large areas

like Chicago and the metropolitan areas but throughout the State

where public health is so important.

With this funding at the State level, we are establishing 12 public health regional response planning areas; we are hiring 23 emergency response coordinators for local emergency response planning

areas; we are establishing local health department administrative

grants for preparedness; we are developing an Illinois National

Electronic Disease Surveillance System; we’re hiring 22 regional

epidemiologists to enhance local regional surveillance capacity at

the local level; we are increasing the capacity of three State laboratories by hiring staff and upgrading laboratory systems; we are developing local health department capacity to support the State laboratories and to develop surge capacity; we are establishing a hospital health alert network so that we can communicate in a much

faster way with hospitals the way we have already established with

local health departments; we are enhancing 24/7 flow of critical

health information to public health partners throughout the State

at the local level; we are establishing a local health department

training and education grant to build capacity; we are facilitating

the development of a model regional hospital preparedness plan

and providing direct funding to hospitals to implement these; and

we are establishing core preparedness standards for the threetiered facility classification system.

All these are important enhancements that we are doing with

the Federal funding and we could not do them without it.

You have before you a little document that I found as we were

preparing for our history, the 125th anniversary, and what it is is

a document from a page of one of the publications we had in the

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1920’s and what it says is ‘‘A full time medical health officer prevents disease.’’ The interesting thing is that, when you look at this,

how he is communicating with his local people by phone is pretty

much the way we do things today—telephone and pieces of paper.

You see before you this blue card, it is how we get reports about

infectious diseases in this State. We are using 1920’s technology.

With this current round of Federal funding, we are going to be

able to move into an electronic system—the first phase will be implemented by October this year—because of the influx of new funding.

Our public health system has undergone a period of neglect. I

think it is very important to note that, just as someone who is exposed to anthrax is not treated with just one dose of medication but

is treated for a number of days, we cannot treat our public health

system with a single infusion of funds. We have to make a longterm commitment to continue to fund the enhancements, which we

believe in this State we are using wisely to create a system that

will not only help if there is an attack, but every single day will

help.

The enhancements we did in the laboratory enabled us to better

respond to West Nile disease. If we are going to rebuild our public

health system, we will reap the benefits even if there is no further

attack, which unfortunately, we do not believe is the case.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you, Dr. Lumpkin.

Next, we have Dr. Pamela Diaz, director, Emergency Preparedness and Infectious Disease Control in the Chicago Department of

Public Health. She is accompanied by Dr. John Wilhelm, commissioner, Chicago Department of Public Health and Dr. Arthur B.

Schneider, professor of medicine, chief of endocrinology section,

University of Illinois and David A. Kraft, director, Nuclear Energy

Information Service.

So we will just go right down the line, Ms. Diaz.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lumpkin follows:]

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Dr. DIAZ. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with

all of you today. As noted, I am joined by Dr. John Wilhelm, the

commissioner of health for the city of Chicago.

This is a very important subject, as it relates to bioterrorism and

terrorist acts.

Since September 11th and the anthrax crisis that gripped our

country, the city of Chicago has loomed large as a potential target

for bioterrorism. In recognition of this fact, the Federal Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention awarded the Chicago Department

of Public Health $12 million to support the development of an integrated system for protecting the citizens of Chicago and the surrounding area from bioterrorist attack.

It should be noted that much of the work by the Chicago Department of Public Health in this area long predates September 11th

or the recent CDC award. The Chicago Department of Public

Health has, over the years been building a strong and effective system to detect and monitor outbreaks of routine infectious diseases

and 2 years ago, direct funding from the CDC helped lay that

groundwork specifically around bioterrorism.

Today, the Office of Emergency Preparedness, in response to infectious diseases, coordinates the Department’s activities related to

bioterrorism in partnership with other city, State, regional and

Federal agencies. Many of these activities include table-top exercises that involve leaders in our health department, additionally

our fire department, law enforcement and other critical first responders. These exercises allow leaders to map out strategies for

responding to a variety of scenarios.

We have regular meetings of a technical advisory group on bioterrorism that is comprised of experts and leaders in our community. This group would be called upon to support us and for consultation during an emergency.

We have established a 24-hour a day, 7 day a week call system

allowing health professionals in the community to immediately report suspicious symptoms that may be related to a bioterrorist attack or any outbreak of infectious diseases.

We have developed plans for distribution of drugs, vaccines and

medical supplies for protection of the public in the event of a terrorist attack.

And most importantly, an enhanced capacity to recognize

through disease surveillance, and respond to communicable diseases of all kinds. Whether the threat of Anthrax or Influenza,

public health defense depends not on any one single strategy, but

many functions and disciplines, including epidemiology, planning

public information and general communicable disease control. In

other words, the threat of bioterrorism calls not so much for new

and extraordinary strategies to be used once in an emergency that

hopefully will never happen, but for resources and systems that

should be in place as part of routine public health functions.

The challenge is to ensure that adequate resources are available

to manage a bioterrorist incident, a uniquely complex event that

would potentially involve the entire city’s population, its health

care system, first responders, the media and just about every other

institution in the city.

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It should be emphasized that the Chicago Department of Public

Health has not been putting our programs into place alone, but in

concert with Federal, State and regional health departments. Our

department is working to increase connectivity, that communications link, through high-speed, secure internet technology, our

health alert network, with other health departments, our city hospitals, and other agencies such as our first responder agencies and

health systems that would be involved in an event.

Additionally, it should be noted that the Department is working

to help the City’s hospitals prepare for a bioterrorist attack using

funds from the Health Resources and Service Administration.

And finally, the City has been an active advocate of enhancing

the State’s laboratory capacities for testing for the presence of infectious diseases.

We believe our program demonstrates the value of direct Federal

funding. Some have argued that all support for protection against

bioterrorism should be given to States and only indirectly to local

health departments. Well, when it comes to many matters of public

health, one size does not fit all. The needs of a densely populated

socio-economically diverse urban center like Chicago and the other

cities that receive direct funding are not those of smaller more

rural or suburban locations. Some also have pointed out that bioterrorism can occur anywhere, and to be sure, terrorism, like infectious diseases, is not confined to the Nation’s largest cities. But the

vulnerability of cities like Chicago, and the magnitude and complexity of responding to an attack, and containing it, is not determined only by the density and size of the population. It is also determined by the physical size of the city, the complexity of the

city’s health care system, the socio-economic, linguistic and ethnic

diversity of the population, the concentration of industry, the presence of two large airports like Chicago as well as rail transportation and interstate highways and a daily influx of visitors from

all over the world. These and a host of other factors, make containment of an outbreak of deadly disease in Chicago vastly more complicated to manage than a similar outbreak in a smaller or more

rural setting. As only one example of this complexity, one might

imagine the catastrophic potential of an undetected outbreak of

highly infectious disease being carried all over the Nation and the

world as thousands of travelers leave the airports in Chicago.

And finally, we join others in supporting the development of the

new Federal department, having a coordinating role among all Federal departments in terrorism activities.

As I hope we have demonstrated this morning, the public health

requirements for bioterrorism preparedness are well within the

broader routine activities of public health, and therefore, caution

that the policies, planning and implementation of the public health

aspects of bioterrorism remain within the Department of Health

and Human Services, most notably CDC and HRSA.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you

today.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Diaz follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. Dr. Wilhelm, can you come here at the

table.

Dr. WILHELM. Good morning. Dr. Diaz actually gave our combined departmental testimony.

Mr. HORN. Well, Dr. Wilhelm, you are a commissioner, and so if

you would like to add anything, let us know.

Dr. WILHELM. The only thing I would emphasize again are the

points of the complexity of a City such as Chicago and the others

who receive direct funding—New York City, Washington, DC, and

Los Angeles. It is extremely important that we use the funding to

build our everyday systems to control communicable disease which

are the exact systems that we would be using in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

Mr. HORN. You might want to bring the microphone a little closer. Thank you. Technology is slow with congressional committees.

Go ahead.

Dr. WILHELM. My comment was the only thing that I would emphasize in the departmental statement that Dr. Diaz presented is

the importance of direct funding to Chicago as well as the other cities—New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, in recognition

of the complexity and the density here in these major cities. What

the funding is doing is it is strengthening our everyday systems

and collaborations for control of communicable disease, which are

the same systems that we would be using in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. Dr. Schneider. Dr. Schneider is professor

of medicine, chief of endocrinology section at the University of Illinois.

Dr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to

present my comments on the role of potassium iodide, also referred

to as KI, in the event of a nuclear or radiological terrorist attack.

As an endocrinologist, I care for patients with thyroid disease. I

have been studying the effect of radiation exposure on the thyroid

since 1973. The studies have focused on the thyroid gland since it

is the most sensitive organ to the effects of radiation. I have also

served on advisory panels for a variety of studies, including those

occurring in the Chernobyl region. Finally, until recently, I was the

Chair of the Public Health Committee of the American Thyroid Association. My comments are also informed by my working with the

expert members of that association.

The thyroid gland uses iodine to make thyroxine. Iodine is a

unique component of thyroxine. As there is relatively little iodine

in the diet, in order to make thyroxine, the thyroid has developed

the ability to concentrate it. When the body is exposed to radioactive iodine, it is also concentrated in the thyroid gland. Giving

a large amount of non-radioactive iodine, in the form of a KI tablet,

can prevent this. The non-radioactive iodine saturates the thyroid

and largely prevents it from taking up the radioactive form.

While it was known for decades that external radiation could

cause thyroid cancer, it was not so clear for internal exposure from

radioactive iodine. This uncertainty was erased by the unfortunate

outcome of the Chernobyl accident. Among exposed children, hundreds of cases of thyroid cancer have occurred. Many of these cases

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have been unusually aggressive and some have been fatal. A terrorist attack on a functioning nuclear power plant could release radioactive iodine. A nuclear explosion would also release radioactive

iodine, as did the bombs exploded in Japan and the above-ground

tests conducted in the United States and in the Soviet Union. A

dirty, conventional bomb or a non-functioning plant may not release radioactive iodine.

Following the Chernobyl accident, KI was widely used in Poland.

That experience proved its safety and provided an important part

of the data used to support the guidance issued by the FDA and

the recommendations of the American Thyroid Association and others in favor of distributing KI tablets. Based largely on the

Chernobyl experience, the American Thyroid Association recommends predistribution in a 50-mile radius around nuclear plants

and stockpiling up to 200 miles.

I am pleased that both the legislative and executive branches of

the government have acted and I am also pleased to see the growing list of States that have accepted iodine from the Federal Government.

Although there appears to be movement in the State of Illinois,

the situation is less clear. First, reported comments from at least

one State official indicate an under-estimation of the effects of thyroid cancer. Although often referred to as one of the ‘‘good’’ cancers

to have, on occasion it can be difficult to treat and, as I mentioned,

it can be fatal. Successful treatment includes removing the thyroid

gland. Living without the thyroid gland is readily managed, but it

is not without its difficulties and potential dangers. The second

concern is that Illinois reportedly will use industrial support to

purchase its supply of KI tablets. The rationale for this is not clear

and raises the concern that Illinois will have policies that differ

from its neighboring States and the rest of the country.

I thank you for the opportunity to address you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you, Dr. Schneider. That is a very helpful presentation because we have had a number of worries about the iodine.

And now we have David Kraft, director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, and we look forward to your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Schneider follows:]

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Mr. KRAFT. Thank you. I want to thank the committee for opportunity to present today.

My organization is based in Evanston, Illinois and we have been

around 20 years. Our purpose is to act as a citizen watchdog organization on the commercial nuclear power industry. Illinois, as was

mentioned earlier, has more reactors than any other State. In our

opinion, it needs more surveillance and watchdogging as well. And

I think history has borne that out amply.

My comments today will be different from the previous ones you

have heard, largely which have been based on public health and

medical concerns. I want to focus in on the issues of energy and

infrastructure and how that factors into the terrorist threat in the

future.

In trying to get a handle on how I would put my remarks to you

today, I was thinking back to my experience on September 11th

and that following week after the tragedy. And what occurred to

me is something that I think you in Congress really need to examine from a strategic standpoint. A lot of what you have heard today

I think is a tactical response to crises and emergencies that we are

anticipating, but unless we also anticipate in a broader sense and

a broader scale how our society is structured, where it is vulnerable and where we can make substitutions, then we are fooling ourselves into thinking that we are really protecting the public.

So what I hope to get across to you today is one concept that September 11th has demonstrated. And that is, the way we have constructed our technological society makes our infrastructure both a

target and a weapon. In the past, there was a distinction between

the two and I think it was much more clear cut.

What we need to take a look at in the future is how our infrastructure that we depend on has now become both weapon and target and how they can be interchangeable. This is very significant.

The fact that airplanes were not anticipated as weapons of mass

destruction certainly does not call for the abolition of commercial

air transport but what it does say is we need to respond in a totally

different way to airport security or to construction of buildings, and

that was particularly hammered home when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission admitted 1 week after the accident that it had

failed to do the calculations which would demonstrate that our reactors could withstand those hits on the World Trade Center and

the Pentagon. And we are still waiting for the numbers to be

crunched.

That is a major shift in thinking and if we are going to proceed

in the 21st century on a technology-based society, it is up to the

leadership of this Nation to consider that dual role. And when you

choose to go down a technological path, you had better be prepared

for the boomerang.

Now I am going to get into some of the specifics that I have observed in terms of the nuclear power situation and then I would

also refer you to a report that we produced last October and it is

available on our Web site, called ‘‘Here Today, There Tomorrow:

Commercial Nuclear Reactor Sites as Terrorist Targets.’’

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that we insert that

into the record.

Mr. HORN. Without objection.

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Mr. KRAFT. I do have additional copies available and this is on

our Web site. Regrettably, I mailed this to the Illinois delegation

last October and because of the anthrax situation, you may not

have received it. So I apologize for that.

The second thing that struck me over the weekend as I was preparing for these remarks was a comment that Albert Einstein supposedly made, and that is that ‘‘A clever person solves a problem;

a wise person avoids it.’’ What I want to get into now are avoiding

some future problems in a strategic kind of way; specifically dealing with nuclear power and with nuclear waste.

As we have observed situations since September 11th and

watched the NRC’s rather lethargic, uneven response to the tragedy, we have to hammer home a few points. The first is that if you

are going to rely on reactors in the 21st century, you, the leadership of this country, must certify to the public that those reactors

belong in the 21st century and can withstand 21st century threats.

If they cannot do so, they do not belong here.

Shipbuilding changed after the Titanic hit an iceberg. We need

to make the same kind of shift in the nuclear power industry. The

set of criteria that is used to make that determination is called the

design basis for the reactor. I would submit to you that the NRC

needs to revise, re-examine and rewrite the design basis, not only

for the future reactors that it anticipates so that they can show

that they can hold up under these threats, but they are going to

have to take a look at re-examining the design basis for reactors

that are permitted to operate and who are applying for plant life

extension for an additional 20 years because these will be the reactors that will be selected as future terrorist targets. If they cannot

withstand the terrorist threat, they must be closed.

We would further point out that the spent fuel pools which are

a point of controversy both in terms of the Yucca Mountain issue

coming up, and just the operation of reactors in the future, must

be significantly upgraded and hardened, from an engineering

standpoint. Security at reactor sites needs to be greatly enhanced,

and the sites themselves may actually have to be redesigned in

order to survive credible terrorist threats in the 21st century.

We think the NRC has failed in its regulatory practices and we

need to take a look at why that has happened. And again, I think

it would be useful to look at Einstein’s quote to move away from

an infrastructure that has inherent danger to an energy infrastructure that does not have the same dangers that nuclear power

would have. And this would be to aggressively promote renewable

energy alternatives, efficiency and something that was actually

touted very highly in the Bush energy plan, a concept called a ‘‘distributed generation,’’ so that transmission systems are not disrupted.

I will stop there and be glad to answer any questions you might

have. Thank you.

[NOTE.—The report entitled, ‘‘Here Today, There Tomorrow:

Commercial Nuclear Reactor Sites as Terrorist Targets,’’ may be

found in subcommittee files.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kraft follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you.

We will have a few questions and then we will move ahead to

panel two.

Do any of my colleagues want to ask any questions of the panel

now? They will be around, but we have four people on panel two.

Go ahead, Ms. Biggert.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Lumpkin, it is nice to see you again and I know that I see

you on the airplane quite often as you traverse to Washington, DC,

so I know that you are working to coordinate what is happening

in the State of Illinois with the Federal Government.

Dr. Schneider just talked about the potassium iodide that has

been suggested that States have, and I do—could you explain what

is the policy in Illinois right now in public health as far as—what

I had heard was that Illinois had not made a decision or had not

signed on to receiving that or to have a stockpile in case something

happened.

Dr. LUMPKIN. Well, that is actually not the case. First of all, Illinois is one of the few States, if not the only State, that has a separate Department of Nuclear Safety, and we have had some discussions on the issue of potassium iodide. The Department of Nuclear

Safety just recently announced it has purchased 350,000 doses,

which it will be making available to the public in the evacuation

zone; I think it is a 10-mile zone around each of the facilities.

We have some concerns about that particular process, even

though we will be making that available, because studies in other

areas where it has been distributed, indicate that the people, after

a year, have not been able to find or locate those pills. So we are

also using State dollars to purchase potassium iodide as part of our

State pharmaceutical stockpile. We are probably one of the few

States that has a pharmaceutical stockpile. Primarily, we have

antibiotics and mark one kits and other things for use by first responders in that stockpile, but we also will requisition potassium

iodide so it will be available at the evacuation centers. So really

our strategy is going to be two-fold.

We have some concerns about the Federal distribution. For instance, there is quite an extensive disclaimer that is required to be

given to each person receiving potassium iodide, disclaimer about

the Federal program. We believe that we can use State dollars that

we get from industry, which is wanting us to distribute them, without going to the Federal program, and that has been our intent.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you very much.

And then, Mr. Kraft, I know that we have had a nuclear waste

problem and have been working on it for quite a while, but I certainly do not think we should abandon nuclear power as a source

of electricity as a result, and certainly 52 percent of our electrical

power in Illinois comes from nuclear and is a clean source of power.

Given the amount of power generated without any emissions and

the resulting air quality benefits, nuclear power I think has to remain part of our energy supply. And there is research that is being

done at Argon National Laboratory, which is in my district, to reduce the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste and it really is

pyroprocessing technology and transmutation and has really been

able to reduce the amount of waste and put it into a solid which

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then can be transported much more safely and will also not be a

hot—what they call a hot product, for a considerably shorter period

of time. It actually reduces it to 300 years instead of 10,000 years.

Does your organization support such research or are you opposed

to anything nuclear?

Mr. KRAFT. We do not have any problem with research. We

would merely ask that, again, are you focusing so narrowly on solving an immediate problem that you miss the forest? Some of the

statements you made, I would take some exception to. Nuclear

power does produce emissions, it does not produce global warming

emissions, although as a matter of fact, the fabrication of the fuel

does. It is the largest producer of CFC and ozone layer damaging

chemicals on the North American continent. But it does produce

denoble gases, they are routinely released into the atmosphere. You

have water emissions from the routine operation of reactors and

then if something goes wrong, you have unanticipated emissions.

So to say it is emission-free is not quite accurate.

In terms of your description though of the transportation, I think

that is an excellent example of the future problem that has not

been anticipated and which was brought up and reflected earlier

here today when the reference was made to the individual who was

interested in making a dirty bomb. Materials for the dirty bomb

will come from shipments like those that you describe, in the future. Just the Yucca Mountain project itself, we anticipate over

68,000 shipments going through Illinois in a 38-year period.

This is the infrastructure that you buy into when you continue

this technology. And to make the claim that we can make it 100

percent failsafe and contain all that material, especially when you

have a determined terrorist threat out there that is not managed

yet, really I think stretches the imagination.

So we are not opposed to research, we are merely saying for your

dollar spent, would it be better to get away from a technology that

buys you into that tar baby or is it better spent on a technology

that still gives you the electricity that you want but does not increase nuclear proliferation, like pyroprocessing does.

So those are the hard strategic questions Congress needs to ask

before you ask the front line defenders here to pick up the pieces

of dirty bomb explosions and radiation assaults and finally perhaps

even——

Ms. BIGGERT. The NRC chairman recently referred to the security at the nuclear power plants as the gold standard in the area

of industrial security. Would you agree with that and do you think

that other facilities pose the same risk or similar risk as nuclear

and should have that security equal to nuclear security?

Mr. KRAFT. The second part of your question; yes, I think other

industries do have a similar kind of risk. The chemical industry

could be pointed to, for example, as having that type of risk and

should be required to have enhanced security as well. I cannot

speak to direct knowledge of what type of security has occurred at

nuclear reactors since September 11th, but I would welcome it. And

I certainly would not want to personally challenge it right now. I

have spoken with reporters who have been onsites just recently—

Channel 5 News was out at Dresden, and they do report significant

improvements in security.

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Whether those are adequate, we will not know. But one thing I

will point out is that the same time the NRC is making those

boasts, just prior to the 11th, they were allowing—they were contemplating allowing the industry to more or less regulate itself and

test itself on plant security, at a time when they knew that those

plants failed 50 percent of the force-on-force tests——

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you. I do not mean to cut you off, but my

time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Kirk.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly, I will have to

leave in a minute for going out to inspect the new aircraft doors

that have been installed on United Airlines aircraft to prevent access to the cockpit.

But my mother lives in Evanston, she lives on Main Street in

Evanston, Chief Wilkinson. How large is the Evanston police force?

Mr. NILSSON. The Evanston Police Department has 162 sworn

police officers.

Mr. KIRK. And how large is the Fire Department?

Mr. WILKINSON. 110.

Mr. KIRK. 110. So we have got roughly 200 first responders in

a suburban—if the Sears Tower was hit, a la September 11th, or

we had a huge fire at Zion, the nuclear reactor, how would you be

tasked to assist in that effort under the current system. Chief

Reardon is here, but I am going to put you on the spot since you

are a front line police department.

Mr. WILKINSON. OK, there is a structure in place, it is relatively—the stricken community makes a request at various levels

and there is an automatic response then based on that request. So

if Chicago were to ask for X,Y,Z and we happened to be X, we

would then respond. It reduces communications down to a smaller

level and it is a predetermined structure. And we respond based on

the need of the stricken community.

Mr. KIRK. Do they call you via telephone, is there a radio?

Mr. WILKINSON. No, it is done via radio. There is a backup, of

course, telephone call should there not be a response. The central

dispatch area then for a MABAS division—we are broken up into

a number of divisions—will then initiate the call, anticipate and

wait for a verbal response from the community that should be responding. Should they not respond or not be able to, they automatically move to the next level and they will also back it up with a

phone call.

Mr. KIRK. If we had a fire at Zion, we would have to probably

evacuate close to 100,000 people, so our need for fire and police

personnel would be vast. Have you ever been tasked to look into

how you would respond to a huge downtown contingency or a huge

contingency at one of our reactors? Has Evanston gone through

that yet?

Mr. WILKINSON. We have done it only fortunately at a table-top

level, and we realize that an initial incident, as it gets larger or

is large, we have a limited capability in dealing with that incident.

And until we can get enough resources for whatever our needs are,

we can only handle so much of that incident and we have to accept

that there may be losses as a result.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

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It is not so bleak. We have—the reserve manpower for the Federal Government is Great Lakes Naval Training Center where we

have got access to 25,000 people to help out the first responders,

but chief and commander, thank you for the ground truth here. I

think we have got a long way to go in where we are going.

Mr. WILKINSON. Yes.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you very much for having me, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much for being here.

Let me ask the commander and the chief, are there written compacts for, say, fire engines and all, so they do not have to do it after

the fact, but you know what you are doing ahead of time. If there

is a fire here or a police need there, how are we dealing with this

in Illinois?

Mr. WILKINSON. These predetermined responses are broken into

categories. One would be fire, one would be ambulance, one would

be hazardous materials, water rescue. They are broken into a category. Not to say you could not draw resources from more than one

category, but it is done by agreement, it is done ahead of time.

Each community establishes what they feel their need for their

types of responses would be, communicates to these other communities, do you agree to this and if they say yes, OK, we go with it.

It is done under the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System agreement, the

generalized contract that everybody agrees to, and it is really all

predetermined and we can draw in a tremendous amount of resources. However, it is designed to try and not short anyone else

in terms of resources. So sometimes, as your incident grows, the

travel distance may increase, the time of response—you know, various things are factors, but it is pretty much all predetermined. Not

to say that you cannot ask for special equipment any time that you

want.

Mr. HORN. I am going to take 2 minutes of my 5 to ask one question here and then I will turn over to the ranking member.

I am interested, Dr. Diaz, and could you explain the plan for distribution of vaccines in the event of an outbreak of a communicable

disease? How are we going to do it in Cook County and Chicago?

Dr. DIAZ. I can only speak for the city of Chicago specifically.

This is an area that we spent a lot of time writing a plan and even

operationally testing that plan in stages. We are currently in the

process of a series of staged exercises testing that plan. We have

looked at our health force in terms of our public health work force

and we have looked at our population. Any plan that is in place

for the distribution, for instance, of medications or vaccines, one

has to take into account the number of people that you have to distribute to, the work force behind you and the actual mechanism of

moving the materials. And we have addressed all of those issues

in fairly great detail. We continue to improve upon that plan as it

exists.

What I would comment on is that it is a plan—any plan is always a draft plan and one continues to refine. And so we work very

closely with our Fire Department in terms of transportation issues.

We have been working with our GIS Department in terms of actually mapping down to the distributionsites that we have chosen

and doing mock ups of transportation to those sites and public

work force distribution across those sites.

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Mr. HORN. Excuse me right there. I am not quite clear, do we

have doctors and pharmacists, clinics? How are we doing it?

Dr. DIAZ. I was just getting ready to address the work force

itself. We know our break points in terms of based upon how many

people we need to give medicine to, how many work force individuals we need and have mobilized them within our own public

health work force. Additionally reaching out to other city partners

that can provide infrastructure in terms of nurses or other work

force. And with the Federal moneys that we are getting, we are

working with other agencies like medical societies to bolster volunteers within the pharmaceutical, the physicians and nurses, that

would help supplement our work force if we reached our break

point in terms of needing more infrastructure and help.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. Five minutes for questioning.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. First let me express again my gratitude to this

panel. I knew it would be worthwhile to come to Chicago, but after

hearing the testimony, I think that is even more the case, to hear

from your perspective what we need to be doing at the Federal

level.

I wanted to—for some months now, I have been urging the State

of Illinois to accept the potassium iodide pills and was given a

number of excuses. One was that people would become complacent

and would not evacuate, which seemed to be an absolutely nonsensical notion. I give the people of Illinois a little more credit if they

would take the pill and then head for the hills. And the other was

that it only protects against one thing, and that is thyroid cancer,

which also seems a ridiculous excuse, because that would say we

should not take flu shots because it only protects against the flu.

And finally I guess you said today something about a disclaimer or

something that the Federal Government had.

It seems to me as the most nuclear State in the country, that an

offer of free potassium iodide from the Federal Government would

be one that would be snapped up immediately. And I am mystified.

Could you explain, Dr. Lumpkin?

Dr. LUMPKIN. Certainly. I think that many of us have experience

that everything that claims to be free is not free. The State has a

commitment; it was announced on June 26 that distribution to the

public will begin this month, that we will purchase that and that

we have used State dollars to purchase it and include it in our

pharmaceutical stockpile to be positioned at evacuation centers.

So, I think we have had a lot of discussion within the State and

certainly we have had input from the congressional delegation and,

based upon that, the Department of Nuclear Safety did change its

policy and is now moving forward with a distribution to the public

within the 10-mile radius and——

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Funded by Exelon in part at least. Why not

by the Federal Government?

Dr. LUMPKIN. Well, we were concerned about the attached regulations that were associated with this particular allotment from the

Federal Government. And so, because we were uncomfortable with

that, we did move to a separate way to fund the purchase. I think

the key thing is that the KI was purchased. It is a relatively inexpensive medication and it is purchased and being distributed.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And the change in view was why?

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Dr. LUMPKIN. Well, that change was—again, the Department of

Nuclear Safety is the lead agency for that. We have had some discussions; primarily it was an internal change within the Department of Nuclear Safety. I could not really testify to what their

thinking was.

Dr. Schneider, is a 10-mile radius in your view sufficient? I know

in your testimony you indicated more.

Dr. SCHNEIDER. As I indicated, the experience in the Chernobyl

area would indicate that a 10 mile radius is perhaps too small.

Childhood thyroid cancer is very uncommon, so when a case occurred, it is very likely related to the Chernobyl accident. If you

look at the map around Chernobyl and look at where the cases occurred, you would readily notice that it was well beyond the 10

miles. In addition, if you looked at the distribution of the released

iodine on different days, the extent of the spread is also well beyond 10 miles. So I think it is well to consider a broader distribution than 10 miles.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Could I ask one more question, Mr. Chairman,

of our public health officials?

Mr. HORN. Sure.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The issue of work force capacity, we hear in

so many different contexts of the nursing shortage and just the

shortage of health care professionals. Under current circumstances,

not to mention were there some sort of a medical emergency on a

grand scale, I would like you just to respond to how we will actually, in terms of capacity, respond to a biological, chemical or nuclear attack, in terms of our capacity in numbers and what we

should do about it.

Dr. LUMPKIN. Well, in Illinois, we have had in place an emergency medical disaster plan since the early 1990’s that looks at the

State as a whole. This plan was developed in response to concern

around the New Madrid fault, which could hit southern Illinois in

a Richter 6 earthquake. That plan looks at mobilizing resources

from areas outside the incident much as was discussed with the

MABAS approach—medical resources, nurses and physicians. We

currently have four teams that are in place on call 24 hours a day.

We are expanding those, we hope, to about 16 teams within the

next 12 months of physicians, nurses and paramedics who would

be able to respond immediately if there is an incident in the State.

These individuals are getting special training in weapons of mass

destruction.

After the event occurs, the question is then how do we mobilize

the resources. We are looking at issues of rapid licensure or certification of individuals who come in from other States, mobilization

of hospital resources; again, the major limitation is going to be the

work force and using volunteers from other States through a system of certification.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And we now will go to James P. Reardon,

the Fire Chief of Northbrook, Illinois and the President of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System and the Vice President of the Illinois

Fire Chiefs Association. He is a member of the Illinois Terrorism

Task Force.

So we are glad to hear from him.

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Are we excusing this panel?

Mr. HORN. We would like some of them, if you could, but otherwise you are free. Thank you. But if you would like to stay, fine.

Mr. Reardon.

STATEMENTS OF JAMES P. REARDON, FIRE CHIEF, NORTHBROOK, IL; RAYMOND E. SEEBALD, CAPTAIN, U.S. COAST

GUARD, PORT OF CHICAGO, ACCOMPANIED BY GAIL KULISH,

COMMANDING OFFICER, ATLANTIC AREA STRIKE TEAM; EDWARD G. BUIKEMA, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, REGION V. FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; AND JAYETTA

HECKER, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES,

U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

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

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and say

hello to some old friends that I have not seen for awhile.

Also, I would like to tell you that since September 11th, I have

never in my, since 1967, experience had the opportunity to work

so closely with State and Federal officials from various agencies,

including some of the individuals sitting at the panel here, where

not just a working relationship has developed, but also I would say

a friendship and partnership.

What I am going to do today, I have two documents which I do

believe you have, one is a two-page summary and the other is a

backup document that I will refer to from time to time.

First, let me talk about MABAS as an introduction. In the State

of Illinois, there are 40,000 firefighters approximately and 1200 fire

departments. MABAS, the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, has

been around since the late 1960’s, and it is the structure for the

statewide mutual aid plan, which evolved January 2001, prior to

September 11th and the World Trade Center.

A three inch thick document sits on this CD and although fire

chiefs may not be able to agree in the State of Illinois on the color

of a fire truck, we can all agree that this plan, it is about time we

pulled it together so we can mobilize, as Mr. Chairman, your question, a tremendous amount of resources, whether it be fire trucks,

ladder trucks, squad companies, EMS, paramedic transport units,

hazardous materials teams—36 in the State of Illinois—technical

rescue teams of which currently 23 and eventually will evolve to

somewhere over 30, paramedics to assist the health system in immunization and prophylaxis type treatment for citizens, mobilization of the predeployed units that Dr. Lumpkin had referred to;

and do so, so we never deplete any area any more than 20 percent

of its resources.

We can respond, we will respond. Our limitations are based upon

the technological equipment. With the new challenge of WMD,

weapons of mass destruction, and the training and education that

is needed for the various first responders.

So we do have a system in place. We will do our darndest to

serve based upon the limitations.

And with that, let me talk about a few of the things that hopefully you will find of interest and Federal agencies and Congress

can assist us to do a better job on the street Monday through Sunday, and heaven forbid, when the terrorist strikes again.

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First, in the State of Illinois, we do not have an urban search

and rescue team. There are 28 in the Nation, we are working extremely hard to develop one using existing infrastructure, our 23

technical rescue teams, to develop the needed core training requirements. Through the State of Illinois’ Terrorism Task Force, Matt

Bettenhausen, as well as Mike Chambliss, from the Governor’s Office and Illinois Emergency Management, we have been able to receive funding to bring the technical rescue teams up to the minimum standards and we are heading toward hopefully the direction

of putting in place a mobilization package that meets all of the

FEMA requirements for a USAR team. Unfortunately, we have not

received the support from FEMA in Washington, at least at this

point in time, and there is a letter in your packet most recently received, where it does not appear they are supporting the creation

of any new teams. We feel in the State of Illinois—and this would

be a statewide team—certainly city of Chicago warrants the need

to have one in place here so we can mobilize it quickly and get to

the business of extricating and rescuing people that might be subject to the collapse of a structure all the way down to natural disasters such as the earthquake threat in southern Illinois.

Training and education, three points I would like to mention

from the Federal level:

First, there are training and education opportunities from many,

many Federal agencies that can be applied at the local level. We

appreciate that, but there is no single coordination point. What

that means is that we are missing opportunities to send people to

the right training. People are going to the training without the

local police and fire agencies being aware that they are sent. We

need a single point of coordination with all the Federal agencies

and the Federal training so that it is kind of a clearinghouse.

No. 2, we do not have any regional training facilities to bring together police, fire, public works, health officials, first responders. I

think a wise investment, with certain criteria from the Federal

Government, to establish regional training facilities across the

United States, certainly here in Illinois, using such things as like

the Glenview Naval Air Station, which is currently closed, but 25

municipal agencies have pulled together in a partnership to make

that a regional training center. An investment would be wise, because without the training, we cannot have seamless sustained operations.

No. 3, in none of the Federal programs is there any—so far as

we are able to identify—assistance with overtime funding so we

can send police and firefighters to the training that is available.

Once we do that, we need to backfill, otherwise local levels of service for day-to-day emergencies are reduced.

Domestic terrorism, weapons of mass destruction equipment. A

host of items: First, we believe that all the Federal funding should

go through a single coordination point, preferably in Illinois. We

can standardize and provide a sustained operation in that manner.

No. 2, interoperability, there are several boards through the

International Association of Fire Chiefs at the Federal level to

standardize equipment that we would use out in the street in servicing a response to weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological

and chemical. Vendors are selling products that I am calling snake

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oil out there. We need to have those validated through a single

source so that if we respond to, let us say, California, Florida, or

they come here, we are all using similar or the same equipment;

again, for seamless sustained operations.

Technology transfers are critical. FEMA has a grant program

with a national technology transfer center. We need that equipment out in the street and the field. Example that I cite in here

is some device inside the fire truck or the ambulance that would

detect, early on, biological, chemical or a nuclear release, before we

commit first responder troops inside of a hot zone where they have

little to no chance of survival.

No. 3, consider adopting a matrix, one is also contained in your

packet, that standardizes the training, the equipment and the roles

of first responders, regardless of their capacity in police, fire, public

works or the health professionals.

Next, communications interoperability; as I genuinely call it a

sucking chest wound. We cannot talk to one another. We need to

be able to send data to one another, we need to look at encryption

for secure nets so that we can talk with our Federal counterparts

and our Federal counterparts can talk with us.

Office of Homeland Defense. We support it. We believe the onestop notion is needed. There are two organizational charts in your

packet; one is as it is now and the other as proposed. The only

thing that we see missing that would encourage some consideration

over is there is no box within the wiring diagram or organizational

chart that identifies a local advocate of government, a liaison that

reports near the top or to the top that can tell the Director of

Homeland Defense that it is working at the local level; similar to

what was done during BRAC when they closed bases and relocated

military installations.

Federal process. As you know, local government, we can implement stuff pretty quick. That is probably the benefit of being smaller than a Federal agency in most cases. However, the way we deliver our system is asystematic. We rely on the police, they rely on

us; public works is a support structure for both; the health profession; all of us work together and often with a new challenge, we

are going to need Federal assistance. We need to find a way to

have the Federal system less bureaucratic and more simplified so

the dollars can get down to the local level quickly. Without that,

we are going to have holes in our system. Holes in the system, we

cannot do the job that people perceive or we’re going to be expected

to do.

FIRE Act funding. There has been discussion about including the

FIRE Act funding as part of the Homeland Defense $3.5 billion. We

disagree, that it should stay separate, both of them. The FIRE Act

funding was intended to assist in the day-to-day delivery of fire,

EMS and general emergency management services, not domestic

terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Combining them will

dilute it and will do one of two things; either damage our ability

to do our job on a day-to-day basis or damage our ability to respond

and provide service during acts of domestic terrorism or both.

Mutual aid consortiums. In the State of Illinois, we have got a

plan. I am told it is one of the best in the Nation, that we are leading. We should not be penalized for that, we should find the incenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87016.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tives created by the Federal Government to encourage local municipal consortiums from the standpoint of mutual aid, sharing of resources and building on existing infrastructures versus creating

new ones.

I think another point is our elected officials, through the Federal

Government, should receive some exposure to consequence management, but more so, clean up and recovery and financial recovery actions—lessons learned from September 11th. Any community, we

know what happened across the Nation, but I think any city, their

elected officials, if they have experiences in that, are going to be

more well prepared. And I think if we set a national standard, it

will become a better way to translate that at all levels of government—Federal, local and State—so we can work together during

times of crisis.

Finally a local credentialling and accountability system that has

a national use needs to be achieved so that when somebody comes

in on the scene of an incident, we are able to validate who they are

and provide safety and scene accountability as to where they are

working. I know that the Administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration, Mr. Dave Pauleson, is working on that. I would encourage

your support so we can put something like that in place.

Finally, inside your document is a bullet sheet, a briefing page

from the International Association of Fire Chiefs. I would encourage this committee as well as all of Congress to turn to the International Association of Fire Chiefs as an umbrella agency that has

high credentialling in giving recommendations and thoughts to

Federal plans so we can all respond together and assist the public

when we are challenged by our new threat, domestic terrorism.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. You have been very thorough on this

and there were a lot of things that we have heard in other places

and there are a lot of things that have not been heard and you

helped us deal with that.

I now want to have Captain Raymond E. Seebald, the Coast

Guard Captain for the Port of Chicago.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reardon follows:]

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Captain SEEBALD. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee,

thank you for inviting me and it indeed is a great honor to be here

today to tell you a little bit about what we have been doing in this

area and especially what my troops have been doing, because I am

very proud of them.

If you would have seen our office this morning, you would have

seen an office where very few people were there, because the majority of our work is actually preventative in nature. We go out

every day—people are deployed to our vessels and to water-side facilities to inspect both security and safety areas.

Right now, there is a security patrol going on. Petty Officer Corpus is on board his vessel looking in areas that we have pre-identified as high risk areas, and he is looking around for potential terrorist targets, people that might be observing those facilities and

a whole host of activities. But he is also looking for whether the

lights are properly watching on the buoys, whether the other boaters are intoxicated, whether our commercial vessels that we also

inspect from initial days of inspection, whether they are operating

properly and carrying passengers, more than six people and some

are up to 900 passengers, whether they are operating properly. So

we are a multi-mission service.

We are also a military service and a civil service. Those different

avenues and the way we can switch back and forth really suit well

with our new role in homeland security, protecting the homeland,

because one, we are already quite integrated into the police departments, the fire departments and the other local responders. We are

a local responder indeed, along the water side area and in the ports

of the United States. But we are also able to surge during emergency operations. So we have a preventative side, but we also have

a response side as well.

In Washington, DC, there is a national response system that entertains calls from around the United States for oil, hazardous

chemical and potential terrorist attacks and immediately, within

minutes, will notify a Federal coordinator if there is a threat to the

coastal zone. When I get that call, I dispatch my teams and if I am

overwhelmed, I can immediately call on our special forces, which

is our strike team forces, and we have three of those strike teams

and I am very honored and privileged today to say that joining me

is Gail Kulish, who is the Commanding Officer of the Atlantic

Strike Team. She is sitting right there in the front row and she will

be helping me with some of the more technical questions that

might come up later on. But we are very happy with that capability. That capability, that special strike team capability, was employed for the anthrax scare and actual discovery of anthrax. Their

teams were used to go into the area and conduct decontamination

operations.

So all of these activities actually take place without any Federal

Presidential mandate or emergency declaration declared. This is

under the National Contingency Plan. Each Captain of a port is

empowered and essentially carries a blank check from the President to immediately respond. There are a lot of conditions, to make

sure it is all legal and we have a bunch of lawyers that help us

make those decisions. But it provides, and we are very empowered

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to immediately respond and to act in the event of oil or hazardous

chemical and potentially biological impacts as well.

Now what are we doing on the planning and prevention side? I

think you would have been very happy to see us as we both initiated and facilitated a meeting of all the local responders about 2

weeks ago, as we begin stepping through what we believe are the

most likely scenarios for attack in the Chicagoland area and the region. You would have been very happy to see FEMA, and most people at this table, at that meeting, including the Chicago Fire Department, Police Department, FBI and all the local responders. We

are not only facilitating those exercises, but we are training everyone in what we think is the most effective method of approach to

these types of incidents and it is called the use of the incident command system.

At the very top of that management system is the unified command system and it is a management group at the top that includes Federal, State and local representatives. So we have, from

the Federal entity, Deputy Governor Matt Bettenhausen from the

Illinois area; from the city of Chicago, Cortez X. Trotter, who is in

the Office of Emergency Planning, and myself. And we all agree on

where we should deploy the resources, the amount of those resources, in this whole area. And that alone has created just a very

smooth relationship in terms of how we interact at all levels of government.

And then how to use our resources. If you walked on the waterfront, that petty officer that I mentioned earlier, after his 4 hour

tour on the boat is finished, he would then pass on what he observed to the Chicago Police Department, who is out there as well

in their boats, they are patrolling the same areas. After that gentleman finishes, he then briefs the Illinois Department of Natural

Resource boat that is patrolling the exact same area. That is just

one operation where we are really working closely with local and

other State agencies.

We are also involved with the ATTF and as mentioned earlier,

the Chicago Terrorist Task Force and we are very integrated with

all those task force organizations.

I think I will close and we will be happy to answer any questions

later, both myself and Gail Kulish. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Captain Seebald follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, I will tell you, I would like to have Commander

Kulish now come up to the table because I have a couple of questions.

You are Commanding Officer, Atlantic Area Strike Team. Does

that include work on containers that come into the harbors and

that have immigrants in them that are trying to get into the

United States? Do we have any of those situations here? Because

we sure do on the west coast.

Commander KULISH. The National Strike Force responds to releases of oil, hazardous materials, biological pollutants, contaminants. Containers—we have certainly dealt with a number of containers as leakers and sources of hazmat pollutants, etc., and we

have techniques and the capability to respond to those. With respect to the law enforcement aspects of the illegal migrants and

those other things, the National Strike Force would only residually

deal with those and turn it over to appropriate agencies.

We are a tactical force for hazmat response.

Mr. HORN. Well, on the west coast, starting about 10 or 15 years

ago, we had the Coast Guard board the ship that has the container,

so they cannot pull that game of oh, asylum, that is nonsense, and

you never see them again unless maybe they are flying a plane and

hitting a building or something.

So I am curious, you are saying you do not have too much of a

problem here then, is that it?

Commander KULISH. No, sir, I’m just really not the appropriate

person to address that. In my previous assignments, I have done

Coast Guard Law Enforcement, boarding responsibilities and the

Captain of the port has those authorities and those resources to

board and do board routinely and do law enforcement functions.

And I can defer to the Captain for that.

Captain SEEBALD. Yes, each Captain of a port would receive a

notice from vessel agents when a vessel is about to arrive at the

United States. And they specify many things and now a new law

that just thankfully has been passed that allows us 96 hours to get

that information. Before it was 24 hours and subsequent to September 11th that law has been extended now to the 96-hour rule.

Agents now provide us with a whole host of information.

Mr. HORN. Excuse me, let us explain what a 96 rule is.

Captain SEEBALD. Yes, sir. Before, foreign vessels had to only

give us 24 hour advance notice of arrival before entering into our

ports. And now, subsequent to September 11th, we have extended

that requirement now to 96 hours and that has been—it is in the

process of being finalized. That gives us much more time now to

look at cargoes, the types of people that are on board the vessels,

the crew makeup and where the vessel is coming from.

And together with that information, we have a matrix that helps

us identify and target which vessels we do want to go aboard. And

in this area, when we do decide to go aboard a vessel, we do a joint

boarding with Immigration, Customs Service and other local law

enforcement, so that we look at a whole host of things that might

be a problem on this vessel. Recently, only 2 weeks ago, we conducted a boarding like that in this area. Unfortunately we did not

discover anything, but it was—it just goes to demonstrate this

interoperability and how we are working very closely with other

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agencies now for almost every activity that we do, we conduct in

this area.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. That is helpful. Any questions on this——

We have got two more but if you have any on the Coast Guard.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I will, but I would like to hear the others.

Ms. BIGGERT. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question?

Mr. HORN. Sure, please do.

Ms. BIGGERT. Captain Seebald, what efforts are you making to

plan for and respond to the worst case scenario that you can envision involving a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction in the coastal zone and what are the parameters of the

coastal zone?

Captain SEEBALD. Well, the coastal zone is pretty much right at

the coast. We share responsibility with the EPA. EPA is pretty

much inland of the coastal zone and we are anything offshore or

any significant marine transportation related facility that might be

right on the coast, we would respond if there was a release of oil,

hazardous substance from those facilities or even if there was an

explosion that resulted in those releases, we could open the

CERCLA fund and begin funding a cleanup and response.

We are, as I mentioned earlier, both with our harbor safety committees and harbor security committees, we are stepping through

what we think is the most likely scenarios. I do not really want to

get into so much the specifics of those, but 2 weeks ago, that first

exercise was the beginning of that effort to look at exactly what we

are talking about here and to begin planning our responses jointly

with both the State and the city of Chicago in this area and other

safety and security committees in other areas where I still have authority.

Ms. BIGGERT. How will the Chicago Marine Safety Station facilitate the intergovernmental cooperation between your agency and

the State and the city?

Captain SEEBALD. Well, that facility, the one that has been funded now, will put all three of us—the Department of Natural Resources for the State and also the Chicago Marine Police Unit, who

we work with every single day—it will put us physically in the

same building. Once you are physically in the same building, all

those relationships you had before are only going to be improved,

and we think it will be not only a great place for all of us to be

together but right in the area which is the highest risk from at

least my zone.

Ms. BIGGERT. You meet really daily now and it will make it

much easier.

Captain SEEBALD. Yes.

Ms. BIGGERT. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. We appreciate all you do, it is a wonderful

part of our military, as you said, and the civil service also.

Let us go now to Edward G. Buikema, the Regional Director, Region V, Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA]. We are

glad to see you today too.

Mr. BUIKEMA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good morning,

members of the committee.

FEMA Region V includes the States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, representing a population of

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approximately 51 million people with the majority residing in

urban areas. We have significant disaster activity within the region, having administered 48 Presidential Disaster Declarations

within the last 5 years with many events impacting multiple

States. Presently, four of Region V’s six States have active major

Presidential Disaster Declarations. Illinois’ declaration is for high

winds, tornadoes and flooding and encompasses a total of 68 counties. Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota have current declarations

for flooding.

To maintain the readiness for large scale disasters, including

acts of terrorism, regional Federal agencies and the States turn to

the Federal Response Plan. Under the Federal Response Plan,

FEMA coordinates a disaster response system that involves up to

26 Federal agencies and 12 emergency support functions. Each

emergency support function has a lead Federal agency. Regionally,

these emergency support functions have been called into action

during such disasters as the midwest flood of 1993, and the Red

River flood of 1997. Other regional Federal agencies and our State

partners meet at least quarterly to share planning efforts, exercise

preparedness and response plans and devote attention to emergency response coordination during specific types of natural and

manmade disasters. We call that meeting the Regional Interagency

Steering Committee and it will be meeting again next week here

in Chicago.

The region takes an active role in preparing for a response to a

terrorism event. FEMA’s responsibility is to coordinate Federal, regional and State terrorism-related planning, training and exercise

activities. This includes supporting the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici program in which 36 Region V communities participate. We are also

working with States to build response capability and keep them informed of Federal initiatives as well as participating in State-sponsored conferences, training exercises, task forces and workshops.

Just last month, the region hosted a Senior Leaders Homeland

Security Summit which brought together selected officials and representatives of the first responder community throughout our

States. The summit provided a forum for discussions of issues relating to the fire service and law enforcement, funding for planning, training, equipment and exercises, mutual aid agreements

and other issues pertinent to homeland security.

All of the States in Region V have implemented proactive and aggressive actions in response to the terrorism threats that have

emerged since September 11th. Many States have committed substantial amounts of staff and their own financial resources toward

preparing for weapons of mass destruction events. All States have

designated Homeland Security directors. Groundwork has been laid

or accelerated to develop interstate and intrastate mutual aid

agreements. Specialized response teams are being formed. Legislation is being enacted. Training is being conducted. And equipment

is being purchased.

State government has spent millions of dollars directly responding to homeland security needs and the anthrax crisis. While much

has been done, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what

needs to be done.

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FEMA has recently realigned to establish the Office of National

Preparedness at the headquarters and regional level. The creation

of this office is intended to address a long-recognized problem—the

critical need that exists in this country for a central coordination

point for the wide range of Federal programs dealing with terrorism preparedness.

The mission and overriding objective of the Office of National

Preparedness at FEMA is to help this country be prepared to respond to acts of terrorism. The effort has three major focuses—the

first responder initiative; providing a central coordination point for

Federal preparedness programs; and, Citizen Corps.

First, the first responder initiative. To support first responders,

the President has requested $3.5 billion in the 2003 budget. These

funds would help them plan, train, acquire needed equipment and

conduct exercises in preparation for terrorist attacks and other

emergencies. Right now, we are developing a streamlined and accountable procedure that would speed the flow of funds to the first

responder community. Specifically, the funds would be used:

To support the development of comprehensive response plans for

terrorist incidents.

To purchase equipment.

To provide training for responding to terrorist incidents.

And for coordinated regular exercise programs to improve response capability.

The President is requesting funds in the 2002 spring supplemental to support the first responder initiative, including $175 million to be provided to State and local governments to upgrade, and

in some cases, to develop comprehensive emergency operations

plans. These comprehensive plans would form the foundation for

the work to be done in 2003 to prepare first responders for terrorist

attacks.

FEMA has held listening sessions throughout the country with

first responders and emergency managers at every level to solicit

their ideas on the design of grant program and process. In addition,

we are working to resolve other issues critical to the success of this

initiative, many of which have been addressed this morning:

National standards for compatible, interoperable equipment for

first responders.

A national mutual aid system.

Personal protective equipment for first responders that is designed for long-term response operations and incidents.

And national standards for training and exercises for incidents

involving weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to the right equipment, planning capabilities and

training, first responders have been telling us that they need a single point of contact in the Federal Government. We have heard this

from other sources too. The Gilmore Commission, for example, has

pointed out that the Federal Government’s terrorism preparedness

programs are fragmented, uncoordinated and unaccountable. In our

view, it is absolutely essential that the responsibility for pulling together and coordinating the myriad of Federal programs designed

to help local and State responders and emergency managers to respond to terrorism, be situated in a single agency. That is why we

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are so excited about the President’s calling for the creation of the

Department of Homeland Security.

The functions that FEMA performs will be a key part of the mission of the new Department of Homeland Security. The new department will strengthen our ability to carry out important activities such as building the capacity of State and local emergency response personnel to respond to emergencies and disasters of all

kinds. The new department will administer Federal grants under

the first responder initiative as well as grant programs managed

by the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and

Human Services and FEMA. A core part of the department’s emergency preparedness and response function will be built directly on

the foundation established by FEMA. It will continue FEMA’s efforts to reduce the loss of life and property and to protect our Nation’s institutions from all types of hazards through a comprehensive risk-based, all hazards emergency management program of

preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery. It will continue to

change the emergency management culture from one that reacts to

terrorism and other disasters to one that proactively helps communities and citizens avoid becoming victims.

By bringing other Federal emergency response assets together

with FEMA’s response capability, the new department will allow

for better coordination than the current situation in which response

assets are separated in several departments.

And just a couple of words about Citizen Corps. The Citizen

Corps program is part of the President’s new Freedom Corps initiative.

This initiative brings together local government, law enforcement, educational institutions, the private sector, faith-based

groups and volunteers into a cohesive community resource. Citizen

Corps is coordinated nationally by FEMA, which also provides

training standards, general information and materials. We also will

identify additional volunteer programs and initiatives that support

the goals of the Corps.

In addition to the first responder and Citizen Corps programs,

we are implementing a number of other important related initiatives. These include:

A training course review. We are working on a complete accounting of all FEMA and Federal emergency and terrorism preparedness training programs and activities.

As I mentioned, mutual aid initiatives.

A national exercise program.

And finally, assessment of FEMA regional office capabilities.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today, I will be

happy to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

And our last presenter is JayEtta Hecker, the Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues for the U.S. General Accounting Office.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Buikema follows:]

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Ms. HECKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ms.

Schakowsky and Ms. Biggert. I am very pleased to be here today.

I represent the unit of GAO that supports the Congress in reviewing not only FEMA but Coast Guard and a whole level of body of

work and preparedness and it is on the basis of that I base my remarks today.

What I will do is just very briefly summarize the remarks that

I had and then try to relate it to some of what we have heard

today, because it has been such a rich and diverse set of comments.

Basically, I have two main points. One is about the proposed department and the second is about the strategy that is needed to

really be the underpinning of it.

The department, we have called for—GAO—for many months

and over the course of really years of study of terrorism programs.

They are too dispersed, they are too duplicative, they are overlapping and they are not really very effective. There is not even really

an assessment of an overall strategy, as there has not been one.

So we have been calling for this integration and this establishment of a department. So in that sense, we applaud that.

On the other hand, where we think it raises some concerns and

may be over-promising or too optimistic is that somehow this could

integrate everything. It is certainly not a quick fix, it will take substantial time and, in our view, additional resources to really make

it come off, particularly the intergovernmental dimensions of it.

Pulling all of these disparate departments together is a very complex undertaking and I think some of the remarks of the Comptroller General, looking at the history of the formation of the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, bringing together and establishing and benefiting

from the synergies of common functions, is no quick matter. And

yet this is a matter of urgency and there should not be any lack

of realism about the nature of the challenge ahead.

The second point is that this whole department has to be based

on a strategy. Just having this notion that somehow we are going

to collocate all of these disparate departments and functions and

that will work, in our view is not a strategy. Strategy means to define—particularly from an intergovernmental angle. There are

many dimensions to the strategy, but given the focus of the committee, our concern is about how to build those effective partnerships with different levels of government and the private sector.

And we think a strategy is where you would see a vision of what

is needed. It would define the kind of roles that are needed for different levels of government, where those roles are partnerships so

that you have some real accountability and clarity, and would move

toward real goals and measures and indicators. And unfortunately,

we do not have that in this arena. And also, it would strategically

define the appropriate tools because it is the kind of tools, whether

it is regulation or grants, block grants, or targeted grants, that you

use affects what kind of performance you get, what kind of accountability you get, what kind of sustainability you get.

So with that as a backdrop of the remarks that I had, I wanted

to just briefly highlight what I think we heard today and how

many of these themes really were mirrored throughout the morning.

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I thought Ms. Schakowsky actually framed a very important

issue right in your opening remarks, about the challenge of integrating many departments that have non-security functions. And I

think the Coast Guard, which we just heard about that, has many

other related non-security missions. Sometimes it is a good overlap,

sometimes it is not. I have been on a tour in the New England

area, where the fisheries enforcement is down, and it is a different

arena, it is doing different things and basically the resources have

been diverted into the harbor. So you have combining mixed resources.

We heard about that from several folks today in the public

health arena and that is clearly a whole issue about public health,

how it has been under-funded and how it is really a dual use, dual

purpose function. And honing in on all of the resources and the effort in the department, we have already testified, my counterpart

responsible for public health, that actually this fragments public

health programs. These programs are currently more integrated in

the Department of Health and Human Services, and this says no,

we are going—because it is a State and local preparedness activity—we are going to put it in this department. So we have some

caution there about the fact that there are dual function agencies

like in the public health arena, like the Coast Guard, like FEMA,

which works on—this country unfortunately is much more frequently the subject of natural disasters and preparedness on an allhazard basis is very important. And that cannot end up being overshadowed by this formation of a security-focused department.

So we have heard a lot about this, as you form the department,

the mix of this dual use and therefore what is in, what is out or

what relationships will really be defined for the inevitable agencies

like the intelligence agencies that are left out. So there is a lot of

partnership and clarity in this proposal that is needed.

Another whole set of comments was about sustainability. Ms.

Biggert, you actually brought that in, in your opening remarks,

how this is a permanent and ongoing challenge. It is not like Y2K,

when January 1 came and we said whew, this is over. This is not

over, this is a continuing challenge.

Dr. Lumpkin talked about the importance of long-term sustainability. This is not an effort that we can have a one-time effort and

we cannot have a Federal Government set of programs and promised programs that cannot be sustained. There are fiscal shortages

at the States and there are at the Federal level as well. So a vision

is needed for programs that can be sustained.

Then there were some very important points about partnership.

Chief Wilkinson and Commander Nilsson talked about the importance of communications and training and the pooling of resources.

And that actually relates to targeting, go to the States, go to local

government to promote the ideal cooperation and partnerships and

efficient use of resources.

And I close with your opening remarks, Mr. Horn, and the overall theme of today, ‘‘How Effectively is the Federal Government Assisting State and Local Governments in Preparing for Serious Terrorist Attacks.’’ You opened with the fact that you have serious

doubts. I think there should be serious doubts. I think there is inadequate information, and we do not have standards to even measVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87016.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ure and base conclusions about levels of preparedness. CNN did a

guide and it is an approximation and some cities find that useful.

But those are not meaningful indicators. FEMA has been mandated for a number of years to try to develop measures of preparedness and it is a long-term project. We still do not have it.

So with all this new effort, we do not have the measures of what

it is we are going toward and how to measure what it is we are

trying to achieve. So the key issue of the day is that we do not

know how prepared we are and there are major challenges ahead

in the formation of this department to have it be effective, efficient

and to address the many important issues that were raised today.

That concludes my remarks.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hecker follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. We will have 5 minutes for Ms.

Schakowsky.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Hecker, I think a lot of the questions that you raise and the

concerns that you raise put everything in an important context and

a framework. What do they say about field of dreams? ‘‘Build it and

they will come?’’ No, we create it and it will work is not necessarily

the case and so it is important, I agree, to have a strategy.

The issue that I did raise in my opening statement—and others

can comment too—the non-security functions, I am very concerned

about and I am concerned about it from Chicago’s relationship to

the Coast Guard and search and rescue and recreational boating

and all those things that we are concerned about. Concerned about

it from the seamless standpoint, although I think you made a pretty compelling case on why those functions are more consistent than

I had originally thought about.

I am concerned about the INS in the Chicago area where we

have so many immigrants. The service component is a very different mission from the law enforcement component and right now

the entire INS is scheduled to go in.

There is an argument that some will make that this is the government gravy train right now, and if you do not get in it, you are

out of it altogether, and that might be rationale enough to say let

us put all the functions in, because if something is going to give,

it is not going to be the Department of Homeland Security.

And so I am wondering if you are going to in a systematic way—

GAO in a systematic way is going to be looking at these non-security functions to help guide us in what may be a better organizational structure or make some recommendations about all the

things you said, the goals and measures and indicators and appropriate tools, etc.

I am concerned in our rush to do this, that we do not take these

things into consideration.

Do you want to respond, or any of the others respond—the Coast

Guard or FEMA.

Ms. HECKER. I can briefly answer that. When the Comptroller

General testified last week, he laid out a set of criteria to try to

assist the Congress in their deliberations of how you assess what

is in, what is out. And he talked about a set of criteria that could

be used. This is moving so fast that we have not been asked to try

to apply those criteria ourselves to some of those departments, but

I am sure at your request or any committee, we would work with

you to try to do that. I know the schedule in the House is short

and there is a vote in the next few weeks or at least that is the

schedule. So this is moving very quickly.

I think the upshot of the Comptroller General’s concern was yes,

this is urgent, but there is also merit in moving cautiously. And it

is not for us to speak to the agenda that the Congress has set, but

these are very significant questions and even though, of course,

there can be refinements like there was for years with the DOD or

other areas, the importance of this is to at least get the ideas correct and the concept correct because we cannot have any lost time

here. When you think of the whole TSA activity and the aggressive

schedule thereon, nobody can lose a beat here. So getting the right

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parties involved in some of these combinations and thinking

through some of the multiple relationships—I know in the area of

the Coast Guard, one of the issues we raised is the kind of financial flexibility that might be given to the department head. You

know, if they can move resources around, you are not really sure

whether in fact a lot of competing functions can be sustained, particularly with the administration promising that this is no new resources. You have got to steal it from somewhere. There are no resources on State and local coordination, there is a mission and

there is a promise that will be a big commitment, but there are no

resources, it is just a box off of the new Secretary. So is it just

going to pull together people from all of these conglomerate departments that do some of that? It is just not thought through yet and

it—in my opinion, I think it merits more consideration by Congress

of what is in, what is out, what the terms are, what the expectations are. We would be happy to help in any way we can.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me just get a comment though if I could

from Captain Seebald. You know, we are concerned in the Chicago

area about the Coast Guard. Do you have those concerns as well

and how do you plan to address them?

Captain SEEBALD. As a result of September 11th, we did have to

shift some of our resources away from more of our safety role to

more of our security role. But as a result of bringing on additional

reservists and moving additional resources, and thankfully due to

the $209 million supplemental that was passed, the first supplemental, we were able to what we think is to annualize that effort.

And the President’s fiscal year 2003 budget is a first step in a

multi-year annualization of that new effort. And we think over the

3-years, we will be able to adequately both absorb the homeland security mission and then adequately execute our search and rescue

missions and all the other missions that we have.

But certainly falling short of that budget, we would definitely be

impacted.

Also in homeland security, we think because we are the leaders

and we are the first responders in the coastal zone that we must

remain intact. We must remain both a military and a maritime and

multi-mission organization and the Coast Guard must retain its entire mission portfolio.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you.

Mr. BUIKEMA. I would just like to respond to your question on

behalf of FEMA and really I guess talking about the concept of

emergency management in general, especially with respect to—you

mentioned a non-terrorism type mission that FEMA has.

And certainly right now there are four active Presidential Disaster Declarations ongoing in this region. But I think it is important

to note that whether it is terrorism or whether it is pretty much

any other kind of emergency or disaster, the functions that have

to be performed by government are similar. There are certain

things such as communication and cooperation and coordination

and command and control that whether it is a hazardous materials

incident or a tornado or a terrorist event, government has to come

together and coordinate and speak with one voice and try to speak

off the same sheet of music, if you will.

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So some of the basic concepts and theories of emergency management are based on relationship building and the communication

and coordination aspect that will be present whether it is a flood

or a terrorist event.

So in many respects, this proposal blends in beautifully with

FEMA’s mission and allows us to strengthen those relationships

with our other Federal partners as well as with State and local

governments.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. The other——

Ms. BIGGERT. Just one question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Buikema, you mentioned in your testimony that FEMA is assessing the capabilities of its regional offices. Do you think that

there will be—is it the plan to develop different capabilities within

each of the regional offices, or simply ensure that each regional office has the capability to respond to an emergency?

Mr. BUIKEMA. More the latter, Ms. Biggert. Basically FEMA has

a number of response teams and response elements and plans and

procedures that can be enacted and implemented in the event of a

disaster emergency. This has been an ongoing process but especially new focus has been placed on this since September 11th and

our region just went through this process a couple of weeks ago

and it was a peer assessment. In other words, folks from outside

the region came in and took a look at our capabilities and our

strengths and our weaknesses and it is a very valuable exercise, if

you will, because it allows us then to address any weaknesses and

proactively try to strengthen our capability to respond.

Ms. BIGGERT. Is there—I think that you might have answered

this, but you know, FEMA, the culture of FEMA really is to react

and to respond to terrorism or other disasters. How—are you

changing the culture of the agency when it proactively helps the

community citizens to avoid becoming victims?

Mr. BUIKEMA. Actually, FEMA has been a strong proponent of

mitigation or prevention for many years now. There has been a lot

of emphasis on prevention, an attempt to break the cycle, if you

will, and I will use flooding as an example, where too many homes

and structures perhaps are built in hazard areas such as flood

plains. An event occurs, a flood occurs, which may or may not, depending on the circumstances, ultimately lead to a major disaster

declaration and assistance from the Federal Government, and then

subsequent to that another flood occurs in this cycle.

So FEMA has been very aggressively, for a number of years,

working with State and local governments to try to prevent that.

Every time a Presidential Disaster Declaration is declared, a percentage of the Federal funds that come into a State are set aside

for hazard mitigation grant program dollars. For example, in Illinois, if my facts are correct, over 3,000 homes have been bought

up by the State of Illinois with Federal and local money and removed out of the flood plain, as an example of the way to prevent

future disasters from occurring.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. I appreciate the presentations all of you

have given. It is going to be very helpful and I thank you for coming here.

I want to now thank that people that arranged this particular

hearing: J. Russell George, the staff director and chief counsel is

back there; Bonnie Heald, deputy staff director on my left and your

right; Rosa Harris is from the General Accounting Office on loan

to the subcommittee and very responsible for this particular hearing; Justin Paulhamus is our majority clerk and does a great job

and he is at the end of the table and he is going to have to be the

dust-up guy for the rest of Chicago. And then Michael Sazonov, a

subcommittee intern; Sterling Bentley, another subcommittee intern; Joe DiSilvio, an intern and Yigal Kerszenbaum is another intern.

The minority staff; David McMillen here is behind me, a professional staff member; and Nadem L. Schaume is the deputy chief of

staff, press secretary for Representative Schakowsky. And their

help was great to us and Leslie Kohn, her district director in the

Chicago office, and John Samuels, legislative director, Office of

Representative Schakowsky.

And we are also particularly caring about his giving us this fine

chamber, and that is Chief Judge Charles Kokoras. And Joe Quomo

is the General Services Administration Site Coordinator. Joe Navit

is the courtroom technician. And Ulga Koloson is the administrative assistant to the chief judge. And not last, but he is going to

see us in Omaha and that is Bill Warren, court reporter. That is

a tough job when you are getting all of you and getting it in the

right place. So thank you very much.

And with that, we are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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