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22–963 PDF 2017

OVERSIGHT OF THE URBAN AREA SECURITY 

INITIATIVE GRANT PROGRAM 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS 

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 15, 2016 

Serial No. 114–98 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK, MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Massachusetts 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

MIKE HOWELL, Counsel 

WILLIE MARX, Clerk 


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SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS

JOHN L. MICA Florida, Chairman 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Vice Chair 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking 

Member 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

RON DESANTIS, Florida, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma, Vice Chair 

WILL HURD, Texas 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, 

Ranking Member 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 15, 2016 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Brian E. Kamoie, Assistant Administrator for Grant Programs, Federal 

Emergency Management Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Sheriff Jerry Demings, Orange County Sheriff’s Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Chief John Mina, Orlando Police Department 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 48 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 52 

Mr. Walter Purdy, President, Terrorism Research Center 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 57 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 59 

APPENDIX 

Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill and Report Language 

for FY 17, Entered by Chairman John Mica of the Transportation and 

Public Assets Subcommittee ................................................................................ 78 

Government Accountability Office’s Report on Preparedness for the City of 

Orlando, Kissimmee, and Stanford Florida, Entered by Rep. Gary Palmer 

(AL) ........................................................................................................................ 79

February 19, 2016, Letter from Brian E. Kamoie, Assistant Administrator 

for Grant Programs,FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, to Chairman John Mica, Entered by Chairman John Mica ........................................... 81 

June 29, 2016 Letter from Chairman John Mica to Chairman of the House 

Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte, Entered by Chairman John Mica ......... 85 

House Homeland Security Committee’s list of Select Counterterrorism Bills, 

Entered by Chairman John Mica ........................................................................ 86 

The 2016 Allocation of Urban Security Grant Funds and Threat Levels ........... 87 


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OVERSIGHT OF THE URBAN AREA SECURITY 

INITIATIVE GRANT PROGRAM 

Friday, July 15, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC

ASSETS, JOINT WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL

SECURITY

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:03 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Mica, DeSantis, Turner, Palmer, Meadows, and Lynch. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I’d like to welcome everyone this morning to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This 

morning we’re actually conducting a joint hearing with the Subcommittees on Transportation and Public Assets and also the National Security Subcommittee. The title of the hearing this morning 

is—and subject, is Addressing Oversight of the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant Program. 

I probably can’t start this hearing without just maybe a moment 

of silence both to remember the 49 individuals who were killed in 

Orlando, and then as we all saw last night in Nice, our great allies, 

the French, lost some 84 people. So we’ll just take a minute and 

pause here and remember those folks. 

[Moment of silence.] 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. It’s quite fitting that we do meet today to 

discuss one of the government programs that tries to deal with the 

terrorist threat. I’d like to thank our witnesses for being with us 

and the members attending this morning. 

First I want to say that the Subcommittee on Transportation and 

Public Assets and the Subcommittee on National Security will 

order, without objection, and the chair does state at this point that 

he is authorized to declare a recess at any time in this hearing. 

Now, the order of business will be as follows. We will have opening statements from the members that are here, then we will introduce our witnesses, witnesses will be sworn. Each of them will testify. After we have those introductions and testimony, we will go 

to questions. We’ll wait on having questioning until we’ve heard 

from all of the witnesses. 

So with that, I want to welcome again everyone, particularly our 

witnesses, and I’ll start with my opening statement. 


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Again, we come together to look at a Federal program that is designed to help our local and State governments deal with the terrorist threat that our Nation and the world is facing right now. 

This program, which is the Urban Security Initiative, was established after 9/11 to aid our State and local governments, and particularly our first responders, with giving them Federal assistance, 

because they are our first line of defense in terrorism, and providing Federal grants. 

Over the last few years, we’ve given on average a billion dollars 

a year on these grants to State and local governments. Unfortunately, I had the experience of working with some of my local governments in Orlando, and my district 3 years ago was changed to 

represent more of the urban core of Orlando, and at that time I got 

a chance to hear from both the sheriff of Orange County and also 

the police chief, John Mina, who are two of our witnesses today. 

They told me there was something wrong with the assessment 

under this program that’s conducted by DHS and FEMA, and they 

told me that our Central Florida area had the risk assessment 

changed, in fact, lowered, and it was lowered so much that, in fact, 

they were denied Federal assistance under the program that was 

designed to give them additional resources to deal with the terrorism threat. 

So unfortunately, the Federal Government failed. We won’t get 

into other failures of the Federal Government we’ve heard about, 

by Federal law enforcement and other agencies, but today we’re 

going to focus on the issue of the failure, the dramatic failure of 

missing the target in Orlando, Florida, in that particular instance. 

And then this isn’t just a criticism of that particular failure. This 

is also an effort to find out how we can make our communities 

safer, how we can make this program work better, and how we can 

get the resources to those who are on the first line of defense, and 

do that in an orderly and more effective and targeted fashion. 

Unfortunately, again, working with this issue even before the 

horrible events that took place in Orlando, with Sheriff Demings 

and Chief Mina, we wrote to and appealed the decisions by FEMA 

and DHS, saying that Orlando had a significant security terrorist 

risk threat. Each time, we were denied. 

I have to put up on the screen my comments on January 27th 

of this year. In the next to last sentence, I wrote Secretary Johnson 

and I said, ‘‘If Central Florida became a target, it would be a national disaster.’’ Those were my words to the Secretary back then. 

Since DHS and also FEMA would not change their assessment, 

we moved forward. And even before, again, the horrible Pulse massacre, we began changing legislative language. I’d like to submit for 

the record also language that we have included in the DHS appropriations bill, and that’s both legislative language and report language to make changes in this program, get back to Congress some 

of the data and information and assessment prior to it becoming 

effective. So without objection, we’ll put that in the record. 

Since, again, the horrible events in Orlando, our committee and 

subcommittees have conducted an investigation. Let me just go 

over briefly and conclude with some of our findings. Some of this 

is astounding. Of the money since 2011, almost half of the Urban 

Area Security Initiative funds, almost half of these funds are unexVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:00 Jan 10, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\22963.TXT APRIL

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pended. We have a slide here that shows $1.1 billion of the $2.8 

billion in these awards, or about 40 percent, remain unexpended. 

It’s stunning that while Orlando got no money the last 2 years, 

there are unexpended funds, now listen to this, from Boston, 2011, 

$591,000, in New York City, $11 and a half million since 2012 sitting idle, Los Angeles, sitting idle, $18, almost $19 million, and 

since 2014, $68 million sitting idle. Tampa, which was one of the 

recipients and Miami are the two that received awards in Florida, 

Tampa had $170,000 left over from 2014. 

So we’re going to need to look at how we get this money distributed, how it doesn’t sit idle, particularly when we have the terrorist threat that we have today. This grant program has awarded $8.2 billion since 2003. Also we 

found in our investigation, and reviewed, 2012 is the most recent 

support, but we found expenditures that weren’t justified in this 

program. Michigan bought 13 snow cone machines; in Ohio, we saw 

funds from their award given to support a 5-day spa junket featuring the actors on ‘‘The Apocalypse’’. These are just a couple of 

examples that we found of wasteful spending in the program. 

So we are in fact asking today, and I’ll ask with—Chairman 

Chaffetz has agreed to ask and we will have a letter that we’ll submit later in the record for review by the inspector general of three 

areas, both looking at the assessment area, looking at unexpended 

funds, and then thirdly, at wasteful spending. We need an update 

and we need that now. 

So, again, we know that Orlando had received money before, was 

denied money the last 2 years. We do know that Orlando and Central Florida used money on equipment, training, readiness exercises, and communications systems, and other things that probably 

could have helped. Would it have stopped this terrorist attack? We 

don’t know that, but, again, it’s our job to make certain that these 

Federal resources are used in a proper manner. 

So those are some of the things that we found. We’ve tried to 

warn FEMA. We tried to correct this before this took place. That 

didn’t happen. Now with the threat that we face in our community 

and across the Nation, as we’ve seen we’re all vulnerable, we’ve got 

to do a better job. 

I thank you again as witnesses for coming today. Let me yield 

to Mr. Lynch, our ranking member. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. 

Chairman DeSantis. And to our witnesses, Sheriff Demings, thank 

you so much, Chief Mina, thanks for coming up from Florida. We 

appreciate it. And Mr. Purdy and Mr. Kamoie. Is that the right 

pronunciation, Kamoie? 

Mr. KAMOIE. It is. 

Mr. LYNCH. Or is it close enough? 

Mr. KAMOIE. It is, Congressman. Thank you. 

Mr. LYNCH. You’re sure? Okay. All right. Thanks for being here. 

Mr. Chairman, at the outset, I want to join you in my thoughts 

and prayers for the people of Nice, France, the victims, their loved 

ones, and all those affected by the horrific terrorist attacks in 

southern France yesterday. This is the third major terrorist attack 

in France in the last 19 months. The State Department has confirmed that the victims include two American citizens. They are 


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Sean Copeland and his 11-year-old son, Brody. They are from the 

Austin, Texas, area. And our hearts and prayers go out to the 

Copeland family and the people of Texas. 

Mr. Chairman, again, I think this hearing is especially important 

in the wake of the horrific attacks in Orlando, and we continue to 

grieve and to pray for the victims’ families in Orlando as well. 

I’d like to thank both committees for participating in this hearing. And I do want to say that, Sheriff Demings and Chief Mina, 

we have heard, it has been widely communicated that your activities and your loyal, dedicated service has been a blessing before 

and after and during the attacks in Orlando, and I think that experience makes you especially valuable in terms of your perspective 

on how we might more effectively allocate the resources, substantial resources that we have out there, especially with these urban 

area grants. 

The Urban Area Security Initiative, also known as UASI, is one 

of the three programs that make up the Federal Emergency Management Agency Homeland Security grant program, and they collectively provide vital Federal funding to States and localities to 

prevent and respond to potential terrorist attacks and other emergencies. 

We have had our own struggles with this program in the city of 

Boston and the greater Boston area. I think we were helped, ironically, because of the fact that we had the attacks during the marathon, and that the realization of vulnerability and the threat assessment in that area gave us leverage, but we were not always 

recognized as an area that needed this funding. And there are several cities that, because of the factors that are applied in these allocations, there are other cities across the country, San Antonio, I 

know, in Texas has also been dropped from the list, and there’s got 

to be a better way for us to recognize and do this threat analysis 

so that places like Orlando and Central Florida will receive the 

funding that they need. 

The purpose of the urban area security grant is to assist cities 

in their anti-terrorism preparedness and response efforts. In particular, the program provides financial assistance to address the 

planning activities, organizational resources, equipment, training 

and exercise needs of the high-threat, high-density urban areas. 

That’s right from the statute. 

As Representative for the Eighth Congressional District of Massachusetts, including Boston, Quincy, Brockton, and 21 other 

towns, I can tell you that nearly $18 million that the Boston area 

received in Urban Area Security Initiative funding proved critical 

in the aftermath of the devastating Boston Marathon bombings in 

April of 2013. As reported by the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency in its July 2013 testimony before the U.S. Senate on Lessons Learned from the Marathon Bombing, UASI funding helped to 

secure onsite security and protection, bomb robots, x-ray equipment, and ballistic helmets and vests that were used during the 

event. 

Program grant funds also helped to provide regional mutual and 

radio systems to increase information sharing between law enforcement, fire service, and emergency medical services. This funding 

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ing-related operations and analysis, and provided camera systems 

that were used for post-incident investigation. Moreover, the Boston area directed Urban Area Security Initiative funds, to train 

SWAT teams, was critical in our ability to integrate bomb technicians into law enforcement, tactical operations, which was a crucial 

capability that was demonstrated following the marathon bombings, according to FEMA. 

Given the importance of Urban Area Security Initiative grants to 

the antiterrorism preparedness and response efforts in our cities, 

it is imperative that we conduct meaningful oversight of the program in order to ensure that no city, no city is arbitrarily or 

unjustifiably denied this assistance. 

It is my understanding that while the Orlando area study stead- ily indicated that the Orlando area was to receive nearly $45 million in UASI funding from 2004 to 2012, the area did not qualify 

for assistance in 2013, 2015, and 2016. For a metropolitan area 

that just last month experienced a tragic terrorist attack perpetrated by a shooter, Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the 

Islamic State, and the presence of a major densely settled population, a lot of people, a lot of tourist activity in Orlando, the absence of an Urban Area Security Initiative assistance grant certainly merits re-examination. 

I would note that a primary reason behind Orlando’s loss of funding from year to year is that Congress has imposed some additional 

guidance and restrictions when it comes to determinations made by 

the Department of Homeland Security to distribute urban area 

grants. In three of the last five appropriations cycles, Congress 

added report language to the annual Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that required the agency to place greater 

weight on certain risk and vulnerability criteria. Regrettably, these 

restrictions have resulted in a loss of funding for several cities, including Orlando. Other large and highly populated metropolitan 

areas include Kansas City, Sacramento, California, and San Antonio, Texas, as I mentioned before. These cities have also lost urban 

area initiative funding in the past. So hopefully we’ll be able— 

through the re-examination of what happened in Orlando, we 

might be able to help those localities as well. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to discussing with the witnesses 

what steps we can take to further strengthen the Urban Area Security Initiative training program. And I thank you for the time. I 

yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I thank you, Mr. Lynch, as the ranking member 

too of the National Security Subcommittee, and particularly I want 

to thank Congressman DeSantis, who chairs the Subcommittee on 

National Security, for their cooperative effort on this hearing and 

on this matter. 

Let me now recognize the chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, my colleague from Florida, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you 

for spearheading this hearing and thank you for raising the alarm 

about the need to protect Central Florida. 

Terrorism’s on the march. Last month’s attack in Orlando was 

the deadliest attack in the United States since September 11, 2001, 

and, of course, last night terrorists mowed down more than 80 peoVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:00 Jan 10, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\22963.TXT APRIL

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ple in Nice, France, by running them over with a truck. Our Homeland Security efforts must adapt to this growing threat, a threat 

posed by what is a global jihad. 

As Chairman Mica mentioned, despite numerous appeals from 

Orlando officials and Chairman Mica himself, the Department of 

Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency 

denied Urban Area Security Initiative funding to Orlando for the 

last 2 years, and has only allocated $1 million in the last 4 years. 

FEMA’s reasoning was that the terrorists were unlikely to attack 

Orlando, but FEMA was wrong. 

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency must allocate preparedness funding in 

a way that recognizes recent terrorist trends, specifically FEMA 

must change its risk ranking methodology and needs to listen to 

the appeals of cities that are closest to the threat. They’re on the 

ground, they’re the first responders, they know what the risk is. 

People pour into Central Florida every year, and the greater Orlando area contains a number of so-called soft targets, such as 

amusement parks, which see large numbers of people congregate in 

one location. Suicidal terrorists seek out soft targets because it allows them to inflict a large amount of damage in a relatively short 

period of time. The Orlando area is at risk, and we need the government’s methodology to reflect this fact. 

I agree with law enforcement personnel from Central Florida, including Sheriff Demings that the relative risk score for Orlando 

should also include Volusia and Brevard Counties. A cohesive strategy that includes these counties, both of whom sent assistance following the terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub, will better protect communities in Central Florida, and UASI funding should recognize this. 

I look forward to hearing from Sheriff Demings and Chief Mina 

on their appeals to the Federal Government and how UASI funding 

can help Orlando. These are very busy and trying times for law enforcement, and I appreciate Sheriff Demings and Chief Mina testifying today. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, again, the 

National Security Subcommittee cooperating on this hearing. 

We will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement for this hearing. 

I’d now like to recognize and introduce our witnesses. I’m pleased 

to welcome from Central Florida, Sheriff Jerry Demings of Orange 

County, Florida. He heads our sheriff’s office. He’s also distinguished by just being named the President of the Florida Sherifs 

Association. Welcome, Sheriff Demings. 

Then we have Chief John Mina. John Mina probably is known 

across the country, both Sheriff Demings and Chief Mina, for what 

they’ve been through, just unbelievable nightmare in our community, and he leads that force with distinction, the City of Orlando 

police chief. 

We have Walter Purdy, who’s President of the Terrorism Research Center. Welcome. 


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And then we have Mr. Brian Kamoie, Assistant Administrator 

for Grant Programs at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Gentlemen, this is an investigations and oversight committee of 

Congress. We do require that all of our witnesses be sworn. If you’d 

please stand, I’ll administer the oath. Raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about 

to give to this joint subcommittee hearing of Congress is the whole 

truth and nothing but the truth? 

Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the 

affirmative. Thank you. 

Some of you are new to the congressional hearing process. We try 

to get you to submit anything you’d like for the record, like the 

statement documentation. We’d like to have you summarize in 

about 5 minutes your key points and then we can get to questions. 

So with that, we’ll first turn to our Federal witness, Mr. Kamoie, 

with FEMA. And FEMA—again, the order of this, the investigational review—Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Lynch oversee the National Security Subcommittee, and they oversee DHS, but in this program, 

this urban area terrorism risk assessment, FEMA actually conducts the assessment. And, in fact, we’ll put in the record reference 

to their response to me after Central Florida was denied back in 

January, and multiple times their response on behalf of DHS. 

Mr. MICA. So with that introduction, let me welcome Mr. 

Kamoie, the representative from FEMA, to testify. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN E. CAMIOE 

Mr. KAMOIE. Thank you very much, Chairman Mica, Chairman 

DeSantis, and members of the subcommittee. Good morning. I’m 

Brian Kamoie, Assistant Administrator for Grant Programs at 

FEMA. On behalf of Secretary Jeh Johnson and Administrator 

Craig Fugate, thank you for the opportunity to discuss DHS and 

FEMA’s efforts to assist our State and local partners to prepare for 

and respond to terrorist attacks. 

The recent shootings in Dallas and Orlando and last night’s tragedy in Nice, France, are reminders of just how important it is for 

our Nation to be ready to respond to all types of hazards, including 

manmade threats. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims 

of these tragic events, as well as with the law enforcement officers 

who risk their lives every day to protect our communities, including 

Sheriff Demings, Chief Mina, and their officers. 

Today I will outline some of FEMA’s programs to provide first responders with the resources they need to prevent these events and 

to plan, equip, and train for them should they occur. I will also discuss how we’ve supported Orlando through these programs before 

and after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub on June 12. 

Thanks to your support, since 2002, Congress, through the Department of Homeland Security, has awarded more than $47 billion 

in preparedness funding to State and local governments and to a 

broad array of Homeland Security partners. In fiscal year 2016, 

more than $1 billion was awarded to our partners through the 

Homeland Security Grant Program, or HSGP, to build a more seVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:00 Jan 10, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\22963.TXT APRIL

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cure and resilient Nation. The HSGP includes three programs: the 

State Homeland Security Program, the Urban Area Security Initiative, or UASI, and the Operation Stonegarden Program. 

This year, the State Homeland Security Grant Program provides $402 million to support preparedness capabilities, with more than 

$11 million allocated to Florida. Florida also received more than 

$1.3 million through the Operation Stonegarden Program to enhance the security of the Nation’s borders. 

Each year, DHS prioritizes UASI funds by conducting a risk assessment of the 100 most populace metropolitan statistical areas, 

as required by the Homeland Security Act. The annual assessment 

is based on three key factors for each urban area: relative threat, 

vulnerability, and consequences from acts of terrorism. Threat 

scores are derived from intelligence data compiled by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis. This information includes data on 

any acts of terrorism, disrupted plots, credible threats, and known 

or suspected terrorist presence in each urban area. 

Vulnerability scores take into consideration any infrastructure 

that is a potentially high value target for terrorists, as well as any 

border crossings. 

Finally, consequence scores factor in an urban area’s population, 

economic, national infrastructure, and national security indices. 

The results of the risk assessment, including the scores and relative ranking, inform the Secretary’s decisions regarding eligible 

urban areas and funding allocations. Orlando received more than $44 and a half million in total UASI 

funding from fiscal years 2003 to 2012. In 2013, Congress for the 

first time directed DHS to limit the number of jurisdictions funded 

under the program to 25 in order to focus resources in the highest 

risk urban areas. Orlando had a relative risk rank of 30 that year 

and, as a result, did not receive funding. 

In 2014, Congress lifted the restriction on the total number of 

urban areas that DHS could fund under the program. That year, 

Secretary Johnson exercised his discretion and funded 39 areas, including Orlando, which was ranked 33rd, and received $1 million. 

In the annual DHS appropriations acts for fiscal years 2015 and 

2016, Congress again directed DHS to restrict funding to the urban 

areas that represent up to 85 percent of the assessed nationwide 

risk of terrorism. Secretary Johnson followed that direction, and 

designated 28 urban areas as eligible for UASI funding in 2015, 

and in 29 areas in 2016. Orlando fell outside the funded range in 

both of those years, ranking 32 in 2015 and 34 in 2016. 

Though not currently eligible for dedicated UASI funding, Orlando can still receive funding support through the State Homeland 

Security Program. HSGP funds awarded to Florida and the city of 

Orlando in previous years demonstrated their value during the 

June 12th attack. For example, an armored vehicle and the bomb 

detection robot used during response efforts were both purchased 

through these programs. Following the attack, I also immediately 

approved two requests from the Florida Division of Emergency 

Management to reallocate up to $253 thousand in unspent HSGP 

funds for law enforcement overtime expenses. 

In addition to DHS funding, the Department of Justice has made 

$1 million available to help cover response costs. Also, thanks to 


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congressional action, DHS now has new funding mechanisms to 

support jurisdictions in their counterterrorism efforts. For this fiscal year, Congress appropriated $49 million for the complex, Coordinated Terrorist Attack and Countering Violent Extremism 

Grant programs. 

It is important to note that FEMA also has a comprehensive 

emergency management training curriculum for first responders 

that includes counterterrorism courses. In coordination with the 

National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI, we developed the 

Joint Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop series. Participants 

work through an attack scenario to identify planning gaps and 

mitigation strategies. In 2014, Orlando hosted this workshop, with 

nearly 300 participants. And since 2011, FEMA has also trained 

more than 700,000 personnel, including many from Orlando, to respond to active shooter situations. 

FEMA’s honored to support Sheriff Demings, Chief Mina, and 

the Nation’s first responders through these programs. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today and 

I’m happy to respond to any questions the subcommittee may have. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Kamioe follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you. And we will get to questions after we’ve 

heard from the other witnesses. 

Let me now recognize and welcome again Sheriff Demings, the 

Orange County sheriff. You’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF SHERIFF JERRY DEMINGS 

Sheriff DEMINGS. Good morning, Chairman Mica and Chairman 

DeSantis. 

Mr. MICA. I’m not sure if your mic’s on. 

Sheriff DEMINGS. Good morning, Chairman Mica and Chairman 

DeSantis and members of the committee. It is indeed an honor and 

a privilege for me to provide testimony today. 

Let me begin by saying that I wish we didn’t have to provide testimony, because there is no risk of a terror attack in Orlando, but 

sadly we know that that is no longer the case. 

I will be addressing the valuable projects funded in previous 

years by the Urban Area Security Initiative, or UASI grant program, our DHS and FEMA efforts to reassess the Orlando, Kissimmee, Sanford, Florida, MSA, and the need to strengthen and secure the Central Florida region from another terror attack like the 

Pulse nightclub incident. 

The Central Florida region has been fortunate to receive approxi- mately $45.5 million in UASI funding since 2004. The Orange 

County Sheriff’s Office is the agency which has managed those 

funds. The funding received prior to 2013 was critical to our region’s ability to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from not 

only terrorism, but a broad range of other threats and hazards. 

We are only as good at preventing a terror attack as the quality 

of information that we receive about that attack. One of the assets 

that we have in our region is the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange Fusion Center. The fusion center is a center that operates 

in Central Florida in Orlando. It is located just outside of the airport. It serves as a central repository of databases that are currently being used by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement 

and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies. 

In addition to its counterterrorism focus, CFIX serves as an all 

hazards fusion center, assisting agencies in the mitigation and assistance needed to recover from hazards such as hurricanes and 

other natural disasters. CFIX assists with investigations of crimes 

that possibly contain a nexus to terrorist activity or other Homeland Security issues. 

Due to a lack of funding, some critical needs of CFIX have been 

lost. We have reduced the number of analysts, which could have 

worked to provide intelligence information that could prevent a terror attack. 

Examples of CFIX success stories include an incident in which 

CFIX assisted the U.S. Marshals in locating Federal fugitives. In 

another instance, CFIX assisted the United States Secret Service 

and the United States Coast Guard in locating a disgruntled citizen, who made concerning statements about the President prior to 

the launch of a Space Shuttle Endeavor mission, and numerous 

other instances in which they provided information with a nexus 

to national security. 


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Through the National Infrastructure Protection Program, we received UASI funding for a video camera surveillance project in the 

tourist quarter, downtown Orlando, and in areas near the University of Central Florida. Chief Mina will talk more about that. 

Due to a loss of funding, we have not been able to expand the 

camera project into areas around our top tourist destinations. 

On June 12th, we experienced the benefits of more than a dozen 

or so UASI-funded training exercises of the past years. I believe 

the agencies responding to the Pulse incident flawlessly initiated 

an active shooter response because of training paid for through historical UASI funding. You have a list of the training exercises in 

your material. 

We train to respond as a region to a terror attack or other disaster. In fact, on June 12, approximately 150 of my deputies responded, with the Orlando Police Department, to the Pulse incident. 

Because of the infrastructure connections in our region, it is natural to have a regional capability and vulnerability assessment. 

Presently, FEMA uses the Office of Management and Budget’s geographical boundaries defined in the Federal Register when calculating the risk score. We believe that the boundaries should be expanded to include the Brevard County area to the east and Volusia 

County Metropolitan Statistical Area to the north. 

In September of 2015, we began the process of lobbying the Federal Government to combine the metropolitan Orlando MSA with 

Brevard and Volusia. This was broadly supported by our Members 

of Congress from Central Florida as well as other State and local 

elected officials, and numerous letters were written to the FEMA 

assistant administrator of grant programs, the OMB statistician, 

and the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. You 

have a list and copies of the letters in your material. 

I really don’t have time this morning to get into the details of 

the methodology used in assigning risk, but we suggest that DHS 

include domestic and international visitors in the equation, and not 

just permanent resident population in the scoring. One credible attack in Central Florida to a theme park would be disastrous for our 

economy. 

With the recent attacks in Orlando, the incidents in Dallas and 

San Bernardino, there is a need in this country to have an overall 

perhaps increase in UASI funding, or at the very least, a redistribution of UASI funding across the Nation. That could increase 

the top MSAs with the most risk from the current 85 receiving 

funding to perhaps 90 percent of the MSAs on the high risk list of 

the top 100. 

Congressman Mica has been a staunch supporter of many of 

these efforts, and we appreciate the fact that he invited us to participate today. 

In 2016, the Orlando MSA was 34th on the list, when only 29 

metropolitan statistical areas were funded. 

In closing, thank you for allowing me to speak. And I ask the 

committee to analyze the current MSA methodology formula and 

the data used in the formula to reflect current threats and 

vulnerabilities in Central Florida. We have now been probed, which 

makes us more of a target. Thank you very much. 


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[Prepared statement of Mr. Demings follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Sheriff Demings. 

Let me recognize Orlando Chief Mina now. Welcome, and you’re 

recognized. 

STATEMENT OF CHIEF JOHN MINA 

Chief MINA. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Chairman DeSantis, 

members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify 

and allowing me to provide an overview of the immense security 

challenges we face on a daily basis in Central Florida and our use 

of the Urban Area Security Initiative funding. 

On behalf of the City of Orlando, I want to offer our thoughts 

and prayers to the victims, and families and friends of those victims in Nice, France, as well. 

As the committee is well aware, on June 12, Orlando fell victim 

to the second largest terrorist attack in history on U.S. soil. A selfradicalized extremist entered the Pulse nightclub at 2:02 and 

began shooting at the more than 300 patrons that were inside the 

club. Fortunately, an Orlando police officer working an extra duty 

assignment at the nightclub immediately engaged the suspect, and 

within minutes, more arriving officers broke a large window to 

enter the club. Within minutes, more arriving officers entered, and 

the suspect retreated into a bathroom, where he was isolated and 

holding hostage. The suspect reemerged into a hallway, where officers exchanged gunfire with him, forcing him to retreat into the 

bathroom. Immediately afterwards, the suspect was contained, and 

officers on the dance floor began to evacuate the victims out of the 

club. 

That night, we were faced with many challenges, as the suspect 

claimed to have explosives that were strategically placed throughout the nightclub, including suicide vests that he was going to 

place on the victims. Although faced with almost certain death if 

the suspect detonated any explosives, officers remained in the 

nightclub and, instead, pulled many of the critically injured victims 

out to safety, transporting them to the hospital in the back of police 

vehicles. 

For the next 3 hours, the suspect held hostages and talked on 

the phone with crisis negotiators, where he pledged allegiance to 

the Islamic State. After negotiations broke down, we were forced to 

breach the concrete wall using explosives and a BearCat armored 

vehicle to save the remaining hostages and victims and make contact with the suspect. 

As rescue efforts were underway, the suspect emerged from one 

of the holes created by our armored vehicle and engaged our SWAT 

officers in gunfire. The suspect’s rampage was ended at that time. 

Forty-nine innocent victim tragically lost their lives. 

The Orlando Police Department our regional partners have prepared for these types of incidents since the Columbine massacre. 

And although I believe we demonstrated great courage and resolve 

to mitigate this horrible tragedy, but we can always learn from our 

actions and work to make them even better. 

I would like to share with you some of the unique characteristics 

that make the Central Florida region an ideal target for terrorism. 

We have a combined resident population of 3.7 million people, and 


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in 2015 Orlando, had an increase in tourist population from 62 million to 66.1 million in one year, making it the number one tourist 

destination. Orlando is ranked number four in the top U.S. destinations for foreign travelers. Six of the top 50 attractions in the world 

are in the Orlando-Kissimmee area, in our UASI region. And although our resident population is 3.7 million, that number grows 

exponentially every day as millions of visitors call Orlando home 

while they live in our hundreds of area hotels and visit all of our 

region’s venues. 

The Central Florida region seeks funding under the UASI grant 

program on an annual basis. And the purpose of UASI is to enhance our capabilities to prevent, protect, and respond to, and recover from not only terrorism, but a broad range of other threats 

and hazards affecting our entire region. The intent of this funding 

allows us to establish measurable ratings priorities and balance 

threats and consequences. 

Since 2002, when the Homeland Security Act was signed into law 

by President George W. Bush, the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford 

MSA received UASI grant funds annually from 2004 until 2012. 

However, the funding stream drastically changed in the past 4 

years. Starting in 2013 and continuing up to 2016, the OrlandoKissimmee-Sanford area has not ranked high enough in relative 

risk score to receive UASI funding even though we are ranked 

number one on the MSA for domestic visitor population in the Consequence section of the formula. 

From 2012 to 2016, our area has appealed the relative risk score 

and asked the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to reassess the data. In May, members from our region traveled here to 

Washington, D.C., and met with representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA regarding the concerning 

threats to our region and the lack of UASI funding our region has 

received. 

These critically needed funds are used to strengthen our region’s 

preparedness and competency in prevention, protection, response, 

and recovery. 

The UASI funding we have received in the past has assisted in 

accomplishing many goals. Hazmat training has been provided for 

individuals to participate in various recognized and approved technician and specialist level courses specific to identified required 

competencies. There have been trainings, including intelligence, 

bomb training, incident command training, fusion center training, 

radiological and nuclear detection training, and interoperable and 

communication training. Through these training exercises, we have 

strengthened our core capabilities within our UASI region. The majority of the UASI funds that we receive are allocated—are used to 

purchase and sustain protective equipment within the region. This 

includes the continuation and build-out of a camera and video surveillance system which supports our protection plan. 

When complete, this program will give us access to approximately 500 cameras which can be viewed remotely from fixed and 

mobile command centers. This ability will aid us in the protection, 

prevention, as well as response and recovery from an act of terrorism or natural disaster that would directly affect the area’s critVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:00 Jan 10, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\22963.TXT APRIL

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ical infrastructure and identify venues that are key resources to 

sustaining the economic viability of our region. 

We have also utilized UASI programs to fund regional exercises, 

subsequent after action reports, and improvement plans. The last 

full-scale exercise in 2013 funded by UASI was a medical surge exercise at the Orlando International Airport, which involved multiple hospitals in the surrounding six counties and the city of Orlando. These vital tools have assisted us in measuring and gauging 

the progress of regional collaboration and communications capabilities within the Orlando metro area. 

It is absolutely critical that we as a region monitor and keep up 

with emerging trends, improvements in technology, updates to 

equipment. 

Due to the lack of funding in the past 4 years, this has caused 

serious response and mitigation constraints as a whole. From a law 

enforcement perspective, this affects the much needed training and 

equipment for our bomb teams in Central Florida to have the opportunity to train and purchase equipment needed for adequate 

bomb response. This was a critical component to the Pulse nightclub incident. 

In 2015, we identified through gap analysis a need to purchase 

a tactical robot for our SWAT teams and refurbished one of the 

aging regional bomb robots. Due to lack of funding, these programs 

we not funded. 

Finally, for the last few years, we have sought funding through 

the UASI grant program to conduct Swift Assisted Victim Extraction, or SAVE, training for the region. This critical training teaches 

law enforcement and fire service the tactics and skills necessary to 

save lives. In a typical response to an active shooter casualty incident, fire personnel will stage a safe distance from the scene until 

law enforcement declares the scene is clear, even though law enforcement is confident they have captured, contained, or killed the 

suspects. This course is designed to teach law enforcement officers 

and the fire department the tactics necessary to enter a semi-secure area, which will reduce time to render aid to victims and save 

their lives. Without continued training, these perishable skills 

would surely deteriorate. 

In closing, I would like to bring to the attention of the committee, 

the paradigms of traditional terror attacks are changing. In the 

past, our identified critical infrastructures were and obviously still 

are targets of terror attacks. 

Based on the horrific event we experienced at the Orlando Pulse 

nightclub and that of the brave Dallas police officers who gave 

their lives while protecting innocent civilians last week, I urge the 

committee to consider that these attacks are becoming more frequent at venues identified as soft targets. I ask the committee review the relative risk formula to better address the risk profile 

unique to the Central Florida region, also known as the OrlandoKissimmee-Sanford MSA. 

I would personally like to thank Congressman Mica for his continued and unwavering support, not only from the Pulse assistance, 

but your assistance with the UASI grant funding. 


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I would also like to thank the committee for allowing me the opportunity to give my statement today, and I look forward to any 

questions. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Chief Mina follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Chief Mina. 

And we’ll hear from our last witness, Mr. Walter Purdy, President of the Terrorism Research Center. Welcome, and you’re recognized, sir. 

STATEMENT OF WALTER PURDY 

Mr. PURDY. Well thank you, Chairman Mica, Chairman 

DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch and other distinguished members of this committee. Thank you for inviting me today to testify 

about this very important issue. 

The terrorism threat in America is one that is constantly evolving. In the wake of the terrorist attacks last night in Nice, previous 

attacks in Paris, Brussels, Boston, Charleston, Chattanooga, Garland, San Bernardino, and Orlando, the last thing we should be 

doing is reducing the levels of funding to certain cities that need 

these funds to protect America. 

It is truly unthinkable at this time that President Obama’s 2017 

budget reduces the level of funding for Homeland Security initiatives through the Urban Area Security Initiative, known as UASI, 

as well as in other funding mechanisms to protect the homeland. 

The threat to America from terrorists has not a gone away and is 

constantly evolving. 

The director of the FBI, James Comey, has warned that the FBI 

is investigating ISIS suspects in over 50 States, with more than 

900 active investigations. Just this last week on the front page of 

the Washington Post, Adam Goldman wrote an article talking 

about 92 ISIS individuals here in the United States. 

Even the funding for State and local antiterrorism training, 

SLAT, conducted through the Department of Justice, has been reduced and cut back. Talking to an individual with that bureau yesterday, they said, I’m not sure what we’re going to do to help local 

law enforcement that needs this critical training today. Yet the terrorism threat to America seems to continue to grow. 

Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson testified at 

a Senate hearing on funding for Homeland Security. He said he 

was constrained by the budget agreement, wasn’t happy, but had 

to make hard choices. Yes, we all know budgets restrain people, 

but we have to think about how we’re spending those resources and 

giving those communities, and cities, counties, and regions that 

need them the tools and resources to do the job to protect American 

citizens, and as you just heard, all the tourists that go and visit 

the Orlando area. 

If the terrorism threat to America was reduced to going away, I 

would be the first one to support a reduction in funding both for 

UASI and the Department of Homeland Security, but we all know 

this threat is not going anywhere. It’s actually increasing. 

Today, we see homeland radicalized terrorists conducting attacks, as we saw in San Bernardino. We see individuals 1.2 miles 

from my residence in Fairfax, Virginia, getting locked up last Friday. We see out in Sterling, Virginia, individuals, inspired by ISIS, 

going and purchasing weapons, seeking to attack targets in this 

particular region. 


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We need to be funding local law enforcement. They are the first 

responders. Both the police and sheriff’s department, and the officers in Orlando bravely dealt with that particular critical incident. 

Yet we’re asking the law enforcement community in places, and 

first responders, firefighters and others, to deal with this evergrowing, complex challenge as funding levels in places get cut. We 

can’t expect law enforcement as a community is going to be prepared to deal with these changing situations over time when we’re 

cutting funds. 

UASI funds, Homeland Security programs, Congress has heard 

from mayors, chiefs of police, sheriffs across from America, that 

have lobbied for a departure and a reexamination of how the funding takes place. The threat is real. I would ask you to kind of 

change the direction and approach in which these funds and mechanisms provide critical resources and assistance to those first responders in America. Training is critical. It is a critical step to getting individuals so they can respond effectively to this growing 

threat. 

I thank you for the time today and look forward to answering 

any questions. Thank you so much. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Purdy follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Purdy. 

And I want to thank all of our witnesses today. And I’ll go directly to questions. 

First of all, we have a program in place, and it’s been in place 

since 2003, many years. We provide about a billion dollars a year 

in funding. Well, what we’ve got to do is make sure we don’t leave 

any American city or community behind. My dad used to say, and 

I told this to Sheriff Demings and Chief Mina this morning, my 

dad used to say, it’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend 

it, and then getting money out. 

In looking at—and unfortunately, we were involved in this even 

before the horrible Orlando terrorist massacre. We were looking at 

trying to see what was wrong with the formula, why we were denied, and we found several things. In the response that—I don’t 

know if you were the—let’s see who signed this, but it came back 

from FEMA to me, again, before—this is back February 19th. 

Yeah. This is from you, Brian, Mr. Kamoie. You said, DHS Office 

of Intelligence and Analysis uses a holistic approach to analyze 

threat information and juxtaposed its review of intelligence community. 

So, again, we’ve got different agencies doing different things. 

You’re relying on information you’re getting from them. I’m told 

some of that information is outdated. For example, in Orlando, 

they’re using assessment data that’s from 2011 on the tourism visitation. Hasn’t been updated since then. Did you know that? 

Mr. KAMOIE. Sir, that’s not accurate. We’ve got more recent data 

than that. And we’d be glad to provide—— 

Mr. MICA. Well, we were told, again, that that was what was 

used. Maybe now there has been an update. So we’re told, again, 

that that information, that they have, is not up-to-date. You don’t 

do that. They do that. You analyze their data, right, their intelligence and what they supply you? 

Mr. KAMOIE. So the reason we use the term ‘‘holistic’’ is it’s a 

partnership between us and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis 

for the threat piece of the formula. 

Mr. MICA. Right. 

Mr. KAMOIE. Threat vulnerability and consequence. The threat 

piece looks at acts of terrorism, credible threats, reporting terrorism presence—— 

Mr. MICA. You gave us threat vulnerability, consequences, all of 

those things—— 

Mr. KAMOIE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. —but, again, the information we have is some of that 

data on which you based, at least Orlando, was outdated. That’s 

one. 

Then, two, somewhere, and Mr. Purdy referred to it, we are missing the mark. We missed the mark dramatically in Orlando. And, 

again, Mr. Purdy cited it. We’ve had San Bernardino, we’ve had 

Boston, Mr. Lynch’s community, my community, and they’re hitting 

soft targets. We went back and tried, as you heard Sheriff 

Demings, because we found out that some of the basis on which 

you analyzed us is we didn’t have a port, Orlando doesn’t have a 

port. So money went to Tampa and then money went to Miami. 

They have ports. 


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And we tried to change the area Mr. DeSantis represents, over 

to Volusia County, we tried to get that in, and Brevard County, 

and we were denied that. 

So my point here is somehow the threat assessment isn’t dealing 

with the reality of what they’re doing to us. They’re coming at us 

in soft targets. And then we said, we are a soft target. We’ve got 

great security at Disney, at Sea World, at Universal, at these big 

attractions, but look at the death toll list from Orlando. These people came from all over. Young ladies who were Googling a good 

place to go, which was the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. They were 

from Philadelphia. I mean, you look at the roster of the dead and 

where they came, and they came to a soft target. This guy scoped, 

he scoped Disney and then came back and slaughtered people at 

that nightclub. 

We are missing the mark. Now, maybe we should give the Secretary back to more discretion. Maybe we should—again, leave no 

community behind. Maybe we should divide the billion dollars between everybody and get some to at least address the problem. 

But Orlando, Central Florida, the biggest terrorist attack in the 

history of the country since 9/11, got zero the last 2 years. Don’t 

you think something’s wrong? 

Mr. KAMOIE. Chairman Mica, I’m going to address a number of 

the things that you’ve raised. In terms of leaving no State or city 

behind, the billion dollars you are referencing goes through two 

programs: The State Homeland Security program, $402 million this 

year. That provides funding for all 50 States. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. KAMOIE. The District of Columbia and the U.S. Territories. 

So that is a baseline of Homeland Security funding for all jurisdictions. 

Mr. MICA. Again, and maybe you’re not here to speak on behalf 

of a policy for the Secretary of DHS and beyond, but I’m telling you 

we aren’t getting it right. We are not getting it right. And also, just 

for the record, this is provided by you, daily visitors, the data is 

based on 2011, 2012 and 2013 survey data. This is what you gave 

us. Okay? So don’t say that I’m incorrect. That’s what you gave me. 

Now, Sheriff Demings, he summed a lot of this up. We’re only as 

good as the information that we have in intelligence. We have got 

to go back to getting better intelligence, connecting the dots, getting that information. Obviously, they missed the mark. We’re only 

talking about this program. But they missed the mark with our 

particular terrorist, who was identified multiple times, put on a 

watch list, taken off a watch list. Sheriff Demings, you’ve got to 

have that information right to know who poses a risk, either coming into or in our community. Is that correct? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. Congressman Mica, you are correct. And I will 

have to say that we have a wonderful collaborative effort between 

our Federal, State and local law enforcement authorities in Orlando, as I indicated, who operate out of the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange. 

There is classified and unclassified information that goes through 

that center that assists us in responding to counterterrorism efforts 

as well as our day-to-day crime prevention efforts. 


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Mr. MICA. Well, the other thing too is, and, Mr. Purdy, you 

said—I think it was you—we’ve got to change the paradigm, the 

San Bernardinos, the Orlandos, the Chattanoogas, the Bostons. 

They aren’t done with us. This isn’t over. We’ve got a responsibility, and if we’re going to spend even one penny, it has to go most 

effectively. 

And I’m calling today for—again, we have a billion dollars sitting 

there. That’s another issue, a billion dollars sitting there, some of 

this since 2011. We’ve got to get that money out. It shouldn’t be 

sitting here. So if they don’t use it, we should find some way that 

they lose it and it goes to where people can use it. 

But you saw the chart. I saw it this morning the first time. It’s 

stunning. Almost a third of the money sitting there. Something’s 

wrong and we’ve got to change it. But my time is over and extended. 

Let me recognize the gentleman and Ranking Member Mr. 

Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Kamoie, all right, so, as the chart showed, there’s about a 

third of the resources that were authorized but not expended. I’m 

rather surprised to see that the people in Boston left half a million 

dollars unspent, we’re not known for that. 

But could you explain to me why the allocation—there’s two 

problems here: One might be the amount of resources that we’re 

allocating; the other is the effective use, how we deploy and whether we deploy those resources to protect the people. That’s my first 

question. 

So can you explain why there is that residual amount not spent? 

Mr. KAMOIE. I’d be glad to, Congressman Lynch. And I believe 

the word that Chairman Mica used was that the money is idle. 

There are three timelines that you need to keep in mind with respect to this money. The first is, it is 1-year funding when it is provided to us from the Congress, meaning we need to make the 

awards in the same fiscal year in which they are appropriated. So 

we announce the awards, we move—— 

Mr. LYNCH. I don’t want you to burn all my time on this, because 

I have some more questions. But, please, if that’s the case—so that 

money is going to be spent, is that what you’re going to tell me? 

Mr. KAMOIE. The money is all booked against projects that they 

are spending against. You can think of it as your own budget. 

When you have a budget at the beginning of the month and you 

put on your ledger that you’re going to pay your mortgage on the 

25th, it doesn’t mean the money is idle. It means it doesn’t get paid 

until later in the—— 

Mr. LYNCH. So it’s targeted; it’s going to be spent later. 

Mr. KAMOIE. Yes. 

Mr. LYNCH. You can just say that in a short amount of time. 

Thank you, I appreciate that. So we’re going to spend that money 

later, it just hasn’t been spent yet. Okay. 

What about the factors that we’re using here? Orlando, you 

know, they’ve got Disney World and all that going on. I’m sure they 

have huge fluctuations of population. 

Manhattan, same thing. I worked there. You know, Manhattan 

has very little population maybe on a Saturday morning, but then 


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Monday morning all these millions of people come on in and there’s 

a huge problem there. 

So in the factor, in the formula, do we consider the inflow? Like, 

you know, some of the areas in Orlando, obviously, there’s a certain 

season when they get swamped with people. 

Mr. KAMOIE. We do. Population counted as nighttime census, 

meaning people who both live there, who are visitors overnight, 

and then people who commute during the day and leave. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

Mr. KAMOIE. We count all those folks. And we also count the infrastructure that you’re well familiar with in Orlando. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. It was quite surprising to me that the Pulse 

Nightclub in Orlando was attacked. Just, I mean, come on. You 

know, who could predict that? You could say similar thoughts, as 

someone from Boston, the marathon, I’ve run that a couple of 

times, that is not somewhere where you would even think, but now 

we have to, right? 

So if we’re going to start protecting soft targets, the list is endless. The opportunities are endless. And you just almost get into 

this sort of whack-a-mole type situation where we try to guess 

where they might strike next. And I don’t think there’s anything 

short of full-spectrum surveillance of American society that could 

even approach addressing that problem, as far as something programmatic, in terms of giving people money out, you know, across 

these jurisdictions to sort of make sure nothing happens in their 

district. I don’t know. That’s a tall order for law enforcement and 

for our intelligence services. 

And I’m just wondering is there a better model out there? I know 

that the British have put a lot of money into surveillance. They’ve 

got cameras everywhere, especially their transportation systems. 

We haven’t done enough of that yet. 

But is there another model out there, Mr. Kamoie and Mr. 

Purdy, that you think offers some hope? 

Mr. KAMOIE. Congressman, I’ll defer to the sheriff and the police 

chief on what the best policing tactics are to address the threat. On 

the financing, I can just tell you on the funding levels, you pointed 

out something very important in your opening statement, which is 

the direction that Congress gives to the Secretary about how many 

jurisdictions to fund, how far to spread the funding. The Secretary 

takes that guidance very seriously. 

So Congress has a choice about the breadth of jurisdictions you 

wish the Department to cover with the funding. So I would encourage you to have discussions among the committee and with the appropriators about the appropriate intent that you’d like to convey 

to the Secretary. 

Mr. LYNCH. I can just say in closing, from our own experience in 

Boston, the fact that we had a very robust public safety infrastructure there, we’ve got great—a suburb police department, fire department, emergency medical services, hospitals. They were all onsite. They were all onsite. We have a great Joint Terrorism Task 

Force, where FBI, DHS, State Police, local police. So I think that 

a lot of people were saved that day, because we had medical tents 

already set up, we had that infrastructure in place. We had great 

leadership. And that continues to this day. 


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So that that’s sort of the first line of defense, and then the stuff 

that we’re doing here with these special programs. So we’ve got to 

support the sheriff and the chief in their basic jobs, and then plus 

that up, plus that up with enhanced resources at this level. But 

thank you for your courtesy. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the time I don’t have. 

Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding.] I thank my friend from Massachusetts. I now recognize myself for five minutes. 

Sheriff Demings, the amount of people that are coming into central Florida every year, what’s the ballpark estimate of how many 

people come to visit? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. In 2015, it was 6 to 6.1 million people came to 

visit. And in my county, our permanent resident population is 1.3 

million. So effectively, on any given day, our county population 

doubles, and that’s the service population that we have to deal 

with. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And those figures would put Orlando in probably 

the top five in the country for visitors. Is that your understanding? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. It would certainly move us up from number 34, 

where we currently reside on the list. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you combine a huge influx of people with a lot 

of different soft targets. I mean, people think, oh, you know, they’ll 

go to Disneyland or Disney World. Yeah, that’s one, but there are 

amusement parks everywhere. There are, really, a high number of 

soft targets and probably more soft targets in Orlando than just 

about any other city certainly in the Southeast, I would say. Do 

you agree with that? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. Certainly. Because we have now had an attack 

in Orlando, I believe that we will remain at risk. And that’s the 

unfortunate thing about it. And we simply want to be prepared and 

prevent something from occurring. And then if it should happen, 

we want to be able to respond quickly. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But a huge number of people and then the proliferation of soft targets, that’s not really reflected in how FEMA 

analyzes this presently, correct? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. As best as I can tell, that is perhaps some of 

the factors that they look at. But we are seeing a paradigm shift 

in the way terror suspects are identifying their targets, as Chief 

Mina indicated, and they are looking more at the soft targets. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So, Chief, how would the funding—say this 

changes and you guys are getting more funding, what would be 

your first order of business to use that, in terms of terrorist preparedness? 

Chief MINA. Well first of all, going back to the formula and the 

amount of visitors, and that may be factored in, but we believe, 

since we are such a target, that the number of visitors in our 

venues should hold greater weight. 

But secondly, that funding has provided us with much needed 

training for our response and much needed equipment. But training skills perish and equipment, you know, is needed to be replaced. So, you know, just looking at the Pulse incident, there’s so 

much more equipment that I would have liked. There’s thermal imaging, to see where the suspect was behind those walls. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Sir, I met with officials from France to discuss the Paris attacks, 

and they had ballistic protection for their face shields for their 

SWAT officers, which we do not have. So there’s all kinds of equipment out there, equipment—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Do you guys have the—the Dallas police used the 

robot to deliver a bomb to kill the guy who was shooting the cops. 

Do you guys have access to that type of technology? 

Chief MINA. We do have a similar robot. But, again, we haven’t 

had the training to deploy such a device, as you know, the first 

time used ever to kill a suspect in that type of situation. But that’s, 

again, training that could be provided with that funding. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Sheriff Demings, you talked about in your testimony having Brevard and Volusia be included in that. Why is that 

important? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. It’s important because it is really—it speaks to 

more of how our metropolitan area functions, the infrastructure, 

the roadways, how we advertise our tourism destinations, how our 

commuters travel to and from work. 

We truly are one big metropolitan area. Whenever there’s an incident, let’s say in Volusia involving the raceway, we support their 

efforts. When there is something that’s going on at NASA, the Kennedy Space Center, we support the efforts there as well. 

And so even with the Pulse incident, we had a regional response. 

There were police agencies and sheriff’s officers from throughout 

the region in question who responded to assist us in our recovery 

efforts. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I agree. And I join Chairman Mica in supporting 

your efforts to get that change. 

This is just a little bit off this particular subject, but there’s obviously been a lot of issues going on in our society. The Dallas shootings. So how is the morale with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for officers? Are they feeling the support that they need 

from the community and the public? 

Sheriff DEMINGS. I’ve got to tell you for the last 2 years law enforcement across the Nation has been criticized mightily, sometimes justly so, sometimes unjustly so. 

But what we saw happen immediately after the Pulse incident 

was this tremendous outpouring of support and love, if you will, 

that was shown to all first responders, not just the law enforcement officers. And there were various random acts of kindness to 

our personnel that has continued right through today. And I’m sure 

that Chief Mina could echo my comments and sentiments in this 

regard. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Is that your experience? 

Chief MINA. Absolutely. It’s been tough times for law enforcement these past few years, but the morale is good because of the 

great support from our community. And we’re lucky in Orlando and 

Orange County. We have a rich history of community policing and 

community engagement with our community. But there has been 

just a huge outpouring of support from the community. 

And certainly, any time a police officer is targeted because of 

wearing that uniform, it is very concerning to them. So they are 

very on guard and aware and concerned about their own safety, but 

the morale is good and they feel the support from our community. 


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Mr. DESANTIS. Great. Well, thank you, and I am done. 

And I guess we’ll now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, 

Mr. Palmer, for five minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want thank the witnesses for being here and echo the sentiment that we’ve already heard here about our support for law enforcement and first responders at every level. We really do appreciate you guys and want to help any way we can. 

Mr. Kamoie, does FEMA have the capabilities to do evaluations 

of regional preparedness? 

Mr. KAMOIE. We do. We’ve got extensive reporting by our grant 

recipients against core capabilities for preparedness. So we’ve done 

a great many things to advance our ability to assess preparedness. 

Mr. PALMER. How long have you been doing these? 

Mr. KAMOIE. The President issued Presidential Policy Directive 

8 on national preparedness in 2011, and we have been working 

since then on identifying the core capabilities and working with our 

State and local partners to align investments of these grant funds 

against those capabilities. 

Mr. PALMER. Prior to the Orlando attack, considering the high 

profile of that city and of that region, was there a preparedness 

evaluation report done for central Florida and specifically Orlando? 

Mr. KAMOIE. As an Urban Area Security Initiative jurisdiction, 

Orlando has reported to us the funding—— 

Mr. PALMER. No. I’m asking, this is FEMA’s responsibility. 

There’s a GAO report. You mentioned the President’s initiative. I 

want to know was there a report done for central Florida and specifically for the city of Orlando? 

Mr. KAMOIE. I’ll have to follow up with you, Congressman. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. When you follow up, I would like for you to 

respond to the committee as to whether or not a report was prepared, and if it was I’d like for you to provide that to the committee. Could you do that, please? 

Mr. KAMOIE. I will. 

Mr. PALMER. Isn’t it the responsibility of the UASI program to 

make sure that the program’s goals are met? 

Mr. KAMOIE. That the program—— 

Mr. PALMER. Goals are met. 

Mr. KAMOIE. Yes. 

Mr. PALMER. One of the goals is to make sure that these regions 

are prepared. And what I find stunning—and I was at the classified briefing in which Mr. Mica laid some documents on the stage 

for Secretary Johnson. 

It is stunning to me that more wasn’t done to prepare Orlando 

for this, to view Orlando as a target. It’s stunning to me that Orlando was turned down for the grant, and particularly considering 

the threats that we face, and it’s been in an escalating nature. I 

mean, it’s not like one happened 5 years ago and then something 

else happened. I mean, these things are escalating. It’s almost as 

though the Federal Government, particularly this administration, 

is tone deaf or blind to it. And I just don’t understand why there’s 

a billion dollars that wasn’t used. And I heard your answer a while 

ago that there’s other things going on, but they are critical needs 

and Orlando should have been one of the top areas for this. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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What accountability and oversight is FEMA exercising to ensure 

that program funds are being used effectively? 

Mr. KAMOIE. We monitor 100 percent of all open awards. And 

where we see indications that additional monitoring is needed, we 

do site visits. We work both on the programmatic monitoring and 

financial monitoring, to make sure the funding is spent for the purposes for which it is appropriated. 

Mr. PALMER. Well when you look at the fact that there’s over half 

a billion—$662 million, half a billion dollars that was unused from 

2011, and you couldn’t come up with some—— 

Mr. KAMOIE. The award amount was $662 million. The award 

balance was—— 

Mr. PALMER. I’m sorry, you’re right. There’s half a billion was— 

$1.1 billion that’s left over, and it’s accumulated over that time. 

Thank you for pointing that out. 

Mr. KAMOIE. It’s not idle or left over. The grantees for 2015 have 

3 years to spend the money. So they are in progress with that $585 

million, and they’ll spend against it until 2018. In 2014, they had 

a 2-year period of performance. They have until August of 2016 to 

spend down that funding, and when they conduct or complete large 

projects, they then request reimbursement. 

Mr. PALMER. Are you saying that most of the funding is spent 

on the back end of that? 

Mr. KAMOIE. I’m saying the timing for which they request reimbursement can accelerate toward the end of the period of performance. So it’s a reimbursement grant. So they submit bills to us; we 

pay them. So that $585 million for 2015 is ongoing. The $445 million, the period of performance will close in August. Some projects 

will get legitimate extensions to their period of performance, because they’re still in progress. That billion dollars is very actively 

being spent right now; it’s not left over. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, what I was asking is, is it looks like a lot of 

this is spent on the back end, if you’ve got 2014 funding and you 

still have $445 million left and it closes out in August. 

Mr. KAMOIE. So whether it’s spent on—I mean, we reimburse on 

the back end, yes. As we’re closing the grants, jurisdictions submit 

a large number of bills to us. 

Mr. PALMER. I want to look into this a little bit more and make 

sure that I fully understand how this is done, but I want to get 

back to this. 

I understand the senior policy group oversees the allocation and 

implementation of UASI funding, determines priority actions for increasing the region’s preparedness and response capabilities, as 

well as reducing vulnerability to terrorist attacks. The group is 

comprised of senior emergency management officials. They’re from 

the District of Columbia, they’re from Maryland and Virginia. 

Why isn’t there more diversity in the context of regional representation on that, or is there? And I’m asking this in the context 

of I’m trying to learn something here about how they’re coordinating. 

Mr. KAMOIE. The senior policy group for the District of Columbia’s Urban Area Security Initiative? That is not—— 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. PALMER. No, senior policy group. I understand they oversee 

the allocation and implementation of the UASI funding, and they 

determine the priority actions. 

Mr. KAMOIE. Not nationally. So in every urban area, there’s typically an urban area working group, whether a jurisdiction calls it 

a senior policy group or by some other name; but every urban area 

has a governance structure to determine the priorities among the 

jurisdictions. But I have no senior policy group from those jurisdictions that govern nationally what the program’s priorities are. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, that came from the GAO report and it indicated it was for the whole country, the whole UASI. 

Mr. KAMOIE. Congressman, we’ll take a look at that. I’m not familiar with that senior policy group. 

Mr. PALMER. You’re not familiar with the group? 

Mr. KAMOIE. There is no senior policy group that sets the Urban 

Area Security Initiative priorities nationally. I think that is likely 

referring to a specific urban area jurisdiction. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Then who does determine? 

Mr. KAMOIE. So I go back to the President’s preparedness policy 

identified 32 core capabilities that are the priorities, how this administration has defined preparedness against which all of the 

grant investments should be invested. They are very broad. They 

range from prevention capability, such as information sharing and 

interdiction, search and detection, all the way through to response 

and recovery capabilities. 

So we have, as an administration, determined priorities for preparedness grant funding. We work with grantees to make sure the 

funds are spent against those priorities. We monitor how the funds 

are spent. Of course, the Department’s inspector general audits 

grant recipients; and where we find that funds have not been used 

properly, we take enforcement action. 

Mr. PALMER. I’m trying to figure out, though, how you make a 

determination that would result in Orlando and central Florida not 

getting a grant. Is there a ranking process? Is there a committee 

or is it an individual—I tell you what, for sake of time, and I’ve 

gone over my time, could you give us a report on that that outlines 

how this is done? 

Mr. KAMOIE. Absolutely, Congressman. 

Mr. PALMER. I’d appreciate that. 

Mr. Chairman, you’ve been very generous with time. I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. [Presiding.] Thank you. Appreciate your questions and 

participation. 

Let me yield now to the Ranking Member, Mr. Lynch. Additional 

questions? 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Kamoie, we’re getting hung up again on the allocations and the unspent amounts. What happens, you know, so 

we’ve already—we’re joining in a letter to have the inspector general look at this and see how much money has been lingering and 

unspent for how much time. 

Obviously, if something has been sitting there for 5 years and 

hasn’t been spent, it’s probably not going to get spent. And if we 

could somehow reallocate to our Tier II risk jurisdictions, that 

might help some of the problems that we’ve identified here. 


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Mr. KAMOIE. It’s why I mentioned the money to us is 1-year 

money. I can’t reallocate it if a grant recipient doesn’t spend it. I 

don’t have the authority. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, we need to do that. We need to—we have provisions in our general transportation budget that if you don’t use 

money, we take it back after a certain period of time. We could 

have a similar provision in this, in this grant program, that either 

puts the money back in the pot for re-issuance or automatically 

goes to these underserved jurisdictions that don’t have the robust 

security apparatus that some others do. 

How much control does the State have? My Governor is pretty 

good on this stuff, but in terms of allocation within areas, how 

much involvement does the State have in where to allocate the resources? Is any of that tied in with the government? 

Mr. KAMOIE. In the State Homeland Security program, the Governor designates a State administrative agency and they have control over the State Homeland Security program funds. The Urban 

Area Security Initiative funds pass through a State, which, by statute, is allowed to keep up to 20 percent of the funding, and then 

passes the 80 percent down to the urban areas, who, again—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Are they earmarked for those urban areas? 

Mr. KAMOIE. They are directed to the urban areas, yes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

Mr. KAMOIE. When an award is made to Orlando, it passes 

through the State to Orlando. 

Mr. LYNCH. And they can take 20 percent out? 

Mr. KAMOIE. They can take up to 20 percent. 

Mr. LYNCH. For what, administrative costs or—— 

Mr. KAMOIE. For activities and projects that benefit the urban 

area or benefit statewide. 

Mr. LYNCH. I see. Okay. I have a few, some seconds left here. 

Any other points you want to make? 

Mr. KAMOIE. I’ll just go back to something you mentioned in your 

opening statement, Congressman, which is the guidance on the 

number of urban areas that the Secretary provides the funding to 

is critical, because Congress has a choice to make as to where the 

line is drawn in the top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The 

Congress can draw the line; they can provide discretion to the Secretary to draw the line. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Thank you. 

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Again, I thank you, Mr. Lynch and Mr. DeSantis, for 

participating, and other members today as we wind this up. 

Let me go back and ask Sheriff Demings if there’s any points he 

would like to make, having heard what has transpired and the information we have now about the program. And we’ll go to Chief 

Mina and then Mr. Purdy. 

Sheriff DEMINGS. The last comment by Mr. Kamoie I believe certainly has merit, and which some discretion should be given to the 

Secretary to determine where the line is drawn, because if the Secretary has discretion, perhaps the Secretary can make that—use 

that discretion based on current events and what is happening 

today and not what occurred 1, 2 or 3 years prior. 

Mr. MICA. Chief Mina. 


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Chief MINA. Yeah. And just again, that we ask that more weight 

be given in the formula to the 66 million visitors. And also, I think 

it was important to mention that the Orlando FBI offices run out 

of Tampa. So that those—the investigations and intelligence received through Orlando are actually attributed to and out of the 

Tampa office. So we would like that to be looked at as well. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Purdy. 

Mr. PURDY. I think one of the issues here is metrics, factors, formulas of risk and threat. And maybe if the Secretary of Homeland 

Security had more discretion, maybe some of those funds would 

then be able to be allocated to maybe those Tier II cities and regions that maybe need some of these things. 

Congressman Lynch was spot on the money when he talked 

about soft targets. You know, terrorists are looking at targets. We 

harden stuff with UASI money and then they look at, okay, nightclubs, in Paris, a stadium, nightclubs, restaurants, a concert hall. 

So they’re also looking to see what we’re doing, and they’re very 

adaptive. So we spend money to harden something, but we also 

have to think of an evolving process. And so maybe the Secretary 

does need more discretion, and Congress can give him that. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Any quick comment, Mr. Kamoie? 

Mr. KAMOIE. No. We look forward to continuing to work with the 

sheriff, with the police chief, with the Orlando community, and the 

other urban area jurisdictions to secure our communities. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. We always have these hearings and then people 

wonder what’s coming from it. I want to thank Mr. Lynch. He’s 

agreed to sign on with myself. Chairman Chaffetz last night agreed 

to be a cosigner of a letter to the inspector general. 

And we’re going to ask for three things to follow up this hearing: 

One, we’re going to ask for a review of the assessment process. 

Somewhere we’re missing the mark. The assessment hasn’t caught 

up with what the terrorists are doing and hitting us in these soft 

targets. So somehow we’ve got to do that. 

We also have the issue of the discretion for the Secretary. We 

need to look at that congressionally. We do have, with the amendment that I’ve offered, which is in the DHS appropriations bill, 

some look-see from Congress, but we may want to go beyond that. 

The second thing we want the inspector general to look at is the 

leftover money. We have money back to 2011. Maybe if you don’t 

use it you lose it or it becomes redistributed. When I saw the chart 

again this morning that they had shown me when they did the 

final analysis, we’ve got about a third of the money, over a billion 

dollars sitting behind. That’s not acceptable. These people are after 

us. We’ve got to stay ahead of them with every resource possible. 

It can’t be sitting somewhere. So that’s the second thing. 

And then we’ve seen some wasteful spending. That last report 

was 2012. We want that updated. People can’t waste the money. 

It has to be effectively expended to target our needs to combat terrorism and get the funds to the local government. 

So we can’t afford not to get it right here. We’ve got to get it 

right. There have been multiple Federal failures. This hearing only 

looks at one of them. I have a letter, and we’ll make it part without 

objection, I hope, to Chairman Goodlatte and also to Chairman 

Chaffetz, to look at the elements that I don’t have jurisdiction, your 


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subcommittee might, but under the judiciary looking at the FBI 

and some of the failures there: Our watch list that failed; our identification of somebody who posed a risk and months of investigation 

and then nothing done to track them. 

So we’ve got to get that right. So I’m going to put in the record 

a letter that I submitted on June 29 to Chairman Goodlatte and 

also shared with Chairman Chaffetz to follow up, so we look at 

that. 

Mr. MICA. Other items. I just wanted to put into in the record— 

people wonder sometimes what me, Mr. Lynch and others are doing 

to combat terrorism. And I got this just this week, a summary of 

the Homeland Security Committee. These are select counterterrorism bills. Every one of these bills, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, there 

must be 20 of them, I want to put this in the record. These are bills 

that were passed, we voted on to deal with terrorism. Unfortunately, many of them are sitting in the Senate, but we have not 

neglected trying to change laws and our approach from a legislative 

standpoint. So, without objection, I would like to put that in the 

record. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. And then finally, this was just released that says ‘‘for 

official use only,’’ and if we could put this in the record or refer to 

it, this is the 2016 allocation of Urban Security Grant funds and 

threat levels. This was just released a couple weeks ago. Orlando 

is not on the list. We’ve got something wrong that needs to be corrected. So we have some challenges. People are counting on us. Our 

Nation is under attack, our communities under attack. 

Mr. MICA. I can’t end the hearing without thanking my two local 

law enforcement guys. They have been there. Even before that attack took place in Orlando, the worst terrorist massacre since 9/11, 

they were there. They warned us. The Federal Government didn’t 

hear it. And now we’ll probably get hunting, we’ll probably make 

these changes, but 49 people aren’t with us and their families are 

suffering. And we missed the mark in Boston, we missed it in San 

Bernardino and others, so we’ve got to do a better job. 

I thank every one of you, on behalf of the committee, on behalf 

of the Congress, for coming and testifying and working together. I 

am very confident we can get it right and meet this challenge. 

There being no further business before the joint subcommittee 

hearing today, again, thank you, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:38 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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