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PROTECTING OUR EMPLOYEES: PANDEMIC 

INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS AND 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 16, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

LISA M. POWELL, Staff Director 

BRYAN G. POLISUK, Counsel 

THOMAS J.R. RICHARDS, Professional Staff Member 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director 

THOMAS A. BISHOP, Minority Professional Staff Member 

BENJAMIN B. RHODESIDE, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 3 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2009 

Rear Admiral W. Craig Vanderwagen, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ........... 4 

Elaine C. Duke, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ........................................................................................................ 6 

Nancy H. Kichak, Associate Director, Strategic Human Resources Policy Division, U.S. Office of Personnel Management ....................................................... 7 

Bernice Steinhardt, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office ......................................................................................................... 9 

T.J. Bonner, President, National Border Patrol Council, American Federation 

of Government Employees, AFL–CIO ................................................................ 23 

Maureen Gilman, Legislative Director, National Treasury Employees Union ... 25 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bonner, T.J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 64 

Duke, Elaine C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 

Gilman, Maureen: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement by Colleen M. Kelley with attachments ....................... 82 

Kichak, Nancy H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Steinhardt, Bernice: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48 

Vanderwagen, Rear Admiral W. Craig, M.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

APPENDIX 

Background .............................................................................................................. 96 

ADDITIONAL PREPARED STATEMENTS

Questions and Responses to post-hearing questions: 

Mr. Vanderwagen ............................................................................................. 101 

Ms. Duke ........................................................................................................... 108 

(1) 

PROTECTING OUR EMPLOYEES: PANDEMIC 

INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS AND 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE 

TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2009 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. 

Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. The hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight 

of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia will come to order. 

I want to say good morning, aloha, and welcome to our distinguished panelists and guests and those who have joined us for the 

hearing this morning. I would like to thank you all for joining us 

here today for this hearing on Federal agencies’ preparedness in 

the event of a pandemic influenza outbreak. 

First, I want to express my disappointment that the Subcommittee did not receive testimony from the agencies until late 

yesterday, some of it arriving at nearly 7 p.m. last night. This problem underscores my concerns that agencies will not be prepared to 

respond rapidly and communicate effectively to an emerging pandemic. 

As you know, our Subcommittee rules ask that witnesses furnish 

testimony at least 2 days in advance, or Friday in the case of a 

Tuesday hearing, to allow Members and staff enough time to prepare for the hearing. We will continue as best we can under the 

circumstances, but in future hearings I may strike late witness testimony. We may need to send additional follow-up questions on any 

issues we are not able to address today because of the unfortunate 

delay. 

Pandemic influenza continues to be a grave threat facing the 

United States and the world. The United Nations’ World Health 

Organization (WHO), which coordinates global pandemic preparedVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:16 Apr 13, 2010 Jkt 051787 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51787.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
2 

ness and response efforts, has said that infectious diseases are 

spreading faster than at any time in history. 

At the end of April, illnesses due to the novel H1N1 influenza 

virus spread across North America and, over a short period of time, 

around the globe. H1N1 has resulted in over 28,000 infections and 

nearly 150 deaths to date. Last week, the WHO raised the pandemic alert level to phase six, a full-blown global pandemic. Fortunately, so far, the virus has been relatively mild, but influenza viruses mutate rapidly, and H1N1 poses a significant threat. 

The WHO has estimated that a serious pandemic influenza outbreak could cause more than 7 million deaths worldwide. In the 

last century, three pandemics killed approximately 43 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 Americans. Public 

health officials have said for years that we need to prepare for the 

inevitable flu pandemic. We must do all we can to protect our communities from this threat. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 

that up to 40 percent of employees may be absent from work during a severe pandemic. In addition to those who are ill, employees 

may stay home to care for sick family members or due to fear of 

infection. An influenza pandemic threatens the operation of Federal 

agencies because essential workers could be absent for weeks, or 

even months, at a time. 

Detailed planning is necessary throughout the Federal Government to ensure continuity of operations while protecting employees. 

The activities of agencies critical to Americans’ safety, health, and 

well-being cannot be allowed to stop during a pandemic; neither 

can we endanger the dedicated men and women who carry out 

those duties. 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a number of reports addressing pandemic influenza preparedness. After 

a series of hearings on this topic this Subcommittee held in the fall 

of 2007, Senator Voinovich and I requested that GAO review pandemic preparedness plans for the Federal workforce, focusing on 

critical staff that require daily onsite activity. GAO’s report, released today, concludes that while many Federal agencies are making progress to protect their workers and to identify essential functions that can be continued during a pandemic, the progress is uneven. Some agencies are only in the early stages of developing their 

pandemic plans. GAO also found that there is no real mechanism 

in place to monitor agencies’ pandemic workforce plans. We will address GAO’s recommendation to improve monitoring and reporting 

on agencies’ progress with their plans at today’s hearing. 

Strong planning is just the first step. Agencies must ensure that 

their plans are up to date and operationally sound. Moreover, they 

must engage employees and communicate those plans clearly. 

Senator Voinovich and I have introduced two bills to enhance 

agencies’ ability to translate pandemic planning into smooth operations. The Telework Enhancement Act of 2009, S. 707, would require agencies to develop robust telework policies and address 

telework in continuity-of-operations planning (COOP). Strong and 

tested telework programs will be essential to continuing operations 

when social distancing is in order and many employees are absent. 

3 

Additionally, the Federal Executive Board (FEB) Authorization 

Act, S. 806, would formalize the role of FEBs in an emergency 

event and authorize needed funding to support their mission. FEBs 

will play a critical role in coordinating the activities of lead Federal, State, and local government officials outside the Washington, 

DC area during any pandemic flu response. 

Additionally, as I stated, agencies must make sure employees 

have the information they need about pandemic plans. In particular, there must be clear guidance to Federal employees regarding employees’ rights to protect themselves at the workplace. Employees must receive this information before a pandemic occurs. It 

may be too late to be effective if employees are given the information they need after an outbreak occurs. 

I am concerned that Federal agencies have not done enough to 

protect the Federal workforce from the current outbreak of H1N1. 

Employees who interact with hundreds or thousands of travelers 

daily in the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) received conflicting guidance. 

This is unacceptable. As reports from the field indicate, employees 

who asked to wear protective masks were told they could not. However, this policy is not part of the official guidance distributed by 

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), or the Occupational Safety and Health 

Administration (OSHA). The men and women on the front lines 

must be able to trust that their agencies will develop and distribute 

clear policies in a timely manner during an emergent event. Proper 

coordination between DHS, OPM, and the Department of Health 

and Human Services (HHS) is needed to accomplish this. 

Public health officials warn that we may see a resurgence of a 

stronger, more threatening version of the novel H1N1 virus later 

this fall. Agencies need to make sure now that the workforce is 

properly informed of policies and guidance so we are ready if that 

happens. 

I know that you all have put a lot of thought and energy into developing plans to protect the workforce from the current pandemic 

and future threats while ensuring continuity of government operations. In particular, I know DHS, OPM, and HHS are coordinating 

to develop clear and consistent workforce guidance. I look forward 

to hearing about this important work today. 

Senator Voinovich, your opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Akaka. I, first of all, 

have little to add to your opening statement. I think it was an excellent statement, and anything I would say would probably just be 

redundant. The only thing that I would like to emphasize before we 

hear from the witnesses is that so many of these things come 

along, being a problem, and then it kind of eases out and it is not 

a problem. But I think it is significant—at least it impressed me— 

that the World Health Organization dubbed swine flu as a ‘‘pandemic,’’ the first in 41 years. So obviously they think this is something pretty serious and something that we ought to take to heart, 

and I am anxious to hear your testimony today about the GAO reVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:16 Apr 13, 2010 Jkt 051787 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51787.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
4 

1The prepared statement of Rear Admiral Vanderwagen appears in the Appendix on page 31. 

port and how you think we can remedy the things that were outlined in that report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I would like to at this time introduce our panel: Elaine Duke, 

Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security; Rear Admiral W. Craig Vanderwagen, M.D., Assistant 

Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services; Nancy Kichak, Associate Director of 

Strategic Human Resources Policy, U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Bernice Steinhardt, Director of Strategic Issues, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office. 

It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses; 

therefore, I ask all of you to stand and raise your right hand. Do 

you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give this 

Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Ms. DUKE. I do. 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. I do. 

Ms. KICHAK. I do. 

Ms. STEINHARDT. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let the record note that our witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Before we begin, I want to remind you that although your oral 

statement is limited to 5 minutes, your written statements will be 

included in the record. 

Rear Admiral Vanderwagen, would you please proceed with your 

statement? 

TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL W. CRAIG VANDERWAGEN, 

M.D.,1 ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PREPAREDNESS AND 

RESPONSE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN 

SERVICES 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Mahalo nui loa, Kupuna. 

Senator AKAKA. Mahalo. 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Mr. 

Ranking Member. I am Craig Vanderwagen, and I am here today 

representing the Department of Health and Human Services. My 

role has a significant number of responsibilities related to disaster 

planning, including being the Continuity Officer for the Department, the individual responsible for development of such things as 

vaccines and other countermeasures, and leadership for the Emergency Support Function–8 (ESF), that is, the response arm of the 

Federal Government for health, under the direction of Homeland 

Security, and other special events. But I am here today to speak 

more about the science of the issues of workforce protection and 

how we communicate with our colleagues in the Federal Government about how the science can be understood and translated into 

policies and procedures for action within the elements of the U.S. 

Government. 

As the U.S. governmental lead for public health and medical response, Health and Human Services is committed to providing current, science-based guidance based on the best available evidence, 

5 

including checklists, to assist businesses, industries, and other employers—like the U.S. Government—in planning for a pandemic as 

well as for other comparable catastrophes. During public health 

emergencies like the current pandemic H1N1 influenza virus outbreak, protecting workers, including Federal workers, must be a 

top priority. Health and Human Services, in coordination with the 

Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, provides up-to-date guidance for workplace protection on the 

comprehensive Federal Web site www.flu.gov as well as at 

www.cdc.gov. 

As part of our response to pandemic H1N1 influenza, HHS has 

contributed several efforts directed to Federal workers and recognized there were plans for an avian influenza, but this was a novel 

virus, and we had to change some of our guidance to adapt to that 

reality, because this was not an avian influenza beginning in South 

Asia and gradually getting here. In fact, it was here before people 

could blink. And so there were some changes that had to be taken 

into account as we provided guidance. 

So the publication ‘‘General Business and Workplace Guidance 

for the Prevention of Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Flu in Workers’’ 

details one of our best measures for reducing the spread of an outbreak of a novel influenza virus; that is, sick people are encouraged 

to stay home while they are contagious. This is probably the best 

and most rational step that one could take, and employers need to 

account for that as they think about how they will continue 

through an event like this. HHS employees and contractors who 

are symptomatic or have had recent contact with someone who has 

or is likely to have H1N1 are to notify their supervisors, stay home, 

and seek medical guidance. 

In alignment with the Department of Labor’s OSHA Pandemic 

Influenza Risk Pyramid, which arrays the risk of exposure to a potential pandemic virus by type of contact with ill persons, HHS has 

produced guidance for individuals working in a health care setting 

with patients who have, or may have, pandemic H1N1 influenza 

and for workers in the general public in other community settings. 

Health and Human Services has provided guidance to the U.S. 

Navy on how to clean its ships to avoid spread of pandemic H1N1. 

We have worked with the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) 

on how to protect its employees during the outbreak. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)—we have worked with them on 

the odds of transmission of the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus 

over significant distances by looking at heating, ventilation, and air 

conditioning systems, and determined that it was extremely remote 

that these would be transmission sources of disease. 

In collaboration with DHS, Health and Human Services has 

hosted a large number of outreach efforts to employers, including 

large teleconferences, to provide key information that employers 

can use to protect their workers and ensure business continuity 

during a pandemic. Over 3,000 business representatives have participated in a series of five teleconferences held since the end of 

April. Simple measures, such as covering coughs and sneezes and 

frequent hand washing, remain effective means of reducing the 

spread of influenza, and these measures also have implications for 

safe workplaces and a healthy workforce beyond influenza. 

6 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Duke appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

A vital mission of our Department is to serve as the U.S. Government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans. 

We are dedicated to this mission and to the principle that the best 

policies for health and safety are based on the best available 

science. 

At this time I conclude my remarks, and I will be happy to answer questions or comments that you may have, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Admiral. 

And now we will receive the testimony from Elaine Duke. 

TESTIMONY OF ELAINE C. DUKE,1 UNDER SECRETARY FOR 

MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. DUKE. Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Voinovich, thank 

you for hosting this hearing and the opportunity to come before you 

to discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s response and 

preparations for employees with the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak and 

pandemic events in general. 

I recognize that, as a Department, we must work together to 

take the proper safety precautions to reduce transmission of any 

disease while still performing our critical homeland security missions. This may mean that some employees need to wear personal 

protective equipment. Some employees may need to telecommute. 

Others may need to stay home if they have an illness in their family or if their child’s school is closed. I am committed to working 

with the component heads from across the Department and across 

the Federal Government to provide our employees with the safest 

possible working environment. Our workforce safety and security is 

always one of my top priorities. 

It is important to know that, when making all of our decisions, 

we base them on the science and the epidemiology as recommended 

by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the workplace 

guidance from the Departments of Health and Human Services and 

Labor, the public health community, and the World Health Organization. 

In fiscal year 2006, the Department was able to start building 

the basis for its pandemic program. We purchased personal protective equipment for use by mission-essential employees, but primarily designated for the operating components that have specific 

job functions that place them at greater risk during a pandemic 

event. Currently, personal protection equipment is pre-positioned 

at 53 DHS locations and field offices nationwide. The Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is responsible for coordinating the logistics of this pre-positioned equipment. 

The Department has also stockpiled two types of antivirals, 

trademarked as Tamiflu and Relenza, dedicated for DHS workforce 

protection. Overall, DHS has approximately 540,000 courses of 

antivirals targeted for its mission-essential workforce. 

In fiscal year 2006, we received supplemental funding that allowed us to prepare a number of pandemic plans for the Federal 

Government. The Department’s Office of Health Affairs (OHA) coordinated and led the development of the DHS Pandemic Influenza 

Contingency Plan, and Screening Protocols for Pandemic Influenza 

7 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Kichak appears in the Appendix on page 44. 

in air, land, and maritime environments, and the Draft Federal 

Interagency Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan. Office of Health 

Affairs in DHS manages and tracks the action items assigned to 

DHS under the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan. 

I recognize that effective communication in any disaster is critical, and a severe pandemic where there could be nationwide consequences is no exception. The Office of Health Affairs worked with 

the DHS Office of Public Affairs (OPA) and Federal interagency 

representatives to create the ESF–15 Pandemic Influenza Communications Go Book, which provides a framework for public communications by Federal agencies as well as State and local communities in the event of a pandemic outbreak. 

Training is also critical, and we have developed under the leadership of Health Affairs a pandemic awareness and prevention training DVD available for all DHS employees. Additionally, CBP and 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have both created 

training and made available training to its employees beginning in 

August 2006 and continuing and improving to this day. 

In October 2008, DHS conducted an Intradepartmental Pandemic 

Influenza Tabletop Exercise, which included participants from all 

DHS components as well as inter-DHS—and inter-Federal employees. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate in-depth discussions and actually exercise the Federal Government’s response to 

a pandemic exercise. All DHS components were represented as well 

as 13 other Federal departments and agencies, with total attendance of nearly 100 participants. 

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and I 

have made communication with the DHS workforce a top priority, 

especially in the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. We have provided employee 

communications and guidances. Initially, I provided guidance to 

our employees on April 30 and after, CDC updated its guidance on 

May 27, 2009, updated the Department of Homeland Security guidance on May 29, issuing it to all the components. Similarly, the 

components in fact that have employees in these mission-critical 

positions followed with guidance of their own to ensure that employees were provided the appropriate personal protection equipment related to H1N1. 

I wanted to, in response to your opening comments, Chairman 

Akaka, apologize from the Department and me, personally, for the 

late submission of my testimony, and I look forward to your questions both in this hearing today and any follow-up questions that 

the Subcommittee may in writing. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your statement. And 

now we will receive the testimony of Nancy Kichak. 

TESTIMONY OF NANCY H. KICHAK,1 ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCES POLICY DIVISION, U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Ms. KICHAK. Chairman Akaka and Ranking Member Voinovich, 

thank you for including the Office of Personnel Management in 

your discussion of this important topic. I am pleased to be here to 

8 

discuss OPM’s efforts to ensure the Federal Government is prepared to meet the human resources management challenges posed 

by a pandemic health crisis, such as the H1N1 flu outbreak. 

One of Director John Berry’s first actions when he took over the 

helm at OPM was to meet with members of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to assess whether their human resources 

issues and needs in the event of an influenza emergency were 

being addressed. This review led to the Director convening a 

‘‘H1N1 Human Resources Readiness Forum’’ to help Federal agency human resources leadership identify and answer issues arising 

from a potential influenza outbreak. The forum was held on May 

8 and attracted 142 officials from 37 Federal agencies and Federal 

employee union representatives. We, at OPM, do not have the expertise to make judgments about the efficacy and appropriateness 

of providing certain medical and protective devices to front-line 

workers. Therefore, the forum made available representatives of 

CDC, OSHA, and the Federal Occupational Health Services (FOH) 

in the Department of Health and Human Services to answer questions about potential health impacts and protective measures during the flu outbreak. 

The forum was a supplement to the memorandum on human resources flexibilities available to assist Federal employees during 

emergencies, which Director Berry had distributed 3 days earlier. 

The memorandum reiterated and expanded upon previous guidance 

on a wide variety of human resources management tools agencies 

have for continuing operations during the pandemic influenza 

emergency. Director Berry also announced a major initiative to reinvigorate agency telework programs. This initiative is driven not 

only by his belief in the value of work-life programs generally, but 

more specifically in the importance of telework as a tool for emergency planning. 

The H1N1 flu outbreak has demonstrated the importance of 

being able to quickly expand the use of telework to cope with pandemic health crises and other emergencies. Telework can help mitigate the spread of influenza by promoting social distancing. It can 

also assist employees in balancing their ongoing work responsibilities with the need to care for their families. 

OPM has been working on governmentwide preparation for an 

influenza pandemic for several years, developing comprehensive 

human resource guidance and conducting briefings for Federal 

human resources specialists as well as town hall meetings for employees at numerous Federal agencies. 

Since the onset of the current flu outbreak, we have updated this 

pandemic influenza guidance. We also continue to collect questions 

with the goal of supplementing guidance already on our Web site. 

Agency employee assistance programs (EAPs) will also be ready 

to provide assistance to front-line employees and other Federal 

workers. The stress and anxiety of the flu outbreak and the dislocations it may cause could have a lasting impact on how our employees function. All our agencies have EAPs. We need to be sure they 

are part of our pandemic planning and response efforts and that 

they have the resources necessary to help our employees remain 

productive during and after a crisis. 

9 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Steinhardt appears in the Appendix on page 48. 

Last fall, major agencies were asked to recertify their readiness 

using the Homeland Security Council’s ‘‘meta-checklist.’’ The Office 

of Personnel Management worked with agencies to develop the 

human resources part of this checklist. We are also part of the 

Homeland Security Council’s H1N1 Flu Working Group and Pandemic Influenza Sub-Interagency Policy Committee. The current 

outbreak reminds us we must always be prepared to take care of 

our employees while continuing to meet the needs of the Nation. 

Federal agencies need to ensure their plans are up to date, that 

they have telework agreements with as many telework-eligible employees as possible, and should test employees’ ability to access 

agency networks from home, as well as their procedures for communicating with employees who are teleworking. 

We stand ready to provide guidance and support. Again, thank 

you for inviting me here today, and I would be happy to answer 

any questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. 

Kichak. And now we will hear from Bernice Steinhardt. 

TESTIMONY OF BERNICE STEINHARDT,1 DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich. We always appreciate the opportunity to appear before you, and today we would like to talk about the report we did 

for you on Federal agency efforts to protect their workers in the 

event of a pandemic influenza. 

When you asked us to look into this, we were not in the middle 

of a H1N1 outbreak, but looking ahead, you were concerned about 

the extent to which agencies had taken steps to protect their employees, particularly those who have to be able to perform their 

jobs in order for their agencies to carry out their essential functions. 

What we have learned reveals something of a mixed picture. All 

of the agencies have been planning for how they will provide for 

the safety and health of their employees in the event of a pandemic, but some of them are still in early stages, as you pointed 

out earlier, Senator Akaka, and several agencies are still in the 

process of identifying essential functions that cannot be continued 

through telework. 

As for telework, all of the agencies reported plans to rely on it 

as a social distancing strategy. Nevertheless, only one agency, the 

National Science Foundation (NSF), reported that it had extensively tested its IT infrastructure to make sure that it is capable 

of handling telework arrangements; and five agencies told us that 

they had done very little testing of their Information Technology 

(IT) systems. 

Agencies also need to inform their employees about their rights 

and responsibilities in a pandemic, but not all of them have. First, 

it is not clear that all agencies have notified employees performing 

essential functions that they will be expected to continue their 

work in the event of a pandemic. And, second, not all agencies have 

told their employees about how leave policies, work arrangements, 

10 

and other kinds of human capital policies would change in a pandemic. 

Beyond this broad survey, we took an in-depth look at three critical occupations or functions that cannot be performed from remote 

locations. We looked at Federal correctional workers, workers who 

process Social Security checks and other Federal payments, and air 

traffic controllers employed by Federal Aviation Administration 

(FAA). Protecting these workers in a pandemic flu presents a number of challenges. 

Air traffic controllers, for example, work in very close quarters, 

but they cannot use face mask equipment because it would interfere with their ability to communicate with aircraft. They also have 

to follow very strict rules on using medications because they might 

impair their performance. But air traffic control centers still have 

not developed pandemic plans because they were waiting for FAA 

and the Air Traffic Organization to come up with their plans and 

policies first. 

So you can see that planning, whether it is across the board as 

well as in our case study agencies, is still rolling out and that some 

agencies are not close to having operational pandemic plans, particularly at the facility level. Yet there is no monitoring mechanism 

to assess the degree of progress in agencies’ planning. 

Under the National Pandemic Implementation Plan, the Department of Homeland Security was charged with monitoring and reporting to the Executive Office of the President on the readiness of 

departments and agencies to continue their operations while protecting their workers during a pandemic. But some time later, the 

Homeland Security Council apparently told DHS that they did not 

have to prepare this report. Instead, the Homeland Security Council asked agencies simply to certify that they were addressing elements of a checklist that covered areas that included employee 

health and safety. Just to be clear, they did not have to report that 

they had finished their planning or that they were making 

progress, but only that they were addressing elements of this 

checklist. 

So well intentioned though this process may be, it provides little 

accountability for agencies to make sure that they are adequately 

protecting their employees. For this reason, we recommended in 

our report that the Homeland Security Council ask the Department 

of Homeland Security to assume the role that was originally envisioned for it and to report on agency progress as well as any key 

challenges and gaps in their plans. We also suggested that Congress might want to require the Department of Homeland Security 

to report to it as well as to the White House on agency preparedness. 

In closing, let me say that when you first asked us to undertake 

this review, a pandemic flu was still a speculative event. Now it 

is here, and it could become even more lethal in the future, as you 

pointed out. With that in mind, Federal agencies have to be, I 

would even argue are obligated to be, better prepared to protect 

their workers, those who serve the public, than they are today. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Steinhardt. 

11 

Ms. Duke, as you know, the Federal employee unions are very 

concerned that DHS guidance on the use of personal protective 

equipment is not sufficient. In particular, their concern is that the 

updated policies do not cover protocols for employees processing 

people who do not appear sick. 

What is the policy on employees’ voluntary use of personal protective equipment in that kind of situation? 

Ms. DUKE. I am aware and have been working with the unions 

on clarifying our policy. The most recent policy dated May 29 clarifies that DHS does permit its employees whose work requires them 

to come into close contact, which is defined in the CDC guidance 

as less than 6 feet, with persons who may have flu or are exhibiting flu-like symptoms to wear N95 respirators and that DHS will 

provide these. So that is, I think, a clear policy. 

Wearing respirators is not a health-neutral situation, and it is 

important for DHS to provide an environment that is most advantageous to its employees. So I feel very strongly that providing a 

policy which says we permit our employees to wear masks when 

their work requires them to be in contact with persons who have 

or may have flu is the appropriate solution for our employees. 

Additionally, each of the components that has employees in the 

situation—primarily, ICE, CBP, and TSA—has developed protocols 

to ensure the employees who come in contact with persons in this 

category do have access to personal protective equipment, including 

the N95 respirators. 

Senator AKAKA. Would you please explain the medical basis for 

the policy guidance DHS has issued on workforce protection? 

Ms. DUKE. The medical guidance is with our Office of Health Affairs working with the Centers for Disease Control, and most recently, the Centers for Disease Control updated their policy, which 

is posed on their Web site, and it talks about categories of people. 

It recommends that there are certain protocols which primarily say 

try to maintain a distance of 6 feet; but where you have to come 

in close contact with populations who may or do have H1N1 less 

than 6 feet that persons may consider wearing a mask. And it is 

clearly a voluntary choice at this point. And so that is the basis, 

the medical guidance we use in looking at our employees. I think 

the category that CDC used was a non-health care workers category, but that puts us in a public situation. 

Senator AKAKA. I would like to also ask Admiral Vanderwagen 

to explain the medical basis for the policy guidance DHS has 

issued. 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Well, it is extremely difficult, sir, because the science here, the medical science, does not give us a lot 

of clean answers. There is no particular scientific evidence that 

says that a N95, let alone a surgical mask, is effective in preventing very small contaminants from being expressed. 

Now, we are funding additional research with OSHA, through 

the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health 

(NIOSH), to see if we can find a much better science answer. But 

the fact of the matter is right now the science does not give us a 

real strong conclusion that masks either help or do not help. 

And so I think that it is as much about how do we preserve the 

resiliency of the employee in the face of these things, and OSHA 

12 

has provided a guidance that identifies risk populations, and I 

think DHS has tried to identify their workers that are in a risk setting and employ this as another tool. Remember that engineering, 

administrative, and workplace worksite practices probably are 

much stronger in protecting an employee than personal protective 

equipment. And personal protective equipment is really your last 

choice in that process. But sometimes you do not have a choice. 

You only have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available. 

And, unfortunately, the science does not give us a definitive answer 

that says use it or do not. 

So it is a tough nut, but I think we have opted to try and support 

the notion that where it improves resiliency and the ability of the 

employee to comfortably do their job, then it is probably a rational 

process. 

Senator AKAKA. The next question is for all of the members on 

the panel. As we know, DHS is the lead Federal agency in responding to an influenza outbreak, while OPM plays a critical role in any 

workforce policies, and HHS plays a critical role with respect to 

medical guidance. Federal employees need clear and consistent 

guidance to understand how to protect themselves and what their 

responsibilities are during a pandemic. 

Which agency is responsible for providing that uniform guidance 

to Federal employees? And what are your recommendations for 

clarifying agencies’ respective roles? 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. I think that a single agency is probably 

not the final solution. We have to operate in a collaborative mode. 

OSHA provides the kind of guidance and general principles around 

occupational safety that are supported by the science that we fund 

over in Health and Human Services, at NIOSH and other places 

within the Department. So that most of us look to OSHA for the 

standards around who is high risk, and who is not, and what are 

the workplace safety features that we would want to employ. 

So I suppose that in one sense we, HHS, and OSHA have to own 

this in that we provide the science, they provide the occupational 

safety guidelines for people to perform under, whether they are 

Federal or they are private business. 

Ms. DUKE. I believe when it comes to managing the workforce, 

we have the responsibility in DHS for our workers. We also have 

the responsibility for equity within the Federal Government, which 

I think the Office of Personnel Management leads. So in the case 

of the H1N1, there are certain personnel practices that I think we 

have to be concerned with, not only with the uniqueness of certain 

work environments, but also a fairness of employees across the 

Federal Government. 

So, for instance, Director Berry issued guidance about how to 

handle leave in situations where schools are closed but employees 

are not sick. I think it is important in that case that OPM take the 

lead and have some consistency so employees are not treated differently for the same situation. This is similar to the standard situation of OPM issuing guidance on bad weather days, snow days, 

and whether the government is closed or not. And the purpose of 

that is equity, I think, and consistency. 

So I think it is a balance, and some things should be standardized and some things are very unique to the work situation. And 

13 

so OPM, I think, has the challenge of being consistent with the 

Federal Government but leaving the agencies some flexibilities for 

uniquenesses. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Duke, what role do you believe the Homeland Security Council should play in providing guidance to Federal 

employees? 

Ms. DUKE. I believe that the Homeland Security Council in serving the Administration, the White House, will have some role in coordinating and ensuring consistency among the various pieces. So 

under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, the Secretary of 

Homeland Security has the lead coordination role, but each activity 

or different functions within any response, including pandemic, different agencies have the lead. And I think the Homeland Security 

Council (HSC) has a role in ensuring that, where there is an agency having a piece of a response, the pieces fit together and are coordinated. So I think this is the same with the pandemic where 

HSC has to ensure with the Secretary of Homeland Security that 

OPM’s response to the Federal workforce, HHS’s response actually 

coordinate and work together, and that is what I think the role of 

the HSC is. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Steinhardt, do you have any comment? 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am 

very interested in hearing the responses of the other panelists on 

this topic because it is one that we ourselves were looking for an 

answer to during the course of our work. 

As we spoke to different agencies, while looking for a home for 

accountability for this whole process, each agency claimed responsibility only for one piece. OSHA said that it was responsible just for 

looking at worker protection standards and guidance. DHS, the Office of Health Affairs, said that its purview was limited as well. 

And the same with HHS, their role is to issue guidance, and OPM 

the same. 

I think this is the crux of planning. Every agency, and even 

across government, can have good plans, but if it is not clear where 

the leadership is going to come from and who is responsible for 

what, if it is not clear what the relative roles and responsibilities 

are, then I think the plans are not going to be as useful as they 

need to be. 

Senator AKAKA. Admiral Vanderwagen. 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Yes, thanks. And I have a tendency to 

agree with Ms. Steinhardt, but I would note that there are strategic operational and tactical issues at play here. And I think the 

HSC tries to operate at the strategic level, that is, what are the 

strategic goals and objectives that we are going to have in dealing 

with this process? 

Then I think the departments are assigned operational responsibilities, and in general, DHS has the lead responsibility for 

operationalizing the strategy in this arena, and then the rest of us 

have our tactical missions. 

And so I think there is a coherent understanding or process at 

play that most of us operate from, and, frankly, with the H1N1, we 

just ran down the playbook. It was less than perfect, and we did 

not start on page 1, which assumed that it was going to come from 

Asia. But, in essence, we ran down the playbook starting at page 

14 

35 in what were we going to do. But that was sort of an operational 

and tactical set of activities. HSC had to deal with the strategic 

elements, including whether we are operating in any kind of coherent fashion. That goes to monitoring as well, though. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let me call on Senator Voinovich for 

his questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I think that Senator Akaka, in his last question, has raised a real issue here. I cannot help but think of our 

mayor, when I was still governor, and I heard these excellent presentations this morning. I would conclude that each group is trying 

to do the very best that they can within the framework of what 

they think their responsibilities happen to be. But it seems to me 

that someone needs to sit down with a group of people and develop 

a plan, a strategic plan about who is responsible for the overall operation here, and then break down the individual responsibilities. 

For example, Ms. Duke, you have Homeland Security. You know 

which one of your people are absolutely strategic and need to be 

protected. You also reach out to some of the other agencies where 

you know that these folks need to be protected. They are in key 

roles. Others are not in such key roles. They could do the 

telework—in other words, breaking down the responsibility, who is 

responsible for what. When you started, Admiral, talking about 

your role, I thought, well HHS has got it taken care of. 

So it seems to me that is what is missing, and I would be interested, Ms. Steinhardt, on what are your thoughts. I mean, is this 

something that the Office of Personnel Management should be involved with, developing a strategic plan? 

Senator Akaka, one of the things that we could do that I think 

would be very worthwhile would be to insist that we see an overall 

plan about who is responsible for what, and then some type of metric system to see that the job is getting done. After that it is basically up to these folks to do that. 

So I would like you to comment on how would you put this together. 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Well, Senator Voinovich—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. Or is it already put together and I just did 

not pick it up? 

Ms. STEINHARDT. If I can respond to your question, I think, I 

would also be interested in hearing from my colleagues on the 

panel. But I think that there are plans in place, there are certainly—we have a national strategy and implementation plan, but 

there are still lots of gaps in the plan. And I would say one of the 

biggest gaps that we face in general is that we have not fully tested 

at an operational level all the important dimensions of the plans, 

whether it is the national plan or at an agency level as well. 

We know from past experience, from September 11, 2001, and 

Hurricane Katrina more recently, that plans need to be tested and 

that you cannot start discovering your holes in the middle of an 

emergency event. And we have not seen that kind of full-scale testing of our plans. So that would be one recommendation that we 

have made in the past that, I think, is still outstanding. 

In this case, as far as individual agency plans, as we recommended in the report to you, there is no accountability for the 

status of those plans. So far, the agencies only had to certify that 

15 

they were planning. But having an operational plan, a plan that 

can actually work, there is no accountability for that yet, which is 

why we think there needs to be some kind of monitoring and reporting on this within the Administration. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Ms. Kichak. 

Ms. KICHAK. Well, I believe that there is a plan in place, and I 

concur that testing is always critical. And at OPM we have tested 

our plan several times, and it is always an eye opener. Things 

never work 100 percent the way you want them to. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Pardon me, but do you know what part of 

what you are doing is in terms of the big picture? 

Ms. KICHAK. Yes, I think we do. We are responsible for giving 

clear, consistent guidance for human resources issues. We do rely 

on the other agencies—HHS and the Department of Labor (DOL), 

through OSHA—to give us the guidance from a medical point of 

view for when there may be a pandemic and what medical procedures or protective equipment is necessary. That is not our area of 

expertise. Our expertise is to deal with issues such as how do you 

ensure employees are able to go home, how they are treated when 

they go home, and things like that. But we rely on other agencies 

for the science. And that is totally consistent with what has already been said here. 

So I think the three of us have all given a consistent message 

as to what our roles are. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The question I have, and forgive me for interrupting you, but let us just take teleworking. You talked about 

teleworking. It seems to me that it would be the agency’s responsibility to determine which functions could be done through teleworking and which functions could not be done through teleworking. 

Ms. KICHAK. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And they would have to decide that. You 

could give them guidance, but aren’t they the ones that would have 

to—— 

Ms. KICHAK. They have to decide that, yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And then you would probably aid them in 

terms of how do you go about doing the teleworking program. 

Ms. KICHAK. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I mean, for example, right now do you know 

how many agencies in the Federal Government are doing teleworking and what categories are now being considered for teleworking? 

Ms. KICHAK. I would like to point out that there are two types 

of folks teleworking. There are the folks that are doing the COOP, 

which is the continuity of operations. That is the urgent kind of 

telework that keeps the core mission of the Federal Government 

going. That kind of teleworking may not be done by people who 

normally telework, and we know from our telework report that 

roughly 60 percent of the agencies report that they have incorporated telework into their guidance. 

Now, in our telework for employee welfare, we also know that 

only 8 percent of the employees are teleworking. But that does not 

mean they are doing that to keep mission-essential functions going. 

That means they are teleworking to keep their normal business 

16 

going, and the normal course of business might not consist only of 

essential functions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I was just thinking that with this pandemic 

in the offing, it would be something that would incent us to really 

get into this whole teleworking thing. In other words, right now I 

think agencies probably are in it, and some are not. If you have a 

director that is real excited, maybe they are doing it; others maybe 

not so much. But it seems to me that this could help to drive the 

real consideration about where teleworking is appropriate or not 

appropriate. 

Ms. KICHAK. What we are doing now, as I said in my testimony, 

is that we are ramping up our interest in or our push for telework, 

and this is one of the reasons why we have now required every 

agency to submit their telework plan to OPM. So we are going to 

review their telework programs. We are going to set standards on 

how a telework program should be set up or what a telework policy 

should look like. We have convened meetings of telework advisers, 

so we are changing the emphasis. We have always cared about 

telework, but we are trying to get more of our best people involved, 

so we have more people ready to telework if they need to during 

a pandemic. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Any others want to comment on this whole 

issue of overall management? 

Ms. DUKE. We are always looking at lessons learned and how do 

we better this, and just in the specific example of telework, one of 

the issues we are working on in going forward, with OPM taking 

the telework lead, is do the individual plans work in concert with 

each other. So we have the step one of does DHS have a telework 

plan, is it tested and is it clear? And the answer to that is yes, we 

do have a telework plan. 

We do have a concern, if you add up all the telework plans, does 

the critical infrastructure, the IT infrastructure of the United 

States, support it? And there is a bandwidth issue. 

So I think what Ms. Kichak is talking about is the next step in 

our planning is do all the plans together all work from both a technical standpoint and an operational standpoint. And that is where 

we are focused now with the Federal Chief Information Officers 

(CIOs). 

Ms. STEINHARDT. If I might just add to the discussion of 

telework, just to remind you that in our report we found that there 

was only one agency that had actually done extensive testing of its 

IT system to make sure that it could telework. So I think there is 

an opportunity here for OPM to work with the agencies as they review their telework plans to look behind that, to look at the extent 

to which they are testing their systems, so that in any emergency 

event, certainly in a pandemic, they can use that as a way to keep 

their operations going and their people protected and employed. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

Ms. Steinhardt, one of GAO’s findings was that several of the 

agencies surveyed had not completed their pandemic plans. What 

information did these agencies provide regarding when they will 

have completed plans in place? 

17 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Well, in a couple of instances they had expectations that they were going to complete them—or that they were 

going to have additional information in their plans later this year. 

But, otherwise, there was no deadline for them. They had no firm 

deadlines on when their plans were going to be largely complete. 

We recognize that the process of planning is one that evolves in 

response to new information and circumstances. But, still, there 

did not seem to be a sense of urgency or deadline for completing 

the plans. 

Senator AKAKA. Admiral, HHS’s guidance to employees who may 

be sick is to stay home and away from the workplace. However, 

many Federal employees’ jobs must be done on site. For example, 

GAO reviewed the preparedness of air traffic controllers, and you 

mentioned that a large number of absences could make it difficult 

to continue critical government operations. 

What recommendations and guidance would you have in those 

circumstances? 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Thank you, Senator. Well, we encounter 

that within Health and Human Services as well because Indian 

Health Service hospitals, for instance, must continue to operate 

and provide care to people in those indigenous communities around 

the country. The Clinical Center in Bethesda at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) needs to continue to function to provide care 

to patients, and so, acutely, we recognize this as a problem internally as well. But I think that the business managers have to look 

at what is absolutely required in order to maintain a level of care, 

and if they need to back away from elective surgeries, for instance, 

because they have absenteeism, etc. It is an analysis of what is it 

we could forego for a period of time in order to continue to function. 

Now, in institutional settings like prisons or in the context of 

FAA and air traffic controllers, you have extreme difficulty because 

unless you reduce air traffic and slow down the economy, there is 

no way for you to back off the service you provide. The same thing 

for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). There will continue to be prisoners in prisons that need monitoring and oversight. 

Those are going to be extremely dicey situations in terms of how 

we can augment where they have staff losses and making some determinations about where priority critical infrastructure support in 

terms of personnel will be needed to make up for any absentee loss. 

Very challenging issues. 

I was going to comment to Senator Voinovich’s notion, and he is 

a seasoned executive, so he has been through this kind of process. 

But the question of the disaster government versus the organic assets of the existing agencies and how you exploit those in disaster 

response is the challenge here, because a free-standing total disaster government is unlikely to be something we can do. But how 

do you bring the organic assets of the existing departments into a 

more orchestrated approach? This is the challenge that Ms. 

Steinhardt has described where we have not solved that problem 

completely. 

There is not a free-standing disaster government. You have got 

to use the OPMs, the HHSs, the Department of Labors, where they 

have organic assets, and it is a very difficult balancing act to bring 

that all into play. 

18 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Steinhardt, would you like to comment on 

that question? 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Well, I think it only underscores the need to 

bring all those assets together in a coordinated and focused way. 

It was very disappointing, I must say, in our discussions with FAA 

officials that planning for the air traffic controllers was not further 

along than it has been. We recognize the challenges. They are very 

daunting. But that is where you would hope that FAA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) would be able to draw on the expertise that resides elsewhere across the Federal Government and 

brings some focus, attention, and coordination to solving the problem rather than just passing it along. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Kichak, GAO reported that three agencies 

surveyed—the Department of Commerce (DOC), the Social Security 

Administration (SSA), and the General Services Administration— 

had not yet informed their employees about policy changes in an 

event of a pandemic. What is OPM doing to encourage agencies to 

provide this information to employees? 

Ms. KICHAK. We had a recent forum where we had extensive representation from the agencies. We gave a lot of information during 

that forum. We have questions and answers from that forum available on our Web site. We have updated our pandemic guidance. 

The forum was very recent. It was a refresher course. But in the 

last 2 years, we have visited many agencies and have done question-and-answer sessions for employees. 

If you look at our pandemic guidance, it is very user friendly in 

that it says what managers should do, what employees should do, 

what agencies should do. So employees can go to the section that 

says what they should do in case of pandemic. It is available in our 

guidance. I know looking at a Web site is not the same as a faceto-face presentation. 

We also prepared a brochure, and some agencies, including OPM, 

gave that brochure to their employees so they could keep it on their 

desks and refer to it for information on what they should do in case 

of a pandemic. And it talked about being able to work from home, 

and, of course, it had the health guidance about washing your 

hands and covering your mouth. But it also talked about your 

rights as an employee. 

So we continue to work on that area. If any agency was to contact us, we would be over there talking to them about those rules. 

And, of course, we work with the Chief Human Capital Officers 

(CHCO), and we have done many sessions with them on preparing 

for a pandemic. 

Senator AKAKA. I was disappointed to learn that, according to a 

GAO report, only one agency—the Department of Housing and 

Urban Development (HUD)—responded that they had shared their 

pandemic planning with the unions that represent their employees. 

I was, however, pleased that Mr. Bonner’s written statement notes 

that OPM had taken the lead in reaching out to Federal employee 

unions. 

Would you please discuss why you thought it was important to 

work with unions and provide any thoughts you might have on how 

unions could help other agencies with employee outreach? 

19 

Ms. KICHAK. It is very important to talk to the unions because 

they represent the employees. The unions are a good source of 

knowledge for OPM on what employees are concerned about. Sometimes employees will talk to their union representatives before they 

will talk to their manager. So it is another way for us to hear about 

what the employees are thinking. 

Also, the unions have programs for their employees. The unions 

have some suggestions. We did work in our pandemic preparation 

before with certain groups of unions that represented certain populations; for example, representatives of some of the nursing associations who were very concerned about the pandemic and how they 

would function because they were front-line workers, definitely 

talked to us when we prepared our guidance back in 2006. 

So it is just good for us—because we care about the employees 

getting the best information available—to hear from all sources 

about what those employees need. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich, any 

questions? 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would just like to make a comment. I really think that it is important, as we move along, again, that some 

decision be made about who is the communicator to the public. I 

know that during my experience either as a mayor or governor, 

when we have had something that it looks like it is going to be controversial, we try to decide who is going to be the communicator 

so you do not have five different people out there talking to the 

public. And I do not mean to be disrespectful of the Vice President, 

but his comments on NBC one morning really did not help matters. 

And I have found from my experience that people who work for 

agencies are so much better off than we are, the elected politicians. 

So I would suggest that some thought be given to who is going 

to be the spokesman about this issue. I think that the new Secretary of Homeland Security did not expect to have the responsibility, but it was thrusted upon her, and I thought she did a pretty 

good job. So that is another area of general overall management. 

The last one—and I am sure, Senator Akaka, you have thought 

of this, too—is that we are just talking about the Federal Government, but there are a lot of other private sector people who are also 

essential to our performing our responsibilities in the government 

in the national security area or just deliverance of basic services. 

And I suspect, and even though we are not really up to where we 

would like to be, I will bet a lot of them have not really started 

to give consideration to what they are going to do in the event that 

this happens. So there ought to be some thought also in terms of 

this overall who is responsible for who to reach out and say, ‘‘Gee, 

there is one that we would need to talk to and get them involved 

in this whole process, also, assuming that we are going to have 

something that is pretty serious.’’ 

I have to apologize to the next two witnesses, Senator Akaka. I 

have another meeting I have to be at, but I am really pleased, Ms. 

Kichak, that you are working with our unions. I think the most important thing is that they know that you care about them. I know 

from my experience that when something like this happens, they 

are very fearful about their health and welfare, and their families. 

And the more information that you can get out, the better off you 

20 

are going to be. Also, I hope that in the CHCO Council—and Mr. 

Berry said that he is going to really upgrade that. But I think the 

CHCO Council could play a tremendous role in getting information 

out to our people throughout the Federal Government to make sure 

that the best information is available to them. 

Also, following up, I think, on your suggestion, Ms. Steinhardt— 

that is, best practices—I know that there are some places that are 

just shining in terms of what they are doing, and those best practices also ought to be, I think, shared with other agencies. Thank 

you very much for your testimony today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I really appreciate your participation in these hearings, and we 

have worked so well together all these years on these issues. 

I have a question for the entire panel. It is important that we 

respect a Federal employee’s right to privacy as we work to protect 

them from disease threats. This Subcommittee has heard reports 

of front-line supervisors asking employees directly about personal 

information related to their health as the H1N1 influenza virus 

emerged. 

What recommendations do you have to ensure that employees’ 

privacy is respected while providing appropriate health protections? 

Ms. KICHAK. That is indeed a very tough question, and that was 

one of the questions that was very much under consideration in the 

forum that we held. If you look at an employee and you think they 

are sick, as a manager, you wonder how you ask them to go home, 

because normally our supervisors are not making judgments on the 

health of the employee. And our advice has been that the managers 

need to be very aware of what the guidance is from the medical 

community on what the appearance of the illness is. In other 

words, if coughing and sneezing matter, then you need to know 

that. You cannot send somebody home because they look tired. 

Managers need to know the visible symptoms of the illness for 

which there is a concern. 

The second thing is that you ask the employee for their cooperation. You treat them with respect, and you say you are concerned 

for them, and ask if they will volunteer to go home, because, finally, the employees have certain rights, and they cannot be treated inappropriately. They have rights to appeal to certain boards if 

they are treated inappropriately. 

So it is delicate because the supervisors are not medical officials, 

and yet they are responsible for the well-being of all employees in 

their work unit. 

So, again, we ask supervisors to treat all employees with respect, 

to be mindful about what the symptoms may be, and to request the 

employee’s assistance. Then the final thing you can do is—instead 

of creating an adverse situation where you say, ‘‘I am going to require you to use your sick leave,’’—you could say, ‘‘Could you go 

home, with no charge to leave for this afternoon, and just see how 

you are feeling, out of respect for the workplace?’’ 

So it just has to be handled in a respectful, case-by-case manner, 

and it is one of the many challenges that our supervisors face in 

the Federal Government. And there is guidance and advice on the 

Web site for employees to read when they are dealing with one of 

21 

these situations. Nonetheless, it ultimately comes down to judgment. 

Senator AKAKA. Admiral, I know many people are anxious to 

hear about the progress being made with the development of a vaccine to combat the novel H1N1 virus. What is the current status 

of vaccine production for this strain? And what will be the protocol 

for distribution? 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Well, that is indeed a question that 

most people are quite concerned with. As you may know, HHS announced about 2 weeks ago that we had entered into agreements 

to acquire a vaccine antigen from five manufacturers. These manufacturers, by the way, the investments that Congress made in supporting warm basing, the development of cell-based technologies 

and other things over the last 4 or 5 years are now coming into 

play very nicely. 

These five manufacturers include ones that would target a pediatric dose with no thimerosal in it, which is of concern to many 

people. We are also looking at adjuvants—that is, chemicals that 

would enhance the immune response of the body to the stimulus 

of the vaccine. These are used very aggressively and in Europe. We 

still want to study their safety and efficacy before we call them 

‘‘good.’’ We have acquired enough antigen, and they have begun 

production of clinical testing lots for the clinical trials for safety 

and efficacy; and we believe that by September this acquisition 

would provide us enough to protect the critical infrastructure working, something approaching 20 million people, and it would allow 

us to reach to other portions of the population, again, depending 

upon how much antigen is needed for each dose to be effective in 

creating an immune response. It could be as little as 4 or 5 

micrograms, but it could be as high as 90 micrograms. 

So while we think we have made an acquisition that will cover 

our critical infrastructure and begin to approach children and other 

high-risk populations, we will have to see whether the clinical 

trials support us in that assumption about the antigen. But we 

should have a vaccine available in the fall. 

Then the question becomes: Should we immunize, and who 

should we immunize? And what we are looking at is throughout 

the summer this disease will continue to progress in the Southern 

Hemisphere, and based on what we see the virus doing in the 

Southern hemisphere—whether it mutates, becomes resistant to 

the antivirals, whether it becomes more severe—are all questions 

that we are extremely interested in and planning for, including 

whether or not we will use the vaccine and who should be the targeted populations for use? 

We want to avoid the situation we got into in the mid-1970s 

when we made the decision to make a vaccine and use the vaccine, 

and we went ahead and started immunizing and discovered there 

were a whole lot of problems with that swine flu vaccine. We are 

taking a much more incremental approach, and we will make decisions later in the summer and early fall based on what we learn 

both from the clinical trials that we are doing with this new vaccine and from the epidemiology of the severity and the changing 

nature of that virus in the Southern Hemisphere. 

22 

We feel like we are on track pretty well for a second wave. Hard 

to say when that might occur, so there are lots of unknowns here. 

But we are moving forward very rationally, trying to gather the 

right level of science, the right level of epidemiology to assure the 

American public that any choices that we recommend to them are 

going to be based on a real situation and not just our anxiety. 

Thanks for asking. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

This question is for the Executive Branch agencies. In the coming months, more preparation will be needed. We must use the lessons learned from the past 2 months to address the future challenges. What are your highest priorities in the coming months to 

prepare for a more severe pandemic outbreak? Ms. Duke. 

Ms. DUKE. Senator Akaka, some of our major priorities include 

both our role as the lead coordinator under Homeland Security 

Presidential Directives–5 (HSPD) and then our response as a Department. Secretary Napolitano is working with the Administration 

on the Federal lessons learned and how the Federal Government 

can respond. Within DHS, which is more my piece of it, a couple 

principal areas: 

One is to continue working on our mission-essential functions, 

what we need to provide, what functions we have to provide, making sure we have the employees identified going down to the next 

tactical level of our planning, as was mentioned by previous witnesses; making sure we test both the people, the response, the IT 

systems, our ability to actually deliver those mission-essential functions, whether it is a pandemic or another disaster, the uniqueness 

of pandemic being the potential absenteeism. So that is one of our 

principal areas. 

The second is preparing for some of the protocols we think would 

come with the second wave, and that includes making sure we 

have the right amount of pre-positioned antivirals and personal 

protection equipment, purchased or available for purchase for our 

employees. 

Those are the two principal areas we are working on. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Admiral Vanderwagen. 

Admiral VANDERWAGEN. Sir, I would say we have four pillars in 

place. 

One is surveillance, which I mentioned in the last answer. We 

need to know more about whether and how this virus will be affecting the population. 

Second, mitigation—that is, what are the mitigation lessons that 

we learned from this event, and we are studying New York and 

Texas very closely, for instance, in what the impact of mitigation 

was there. And that includes medical surge as well, because if we 

had a very severe pandemic, the pressure on hospitals, which is already overwhelming in many locations, will be a challenge. 

The third pillar is vaccination. I have already discussed that a 

little bit. 

And the last pillar is communication, and I think Senator Voinovich spoke to that as well. That is, how do we communicate not 

only across the Federal family but down with our State and local 

colleagues? And how do we communicate to the general public? 

23 

So surveillance, mitigation, vaccination, and communication are 

our highest priorities at HHS. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Ms. KICHAK. We are working with the Secretary of HHS on identifying some of the things we have learned from what we have just 

gone through, and some of the places where we still need to provide 

guidance. We are taking questions from agencies and continuing to 

answer those as far as human resource flexibilities are concerned. 

And we, as an agency, are continuing to try to maintain readiness 

for events. 

When I leave here today, I will be going to a COOP exercise in 

which we are going to review our mission-critical functions. We 

have done that before, but we have new leadership, and we are 

going to be integrating them into our plan. So we are going to test 

our readiness for these kinds of events. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Well, I will let GAO have the final 

word. [Laughter.] 

What do you think agencies’ top priorities should be doing in the 

coming months to prepare for a pandemic? 

Ms. STEINHARDT. Excellent question. Thank you for posing it. I 

would say, in general, what I would propose is to absorb the lessons that have been learned from this current pandemic that we 

are in. It is mild enough so that we actually have an opportunity— 

before it could possibly become much more severe, to learn from 

the mistakes we have made as well as the successes we have had. 

And that is one of the vital dimensions of tests and exercises. Here 

we have a real-life event that caused us to go to the playbook, see 

where our gaps were, and learning from that, as well as, I would 

say, from some of the other gaps that we have identified in our 

work, so start to fill all those gaps in our planning, revising our 

plans accordingly, would be, I think, the top priority for the Administration. And bringing in, also, all of the new people, the new leadership that were not involved in the earlier planning and exercising, and bringing their perspectives and bringing them up to 

speed on it. A very high priority. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well, thank you very much. I want to thank 

this first panel very much for your testimony and your responses. 

It will be helpful in pulling all of this together, and I appreciate 

your time. So thank you very much. 

I would like to call up the second panel. On our second panel this 

morning, we welcome T.J. Bonner, President of the National Border Patrol Council, American Federation of Government Employees; and also Maureen Gilman, Director of Legislation, of the National Treasury Employees Union. 

It is the custom, as you know, to swear in all witnesses, so will 

you please stand and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear 

that the testimony you are about to give this Subcommittee is the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, 

God? 

Mr. BONNER. I do. 

Ms. GILMAN. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. As a reminder to you, the oral statements are 

limited to 5 minutes, but your full written statements will be included in the record. 

24 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Bonner appears in the Appendix on page 64. 

Mr. Bonner, please proceed with your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF T.J. BONNER,1 PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER 

PATROL COUNCIL, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, AFL–CIO 

Mr. BONNER. Thank you, Chairman Akaka. 

I have a sense of being in the Twilight Zone listening to the previous panel speaking about the current pandemic as if it is a thing 

of the past. 

The World Health Organization reports that as of yesterday 

there were 35,928 laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1 and 163 fatalities. Of that number, nearly half—17,855—were in the United 

States, with 45 fatalities. In the past 3 days alone, there were 

5,834 new confirmed cases, with 18 fatalities, all of those fatalities 

in the United States, and 4,638 of those in the United States. 

So this is a real-time event that is ongoing, and it is clearly not 

as severe as it could be in the fall, but it is something that we need 

to be paying attention to. 

Within the Federal Government, many of our agencies come into 

contact with millions of people on a daily basis. Within the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), there are over a million passengers. They estimate that on an average day, 1.1 million passengers are encountered by CBP employees. Then when you factor 

in the TSA employees, there is an equal if not greater number of 

people who are encountered. And yet we have all of these conflicting policies about providing personal protective equipment to 

the employees. And I recognize that the Admiral says we are not 

sure how effective a N95 respirator is. But one thing is certain: It 

is not going to hurt an employee to use it, and it appears that was 

the element that was most responsible for containing the spread of 

the SARS outbreak in Asia a few years ago. And yet we have Federal agencies with conflicting guidance given as to when employees 

can, and many employees have been precluded from wearing that. 

I would also like to note there is no reliable data for Federal employees and for Federal worksites. What we have been able to discover on our own is that, within four of the immigration detention 

facilities, we have current outbreaks, the most severe being at the 

Chrome Detention Facility down in Miami, Florida, where we have 

three confirmed cases with detainees, 16 detainees who are exhibiting symptoms, one contractor who has a confirmed case of the 

virus, six symptomatic contractors, one contractor pending test results, 12 symptomatic medical staff who are all off on sick leave, 

which is appropriate. At York, Pennsylvania, one confirmed detainee; Denver, Colorado, two confirmed detainees; in Florence, Arizona, seven suspected cases of detainees. 

So it troubles me when I hear Ms. Duke say that we only have 

53 worksites within CBP that are pre-poisitioned with personal 

protective equipment. In the Chrome Detention Facility, for example, only a third of those people have been fit tested, which is a 

procedure that certain parts of DHS are still requiring employees 

to undergo the medical evaluation and the fit testing before they 

are allowing them to wear the respirator, even though the OSHA 

25 

1The prepared statement of Colleen M. Kelley, National President with attachments submitted by Ms. Gilman appears in the Appendix on page 82. 

regulations say that, when it is a voluntary usage, you do not have 

to be fit tested. Millions of Americans go out every year and buy 

N95 respirators, which you can buy at a corner drug store—hardware store, rather, and they do home repair projects or whatever, 

with no adverse effects. There is no reason to be requiring these 

people—yes, it would be nice, but since we do not have the wherewithal to make that happen, they need to come out with policies 

that clearly allow employees to wear personal protective equipment. 

Even the guidance that DHS has now is ambiguous. It says 

‘‘when you encounter people who you know or suspect to be infected.’’ Well, at that point it could well be too late. When someone 

sneezes in your face when you are inspecting them as they come 

into the country or as they are going through an airport, it is simply too late because you have been exposed. 

In the United States of America, we seem to have this phobia 

about people with masks. It is a protective measure that people 

should be glad to see other people out there. I would suspect that 

when people come into the United States from other countries, they 

are wondering about the intelligence of some of the folks here in 

this country, when they know that we have the biggest outbreak 

going on in the world right now, and they look around and they do 

not see any of the government officials wearing masks. 

I see that my time has expired, so hopefully I can get to more 

of these issues in my responses to your questions. Thank you very 

much. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Bonner. Ms. Gilman. 

TESTIMONY OF MAUREEN GILMAN,1 LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION 

Ms. GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Akaka, and thank you for 

holding this important hearing and inviting the National Treasury 

Employees Union (NTEU) to testify. 

The NTEU-represented employees most affected by the H1N1 influenza outbreak work for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Customs and Border Protection officers and agriculture specialists 

work at land, sea, and air ports of entry. Transportation Security 

officers work at airports. Both groups of employees can interact 

with thousands of travelers in a single shift. Their work—including 

reviewing immigration documents, wanding passengers, questioning them, and sometimes patting them down or detaining 

them—requires them to be within 6 feet of the travelers they process. The general CDC guidelines that recommend avoiding crowds 

and maintaining a distance of 6 feet from those exhibiting illness 

is not possible for these workers. 

Many of these employees work on the U.S.-Mexico land border. 

Many also process international flights from Mexico. Once the origin of the swine flu became clear in April, these employees in particular were concerned about protecting their health and that of 

their families. Those concerns were certainly reasonable. The U.S. 

Government had advised against unnecessary travel to Mexico, and 

26 

all of the first cases of H1N1 flu in the U.S. involved people who 

had recently traveled from Mexico. And unless they came into the 

U.S. illegally, they must have passed through a port of entry 

staffed by these employees. 

Those who work on the land border saw their Mexican counterparts, often just steps away, wearing masks as they performed 

their duties. Some of these employees wanted the option of wearing 

a protective mask or respirator, but CBP and TSA prohibited the 

wearing of masks unless an employee is in close contact with an 

obviously ill traveler. Under that circumstance, a mask was initially required to be worn and is now discretionary. 

As soon as questions began coming to NTEU from our members 

around the country as to whether they could wear respirators or 

masks, NTEU began trying to find out what the current policy was 

and urged that these employees be allowed to wear the masks if 

they felt it was important for their health. We contacted CBP, TSA, 

and DHS but got no answers. 

During this time a DHS spokesperson was quoted in the press 

as saying, ‘‘The Department of Homeland Security has not issued 

an order saying our employees cannot wear masks.’’ And the CBP 

spokesperson was quoted saying, ‘‘CBP officers and Border Patrol 

agents are provided personal protection gear which they may utilize at their discretion.’’ But CBP and TSA were clearly enforcing 

a prohibition. 

Some statements from DHS that appeared in the press indicated 

that managers who were preventing the wearing of masks were 

misinformed about the actual policy. The idea that a few managers 

were misinformed is clearly not accurate. In a letter to NTEU 

dated May 13, the Acting CBP Commissioner stated, ‘‘The decision 

was made to authorize the use of respirators only in the high-risk 

situations.’’ The higher-risk situations referred to are those in 

which there is close contact with an infected person. 

In addition, NTEU heard from many employees from around the 

country, and attached to my written testimony are affidavits from 

some of them relating instances of supervisors’ demanding that 

they remove respirator masks. Some of them are disturbingly 

threatening, and some include comments indicating the reason for 

the prohibition was fear of alarming the public. The affidavits also 

confirmed that the policy has not been disseminated in writing and 

that employees’ requests for written guidance on the issue have 

been denied. I trust this Subcommittee will ensure that the employees providing these affidavits will be free from any negative 

impact. 

As NTEU tried to address the concerns of our members at CBP 

and TSA, we learned that other divisions within DHS, such as the 

Border Patrol, and other agencies, such as the Internal Revenue 

Service (IRS), were allowing employees to wear masks at their discretion. After researching possible scientific or medical reasons for 

prohibiting the optional wearing of masks at CBP and TSA, NTEU 

is convinced that the reasons are not based on science or medicine, 

but on public relations. 

In our view, avoiding unnecessarily alarming the public is not 

without merit. However, it is one factor that must be weighed 

against the potential health risks to employees, their families, and 

27 

others. It is difficult to weigh the competing factors when there is 

a refusal to even acknowledge them. 

On May 14, the House counterpart to the Subcommittee held a 

hearing on this topic, and on June 4, the House included a bipartisan amendment authored by Chairman Stephen Lynch in a TSA 

authorization bill that ensures that TSA employees may wear 

masks at their discretion. NTEU strongly supported that amendment, but the TSA bill is not yet law, and it does not cover other 

affected employees at CBP. 

DHS and its components need to have a rational policy on this 

issue now before this fall when many predict a more virulent form 

of the H1N1 virus will return. I hope this hearing, together with 

actions taken by the House, will help achieve that very modest 

goal. 

Thank you again for holding this important hearing. I would be 

happy to answer any questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Gilman. 

This question is for the panel. As you heard from the first panel, 

GAO recommends that the White House Homeland Security Council direct DHS to report on the readiness of agencies to continue 

government operations and protect the Federal workforce. What 

are your views on the recommendations? 

Ms. GILMAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, I certainly think they should 

be required to report. As I understand it now, there is very little 

reporting that is required on the status of the plans in the different 

agencies, and I would think that would certainly be an important 

step, and I would think that Congress might want them to report 

to them as well. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Bonner. 

Mr. BONNER. Reports are good. Actions are better. We would like 

to see the agencies not only be required to report on what they are 

doing but required to do the right thing for their employees. Sometimes we study things to death. We really do not have the luxury 

of time with this pandemic. It is active right now, and it will undoubtedly get worse, especially when the fall hits, and we need to 

take prudent actions. We are not asking for miracles here. We are 

just asking to allow employees to use common-sense measures to 

protect themselves against very real dangers. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Gilman, you testified that the May 29, 2009, 

guidance issued by DHS is not comprehensive. In particular, you 

stated that DHS needs to clarify the policy on voluntary use of personal protective equipment. 

What would you like to see DHS issue in terms of guidance? 

Ms. GILMAN. Thank you very much for asking that question, Mr. 

Chairman. For 2 months, we have been trying to get a clear answer to the question of whether employees who are working in passenger processing, working on the land border in Mexico, clearing 

flights from Mexico, or other activities where they are processing 

thousands of people but are not processing someone that appears 

to have the flu, what is the policy with regard to those employees 

and their use of personal protective equipment? Even the guidance 

that has been issued in the last few days does not answer that 

question, and I do not believe that it was answered by the panel 

earlier today. 

28 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Bonner, both you and Ms. Gilman raised 

concerns with agencies’ communication with employees during the 

H1N1 outbreak. What recommendations would you make to ensure 

that Federal employees are better informed about pandemic influenza policies? 

Mr. BONNER. It takes leadership at the top to issue consistent 

guidance, but more than that, that guidance has to be followed. 

There has to be some oversight so that you do not have all of these 

local policies that are in conflict with the guidance that is given at 

the top. And in this case, the guidance at the top was so vague that 

it left it open to interpretation. 

As Ms. Gilman said, we need some very clear guidance, and in 

our view, that guidance should say that employees are free to use 

whatever personal protective equipment that they deem necessary 

at any time. There should be no restrictions on that. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Gilman, we know that DHS has allowed employees to voluntarily use personal protective equipment in highrisk settings. What have you heard from your members about 

whether they are receiving adequate guidance to know if they are 

working in high-risk settings? 

Ms. GILMAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, a setting 

becomes high risk when you realize that the person standing right 

in front of you is exhibiting symptoms of the flu. One second before 

you realize that, you are not in a high-risk situation. But that is 

the situation that most employees are in for their full shifts, and 

that is the area that there has been no clear guidance on what the 

situation is. 

My view and that of our bureaus where we represent employees—CBP and TSA—is that they have been told that they are prohibited from wearing masks in that situation. And, initially, they 

were required to wear masks as soon as they made a judgment 

that the person in front of them was showing symptoms. It was 

then that it went from prohibition to mandate as soon as they 

made that determination. The mandate has now been changed to 

the voluntary use, but when you are in or out of a high-risk situation seems to be a split-second thing, and we think it would make 

much more sense if the guidance were clear for the person who is 

interacting with the public. Where people may have the flu, they 

may not have any symptoms, and you may not know that they 

have the flu, it would seem to me that is the area that needs some 

guidance, and we have been unable to figure out what the guidance 

is in that area, except to the extent that our employees have been 

told they were prohibited from wearing personal protective equipment until they saw that a traveler was likely infected. 

Senator AKAKA. On the first panel, we discussed the various 

roles of Federal agencies in developing pandemic flu plans and 

issuing agency-specific and governmentwide guidance. What role do 

you believe unions could play in assisting Federal agencies to develop pandemic influenza plans and guidance? Mr. Bonner. 

Mr. BONNER. I think that the unions play a key role in that process because they are the ones who are elected to represent the interests of the Federal workforce. And we are the ones who get the 

unvarnished truth from the folks who are actually out there doing 

the job. And I know that managers like to go around to town hall 

29 

meetings, but employees are very hesitant to tell them what they 

really think because their career advancement hinges on how they 

are perceived by those managers, so they tend to tell the managers 

what they think the managers want to hear. 

Unions, on the other hand, if people are unhappy about something, we hear about it loud and clear. And so I think that we 

bring that perspective to the table and are able to articulate those 

concerns of the rank-and-file and make sure that those concerns 

are factored into the decisions that are made. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Gilman. 

Ms. GILMAN. I would say they also have a very good understanding of what the front-line workers do, and I think that can 

contribute a lot to a discussion of how policies can actually be implemented. 

I think in some of the planning that OPM did previously for pandemic flu situations, the unions were involved, were invited to 

meetings and briefings and asked to provide our comments. I also 

think that the unions can be very helpful in communication. 

We have received very little communication during this swine flu 

outbreak. I would echo Mr. Bonner’s comments on OPM. I think 

they tried their best to include the unions to at least pass on information. We were aware that there were daily phone calls going on 

between all of the agencies in the government that were involved 

in the policy and the response to the swine flu. Yet none of that 

information was passed on to us until we went to OPM and OPM 

did agree to then work with us and try to pass on what information 

they could. But until we made that request, we were not getting 

any information. 

Senator AKAKA. This is my last question for the witnesses. There 

is an expectation that the H1N1 flu virus will get worse during the 

2009–2010 flu season. What are your top three recommendations 

to help prepare the Federal workforce for a future outbreak? 

Mr. BONNER. That is a tough question. Our first recommendation 

would be that the employees receive enough information to make 

informed choices, information about, the science, where the highest 

risks are coming from; and, second, empowering them to act upon 

that information in order to protect themselves; and, third, taking 

care of those employees who succumb either themselves or their 

families succumb to the illness. 

The last thing that we want to do is to have the Federal workforce become a carrier for the disease. If we force our employees to 

remain on the job when they are exhibiting symptoms, then they 

are going to infect their co-workers, the traveling public, and their 

families, thereby increasing the spread of the disease. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Gilman. 

Ms. GILMAN. I would cite similar things to Mr. Bonner. I think 

that we would like to see the policies that are made take into consideration the health of the employees, that the policies are made 

only on good science and good medicine, and that those policies are 

clearly communicated to the employees with the reasons that they 

are being made. That has clearly not been done. 

My No. 1 thing would be that in the fall, if this is more serious, 

that our employees do not get a message that says go to the CDC 

Web site to see what policy is for you when you go to work tomorVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:16 Apr 13, 2010 Jkt 051787 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51787.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
30 

row, and where the CDC Web site does not have any specific information on employees trying to do passenger processing jobs that we 

have been discussing here today. 

Senator AKAKA. I want to thank you and all our witnesses today 

for your thoughtful testimony and answers to our questions. There 

clearly is a lot more planning that needs to be done throughout the 

Federal Government. Mechanisms to increase accountability, such 

as additional reporting requirements and monitoring of agencies’ 

progress, would help move us in the right direction. 

I hope that agencies are learning from the ongoing H1N1 outbreak and taking corrective action for future planning. One lesson 

we have learned is that there must be clear and consistent guidance to Federal employees on agency policies. I would like to see 

closer collaboration between the agencies and employees on these 

issues in the future. And I also look forward to continuing to work 

with all the witnesses. 

Thank you again for being here. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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