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30–591 PDF 2006

REGIONAL INSECURITY: DHS GRANTS TO THE

NATIONAL CAPITAL AREA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 15, 2006

Serial No. 109–193

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 15, 2006 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Foresman, George W., Undersecretary for Preparedness, Department of

Homeland Security; Edward D. Reiskin, deputy mayor for public safety

and justice, government of the District of Columbia; Robert P. Crouch,

Jr., assistant to the Governor for the Commonwealth preparedness,

Commonwealth of Virginia; Dennis R. Schrader, director, Governor’s

Office of Homeland Security, State of Maryland; and David J. Robertson, executive director, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments ............................................................................................................. 33

Crouch, Robert P., Jr. ............................................................................... 68

Foresman, George W. ................................................................................ 33

Reiskin, Edward D. ................................................................................... 53

Robertson, David J. ................................................................................... 71

Schrader, Dennis R. .................................................................................. 70

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

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 109

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 124

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

D.C. Resolution 16–677 ............................................................................. 113

Foresman, George W., Undersecretary for Preparedness, Department of

Homeland Security, prepared statement of ................................................ 37

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 18

Moran, Hon. James P., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 26

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District

of Columbia, prepared statement of ............................................................ 14

Reiskin, Edward D., deputy mayor for public safety and justice, government of the District of Columbia, prepared statement of .......................... 56

Robertson, David J., executive director, Metropolitan Washington Council

of Governments, prepared statement of ...................................................... 74

Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Maryland, prepared statement of .................................................. 127

Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 120

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 8

(1)

REGIONAL INSECURITY: DHS GRANTS TO THE

NATIONAL CAPITAL AREA

THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Mica, Gutknecht, Platts,

Foxx, Schmidt, Fossella, Wolf, Waxman, Maloney, Cummings,

Kucinich, Clay, Watson, Van Hollen, Ruppersberger, Higgins, Norton, and Moran.

Staff present: David Marin, staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief

counsel; John Hunter, counsel; Rob White, communications director; Andrea LeBlanc, deputy director of communications; Shalley

Kim and Wimberly Fair, professional staff members; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah D’Orsie, deputy clerk; Leneal Scott, computer

systems manager; Kirstin Amerling; minority general counsel;

Karen Lightfoot, minority communications director/senior policy advisor; Michael McCarthy and Kim Trinca, minority counsels; Richard Butcher, minority professional staff member; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The meeting will come to order.

I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Moran, Mr. Wynn, Mr.

Cardin, Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Fossella and Mr. Wolf be able to participate

in today’s hearing. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The committee will come to order. On May 31st, the Department

of Homeland Security announced fiscal year 2006 grant allocations

for States and eligible high-risk urban areas. For the first time,

grant awards reflected the use of relative risk and effectiveness criteria in an effort to better target Federal investments and make

measurable progress toward the National Preparedness Goal. The

new elaborate evaluation process used by DHS produced some unexpected, seemingly punitive results, particularly for the National

Capital Region. We convene this morning to shed some needed

light on how DHS assessed risks and needs in a region that has

already been attacked and remains an attractive target for terrorists.

Without question, the Nation’s Capital bears a disproportionate

burden in terms of public safety challenges and Homeland Security

costs. Comprised of 12 local jurisdictions, two States and the District of Columbia, this region must be prepared to protect critically

important facilities and monuments of high operational and symVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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bolic value to the entire Nation: the White House, the Pentagon,

the Congress, the Supreme Court, to name just a few. The tragic

events of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that same

year unfortunately confirmed our unwelcome status as a prime target.

Yet one discretionary DHS grant program allocated on the basis

of risk, the Urban Areas Security Initiative, yielded a reduced

award to the National Capital Region this year: $47 million. Last

year, the region received $77 million. True, Congress appropriated

14 percent less for the program this year, but the 40 percent reduction suffered by the NCR is clearly the product of something more

than tight budgets.

According to DHS, this region stands in the top 25 percent of

urban areas at risk in terms of both critical assets and geographic

vulnerabilities. But the effectiveness of the proposed grant expenditures was ranked by DHS reviewers in the bottom 25 percent of all

similar investment strategies. Leaders in this region and in other

high-risk jurisdictions like New York and Los Angeles are asking,

what happened? Why did some grant justifications score so poorly

under the DHS system? And how much did secret reviews of unquestionably subjective factors, like relevance, innovative necessary

and feasibility, undermine efforts to address real security needs?

In attempting to implement a risk-based grant allocation system

and improve State and local response capabilities, DHS appears to

have built a dangerous house of mirrors for the unwary, an overly

elaborate system of marginally relevant evaluation criteria that

equates the risk of terrorism with the risk of filing a bad grant application. The system seems to have taken little or no account of

the most obvious indicator of risk imaginable, that the Nation’s

Capital has already been attacked.

Last week, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, appointed by

President Bush, former New Jersey Governor Thomas keen, said

the grant awards to D.C. and New York appeared to ‘‘defy common

sense.’’ The process so far has also defied clear explanation, as

DHS officials have offered different accounts of what factors produced the surprising allocations and what applicants might have

done to improve their chances.

So today we seek to bring greater transparency to an important

Homeland Security program. The effort to apply sound risk analysis and risk management standards to Homeland Security grants

is commendable, and overdue. Scarce resources need to be focused

on development of tangible and sustainable preparedness and response capabilities. But regional readiness to meet the threat of

terrorism is not enhanced by wide, unpredictable and disruptive

funding swings. At-risk cities and regions need to know their grant

applications are being fully and fairly evaluated. The rules of the

game should be clear. Now, grant applicants can only guess at the

outcome of ‘‘black box’’ procedures fueled by classified threat information and secret peer reviews.

The Department has proposed a sustained and detailed debate

on the difficult process of assessing risk, evaluating need and judging the effectiveness of local plans to build capabilities. We take

them up on that pledge. Officials from the National Capital Region

are also here to give their perspectives on their application and its

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evaluation. We look forward to a productive discussion of how DHS

and this region plan to work together to address the National Capital area’s unique security needs.

Let me just remind everybody, for the inaugural costs last year,

2 years ago, the money came out of the Department of Homeland

Security grant money to the region. This was a burden shouldered

by the city as well. Nothing was taken into account there, no reimbursements except to take it out of Homeland Security moneys at

that point.

I would now recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr.

Waxman, for his opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, examining the drastic cuts in Homeland Security funding for

the National Capital Region. The reduction in funding is sudden

and unexpected, and it presents a serious challenge to the State

and local officials work to protect this area. It also calls into question the priorities of this administration.

The Department of Homeland Security says that one reason for

the cuts to D.C. is that the level of the risk for the region is lower

relative to other cities according to classified computer programs

and matrixes that the DHS uses. Well, this is difficult to understand. The Nation’s Capital has enormous symbolic importance and

is the center of our government and has already been the sight of

a deadly attack. It is hard to see how it could be downgraded like

this, and it is hard to have confidence in the secret system that the

Department is using to rank risk when it comes to conclusions like

this.

Ever since September 11th, I have been asking the administration to provide Congress with a comprehensive threat and risk assessment that we could use to inform budget decisions. To date, we

have received a lot of rhetoric about how important it is to make

sound risk-based decisions, but we have never seen the proof.

Local officials also suffer from the lack of transparency at the Department of Homeland Security. According to DHS, another reason

for the cuts to D.C. was that the region’s proposal scored poorly for

effectiveness. But officials from D.C., Maryland and Virginia will

testify today that they are baffled about why their proposals received low marks from DHS. Ironically, one of the criteria for effectiveness that DHS claims to examine is sustainability. How could

local officials build sustainable programs when DHS funding for

them varies wildly from year to year?

To protect our Nation, we need to think outside the narrow box

the administration wants to put us in. The Department is proposing to increase funding for Los Angeles, which is absolutely right.

The answer to the underfunding of D.C. is not to take funds from

other high priorities. Instead, we need to look at our national priorities.

Last week, the Senate tried to pass a complete repeal of the estate tax. That boondoggle for the wealthiest families in the United

States would have cost over $1 trillion. Yet we are being told today

that we can’t afford $30 million more to protect the Nation’s Capital from terrorist attacks.

Earlier this year, we learned that auditors had challenged over

$250 million in charges by Halliburton, yet the administration

went ahead and paid them anyway. If we had saved that money,

we would have had more than enough to fully fund Homeland Security grants to all of our urban areas.

Just this week, we learned that FEMA paid more than $1 billion

in fraudulent claims in the aftermath of Katrina because the administration failed to have even basic controls in place. If we had

spent these funds responsibly, we could have paid for the protections this region desperately needs.

Ultimately, the problem our Nation faces isn’t the lack of funds;

it is a lack of accountability and a failure of government to be responsible stewards of taxpayers’ dollars. I am glad we are having

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this hearing on how to protect the National Capital Region, and I

hope we can get answers about why funding was cut so dramatically and how the threats to this area can be addressed. I also hope

the administration and Congress will reassess their spending priorities so we can truly make this Nation safer.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate that you called this hearing. I believe, as I will indicate in my own statement, that the hearing you called today is a

public service not only for this region but for our country because

of the responsibilities of security officials in localities in this region.

Actually, this is the first of two hearings by committees on which

I serve seeking answers to the same question: How could a riskbased security formula lead to unusually large reductions in Homeland Security funds for al Qaeda’s favorite targets? Among them

the National Capital Region, the sight of the September 11th attack on the Pentagon and site of the Capitol, located on this campus, where analysts believe the plane that was brought down in

Pennsylvania was headed?

The Homeland Security Committee has asked the mayors of New

York City and the District of Columbia to testify on this same subject next Wednesday. I have asked for a face-to-face meeting between regional officials and Department of Homeland Security

headquarters staff, not only to get a greater understanding of the

basis for the DHS decisions but particularly to understand how the

region is expected to meet its unique dual obligations as officials

charged with preventing and responding both for the Federal Government and local communities.

When the DHS grants were announced, the initial despair and

bewilderment of residents and officials in this region quickly escalated to anger and outrage. The decision that was as astonishing

as it was counter-intuitive was made with little explanation. We

seek that explanation today.

Regional residents and Federal employees alike have admirably

learned to live with higher risks than their fellow Americans, in

part because of the special effort they see from regional and Federal security officials and the funding they assumed would come

annually. Among these residents are 200,000 Federal employees

from whom are drawn scores of thousands directly charged with

the principal responsibility for designing and planning the National

Homeland Security effort.

This region ranks high as a target, not only because of its almost

4 million residents, but unlike other targeted areas, the entire Federal presence, including the Nation’s priceless iconic monuments

and the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House and the

Pentagon, all extremely inviting targets, are concentrated in a few

square miles in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

Although individual sites are protected by Federal police and security guards, prevention and response for the region where the Federal presence is located is up to local officials and first responders,

not the Federal Government.

When the Pentagon was attacked on September 11th, this Federal installation was completely dependent upon the largest fire department in the region, the D.C. Fire Department and other regional fire services and a helicopter and burn unit at Washington

Hospital Center, among other local services.

The Nation learned that local officials here had a unique double

responsibility for their own residents as well as for the Nation’s

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most valuable and priceless Federal assets. And if I may say so,

the Congress learned that the District of Columbia had almost

total responsibility after the anthrax attack in the Congress of the

United States, not the Federal Government, no agency of the Federal Government. They were sent to the old D.C. General Hospital

for the District of Columbia to figure it out when we had an unprecedented attack right here on the campus of the Congress of the

United States.

It is this twin responsibility that accounts for this region’s

unique obligations. It is this twin responsibility that most seriously

raises questions about the judgment of the Department of Homeland Security in severely cutting the region’s security funding.

Even with the funding the region has received, I have spent more

time than I can say worrying that there has not been enough time

or funding to staunch, major and obvious vulnerabilities that mainly affect Federal employees who work here, not my own constituents. Working with appropriators, not DHS, I have gotten some but

not all of the funding for ER One, for Washington Hospital Center,

the only place where visitors to the Capitol and others in the region could be taken and isolated if there is a biological, chemical

or other major such attack in Washington.

The tunnels, bridges and Metro rail and bus system that are responsible for bringing Federal workers to and from Federal jobs in

the District every day present major untouched and difficult security issues, such as preventing and responding to attacks and accidents involving chemical, biological and other hazardous substances and fires from explosives in tunnels and the tunnels leading to this city.

After September 11th, a lack of interoperability here should be

unthinkable, but that is a work in progress that requires additional

funding. Perhaps most telling, given the many Federal buildings

here where controversial decisions are made every day, is the lack

of necessary equipment even for area bomb squads, not one of

which has the equipment necessary to meet FEMA’s top standard.

We will hear of other vulnerabilities today. We will want to know

whether they were considered when DHS funding decisions were

made, and we will want to know what precisely is now expected

from local security officials charged with major prevention and recovery operations in the National Capital Region.

We will want to know not only because of those we represent; we

will want to know because of the weighty, unique burden local security officials carry for the region where the Nation’s most highly

targeted assets are located.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Maloney, any opening statement?

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, Chairman Davis and

Ranking Member Waxman, for holding this very important hearing. My only wish is that this hearing would not only focus on

D.C.’s Homeland Security but also New York’s Homeland Security.

Both D.C. and New York City, their funding was cut by 40 percent,

yet by all lists, they remain target No. 1 in this Nation. The al

Qaeda ranks them as target No. 1. Bin Laden has attacked New

York City twice and has been caught on tape saying he intends to

do it again. Likewise, the Capital Region has been attacked and

suffered many other reported attempts to attack the Capital Region.

Since the announcement of the Homeland Security funding 2

weeks ago, I have heard a number of reasons why New York and

Washington suffered such a tremendous cut. If you listen to the variety of explanations and excuses coming from Secretary Chertoff,

your head will start spinning. He often contradicts himself.

We have heard that New York City and D.C. had their funding

cut because overall funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative

has been cut, the high threat funding formula. On June 7th, Secretary Chertoff was quoted in the paper as saying, ‘‘Congress gave

us about $600 million less than our grant programs, including $125

million less for the Urban Areas Security Initiative.’’ While it is

true high-threat funding was cut by 15 percent, New York and

D.C.’s funding was cut by 40 percent each while other communities

saw increases of over 70 percent.

Also the initial formula had seven high-threat cities. That has

now been expanded to 40 high-threat cities. Yet the 40 high-threat

cities are not on the al Qaeda list, according to intelligence that

has been released to Congress and others. In fact, the cut to New York City was $83 million alone, or more

than two-thirds of the total nationwide cut. When we have questioned the jump in funding for other communities, Tracy Henke,

the DHS official in charge of the process, told me, ‘‘You have to understand that there is risk throughout the Nation.’’

I understand that risk exists outside of New York and D.C., but

I would have preferred to have followed the recommendations of

Secretary Chertoff when he stated in January that high threat

grants are ‘‘not party favors to be distributed as widely as possible.’’

Then there is the much talked about listing of national monuments and icons or lack thereof. Yet the administration still thinks

that New York has no icons, and certainly D.C. has more than any

city in the country. I would like them to take a tour of New York.

The Secretary’s excuse for this is that they listed the Empire State

Building, for example, as a large office building and the Brooklyn

Bridge as a bridge. He contrasts that with Mount Rushmore, a

monument with much fewer visitors.

To that I ask, can’t our icons be listed as both? The Empire State

Building is a large office building with thousands of workers, and

it is also a very famous site that attracts hundreds of thousands

of visitors and attention from terrorists. Al Qaeda was not

videotaping the Brooklyn Bridge because it is a bridge. They were

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doing so because it is a bridge and a national icon on which thousands of people traverse each day.

It is this kind of common sense that seems to have completely

escaped DHS as it tried to come up with a formula that is as complicated as possible.

The next reason the Department has been giving us as to why

New York and Washington, DC, received a cut is due to our application. We both rank at the top for risk but at the bottom for our

application.

Believe me, if there is one thing D.C. and New York know how

to do, it is paperwork. They know how to fill out an application.

They probably file more papers on more issues in more areas than

any area in the country. So I don’t know about you, Mr. Chairman,

but I am going to ask the city of New York to maybe hire Steven

King next time to write our application. Maybe then the Department will understand the full threat to New York City. And D.C.,

as my colleague mentioned, has suffered other attacks, the anthrax

attacks, as has New York City.

So what started as a promising commitment from Secretary

Chertoff at the beginning of this year that Homeland Security

funding would, in fact, be based on risk has turned into one of the

greatest displays of incompetency, and really, we cannot afford to

be incompetent in the protection of our people and in our Homeland Security grants.

I look forward to the testimony. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this

hearing and for staying on top of this through the Government Reform Committee.

It does boggle the mind that we would be cutting expenditures for Homeland Security by $690 million, that we would be taking

$122 million out of the Urban Area Security Initiative, and then we

would be paying for that $120 million cut by taking it all out of

Washington, DC, and New York City.

I mean, this is, as I say, it boggles the mind. I hear the excuses,

and that is what we are going to talk about today. But, you know,

you put it in the larger context: What are we doing cutting Homeland Security by $690 million? We are going to debate today and

tomorrow 10 hours on the topic of Iraq. Well, Iraq, and it has been

said and will be said hundreds of times today, I trust, had nothing

to do with September 11th. Saddam did not attack this country. He

was not harboring terrorists. And until we went in and invaded the

country and occupied it, he was no threat whatsoever to the United

States of America. And yet it is relevant because we are spending

$300 million a day in Iraq, almost $9 billion a month in Iraq. And

how are we paying for it? We take $690 million out of this entire

Nation’s Homeland Security funds.

We had an amendment in the Appropriations Committee, the

Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Mr. Obey offered it. What

it did was to completely pay for all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations that the President endorsed and the Congress endorsed. It would have paid for all of it: all of the public transit

monitoring; all of the port security; instead of checking 5 percent

of the containers, we would have checked 100 percent of the containers for radiological, chemical or biological threats, rail security,

on and on. It would have paid for all of it.

You know how we were going to offset it? The people who earned more, more than $1 million a year in this country, get $114,000 annual tax cuts in addition to all the other tax cuts they get. This

is just the new tax cuts we passed. Instead of getting a $114,000

tax cut a year, they get $101,000; a $13,000 reduction to people

making more in tax cuts than $1 million a year. That would have

paid for all of the 9/11 Commission’s Homeland Security recommendations. Now, it was defeated on a party line vote, no surprise, but my point is, where is this Nation’s priorities?

Now, you are not going to be able to answer that, but we have

some people from DHS here. They might relay that message to

some of their bosses, that there was some questioning about the

Nation’s priorities.

Now, within DHS, you tell us that you didn’t like the grant applications. I think Mrs. Maloney makes a pretty good point that not

to identify the Brooklyn Bridge as anything more than a bridge

was questionable, not to identify the Statue of Liberty as a national

icon is questionable, and not to recognize the priority that Washington, DC, must have when we have millions of people here, 20

million visitors a year, the seat of the Nation’s Capital, of the entire free world, and you make a 40 percent reduction in the funding?

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Now, maybe you don’t like the application. But I worked in the

executive branch for a few years. We thought—this was during the

Nixon administration, and one of our roles was to sit down with

the local government and work with them, because the objective is

not to grade papers; it is to do what is in the best interests of the

American people, in this case, to figure out how best to secure our

Nation’s Capital. There was $190 million additional needs identified, and the Department of Homeland Security decided to address

6.5 percent of those needs, from what I see, down from almost 10

percent.

You recognize that D.C. is at the top of the terrorism target list.

To put it at the bottom of funding, these are things that need some

answers, and I don’t think it is unreasonable for us to be asking

these questions.

Again, what we are going to be doing is shooting the messenger.

It is the people that sent you here who make these top decisions

in terms of allocating our Nation’s resources who are the ones who

ought to be on the hot seat. But, nevertheless, this hearing needs

to be held. More importantly, we need to get some answers.

Mr. Chairman, again, I appreciate your holding the hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. James P. Moran follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for holding the hearing today on a very important

issue. As some of my colleagues said, this does raise the overall

question of our national priorities. We hear a lot of rhetoric from

the White House and the administration about Homeland Security.

It is a top priority. Yet when you look at the resources devoted to

it, you find out that, hey, look what happened here?

One of the reasons we have seen cuts in Washington, DC, and

New York is because we don’t have the resources this year that we

had last year. If it is the administration’s position now that the

threat to the homeland has reduced that much, it would be interesting to hear from them. Otherwise, it would be nice to have the

resources match the rhetoric.

We are often told that we shouldn’t prepare for the last war, and

that is absolutely true. You got to always be thinking about new

possible threats. On the other hand, I don’t think there is anybody

with a shred of common sense that can tell you that, going forward,

the Nation’s Capital and New York City don’t remain top targets

of al Qaeda and any other group, terrorist group, seeking to do our

Nation harm. Clearly, they remain at the top of that list.

Now, many of us have been concerned for some time about the

degree of attention the Department of Homeland Security has been

paying to the Nation’s Capital. We had a back and forth a little

while ago about the downgrading of the position of the Office of the

National Capital Region Coordinator within the Department of

Homeland Security who used to report directly to the Secretary.

The Secretary has now apparently determined that he will be buried within a couple of layers of bureaucracy. We haven’t gotten any

response to the complaints many of my colleagues and I wrote to

the Secretary with respect to that downgrading. Now it appears

that downgrading is not just with respect to the regional coordinating position, but with respect to the resources that are devoted to

the National Capital area.

Now, this is an important hearing because we are going to be

able to find out a little bit more why these decisions were made,

because there are conflicting comments in the media. Some media

reports say that the Homeland Security evaluation that New York

City and the Washington, DC, area were given lower amounts because they were inadequate, that they were not well thought out

and substantial. Yet there are other comments from representatives, including some on the panel from the Department of Homeland Security, that said that is not the reason they were downgraded. So I think it is a mystery to many people why these areas

received less money.

I would just close by pointing out that the Washington, DC, area,

as we all know, is a multi-jurisdictional area. You have two States,

Virginia and Maryland. You have the Nation’s Capital. Within the

two States, you have lots of jurisdictions. Coordinating that area is

a major challenge. To have the one source of money that really

helps pull all those different jurisdictions together and working as

one and pulling them in the same direction, to have that source of

money cut sends I believe absolutely the wrong signal at the wrong

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time. There are lots of good ongoing efforts in the regions to try to

bring everybody together. I think they can do even better, but they

can’t do even better with a lot less than they are getting now.

So this is a great mystery to many of us, how this decision was

reached. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. Hopefully, we will get some answers.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this.

Mr. Moran, I am glad you are here to make an argument.

First, I represent Maryland’s Second Congressional District, includes the Baltimore region, part of the National Capital area. Also

in my district is the port of Baltimore, NSA, BWI Airport, Fort

Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground and the sector of Baltimore

which is a Coast Guard shipyard.

In 2006, the Department, as we know, that is why we are having

this hearing today, the Department of Homeland Security cut National Capital Regional funding 40 percent from the previous year.

They also cut $18 million in Homeland Security grants from the

State of Maryland from the previous year.

Now, it is of great concern to me that DHS would cut counterterrorism money for New York City, the Washington region, which

together have been 100 percent of al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on

American soil. Each jurisdiction has been cut, based on my investigation, by, again, at least 40 percent.

Now, it is also of great concern to me that DHS has shown by

their actions that the National Capital Region is a low-risk city.

That is preposterous. When you compare the State of Maryland,

which I represent, with nearly 5.5 million people, the per capita

spending for DHS dollars is $4.5 per person. That means each person in Maryland gets $4.5 that could be allocated. You look at Wyoming. Wyoming received nearly $16 per person

in DHS funding per capita. Wyoming gets more than 15 times as

many DHS dollars than they have people. $7.6 million and only

493,000 people who live in Wyoming.

I like Wyoming. The Grand Tetons is one of our most magnificent

rural areas in the country. I have been there. I observed grizzly

bears and other wild animals. Based on this new funding system,

it seems that DHS is protecting the grizzly bears in Wyoming over

the people who live and work around Fort Meade and NSA and

other parts of this country. I choose people over bears.

Now, I am willing to listen to DHS’s argument, and they are on

the hot seat, as they should be. But I feel very strongly that we

need to focus on our high-priority targets. I am a Member of the

House Select Intelligence Committee. We focus on terrorism and al

Qaeda all the time. I am just very, very concerned of DHS’s priorities as it exists here today.

If DHS has a better understanding of where the risk is, why was

the funding for such densely populated urban areas like Washington, DC, New York and Baltimore cut so much? The new DHS system which supposedly balances risk and effectiveness places more

emphasis—and this is what really concerns me—places more emphasis on the quality of the writing of the grant proposal than the

actual risk a community faces. I want to repeat that because that

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seems to be the argument that certain jurisdictions might not have

written the grant proposal the way DHS wanted it.

I agree that giving money to States without having a plan is putting the cart before the horse, and DHS should have been criticized

for the amount of waste, of money that went to different jurisdictions, pork, for dog vests and everything else. That has to stop. I

am sure that is why this system is coming here now. But giving

Homeland Security dollars on the basis of the quality of how a proposal is written is trying to drive the cart without a horse.

If the State plans are being analyzed, where is the congressional

oversight? I question whether a group of peer review experts

should be telling first responders what projects have value and

which don’t and determining how much money they should receive.

Have these peer review experts ever managed a Federal grant or

Federal emergency? I don’t know, because I don’t know who they

are. They haven’t been before the committee. There is an argument

about being classified. I am on the committee that is classified. So

there needs to be oversight with respect to that.

This process is not acceptable, and I believe the new DHS system

puts our most vulnerable cities at risk. I think the DHS has put

the needs of a few over the needs of the most vulnerable. I will

work with my colleagues to fix the DHS grant formula so it accurately protects America’s most vulnerable assets, our families, our

community and our Nation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really don’t have a

lengthy opening statement, which I am sure many will appreciate.

But I am actually looking forward to hearing from some of these

folks. I have never seen a goofier list of priorities for receiving Department of Homeland Security grants than the one most recently

provided us.

I just want to figure out how they figured out how to mess things

up so badly, particularly addressing the needs of some of our most

critical cities and regions, Washington and New York and others.

I want to hear the explanations to the goofy decisions.

Thank you. I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. This hearing

is very important to our oversight responsibilities, and I would like

to thank all the witnesses that are here today for coming.

I believe homeland security manifested as guns, barriers and

blind response protocol is a false sense of security. Homeland security should be about the health of the American people. It really

is not about the land; it is about the people; the people’s education

and the proper expertise that can be brought to strategic management and preparedness.

You see, these alerts go high every day. What do you do? The

people have no clue. The Department of Homeland Security was

born in America’s moment of crisis. Unfortunately, as a result, it

seems the Department’s management itself is in a perpetual moment of crisis.

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We saw the most devastating results of this mismanagement

during Hurricane Katrina last autumn. But the hidden disaster is

the way that our local government and our first responders are

blown about by the capricious winds of DHS’s policy shifts. Now

DHS has again changed the way it allocates grant money to the

local governments that are expected to respond in a case of disaster.

I am still concerned that we have not fixed the problems that

have plagued the way we allocate these funds since the beginning.

It seems to me that the endless debate over allocation formula is

a product of the President’s failure to provide the resources necessary to secure the homeland, the people.

Rather than debate who is going to get the biggest piece of a

shrinking pie, we need to base not just our formula but also our

overall spending levels on the true threats and risks to America.

So I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing

from the witnesses about how they believe we can improve DHS’s

grantmaking policies, specifically in the National Capital area.

I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. I think that will conclude

opening statements and we can get to our panel. Members will

have 7 days to submit opening statements for the record.

I recognize our very distinguished panel of witnesses.

We have the Honorable George Foresman, the Undersecretary for

Preparedness, Department of Homeland Security; there is Mr. Edward Reiskin, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice; Mr.

Robert Crouch, the Assistant to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia for Preparedness; Mr. Dennis Schrader, the Director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security of the State

of Maryland; and Mr. David Robertson, the executive director of

the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

It is our policy to swear all witnesses in before they testify, if you

would rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Foresman, we will start with you and

move on down the line. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF GEORGE W. FORESMAN, UNDERSECRETARY

FOR PREPAREDNESS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; EDWARD D. REISKIN, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC

SAFETY AND JUSTICE, GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA; ROBERT P. CROUCH, JR., ASSISTANT TO THE

GOVERNOR FOR THE COMMONWEALTH PREPAREDNESS,

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA; DENNIS R. SCHRADER, DIRECTOR, GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY,

STATE OF MARYLAND; AND DAVID J. ROBERTSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF

GOVERNMENTS

STATEMENT OF GEORGE W. FORESMAN

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Ranking Member Waxman and members of the committee,

thanks to each of you for the opportunity to appear today along

with colleagues from the National Capital Region to discuss the

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2006 Homeland Security Grant Program and specifically the Urban

Area Security Initiative.

I would like to highlight several key issues for the committee

today in advance of the very important discussions about reducing

America’s overall risk from terrorism. The discussion on funding

should not be an issue of placing the safety and security of any one

person, community or State in America ahead of another. Managing risk is a national responsibility. The process used by the Department this year reflects the desires of the administration, Congress and the American people to make our entire Nation safer and

more secure. It is in that vein that I feel compelled to present to

the committee some clear facts.

First, the amount of funding available for the Urban Area Secu- rity Initiative program has been reduced by $125 million compared

to 2005. This does in fact represent a reduction of 14 percent. The

State Homeland Security Grant Program has been reduced by $550

million compared to 2005, representing a reduction of approximately 50 percent.

Second, the Department, at congressional direction, implemented

an approach this year that includes both risk analysis and effectiveness scoring. It is an approach that is supported by the administration and reflects the evolution of our post-September 11th approach to managing the risk of terrorism.

I would like to draw two excerpts from the House Homeland Security Appropriations Committee report for 2006: We are at a turning point in the methodology for administering the First Responder

Grant Program. Historically, funds have been distributed based on

minimum percentages and population.

A little later, the report language reads: ODP, now known as the

Office of Grants and Training in the Department, will begin a new

methodology for administering the First Responder Grant Program.

Funding will be targeted based on threat and risk while targeting

gaps in preparedness.

This guidance from the Congress has informed the development

of the process that we used this year.

Third, the risk to our Nation is better understood than even 1

year ago. National risk is an umbrella that encompasses community and State risks together. No single community or State constitutes the sum of America’s risk. Our adversaries have publicly

stated their desire to kill and injure our citizens, wreck our economy and destabilize public confidence. We know that there are key

facilities across America that, if attacked, could cause grave harm

to the people inside and in the immediate vicinity and cause potentially devastating ripple affects across the entire Nation, chemical

and nuclear power plants, key transportation, telecommunications

and energy hubs, as well as financial centers, just to name a few.

In 2004, at the earliest stages of our national efforts, we had documented approximately 200 facilities nationwide. Last year, we

had documented about 11,300. Today we have documented more

than 260,000 nationwide. This documentation process is critical to

understanding both the scope and diffuse nature of our national

threat.

In addition, the post-September 11th efforts to fuse the work of

the intelligence and law enforcement communities at all levels of

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government is producing a more accurate picture of suspicious activity. This is activity that may point to an impending plot against

Americans, our economy and our way of life anywhere in our country. This information also strengthens our analysis and underscores mode of attack of the past may not be the mode of attack

of the future.

The Department has adopted the lessons from the tragedy of

September 11th. It is important to connect the dots, to understand

our vulnerabilities, their consequences and the realities of potential

threats all across the country. Together, these inform our risk analysis.

The Department of Homeland Security’s job is to protect an entire Nation. We are using all available information to guide us in

doing just that. Just as we know that putting all police resources

in a single neighborhood after a robbery or murder will not reduce

the risk of crime in an entire community, we also know that reducing an entire Nation’s risk cannot be accomplished by focusing resources in any one area alone.

Fourth, and with what I just mentioned in mind, analyzing risk

is neither absolute nor is it static. We have a much more accurate

understanding of our entire Nation’s risk. New York and the National Capital Region do not suddenly have less risk. Because of

our better analysis, we know that the risk measures in some other

urban areas are actually higher than previously assessed in relation to New York and the Washington region.

In some cases, the share of national risk for these other communities actually doubled or tripled as a result of our incredible analysis this year. This means that additional resources had to be applied to these areas to help address the better understood risk as

part of a truly national approach. Two-thirds of funding to the 46

urban areas was based on these risk measures.

Let me be very clear: New York City and the Washington region

continue to be at the top of our risk consideration. You will see a

chart on the screen that shows the risk curve in the upper righthand corner and the funding curve in the lower lefthand corner.

You can see that funding corresponds to risk. In fact, more than

45 percent of all funds go to just 5 of the 46 urban areas, New York

City, the National Capital Region, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area.

It is also important to note that these 46 urban areas constitute

approximate 85 percent of our national urban area risk. I should

underscore that as our knowledge and information continue to

evolve, relative risk rankings could change again in the future.

Fifth, we assessed the effectiveness of urban area applications

this year relative to each other in support of meeting national priorities. These assessments also included review of how investments

matched their respective State strategies and potential for continuing beyond the flow of Federal dollars.

The effectiveness score is not in any way a measure of how well

urban areas are implementing programs, managing their resources,

succeeding in keeping their citizens safe or how well they write

their grant applications. It is simply a mechanism for promoting a

national unified approach to the national threat of terrorism by enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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couraging efforts that meet program directions set forth by Congress and the administration.

Effectiveness accounted for one-third of the allocation decisions,

and it is important to note that the maximum increase or reduction

of funds based on these measures would have been at most 7 percent for any of the urban areas. The vast majority fell into the median, meaning there was very little change.

Finally, we continue to work on improving communication. The

Department is responsible for addressing a national threat, and

that means by working closely with many stakeholders, including

our partners at the State and local level. Before this position, I

spent nearly a quarter of a century in local and State public safety

activities, and I clearly understand that funding decisions can send

unintended messages.

The message here should be very clear: Members of the committee, managing America’s risk requires a national approach that applies Federal resources wisely to supplement the work of State and

local governments. The Secretary and I continue to balance the

need for maximum transparency in the funding processes with the

need to avoid publicly giving our enemies a roadmap to our national vulnerabilities.

We will continue to work closely with our partners at the State

and local level here in the National Capital Region and with the

Congress to ensure that we protect the entire Nation and that we

provide clearer understanding of the progress that we are making

on reducing America’s risk from terrorism on numerous fronts.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forseman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Foresman.

Mr. Reiskin, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD D. REISKIN

Mr. REISKIN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman

Norton, members of the delegation and committee.

My name is Ed Reiskin, I am the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety

and Justice for the District of Columbia, and I have the day-to-day

responsibility for Homeland Security in the District. I am pleased

to have this opportunity to be here today to talk about this very

important issue for the District and the region.

Mr. Crouch from Virginia, Mr. Schrader from Maryland and I

work together collectively and collaboratively on a day-to-day basis

to improve the safety and security of the region, and that is a responsibility that we take very seriously, and it is in that spirit that

we are jointly presenting our testimony today.

I will discuss our application, the risk and effectiveness assessment of it and the impacts to the District. My colleagues will discuss impacts to the region as well as impacts to pair to their respective States. If you are following in the written testimony, the

State impacts are in the last pages of the testimony.

With regard to the application sample, some of the documents

which are in front of me, significant effort by experienced practitioners from fire chiefs to health directors to communication experts, volunteer managers, hospital executives, many of whom I am

pleased to see are in the room today, and many other stakeholders

work toward the regional security of the homeland and worked together jointly to develop the fiscal year 2006 funding applications.

With our understanding of the fiscal climate and the Department’s shift to a more risk-based approach, we were expecting an

award somewhere in the area of $100 million to $120 million. To

be conservative, we developed an application for $188 million,

which was a prioritization of over $250 million of identified need

that represented an amount we felt comfortable we would be able

to execute. The breakdown of the areas that make up that $188

million are in your written testimony.

As many of you have mentioned, the Nation’s funding for the

Urban Area Security Initiative was reduced by 50 percent. We were

reduced by 40 percent, yielding a $46.5 million award, which was,

needless to say, considerably lower than we had expected.

With regard to risk and effectiveness, as many of you have said,

we know we are a high-risk area. We understand through a press

release that DHS found our region to be in the 97th percentile in

terms of risk, and with risk as two-thirds of the equation for determining the allotments, it is hard for us to understand the disproportionate reduction that we seem to have received.

Absent any specific feedback from the Department, which we understand will be forthcoming, we can’t speak to the effectiveness

analysis of our proposal, although it was rated at or above average

in each of their rating categories for each of the investment areas.

What we do know is that some of the most experienced responders and planners, many of which are in the room, people who did

respond to September 11th, who have responded to anthrax, were

the ones developing the content for this application. So we don’t

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understand how peers from across the country could have somehow

found this application to be lacking.

We have built significant capability in the region over the last 5

years that we are proud of and that should give comfort to those

who live here, work here and visit here. That capability will not

generally diminish as a result of this or any other award. But preparedness is a dynamic and complex process, and we have significant unmet need that remains, and we will be unable to meet all

of it in this grant cycle. We can’t speak to the levels of need or risk

elsewhere in this country, but we do know that ours is high.

With respect to the District of Columbia, as many of you mentioned, we are the seat the Federal Government, home of the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Department of

Homeland Security and its national operations center, the FBI

headquarters, the Washington Monument, 20 million visitors and

countless other national icons and critical Federal functions. Yet

the Department of Homeland Security determined that we face less

risk than 75 percent of the Nation’s States and territories.

The region was found to be in the top 25 percent of risk, but the

city that serves at its core was in the bottom 25 percent. State

Homeland Security grant funding was cut 50 percent nationally

compared to last year. The District of Columbia’s share was cut

more than 53 percent. Only American Samoa, the Northern Marianas Islands, the Virgin Islands and Guam received less State

Homeland Security grant funding than the District of Columbia.

Between State and law enforcement grant programs, from an identified need of over $37 million, we submitted an application for

$21.5 million and were awarded $7.4 million. Our application included the following, which directly support national priority capabilities: $3.7 million for planning, training and exercising in areas

such as national incident management system, hazardous materials response, continuity of operations planning; $1.6 million for

enhanced preparedness, focusing especially on special needs populations, schools and businesses; funds for mass care, $1 million for

critical infrastructure protection, there is no question we have a

significant amount of critical infrastructure here; $3.4 million for

intelligence fusion, following the guidelines of the Federal Government, both Homeland Security and justice; $2.4 million to continue

our work in interoperable communications, including the dedicated

wireless public safety network that is currently used to support

events by both District and Federal agency users; $1.5 million for

response to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons of

mass destruction attacks that the District may face; $5 million for

law enforcement response to raise our capabilities for our harbor

patrol, our emergency response teams, our air support unit and

others to Tier I as required by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8.

There is obviously a lot more in the applications, and the bottom

line is we won’t be able to complete all of those things as we proposed.

I do want to close by saying we fully support a risk-based approach, and we support and acknowledge the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to make this process more objective and

more transparent, which I do believe it has been. However, we

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have to question the outcomes, which don’t seem to square with

professional or common sense.

We are confident that the lessons learned from this year’s process will ensure that next year’s is better. With that, I will turn to

my colleague from Virginia.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reiskin follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Crouch.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. CROUCH, JR.

Mr. CROUCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I do appreciate this opportunity to discuss this very critical

issue, critical to the States of Virginia and Maryland and critical

to the District of Columbia. Mr. Reiskin pointed out some of the investments that were included in our package and I think it might

be useful to discuss some of the other proposals that are also included which we think demonstrate the forward thinking, seriousness and consideration made by the National Capital Region. We

certainly know among al Qaeda’s as targets in the past have been

transit systems. We know that from the experience of London. We

know that from the experience of Madrid.

Among our proposals is a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit

Authority Alternative Operation Control Center. Currently, 30 percent of the region’s commuters rely on Metro rail service, and almost half of the peak period riders are Federal employees. Recent

attacks in London and Madrid have shown the transit systems are

a favorite target of terrorists.

WMATA’s existing Operation Control Center directs rail and bus

operations, emergency repair actions, radio communications, coordinates communications with the region’s emergency first responders,

receives chemical sensor program data. It’s an origination point for

public announcements and needs to be extremely facile with the

ability to quickly respond to a variety of incidents.

WMATA’s Operation Control Center represents a single point of

vulnerability for operating the entire rail system. If the building

that currently houses the OCC is destroyed or has to be evacuated,

it would be essentially impossible to maintain rail service within

the acceptable degree of reliability.

Addressing this single point failure in WMATA’s operating system in a timely fashion would serve to mitigate the negative impacts and enhance the response and recovery capabilities of the

National Capital Region resulting from a terrorist attack directed

toward transit or other high threat targets in the region.

Similarly, among our proposals is the Metro Subway Security

Strategic Initiative. Recently the National Capital Region Fire

Chiefs Committee created the Subway Tunnel Working group to

identify gaps in their response to an incident in the WMATA Metro

system.

Our current initiative is to address identified gaps in the region’s

fire services’ abilities to respond effectively to an incident involving

a WMATA tunnel system. This initiative includes implementing

hazardous materials detection, mitigation and decontamination

training to ensure proper hazardous materials techniques within

the Metro system.

This proposed project would also supply the first responders with

longer-duration breathing apparatus so firefighters can rely on

longer search and rescue missions within the tunnels in the case

of an attack.

Clearly one of the lessons of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was

the need to give additional attention to special needs populations.

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Included among our proposals for the National Capital Region is a

project to increase the capability of nursing homes, group homes

and providers of home health care to service those people with disabilities or other special needs, including economic special needs.

We recognize that these organizations in the National Capital Region are not sufficiently prepared to shelter in place the people

they serve or to evacuate them to a place of safety and shelter.

Our current initiative would create a representative consortium

of disability advocacy groups and service providers with national

outreach and local National Capital Region focus to prepare organizations that serve people with disabilities in the National Capital

Region to shelter in place or evacuate those they serve and conduct

exercises to shelter in place or evacuate to a disaster shelter.

These are just three examples of the proposals in our package.

We do think they demonstrate effectiveness. They demonstrate an

attention to critical needs, unmet needs that require the attention

of the National Capital Region and the Nation.

We are interested, as we know you are, in the process that was

engaged in, in coming to the conclusions that ranked the National

Capital Region as it has been ranked. Our colleagues, and we do

regard them as colleagues, and partners at the Department of

Homeland Security have assured us that we will have an opportunity in the very near future to have that kind of in-depth discussion.

As Deputy Mayor Reiskin indicated earlier, we are interested in

the process, both in learning why our proposals were not ranked

as highly as they were but also learning that in part so we can address those issues in coming applications. We want to get it right,

and if we don’t understand why we didn’t seem to get it right this

year, we want to learn that lesson.

Nevertheless, we do continue to have concerns about that process

and whether the formula that is used is really the appropriate formula. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, we experienced a similar

cut this year, dropping from over $36 million in funds last year to

$16.8 for this year.

Again, the Commonwealth was ranked in the top 50 percent in

risk, and we remain baffled why our proposals that included, for

example, funding for our intelligence gathering and analysis fusion

center, which is considered state-of-the-art among the Nation, funding for our interoperability programs. Virginia was the first State

in the Nation to create a State interoperability coordinator, the

first State to create a statewide interoperability strategic plan,

which is being used today by the Department of Homeland Security

as a model for other States.

We want to complete our interoperability throughout the Commonwealth, and yet these are proposals that did not merit a higher

ranking and higher funding by the Department.

We continue to have concerns that the Hampton Roads region

not only does not get Urban Areas Security Initiative funding but

doesn’t even qualify for consideration based on the formula, with

all of its maritime and military traffic.

So we do continue to have those concerns. We look forward to

that discussion with the Department and learning more about the

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process and contributing to its improvement in the future. Thank

you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Crouch.

Mr. Schrader.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS R. SCHRADER

Mr. SCHRADER. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

It is a pleasure to be here to give you our perspective in representing Governor Ehrlich’s, his homeland security advisor, and

appearing with my colleagues Bob Crouch and Ed Reiskin from the

District and our local jurisdiction representatives who are here

today.

Maryland is one of the three major components of the NCR, and

one of the things we observed according to the Homeland Security

application process is Maryland was ranged in the top 50 percent

for both risk and effectiveness. One of the things that we are wondering as we sift through this is, it is difficult to understand how

Maryland and the NCR grant funds were cut so drastically.

Our thinking is that we have to work on improving the process

to ensure risk is properly calculated to realize a commonsense riskbased process, particularly since it’s two-thirds of the application.

Federal Homeland Security distribution procedures changed this

past year, and we support that. But the application seems to have

gone into a black box of literally thousands of calculations and, in

the end, fell short for Maryland and the NCR.

It appears that a laudable big picture goal which made a lot of

sense in the front end of basing funding on risk instead got mired

in complicated formulas, resulting in applications that don’t match

what we intuitively know to be high-risk areas.

The bottom line is more capabilities mean less risk. What we are

really focused on is lowering risk, and by not building the capabilities, it slows our ability to reduce that risk.

Maryland, Virginia and the District jointly develop our security

capabilities. We share information back and forth because it is a

coordinated effort. We have three major airports, subways, ports,

landmarks and, of course, the Nation’s Capital.

Just to add on to what my colleague, Mr. Crouch, mentioned earlier in some of the projects that are on our list but will have to be

scrutinized even more tightly than we already have, and we have

done some pretty tight scrutiny; we spent an awful lot of time together, probably 20, 25 percent of my time with these folks in the

National Capital Region because of the importance that the Governor places on this region.

Currently, all the bomb squads in the National Capital Region

have a high level of interoperability. They participate in information exchange, do joint training and mutual aid, but they are not

equipped up to the level that FEMA would expect for their highest

level of standard, and we have an $8 million project which would

address that issue in the National Capital Region.

There is an awful lot of pressure on our local jurisdictions. We

partner with the local jurisdictions in the Capital Region, and they

bear a lot of the workload in terms of helping us with the bottomsup process of understanding what direction we need to go, and we

need to make sure they have the planning resources so that we can

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coordinate our efforts because it is in effect coordinating the States

and the District and the local jurisdictions in a very complicated

coordination effort.

We have a program to continue to build our capabilities around

evacuation planning, mass care and sheltering, animal shelters, regional coordination response plans, continuity of government plans,

and we have $5 million projected for that.

We were disappointed in the State because primarily the three

States—two States and the District—have to be strong to work together collaboratively. As I said earlier, we had expected somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 to $40 billion because we have

a Central Maryland urban area as well as our law enforcement and

State grant. We ended up with $24 million of which of course we

are very grateful for, but it was a bit of a surprise, and we had put

in an application for about $120, $69 for the State and $51 for the

central Maryland urban area.

These are for key things like information sharing and intelligence. We have one of the Nation’s first fusion centers that has

been around since November 2003. Many of my colleagues from

around the country have come to see our center and model it. Critical infrastructure protection, interoperability are just a couple of

other major things that we need to invest in.

The bottom line is, at the State level, we have an open and

transparent process just like we have here in the National Capital

Region. We have the local jurisdictions help us to find the priorities, and we sift through that to—basically, the State has strategic

objectives that we are focused on, and then we would hope the Department of Homeland Security would review those priorities and

fund it as appropriate.

The bottom line is, we are looking forward to the July review session. We have reached out to DHS to start asking questions about

these risk calculations. We do support this process, but we need to

understand it better because the outcome in some cases just didn’t

make a lot of sense.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, very much.

Mr. Robertson.

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. ROBERTSON

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee. I’m Dave Robertson, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, and I have the privilege

to represent the interests of 20 local governments in the National

Capital Region that have vested countless hours and energy in addressing homeland security preparedness and response since September 11th.

Just yesterday, the Council of Governments’ Board of Directors

met to examine this issue and had a very thoughtful and helpful

discussion. They, like this committee, have questions and concerns,

and I believe they are seeking many of the same responses that the

committee is seeking, which is, we need to know how to sustain

what we have started and how it can be made more predictable

and transparent for all those concerned.

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I am here today, as I said, to represent the interests of our local

governments but would comment to the committee that most response is going to be local. The men and women that are our first

responders, our network of first responders in this region, work for

local governments by and large, and they will continue to do what

is necessary to protect and strengthen this region regardless of

UASI funds.

We know we need these funds. We have identified a range of priorities, but in the event of an emergency, local officials will respond

as they are required, no matter what the circumstances.

We will be looking to our State partners, our region’s mutual aid

agreements and certainly our Federal partners to support that effort. I can’t speak too much to the peer review panel that worked

on these applications, but I can speak to the peer team that helped

reduce the region’s proposals.

Tony Griffin, who is the county executive in Fairfax County, and

his colleagues from around the region spent dozens of hours sifting

through proposals and trying to make sure that they meet the region’s top priorities and needs.

Local governments are supported by, among the Nation’s best

first responder teams: police officials, fire officials, transportation

directors, health officials and others that worked hundreds of hours

to develop these recommendations to measure them against standards and guidelines provided by the Federal Government. We know

very strongly and very confidently that the work that has been advanced is of great need.

Speaking to the issue of predictability and sustainability, we are

concerned that many of the projects that have been advanced may

be jeopardized by the reduced funding. Two quick examples: Much

of the equipment that has been purchased in the early rounds of

UASI funding does sometimes have a shelf life or needs to be maintained. We will need ongoing funds to make sure that equipment

is at the ready at all times.

Certainly, the issue of citizen communication. We can’t do a onetime citizen communication campaign because this is a tremendously transient region. We need to reach out aggressively to citizens and the millions of visitors on an ongoing basis.

We also believe the impact on these UASI cuts will be serious for

our region. Simply stated, this region cannot achieve the level of

sustainability and predictability and confidence that we want to

have in our region’s preparedness with the funds that are out

there. We have a tremendous unmet need that will be unmet, will

not be recognized if we do not receive additional funds in our region.

Finally, the issue of the insufficiency perhaps of the application.

Like a lot of the folks that have spoken earlier, the Council of Governments does support and our member governments do support

the issue of risk-based assessment. We need to understand better

how that is defined. We have worked very hard to address our proposals regionally and through the 37 capabilities that the Department of Homeland Security has identified. If there are other guidelines or additional information that will be coming forward in the

next couple weeks and month, we look forward to working with

State and local partners to pinpoint exactly how we can do better.

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The Council of Governments was one of the first organizations to

reach out to the Federal Government, State partners and locals immediately after September 11th to see how we could strengthen

preparedness and response. We are proud of our work to date. We

know our work is not completed; this is a long-term commitment

of our Nation and region. And we look forward to working with

Members of Congress to strength our preparedness.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Robertson follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I want to thank all of you for your testimony.

Let me start the questioning, Mr. Foresman, with you. DHS

rated the National Capital Region in the top 25 percent for risk

but, as has already been stated, the District of Columbia was rated

in the bottom 25 percent. Considering that the District has already

been a terrorist target, it houses the Federal Government, the

White House, the Nation’s Capital, the Capitol building, Supreme

Court, why was the risk rating for D.C. in the bottom 25 percent?

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question. This

actually goes to the importance of us making sure that we are very

clear communicating to our State and local partners. You are actually referring to two separate grant programs and the analysis contained therein.

In terms of the rating for the urban area, D.C., which is based

predominantly on the risk structure, the District of Columbia and

the National Capital Region was rated in the 97th percentile.

D.C. also is unique as a city; it has both the State status and city

status, and so it is eligible to participate in the State Homeland Security Grant Program. So that program has a different funding formula that is based, in part, based on a floor amount, populationbased floor amount.

So, in essence, D.C., from a ranking standpoint, is competing

against 50 States from a population base before we even get out

on the door on any of the risk discussions. So it is an artificiality

of the fact that D.C. is lumped into what is a State-directed program with a population-based funding formula.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So the risk is there. I mean, a major criteria of risk under the State funding formula is population.

Mr. FORESMAN. A major criteria, that is correct. There is also a

floor funding for the State program. There is a floor funding before

you can get into the risk discussion.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So you really think under a State formula

that Montana is at higher risk than D.C.?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, there are all sorts of intricacies.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I just asked you a question.

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir. My answer is, we do not measure the

risk of one community against the other and place the importance

higher—the higher of one community against another.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Am I right, under the State program, you

have two criteria, and one is risk, and on the risk side, I can understand looking at the grants, I’m not going to get, at least in this

question, how good the city’s grant was, but on risk analysis alone,

doesn’t it seem on risk analysis alone that the District of Columbia

is a likelier target and at higher risk than the State of Montana,

or North Dakota, where I’m from, if a terrorist can find North Dakota?

Mr. FORESMAN. I understand. The point is a valid point. If it was

purely risk, D.C. would have scored higher. But there is a population-based factor on the front end of it, that amount, for a large

portion.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You call it risk analysis. I mean, what it

says on the grant, it says risk; it doesn’t say risk and population.

There is risk, and there is effectiveness.

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Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, I go back to what I said earlier

in terms of the products we provided to the communities. We

should have been clearer in our communication, and that does not

effectively articulate the nature of the grant program and the allocation process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So, at a minimum, you would agree with

me that where it says risk, it shouldn’t say risk because, otherwise,

if you’re saying risk and population is a factor, that’s one thing, but

you have ranked the District under the State categories as a lower

risk than North Dakota.

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, we could have provided a better

and clearer descriptive response to the community.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Risk is really not a very good term there.

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, this goes to the broader issue.

Throughout this whole debate, a number of people have been confusing threat and risk in the same discussion, and risk analysis is

not risk management. Threat is not risk. What is important for

us——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What is risk?

Mr. FORESMAN. Risk is the combination of threat, vulnerability

and consequences. It is the threat, the intention of the adversary,

the likely intention of the adversary to commit an act, the consequences, what’s the likely outcome, and the vulnerability is the

relative measure.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Under that criteria—I say that’s a fair

definition of risk. Let’s agree that’s fair. The city’s population is

concentrated, so one incident there is going to hit a lot more people

than some of these western States where people are all over the

place. It’s a much more likely target.

How in the world is, a risk or a threat in Montana, North Dakota

or South Dakota higher than the District? I just need to understand that. They have a few more people there, but in terms of any

kind of risk analysis, I don’t think that passes the laugh test.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, this comes down to the fact that

D.C. falls into two categories. It falls into a State category in some

of these grant programs. It falls into an urban areas category in

some of these grant programs. Deputy Mayor Reiskin and I have

talked about this over the course of the last several years, and it

creates a little bit of an artificial challenge.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand that DHS made adjustments—how much was in the State versus how much was in the

urban category in terms of the amounts that DHS was throwing

in? You have two different grant categories; how much went to the

urban, and how much went to the State?

Mr. FORESMAN. In terms of total dollars?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes. Or percentage wise.

Mr. FORESMAN. The urban area was about a little over $700 million and the State program was about, I believe, $500 million.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. All right. I understand that DHS did

make adjustments to the risk factor assigned to the National Capital Region and New York City, based on a DHS briefing of our

staff. Is that correct? That after the adjustments were made under

the formulas, it looked like New York City and the District were

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lower, and you made what we used to call Kentucky windage adjustments.

Mr. FORESMAN. This goes back to the discussion on common

sense. Because we understand that we are responsible, and

Congress’s direction is to protect the Nation’s risk. When we take

a limited pot of money and we have to apply that against an entire

risk of a Nation, we wanted to ensure that we did not reduce the

National Capital Region funding and that of New York City below

the average of what they received in past years because, frankly,

this is the first year that we really quantitatively had a good understanding of risk outside of the National Capital Region in Washington, and that changed how we had to allocate the money accordingly.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let’s just take a look at the city side

where you say the city is treated fairly here; that is the thesis here,

isn’t it? That the National Capital Region under the urban formula

is going to get treated fairly? Even under that, as I understand it,

Washington, DC, wasn’t first, wasn’t second, wasn’t third, wasn’t

fourth. I was ranked below New Jersey; it was below the Bay area;

it was below Los Angeles, and so on. And in fact, you included additional urban areas like Ohmaha that ate up money that could

have come here.

Mr. FORESMAN. Let me use an example without specific jurisdictions. There’s a large metropolitan area that has roughly the same

number of assets in terms of critical infrastructure as the National

Capital Region, and it has a population that is roughly the same.

The National Capital Region population, from a density standpoint, is spread over 3,000 miles, and in this major metropolitan

city, it’s spread over 230 square miles. So the net effect of an event

in that particular community would have been potentially far more

grave in terms of an immediate impact on a large concentrated

population. This goes back to the whole discussion about New York

City with its high population density.

In that particular case, as we ran the numbers, when you looked

at the risk ranking, it raised that city above the National Capital

Region. But there’s an intrinsic value of the Nation’s Capital psychologically to the American value system, and that is the key reason and one of the key reasons that we put, as you say, the Kentucky windage to it, because risk management, risk analysis, it is

not absolute. It only seeks to guide and inform our decisionmaking

process and not control or dictate it. So we were trying to——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I appreciate your explanation, but I am

going to yield to Ms. Norton in a second.

I just tell you, from my perspective, you are looking at the Nation’s Capital, which has been hit once, had the anthrax attack on

top of that. We are still I think on everybody’s—close to the top of

everybody’s—hit list for any terrorist group that wants to make a

statement.

Terrorists are hitting London and Madrid. They are hitting capitals. They’re not likely to hit Bull Frog Corner, WV.

The reality is, as you take a look at urban areas and our density

and everything else, I think your bean counters are just counting

the wrong beans. I mean, I just think that this is too formula driven. I do not think that Congress makes the right decisions when

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we start allocating money and earmarks; it’s not done on an equitable basis. That is why in this particular area, when it came to

allocating funds for Homeland Security, we tried to give it to the

administration because we thought they would be fairer, that they

would take a look at what was good for the country as a whole,

take a look at the threats and try to take the politics out of it. But

what you have replaced with the politics is some bean-counting formula that doesn’t pass the laugh test.

You have, under your procedures, Montana, North Dakota, and

South Dakota ranking ahead of Washington, DC, and under the regional analysis now, the city is not even second—now they are

fifth—and that is applying, as we say, some subjective factors. But

more importantly, you are including other urban areas that could

have been covered under State grants that frankly don’t look like

they are threatened at all.

What I’m concerned about is, should an incident, God forbid,

happen—and we hope it doesn’t—if it happens in Omaha, I think

you’re covered. I think you can say, we took care of them. But

should something happen in New York or Washington, I think you

are going to hear a huge outcry that we didn’t give the appropriate

attention. And the problem is, in these areas, they’ve been hit before; they’ve been hit more than once. That is the likelihood, and

that’s our concern.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Picking up on your questions, by the way, I certainly hope al

Qaeda doesn’t notice these rankings and the shift. They’re informed

more than Members of Congress.

The chairman asked questions about the District. I’m curious,

did you, in calculating risk for the District of Columbia in particular, take account of the fact that the District’s daytime population

is two or three times its census population?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, we do take in the computing

population in the day and night population, and again, it depends

on which of the programs.

Ms. NORTON. I’m talking about the area grant.

Mr. FORESMAN. The urban area, yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. So then, of course, we’re talking about between 15

and 20 million people a year who come; we’re talking about a population that is not 600,000 but three times that. That’s the population figure you used?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I don’t have the exact figures in

front of me, but when I was serving in Virginia, whatever the current population of the National Capital Region is, with some slight

increase for tourist population, is going to be the number that you

see used, and I don’t whether it’s 4 million or 5 million.

Ms. NORTON. I was asking you about the District of Columbia.

Mr. FORESMAN. But the District of Columbia, Congresswoman,

this is a very important distinction because the District of Columbia under the Urban Area Security Initiative program is part of the

National Capital Region, and it looks at the combined total of all

of the jurisdictions.

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Ms. NORTON. If you look at the District of Columbia grant itself,

did the District of Columbia grant take into account that what

you’re protecting is the daytime population, in effect?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I don’t know specifically on the

State Homeland Security grant program, but I will find out which

of the two numbers was used in the formula and give you a written

answer.

Ms. NORTON. Very much appreciate that.

Mr. Foresman, I know you would always, when grants are being

made, expect some disagreement. I believe there would have been

less disagreement or certainly less outrage if there had perhaps

been cuts but they had been more modest.

The impression created is that we got cut Homeland Security;

who got the money, let’s cut them. So without some explanation,

it looks like you said, where’s the money, and the money is in New

York and the National Capital Region.

This is my question. I have not heard you indicating in your formula what I will call, for lack of a better term, the price of postponement. In a real sense, if we know what we all know about the

region, what al Qaeda and the terrorists know about this region,

my question is: Isn’t there some reason to make haste in places

which are particularly at risk to get it done, as it were, to get its

most vulnerable parts staunch down as opposed to looking at, of

course, the various vulnerabilities across the country? Some have

not been as adequately funded as you would like.

But if you factor in what a single incident would mean here because we hadn’t gotten to it as opposed to making sure that you

take care of what is vulnerable in other regions, isn’t there a value

that the Department would put on getting as much of it done as

rapidly as possible in this region and perhaps in New York, the

other target that everyone is aware of?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, let me address it this way; that

is a large part of why you see a major change. If you look at the

five high urban areas: Los Angeles/Long Beach region, Chicago, the

Newark region, San Francisco, the combined increase because of

the understanding of the risk score in those communities, very

densely populated areas with very critical infrastructure, that the

change in allocation based on the risk scoring alone was $38 million.

So part of what I offer to you, Congresswoman, is while everybody talks about Omaha or Louisville, they represent a very low

dollar amount in the context of how these dollars were adjusted.

A large amount of dollars went to these high metropolitan areas,

recognizing that Chicago, for instance, is a major financial and

transportation center, a major manufacturing center.

So our concern is about making sure that we bring percent readiness up, and that we don’t have any weak links or Achilles’ heels,

particularly in those urban areas.

Ms. NORTON. I looked at the other cities, New York, LA, Chicago.

I don’t understand Florida. You will have to make me understand

that one. Then we get to D.C. I said, well, population, I can understand that.

I have to tell you that with all of its population in LA spread out

the way it is, they are now only making a downtown in LA, one

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only wonders if MO of al Qaeda is simply to look for population or

whether it’s not to look for concentration of icons and population.

Why New York in the first place? Why was New York hit twice?

Why was the same building hit twice?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, that goes to a key point. One of

the great criticisms after September 11th was no one thought about

a plane being flown into a building. We have heard bin Laden say

on numerous occasions since September 11th he wants to hurt

America physically, psychologically and, most importantly, economically.

Take the LA area as a good example. It is spread out like the

National Capital Region but with a higher density. It is a major

center of economic activities.

Ms. NORTON. I have to stop you right there for a minute. They

may well have gotten cut. What I indicated was, I’m asking you if

you recognize that al Qaeda does have an MO, a known MO. They

are looking for large concentrations of people that you can hit. We

are not talking about the atom bomb here, so you can’t just hit LA

and expect it—we’re talking about somebody that wants to hit

someplace, and by hitting that one place you get an icon or you get

huge numbers of people.

The reason there is more chatter about New York than D.C. is

because you hit a few blocks there, you have so many folks that

you don’t need to worry about LA, San Francisco or even Chicago.

So I’m asking, with this notion of population, whether or not you

are really focusing in on density, where al Qaeda has been focused,

not just population.

Mr. FORESMAN. We are focused on population. We’re focused on

population density. But, Congresswoman, as a good example, the

day before Hurricane Katrina, one of our major metropolitan areas

in America constituted 25 percent of the chemical production capability in America. The day after that, it constituted 45 percent because—not chemical, but petroleum—because of the number of refineries that had been knocked out of service in Louisiana.

What this points out to us is that there is a physical impact on

people, but we also have to be concerned about the impacts on infrastructure, because you and I both felt the pain at the pump

right after Hurricane Katrina when we had to go in and pay more

for gas because the petroleum industry’s capabilities had been reduced.

Ms. NORTON. Did you take into account, because you just named

infrastructure, Madrid and London and the vulnerability of

WMATA and its tunnels when these cuts were made?

Mr. FORESMAN. We have taken into account the critical infrastructure here, and if you look at the other metropolitan areas

where you have subway and metro systems, some that are subject

to worse flooding than metro, as a prime example, we take all of

these factors into consideration.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Gutknecht.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to my colleague from New York.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Fossella.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the indulgence here.

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We are here, as you all know, because of what happened on September 11th. The Department of Homeland Security exists because

of what happened on September 11th. It happened in New York

and Washington, DC, and obviously in Pennsylvania.

There are many who I think share the goal that the fundamental

responsibility of the National Government is to protect innocent

people. That was the intent of the Department of Homeland Security. We are here today in addition to answer the question fundamentally how we have gone astray.

By way of background, I represent Staten Island and Brooklyn.

More than 200 people were killed on September 11th; 78 of the 343

firemen were from Staten Island; 29 people in my parish were

killed. And I just don’t want to have another day of mourning, another September 11th.

I have been wholehearted in support to ensure that not one family in America ever again has to fall victim to an act of terror. So

when we wake up and we realize that New York City sees a reduction percentage wise of upwards of 40 percent while other cities

around the country, arguably not as high on the threat list, receive

increases of 20, 30, 40 percent, we have to ask the fundamental

question, are we doing what’s right?

The original intent of UASI went from seven cities to 35 to 46

regions that now cover over 100 cities; is that right?

Mr. FORESMAN. That’s correct, Congressman.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Are we not drifting from the original intent of

much of what USAI was meant to serve, that is, the areas like

Washington, DC, like Chicago? I’m not saying here that New York

deserves 100 percent, or Washington, DC, deserves 100 percent.

Just follow the threat, follow the risk.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I think it’s a very reasonable question that you have asked here. The 46 urban areas represent about

85 percent of the Nation’s urban area risk, and why this is important—and part of this gets into the debate that you go for 80 percent, 90 percent, 85 percent. Where we saw the risk measures have

a measurable decline to where there was a clear separation was

about the 85 percent point, and that was those 46 urban areas.

I don’t think there was any intent of the program that I’m aware

of back when it was first established to say it was going to be 7

versus 50 versus 46 versus 30, but I think that we have to get beyond the discussion of funding on a single year and look at it over

the course of funding activity and look at it in the context of managing risk. And we are responsible for finding a way to manage

America’s risk, and the way we best feel we can do that is to apply

those dollars to get the maximum reduction in our nationwide risk,

and that’s how we came up with the 46 urban areas.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Having said that, in all the intelligence chatter,

I’m not asking you to divulge anything classified, is there any city

that is more targeted than New York City? Not just in this country

but in the entire world.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I don’t know the specific answer

to that. I will make the assumption that probably not, but I won’t

make it exclusively, but we should not equate threats with the

complete discussion on risk. Threats are one component to it, but

we have clear indications of al Qaeda and other groups’ intents;

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through the radicalization and the globalization of the al Qaeda activities, we have clear understandings of their intent to wreak economic, physical and psychological pain elsewhere.

Mr. FOSSELLA. But am I asking too much to indicate that New

York City is still the No. 1 threat?

Mr. FORESMAN. It was the No. 1 risk ranker last year; it remains

this year.

Mr. FOSSELLA. So if you sit back and know, far and above, with

the two attacks in 1993 and 2001, that New York City is indeed

No. 1, isn’t there anybody sitting back saying, well, why are they

seeing a reduction in funding? I’m just curious, nothing about the

good people of Omaha, but are they in the top 10 or 20?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I think one of the things I would

go to is this particular pie chart. If you look at New York City

alone in terms of the total allocation of the UASI program from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2006, you know they have not

quite gotten a quarter but almost a quarter of the dollars have

gone to New York City alone, and they have about 14 percent of

the Nation’s urban area population.

But what I will tell you is, we are putting our heaviest focus and

our heaviest attention in terms of financial commitments into New

York City. We have and we can continue to do so this year, and

it’s averaged twice as much as other—as the next highest jurisdiction, not quite——

Mr. FOSSELLA. The reason is because that’s where the risk and

the threat is. Whether you live in New York or have family who

visits, the millions of people from across the country, if you have

a daughter or son who’s a tourist, I think you would want them to

be there.

I have one other question.

Mr. GUTKNECHT [presiding]. I have to intervene here because we

are going to try to keep the hearing going through the vote. We

have a vote on the floor of the House, and the chairman has run

over to vote, he’s going to come back, and we’re going to go. I really

need to let Mrs. Maloney have her chance. We can have a second

round. If you want to run and vote, you can come back, and I think

the chairman would be more than willing to entertain questions.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, and I support my colleague’s line of

questioning. He has joined, as I have, the chairman of Homeland

Security Peter King in asking for a meeting with Secretary

Chertoff. We sent that letter off in a bipartisan effort roughly 2

weeks ago. We have not heard back. Can you give us any indication

when he’ll be able to meet with us?

Mr. FORESMAN. I don’t know the specific date the meeting has

been scheduled, but it’s my understanding when I was last briefed

on that a couple of days ago that the Secretary was more than willing to meet with the delegation, and it may in fact be early next

week.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to go over my understanding of this

year’s process for distributing the Homeland Security funding. Let

me see if I have this correct.

Cities and States prepared an application for submission to the

Department of Homeland Security, making their best case as to

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their threat, need and vulnerability. However, the individuals preparing the applications frequently do not have security clearances

and, therefore, a lack of access to real-time information about true

risk and vulnerability their city or State may actually face. It is

therefore the job of the applicant to give their best guess on what

their need is, absent a classified threat assessment.

After the applications are submitted, they are analyzed by a peer

review board, and it is the job of the peer review board to analyze

and rank applications on the basis of risk, vulnerability, among

other things.

Once again, due to the sensitive nature of some of the information involved and the lack of security clearances among members

of the peer review board, they also lack real-time information regarding the actual risk or vulnerabilities to the cities and States

being reviewed and ranking.

I have been informed that the methodology for the peer review

process was developed and implemented by a consultant firm hired

by the Department of Homeland Security, reportedly Booz Allen

Hamilton, and it is my understanding that it was this consulting

firm that administered the review, collected the review, scored the

sheets following the review and ranked State and urban area applications.

I have also been informed that it was only after Booz Allen Hamilton completed their analysis that the Department of Homeland

Security became involved in the process by signing off on the analysis and allocated funding based on Booz Allen Hamilton’s works.

So my first question, Mr. Foresman, is my understanding of the

process correct?

Mr. FORESMAN. It is not very correct at all, Congresswoman.

Mrs. MALONEY. Let me ask you, do State and city application

writers have access to the threat information to best prepare their

applications?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, if you might, I can maybe try

an explanation to capture all of it.

Mrs. MALONEY. If I could, answer——

Mr. FORESMAN. There are two very distinct points. The application writers do not have the specific threat analysis data or the

risk analysis data in front of them, but it’s not necessary in the

context of the preparation of the application.

Mrs. MALONEY. Let me just ask you, do the members of the peer

review process have security clearance and access to real-time

threat and risk assessment?

Did they have security clearance and access to real-time threat

and risk assessment?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I won’t give you a blanket answer, but I’ll be more than happy to give you a written response

on whether all, some, none. But what they were looking at was not

the risk piece of it. Let me be very clear. In terms——

Mrs. MALONEY. Why in the world were they not looking at the

risk piece of it? Your application says risk analysis, risk-based

funding.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, there are two parts to the analytical process. The first part is the risk analysis. The risk analysis

is conducted by the Federal interagency, if you will, predominantly

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by the Department of Homeland Security. That is based on the

classified information, the unclassified, the open-source information, the data sets, the population data. That forms one piece of the

allocation equation.

On the effectiveness score, the peer reviewers were provided, in

terms of the application packages, all the applicants were given a

package that says, here are the national priorities, here are the

things by which your application will be rated toward those national priorities; you understand your risk, what you need to do locally. And we’ve asked them to submit the peer review data.

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is running out, and I would just like

some questions asked, specific questions. Do members of the peer

review process have access to and sign off on the final rankings of

the applications, yes or no?

Mr. FORESMAN. No.

Mrs. MALONEY. Did the Department of Homeland Security have

a contract with Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct the peer review of

these grants, yes or no?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, that cannot be answered with

a yes-or-no question.

Mrs. MALONEY. Did Booz Allen have a contract with the Homeland Security Department?

Mr. FORESMAN. Booz Allen had a contract with the Department

of Homeland Security to facilitate the peer review process, not to

do the evaluation of the investment justification.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can you provide me and the committee with a

copy of that contract?

Mr. FORESMAN. We’d be more than happy to, Congresswoman.

Mrs. MALONEY. Was the Department of Homeland Security an

active participant in the peer review process, or was that responsibility contracted out to Booz Allen Hamilton?

Mr. FORESMAN. We used Booz Allen Hamilton to help facilitate

the peer review process, but there was a second level of review by

Federal Department of Homeland Security employees of the scoring, and they were also present during the scoring processes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Who actually ranked the States and the urban

areas? Was it the peer review process, Booz Allen or the Department of Homeland Security?

Mr. FORESMAN. The Department of Homeland Security, based on

an amalgamation of information from the risk analysis and the

peer review process.

Mrs. MALONEY. Who in the Department of Homeland Security

made that decision?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I don’t know that it was any

one person, but I will get you the specifics of who was involved in

that.

Mrs. MALONEY. It appears that you shifted the formula from risk

to need. Because if you based it on intelligence and real risk,

there’s no question that it would be New York City and D.C. I

mean, did you consult the list of targets from al Qaeda and the intelligence from al Qaeda that has been reported in the papers? And

some of us have seen it where all of the chatter is primarily, threefourths, New York. Then maybe they get down to D.C. But by all

security accounts, whether it’s the FBI, the CIA, the National InVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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telligence Director, the 9/11 Commission, all of them report that all

of the intelligence, that the risk is New York City. The threat they

believe is a bomb that would be put off that would kill hundreds

of thousands of people.

I lost—as my colleague Mr. Fossella and we’ve worked on many

responses to September 11th together—I lost 500, he lost 300. All

of us lost people in New York. We appreciate the help of our colleagues here in Congress, but this formula does not reflect the reality of what’s out there or the reality of risk.

I’m all in favor of a State aid formula to help States, but don’t

call it Homeland Security, call it municipal overburden. Call it aid

to States, but don’t call it Homeland Security.

I look forward to our meeting with Mr. Chertoff, and my time is

up.

Mr. FORESMAN. Thank you, Congresswoman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. I have a few more questions.

DHS said it worked closely with the urban areas applying for funding. It also provided a guide outlining the application process.

Mr. Reiskin, what role did DHS’s office of the National Capital

Region play in assisting you with the application process?

Mr. REISKIN. The application was developed, first of all, being

guided by a strategic planning process that was in part guided by

the Office of National Capital Region Coordination.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. DHS helped you put together the plan, basically.

Mr. REISKIN. They were an integral part. That office was an integral part, really leading the effort to develop the strategic plan

guiding the region for the next 3 to 5 years. That was the starting

point for the process.

From there, the senior policy group which includes the Office of

National Capital Region Coordination and the chief administrative

officers, so, basically, the State and local leaders outlined the direction for the application, identified the target capabilities around

which we would build the application. There were eight national

priorities. We added six regional priorities, and then we let our

subject matter experts, the police chiefs, fire chiefs, transportation

directors, do the analysis of the region’s position in each of those

capability areas.

That was all brought back together and again reviewed by the

State and local level leaders, which includes the Office of National

Capital Region Coordination.

So throughout the process, from start to finish, they were a part

of the process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Did they give you any suggestions that

you didn’t take in putting the application together?

Mr. REISKIN. I would say that the office was not acting as really

an agent of the Office of Grants and Training; they were acting

really as our partner, our Federal partner in the region, not really

serving in the role of advising us on the grant process itself.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But the plan to which the grant applied

was coordinated with DHS, correct? The regional plan?

Mr. REISKIN. The regional strategic plan was coordinated with

the Office of National Capital Region Coordination.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Which is part of DHS.

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Mr. REISKIN. Part of DHS and submitted to another part of DHS

for approval. All urban areas have to submit these strategies.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So you were basically carrying out in your

grant application what the Department of Homeland Security had

asked you and worked with you to do.

Mr. REISKIN. Absolutely. We followed the guidance to the letter

from the Department.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Did they at any point say, we don’t think

this is going to cut it? We think you need to do more? As you were

working through the grant process, did they say that anything was

remiss?

Mr. REISKIN. We did not get feedback from the Office of Grants

and Training.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Did you fully understand how the DHS

Homeland Security grants evaluation process was different for fiscal year 2006, that you would have to first submit fully justified

plans for evaluation before any funds were allocated to your jurisdiction, unlike previous years with where you were awarded an

amount without a detailed explanation?

Mr. REISKIN. No, actually the Department was fairly clear at a

high level about the risk, the effectiveness, the fact that we were

now competing for these funds, the fact that we would have to justify our need. We didn’t have visibility, and I’m not sure they even

had it developed at the time what the actual formulas would be,

how certain things would be weighted one versus the other, but

they were fairly clear that they were using this risk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Different than it had been before?

Mr. REISKIN. That it was very different. To their credit, I think

they did a fair bit of outreach and documented process to make

that clear.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Did you make adjustments in the application preparation process from what you had in previous years?

Mr. REISKIN. It was almost unrecognizably different.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Did you undergo any internal evaluation

to determine the best strategy for preparing and submitting the application in light of the changes at DHS?

Mr. REISKIN. There was considerable discussion among the State

level group and local level group in addition to the emergency preparedness council for the region which has local elected leaders,

private sector folks, nonprofit folks. We discussed starting early in

December when the guidance was first released.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Foresman, let me just ask you, the

city’s application was not rated that highly. When you look, it was

in the bottom quarter, I think. They were coordinating with the

local Homeland Security folks. As he said, he ran this up the ladder, and it had kind of been approved. I don’t expect DHS to try

to grease the wheels for the city. I think it is a competitive process.

But in light of that, what was deficient about their application

when you compare it to other jurisdictions?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I don’t have the specifics on the

National Capital Region, and we will provide that, but let me

be——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Why not? You knew you were coming here

today.

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Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me get into——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You knew you were coming here today to

talk about this.

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think they’re interested in what they

didn’t do right. They sought guidance from DHS as they went

through this process. I think there was every expectation that they

wouldn’t be cut 40 percent. I’m just trying to ask what went wrong

here. Can you give me some help?

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, absolutely. Let me be very clear,

they were not deficient in their application, and I very much want

to underscore the nature of the peer review or the peer preparation

process that they used here in the National Capital Region.

In the context of the effectiveness scoring, the effectiveness measures, their application was reviewed in relation to the others submitted from urban areas around the country, a relative ranking

provided to that. And the simple reason for doing this, Mr. Chairman, is to encourage regions to submit applications that are consistent with the national priorities that will be sustainable even beyond the end of Federal grant funding.

And in terms of their ranking, it doesn’t mean that they did a

good job or bad job on writing the application; it simply means

that, in terms of where they chose to make their investments in relation to the other urban areas around the country, there was some

level of ranking.

The challenge, Mr. Chairman, I would have had coming in here

is I would have had to have to know the specifics of what was in

456 investment justifications submitted from around the country

and the specifics for all of your members on your committee. So I

will be more than happy to provide you a very detailed written response, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Are you comfortable with the evaluation

criteria that DHS used this year to come to these outcomes, or do

you suspect maybe next year, in light of some of the criticisms this

has drawn, the way the allocation process works, that maybe it

ought to be reviewed?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, Mr. Chairman, the one thing I will

tell you is that I never let any program sit still without seeking

continuous improvement. That has been the hallmark of the way

that I have approached public policy over nearly a quarter century

of service at the State and local level.

I will tell you, though, that I feel confident in our risk analysis

process. I feel confident in our peer review process, but we have not

been effective in articulating and communicating that as we should

have to the stakeholder community including the U.S. Congress.

But, Mr. Chairman, if we can find something we can do better next

year, we will absolutely do it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. George, I have a high regard for you. You

were great in Virginia, and you have a tough job here, and you’re

defending something here that you didn’t do these decisions, were

peer review work. But I have to tell you, on the risk analysis side,

if you’re comfortable on the State side comparing the Nation’s Capital to Montana and comfortable putting Montana and North DaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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kota and South Dakota ahead of the District in terms of the risk

analysis as you defined it, I think there is something wrong.

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me be very clear on that particularly. I was referring to the risk analysis as we did the threat

vulnerability and consequence piece of it. The one thing to understand about D.C.’s ranking in relation to Montana is that is based

on a formula set by the Congress that in large part drives our

funding allocation process there, and it drives the way that we analyze this.

I’m not comfortable, frankly, comparing the District of Columbia

to 50 other States. I think that’s unfair to the District, but it is the

nature of the program. It’s the nature that they’re in the program,

and so we’ve got to make the best of it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. They were ranked below every State,

weren’t they?

Mr. FORESMAN. Primarily because of the population issue.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think they’ve got more people than Alaska.

Mr. FORESMAN. I don’t know that they were at the total bottom.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think there were some territories that

ranked ahead of it.

We will look forward to that information, but when you are taking a look at your grants and you have a factor of five for the State

grants and seven for the urban grants, I think it really skews the

grant process because vulnerable areas like the District and New

York end up on the short end of the stick.

Go ahead.

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would just offer, I think that is

indicative of the discussion that we have had here this morning,

where it’s difficult to keep separate the discussion about the State

grant programs and the urban area grants programs, how risk versus a formula plays into each one, and I think it underscores how

we need to do a much more effective job in our communication with

the State and local partners in future years.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask this, under DHS funding requirements, a program and capability review is the first step in

preparing a program capability enhancement plan, which is the

building block for preparing investment justifications for Federal

funding. What approach did the National Capital Region use in its

program and capability review?

For example, did the National Capital Region use a risk-based

approach based on assessing current capabilities, determines how

these capabilities responded to regional risks and threats and the

gap between current and needed capabilities? What key information pieces were used in the review? Did the NCR review individual

jurisdiction plans? Can you help me with that?

Mr. REISKIN. The first thing we did was we availed ourselves of

technical assistance offered by the Department of Homeland Security to kick off the program and capability review process both for

the District and for the region. As I mentioned, it’s outlined in our

testimony as well, we identified six target capabilities in addition

to the eight national priority capabilities. We then basically held

workshops with the experts in each of those 14 capability areas for

the region. Again, these are the fire chiefs, the police chiefs, health

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directors. We used that workshop process, following the guidance

religiously, to work through the identified strengths, the weaknesses, things that were identified through our strategic planning

process last year; to the extent that we had the information,

threats that we faced, and out of that developed a pretty comprehensive plan in the areas of people, equipment, training, other

resources, fairly complete and voluminous, of strengths and weaknesses for each of the 14 capability areas.

It was out of that we developed the investment plans, out of that

we developed the investment justifications that we submitted in

our application.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask you this question. It’s not

quite a friendly question, but can I get the answer because, according to research by the American Enterprise Institute in March

2006, ‘‘Washington, DC, used the region’s first wave of Homeland

Security aid as seed money for a computerized car-towing system,

and the city also used $100,000 in homeland security money to

fund the popular Summer Jobs Program.’’ Is that accurate?

Mr. REISKIN. These are not new issues that arose. This is not Department of Homeland Security funds. This is the $168.8 million

congressional appropriation we received in fiscal year 2002. There

was——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So that wasn’t this kind of grant money

or earmarked Homeland Security money?

Mr. REISKIN. This preceded the standup of the Department of

Homeland Security. That was out of a congressional appropriation.

The Summer Jobs Program, I believe, was on the order of $18,000

out of the $168.8 million allocation, and there was a program, it’s

called—we actually still have it through our Department of Employment Services, called Team D.C., where we engage youth in

disaster preparedness and community outreach surrounding disasters, and it’s a program that we actually think is very good.

The computerized towing contract, I can’t say for certain if that

was funded. I think it was $35,000 out of $168 million. If it was,

I would offer that the ability to efficiently move stalled vehicles

during a disaster would not have been an unwise expenditure of

funds.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I just wanted to give you an opportunity

to put it on the record.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Just a few more questions, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to understand, Mr. Foresman, whether your testimony is that Congress, it is Congress that mandated the increases.

For example, that Louisville got a 70 percent increase, that Omaha

got a 61 percent increase, you’re saying Congress is responsible for

that.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, what I am offering to you is the

congressional direction was to move to a risk-based process and an

effectiveness scoring system, and those things contributed to the

changes. And the percentages, while dramatic, represent——

Ms. NORTON. Congress only mandated a risk-based system. You

had to then go and figure out what that meant. Congress doesn’t

have anything to do with these increases or with these cuts.

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They’re based on the formula that the Department came up with,

not with any, ‘‘congressional mandate.’’

Of course everybody on this panel is for a risk-based system; the

controversy is about whether we mean the same things when we

say that.

Mr. Foresman, when I hear you describe the competition, and we

value nothing more than the competitive process of the Federal

Government, but when I heard you discuss the competition for

these funds that you couldn’t tell the chairman until you looked at

all the other ones, etc., it sounded like nothing—it sounded exactly

like the kind of competition that States and localities go through

when they’re applying for education grants and the rest.

It was kind of scary to hear that it was the kind of same old competition, albeit with subsections, just like other competitions for

grants have subsections.

The reason I ask that or raise that is, you are, of course, aware

that this region, unlike any region in the country, by mandate of

Congress in the Department of Homeland Security legislation, has

a coordinator for this region paid by the Department, that is to say

by the Federal Government.

I would like to know, in light of the fact that Congress—you

want to know what Congress has mandated, when it lays out the

money for a Federal coordinator and says that it will be paid out

of DHS funds, Congress is mandating something very specific.

I want to know whether or not, in light of this unique role,

whether the coordinator was given instructions about how he was

to relate to this region so as to make sure that, in his paid capacity, he helped the region to make out the kind of application that

could protect all the Federal assets here. What was his role?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, there are two parts to the answer here. First, Tom Lockwood, who serves as our Director of the

Office of National Capital Region Coordination, the National Capital Region is the only place where we have a single, full-time dedicated office and Federal personnel dedicated to regional activities.

We are moving to a regional structure elsewhere in the country,

but here in the National Capital Region, Tom works a wealth of

issues from working with the communities on strategic planning

preparation, operational coordination, coordination among the Federal work force issues.

Ms. NORTON. I want to know, given the importance of this region, that we are paying somebody to make sure that this region,

even if the rest of the regions fall flat, that this region does what

it is supposed to do because of what is located here. I want to know

whether he had a specific role in making sure that these applications met your terms?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I will answer it this way: Mr.

Lockwood works with his three counterparts on a regular basis——

Ms. NORTON. Yes or no? Did he have a role? My goodness, Mr.

Foresman.

Mr. FORESMAN. He was involved in the strategic planning process, Congresswoman.

Mr. NORWOOD. He did not have a role, it seems.

Did he have a role, Mr. Reiskin? Did he have a role versus the

panel? Did he tell you, look, this is the National Capital Region,

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I am the coordinator; let me just put you on notice, these are the

kind of things you have to do in order to get your applications to

pass muster? Could you all tell me, please?

Mr. REISKIN. I would say that Mr. Lockwood in his capacity

serves as a peer with us on the senior policy group which makes

the final decisions in terms of the submission of the application and

the ultimate award of the funds. He was not serving as a kind of

liaison to the Office of Grants and Training, which was driving the

grant funding process. I think they might argue it would have been

a conflict for him to do so.

Mr. NORWOOD. Would it have been a conflict? That is really my

point. If you were only protecting all of us, that might have been

a conflict. This Department, this Congress and every Federal asset,

which happens to be virtually all of them in the United States, are

implicated here.

I am not talking about whether or not he was helping you to protect D.C. or even Maryland and Virginia. I am talking now about,

and I have to ask you, Mr. Foresman, if something happens here,

are you prepared to say, for want of a good application, they didn’t

get the funds?

We are thinking about the uniqueness of this region, and I really

don’t hear in your discussion of the competition a sensitivity to that

uniqueness as indicated by the Congress with a Federal coordinator paid by Federal funds.

It sounds as though this was a region among others. We looked

at it as we look at others. We will look at 4,000 other applications,

and then we will see how you came out. If that is what happened,

that raises a very serious question.

For example, let me ask you this: We know that asset risk is

generally generic. Here I am trying to point to the difference between this region and many others.

However, let’s take Union Station. If we are talking about an ordinary train station, everybody has a train station. Philadelphia

has a train station. Every place has a train station. This is what

we are talking about.

We are talking about the hub that the Federal workers use as

a transportation hub for the region. We are talking about the

Union Station that is within a couple of blocks of the Capitol. We

are talking about Union Station where Members of Congress have

events on the premises and can hear the trains rolling underground as they come in.

In calculating the risk of Union Station, do you in fact treat it

as other rail stations, or how do you in fact calculate the risk in

this example I pose?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, let me go back to the first part

of your question where you talked about the effectiveness score. I

want to be very clear that 66 percent of the funding is based solely

on the risk piece of it; 33 percent is based on the effectiveness.

Ms. NORTON. Say that again?

Mr. FORESMAN. Sixty-six percent of the funding allocations are

based solely on risk. It has nothing to do with effectiveness. And

of the 33 percent that is based on effectiveness, the maximum, the

maximum that any one jurisdiction could be affected by that effectiveness score is 7 percent of their total allocation.

96

Now, to the second part of your question——

Ms. NORTON. That wasn’t my question. I asked about Union Station.

Mr. FORESMAN. No, you asked me a question, and the first part,

I was trying to address that one for you as well.

Now with regard to Union Station, when we look at a specific

asset, we look at it in the context of a particular geographical area,

and in this case, the National Capital Region is a unique geographical area. We give special attention to the National Capital

Region because it is the seat of government. So in the context of

our evaluation, we take into account that it is not your average

train station.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot of the areas

have been covered here, but I do want to ask you, with respect to

the amount of funds, Mr. Foresman, for the D.C. area under the

Urban Security Initiative, as I understood your answer to the last

question, even if the D.C. area had gotten the maximum on the effectiveness score, the total increase would have been 7 percent? I

just want to make sure I understand.

Mr. FORESMAN. Give or take 7 percent.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But you graded their submission, as I understand it, in the bottom 25 percent on effectiveness, is that right?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I will need to double-check to see

if they were in the bottom 25 percent of effectiveness, but I believe

that is correct.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I guess I really haven’t heard yet today why

it is they scored in the bottom 25 percent effectiveness in your

opinion. We have representatives here who were very involved in

the submission. We have heard now that Mr. Lockwood, I guess,

was not involved, and I want to ask a couple of questions about

that. But we have representatives here who know their stuff; they

know their business. They have teams of people working on it. Why

was their application graded in the bottom 25 percent? The bottom

25 percent in my kids’ school is a failing grade. I would like to

know why that was. They would like, I am sure, to know, so if they

disagree with you, they can contest it; or if they agree with you,

they can improve in the future.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, let me be very specific. This was

not a grade. This was a relative measure to all of the other urban

area investments that were submitted.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Where you graded on a curve.

Mr. FORESMAN. In the context of it, from the standpoint of those

urban areas, they submitted proposals which were deemed during

the review process by the reviewers to be at a certain level of compliance in terms of sustainability beyond the end of the grant program, consistent with the philosophical approach of the national

program, and this goes back to the New York piece of it, Congressman. In the context of it, we had this discussion with Mayor

Bloomberg, they had a different philosophical approach than what

the national program is for.

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We are trying to develop a bunch of independent urban area activities as part of an interdependent national approach, so we have

to have some target from a national perspective.

But I want to be very clear in saying, having worked closely with

these gentleman over the years, having worked in the National

Capital Region and living here today, I am proud of the work that

has been done. I feel safe in terms of what they are doing.

This was not a scoring of the capability of the National Capital

Region. This was a ranking in terms of how well the investment

justifications comported with the national priorities in relation to

the 400 or so that we received from other metropolitan areas.

Again, I go back to the scoring piece of it. At the end of the day,

there has been much made about this effectiveness score. In the

most extreme case, the maximum of adjustment would have been

about 7 percent. I don’t know in the context of where they fall what

that would have done to the dollars, but we are talking in, probably, the single digit millions here in the National Capital Region.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But let me just get to that issue. You mentioned sustainability and lack of compatibility with the national

plan. If you could just be specific about it.

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir. One of the things that Congress directed

that we do is to develop the National Preparedness Goal to make

sure that we were providing States and communities and, frankly,

the Federal interagency with a clear road map of what levels of

preparedness are we trying to get to in urban areas, in States, in

regions, in individual communities; what do we need to do as a nation?

So the National Preparedness Goal informs the grant programs

in terms of the priorities in those grant programs. So what we are

essentially saying to a particular community, or in this case an

urban area, how will your proposals increase your ability to get to

that desired National Preparedness Goal and also fit within your

regional strategy and be sustainable beyond the end of the Federal

grant funds?

Congressman, let me be clear. This is a tough position for all of

us. But, you know, at the end of the day, the Federal assistance

is not designed to be the primary tool for protecting communities.

It is designed to supplement local and State dollars that this region

has been very good about committing to its public safety activities,

whether crime or terrorism.

And, you know, I will tell you the challenge that we face from

a public policy debate is we have not had to do give and take at

the State and local level in terms of what we are not going to do.

If we feel like these security measures that aren’t being funded by

the Federal Government, if they are that important, are we still

going to go ahead and do them?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I appreciate the fact that the local jurisdiction

is supposed to be the primary mover in this area, and I think all

of these gentlemen next to you do as well. But that doesn’t mean

that it is not important for us to rely on the Federal contribution,

especially in the Nation’s Capital. So we are all still struggling I

think with why we are seeing such a reduction from last year.

Part of it, obviously, is due to the reduction of the overall level.

Part of it may be due to risk adjustments upward for other areas.

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Part of it, though, is due to the fact that, at least on a curve, we

were at the very bottom.

I guess if I could just ask the other witnesses at the table whether you have had an opportunity to look at the criticisms or the

evaluation by the Department of Homeland Security and whether

you have any responses to them or whether you feel that you are

still left in the dark as to why you didn’t measure up relative to

other jurisdictions that submitted their proposals?

Mr. CROUCH. I will respond to that, Congressman. Thank you.

We have been offered opportunities by the Department of Homeland Security, including Under Secretary Foresman, to meet with

them in the future to get that detailed analysis. We are very eager

to do that for all the reasons you so well stated just awhile ago.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me make it clear. You have not yet had

an opportunity to review any of that?

Mr. CROUCH. We have not.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. One last question that goes to Mr. Lockwood’s

role. I think we would all agree, Mr. Foresman, I am sure you

would agree, the goal is to have in place a plan that best protects

people, the National Capital Area and other areas of threat around

the country; right?

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So I am a little concerned about this idea that

Lockwood’s participation in this effort to come up with the plan

would somehow be seen to give this area a disadvantage, because

our goal should be for him to provide the input that makes it the

very best plan we can have so that the people in this area can access the full amount of resources that are potentially available for

them to access.

This idea that somehow when we, the Congress, have created

this position specifically because it recognized the kind of unique

threat posed to people in the National Capital area, to say that person would somehow be, you know, it wouldn’t be fair for that person to participate, seems to me to put sort of bureaucratic gaming

concerns over the welfare of the people of the region. Because what

we want is a good plan that everyone agrees is a good plan.

So why would you not allow him to help participate so that this

region could get the very best plan possible?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I don’t believe I said, it wouldn’t

be fair, and, if I did, I was incorrect in that statement. It may have

been said by one of the other panelists. We expect Tom to be engaged, but he has got a multitude of things that he is engaged in.

The greater expectation is for our team in our Grants and Training

Office, who works with the community on a regular basis, is in constant contact with them, to provide them the advice and counsel.

But, Congressman, let me also be clear that one of the things,

and the chairman pointed this out, that this needs to be about a

transparent process that is not driven by politics, and there have

been some incorrect allegations to that extent. This has got to be

driven by a very clear process that puts everybody in an equitable

playing field, but doesn’t do it in such a bureaucratic way that we

don’t get the best solution for the region. So we understand that.

Tom is not excluded from the process, but he doesn’t have the intimate grant expertise that the other folks who are assigned, the

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gentlemen who are assigned here in the National Capital Region,

will have.

So it may be more appropriate to say Tom was involved to the

degree he should have been involved, but we also had our team

members from our Grants and Training shop who are working with

the individual States and the National Capital Region as a regional

jurisdiction, working with them throughout the process.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Fossella.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Foresman, it is my understanding that the funds from the

State Homeland Security Grant Program can be used by the States

to increase preparedness for building basic security capacities in

their States and the UASI program is intended to protect the largest urban areas in the country. Is that correct?

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct, Congressman.

Mr. FOSSELLA. So the question I have is whether the States and

cities, shouldn’t they be competing within the State Homeland Security Grant money for ‘‘building basic security capacities’’ instead

of UASI?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I think in the context of the guidance that we received as part of the appropriations process, they

did not make the distinction between the two programs. So what

we are looking to do is to build capacity in both contexts.

In the case of New York City, we had the conversation with the

mayor, you know, is capacity paying for the overtime costs in the

case of the New York Police Department or other things? It represents a philosophical discussion that will go into the grant development process in the future.

Mr. FOSSELLA. So do you see the UASI grant program as an opportunity to shift funds, let’s say, to maybe what many of us believe—I don’t think it is a philosophical difference. I thought that

the State Homeland Security Grant Program is different from

UASI insofar as the State Homeland Security Grant Program was

to allow States to increase preparedness for building basic security

capacities, as opposed to UASI, which was originally intended for

the large Urban High Threat Areas.

You are saying you can go in there and take the money out of

UASI because you have been guided by the appropriations process

to do so?

Mr. FORESMAN. No, Congressman. If that is what you perceived

I said, that is not what I intended to say. We view these programs

in the context of a singular grant program. What we are looking

to do is to make sure that expenditures at the urban area are consistent and not conflicting with what a particular State is doing as

part of an overall national initiative.

Mr. FOSSELLA. When you say single, so you see both fund programs as one funding stream?

Mr. FORESMAN. We see them in the context of broad Homeland

Security funding but specific different program areas.

Mr. FOSSELLA. You don’t sit there and say, OK, we are going to

take some money from UASI and some money from there. You see

it as one pot of money to comply with your goal?

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Mr. FORESMAN. Well, based on the guidance that we are provided

by Congress, we have the allocation within the particular sub-program areas, if you will.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Sub-program areas?

Mr. FORESMAN. Between the urban area program and the State

Homeland Security Grant Program.

Mr. FOSSELLA. I don’t think I have heard you. Do you see it as

one pot of money or not? Yes or no?

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, Congressman, we do see it as one large pot

of money, with many different utilizations.

Mr. FOSSELLA. We respect to, among the different submissions,

particularly to the purity of process, can you reveal where New

York fell within that process on the applications?

Mr. FORESMAN. New York State or New York City?

Mr. FOSSELLA. New York City.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I don’t know, but I will provide

you a written response.

Mr. FOSSELLA. It was my understanding it was toward the bottom, like toward the lower, like Washington, DC

Mr. FORESMAN. That is generally my recollection based on the

discussion that Secretary Chertoff and I had with Mayor

Bloomberg. Again, one of the things, it was a very good, a very constructive discussion in the context of, did New York, from a philosophical standpoint, about 27 percent of what they were asking for

was personnel costs, which tend not to be allowed in broad terms

under the UASI program. So that was part of it.

There were other issues. But, again, it doesn’t point to bad programs in New York City. It doesn’t point to bad activities in New

York City. It just simply says that, in terms of your relative ranking, they scored differently than the others submitted from around

the country.

Mr. FOSSELLA. It was my understanding, again, it was toward

the bottom. I think you are confirming that. But you say you are

going to get that.

Two points, one on process, one on substance. That conversation

took place after the grant program was announced; is that right?

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Do you think it was the responsibility of anybody

at Homeland Security to have an obligation to go back to, for example, New York City and say that your application or your submissions are wrong, rather than wait to make that determination? Do

you think anybody had that obligation?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, in terms of the process, there is

ongoing discussion regular between New York City and their designated liaison in our Grants and Training shop. When the applications came in, we went through those applications to make sure

that all of the component pieces were there so that, if someone left

out a piece of paper, they weren’t going to be excluded from the review process.

But what we did not do, we did not go in and preview any of the

applications to say, this is on point, this is not on point. That is

what the peer review process was about. With the recognition that,

as we have gone through this process, we have tried to make sure

that we treat New York and Washington, DC, with the understandVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing that they are the highest-risk urban areas, that they are

unique in many, many ways, but also put it on an equal playing

field with the other urban areas from around the country, because,

at the end of the day, the challenge is not to be up here saying that

we allowed anything other than a very objective review process to

have guided our funding decisions.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Back to the substance aspect of it, I am not so

sure on the process of whether—I do believe somebody in Homeland Security had an obligation to step forward. If it was a function

of who had the best application, you can make the hypothetical

that a city with 100 percent threat that submitted a lousy application, but a city with zero threat who submitted the best application

would get the funding. So let me push that a side for a second.

Is there any movement to change the philosophical view? A couple weeks ago, there was a conviction in New York city of a man

who plotted to blow up the Herald Square Subway station. That

was not done with so much building basic security capacity; that

was human intelligence for the most part. That was the 1,000-plus

New York City police officers to the tune of $200 million on an annual basis, which is larger than the entire Police Department of

Denver, CO, for example.

If we determine that human intelligence is the best way to

thwart or prevent a terrorist attempt, don’t you think that maybe

the philosophy that Homeland Security should change in terms of

providing adequate funding to meet and thwart those threats, rather than just building basic security capacity?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, two points to that. First, let me

address the first point where you said the effectiveness would

have—a real bad application versus a real good application.

I just need to be very clear. It would have made very little impact in terms of the total dollars allocated, in New York City or

anywhere else.

The second point to the particular philosophical piece. That is the

broader public policy discussion that has been had in the U.S. Congress with States and communities over many, many years about,

should the Federal Government provide funds to communities for

personnel costs, whether it is personnel costs in this case for cops

on the beat doing crime reduction or whether it is personnel costs

for law enforcement personnel doing human intelligence. That is

part of a broader debate.

I will tell you, on the whole piece of intelligence, as a good example, that is the one area where we have provided flexibility to

urban areas in the context of intelligence fusion to be able to use

these dollars for some personnel costs, because we recognize, prior

to September 11th, that was a capacity that very few urban areas,

New York City being one of the exceptions, that was a capability

that many areas didn’t have.

So we do give flexibility in those particular areas, but not for a

broad number of people to be out, ‘‘collecting intelligence for analysts.’’

Mr. FOSSELLA. If I hear you correctly, a city like New York, for

example, has that flexibility, to a point?

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point. You would think probably about law enforcement personnel

on the street being more on the collection side than on the analytical side.

Mr. FOSSELLA. I know there are other questions. I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Well, I think one of the things that is occurring here today is that we have people, and you, Mr. Foresman,

are attempting to do your job, and you seem to be very competent.

But it seems to me that you are trying to defend a major system

that, when you look at the end game, it is just from public perception point of view but more from a reality point of view, giving resources to first responders, isn’t really working.

To have a formula that really discounts the threats to Washington, DC, to New York, to those areas, to come up with the way it

is, something is wrong.

Homeland Security has had a lot of bumps, and I hope we have

learned from those bumps, and I hope that we have become a lot

more practical and start focusing on realities, because what I heard

here today really disturbs me, and I know you have to take your

position where you are.

Let me get into some areas. The first thing, what we haven’t

talked about here today, in all fairness, from what I understand,

and correct me if I am wrong, this program was cut by Congress,

the State side, by 50 percent and, on the urban side, by 14 percent.

Is that correct?

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK. So you are sitting here attempting to

defend a system that I think is flawed at this point, but you have

less money, and that was because of Congress. So we have to look

at ourselves and see where we are.

You also have made a comment about what Congress has told us

to do. I am not sure what you mean by that, and I don’t know if

I have time to get into it.

But what my concern is and what I would like to really determine is where your priorities are. When it comes to funding, it is

about priorities.

According to the President, and I believe it, too, we are at war

with terror. We are at war in another country, but we also have

a terrorism war. We need to do a lot of things very quickly, in

Homeland Security and FBI, to find cells, to protect our country.

But we know right now that we have been attacked, and we have

a lot of intelligence of where we think al Qaeda is going to go.

You made a couple comments, I wrote some notes, about equity

and how we need to be equitable. The way I see it, when it comes

to protecting our citizens from a terrorist attack, it is not about equity. It is getting resources to the areas which we have chosen,

which the President has chosen, what the FBI, NSA, CIA have

come together—and that is, by the way, what the Director of National Intelligence is about, to find out where the priorities are and

where we are going to put the money. I just am concerned with this

matrix, that you have grades where they are.

Now, I am going to stop that with you, because I want to get to

Mr. Schrader. I am from the State of Maryland. You put together

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what you thought was a very good proposal. Let’s just talk about

the State on a risk basis. You have NSA. You have Fort Meade.

You have proximity to Washington, DC. In the region, you have

BWI Airport. You have the port of Baltimore, and if you want to

get nuclear components in and your target is, say, Washington, DC,

the port of Baltimore is the closest port. You have Aberdeen, one

of the top testing centers for the U.S. military probably in the

country. You have all of these areas here. To me, that is an exposure issue, a risk issue.

Now, I think Homeland Security was doing well as far as

prioritizing money to New York, money to Washington. Now we

have this new matrix which I perceive is a bureaucratic matrix. I

would like to hear from you and go through your process, Mr.

Schrader; where you think the priorities are, what you did with respect to your presentation and proposal, and then your anxiety on

what occurred and how it occurred.

I would like you to get into an area, too, because I am concerned

about a lot of this. Even though Mr. Foresman will not admit it,

I think a lot of it has to do with who has the best grant writers

and who has the ability to put certain people in certain pegs. That

might be OK if you are talking about education funding, health

funding, but when it comes to fighting terror, I don’t think that is

OK.

Could you answer that?

Mr. SCHRADER. Congressman Ruppersberger, let me start by saying that the unfortunate part of all of this is, I think DHS had the

right intent when they started this process.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I agree with you.

Mr. SCHRADER. The approach and the concept was good. Quite

frankly, the other troubling part of this, and I will get into the direct answer, is that if we push them into changing the process

again——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. By the way, the reason I want you to answer the question is I want Mr. Foresman to hear this.

Mr. SCHRADER. Yes, sir. It would be very troubling at the State

and local level to have this process change completely again next

year. The nice thing about what we found is, it seemed to be a good

framework on the front end that we can then have a multi-year

planning process in place, and that is what we did.

We organized the State into regions. We did regional bottoms-up

data. We put these governance groups together to review our statewide program. But our policy in Maryland has been one Maryland

in coordination with the NCR, because the NCR is not an operational unit.

For example, we have a fusion center, intelligence gathering in

Maryland, that we do for a very limited amount of money through

our grant process. It is up in Baltimore, but it covers the entire

State, and it supports the NCR. So part of the process here is, we

look at the entire State, we have a focus on the NCR, but we also

have the central Maryland urban area.

As I said earlier, we had estimated that a reasonable amount of

money for the State of Maryland would have been about $35 million to $40 million. We ended up getting about $24 million, which,

quite frankly, shocked us.

104

We did have a very good quality application. So what we were

assuming was maybe the risk from the two urban areas sucked off

the risk from the State. I am being told now that is not the case.

So the bottom line is, we have been working collaboratively with

DHS for over 7 or 8 months now to make sure we put the very best

application together. We shared a lot of that information with the

National Capital Region. There was a tremendous amount of work

that went into the application process. And I think it was all for

good intention.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Why do you think you were cut?

Mr. SCHRADER. To be honest with you, I am mystified still.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Why do you think you were cut, based on

what you have heard here today?

Mr. SCHRADER. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Can he finish answering?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. He doesn’t know. He said he didn’t know.

Mr. SCHRADER. Let me make it clearer. If the State program was cut in half, we had $20 million last year, we would have expected

to get $10 million, just if we did nothing, if we threw something

up against the wall. We ended up getting $8 million, which didn’t

make any sense to us. We worked really hard and thought we

would get more.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just ask, did everybody get less

than you thought you would get?

Mr. CROUCH. We did.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I guess the other question, if I could just

tag along, is, what regional Homeland Security programs will now

have to be underfunded because of the loss of grant money? If each

of you could take a second and give us an idea.

Mr. REISKIN. I will start. As I mentioned, we had identified about

$250 million worth of need and submitted an application for $188

million. We didn’t expect to get an award of $188 million. But all

$188 million represents things we think are important in advancing the safety and security of the region. We now have $46.5 million. So about three-quarters of what we had proposed won’t get

done.

One major thing I will mention, about $42 million was in the

area of interoperable communications. Of that, I think $25 million

was to continue the basic infrastructure that we are building, a secure, robust, dedicated network for interoperable communications.

That $42 million alone is the entire amount.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Crouch, what will be underfunded in

Virginia, do you think?

Mr. CROUCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As Mr. Reiskin indicated, we had identified $188 million in grant

programs. We have already gone into a process anticipating that

we wouldn’t get that amount, certainly, to reduce the amount down

to $121. That is pretty much where we are in our analysis at this

point. So as Deputy Mayor Reiskin pointed out, we are going to

have to look at that $121 million and reduce it to the $46 million.

I mentioned some of the meritorious programs we are looking at

earlier, the WMATA operations center backup, the fire assistance

for the tunnels, programs to deal with special needs. All of the proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:58 Nov 27, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00108 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30591.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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grams that were submitted had merit to get as far as they did in

terms of our submission, and again, they had tremendous stakeholder and local first responder participation in their development.

We will now have to begin the process of determining what programs we eliminate, whether we can partially fund some with anticipation of sustaining them in the future and accomplishing those

goals but at a slower pace.

So to identify a specific program at this time, Mr. Chairman, I

am not able to do that. But, obviously, we think all of the programs, the projects that were presented, had merit, and obviously,

we are not going to be able to proceed with all of those.

Mr. SCHRADER. Three things will be difficult. We have been

working closely with Prince George’s County to help them with

their radio system. It will make it more difficult. Our Critical Infrastructure Resilience Program, reaching out to the private sector

and getting the private sector organized in Maryland will probably

be affected. Then the last thing, we have a major focus on maritime

security in the maritime channels leading up to the Capital Region

which would be of concern.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

I am sorry, did anybody else want to add anything?

Mr. ROBERTSON. One addition is that the regional system education campaign I think will be quite vulnerable. We cannot educate our citizens on a cyclical, every 2 or 3 years, basis. We have

to do that on an ongoing sustained basis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Foresman, if I could ask you, did Booz Allen Hamilton give

the Department of Homeland recommendations on how to rank

urban areas based upon information that they gathered from the

peer review process?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, Booz Allen Hamilton, just so I

am clear, they facilitated the peer review groups. Each one of the

investments were reviewed, and then they were reviewed as a

package. Booz Allen did the facilitation and rolled up the data and

gave it to the Federal team members. But the Federal team members were there with the peer review process. They did the administrative backbone work, if you will, the typing and printing and

copying and that type of thing.

Mrs. MALONEY. But they did gather together the information

they had from this peer review process and gave it to the Department of Homeland Security; correct?

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. And did the Department of Homeland Security

follow the recommendations of Booz Allen Hamilton?

Mr. FORESMAN. They were not Booz Allen Hamilton recommendations. They were the peer review recommendations that

Booz Allen Hamilton was responsible for simply documenting as an

administrative support function.

Congresswoman, I will go back. I do not believe there were any

deviations from the peer review process, but let me provide you a

clear written response so that I am very accurate on that.

106

Mrs. MALONEY. So you believe they did follow the peer review

process data compiled and presented to the Department of Homeland Security. May this committee have copies of the data and the

rankings that were provided to the Department of Homeland Security from Booz Allen Hamilton that compiled it from the peer review process?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, we are in the process of providing Chairman King with a significant amount of information. Let

me sit down with the internal folks. The Secretary and I are committed to being as transparent as we can. The only two areas that

we are trying to find the right accommodation is the classified information, and of course, Congress knows how to deal with classified information. That is easier.

And then on the peer review process, peer review processes are

widely used among Federal agencies. We want to make sure, if

there were confidentiality agreements with these folks, that we respect those agreements. But we will seek to get you everything you

are looking for.

Mrs. MALONEY. You will provide that information to Mr. King

and Benny Thompson of the Homeland Security Committee?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, we have already set the first

delivery over this past Friday, I believe, the first round of material.

But we want to get a whole bunch of different material and provide

it. I mean, we do. We have every reason to be very transparent

with this process.

Mrs. MALONEY. Was it the peer review process that ranked the

applications of D.C. and New York City in the bottom 25 percent?

Mr. FORESMAN. The peer review process provided the relative

measures. How they were actually ranked against it was, you had

17 peer review teams, and all of this data had to be corresponded

because one peer review team didn’t do all of the applications. So

just from a simple administrative standpoint, someone had to take

the findings from the 17 peer review teams and mix it altogether

to create the ranking, if you will, as you describe it.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it was the peer review that ranked New York

and D.C. in the bottom 25 percent. So my real question then is,

how in the world can they make a determination of the risk and

need of D.C. and New York City and others if they, as you testified

earlier, do not have access to security clearance and to real-time

threat analysis?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I did not testify earlier that

they did not have access to it. I told you I would provide to the

committee a written response just to be clear on it. What I was offering to you earlier——

Mrs. MALONEY. I was told they did not have access to it.

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I want to make sure we are

dealing with facts and not what people have been told, because

that has led to some emotional debate, and I want to be very accurate with you.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would appreciate it if you would let us know

how many had security clearances.

Mr. FORESMAN. Absolutely, but it is not relevant to the evaluation of the effectiveness piece. Let me just be very clear about that.

107

Mrs. MALONEY. Recently we had a hearing on the 9/11 Commission, and both former Governor Kean and Lee Hamilton, a bipartisan commission, testified that the best way to combat terrorism

was intelligence, and that this should be our focus. That is why

Congress revamped our entire intelligence system now into the National Intelligence Director. They also testified that the biggest

threat that our country faces is a so-called dirty bomb, nuclear

bomb, set off in New York City.

My question is, did the peer review council read the 9/11 Commission report? Did they take into account the intelligence efforts

of localities which our experts say is the place we should be putting

our money and our effort in combating terrorism? Zarqawi apparently was captured through intelligence. We have prevented several attacks that people were plotting in New York based on intelligence. We have an anti-terrorism intelligence center that works

on this.

I want to know, in your ratings, did you give a higher rating to

the possibility that a nuclear bomb would go off in a particular

area and kill hundreds of thousands of people, or how was this decision made? Was that part of the rating, since the experts say that

is our No. 1 threat to our country at this point?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, two parts to that. First, on the

intelligence piece, you know, both the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission are on point with regard to intelligence, and it is because of

that, because we are following their recommendations and other

commission recommendations, that we have better intelligence, we

have better analytical understanding of threats.

Mrs. MALONEY. Was that part of the formula?

Mr. FORESMAN. That is where I am going to. Congresswoman, it

was part of the formula, because in order to get to consequences,

we have to understand the consequences of a wide range of plausible scenarios in metropolitan areas.

But let me be clear again: New York City is at the top of the risk

ranking. It doesn’t own exclusive risks. Chicago, LA, and other

metropolitan areas do as well, and they also have active threats.

We have actually seen active investigations elsewhere. So, you

know, there are statements, and then there are facts, and what we

are trying to use are factual data to inform our risk analysis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Foresman, I have major concerns about fiscal responsibility

and funding management in regard to these grants. Can you tell

us how your agency is addressing these concerns and what standards have been put in place to ensure proper utilization of funds?

And, if you could, do you have any examples of waste and abuse

in this grant program?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, my most glowing example is the

exact reason that we are here today. It is because we simply didn’t

provide funds to urban areas based on some formula and send the

dollars out the door and say, come back to us and report. We asked

them to provide various specific investment justifications of how

the dollars will produce tangible results.

108

I will tell you that I am actually quite proud of the men and

women in State and local governments across America. While there

have been isolated cases of fraud and abuse, I will tell you the vast

majority of expenditures that I have personally seen with these

Homeland Security funds have measurably improved the safety

and security of America. I will tell you, I think the rule is the vast

majority of these funds are used very effectively for their intended

purposes.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Secretary Chertoff has testified before this committee that DHS

analyzes risk using a three-dimensional matrix. One of our colleagues, Ms. Matsui, wrote to Secretary Chertoff asking about how

the Department assessed risk for her district in Sacramento.

Let me quote from the reply she got: The Department is continuing to develop a more robust risk model as it gains the capabilities

to increase its knowledge of interdependency, cascading effects and

refined data sets. These issues are currently being studied to provide both sector-specific and cross-sector modeling through a suite

of consequence analysis and decision support tools.

Can you translate this into plain English for me?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I can.

The tone and tenor of that response is that—and I think the

question may have come for two reasons: one, because Sacramento

is one of those areas that was deemed, because of the new relative

risk ranking, to go off of UASI after this current year. The second

piece, and I am not sure, I haven’t seen the specific correspondence,

we have had issues with levies up there, and we have gotten some

letters about, do you consider natural disasters and terrorism risks

at the same time?

But if it is strictly in the context of the terrorism piece, it is because our understanding of the risk nationally has changed in

other urban areas. From a relative standpoint, it has put Sacramento a little lower on the list.

If we need to get her a clearer response, I will be more than

happy to take personal charge of getting that done.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Clay, unfortunately, we have to get

the bus over to the Pentagon, which leaves in 3 minutes.

Mr. CLAY. I understand.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I appreciate it. I hate to cut you short. A

lot of this is Mr. Moran’s district. Would you yield to him for 1

minute? If you have any questions for the record, you can submit

them.

I ask unanimous consent that Resolution 16677, passed unanimously by the Council of the District of Columbia, resolving that

Homeland Security funding be targeted to the highest threat jurisdictions be put into the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. Moran.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MORAN. I thank my good friend from Missouri and the chairman.

We have had the hearing now, and you have explained and justified and excused your decisions. But what do we do now? Where

do we go? Might you consider requesting a supplemental appropriation to address these needs? Are there other programs we could

apply to? We need to know more than just an explanation. We need

to know, what is the next step that we should pursue? You heard

the needs, and I would like to get some guidance.

The reason our first responders are in decent shape in northern

Virginia, or at least were for the first couple years, Mr. Davis, Mr.

Wolf and I earmarked money. Maybe that is what we need to do

in the future, is just earmark the money to make sure it goes to

our Nation’s priorities.

Can you give us a quick response? What you would do if you

were us?

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, three quick responses for you.

First, we had $7.5 billion worth of requests for a both pot of money

that was about $1.7 billion this year. That gives us some measurable level of understanding of the scope of the need out there.

Second, we will hopefully, assuming the budget process goes forward, we will have the 2007 grant programs. I am committed to

moving those out the door much quicker and much more effectively

than we have done in the past. So I hope to have those out the

door, assuming the budget process goes forward quickly, early in

the fall.

And there are other grant programs. We will continue to work

with the folks here in the NCR to identify those other grant programs that may be able to help them address some of these issues.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be very helpful, if we can look

at some of these other programs, given their reliance and the fact

this is the first year we changed it.

Mr. Moran, I appreciate the question.

I want to thank you all for being up here.

Mr. Foresman, thank you particularly for being up here and

being the chief flak catcher today.

The committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Edolphus Towns, Hon. Elijah

E. Cummings, and Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, and additional

information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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