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FIRST RESPONDER INTEROPERABILITY: CAN YOU

HEAR ME NOW?

JOINT HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION

POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND

THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 6, 2003

Serial No. 108–139

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

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

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

GRACE WASHBOURNE, Professional Staff Member

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

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

CHRIS BELL, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL

RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

DOUG OSE, California

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

BOB DIX, Staff Director

SCOTT KLEIN, Professional Staff Member

URSULA WOJCIECHOWSKI, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on: ......................................................................................................

November 6, 2003, panel one ........................................................................... 1

November 6, 2003, panel two .......................................................................... 205

Statement of:

Evans, Karen S., Administrator of E-Government and Information Technology, U.S. Office of Management and Budget; Dr. David Boyd, Program Manager, SAFECOM, Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; John

Morgan, Assistant Director, Science and Technology, National Institute

of Justice, Advanced Generation Interoperability Law Enforcement

[AGILE]; John Muleta, Chief, Wireless Bureau, Federal Communications Commission; and Edmond Thomas, Chief, Office of Engineering

and Technology, Federal Communications Commission ............................ 213

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

U.S. General Accounting Office; Marilyn Ward, chairman, National

Public Safety Telecommunications Council [NPSTC], manager, Public

Safety Communications Division, Orange County, FL; Aldona Valicenti,

National Association of State Chief Information Officers, NASCIO

member to PSWN/SAFECOM, chief information officer, State of Kentucky; Marilyn Praisner, councilwoman, Montgomery County, MD,

Chair, Telecommunity, Chair, Technology Committee, National Association of Counties, PSWN Executive Board, CapWIN Executive Board;

and George Ake, program director, Capital Wireless Integrated Network [CapWIN] ............................................................................................. 32

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

Ake, George, program director, Capital Wireless Integrated Network

[CapWIN], prepared statement of ............................................................... 92

Boyd, Dr. David, Program Manager, SAFECOM, Wireless Public Safety

Interoperable Communications Program, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security, prepared statement of .................................................................. 222

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

Missouri, prepared statements of............................................................... 25, 279

Evans, Karen S., Administrator of E-Government and Information Technology, U.S. Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 216

Harman, Hon. Jane, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statements of ............................................................ 11, 296

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

U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ............................ 35

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

of New York, prepared statements of ........................................................ 30, 295

Morgan, John, Assistant Director, Science and Technology, National Institute of Justice, Advanced Generation Interoperability Law Enforcement [AGILE], prepared statement of ........................................................ 234

Muleta, John, Chief, Wireless Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 249

Praisner, Marilyn, councilwoman, Montgomery County, MD, Chair, Telecommunity, Chair, Technology Committee, National Association of

Counties, PSWN Executive Board, CapWIN Executive Board, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 73

Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida:

Prepared statements of ............................................................................. 5, 209

Prepared statement of Vincent Stile ........................................................ 113

Page

VI

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

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

of Connecticut, prepared statements of ..................................................... 22, 206

Valicenti, Aldona, National Association of State Chief Information Officers, NASCIO member to PSWN/SAFECOM, chief information officer,

State of Kentucky, prepared statement of .................................................. 64

Ward, Marilyn, chairman, National Public Safety Telecommunications

Council [NPSTC], manager, Public Safety Communications Division,

Orange County, FL, prepared statement of ................................................ 56

(1)

FIRST RESPONDER INTEROPERABILITY: CAN

YOU HEAR ME NOW?

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NA- TIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTER- NATIONAL RELATIONS, JOINT WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE

ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERN- MENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

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

room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam H. Putnam

(chairman of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,

Intergovernmental Relations and the Census) presiding.

Present: Representatives Putnam, Duncan, Janklow, Murphy,

Schrock, Shays, Clay, Maloney, Ruppersberger, Sanchez, and

Tierney.

Also present: Representatives Harman and Weldon.

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

Robert A. Briggs, clerk; Subcommittee on National Security,

Emerging Threats and International Relations. Bob Dix, staff director; and Ursula Wojciechowski, clerk; Subcommittee on Technology,

Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census.

Grace Washbourne, professional staff member; John Hambel, counsel; David McMillen, minority professional staff member; Jean

Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Casey Welch and Jamie Harper, minority legislative assistants, Committee on Government Reform.

Mr. PUTNAM. This joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the

Census will come to order. And we are tickled to death to be in a

joint hearing today with the Subcommittee on National Security,

Emerging Threats and International Relations. This hearing came

together at Mr. Shays’ invitation. He has been a leader on this

issue. I was honored to serve as his vice chair in my freshman term

for 2 years with his National Security Subcommittee and delighted

that he invited the Subcommittee on Technology to join him in this

very important topic.

Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing assessing the

progress being made to ensure interoperability of our Nation’s public safety communications systems. We have divided today’s activities into two parts for reasons that we will get into in the second

part. Our first hearing will focus on our local and State officials

who have the responsibility of managing public safety communicaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions. Our second hearing will be the Federal perspective and focus

on the efforts being made across the Federal Government to ensure

interoperability. More specifically, we will closely examine the

SAFECOM E-Government initiative and our radio spectrum challenges.

Before we begin, I understand that Congressman Weldon of

Pennsylvania and Congresswoman Harman of California have both

asked to join us today on the panel for this hearing. By unanimous

consent, I would ask the subcommittees allow their participation.

Seeing no objection, we welcome Mr. Weldon and Ms. Harman to

this hearing.

On behalf of the subcommittee that I have the privilege to chair,

let me continue to extend my appreciation to Mr. Shays and his

subcommittee for their leadership in this very important issue.

In a moment I will yield to Mr. Shays for his opening remarks

and thoughts from his committee’s perspective. I did want to take

a moment, though, to convey a few thoughts from the Subcommittee on Technology’s perspective that we have been reviewing this

year.

The Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census has held a number of comprehensive oversight hearings this year on our Federal E-Government initiatives, from E-Payroll and E-Recruitment to E-Records

and Federal IT Consolidation. We have also held E-Government

oversight hearings to address those specific initiatives whose success is dependent upon coordination and cooperation with State

and local officials such as we have here on panel one.

During these hearings, we have uncovered billions of dollars in

annual savings that can be achieved from E-Government and focused on the vast opportunities we have to provide more efficient

services to our citizens. I am pleased to report that despite some

funding challenges, most of the E-Government agenda is on target

and making progress each day.

Conversely, today’s hearing on SAFECOM raises some anxiety

and concern in terms of progress and our ability to succeed. Let us

be frank: the undeniable need to succeed with this initiative makes

SAFECOM perhaps the most important of all these initiatives occurring across the Federal Government. SAFECOM is not just

about improving Government, but SAFECOM is about the mission

and role of our Federal Government.

My concern is grounded by the fact that while we have more

than enough folks providing suggestions on how to spend our

Homeland Security grant money, no one seems particularly interested in taking responsibility for the performance and results associated with that spending, nor will anyone be held responsible if we

have another tragedy, this time, perhaps, a tragedy with expensive,

new, incompatible, non-working equipment instead of the old, incompatible, non-working equipment.

Without stakeholder agreement and results, I think the only

thing ‘‘SAFE’’ about SAFECOM is that we can safely predict the

mother of all finger pointing. That is why this hearing is so crucial.

We must determine the role of each stakeholder and create an atmosphere of accountability and responsibility for results. We canVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
3

not achieve a half-a-loaf on this initiative; we cannot claim small

wins; we must succeed with SAFECOM in its entirety.

So what is the current atmosphere for preparation and

prioritizing our spending for first responders? First, our Homeland

Security grants have very few strings attached that require interoperability of equipment across regions and States or with the Federal Government. Our SAFECOM managers have no authority to

require the FCC to reorganize or designate additional bandwidth

for emergency needs. Therefore, we may well be spending billions

of dollars on new equipment that will then not work properly once

the power switch is flipped on. We must not forget our State and

local elected officials who are doing their best to secure any money

they can for their jurisdictions, notwithstanding a lack of bandwidth or an inability to become interoperable with adjacent jurisdictions.

We must also not forget Congress’ role in both creating and solving this chaos. Given congressional oversight responsibility, Congress legislatively joins the FCC in allocating the limited and fragmented radio spectrum between commercial communication entities, television broadcast companies, and our State and local governments. And as we appropriate funds, every Member of Congress

is seeking his or her fair share of grants for their district or State,

regardless of communications standards or regulations created inside the Beltway by the good people managing the SAFECOM initiative.

In addition to the challenges and pressures facing each stakeholder to perform, the SAFECOM initiative has the added pressure

of having to produce concrete results with little time to coordinate

standards. As tax money builds up in accounts intended to purchase equipment once standards and frequency questions are resolved, enormous pressure builds to push that cash out the door as

quickly as possible and deal with the details later.

Unfortunately, the devil is in those details when it comes to

interoperability. Adding to that challenge is the interagency role

SAFECOM plays to develop interoperability standards and integrate our own Federal agencies. SAFECOM’s challenges are enormous.

From the FCC perspective, we will no doubt hear today of the

details related to separate frequency bands used by first responders

and how they cannot be bridged by systems equipment. We will

also hear the particulars between the 700 megahertz band versus

the 800 megahertz band versus the 50 megahertz band. My interest is focused on the process and a time line in which the FCC will

make decisions on spectrum allocation or reallocation so that all

stakeholders, including vendors, will be ready to coordinate interoperable solutions. It is clear that we cannot move forward or expect results without some decisions being made by those in positions of authority at the FCC and OMB. If not, we will have to

solve these issues here on Capitol Hill, which is not the preferred

solution.

I am pleased we have nearly every stakeholder group represented here today to discuss their challenges, their roles, their responsibilities, and even what business-as-usual sacrifices they plan

to make in order to generate real results. While I am not certain

4

we will have all the answers today, I am confident that we will

have an opportunity to make progress with our E-Gov leadership

and FCC leadership testifying side by side before Congress for the

first time ever on this issue.

Before yielding to Chairman Shays, I would also like to extend

a special welcome to Marilyn Ward, who happens to be the manager of public safety communications for Orange County, FL. We

have a bit more experience in Florida than we would like responding to emergencies, but we have learned a lot that I believe will

be useful toward improving our Nation’s first responder communications. Ms. Ward’s performance and know-how have, in fact,

earned her the chairmanship of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, who she represents here today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. With that, I will take this opportunity to yield to

the ranking member of my subcommittee, Mr. Clay, before returning to Chairman Shays.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you and Chairman Shays for calling the meeting. At this time I would like to

yield to the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Representative Jane Harman. Thank you.

Ms. HARMAN. Well, I thank you for yielding, Mr. Clay, and I

thank the chairmen of these two subcommittees for letting me

crash the party; I really appreciate it. Chairman Shays and I have

had a brother-sister act going for years on national security and

homeland security issues, and Chairman Putnam, I am very grateful that you would let me come today, and to your ranking member,

I am very grateful that he would yield me some time.

Mr. Chairmen, the deaths of 121 firefighters on September 11,

2001 might have been prevented if their colleagues in the NYPD

were able to warn them in time that the World Trade Center towers were about to collapse. The problem was the lack of interoperable communications.

Since September 11, I have maintained a virtual total focus on

two issues that I think are the key issues we need to fix. One is

information sharing, also known as connecting the dots, and the

other is interoperable communications. We have made real

progress on information sharing over the past 2 years in a variety

of ways, but we are essentially nowhere, repeat, nowhere, on interoperability.

As we sit here today, thousands of California firefighters in my

home State are in the end stages of battling the worst wildfires,

in fact, the worst natural disaster my State has ever experienced.

The fires have already taken 22 lives, including 1 firefighter, destroyed 3,500 homes, and consumed more than 750,000 acres of

brush and timber. More than 80,000 citizens had to be evacuated

from their homes.

Firefighters from all over California and neighboring Arizona coordinated their actions in real time to fight a menace that rapidly

spread, shifted direction, and put both citizens’ and firefighters’

lives in mortal danger.

And yet, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Mike Freeman informs

me his firefighters were often unable to coordinate efforts with firefighters from neighboring jurisdictions not because they didn’t have

the finest men and women on the job, but because they could not

communicate with each other over their radios. ‘‘It is the same

problems we always have communicating on our radios with other

agencies,’’ he said. ‘‘Different counties’ radios are often on completely different, incompatible frequencies, hindering our efforts to

protect lives and property.’’

LA County firefighters adapted by handing out some of their own

radios to other departments, but this did not always work. In one

instance, in Claremont, CA, a district represented by the chairman

of our Rules Committee, Assistant Chief Michael Morgan’s firefighters actually had to drive around and track down firefighters

from a neighboring county to give them crucial information because

they could not communicate with them by radio. I mean, this

9

sounds like prehistoric times, using physical runners, at least they

had vehicles, to communicate information because technology

failed. This meant that in some cases coordination was impossible

because they were separated by dangerous fire areas. This is unacceptable and completely unnecessary. It is a sad day when the talents and skills of brave men and women are undermined by a lack

of technology.

Today’s witnesses will, I am sure, tell us that the key factors for

interoperable communications are coordination, equipment, training, standards, and radio spectrum. It is spectrum that is the

Achilles heel, and if Congress can’t make good on its promise to

provide the necessary spectrum for first responders, the other efforts, in my view, will be wasted, because radios need to be on the

same frequency in order to talk to each other. And that is why

Congressman Curt Weldon and I introduced H.R. 1425, the Homeland Emergency Respond Operations Act [HERO], earlier this year.

Mr. Chairman, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act required the FCC

to reallocate radio spectrum for public safety from a band that is

scheduled to be vacated no later than December 31, 2006. Unfortunately, the same law postpones transferring that band indefinitely

if more than 15 percent of households are unable to receive digital

television.

The practical effect of this unfortunate loophole is that firefighters, police, and emergency personnel can’t even begin planning

for next generation interoperable communication systems because

they cannot be sure that spectrum will be available.

I see all the witnesses nodding. I know you agree with me.

The HERO Act would close this loophole and ensure the availability of the spectrum. This act also lays the foundation for a next

generation of voice and data communications systems that can enable first responders to take advantage of the communications revolution that is already sweeping through the private sector and the

military.

For example, in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. forces capitalized on

stunning advances in information technology. The military’s integrated, cutting-edge communication systems rapidly coordinated

and shared data, undoubtedly saving American lives. Likewise, in

the private sector, we see a wide variety of innovative products hitting the markets allowing consumers to increasingly receive all the

customized voice and data services they want wherever they are.

The dividends of a similar revolution in public safety and homeland security could be directly measured in lives saved. With region-wide voice and data systems, firefighters in California could

have had real-time tracking maps to show progress of the fires, location of other firefighters, critical infrastructure, blueprint layouts

of chemical plants or oil refineries, and in many cases locations of

citizens who needed to be rescued.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the HERO Act is endorsed by the

National Association of Counties, you are going to hear about it in

just a moment; the International Association of Fire Chiefs; the

International Association of Chiefs of Police; the Association of

Public Safety Communications Officers; the National League of Cities; the National Volunteer Fire Council; the International Union

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of Police Associations, all of whose letters of endorsement I am attaching to my statement today.

By showing leadership now and moving forward with interoperability legislation like HERO, we can make vital and urgent

progress in better protecting our citizens. I hope your subcommittees will join us. To adjourn with no action on H.R. 1425 is to leave

thousands, perhaps millions, of first responders vulnerable.

I thank all of you for the time; I really appreciate it. I urge you

to review this legislation; it is endorsed by every international public safety group on the planet Earth, and I can tell you from many

conversations with first responders, it would have made a real difference in the California fires and it will surely make a real difference in protecting Americans at home. If we have this technology for our military abroad, we deserve to have this technology

for our first responders, who are really our frontier fighters at

home. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jane Harman follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Harman. We appreciate your insightful remarks. You have certainly been a leader on this and a

number of other homeland and national security issues.

At this time I would like to introduce the chairman of the subcommittee who was the driving force behind this hearing, Christopher ‘‘Cassandra’’ Shays, ‘‘Cassandra’’ in that he has been issuing

warnings on a number of these issues for years. Prior to the events

of September 11th, his subcommittee had held more hearings than

anyone else in the Congress, on the threats from Al-Qaida and

other terrorist organizations. Prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, he and Ms. Harman held or were participants in a number of the early discussions about the need for

creation of such a department. He has been just a tireless advocate

for the issues related to spectrum and pushing these issues forward, and we are delighted that he invited us to participate with

him.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I just

want to thank you for holding this hearing. I want to thank the

full committee staff as well, because this has been an effort of the

full committee and both our subcommittees, Mr. Chairman; also to

welcome Congresswoman Harman, who has been taking such a

strong stand on so many of these issues, and I had asked my staff,

as soon as she had read the bill, I hope to God we are on her bill.

So I had them check. This will be a bill that I can’t wait to see

pass, and we are well aware of why it hasn’t. We have lots of different interest groups that are, in my judgment, putting their interests before the national interest, and we are going to have to

take them on.

More than a year before September 11, 2001, the National Security Subcommittee heard testimony from first responders who had

just participated in a tabletop exercise of emergency responses to

a chemical attack. Among the first casualties in that scenario were

internal and external communications by Federal, State, and local

officials.

On September 15th of this year, we observed a similar exercise

with similar results. It is hard to imagine that we still have this

problem. Fully 2 years after what many saw in September 11th as

a wake up call from hell, too many first responders still can’t hear

the alarm. Despite significant expenditures and some progress,

public safety and emergency response communications remain a

high tech Tower of Babel splintered by different electromagnetic,

political and fiscal languages.

What stands in the way of first responder interoperability? Major

impediments appear to be less a question of hardware or software

than wetware, the human circuitry that must power enhanced

connectivity. Linking more than 44,000 State and local agencies

and over 100 Federal programs and offices for effective emergency

response challenges entrenched cultures of intergovernmental mistrust. Interoperability threatens old ways of doing business, while

pitting public use of limited radio frequency spectrum against new

commercial wireless applications.

Efforts like the Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program, called SAFECOM, in the Department of Homeland

21

Security, referred to as DHS, face daunting near-and long-term obstacles: old and incompatible equipment not yet due to be replaced;

misaligned planning and funding cycles; and narrow, fragmented

public safety spectrum bands crowded between bursting commercial uses. In Connecticut’s 4th District, which I represent, interference on public safety bands is a serious and growing problem.

Central to the apparent intractability of all these issues is the

lack of technological and performance standards for interoperability. Unless State, local, and Federal public safety and emergency response agencies know exactly when, how, with whom, and

on what frequencies they are supposed to be able to communicate,

there is little chance randomly implemented, vendor driven technical upgrades will produce much more than accidental interoperability.

Real time communication capability in the face of the terrorist

threat is a national security imperative. When the next attack

comes, lives will be lost as a result of the technical gaps, jurisdictional stovepipes, and jumbled spectrum allocations still impeding

effective public safety voice communication and data sharing, as

Ms. Harman so eloquently pointed out. We need to know how and

when SAFECOM and other Federal efforts will channel the current

technological and political cacophony into the seamless network

that will carry our most potent weapons against terror: accurate,

timely information.

I want to thank Technology Subcommittee Chairman Adam Putnam again, and his staff again, for convening this joint hearing

with us today. It is a small but fitting example of breaching jurisdictional barriers in the cause of greater interoperability.

We thank all our witnesses for their time and for the expertise

they bring to this important discussion, and we look forward to the

second hearing we will be having at 11:30 with government officials.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And the gentleman from Missouri, the ranking member of this

subcommittee, graciously yielded his time to Ms. Harman, and so

we will now recognize him for his opening statement.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for calling the

hearing.

If it were not so dangerous to our public safety, I would find it

somewhat amusing that there has been so much talk about getting

first responders to talk to one another and so little change. We are

not much better off than we were 10 years ago. In fact, we do not

even have a coherent plan for where we want to go.

Understanding the problem is not too difficult. At the Federal

level there are too many cooks stirring the soup, and none of them

having interest of the first responders as a priority. At the local

level we find the competition between police and fire departments

for control in communities who are loathe to share revenues with

the community next door.

The councilwoman from Maryland has an excellent idea for funding much of the cost of the new equipment for the nearly 40,000

jurisdictions throughout the United States: use the revenue from

the spectrum auction. Unfortunately, that would require the FCC

to change its tune. As we learned from her testimony, the FCC

seems to be a part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Several of our witnesses will testify to the problems created by

the lack of sufficient bandwidth for public safety and the interference problems caused by commercial traffic on adjacent bands.

Again, these problems seem to point to the FCC for solutions, but

the witnesses, instead, point to the possibility that planned future

actions by the FCC will make matters worse, not better.

What is lacking the process is leadership. The SAFECOM project

was designed to provide that leadership, but it too has a checkered

past. It started out at the Department of Treasury and then was

transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. As near as I

can tell, the Department of Homeland Security is struggling to find

its own direction. That is not a very good prescription for leadership.

This hearing will highlight the problems we face in making our

system of first responders better capable of handling both day-today emergencies and disasters. Many of the problems are the same,

whether it be closing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge because of a suicide attempt or responding to Hurricane Isabel. It is my hope that

this hearing will spur greater commitment in the administration

for solving some of these problems.

Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing, and I

look forward to the testimony of the witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

I want to recognize the members of the subcommittees who have

joined us: Mr. Janklow, Ms. Sanchez, Mrs. Maloney, Mr.

Ruppersberger.

At this time I will recognize Governor Janklow for his opening

statement. You are recognized.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much.

You know, I really appreciate having this hearing today, and the

witnesses, as I have seen the list, that are coming before the committee. There can’t be any more important public safety issue than

the ability to communicate when there is a crisis that starts. We

in this country have the most Byzantine methods of communication

that anybody can imagine. In my State, which is a State of only

750,000 people, but a landmass that is 40 percent of the size of

France or Great Britain, we have with public safety, with respect

to police, fire, ambulance, sheriffs, State highway patrol, various

public safety agencies, we have high band and we have low band,

we have VHF and we had UHF, we had AM and we had FM; and

we had them all operating independent of each other. When the

town of Spencer, South Dakota, was destroyed in a tornado about

6 years ago, we actually had to fly into our State a special communications system and hand out portable radios so all of the first responders, second, third, and fourth responders that showed up

could communicate with each other.

As a result of that, frankly with some assistance from the Congress, and a lot of effort and money by the people of our State, we

put together what I believe is the finest first responder communication system in existence; it is all on high band, it is 100 percent

operative on VHF channels. We purchased and gave out free to

every ambulance in the State, every hospital in the State, every

nursing home in the State, every school bus in the State, every

highway patrol vehicle, every sheriff vehicle, every police vehicle,

every mayor’s vehicle, all of the cabinet officials, the Governor’s office, the State Department of Transportation and all their vehicles

are now all on the same system that is linked together on a high

band link system that works throughout the State. It is truly a

model.

And I don’t say it to brag. What I say it is to show you where

you can go from where you have been in a very short period of time

if you can get over the parochial issues that exist, of everybody

wants to be boss.

Also in my State, we have 42 911 centers; 42 911 in a State with

only 750,000 people. Folks just all feel that they all have to control

their own 911 center, that they can’t share one with anybody else.

And to the extent you feel you can’t share one with anybody else,

you put yourself into a position where you jeopardize your citizens

if there is something that is more severe than the average emergency that takes place.

There can’t be anything more timely, Mr. Chairman, than this

hearing, and the vital issues that affect the people of this Nation

when there is a crisis and a disaster. The time to fix it is now, not

after the next terrorist attack, not after the next attack on this

country, not after the next major tornado or series of fires or floods

or explosions.

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Thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Janklow.

We will recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez.

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. And I would like to commend Chairman Shays and Ranking Member Kucinich for calling this hearing

today.

Earlier this year I toured fire stations and police departments in

my district, and each one of them highlighted to me the important

need for communication systems that allow law enforcement, firefighters, and other first responders to talk to one another; and to

this end the Los Angeles Fire Department, with minimal resources

and funds, initiated an interoperability communications pilot program known as the Los Angeles Regional Tactical Communications

System. We affectionately give it an acronym LARTCS. The system

essentially enables them to speak directly to one another on one

channel for both short-term and long-term incidents.

The pilot program only serves a portion of the county, and contrast that with the fact that the Los Angeles County Fire Department provides services to 58 municipalities and spans a 3,000 mile

radius. This includes dense, urban, rural, and even remote suburban districts.

The LARTCS has already proven to be a success, particularly recently with the southern California wildfires that we experienced,

and according to the Los Angeles County Assistant Fire Chief, Eric

Eckberg, the fires hit the region really hard, but it could have been

a lot worse if the communication system was not in place. I commend the foresight and the dedication of the Los Angeles County

Fire Department, and all of the participating agencies that include

law enforcement, EMS, and other first responders, for establishing

this pilot program. And I just want to emphasize the fact again

that the system was put into place with minimal funding.

This successful pilot program proves that Congress needs to do

more to fund interoperability systems, whether it is through additional FEMA grants or cutting red tape, so that first responders of

LA County and multiple counties throughout California and the

Nation can talk to one another. We need to do more to protect our

public servants as well as the general population; therefore, I look

forward to the testimonies of the witnesses who can shed some

light on this salient issue.

And again I would like to thank the chairman and ranking member for holding this hearing today.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez.

The gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I truly want to thank you for having this hearing; I think it is tremendously important. And as one who went to

ground zero on September 11, our command central was destroyed

on September 11 and we created one at the police plaza. That

night, when I walked in, I asked what I could do, and they said,

our radios don’t work, get us radios. And I called Mr. Young, chairman of Appropriations, former chairman of Defense Appropriations,

and asked for radios, and he had them flown in the next day from

the military. But the radios that our fire department had did not

even work, and it was our greatest vulnerability, I would say, was

the lack of interoperability of communication on September 11 and

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the lack of radios that worked, period. And it is clearly one of the

saddest lessons that we learned during the terrorist attacks of September 11, was the importance of all emergency personnel to communicate with each other.

I want to share what happened on that terrible day. The New

York City Police Department had a helicopter in the air around the

towers and could see the North Tower glowing red, and radioed

their officers to warn them of a collapse, allowing most of the police

officers to exit safely. Regrettably, at the same time, numerous firefighters who were in the building could not hear the announcement

to leave because their radios were not compatible. The lack of this

crucial information contributed to the death of hundreds of New

York City’s finest and bravest.

Another well documented problem was that the radios simply did

not work in the towers because of their height and because they

lacked the needed repeaters.

The problems of September 11 were not without precedent. In

1993, when the World Trade Center wa the site of another terrorist

attack, the fire department’s radios did not work in the towers, and

there was not interoperability between all emergency personnel.

Thankfully, during that attack, these failures did not result in the

loss of life of our emergency personnel, but failure to act on the lessons that were learned clearly led to deadly consequences on September 11th.

In the 2 years since September 11th, there has been a lot of discussion regarding interoperability and efforts to have specific spectrum dedicated for public safety. But despite all of this discussion

and billions of dollars spent on homeland security funding, including some grants for interoperable communications, there is still one

simple truth that sadly exists in New York City: the radios that did

not work on September 11th still do not work today.

My sincere hope is that this hearing will shed further light on

progress being made to further enhance interoperability of communication for our emergency personnel and to gain further information on what we have to do in New York to get this technology up

and working for first responders to avoid another disaster. We

must learn from history; we do not need any more examples as to

why investing in this technology is so important, and the examples

I gave really cite why, Mr. Chairman, the hearing that you are

having today is tremendously important to the safety of our citizens.

Thank you.

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

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. You and your colleagues

from New York have some very powerful lessons to share with us,

some very tragic examples, unfortunately.

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. A lot

of the Members sitting here have been very active in first responders. Mrs. Maloney, I know you have been there and representing

New York, and I know that Chairman Shays has really taken a lot

of interest. So this is very important to us, this hearing; it is important to our local communities and our country.

Also, I want to acknowledge Jane Harman, who is the ranking

member of Intelligence. I am on the Intelligence Committee. She is

a fine leader and it shows how much she cares about her job to be

here. She is not a member of this committee, but she is here today.

You can belong everywhere, I guess. Was that a slip? I am trying

to be nice.

We all know this is an incredibly important subject matter. We

can create all the plans and have all the grants, but if our local

first responders are not able to communicate, we are not going to

be able to do the job.

This issue goes beyond just first responders needing compatible

equipment. The Government also has the responsibility to set aside

spectrum to allow that communication occur, and that is very relevant to today’s discussion. If we decide to access commercial spectrum, will it be dedicated only during a crisis or all of the time?

These are issues we have to look at. What licensing agreements are

needed between State and local authorities? How do we protect

communication from this disruption? Can others pick up, jam, or

even send messages during a crisis? This can be an issue involving

terrorism. These are things that we have to look at.

We have two panels here today. I do want to take a point of personal privilege. Councilwoman Marilyn Praisner and I have worked

with for at least the last 10 years in local government, both on the

board of the Maryland Association of Counties, of which she is

president, but also on the National Association of Counties. She

has been very active and has worked very hard on this issue, and

I am glad to see that you are here representing the State of Maryland, Montgomery County. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

We would also like to welcome to this hearing the gentleman

from Pennsylvania, Mr. Murphy, and the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan, both of whom have agreed to submit their

statements for the record.

Seeing no further statements, in keeping with the title of the

Subcommittee on Technology, I remind you that today’s hearing,

and nearly all of our hearings, can be viewed live via Webcast on

the committee’s Web site, reform.house.gov under live committee

broadcast link.

At this time we will go to the testimony of our first panel. Before

doing so, I would ask that panel one please stand and raise your

right hands for the administration of the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Note for the record that all five witnesses and those

accompanying them responded in the affirmative. And we will

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begin with Dr. Jenkins. Dr. William Jenkins is the Director of

Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the U.S. General Accounting Office. Dr. Jenkins has been with the GAO since 1979,

having worked principally in areas of budget policy, defense, financial markets, and justice administration. He has also been an adjunct professor at American University for over a decade. Dr. Jenkins is a graduate of Rice and received his Ph.D. in public law from

the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

We welcome you for your testimony, and you are recognized for

5 minutes.

Noting the size of the panel and the size of the interests shown

by subcommittee members, we would ask that you adhere to our

5 minute rule, please.

You are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM O. JENKINS, JR., DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MARILYN WARD, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL

PUBLIC SAFETY TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL [NPSTC],

MANAGER, PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION,

ORANGE COUNTY, FL; ALDONA VALICENTI, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS, NASCIO

MEMBER TO PSWN/SAFECOM, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, STATE OF KENTUCKY; MARILYN PRAISNER, COUNCILWOMAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD, CHAIR, TELECOMMUNITY, CHAIR, TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES, PSWN EXECUTIVE BOARD, CAPWIN

EXECUTIVE BOARD; AND GEORGE AKE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, CAPITAL WIRELESS INTEGRATED NETWORK [CAPWIN]

Dr. JENKINS. Chairman Putnam, Chairman Shays, members of

the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the

critical issue of interoperable communications for first responders.

The interoperability issues the Nation faces today did not arise

overnight, and they will not be successfully resolved over night.

This morning I wish to discuss three challenges that must be met

if we are to successfully address the complex issue of establishing

effective and reliable interoperable communications, and one major

barrier to successfully meeting those three challenges.

The first challenge is to clearly define the problem, an obvious

but not easy task. It is important to recognize that interoperable

communications is not an end in itself, but one means to a very important end: the ability to respond effectively to any event that requires the coordinated actions of first responders.

Moreover, interoperable communications is but one component of

an effective incident command planning and operation structure,

one that uses different scenarios—a car accident, a natural disaster, a major terrorist attack—to identify who is in charge, who

must be able to communicate what information, to whom, in what

form, under what circumstances. For example, what are the similarities and differences in the interoperable communication capacities, protocols, and first responder participants associated with responding to seasonably predicted flooding or a terrorist attack that

involves biological agents.

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Only after this analysis has been done is it possible to assess the

most appropriate means of achieving effective, reliable interoperable communications. It is also important to recognize that interoperable communications is not a static issue, but one that must

be periodically reassessed in light of technology changes and changing events for which first responders must be prepared.

Once the problem has been defined, the second challenge is to develop national performance goals and technical standards that balance uniformity with the need for flexibility in adapting them to

different State and regional needs and circumstances. Because the

events for which first responders must be prepared varies across

the Nation, there is no single silver bullet solution that will meet

all needs Nation-wide.

The Council on Foreign Relations’ report on emergency responders and SAFECOM officials have noted that we currently have no

national standards, guidance, or strategy for achieving effective, reliable interoperable communications for first responders. DOJ officials told us they are working with SAFECOM to develop a statement of requirements for interoperable communications by May

2004.

The third challenge is defining the roles and responsibilities of

Federal, State, and local governments in addressing the interoperability problem. This includes their role in defining the problem,

implementing any national performance goals and standards, and

assessing alternative needs in achieving those goals and standards.

In October 2002, this full committee issued a report on the Nation’s preparation for biological, chemical, or nuclear attack. Its

first finding was that incompatible communication systems impede

intergovernmental coordination efforts, and recommended that the

Federal Government take a leadership role in resolving the problem.

A variety of Federal agencies and programs have been and remain involved in defining the interoperability problem and identifying potential solutions. OMB has designated SAFECOM as the

means of unifying Federal efforts to coordinate the work of Federal,

State, local, and tribal governments to provide reliable interoperable communications. However, SAFECOM does not include all

major Federal efforts in this area, and its relationship to other Federal agencies and programs such as the Justice Department’s

AGILE program, is still evolving.

SAFECOM will also face complex issues in addressing public

safety spectrum management and coordination. Responsibility for

assigning spectrum is split between the Federal Communications

Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information

Agency in the Department of Commerce. In September 2002 we reported these two agencies did not share a clearly defined national

spectrum strategy, and we recommended that they develop such a

strategy and report the result to Congress. To date, they have not

done so.

State roles are also evolving, with several States such as Missouri and Washington establishing a foundation for State-wide

planning and multi-State cooperation through memoranda of understanding or similar agreements. Within States there is a growVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing recognition that effective emergency response, including effective interoperable communications, requires a regional approach.

The barriers to achieving effective interoperable communications

are generally well known. They include incompatible and aging

communications equipment, limited and fragmented funding, limited and fragmented radio spectrum, limited equipment standards,

and limited and fragmented planning and cooperation. Of these,

perhaps the most fundamental is the lack of effective interdisciplinary and intergovernmental planning and cooperation.

No one Federal first responder group, jurisdiction, or level of government can successfully fix the interoperability problems that face

this Nation. Police and fire departments are often at war over how

to run incident command centers. They also often use different terminology to describe the same thing. The absence of a common language in operating procedures can lead to communications problems even when participating first responders share common communications equipment and spectrum.

Success will require the partnership, leadership, and collaboration of everyone involved. In the absence of that partnership and

collaboration, we risk spending funds ineffectively and creating

new problems in our attempt to resolve existing ones.

That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased

to answer any questions you or other members of the subcommittee

may have.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Jenkins follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Marilyn Ward. Ms. Ward joins us today as

chairman of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. She began her career in public safety more than 30 years ago

as a dispatcher for the Florida Highway Patrol. Twenty-seven years

of her career were spent in Orlando, where she quickly rose to the

position of Communications Division Commander. She currently is

the manager of Public Safety Communications Division for Orange

County, FL. In her current position, she chairs the Governor’s Domestic Security Task Force Interoperability Committee and is a

member of the SAFECOM Executive Committee.

Welcome.

Ms. WARD. Thank you very much for having me.

I am here today to talk with you about the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council [NPSTC]. NPSTC is an organization of 13 public safety type organizations, and we have 5 liaisons.

Some of the initiatives that we have been working on to improve

interoperability have been being worked on by all of these groups,

and the IAFC, International Fire Chiefs, told me to be sure and

mention them, that they are in support of these comments.

With over 44,000 public safety first responder organizations in

the United States, it is crucial that we have a resource and an advocate for public safety telecommunications. That is the primary

role of NPSTC. NPSTC is a federation of public safety associations

that encourages and facilitates through a collective voice, the implementation of the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee

and 700 Megahertz Public Safety National Coordination Committee

recommendations.

NPSTC also serves as a standing forum for the exchange of ideas

and information regarding public safety telecommunications.

NPSTC has initiatives ranging from spectrum allocation to formation of rules and technology. Recently, we were asked by the staff

at the FCC to assume an ongoing role of the National Coordination

Committee. This committee was an advisory committee for interoperability spectrum in the 700 megahertz band. This role for

NPSTC will ensure that as the interoperability channels are deployed, there will be a methodology to ensure interoperability and

spectrum resources. It also continues to expand NPSTC’s membership to include more manufacturers and ensure a forum for dialog

between all levels of government.

NPSTC also has numerous task forces that are working on several projects. We are working to clear the TV broadcasters from TV

channels 60 to 69 so that public safety can move into this critically

needed spectrum. We are also trying to work with the FCC to remove the interference on our existing spectrum in the 800 megahertz band. This is a critical public safety issue, as today we have

responders whose radios will not talk when they are in certain

areas of their communities because the cellular provider in that

area shares frequencies.

These items, plus the interoperability issues, are high on our

agenda. In that 85 percent of all police departments nationwide

have fewer than 25 sworn officers, it is clear that this issue is a

difficult one to solve without your help. Today, radios purchased

from different vendors cannot communicate. There is no mandatory

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standard for radios; however, a voluntary ANSI standard called

Project 25 is available. We encourage your support to make this

standard mandatory nationwide.

In addition, the issue of who is in charge of radio spectrum and

radio systems makes it very difficult to plan for multi-jurisdictional

communications systems. Often referred to as the political factor of

interoperability, this one requires that Congress place restrictions

on Federal grant funds to require multi-jurisdictional interoperability and standard base solutions.

In Florida, our Governor appointed a domestic security task force

immediately after September 11. Recently, our region in central

Florida, which is comprised of nine counties, applied for a Federal

COPS and Interoperability grant for mutual aid channels regionwide. It was due to this DSTF system being in place that we were

able to bring 100 people together, agree on a solution, get a 25 percent cash match, and complete the grant in a 2-week period. We

did receive the grant, and we did so because we applied together.

We will have a Project 25 standard and we are building a multijurisdictional solution.

I tell you this to explain how critical it is for you to make interoperability standards and multi-jurisdictional systems mandatory

in future grants. It can be done, but it requires funding and agreements to work together toward a regional type solution.

So what can Congress do to improve public safety communications? I have a few suggestions: assist in assuring that the 700

megahertz bands are cleared as soon as possible; encourage the

FCC to resolve the 800 megahertz interference issues; require that

Federal grant funding ensure that users have to build to a public

safety standard; allow grant funding to develop new technology

standards; encourage a national center for interoperability source

guide to all the different interoperability funding and research

studies for locals to access on the Web; develop a standard set of

frequencies and standards of use in a disaster area, and provide

clear implementation guidelines; allow grant funding for communications technician and operator training. All of the plans in the

world won’t work unless people know how to use the technology.

Also, as a member of the SAFECOM Executive Committee, I see

this as an opportunity for SAFECOM to bring together all of the

resources that have been out there in the Federal Government, and

I would suggest that we support SAFECOM.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to this body. The public safety community is depending on your leadership to help us solve this

problem.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ward follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Ms. Ward.

I want to thank both of our witnesses for adhering to our 5

minute limit.

I welcome the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, who

has joined us as well.

Our next witness is Aldona Valicenti. Ms. Valicenti is the chief

information officer for the State of Kentucky, a position she has

held since 1997. She is Kentucky’s first CIO. She is here today representing the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, an organization for which she previously served as president.

Ms. Valicenti also serves as representative of the Nation’s State

CIOs to the Public Safety Wireless Network Program and

SAFECOM Initiative. Prior to becoming Kentucky’s CIO, Ms.

Valicenti spent 21 years in the private sector serving in IT leadership positions, including management positions at Amoco and Dow

Corning.

Welcome. You are recognized.

Ms. VALICENTI. Chairman Putnam and Chairman Shays and

members of the committee, and Honorable Congresswoman Harman, thank you very much for this opportunity.

Rather than reading the testimony which we have submitted, I

would like to take this opportunity and really reiterate many of the

points that you have already made, and maybe with a slightly different twist to them. In some cases I will try to give you examples

from the States that will allow you to relate to some things that

have worked and, frankly, some things that have not worked very

well.

But the whole issue of interoperability is, frankly, too late to

plan for when you need it. The planning and the coordination

needs to take ahead of time, and long before that.

The issue of interoperability is one that has existed for many,

many years from a public safety perspective. When you deal with

criminal justice systems, it has always been part of the criminal

justice system; how do we communicate better on the information

that we have.

So let me address some of the same points that you already have

made and this committee has already made.

Technology and standards. It is probably the single most important component. When we talk about technology and standards,

they are not something that is nebulous, they are not something

that is unreal, but they are things that we can relate to. Architecture, in fact, is a blueprint for how things interrelate, and maybe

one of the best examples that I can give you on where standards

in technology does work is the working of the Internet. If it wasn’t

for standards, we probably would not enjoy many of the benefits of

the Internet. Standards are well known, people ride to those standards, and we have used them. I suggest to you that we have an

opportunity to drive the same kind of architecture in standards in

this whole arena, which will allow us to then, hopefully 1 day, sit

here and say we have the interoperability issue solved.

So functionality exists, and exists in many cases, but we have not

been very strong in endorsing them. Project 25 is one of those initiatives that has really relied on driving standards, and that is certainly one of the areas that we could be much more proactive. So

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NASCIO supports really the use of flexible and open architecture,

and encourages all public safety agencies to really purchase equipment where it is advertised that it supports a standard.

I would like to point out two States who have done an excellent

job: Michigan and Delaware. Both were one of the first States to

implement a standards-based compliance systems. In Michigan,

that is known as the Michigan Public Safety Communications System, now has more than 300 local State and Federal public safety

agencies and 10,000 radios in the system. Delaware has done something similar in the 800 megahertz system. Again, two States who

have taken a very proactive approach.

We have already heard some discussion of spectrum allocation.

Spectrum allocation is a huge issue. Public safety community really

has access to very small portion of that spectrum and, as you have

already heard, that has a great deal of interference. So really looking at a preplanning, again, of the spectrum is an issue. Many of

the States have applied for the 700 megahertz, and I wrote the letter for Governor Patton to apply for the 700 megahertz, but, frankly, right now there is not much hope that we will have that over

the near future. 2006 is not that far away, and when we look at

that date, there is little movement to really implementing that.

NASCIO published a white paper on public safety wireless interoperability and again addresses the issue of the 700 megahertz.

But that is an issue that we, frankly, either need movement toward

or much more discussion, that we cannot hold out hope for that.

In that white paper, we also addressed many of the issues which

today, as Congresswoman Harman suggested, are now parts of the

HERO Act, and have had discussions over that.

Let me address one other topic, because it is really a cultural

topic, and maybe that is the one that is most difficult to address.

Public safety agencies don’t traditionally work well together, and

preplanning is really not part of the culture. And this is where we

have taken a dramatic approach, I think, in Kentucky. The general

assembly passed a bill creating the Kentucky Wireless Interoperability Executive Committee, which brings together multiple agencies, State, local agencies together as a body to the advice of the

CIO, and what we ought to do with further purchasing and implementing of systems.

And the last item is one really of innovative funding. There is no

single amount of money that will buy or deploy all the systems that

we need. And this is one example where I think that, as Governor

Janklow indicated, South Dakota has done an excellent job because

they took multiple pools of funds and delivered a system that is ultimately very interoperable.

Infrastructure requirements are great in two areas which, frankly, I have not yet heard discussed, but if you allow me just a couple

of seconds. The ongoing support of the infrastructure. All of these

radios have to be able to communicate with an infrastructure of existing cell towers or capabilities that are satellite communication

capabilities. Most small communities do not have that; the State

needs to provide that. And that is the huge issue for many, many

of the States.

And last, but by no means least, is really the requirements of the

role of the CIO. The CIO in many States, as I do in Kentucky,

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plays a critical role in bringing together local, State, and, frankly,

Federal officials who operate in our States together into a uniform

and common conversation to actually deliver some of the interoperability vision that was discussed here today.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Valicenti follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Our next witness is Marilyn Praisner. The Honorable Marilyn

Praisner serves on the Montgomery County, MD County Council,

first having been elected in 1990. She now chairs the management

and fiscal policy committee of the Council. Prior to her election on

the County Council, she focused great attention on education

issues, having served 8 years on the county school board. Councilwoman Praisner is currently chairman of the National Association

of Counties Telecommunications and Technology Committee and

chairs a local government alliance group called TeleCommUnity.

She joins us today representing the views of those organizations.

You are recognized.

Ms. PRAISNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ranking members, and members of the subcommittees. My first statement has been circulated and will be entered into the record, so I will just summarize some of the points.

We cannot achieve homeland security unless we have public safety wireless communications networks that are capable of supporting coordinated responses to threats at the neighborhood, county,

regional, or national level. As multiple agencies in multiple jurisdictions respond to crises, interoperability is essential.

Equally important is the need to address interference. The International Association of Chiefs of Police recently stated that 360 jurisdictions now have interference issues. That is more than in any

other previous year. But rather than assign fault, let me share

what I have learned from my work in this area.

Public safety is a core function of all levels of government, and

wireless communication is an essential element. Interoperability

and interference are major obstacles, but so are turf battles and

the lack of cooperation across jurisdictions. The solutions to the

challenges of interoperability and interference will not be cheap,

but neither is the cost of inaction.

While there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution, solutions can only be achieved if there is leadership at the Federal level

and a commitment to cooperation at the State and local level. Congress and the FCC must recognize their responsibilities by taking

steps to ensure that local public safety agencies have adequate

funding to achieve interoperability and have access to additional

spectrum to alleviate serious interference problems. Local government elected officials must be at the table if solutions are to be

reached, for while we need the Federal Government’s leadership,

Federal leaders need local governments’ ownership of the issue.

One example of the challenges faced in the real world is the interference experience of Anne Arundel County, MD. In 1998, Anne

Arundel began to experience dead zones or blackouts. In 61 dead

zones public safety personnel were unable to use portable receivers

on their 800 megahertz radio system in the vicinity of commercial

radio antenna sites.

Now, while such dead zones would be a problem in any locale,

in Anne Arundel County such dead zones have national implications, for in addition to being home to Annapolis, the State’s capital, Anne Arundel is home to the National Security Agency, the

U.S. Naval Academy, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and BaltimoreWashington International Airport.

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After having no success at the FCC, the county sought to avoid

creation of any new dead zones by means of a land use approach.

They required advance coordination for tower siting. The ordinance

was challenged at the FCC as being a preempted action and the

Commission agreed. Because other communities are experiencing

the same challenges, the FCC, in March 2002, opened a rulemaking to consider a proposal by Nextel and others that would realign the spectrum at 800 megahertz. While it is possible that the

FCC’s decision will finish the job of interference reduction, no decision is expected until 2004, if then. That would mean that the

county will have waited 6 years for a solution to their interference

issue.

On the bright side, there are many examples across this country

where jurisdictions are working together to solve communication

problems. We need to share these successes, because education and

training and information are critical, and to that end I recommend

to you the NTFI document that we all participated in, ‘‘Why Can’t

We Talk?’’

At the Federal level, PSWN, now part of SAFECOM, has been

very helpful in broadening that education. I attended my first

SAFECOM meeting this past Monday, and there also I think we

are now moving in the right direction. It is my hope that

SAFECOM will coordinate and hopefully reduce the number of well

intentioned Federal initiatives across a number of agencies.

On an even brighter note, let me conclude by thanking the leadership of this committee for holding this hearing and for demonstrating that you get it. Local government officials must be at

the table. We have to be here because there is no perfect national

solution to interoperability or interference. The nuances of each region are too complex for a one-size-fits-all approach. Thank you

very much for giving local government an opportunity to speak.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Praisner follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Councilwoman.

Our next and final witness for this panel is George Ake. Mr. Ake

is program director for the Capital Wireless Integrated Network

[CapWIN]. As most of us know, CapWIN is a project whose goal

is to implement an integrated voice and mobile data network for

transportation in public safety in the Washington, DC area. Prior

to managing CapWIN, Mr. Ake served 6 years as director of research and planning for the North Carolina Highway Patrol. He is

a graduate of Guilford College and received his MPA from North

Carolina State. The interoperability issues facing Mr. Ake at

CapWIN are perhaps a microcosm of the tremendous challenges we

face nationally, so we look forward to hearing your remarks today,

Mr. Ake.

You are recognized.

Mr. AKE. I am glad to be here with you, and I want to tell you

what CapWIN is briefly before I start. And I would like to summarize my remarks.

CapWIN enables first responders and incident management personnel from different organizations to communicate securely despite different systems. It is based on Internet protocol; it is based

on a new way of doing business. We are using data now and hope

to move to voice in the near future.

Over 40 agencies are participating, and they are able to share information and get information they have never been able to get before. One of the most exciting things is to see multi-disciplinary

people communicating, like transportation talking to law enforcement, fire talking to transportation.

CapWIN is a true partnership. What I mean by that, we are

working on an interstate compact between Maryland, Virginia, the

District, and the Federal Government to share information. I go

around the country, and as I speak I have a sandbox example. I

have three little girls in a sandbox, and I said if we could all learn

to play like these three little girls are in this sandbox, we would

really be a lot better off. I believe we have to change the way we

are doing business in the future. That means local governments,

State governments, and Federal agencies need to sit down in the

same sandbox and learn to play together.

We leveraged the investments we already have. If local governments build a wonderful system, it is absolutely crazy to throw it

out; we need to use that system. And that is what we are trying

to do, we are trying to bridge between those systems and enable

them to use the investments that they have already done.

Standards is a problem for us. When we started looking at

CapWIN, we started looking at the standards and, frankly, it was

very frustrating. Many agencies are doing standards and there

seems to be no one agency coordinating this, so there is a need to

look at the standards issue.

Multi-year Federal support is essential for programs like

CapWIN that go across multiple States. It takes time to develop

partnerships. It takes time to develop trust. It takes time to develop government systems. We are also getting a lot of calls from

around the country. Our representing project, AGILE with the National Institute of Justice, ODP, and also SAFECOM, we have been

going around the country talking to people about what we have

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learned and the lessons that we have learned and the mistakes

that we have made. It makes no sense for us to learn something

and not share that. Or if we make a mistake, why let someone step

in the same home? It just doesn’t make sense. So there is a need

to share lessons learned; there is a need to share wins as well as

mistakes.

End users must help design these systems. I am amazed sometimes when I see people who have the solution, yet they have never

talked to anybody on the street that did it. We try to use that in

developing this system. We have users, people on the street, come

in and help us design this thing.

And I would say to you, based on 30 years in law enforcement,

if they don’t use it everyday, when you have the terrorist thing,

they won’t know how to use it. We have to build systems they use

everyday. I am amazed when I look at the system around D.C. I

come from North Carolina, a small community. But the traffic, if

you have a major incident on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, it is a

major problem here in D.C., and we need to learn to do that. So

we have to use it everyday.

Public safety agencies need to help sorting out all this information; what do we mean by IT, what do we mean by all these things.

SAFECOM, I think, can help that by having some place that people

can call and get information. Certainly spectrum is a big issue.

Spectrum is a big issue that we need to address.

Do we have everybody playing in the sandbox now at CapWIN?

I would say to you no, but we have most of them. One of our vice

chairs, Marilyn Praisner, said as one example that is working with

us to move forward.

In closing, I want to say to you in 1975 I had to go tell Trooper

Tom Davis’ wife and his two boys he wouldn’t be able to come home

again because he stopped somebody and he didn’t have good information, and they killed him. I have never forgotten that. That is

the hardest thing I have ever had to do. So we are talking about

lives here. And I know all of you all are concerned, and that is the

reason you are holding this hearing. I thank you for that, and I

thank you for letting me come speak to you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ake follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Ake.

I thank the entire panel for your valuable input. You have added

greatly to this dialog and even generated questions that I know

will be reflected in the second hearing with the Federal officials.

For logistical purposes, we need to wrap up this first hearing by

11:45 so that we can seat the second hearing in time to complete

that work and clear the room for the full committee’s business

meeting. So I will allocate 5 minutes to Chairman Shays, 5 minutes to the minority, and following that we will go to 3 minute

rounds of questions for the rest of the Members, and that should

allow everyone to participate and still keep us on track.

So with that I will recognize Chairman Shays for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. You know, I am going to defer to Mr. Janklow and

give him my 5 minutes.

Mr. PUTNAM. Very well.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Shays.

And, Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask some leading questions

because it saves me time, if I can.

National standards versus salesmen. Do you all agree that right

now we have thousands of local first responder agencies that really

are tied to the salesmen and women who are selling this stuff to

them, and we need to establish a national standard around which

they make their purchases? Are there any of you that disagree with

that?

One, two. Do you agree that systems that are put in place need

to be trunked, that people have to have the ability to have trunk

systems throughout their jurisdictions? Are there any of you that

disagree with that?

Mr. SHAYS. I think for the record we better, claiming my time a

second, make sure that there is an answer that we can record.

Mr. JANKLOW. Go ahead, Ms. Ward.

Ms. WARD. Marilyn Ward, NPSTC. Trunking is very spectrally

efficient, and I would say that you are able to get a lot more people

on the same system, but there are a lot of rural areas where

trunking would not really be something they would have to do. If

you are in a rural area and you only need one frequency, it is a

waste of money to trunk it.

Mr. JANKLOW. But to the extent that you have a system that has

land lines connecting your towers, then it is just a matter of how

many channels you have available in a rural area; isn’t that correct?

Ms. WARD. With multiple channels.

Mr. JANKLOW. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. WARD. For a lot of users, trunking is the way to go.

Mr. JANKLOW. And in some States the 700 and 800 frequencies

won’t work because of the distance that those megahertz travel as

opposed to things that are lower in a high band area, like 150 or

450.

Do you all agree that the exact frequency isn’t nearly as important as the interoperability of the system?

Ms. WARD. Correct.

Mr. JANKLOW. The lady from Maryland indicated it took 6 years

to solve a problem. World War II only lasted 3 years for us, and

yet it took twice as long as World War II lasted for America to

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solve a problem of operability within dead zones in the State of

Maryland.

Ms. PRAISNER. Congressman, I am sorry. If I left that impression,

I would like to be able to correct it. It has not been solved. I said

that if the FCC moves in 2004, it would be 6 years since Anne

Arundel identified the problem.

Mr. JANKLOW. So it may last as long as the Vietnam War before

it is done.

Ms. PRAISNER. The problem has not been solved.

Mr. JANKLOW. OK. And if I could, with respect to the FCC, am

I correct that because of the way they have allocated channels historically, there are different parts of the spectrum that are set

aside for agencies? For example, the American railroad industry

has a large block of channels in the 150 area that they don’t use,

and they are not willing to give up to anybody, and because of the

system, am I correct, Mr. Jenkins, the way the system operates in

the FCC, it is not their fault, but their procedures make it virtually

impossible for anybody to come in in any reasonable amount of

time and get their hands on the frequencies until the railroads decide to use them 200 or 300 years from now?

Dr. JENKINS. Basically, yes. Part of it is just basically that the

rulemaking process is not a quick process, and FCC has a certain

rule process with things, and it is not speedy.

Mr. JANKLOW. And to the extent that Congress could speed up,

by legislation, the rulemaking process in this specific area, am I

correct, folks, it would be a godsend for the problems that this

country faces? Are there any of you that disagree with that?

With respect to Federal agencies, the ANSI 25 standard, is that

an open architecture, or is that still controlled by Motorola?

Ms. WARD. That is an open ANSI 102 standard, where there are

several manufacturers that are building.

Mr. JANKLOW. So E.F. Johnson makes it and the old General

Electric, I can’t think of what they are called now, but the old GE.

Ms. WARD. The old GE is Maycom, and they are looking at phase

two.

Mr. JANKLOW. OK. And with respect to Federal agencies, for example, the Federal Forest Service, they operate on 150, and they

are not willing anyplace in America to go on other first responders’

frequencies because they claim they have to have the ability, when

they move their people from State to State, they have to have the

ability to communicate. So when you have fires in California and

firefighters come from all over the country, they come with radios

that can’t work with the California authorities, isn’t that correct?

And it is the same in your States.

I happen to live in a place in South Dakota that is 4 miles from

the Iowa border and 3 miles from the Minnesota border. To the extent that we have a crisis or an emergency, northwest Iowa responding to southwest Minnesota just magnifies the problem with

respect to the crisis that we are having.

My time is up, Mr. Chairman, but what I would like to say is

this panel is phenomenal in the testimony they gave. Every one of

them makes sense. We ought to wrap it all together, put it in legislation, and mandate it, because Congress has created this problem

with the laws that we passed and those we failed to pass to deal

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with this, so we have allowed this to become this type of problem.

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, Somalia and chad will have, 2 years

from now, better interoperability and better emergency first responder communication than we do because they don’t have an entrenched system in place that has to be dealt with.

Am I correct, folks? They don’t have an entrenched system, so

they are going to build a new system that is wireless that handles

the things that we in America can’t handle.

Thank you for yielding your time to me, Mr. Shays.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Governor, and you are going to get your

next bite at the apple in panel two, when you can have the Federal

folks, and I am sure they are all anxiously awaiting.

Mr. JANKLOW. I hope the BIA is here, the National Park Service

is here, and the Forest Service is here, and ATF is here.

Mr. PUTNAM. Very well.

The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay, unless you want to give

your time to Governor Janklow too.

Mr. CLAY. I may just yield that to Governor Janklow. Let me ask

a couple of questions, and if there is time after, I would love to give

it back to him.

The term interoperability may not be easily defined or grasped.

Incidents requiring interoperability of public safety, communications for first responders can occur over a range of scenario from

responding to daily mutual aid events to major events such as the

Olympics that occur over days or weeks. The term first responder

also appears to be evolving to include more professions, such as

health departments and other professions besides the traditional

first responders such as police and fire.

Question: How do you define interoperability and who is a first

responder?

Perhaps, Dr. Jenkins, you may want to tackle it.

Dr. JENKINS. Well, we tried to define that in the statement, that

is, that in our view, interoperability is the ability to exchange voice

or data information in any situation in which first responders need

to coordinate their actions, and need to be able to do that in order

to coordinate their actions. You know, but we also point out that

the definition of first responder is basically situation-specific. You

don’t need the same people responding, necessarily, to a car accident that you do to something like September 11th. And they may

include, also depending on the situation, first responders can include private entities. For example, in some jurisdictions, first responders themselves are private contractors, that is, the local governments contract with them for public services. It is very important to be able to coordinate if there is an attack on an electrical

grid or something to be able to coordinate with private entities.

So I don’t think there is a clear hard and fast definition for first

responder. I think the Homeland Security Act has a generally good

definition that it uses that is a fairly broad definition. I do think

that one needs to think beyond the traditional sort of fire-policeemergency medical service notion when you think of first responders and who needs to communicate with one another.

Mr. CLAY. Anyone else want to try to tackle it? Yes, Ms.

Valicenti.

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Ms. VALICENTI. I would say that first responders now include almost all disciplines that can in fact mitigate an event or an attack,

and that very clearly is going to include any bioterrorism attack,

more medical folks probably than we have ever seen before. And

I would suggest to you that 911 is also a first responder; it is the

first of the first responders.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

For Councilwoman Praisner, good morning. Let me ask you do

you feel the Federal Government has done enough to reach out to

local officials in their individual efforts to reach first responder

interoperability?

Ms. PRAISNER. Sir, with all due respect to the Federal agencies,

it depends upon which agency and it depends upon what level and

it depends upon what issue. And I would say in general, if you put

it all into one pot or Mr. Ake’s sandbox, I would have to say no,

the Federal Government as an entity has not adequately reached

out to local government. And by that I would also add that it may

very well be that relationships are established with public safety

personnel and with the traditional elements, but not beyond that

level, and certainly not with local elected officials. And it is the

local elected official who has to raise his or her hand to say yes for

a funding, and in tough times making decisions about one project

or another, without the kind of information that you need, is also

very challenging.

Mr. CLAY. So there is not a real formal relationship established

between local and Federal.

Ms. PRAISNER. Well, I think there are through certain structures,

and we are trying, as the National Association of Counties and I

would say the League of Cities and the Conference of Mayors and

our umbrella organizations, to participate, but I think at some level

it is not the first group of folks that Federal agencies think of including in that dialog. Certainly that was the experience initially

with SAFECOM. I think we are there now, and I tend to be an optimist looking at the glass half full. We are making significant

progress recently.

Mr. CLAY. I see Ms. Ward with her hand up. I know that my

time is up.

Can she answer, Mr. Chairman, please?

Ms. WARD. I would like to add to that that the National Public

Safety Telecommunications Council has been supported by the

AGILE program, which is a Federal initiative, and their mission is

to support State and local public safety communications. So we

have been very well supported by them. They also put together a

group, as Marilyn has referred to, the National Task Force for

Interoperability, which most of the people at this table were members of, to try to bring in the State and local elected officials. So

we have been working with the feds, but on a limited basis.

Mr. CLAY. I thank you and thank the panel for their responses.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

I overlooked one item. I understand we have received written testimony for the record from Mr. Vincent Stile, the president of the

Association of Public Safety Communication Officials International.

Mr. Stile is also the policy radio communications systems director

for Suffolk County, New York Police Department.

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I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Stile’s testimony be inserted

in the appropriate place in the records.

Without objection, we will do that and place his statement in the

record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stile follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. At this time I recognize Mr. Schrock from Virginia.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I love Bill Janklow, but

I hate following Bill Janklow, because he says it exactly as it is,

and you are five miraculous people. In fact, I have had the privilege of hearing Ms. Valicenti and Councilwoman Praisner before,

and I don’t know why we can’t get our act together and get this

done. How many hearings do we have to have before we get it

done?

I looked at Congresswoman Harman’s testimony. She talks about

the fires. My family and my wife’s family live there; my wife and

son were caught in those fires, so I know how bad it is. You know,

if they had something, they could have had the tracking maps, the

locations, on and on it goes.

And I think one of the most telling things is from Marilyn Ward’s

testimony. She says in here interoperability has been brought to

the forefront by disasters such as the Air Florida plane crash here

in D.C. on the 14th Street Bridge. Are any of you aware how long

ago that was? Twenty-one years ago. I was here when that happened. Twenty-one years ago. Yet we never seem to get this thing

solved.

I heard Mr. Jenkins say there is no single bullet solution. I don’t

think he is advocating that, I think he thinks that is just the situation, but there needs to be.

My question is, then, who do you believe should and will decide

the standards for preparedness for each locality, for each State, for

each area, and the country? In our area, I represent Virginia Beach

and Norfolk. We too have our Chesapeake Bay Bridge as well. And

we have massive numbers of military, a huge port there, and I

worry that we are going to have a problem. Any money I am getting for my localities right now I am making sure they are getting

the same equipment. During our recent hurricane it worked. It

really did. But we are just Hampton Roads area; that is not Richmond, northern Virginia, Virginia, or the country.

Who’s got the responsibility for doing this? Ultimately I think we

do, but at what point does it become a local, State, or region responsibility?

Yes, ma’am?

Ms. WARD. Right now the SAFECOM program is working with

NIST to work in this direction, and SAFECOM is a good place because we have representatives on the executive committee and

other levels that are State and local representatives. You can’t create a standard without having the people that are impacted by the

standard at the table. And so that is an excellent forum to do that

because you have the leadership of all of the different public safety

organizations available in the executive committee and the other

levels of SAFECOM.

Mr. SCHROCK. Ms. Valicenti.

Ms. VALICENTI. I would support that SAFECOM is a very good

area to have that conversation, but I would also encourage that the

individual States, I give you the State perspective, form committees, form councils to discuss this issue, because ultimately you

have to get buy-in. You have to get buy-in that this is a good thing

to do to adhere to a set of standards, and that, frankly, is not an

overnight thing.

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The other issue that maybe we have not yet discussed nearly to

the same extent is the availability of equipment, and manufacturers have to agree to provide equipment to a set of standards; and

that conversation is really with the private sector and the public

sector officials.

Mr. SCHROCK. Your State adjoins my State, and if we have those

committees and Kentucky does their own thing and Virginia does

their own thing, yet there has probably got to be a national standard somewhere so before these committees get together they are all

working from the same standard so everybody can work together.

Ms. VALICENTI. Absolutely. Kentucky is surrounded by seven

States.

Mr. SCHROCK. We are privileged to be one of them.

Ms. VALICENTI. And we know that all incidents will not occur in

the middle of the State.

Mr. SCHROCK. That is exactly right.

Mr. Ake.

Mr. AKE. I think that the multi-State compact that we are working on in CapWIN, with Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., we will

learn a lot of lessons about that. I am already running into lessons

with three different laws, three different ways of doing business,

and trying to combine that into one, and it has been a real learning

experience for me, coming from a State that has a State-wide system. So I think we will learn a lot from that, and I think ultimately

the partnership piece has to be put together, but the Federal folks

have to come together with a standard and some guidance and that

kind of thing. What we have had in the past, we have had equipment being built to different standards, not using IP standards or

whatever, and none of them will talk to one another. So we have

to say to folks, our vendors around the country, this is what we

want and this is what we want it to do.

Mr. SCHROCK. I agree. You agree as well? I am old, guys, I am

62. Let us get this done, because I don’t want to come back in another 20 years and have to say, gee, 20 years ago I mentioned that

Ms. Ward talked about the same thing that happened 21 years ago.

This is ridiculous. The Governor is right, we have to get this done

and get it done quick.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Schrock.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I didn’t know 62 was old.

First, there is a lot of frustration here, and I was a former county

executive, and when you manage your public safety one of your biggest expenses and frustration is the communication; and it is not

with your own jurisdictions, but it has to be regional, State-wide,

and even more than that, and I will give you an example. We all

know of the situation with the snipers in the Washington area, and

in the evidence that was found, they were then going to target

schools in Baltimore, elementary schools in Baltimore. And, you

know, over and over, and especially with drugs, which is probably

still our most serious crime today, and the implications of drugs,

we need to be able to communicate just beyond our own regions

and States. You know, crime has no geographical boundary, and if

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tember 11, now it has come to the forefront even more that we

have to do something.

Now, Councilwoman Praisner, you made a comment, and I would

like you to explore that, because what we want to do here is get

to the bottom line and make recommendations. I mean, that is

what we really want to do. You made a comment that you felt that

local government needs to have ownership of these systems. I am

not sure if I agree, but I would like you to explore that. I think

that you have to have really a national plan and the help of the

Federal Government to coordinate it. You know how difficult it is

to get a lot of elected officials together and come to an agreement.

Just look at us here on Capitol Hill. So we need that formula to

pull together to focus on the right plan, and then we need to talk

about a lot of times it comes down to money, how are we going to

pay for it. And there are over 3,000 counties, as you know, or more,

in this country that might not be able to do it.

So let me have your thoughts on that, or anyone else who wants

to talk about that issue, implementation.

Ms. PRAISNER. Congressman, thank you very much. The issue of

ownership is not an issue of who has title to the document or the

equipment. The issue of ownership is one of assuming responsibility and knowing that you are part of the solution, and that you are

at the table as the solution is worked through.

You were extremely effective as county executive and as president of the Maryland Association of Counties because your philosophy was, and is, to bring everyone to the table, and you are anxious to listen to what the views and thoughts of people are before

decisions are made.

One of the challenges we face from a local elected official perspective is that lack of opportunity in many occasions, on many

arenas, for participation to offer the perspective of what actually

does work in your community. As George indicated, whether it is

the first responder himself or herself who has to use the equipment

or, in my perspective, the local elected official who has to raise his

or her hand and make a decision as to whether you fund, and in

these times it is a case, and I would suspect that it in any time

it is a case of making choices. And so the question is do I make

this choice to fund or support this equipment, or do I vote to participate in this structure, or do I not. And it is a tug and it is a

question of education and information, ownership and partnership,

and we don’t always have that; and local elected officials are often

the last people invited to the table, if at all.

And that is my point, is that whenever someone may dictate

from whatever level they may be, unless you have the participants

of the first responders and the local elected officials who have to

fund those programs or systems, you don’t have ownership in the

best sense of the word.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK.

My time is up? That was a quick 5 minutes.

Mr. PUTNAM. We owe you a couple of minutes.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Oh, I thought so.

Mr. PUTNAM. We gave you 3, but because so many people have

left, we will give everybody 5. So keep on going.

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Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK, well, let us get to the bottom line.

What would you, in a very concise statement, or anyone on this

panel, what do you think we need to do? We have all talked about

different issues in our statements, but we need to talk about funding; we need to talk about pulling it together. How would you recommend we do that from your perspective?

Ms. VALICENTI. I would like to point out two issues where I think

you could be very instrumental. The first one is the whole funding

issue. I don’t think any single entity will have all the funding, so

there has to be a drive toward pooled funding; and pooled funding

is Federal funds, State funds, and local funds. And we have a couple of examples where that has worked, and I think the more that

the States can do to coordinate that funding, the more likely we

will, then, to provide solutions which are going to be interoperable.

But I think that there is a second issue, and that is one where

I think that this committee can be most influential, and that is

that the funding that is provided from the Federal level come with

a requirement that it has to either regionally participate in an

interoperable environment or State environment, or some kind of

strings attached as far as standards. And unless that happens, we

will continue to recreate what we have been creating for the last

20-some years, stovepipe systems.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Are you saying that Federal standards or

bureaucracy is getting in the way?

Ms. VALICENTI. No, I don’t think so. I think that the discussion

and, frankly, SAFECOM is probably a good example where the discussion of standards is occurring, the discussion on how to do that

is occurring, and I think that there are more and more forums that

are buying into a standards-based.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Chairman Shays put together a bill about

standards with first responders, and maybe we could continue to

explore that.

On your bill about standards that we have for first responders,

maybe we can tie this subject matter into that somehow.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. If the gentleman would yield.

It is really our bill, yours and mine, and some others in the committee. We are trying to insert that in the bill on the select committee and Homeland Security, which is a little broader, and there

is a way to do that in that bigger bill, and we should do it.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Good.

Ms. VALICENTI. I would suggest that if you could do those two

things, that request for money has to demonstrate that it will buy

into standards and, second, it has to demonstrate that it buys into

a larger interoperable environment, multi-jurisdictional environment.

Mr. AKE. In North Carolina, in my other life, I sat on a board

that did grants, and we said to the people of North Carolina, if you

want to be considered, it has to be multi-jurisdictional. It was

amazing to see them start forming partnerships and start working

together. So I would say to you that is certainly a method to use.

They have to feel like they have ownership and they have all got

to work together, but there has to be some motivation for them to

do that.

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Ms. PRAISNER. The only comment that I would add is that I don’t

think this is a one time situation where it is one check and one dollar amount and one time. This is a significant amount of money

over an extended period of time, and it is going to require continuous progress; it can’t be done in 1 day or one appropriation.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger.

I will now call on Chairman Shays for our final 5 minutes of

questioning.

Chairman Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

In the State that I am in, we have no county government, so in

one sense it seems even more difficult to get cooperation. But because of that what the State did is it basically said when it got

money from the Department of Homeland Security, it said it is not

giving out this money to each local community, it is going to come

out only if you come together. And the trend in the Federal Government has been, as well, to try to fund grants where there is cooperation among more than just one or two entities.

I remember when I was in the State house dealing with September 11, and it is surprising to think about it now. Our opposition

was the firemen and the policemen who didn’t want to have to

come under the same jurisdiction; fire didn’t want to be with police,

the police didn’t want to be with fire, which was kind of fascinating. Now we have solved that problem, and now we look back on

it with some horror that there was ever this ownership.

I feel, at least in our State, we are finding ways to have our communication be able to operate among jurisdictions and among different organizations and entities, at least in our State. What I am

having the hardest time reconciling is the spectrum issue, and I

would love someone to address that. As clearly and as succinctly

as you can, tell Congress what you want us to do about the spectrum.

Ms. WARD. Public safety needs more spectrum.

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t you pull your mic closer, if you don’t mind.

Ms. WARD. Public safety needs more spectrum. We have new

technologies that are emerging; we would like to be able to take advantage of them. It is very difficult when you are in competition

with broadcasters who have a lot more people to be able to come

up here. I mean, I am on my work day here. We have volunteers.

We really need to have that interference issue resolved. Congress

should encourage the FCC to do that before 2004.

We really need to get the 700 megahertz band cleared. Congress

needs to visit that issue and get that taken care of as soon as possible. We need the spectrum. It has already been promised to us,

but now we need to get on it. And that is how we are going to build

regional systems, we need the spectrum to build the regional systems. And the 700 megahertz band is going to be able to afford us

a lot more flexibility in doing that.

Also, allow grant funding so that we can develop new technology

standards. That is going to be an important thing for us. And when

you do your grant funding, I wholeheartedly agree that it needs to

be required in there that the systems be multi-jurisdictional, and

they should be focused on a standard.

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Ms. PRAISNER. From my perspective, one of the concerns that I

have is if folks have to move, will they be held harmless by the

process.

Mr. SHAYS. When you say they have to move, would you explain?

Ms. PRAISNER. If one has to move to 700 megahertz.

Mr. SHAYS. If they have to give up what they have and go somewhere else?

Ms. PRAISNER. Then they should be held harmless, and the question of the cost of that transition and the manner in which that

matter would occur. There is great concern out there and anxiety,

having expended significant revenue for an 800 megahertz system,

to then tell a local government that you have to move from it because that is the solution that is proposed for their region and their

area. And having expended those funds, will they be held harmless

in the process.

Mr. SHAYS. Anyone else want to respond to that question?

Ms. WARD. The issue that Ms. Praisner is speaking about is a

plan that is in front of the FCC that would allow for some compensation to come from the cellular industry, but it would require

that local government move their users to the 700 band instead of

the 800 band that they are currently in, and there could be some

additional cost to local government for that. I don’t know if you are

familiar with that plan, but that is formally called the consensus

plan that the majority of the public safety associations support.

Mr. SHAYS. My colleague said that it wouldn’t solve it. Maybe

you would like to get a response, then.

Mr. JANKLOW. My question is, for example, we went 150. Had we

gone 700, for which we had the frequencies available, we would

have needed five more towers because of how they penetrate, correct?

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. JANKLOW. And so for a State like mine, that went 150, we

wouldn’t have to migrate to that standard, correct? So the 700

won’t solve the problem for everybody, but for a lot of you in America it will.

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. JANKLOW. What the FCC needs to do is get the bandwidth

cleared out.

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. JANKLOW. Yes, ma’am. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Shays. I appreciate your leadership, and we thank Governor Janklow and Mr. Schrock and Mr.

Ruppersberger, and all the others who participated in this hearing.

I particularly want to thank our five witnesses on this panel for

your testimony and expertise that you have provided us. You have

given us a tremendous perspective that will benefit us greatly as

we move into the second hearing, which deals with our Federal

agencies, and I think that you have given us a clear path for improving your lot.

As is customary, in the event that there may be additional questions for panelists or statements that we did not have time for

today, the record will remain open for 2 weeks for such submissions.

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Thank you all very much, and we stand adjourned. The second

hearing will begin immediately.

Mr. JANKLOW. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? Might you ask the

panel if they would submit within the 2-week period, those that are

interested, a statement as to how SAFECOM, since that is a Federal agency or Federal group, could be modified to take in the local

people as part of the process?

Mr. PUTNAM. Consider it done.

We are adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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(205)

FIRST RESPONDER INTEROPERABILITY: CAN

YOU HEAR ME NOW? (FEDERAL PERSPECTIVES)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, JOINT WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE

ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 11:45 a.m., in

room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher

Shays (chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security,

Emerging Threats and International Relations) presiding.

Present: Representatives Putnam, Duncan, Janklow, Murphy,

Schrock, Shays, Clay, Maloney, Ruppersberger, Sanchez, and

Tierney.

Also present: Representatives Harman and Weldon.

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

Robert A. Briggs, clerk, Subcommittee on National Security,

Emerging Threats and International Relations; Bob Dix, staff director; Ursula Wojciechowski, clerk; and John Hambel, counsel, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental

Relations and the Census; Grace Washbourne, professional staff

member; David McMillen, minority professional staff member; Jean

Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Casey Welch and Jamie Harper, minority legislative assistants, Committee on Government Reform.

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

Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and

the Census hearing entitled ‘‘First Responders Interoperability:

Can You Hear Me Now? (Federal Perspectives)’’ is called to order.

This hearing brings before us key Federal officials responsible for

the policies, technologies, standards, and frequency allocations

needed to advance interoperability. We appreciate their being here

and look forward to their testimony.

I will put on the record my statement that opened the previous

hearing.

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

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Mr. SHAYS. I will recognize any Member who would like to make

a statement for this hearing before we recognize our panel.

Is there anyone who would like to make a statement? I recognize

the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. PUTNAM. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your leadership on this, and I have to tell you how

very disappointed I am in the difficulty that we had pulling together the witnesses from the Federal Government. The first panel,

the first hearing, and it was a hearing, not a panel because of the

uprising by the administration witnesses, gave us a pretty clear

outline of the cultural challenges that we face in bringing interoperability and cooperation to this problem.

Our two subcommittees managed to work through the jurisdictional issues, and the Federal Government can’t seem to figure out

how to do that. And when agencies threaten to refuse to come to

a congressional hearing because they are not going to get to speak

first, it is a little bit embarrassing. It is very embarrassing. And

I am certain that a lot of these things get wrapped up in staff conflicts and things like that, but if you are a member of the Rotary

Club or the Kiwanis Club or, when you are back, it is your homeowner’s association, I think that if you raise the issue with your

neighbors that we thought about not going to the congressional

hearing because they weren’t going to put the administration first,

we were going to hear from the State and local officials and the industry beforehand, I think that they would have a hard time seeing

it from your perspective.

Frankly, I am glad that we weren’t made aware of this until the

last minute, because if it had been up to me, we would have just

had empty chairs, and with place cards where the agencies might

have been. But it is perfectly illustrative of the problem about

working together and bringing interoperability and bringing coordination to this very, very serious issue.

And so I just wanted to begin, Mr. Chairman, by thanking you

for your leadership and thanking the administration representatives for finding a suitable format for which they would share their

insight into this issue.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

Anyone else who has a statement?

I will say for the record that our witnesses were good enough to

be at the previous hearing that we had, and I thank them for that.

So you will be able to make comment on what was said.

But I do share your concerns, Mr. Putnam.

We will also put on the record Mr. Clay’s opening statement and

I think the opening statements that all the members had for this

hearing as well.

At this time, I will just recognize those who are participating in

this hearing: The Honorable Karen S. Evans, E-Government IT Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget; Mr. David Boyd,

Program Manager, SAFECOM, Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Dr. John S. Morgan, Assistant Director for Science and

Technology, National Institute of Justice; and John Muleta, Chief,

Wireless Bureau, Federal Communications Commission; and, finally, Edmond Thomas, Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology, Federal Communications Commission as well.

And at this time I would invite you to stand; we will swear you

in, as we swear all our witnesses in. If there is anyone else you

think who has accompanied you that may need to respond to an

answer, I would prefer they stand up now, even if they turn out

not to be needed; at least this way we won’t have to swear anyone

else in. Is there anyone else that you would like sworn in? OK.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record our witnesses have responded in

the affirmative.

And we will go as I called you.

Excuse me, let me take care of the UCs. I ask unanimous consent

that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an

opening statement in the record and the record remain open for 3

days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statement in the record. Without objection,

so ordered.

And, again, we are going to put the opening statements that

Members made at the previous hearing in as part of this hearing’s

record, and at this time we will just basically go right down the

table there.

Ms. Evans, you have the floor. You are going to need to put that

mic much closer to you, as I was told to do. Excuse me. I have to

practice what I preach.

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STATEMENTS OF KAREN S. EVANS, ADMINISTRATOR OF EGOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; DR. DAVID BOYD, PROGRAM MANAGER, SAFECOM, WIRELESS PUBLIC SAFETY

INTEROPERABLE COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; JOHN MORGAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL

INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE, ADVANCED GENERATION INTEROPERABILITY LAW ENFORCEMENT [AGILE]; JOHN MULETA,

CHIEF, WIRELESS BUREAU, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS

COMMISSION; AND EDMOND THOMAS, CHIEF, OFFICE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Ms. EVANS. Good morning, Chairman Shays, Chairman Putnam,

and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak

about communication challenges facing the first responder community. My remarks will focus on the administration’s strategy and

progress to date in working with State, local, and tribal governments and organizations to address these challenges to achieve

interoperability.

As you know, in the fall of 2001, OMB’s E-Gov Task Force identified 24 Government-wide opportunities to simplify and consolidate

redundant Federal programs. One of those opportunities was in the

area of wireless communications and became the Project

SAFECOM E-Gov initiative. Given the critical importance of improving communications among the first responder community, the

President’s Management Council identified SAFECOM as one of

the top three priority E-Gov initiatives out of the 24.

SAFECOM is a central part of the administration’s strategy toward achieving the goal of improved interoperability among Federal, State, local, and tribal governments and organizations. Because over 90 percent of the Nation’s public safety infrastructure

is owned at the State and local level, SAFECOM was created to be

a public safety practitioner-driven program. Its mission is to serve

as the central point within the Federal Government to help public

safety agencies across all levels of government to improve response

through more effective and efficient wireless communications.

As the umbrella program for all Federal interoperability efforts,

SAFECOM has developed a strategy with both short-and long-term

milestones to fulfill that mission. The Department of Homeland Security is the managing partner of this initiative. Additionally, there

are six partner agencies: the Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture. All of

these agencies are involved because of significant roles they play

in public safety communications, emergency incident response and

management, and law enforcement.

It is abundantly clear that in order for first responders and other

public safety and law enforcement officials to effectively prevent,

respond, and recover from disasters, whether their origin is natural

or terrorist, they must be able to depend on interoperable communications. Unfortunately, until recently, each Federal agency had

their own policies, standards, and equipment for the individual programs they administered. This problem was compounded at the

State and local level as each public safety group used their own

214

equipment, standards, and procedures. To address these and other

barriers to achieving interoperability, SAFECOM will accomplish

the following four items.

The first item is the development of a national policy that promotes communications interoperability. SAFECOM is working

within DHS and with its partners in the development of a national

response plan, and the national incident management system is

outlined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive No. 5. The

goal of this directive is to enhance the ability of the United States

to manage domestic incidences by establishing a single, comprehensive national incident management system. This effort is ongoing.

A second task is the development of a common set of requirements for the public safety interoperable communications.

SAFECOM is collaborating with the public safety community to

identify their needs. Once completed, this uniform set of requirements will be used by public safety organizations and industry to

ensure that the organization’s own requirements and the overall

need for interoperable communications are fully met. This effort is

underway.

A third SAFECOM activity will be the creation of standards that

will provide a technical foundation for interoperable communications across the public safety community. SAFECOM and their

State, local, and tribal partners are working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create standards for equipment, technology, and processes.

Finally, SAFECOM, with its partners, will develop a national

wireless communications architecture that brings together the policies, requirements, and standards activities I just mentioned. This

architecture will provide a framework for implementing interoperable communication solutions across agencies and jurisdictions at

all levels, while preventing any new and eliminating existing islands of interoperability and communication stovepipes.

Successful achievement of those four activities clearly requires

both inter-and intra-governmental collaboration. In addition to the

Federal, State, local, and tribal partners already mentioned, both

the Department of Justice Advanced Generation of Interoperability

for Law Enforcement [AGILE] program and the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] play a critical role in this arena.

SAFECOM and AGILE work together on a daily basis to make sure

that tasks are coordinated and resources are used as effectively as

possible. AGILE is a vital partner in the areas of standards development and outreach to the first responder community. The FCC

has a critical role in solving the issue of limited ad fragmented

spectrum, a barrier toward interoperability.

In closing, I would like to emphasize the administration’s commitment to continue to work collaboratively across Federal agencies with Congress and State and local and tribal governments to

overcome the interoperability challenges facing the first responder

community.

While great strides have been made toward improving interoperability for our Nation’s first responders, this is not a problem that

can be solved overnight, or even in a year or two, but achievement

of the SAFECOM goals will bring us much closer toward realizing

interoperability. Collectively, we must continue to work toward deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00220 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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veloping a common set of requirements and standards for public

safety communications.

I look forward to working with the committee on our shared

goals to achieve interoperability and realize effective and efficient

first responder communications.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Evans follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Before going to Dr. Boyd, I would like to recognize Mr. Schrock

for an expression of appreciation.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

At the end of last hearing I learned that Ms. Valicenti is going

to be leaving her job with the State of Kentucky, and I am sad

about that, but after 6 years in that pressure cooker, she wants to

go on and do other things. And I just want to tell her that we appreciate very much the times you have come here, the knowledge

you have given us. You have been a great help to us, and I think

I speak for everybody here when I say thank you for the job you

have done, and we wish you luck in whatever endeavor you take

on after that.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. We will note for the record silent applause. Thank

you.

Dr. Boyd.

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

members of the subcommittee, for the invitation to speak to you

today.

While several programs have done important work in addressing

interoperability, much of it has been disconnected, fragmented, and

often conflicting. That is why SAFECOM was established as a high

priority electronic government initiative to provide a national coordinating umbrella for Federal programs touching on interoperability. But SAFECOM is also a public safety practitioner-driven

program with a customer base of over 44,000 local and State public

agencies and more than 100 Federal agencies engaged in public

safety disciplines such as law enforcement, fire fighting, public

health, and disaster recovery.

Fixing the interoperability program will require a long-term coordinated effort among local, State, and Federal stakeholders, and

the sheer size and diversity of the public safety community and the

billions of dollars invested in existing communication systems

means we cannot start with a blank slate. Our solutions will have

to include: backward compatibility with legacy systems to protect

those investments; leveraging of advances in technology through

research, development, and testing; and development of a well defined set of requirements for interoperability that can steer the development of reliable standards to guide industry as it creates solutions, and localities and States as they purchase them. But we

need solutions quickly, so we have begun several near-term initiatives to begin moving us in the right direction, including innovative

developmental projects, testing and evaluating of equipment, the

pursuit of better spectrum management policies and technology, coordination of grant guidance across the Federal Government, and

identification and promotion of best practices.

In this last fiscal year, SAFECOM developed the Common Grant

Guidance for use by Federal programs funding public safety communications equipment for State and local agencies. The COPS Office, FEMA, and the Office of Domestic Preparedness all incorporated this guidance into their public safety communications programs, thus producing the first multi-agency, multi-departmental

coordinated approach to funding requirements for interoperability.

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With the AGILE Project, we also organized and funded the peer

review process for the joint grant solicitation from COPS and

FEMA, and with the National Institute of Science and Technology

held a summit on interoperability as a critical first step in identifying all the Federal and national programs currently involved in

public safety communications.

This year we will complete the initial draft of the first Statement

of Requirements for Public Safety Communications Interoperability. This Statement of Requirements will serve as the basis for

SAFECOM’s technology efforts. And about 2 weeks ago we issued

a request for information to gather information from industry on

current technologies to enhance interoperability that are either

available now or under development, and we have begun collecting

information on current technologies through vendor days.

In our coordinating role, we are collaborating with the Department of Justice in the development of interoperability between Federal agencies and local public safety in 25 critical cities, and have

begun discussions with the Department of Agriculture on a possible

joint effort to explore radio over IP. We continue to support the

Capital Area Wireless Integrated Network Demonstration project

because it exhibits model governance structures and technology implementation for multi-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional data

sharing, and because it offers an example of how to incorporate

new technologies into emergency communication systems.

And, finally, SAFECOM is developing an interoperability information portal to provide information to public safety agencies

through an integrated central cite which will include, as one example, a scorecard tool that can be used to identify and track public

safety progress on interoperable communications. Some of this effort leverages the work of the former Public Safety Wireless Network program now fully absorbed into SAFECOM.

We believe we have made significant progress in establishing

SAFECOM as the umbrella program for interoperability within the

Federal Government, and gaining the confidence of the State and

local public safety community who own and operate more than 90

percent of the Nation’s public safety infrastructure, without whom

this effort cannot succeed. We are, with all our partners, working

toward a world where lives and property are never lost because

public safety agencies cannot communicate. The bottom line? There

are no simple solutions and no quick fixes, but the problem is not

insoluble if we marshal our resources and work together.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Boyd follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I am so grateful you stopped because we didn’t hit

the clock. It is the first time in my 16 years that I remember that

not happening. You could have gone on forever, sir. So thank you

very much.

Dr. Morgan, you won’t be so lucky. You are on.

Dr. MORGAN. Oh, well, I will try to keep to the 5 minutes.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Clay, Mr. Kucinich, members

of the subcommittees. I am John Morgan, Acting Assistant Director

for Science and Technology of the National Institute of Justice. NIJ

is the research, development, and evaluation arm of the Department of Justice and a component of the Department’s Office of Justice Programs. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss

the history of NIJ’s AGILE program, you have heard some of it already today, and to present current interoperability solutions and

discuss research and development plans that can help the law enforcement and first responder communities develop long-term interoperability solutions.

NIJ established the AGILE program to assist State and local law

enforcement and public safety agencies in effectively and efficiently

communicating with one another, using both voice and data, across

agency and jurisdictional boundaries. AGILE accomplishes its mission through four main program components: supporting research

and development of technology; testing, evaluating, and demonstrating technologies; developing technology standards; and educating and reaching out to public safety practitioners and policymakers. AGILE is helping bridge the gap in emergency communication by identifying, adopting, and developing interoperability solutions that include open architecture, not proprietary standards, for

voice, data, image, and video communications systems.

AGILE serves all of public safety, but is primarily focused on law

enforcement’s unique needs. For example, police in general care

first and foremost about solutions for day-to-day operations in

criminal justice problems. Such solutions, which use open architecture and support day-to-day needs, will also serve where multiple

parties need to exchange information on the spot, at critical incidents.

Much of AGILE’s success can be attributed to its partnership

with several of NIJ’s regional technology centers, especially the

Rocky Mountain and Northeast centers, and its partnership with

the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These facilities have performed much of the work that you will hear about

today and are included in the written testimony in more detail.

AGILE actually dates back to the mid-1990’s, actually under the

able leadership and vision of Dr. Boyd, when he sat as the Director

of the Office of Science and Technology within NIJ. The first system that NIJ pursued at that time was BORTAC, the Border Tactical Communications System, which connected the dispatch centers of 12 agencies operating in San Diego County, including the

Border Patrol, INS, California Highway Patrol, San Diego Police

Department, and others. BORTAC, which has actually been operational since 1996, demonstrated early on that overcoming institutional and cultural barriers in developing interoperable systems is

often more important and more difficult than overcoming existing

technical barriers. It actually took 2 years to bring everybody toVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00237 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gether on the same page about what to do at BORTAC and only

2 months to implement the technical solution.

NIJ’s interoperability projects portfolio grew after that to include

many other interoperability research projects and data and information sharing projects such as InfoTech in southern Florida and

COPLINK in Arizona, and the development of the leading standard

that is helping to solve this problem right now, the P–25 digital

wireless standard.

In April 2002, NIJ convened NTFI. Again, you have heard about

NTFI today from Marilyn Ward and others, and the staff has the

summary pamphlet on the NTFI guide that came out of the convening of that group, ‘‘Why Can’t We Talk? Working Together to

Bridge the Communication Gap to Save Lives,’’ an excellent resource for those of you who want to see the major issues in interoperability and what public safety professionals have to say about

it.

NIJ has also developed a strong partnership between its AGILE

program and the Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications program, the E-Gov initiative known as SAFECOM. AGILE’s

years of experience in the areas of technology research and development, standards development, and outreach and support to the

public safety community and national associations enable it to assist SAFECOM in fulfilling its mission. In fact, as we talk today,

AGILE technical representatives are working with SAFECOM on

operational requirements in interoperability elsewhere in this

town.

To best integrate the respective programs, AGILE and

SAFECOM have merged their planning in these areas of common

interest. In order to meet the need for short-term interoperable solutions, NIJ has created a process to research, evaluate, test, and

implement commercially available technologies, including the

ACU–1000 and other communications switches. The ACU–1000 is

actually operational right now in Alexandria, VA.

Another area that we have been very, very much involved in and

is a technology development area is software defined radio [SDR],

which shows the breadth of the NIJ AGILE program. SDR technology replaces the internal hardware of a mobile radio system

with flexible software and promises to provide portable radios that

can adapt to many different radio environments. NIJ funded the

development of a particularly innovative approach that accomplishes all of the radio’s signal processing using a typical general

purpose processor such as a Pentium chip. This approach has been

demonstrated using a hand-held pocket PC to emulate a public

safety radio, and we have successfully demonstrated the ability of

this laboratory prototype to emulate a vast array of radio types

across a wide range of frequencies and protocols.

So what this is, members of the committee, is a PDA, a compact,

pocket PC PDA, with an RF amplifier on the back, and this little

device can emulate, for much less cost than the average radio, honestly, hundreds of different radio types, regardless of frequency and

protocol, across a very, very wide range. This is something that I

think going to be part of the solutions for public safety in the long

run.

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NIJ isn’t saying that this is the only solution. What we are trying to do is create a range of solutions that can be adapted to a

wide range of environments across the pubic safety community.

Mr. SHAYS. Just a quick question. Is that voice and text?

Dr. MORGAN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. We need to have you wrap up here.

Dr. MORGAN. I will wrap that up. I wanted to show off my cool

toy.

And we are also, of course, working with public safety associations to provide for how such systems can be implemented in public

safety and in a regulatory environment.

I appreciate the committee’s interest in this very, very vitally important area of interoperable communications.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Morgan follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Morgan.

Mr. Muleta.

Mr. MULETA. Thank you.

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

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to have you pull the mic a little closer.

We can hear you, but we would like to hear you better.

Mr. MULETA. I was going to say can you hear me now, but that

would favor one carrier over another.

I want to start off by first recognizing Congressman Putnam. My

early beginnings as an engineer was out in Brandon, FL, so I think

we have something in common there.

Mr. SHAYS. Was that when he was in junior high school?

Mr. MULETA. I don’t know. I don’t know if he went to Brandon;

he might have been Polk County.

But I also want to recognize the fact that interoperability is demonstrated to me every morning when I drive in from Arlington on

the way to my office in Washington, when I drive through the Pentagon area on the way to the 14th Street Bridge. There you see the

Virginia State Police, the Arlington County Police, the DOD folks

all trying to work together to make sure that the Defense Department, the Pentagon is safe, and I think that is a demonstration of

the kind of interoperability that needs to take place.

What my talk today will describe is how the FCC and my bureau

in particular are facilitating interoperability and effective public

safety communications.

Mr. SHAYS. You can move that mic about 2 inches back and we

will be fine. No, I like hearing someone like I am hearing you, so

thank you.

Mr. MULETA. All right.

I will also touch upon the three critical issues that drive interoperability and effective use of public safety spectrum. These are

the need for local, State, and Federal planning coordination; the

need for public safety systems to take advantage of the latest technology; and, three, the financial infrastructure to help address the

coordination and technology adoption issues. Under the able leadership of Chairman Michael Powell, the Commission has systematically addressed and will continue to address these issues.

My dear colleague, Ed Thomas, will describe the issues related

to public safety interference issues and the potential solution, so

my focus will be on the activities of the Bureau to develop a network of effective public safety systems. We are doing that while

being cognizant of the varying needs and interests of more than

40,000 different public safety entities in the country.

First of all, I do want to assure the members of the subcommittee

that we place the highest priority on public safety issues, and these

issues not include the public safety radio system, but also the integration of critical infrastructure industries and a seamless nationwide E–911 system into a national homeland security and safety

system.

Our commitment is exemplified by the dedication and hard work

of the over 90 people that we have working in our Public Safety

and Private Wireless Division. These lawyers, engineers, and analysts process over 400,000 different license applications, transfers,

and requests for special temporary authority, and they also deal

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with the highly complicated legal and regulatory issues that are

presented by public safety radio operations.

In addition, we work closely with other offices and Bureaus in

the Commission, including the Homeland Security Policy Council,

which was created under the direction and leadership of Chairman

Powell. It is through this interdisciplinary council that we are able

to coordinate our activities with other Federal, State, and local authorities in order to put in place measures that protect our country’s telecommunications, broadcasts, and other communications,

infrastructures, and facilities from adverse attacks.

In terms of planning and coordination in greater interoperability,

the FCC has been active in promoting better coordination between

different public safety entities. The FCC first explored a national

and regional planning approach for public safety spectrum in the

1980’s as an alternative to the traditional first come, first served

licensing approach. It was during this process that service rules

and technical standards were adopted to govern a dedicated 6

megahertz of public safety spectrum in the 800 megahertz band.

Most importantly during this process, the Commission designated

five channels nationwide for mutual aid cooperation and communication.

As part of the planning process, there were 55 regional planning

committees, broken down along State lines, to develop regional

plans tailored to the particular public safety communication needs

of each region. This same regional planning process was also adopted and used as a model for the 700 megahertz public safety band

plan. We chartered the Public Safety National Coordination Committee, the NCC, in 1999 to solicit input from the public safety

community in further development of rules for the use of this technology. Its final recommendations were submitted to us this past

summer and will lead to the development of service rules and regulation that will lead to greater interoperability in the 700 megahertz public safety band.

We are also excited about the growing potential for introducing

technology that will lead to innovative public safety uses. For example, the recently adopted service rules for the 4.9 gigahertz band

accommodate new applications for broadband mobile operations in

the use of fixed hot spots.

We also continue to pursue a flexible licensing regime in the public safety arena and encourage optimal public safety communications and interoperability. For example, licensees in the 4.9

gigahertz band, public safety licensees, are permitted and encouraged to enter sharing agreements or strategic partnerships with

both traditional public safety entities, Federal Government agencies, and non-public safety entities such as critical infrastructure

industries, power and utility companies.

Two remaining challenges relate to funding and leveraging technology to the benefit of public safety. These issues are related, and

we continue to have an open dialog with the public safety community and other interested stakeholders, including equipment manufacturers, critical infrastructure industries, and the commercial

service providers. The creation of more public and private partnership is one potential solution to the funding and technology issue.

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Better spectrum management is also a key issue to address these

concerns.

The 800 megahertz interference proceeding is yet another example where the FCC must address the three challenges of planning

and coordination, technology, and funding to solve the problem. In

addressing the problem, I do want to assure you that we are conducting our examination of potential solutions with the following

priorities in mind. One is to address the interference issues for

public safety first and foremost. Second, we want to adapt a spectrum plan that provides certainty to all the licensees in the band.

And, third, we want to treat all of the affected licensees equitably

as we move to an effective solution.

In conclusion, I want to reaffirm that the FCC views as one of

its highest responsibilities the public safety community. The Commission has been and will continue to be sensitive to the need of

this community by making spectrum available for its use when necessary, by protecting it from interference, and by enabling new

technologies to aid it in its mission.

Thank you again for your invitation to testify on this important

and timely subject. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Muleta follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Thomas.

And then we will go to questions with Mr. Putnam first, and we

are going to do 8 minute rounds of questions, and then we may

have a second. We need to be done by 1.

Thank you.

Mr. Thomas.

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

subcommittee. It is a great pleasure to appear before you to discuss

the critical issues regarding public safety. Public safety has been

one of the Commission’s highest priorities for many years. Today

I will be discussing the role of the Office of Engineering and Technology in ensuring that public safety and other first responders

have the spectrum and technology resources necessary to meet

their critical needs.

I serve as the Commission’s Chief Engineer. Among other things,

my office is responsible for spectrum allocation and technical analysis. Today I will be discussing public safety spectrum allocation and

how the Commission is addressing certain recent interference concerns in the 800 megahertz band.

To put matters in perspective, the Commission has allocated 97

megahertz of spectrum to public safety in 10 different bands.

Therefore, in a typical metropolitan area, there are over 1,000 potential channels available to public safety for voice communication.

In some of the largest metropolitan areas there are even more,

since the Commission has authorized up to an additional 18 megahertz in these areas.

In addition, in the last few years the Commission has taken further steps to allocate new spectrum for public safety use. The Commission recently made available 50 megahertz of spectrum at 4.9

gigahertz. The rules adopted for 4.9 band are intended to accommodate a variety of new broadband applications such as high speed

data and video.

The Commission has also allocated 24 megahertz of spectrum in

the portion of the 700 megahertz band that has been recovered as

part of the digital TV transition. A band plan for this 24 megahertz

has been developed in conjunction with the public safety community and, among other things, it sets aside significant amount of

spectrum for interoperability and future uses.

Interoperability has been a critical issue for the Commission for

many years. Frequencies have been set aside for interoperability at

150 megahertz, at 450 megahertz, at 700 megahertz, and at 800

megahertz. To ensure improved interoperability for public safety

operations, as of January 1, 2005, the Commission will require

newly certified public safety radios to operate on a nationwide safety interoperable calling channel in the band in which the radio operates.

Along with allocation issues, the Commission has also been actively addressing interference to public safety operations. Recently,

the most significant interference issue has arisen in the 800 megahertz band. In March 2002, the Commission began the process of

developing a public record for seeking comment as to what additional steps we should take to help resolve the interference problem. I think it is an understatement to say that the response has

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been robust. Parties have engaged in extensive discussions of the

proposals and have submitted numerous different plans to reduce

interference. For example, last year Nextel joined a group of public

safety and private radio organizations to submit a relocation plan

that was called a consensus plan. Others joined together and filed

an opposition to the plan.

Presently, the Commission staff is diligently analyzing the proposals before it. The public record is comprehensive, contradictory,

and complex. We are committed to resolving this public safety interference problem as quickly as humanly possible.

On another front, the Commission is moving forward to enable

and encourage development of new technologies that hold promise

for public safety use. Ultra wideband technology is one example.

The most relevant application of ultra wideband technology for

public safety is imaging. For example, in hostage situations,

through-the-wall imaging systems can be used to pinpoint the location and movement of persons within a building. Similarly, a

ground penetrating radar system can be used to locate buried objects or underground faults.

The Commission is also actively pursuing the public safety potential of cognitive radio technology or software-defined radios, which

holds tremendous promise in the area of interoperability and interference rejection or avoidance. For instance, during an emergency,

these radios will have the capability to configure themselves for

interoperable use and adjust automatically to avoid interference.

Mr. Chairman and Members, allow me to end as I have begun.

The Commission views its responsibility in the public safety arena

as one of its highest responsibilities. The Commission has been and

will continue to be sensitive to the needs of that community by

making spectrum available to it when necessary, by protecting it

from interference, and by enabling new technologies to facilitate

the completion of its mission.

Thank you for the opportunity of addressing the subcommittee.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

The Chair will recognize Mr. Putnam for 8 minutes and all Members for 8 minutes. We will then go to Mr. Clay.

I want to just point out my biggest fear is I feel that when everyone is in charge, no one is in charge, and so, in the end, I am going

to be very eager to know who is going to take ownership.

Mr. Putnam.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have given me a

perfect lead-in. My committee’s jurisdictional role here is mostly related to the fact that this is an E-Gov initiative, which is Ms. Bailey’s bailiwick; SAFECOM is a homeland security initiative, which

is Dr. Boyd’s bailiwick; Dr. Morgan has presented the AGILE program through Justice; and then, of course, the underlying spectrum

issues are FCC. So what or who is coordinating all of the key Federal stakeholders to make sure that we have one streamlined

SAFECOM program and that we avoid the duplication of efforts

that has been the frustration so eloquently presented by our first

panel?

Well, I am not sure who should answer it. Who is in charge?

Does Dr. Morgan report to Dr. Boyd, since Dr. Boyd runs the

SAFECOM program?

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Dr. MORGAN. Well, with respect to interoperability, it is the settled position of the National Institute of Justice that SAFECOM is

the primary coordinator of all activities in that area, and the

AGILE program, as a result, has worked very diligently to coordinate all of its activities with SAFECOM on a daily basis. When we

do our planning and program review in December for the AGILE

program, we are doing it jointly with SAFECOM so that everything

that we are doing is vetted through that effort and everything is

coordinated with that effort. And so we feel that we have a very

unique role because of our history, our technical expertise within

our center system, and our focus on law enforcement, but we also

feel that it is very important to coordinate with SAFECOM as well.

Mr. PUTNAM. And have them play the lead in this area. So Dr.

Boyd is the lead agency.

Dr. MORGAN. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. And AGILE reports to Dr. Boyd.

Dr. BOYD. There obviously is a formal legal structure that has to

do with direct reporting. What I can tell you is that we cooperate

to the extent that we talked about what we were going to say in

the testimony and how we would relate those things. We participate actively in progress reviews within AGILE; we have participated in the development of those programs. This, in fact, extends

across not just AGILE and SAFECOM, but well beyond that. So,

for example, when the interoperability grants which were authorized by Congress in 2003 were awarded roughly $75 million in

FEMA and $75 million in COPS—COPS, of course, in Justice and

FEMA in DHS, we also worked actively with both of those agencies

to develop the Common Grant Guidance which they then used as

part of that solicitation. And we have worked directly with the Office of Domestic Preparedness, so that the SAFECOM guidance is

incorporated in their program as well. To give you an idea of the

level of coordination, AGILE was tasked with developing the common performance template they were going to use to collect the

data, so we could see how well the FEMA and COPS grants were

actually accomplishing interoperability, and we even participated

again with the AGILE program in developing the peer review process that supported both the FEMA and the COPS selections.

We have created a Federal coordination council, in fact, which includes not just the funding partners, but also includes all of those

other activities that are providing grants that touch on interoperability. In fact, we have had meetings already in the last couple of

months and we will have more meetings in the next couple of

months as we begin to work through these things.

Mr. PUTNAM. If I am a police chief working on interoperability

issues, do I call Karen Evans at OMB, who is Director of E-Gov Initiatives; do I call Dr. Boyd with SAFECOM; do I call Dr. Morgan

with AGILE; or do I call the FCC?

Dr. BOYD. If you call any of the three of us, it is going to wind

up in my office, and we will coordinate the response back. In fact,

we have a staff for that. As we tell chiefs right now, one of the

quickest ways if you want an answer in a hurry is to just send a

message to safecom@dhs.gov and we will respond, and then we will

coordinate whether it is AGILE that needs to be involved in that

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activity or we will advise them if we think they need to refer it to

the FCC or others.

Mr. PUTNAM. So these marketing materials, what is on this? We

just received this from AGILE.

Dr. MORGAN. As I alluded to in the testimony, AGILE has a very

wide range of work that it has done I standards development and

research and development, test and evaluation, such as the AC–

1000 switch in Alexandria. What this CD contains is a very wide

range of documents and publications that can be accessed by everyone from policymakers right down to the technical people who are

trying to implement these illusions. And so this AGILE Resource

CD is something that we give out broadly at public safety associations and to people who are calling to determine what best solutions fit into their local environment, and so on. So it is a very wide

range of publications and knowledge, and I would say it captures

the vast majority of the knowledge that has been gained through

the AGILE program over the last decade.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, let me ask what apparently is probably a

delicate question. In creating the Department of Homeland Security, we ruffled a lot of features because we moved some serious

agencies around. I mean, we dislocated Coast Guard out of Transportation, which was a huge deal; we moved Secret Service around;

we did all these things. Is AGILE best located in the Department

of Homeland Security, considering the overlapping role?

Dr. MORGAN. Well, first of all, I think that AGILE and

SAFECOM have a very strong working relationship, and if it ain’t

broke, don’t fix it is the first part of it.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is what people said before we passed the

Homeland Security bill.

Dr. MORGAN. The other issue I would say is that law enforcement has some problems with respect to day-to-day communications that we don’t want to get subsumed in the overall public safety environment. In this city every day, not every day, but this year

in this city there will be over 300 murders. There is a criminal justice mission that is separate from the Homeland Security mission,

and a criminal justice mission that is very serious and important

in this country; and, honestly, the investments that are necessary

in building technology for criminal justice are extremely important

and oftentimes overlooked. NIJ is focused on local law enforcement,

and I think we are working very well with SAFECOM.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Evans, what is your role in this?

Ms. EVANS. As the Administrator for E-Government and IT, it is

my role to ensure that, and facilitate the cooperation and the coordination that has been demonstrated today. Additionally, what is

also important in my role is that investments that are in the Federal space that are providing this service are done wisely and that

meet the goals. So it is the administration’s viewpoint that

SAFECOM is the umbrella program for the Federal Government,

and that we are working to ensure that all the Federal Government investments in this space are working through the

SAFECOM to ensure that the standards, once the standards are

established and that the architecture and those types of issues are

there, that all the Federal investments those requirements.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Is there a plan somewhere that has short-and longterm milestones for SAFECOM’s progress?

Ms. EVANS. Yes, sir, there is. And we are also in the process of

reviewing the plan again to ensure that we are keeping to 10 percent of the performance and schedule and budget. And as we move

through the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle, it is our intention at the

end of this to ensure that there is great visibility into all of the

projects, not just the SAFECOM project, but all E-Gov projects so

that question will be answered and that information will be available.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, am I out of time? Thank you.

Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I said 2 minutes, but it had been about

a minute and 20 seconds. I am sorry.

At this time I recognize Mr. Clay. I asked Mr. Clay, now that the

two of you are working instead of the two of us, if he had been a

bad influence on you, and he said, I hope so.

Mr. Clay, you have the floor.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we work together

well.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. I guess this is directed to the FCC witnesses. Councilwoman Praisner has suggested that the money from the spectrum

auctions be used to support local first responders. This is a twopart question. First, please tell me where the money from past auctions has gone and, second, what do you think of the councilwoman’s proposal? Either one, Mr. Thomas or Mr. Muleta can attempt to answer that.

Mr. MULETA. Thank you. The first question is where has auctions money gone? The auctions are designed to assign licenses between mutually exclusive licensees, and the moneys paid to that go

directly to the Treasury. So that is one answer.

Your second question is what we think about the proposal. Generally, we defer to the legislatures on their initiatives. You know,

that is something that is sort of in the purview of Congress as to

whether that is an appropriate solution for the funding issues. I do

recognize there are funding issues for first responders, and it is a

very complex problem that needs to be tackled. There are over

40,000 public safety systems nationwide, and coordinating the

funding structure for all of them and just the communication

among all of them on the coordination issue is an important aspect

of this. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Has the FCC weighed in in any way on this proposal

that the councilwoman has offered up?

Mr. MULETA. My general understanding is that we do not comment on legislative initiatives; that is not under our purview.

Mr. CLAY. OK, thank you, Mr. Muleta.

Let me ask Dr. Boyd what requirements is the Department of

Homeland Security putting on grants to first responders, and do

you require that governments develop plans for interoperability?

Dr. BOYD. I think there are two answers to that. The first one

is that in this last year, as we developed the guidance, we, in some

cases, shoehorned the guidance in what the existing legislation said

because every program wasn’t driven under exactly the same set of

rules, so we had to make some adjustments for that. But, in fact,

we have worked with what is called the Consortium for the Improvement of Public Safety Communications, which is an organization made up of all of the major public safety organizations: the

International Association of Fire Chiefs, Chiefs of Police, Major

City Chiefs, Major City Sheriffs, the Association of Public Safety

Communications Officers. Working with them, we developed the

Common Grant Guidance, which then became part of the criteria

that was used both in asking that they complete the applications

in a way that addressed that guidance and then was used as part

of the criteria in deciding how they were going to be selected, and

that included a number of things. Where appropriate, for example,

it strongly encouraged the use of P–25. P–25, as you know, is a

standard which addresses digital trunk radio systems. And in each

instance it looked largely for cross-jurisdictional, cross-disciplinary

kinds of partnerships that addressed specifically the interoperability problem.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

And tell me which agency is responsible for communicating with

the local officials. Whose responsibility is that?

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Dr. BOYD. Obviously, we would hope that local agencies would

have access to any agency that they needed help from. Within the

interoperability community we have been very proactive in going

out and creating a structure that doesn’t just allow occasional communication when they want to talk to us but, in fact, fosters an ongoing dialog. And so we have both an executive committee and an

advisory committee structure which is built around the public safety community and around public officials so that, for example, as

you heard in the earlier panel in your earlier hearing, Marilyn

Praisner, Marilyn Ward and others are part of the SAFECOM system and, in fact, we meet with them. Eventually we will meet with

them quarterly; right now we are meeting about every 4 to 6

weeks, as we put the foundations in place to do the things we think

we need to.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Will SAFECOM be a one-stop shopping place for

local governments who are trying to solve problems of interoperability?

Dr. BOYD. That is in fact the focus, that we would be not necessarily the sole place that would do that. AGILE is an R&D activity; we would anticipate that COPS and others would do that. But

what we do see SAFECOM’s role as is a place that you can go to

in a one-stop basis and we will make the connections, so that instead of the local agency having to know that they need to talk to

the COPS Office or to ODP to get the kind of training and technical

assistance they need, they can come to SAFECOM and we will link

them with the right folks.

Mr. CLAY. OK, any other panelists want to contribute? Ms.

Evans.

Ms. EVANS. The one thing that I would like to point out is on the

24 E-Gov initiatives there is another initiative. Although we talk

about them separate, they are going forward to ensure that there

is coordination among those. And, of course, there is one which is

grants.gov. And so the opportunities that you are talking about

that are related to grants and how the grants go forward, there are

opportunities there that we, as the administration, ensure that

those opportunities then are coordinated between these initiatives

to ensure that if they went to grants.gov to find out what opportunities were available to them, they would also then, if they were

specifically interested in interoperability wireless types of opportunities, that would then be linked to the SAFECOM project.

Mr. CLAY. All right. Well, I thank the panel for their answers.

And in the interest of time, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the

balance of mine.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time we will recognize Mr. Schrock for 8 minutes.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before we start, I notice the members of the first panel are here, and I am wondering

if you all have copies of that.

Mr. SHAYS. We will note for the record nodding of heads.

Mr. SCHROCK. Appropriate nodding.

I am sorry you guys weren’t here for the first panel, but some

of the testimony they had was amazing, especially some of the comments that were made by Congresswoman Jane Harman from California about this issue as it related to the California fires that, unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00288 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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fortunately, they are still engaged in. And she said if they had

some of these systems in place, firefighters in California could have

had real-time tracking maps to show progress of the fires, locations

of other firefighters, critical infrastructures, blueprint layouts, etc.

And then probably the most compelling statement of all the testimony came from Marilyn Ward, who said in here interoperability

has been brought to the forefront by disasters such as the Air Florida plane crash here in D.C. on the 14th Street Bridge. I don’t

know how many of you remember that. That was 21 years ago.

Twenty-one years ago, and we are still discussing this subject. So

clearly something has to be done.

Let me followup on something that I am not sure I got a complete answer to what Mr. Putnam was asking and I gather, Dr.

Boyd, you have taken possession of responsibility, that is the way

I figured it, so I guess I am going to aim this at you. Who has the

sole responsibility for creating and facilitating these standards on

a Federal-to-Federal basis, Federal-to-Federal interoperability, Federal-to-State, State-to-local, and regional? I am not sure. Maybe I

was fiddling with my papers and didn’t hear you answer that, but

who has that responsibility?

Dr. BOYD. I don’t think you missed it; I am not sure that we addressed that specifically. But, in fact, standards is a key component

of what we are trying to do in SAFECOM, and it is standards at

all of the levels. And, in fact, the instrument that we are using to

help do that is the Office of Law Enforcement Standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and that has been a

partnership that has existed for a long time that started, in fact,

before even I was in the Office of Science and Technology, and that

entails working at all of the levels together.

We don’t believe that there is a separate set of Federal interoperability standards and a separate set of State standards and a separate set of local standards; we think they need to be a common set

of standards.

Mr. SCHROCK. I agree.

Dr. BOYD. And so the approach that we are using working with

the National Institute of Standards and Technology involves a

number of pieces. One of the first pieces, and it has been an interesting challenge, is who are all the players in this community. So

some months ago, in May or June, as I recall, we asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology to convene a summit

to invite in all of the Federal and national organizations that had

some role in interoperability so that we could create what amounted to a catalog of all the players so we could figure out who ought

to be involved with us in doing this and who ought to be involved

in the standards process. That resulted in that catalog. In fact,

there is a report to that effect and it is on a Web site.

Mr. SCHROCK. Who should it be?

Dr. BOYD. I am sorry?

Mr. SCHROCK. Who should that person be? For instance, on our

recent panel we just had Ms. Valicenti. She is the head of the National Chief Information Officers, but she also runs the Kentucky

one. Is it somebody like Mrs. Valicenti that should be doing this?

Should it be one person at the State level, one State person for

each of the States doing this?

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Dr. BOYD. Clearly she is one of the people that we need to have

involved in this, and, in fact, each of the States has its own structure and we work with whatever that State structure is. To be very

frank, in order to make interoperability work at any level, what is

most essential to begin with, whether it is at a county level or

State level at the Federal level, is the creation of a governance

structure that gives everybody in it at every level a stake in playing a role; and they have to feel credibly that they are at the table,

that they have a role, that they are not just there, that they actually are helping to steer it and helping to shape it.

Mr. SCHROCK. Now, are they at the table?

Dr. BOYD. They are in SAFECOM.

Mr. SCHROCK. They are, OK.

Dr. BOYD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHROCK. All right, that is good.

You threw me off there, I was thinking of something else. Let me

think here a minute.

Does the DHS and SAFECOM have the overall lead responsibility for coordinating Federal efforts to assist State and local governments, address barriers to interoperability? In the area where I

live, I represent Virginia Beach and Norfolk. We just had a fairly

bad hurricane come through there, and because of what we have

done over the last couple of years, by proving moneys so all the localities have the same kind of equipment, you would be amazed.

I rode with the police for 24 hours; they could talk to anybody in

the area. But that is just our area; that isn’t even Richmond or

northern Virginia or the State.

I just wonder does DHS have the authority they need to make

all this happen.

Dr. BOYD. When we began to develop the SAFECOM strategy,

and we actually have five components of it, one of those critical

components was identifying what the barriers are, and we actually

called it that, said the barriers; what creates the problem. And in

that list there are more things that are both human and cultural

and policy than there are that are technical. To be very frank, the

technologies that could make this happen exist but have not been

largely employed, have not been put into place in most cases.

Mr. SCHROCK. Why?

Dr. BOYD. For many of the same reason that BORTAC, which we

began actually back in 1993, took 2 years to get people to agree on

what the protocols would be, on what the language would be, on

who would control the decision on who you talk to. When you can

actually develop a regional system like the one you just spoke of

or what is happening under the Capital Wireless Integrated Network, what happened in SAFECOM or under BORTAC in San

Diego, then you begin, I think, to begin the kind of movement that

we eventually have to spread across the country.

I am not going to try to tell you that we have been successful

in all the regions yet in communicating that piece of it, but that

is a critical part, I think, of the national leadership, is to help local

activities and demonstrate by taking examples like the Virginia

Beach example, like some of the examples in Chicago, in South Dakota and other places and say, look, here are places where it not

only worked, it paid huge dividends for those agencies who were inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:01 Jul 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00290 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\93427.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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volved, and you didn’t lose control, you didn’t lose the ability to

communicate the way you needed to.

Mr. SCHROCK. Do you think it is local politics that is getting in

the way of some of this? Everybody has their own way of doing

things and change is hard for people to accept, or what?

Dr. BOYD. I think I would be inclined to agree, that human nature is always going to be an element of this.

Dr. MORGAN. It is a natural outgrowth of the Federal system. I

mean, we have thousands and thousands of independent public

safety agencies out there because that is the way the founding fathers established the Constitution in their wisdom and, as a result,

it is not necessarily a problem that the Federal Government can

easily come in and say, all right, here is the solution and everybody

adopt it. That wouldn’t be appropriate. The best thing to do is to

give them standards they can operate to, have the money that is

put out from the Federal Government adhere to those standards,

and provide technical assistance so that they will be able to implement systems.

Mr. SCHROCK. When I was in the State senate I thought, if the

Federal Government told us to do anything, mind your own business, we’re meddling, you know, frankly. And I was always one to

say that people at the local level know how to handle their business better. But I think when you are dealing with an issue like

this and we are dealing with terror, there has to be a basic framework from which everybody works; and I think we talked about

that in the last panel. And unless we have that, you know, unless

people are able to agree to that, we are never going to come up

with a solution.

My gosh, is my 8 minutes up already?

Mr. SHAYS. Keep going.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK.

I want to ask Ms. Evans something. In fact, Ms. Evans, you are

new in your current job, aren’t you? I met with her on another

issue the other day and enjoyed that, and I was surprised to see

her here. What has the OMB done to promote better management

of public safety spectrum issues in Federal departments, and do

you all have the money available to do this effectively?

Ms. EVANS. Currently what OMB is doing, what the administration is doing is really working through the SAFECOM initiative,

and the SAFECOM initiative is our umbrella program to ensure

that the Federal resources in this area are directed to support the

overall need of what we have been talking about and to ensure that

partnership occurs.

Additionally, dealing with the spectrum issue, the administration

has launched an initiative which is underway under the leadership

of the Department of Commerce that is looking at the spectrum

issue overall. That task force work is ongoing and Commerce is the

lead on that to address some of the other issues that we are talking

about as far as spectrum and spectrum usage and spectrum management.

Mr. SCHROCK. Are all the other agencies as engaged as Commerce, for instance, and do they have the funding to do this as

well?

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Ms. EVANS. All the agencies are engaged in this, this task force

that is going forward that is supposed to provide a recommendation

to the President of how we can move forward to address the spectrum issue. That report and that task force is ongoing, so as that

evolves we would be glad to come back to the committee and tell

you how that work is going on.

As far as the funding issue, we continuously look at that, and as

we are going through the 2005 cycle, we are addressing and looking

at those issues to ensure that as we move forward, projects such

as SAFECOM do have the funding that they need in order to move

forward to achieve the results.

Mr. SCHROCK. What is the next step to get this done? What do

we need to do to get this done? And if it means we in Congress

have to do something to step up to the plate and do it, I think we

need to do it, and the quicker the better, because the folks who appeared before you have been here before and I think they are frustrated that not much is happening, and it looks to me like the

problems that exist probably exist right here on Capitol Hill. We

have to try to help resolve this. And I understand every time we

pass a bill or do anything, more people’s rights are taken away, but

we are in a war right now, and I certainly don’t want it to come

to our homeland anymore. What is the next step? What do you

think we need to do to get this done and get it done quickly?

I am asking all of you that.

Dr. BOYD. In SAFECOM, in fact, we have identified a list of

things that we think we need to do, and, in fact, 2 or 3 weeks ago

we brought that before another joint committee, in fact, I believe

the chairman was at that session, and in it we pointed out that one

of the critical things we needed was a governance structure that

means that everybody that actually plays has a stake in it, has a

role, and has a voice, so that it is both credible and it begins to

get at those human issues you raised earlier.

The second one is the development for the first time of a genuine

Statement of Requirements. What exactly do we need in interoperability; what level of interoperability, for what purpose, and what

ought to be the rules that surround it.

Mr. SCHROCK. Who is going to create those rules?

Dr. BOYD. We are doing that right now.

Mr. SCHROCK. So you have ownership of that.

Dr. BOYD. That is correct. In fact, this afternoon I will be in reviewing the draft Statement of Requirements.

Mr. SCHROCK. Oh, good.

Dr. BOYD. The third thing we then need is the development of

common guidance, grant guidance, which we have done, we are

going to continue to refine that, out of which, with the Statement

of Requirements and the guidance, we then hope to come up with

a suite of standards. Now, these aren’t necessarily going to be all

new standards; there are standards, in fact, that are useful in a variety of areas that we will want to adopt. What we want to do is

create a package of standards, and then create standards where

holes exist, is what we call a standards gap analysis, and then use

those standards both to help guide industry in what they ought to

be producing for us and to help guide State and local activities, and

even Federal activities, when they go to buy the equipment.

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And then the last piece, the last crucial piece that we think

needs to be applied here is some serious technical assistance. As

you are well aware, most local jurisdictions don’t have scientists or

engineers or technicians as part of their public safety staff, and we

need to provide them an objective capability through the system to

do that, and so activities are being put together by the Office of Domestic Preparedness, by the AGILE program and the center system, and in some of the holes by SAFECOM so that we can begin

to provide that objective assistance and they don’t have to depend

solely on vendors for the information, but can get broad, disinterested advice.

Mr. SCHROCK. I agree with everything you said. I just hope we

can keep the standards and the rules and the regulations and the

process simple so that the localities will be able to implement it

easily and that there is the least amount of man-hours possible and

the least amount of cost, because cost is everything right now at

the localities, they are all screaming about it, they sure are in the

district I represent, and I think the sooner we get this done the

better.

I thank you all for coming here.

And I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Oh yes I do.

Mr. Thomas, you said something about 1,000 channels in some

metro areas, and it just went right over my head, but the number

kind of baffled me. Help me understand that.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, what I mean by that, Congressman, is the

Commission has allocated an aggregate 97 megahertz of spectrum

across 10 bands. They are available in almost all metropolitan

areas.

Mr. SCHROCK. Oh, I see.

Mr. THOMAS. OK? If you just translate those to a number of voice

channels that is equivalent to, that is roughly, conservatively

speaking, it is about 1,000.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK, I see. You said something else, through-thewall detection, and that is of interest to me because I represent the

Port of Hampton Roads and, really, port security is my No. 1 issue

right now, because I worry about those container ships with 3,000

containers coming in there and I think what is on there, what little

device is in the corner of one of those things that when it gets to

a certain grid behind the carrier person, it blows up, takes out our

Navy and takes out our port, and I worry about that all the time.

Every time I cross that bridge I see it.

Help me understand that technology.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, there is a technology called ultra wideband

technology.

Mr. SCHROCK. What is it?

Mr. THOMAS. Ultra wideband technology. Sometimes it is referred to as UWB. It is very, very broadband, of the order of 4 or

5 gigahertz wide, but very, very low power, almost at the noise

level. It has the capability of penetrating walls, and there are technologies available or devices available today.

Mr. SCHROCK. All kinds of walls; steel, concrete?

Mr. THOMAS. Well, I mean, there are certain walls that render

it less effective than others, but the answer to your question generally is yes. It is used by special ops in the military and S.W.A.T.

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teams, and basically what you can do is you put a device up

against the wall and you get a radar picture of the movement inside of the wall, so you can keep track of individuals; it is used for

hostage resolution issues, that kind of thing.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK, now I know what it is. Special operations

forces have shown me that in Virginia.

Mr. THOMAS. And it is used by S.W.A.T. teams as well in the

local areas as well.

Dr. MORGAN. Congressman, if I may, I also would recommend to

you two other sets of experience with respect to technology for security of ports. The first, Project Seahawk out of Charleston,

Charleston is a very large port, as you know, as well, is being run

out of our southeast center and is applying technologies to the security of the Charleston port, as well as providing interoperability

solutions in the Charleston area with law enforcement and public

safety.

The other, I think, most extraordinary effort in terms of security

of ports in this country is being run by the Port Authority of New

York and New Jersey. There is a man up there by the name of

John Pachowski who is doing amazing work in protecting the ports

associated with New York and has put in the best technology that

I have seen, and I think that we would be happy to put the folks

in Newport News-Hampton Roads in touch with him and the other

people who are supporting his efforts.

Mr. SCHROCK. Put me in touch with him. That would be great.

Dr. MORGAN. Yes.

Mr. SCHROCK. That would be great. Thank you very much. That

used to be a Navy base; now it is a commercial port in Charleston,

isn’t it?

Dr. MORGAN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

It is my intention originally to be out at 1. I think we can go to

probably 10 after, and then we will need to go for the 1:30 committee meeting we are having here.

It is also my intention to ask some questions. I think Mr.

Janklow may come back, and I also want the professional staff to

ask a few.

As I think of this hearing, first, the Government Reform Committee looks at programs. We look at programs for waste, abuse, and

fraud. We try to make Government work better; we don’t appropriate, we don’t legislate except in some areas, and we try to get

those committees of cognizance to legislate, and we do a darned

successful job, and we do a pretty successful job getting, I think,

the executive branch to sometimes revisit its rules and regulations

and performance. So in this hearing we are talking about the ability to communicate within communities local, regional, State, and

the ability to communicate among communities local, regional, and

State as well, and we want to know how these laws are doing, how

the regulations are doing, and how the administration is doing.

When I look at this issue and I see what SAFECOM is having

to do with those organizations, some of those organizations represent some big, complex groups such as, for instance, the Governors organization, for one. As one of my staff members described

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it, it is like herding cats with a squirt gun. So that almost seems

hopeless, so I will reject his description.

But what I want to know, first, with the megahertz issue, the TV

stations are basically supposed to get out of the 700 megahertz by

2006, is that correct? That is the end, right? I mean, it would be

nice if they did it sooner.

Mr. THOMAS. Unfortunately, Congressman, that is not the end.

That is the objective, but there is another hook in the law, as I understand it; and I am not a lawyer.

Mr. SHAYS. Every time someone says they are not a lawyer, they

are giving themselves a compliment.

Mr. THOMAS. I am not going to touch that one with a 10 foot

pole.

But also what is required is that within a market that 85 percent

of the receivers be equipped to receive digital TV.

Mr. SHAYS. So the reality is, let us cut to the short, 2006 is almost meaningless.

Mr. THOMAS. It is highly unlikely.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So that requires a legal change, a law to change

that. That is not a regulation, that is a law, correct?

Mr. THOMAS. That is correct. But there is a consequence, and you

should be aware of it, and that is the following: the way the process

is set up is that basically a broadcaster presently has an analog

channel. He is going to be moved somewhere in the spectrum to get

a digital channel. When the channel is up and running, and when

the market, and that market area is 85 percent or better digital,

he loses the analog channel. The problem is if you speed it up,

what occurs is that broadcaster could have no market. He could

have a digital transmitter operating with no receivers in the market, and then there is a consequential question.

Mr. SHAYS. Just tell me the bottom line, all right? What is the

bottom line?

Mr. THOMAS. The bottom line is, very simply, broadcasters have

to be able to earn their living. If they have no market, they have

no advertising. And it is just a caution, that is all I am giving you

here.

Mr. SHAYS. So the solution is what?

Mr. THOMAS. Well, the solution is not an easy one, but one of the

things we have done at the Commission, for instance, is when we

did our digital planning we kept Channel 63, 64, 68, and 69 mostly

vacant for interoperability. That is pretty much available in many

spots in the United States today. The second thing is we did make

available, as I said, the 50 megahertz at 4.9. The problem is, in the

interoperability space, is that the entrenched receivers don’t have

that capability, so in order to get to interoperability there at least

has to be some money provided someplace to upgrade the equipment. And they could also use part of the 700 band as well as other

places, 150, 450 and the like.

Mr. SHAYS. The FCC spectrum task force report, this was issued,

I guess, in November 2002. One recommended objective was to define and set standards of interference. Why is it so hard to come

to an agreement on definition of interference? And when does the

FCC hope to quantify acceptable levels of interference in the safety

band area?

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Mr. THOMAS. You are talking about at 800 megahertz, Congressman?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. All I can tell you is that is about the highest priority we have right now at the Commission. What makes it difficult

is that interference is not a simple concept, it has several parameters that you have to juggle. One thing is if the public safety

transmitter were at higher power, the effect of interference from

other systems would be mitigated. So the first question is to what

level do you protect public safety. The further you get away from

the transmitter, the more susceptible it is to interference. So what

diameter around the transmitter do you protect, that is the first

issue.

The second issue is when you provide protection for interference,

you basically move costs. If you make that diameter small, the public safety community incurs costs. If you make that diameter large,

the adjacent community, those who are adjacent to it, incur cost.

And the question is what is the appropriate public interest decision, and we are in the process of analyzing this right now.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, how long, how long, how long, how long? How

long is it going to take?

Mr. THOMAS. Let us put it this way. I can’t commit the Commission because, obviously, that is a matter of vote, but I think it is

imminent. And when I say that, several months.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, based on the FCC, several months would be imminent, with all due respect.

You know, I have questions, but I want Mr. Janklow to ask his,

so I am going to give him his 8 minutes.

Mr. JANKLOW. I will try and be brief, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. You ask the questions you need to ask.

Mr. JANKLOW. I apologize for having left, but I had my weekly

press conference I had to do back home with the folks on the telephone.

But you, Mr. Muleta, and you, Mr. Thomas, on behalf of the people of my State I would like to thank you. The FCC has moved

mountains to assist us to getting transferred 150 frequencies to put

this State-wide trunk system together that we put together, and

you and your team of people have really done a phenomenal job.

As a matter of fact, in order to get 150 frequencies, we went out

in the public spectrum and bought them, and have had to have

them transferred, bought them in other States, neighboring States,

and used a little bit of subterfuge with some of the auctions working through people in Texas, because we weren’t a qualified bidder

in time, so we had to find a qualified bidder to get ourselves frequencies.

We need to fix by legislation these problems that you are being

asked about, don’t you agree? Don’t you gentlemen agree? You can

just say yes or no.

Mr. MULETA. Well, I think in general any issues, you know,

where we have to sort of balance interest, having the legislators

participate brings a greater focus on it.

Mr. JANKLOW. Let me give you an example briefly. I can remember during the invasion of Grenada. Afterwards, there was a major

in the 101st Airborne Division that received the bronze star. What

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he earned the bronze star for was he was trying to call in an air

strike on a building, and he, in the Army, couldn’t reach the Air

Force airplanes. So he went to a pay telephone, used his AT&T

credit card, called the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters in

North Carolina, they patched him into the Pentagon, which

patched him into a communications system, which patched him

into the Air Force airplanes.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to interrupt the gentleman. We know the

system is bad. We just need to get some answers right now.

Mr. JANKLOW. But the military fixed it.

Now, the chairman asked you how long is it going to take to fix

it. Would it be fixed faster if legislation was passed to set out the

standards of getting this done? You are shaking your head yes, Dr.

Boyd.

Mr. THOMAS. I would say no, and for a very simple reason. You

have to know how to fix it to pass the legislation to do it, Congressman.

Mr. JANKLOW. And can you tell us what it is so we can pass the

legislation?

Mr. THOMAS. Well, I wish I can. And that is the reason this is

taking that long. This is an extremely complex issue, and it is not

easy.

Mr. JANKLOW. So what you are telling me is, sir, if I understand

you, we are doing the best we can do, and let us just hang in there

and keep plugging forward.

Mr. THOMAS. No, I am not saying that, Congressman. What I am

saying is it is an extremely complex, technical problem.

Mr. JANKLOW. Excuse me.

Dr. Boyd, you were shaking your head yes. Do you think we need

legislation?

Dr. BOYD. Obviously, this is an issue that I think Congress is

going to have to resolve at some point. I don’t think we are in a

position to challenge the technical details. I will tell you that the

public safety community is very, very anxious to be able to occupy

that spectrum.

Mr. JANKLOW. You have various Federal agencies that you are

involved with in SAFECOM. Is the Agriculture Department part of

this? Is the Interior Department part of it?

Dr. BOYD. Yes, they are.

Mr. JANKLOW. So, then, when the Ag Department can’t use any

radios except the 150 band for fires, no matter where they go, that

is part of the SAFECOM plan? That is acceptable to SAFECOM?

And you continue to allow them to be funded that way?

Dr. BOYD. Let me explain what SAFECOM is trying to do with

this. The answer to that is that because there are 10 bands currently existing, and because there are very large investments in

State and local agencies in these things, we know that we can’t

scrap that investment; it is just too much, it is too expensive. The

local folks can’t afford to undo those things. So what we are trying

to do in SAFECOM is to find what is the best way for us to make

those things work together in the near and probably intermediate

term as we migrate toward what we hope is a genuine interoperability solution. And I will tell you that the public safety community sees 700 megahertz as part of that longer term approach.

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Mr. JANKLOW. OK, but 700 won’t work everyplace.

Dr. BOYD. Correct.

Mr. JANKLOW. There are places, remote areas of America, most

rural States can’t put up enough towers to accommodate 700, so

they have to get in the lower frequencies.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to have to interrupt.

Dr. BOYD. We have been very careful to make clear, when we

talk about this, we are not talking about public safety giving up

any of its existing spectrum. There are different characteristics in

different bands.

Mr. JANKLOW. Mr. Chairman, I understand. We will quit.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Let me just say that it is a little frustrating for all of us at the

moment, because I think we could go on a good bit longer. This is

a hearing about spectrums and standards, and it seems to me

standards should be driving the issues of spectrum, and the problem, I think, is we have not really come to grips with the whole

issue of standards; what do people need, where do they need it,

why do they need it. And so we are kind of, in a way, wrestling

with how we make some very tough decisions that impact people

commercially and so on, and there are obviously significant tradeoffs. But, in the end, we need, ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security to set general standards on a whole host of issues,

not just dealing with communication, and we need that done more

quickly than I think it is happening, and I think folks there know

it.

I have a standard that says don’t ever get the staff mad at you.

Maybe that is a rule. But we have a few minutes more, and I

would like the professional staff to ask one or two questions.

We will drop dead at 15 after, and I am going to herd folks like

cats out of this place, because I have to clear it out in order to

make sure we get ready for the committee.

Grace, you have the floor.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. My name is Grace Washbourne. I am a professional staff member at the full committee; I work for Chairman

Tom Davis.

Dr. Boyd, I just wanted to ask you one question. I noticed on October 20th SAFECOM or DHS sent out a pre-solicitation notice

asking for input from qualified vendors in the academic research

community regarding technology concepts and existing under development products or services. Can you tell me a little bit about what

you hope to get from that notice and some of your deadlines and

the planning, what you are going to do and when you might have

a list of equipment that you approve for use across this country?

Dr. BOYD. One of the first things that we want to be able to do

is to find out what technologies actually exist; what is it that the

developers or vendors claim these technologies can do. And there

is no central place you can go to. In fact, as the public safety community will tell you, one of their problems is finding out what is

there and what can it do. So as a first part of our effort, we are

trying to find out what is it that everybody out there thinks really

can address this problem. We get a number of offerings that, once

we look at them, we find really don’t fit in this arena because they

don’t fully understand this arena. So part of the RFI is to try to

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get that information; what do people think is out there, what does

it actually do, and what do we need to look more closely at as possible either present or near term or more advanced solutions or

ways to use technology to help with interoperability, to help us

solve the problem.

So that is a fundamental part of what we do, because we think

there are two things we need to develop before we can make the

standards process move properly. One is to understand what there

is and what can be done; and the second none is to make sure, and

this is where the Statement of Requirements is important, that we

understand exactly what interoperability is that the different elements of the community need for what purpose, how much, when,

what circumstances, so that we can then define as quickly as we

are able serious standards that will begin to address those issues.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. Do you have a timetable set for this? I guess

I am sure there is a lot of people out there who want to buy this

equipment right now with the SAFECOM approval on it. Do you

have in your milestones a deadline?

Dr. BOYD. We have a series of milestones. The first set is the RFI

came out about 2 weeks ago, and the closing date, as I recall, is

about November 13th or 14th. The Statement of Requirements, we

are going to process the draft today. Our goal is to have that completed not later than the end of this calendar year and everybody

on board for that. That then becomes part of the standards process

and will become the next phase of what our technology development material is, and we hope at that point to be able to go back

out publicly. And in fairness I need to tell you this is a goal, this

is what we really hope to get; I won’t promise we may not have to

slip it, because we are working with 44,000 different activities

here. Our goal is to try to have the next element of that, looking

for specific things that we can actually do some testing and evaluation on around the end of January.

Ms. WASHBOURNE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me conclude my part by saying it is very clear

to me the following. The standards need to be set whether or not

we can meet the standards, whether or not it is economically feasible, because we need to know what the target is, and then we

need to decide whether we can meet it and what are all the restraints in dealing with that. So I just want to emphasize again

what are the standards of communication within a community,

what are the standards that need to be set among communities,

among States, and then say, well, we can meet it if we do the following, and then we say, well, it is just not feasible. We then have

to know, well, we are not going to be able to meet the standard in

this part of the country or in this area, we simply can’t do it for

the following reasons. But then we can have kind of an honest dialog. And I think that is kind of how I want to summarize my sense

of this hearing.

I am happy to have any of you, in the next minute, make any

statement that needs to be on the record. Is there anything, Ms.

Evans, that needs to be put on the record before we adjourn?

OK, noting that there is none that has to be, I am sorry we kind

of rushed you at the end.

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And to our audience, thank you for your cooperation, but we are

going to have Members who are going to start to come in the next

5 minutes for a committee meeting, so this hearing will be adjourned, and I ask you graciously to leave.

[Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of their respective Chairs.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney, Hon.

Jane Harman, and additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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Æ