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HOMELAND SECURITY: SURVEILLANCE AND MONITORING OF EXPLOSIVE STORAGE FACILITIES,

PART II

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 31, 2005

Serial No. 109–105

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

J. VINCENT CHASE, Chief Investigator

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 31, 2005 .......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ekstrand, Dr. Laurie E., Director, Homeland Security and Justice Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, accompanied by Philip

Caramia, Senior Analyst, Homeland Security and Justice Issues; Michael Gulledge, Director, Office of Evaluation and Inspections Division,

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice; Lewis

P. Raden, Assistant Director Enforcement Programs and Services Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Department

of Justice ........................................................................................................ 9

Ekstrand, Dr. Laurie E. ............................................................................ 9

Gulledge, Michael ...................................................................................... 25

Raden, Lewis P. ......................................................................................... 37

Gonzalez, Fernando, battalion chief, Fort Worth Fire Department, Division of Arson/Bomb Investigation; Dr. Tibor G. Rozgony, professor and

head, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines; Sgt.

Stanley Mathiasen, chairman, National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board; Dr. Vilem Petr, assistant research professor, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines; James Christopher

Ronay, president, the Institute of Makers of Explosives [IME]; Don

Horsley, county sheriff, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office; and Lt.

Gary Kirby, San Jose Police Department ................................................... 62

Gonzalez, Fernando ................................................................................... 62

Horsley, Don .............................................................................................. 97

Kirby, Gary ................................................................................................ 102

Mathiasen, Sgt. Stanley ............................................................................ 79

Petr, Dr. Vilem .......................................................................................... 85

Ronay, James Christopher ........................................................................ 92

Rozgony, Dr. Tibor G. ............................................................................... 68

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

Ekstrand, Dr. Laurie E., Director, Homeland Security and Justice Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ............... 11

Gonzalez, Fernando, battalion chief, Fort Worth Fire Department, Division of Arson/Bomb Investigation, prepared statement of ........................ 64

Gulledge, Michael, Director, Office of Evaluation and Inspections Division, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 27

Horsley, Don, county sheriff, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 99

Kirby, Gary, San Jose Police Department, prepared statement of .............. 104

Lantos, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 7

Mathiasen, Sgt. Stanley, chairman, National Bomb Squad Commanders

Advisory Board, prepared statement of ...................................................... 81

Petr, Dr. Vilem, assistant research professor, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, prepared statement of ........................... 86

Raden, Lewis P., Assistant Director Enforcement Programs and Services

Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of ....................................................... 39

Ronay, James Christopher, president, the Institute of Makers of Explosives [IME], prepared statement of ............................................................. 93

Rozgony, Dr. Tibor G., professor and head, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, prepared statement of ........................... 70

Page

IV

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

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

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

(1)

HOMELAND SECURITY: SURVEILLANCE AND

MONITORING OF EXPLOSIVE STORAGE FACILITIES, PART II

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

San Mateo, CA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in San

Mateo Council Chambers, 330 West 20th Avenue, San Mateo, CA,

Hon. Christopher Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays and Lantos.

Staff present: J. Vincent Chase, chief investigator; Robert A.

Briggs, clerk; Jason M. Rosenstock, minority senior legislative assistant; Lynne Weil, minority communications director; and Ron

Grimes, minority legislative director.

Mr. SHAYS. The Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging

Threats, and International Relations hearing entitled, ‘‘Surveillance and Monitoring of Explosive Storage Facilities, Part II,’’ is

called to order. Good morning. It is good to be back in San Mateo

with my good friend and colleague Tom Lantos.

The persistence and perspicacity he brings to national and international issues inspire bipartisan respect, and it is a privilege to

join him in today’s important discussion. Ours is an oversight partnership dating back to my first days as a Member of Congress in

1987. I have learned a lot since then, much of it from Tom.

In August of last year, this subcommittee met here and learned

first-hand about security gaps and potential vulnerabilities in the

protection of explosive material held by State and local authorities.

To get a clearer picture of the depth and breadth of the problem,

we asked the Government Accountability Office [GAO] to visit some

explosive storage facilities and assess the rigor and consistency of

security measures there.

Why? Because it is beyond debate storage magazines containing

C4 plastic explosives and other highly volatile material are attractive targets for terrorists and criminals looking for a big bang on

the public buck. An unknown number of publicly maintained storage sites, likely containing hundreds of tons of explosives, constitute a potentially serious homeland security challenge, a classic

disaster waiting to happen. If not critical infrastructure, explosive

storage sites certainly represent combustible temptations over

which someone should have adequate visibility and accountability.

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Regretfully, the GAO report released today describes an uncertain, inconsistent, at times inadequate, system of regulation over

publicly managed explosive storage facilities. The Federal Government, through the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF], licenses and inspects private

manufacturers and handlers of explosives but has almost no authority over State and local government users.

Their compliance with security standards is voluntary. ATF does

require public facilities to report thefts of explosive materials, but

even that requirement is not uniformly understood, adhered to, or

enforced.

The GAO report also pierces the assumption that State and local

regulation of explosives magazines would fill any vacuum left by

Federal law. Most of the 18 public storage facilities visited by GAO

were not required to be licensed or inspected by State or local regulators. But, as we will hear in testimony today, some States and

localities have taken steps to secure explosive stockpiles, following

best practices in many respects more demanding than the voluntary ATF standards.

So we look to our witnesses this morning to help us understand

what is being done to secure government-held explosives, and what

more should be done to define and mitigate the threat posed by

these facilities. We appreciate the time, dedication and expertise of

all our witnesses and we look forward to their testimony.

At this time the chair would recognize the distinguished Member

Mr. Lantos.

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

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Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to be with you again here in San Mateo following the hearing we conducted in August of last year. At the outset, I want to

express my very sincere appreciation to the remarkable work done

by members of your staff and members of my staff in preparing for

this hearing. I want to thank you once again for agreeing to convene this subcommittee hearing in San Mateo where the national

problem of poorly secured high explosives first came to light.

I also want to put in some kind of perspective our collaborative

relationship. Not only have we worked together since your arrival

in Congress many years ago, but just this past year, year and a

half, I had the pleasure of working with you on three entirely different issues each of them of enormous importance to the American

people and each of them totally nonpartisan in character.

When it was brought to my attention that Reservists and National Guardsmen and women suffer a severe financial hardship in

many instances when they are activated, I decided to move with

legislation to rectify this appalling injustice. Not only are we asking Reservists and National Guard folks to risk their lives in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we are also imposing an extraordinary financial burden on members of their families.

This issue was brought to me by a constituent of mine in south

San Francisco. I was very delighted that you chose to be the No.

1 Republican co-sponsor of this legislation. The goals of which we

have partially achieved and we are working on fully achieving

them in the near future.

Second, you came on board with the legislation that we are dealing with today. In San Mateo, when we discovered the theft of explosives, I asked you to call a hearing in your capacity as chairman

and, as always, you immediately and graciously responded in the

affirmative.

The final piece of legislation on which you and I are the principal

co-authors is a legislation that was born as a result of the hurricanes in the Gulf. As everybody else, I was glued to my television

set watching the nightmare pictures. But the one that stood with

me most poignantly was a 7-year-old little boy with his dog who

was taken from him because dogs are not allowed in shelters.

If you saw the face of this little boy, and the only one left in his

whole life was forcibly taken from him, I felt that legislation was

needed to deal with this issue. You and I introduced legislation,

Mr. Chairman, and the markup will take place this week to mandate that communities in order to take advantage of FEMA funding

must provide in their evacuation plans provisions for household

pets and service animals. Next time a tragedy strikes we will never

again see a 7-year-old little boy or an elderly blind person being deprived of their pet or service animal in order to be admitted into

a shelter.

Congress always does its work best when it goes so on a bipartisan basis and you are known in Washington not only for your passionate commitment to public service but for your deep and thorough bipartisanship and I am profoundly grateful for that.

Last year’s hearing raised many, if not more, questions than it

answered. Today we will hear from some of the same witnesses and

some additional witnesses and hopefully we will have more anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:24 Jan 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25260.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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swers than we got 14 months ago. Today we will learn the result

of a study by the Government Accountability Office that Congressman Shays and I commissioned a year ago, a study which has just

been completed.

This study, along with the testimony of today’s witnesses, will be

instrumental in ensuring that the legislation Chairman Shays and

I will introduce in the near future is based on solid data. The

chilling implications of last summer’s theft from a poorly secured

law enforcement storage shed just a little ways from where we hold

our hearing horrifically illustrated this past July when terrorists

attacked the London transportation system.

Immediately after hearing the news of the bombings I rode

BART to show my support for the safety of the Bay Area Transit

System. While the terrorists who bombed the London subway used

homemade devices, I can’t help but wonder how much more destructive their actions would have been had they been able to arm

themselves with high strength plastic explosives stolen from the

San Mateo Law Enforcement Agency bunker.

At the hearing 14 months ago, the overwhelming response to our

repeated questions was, ‘‘We don’t know. We don’t know how many

public facilities are uninspected by ATF for safety and security precautions exit in our country. We don’t know how much explosive

material is stored at these facilities.’’ That answer was unacceptable then and it most certainly will not wash now after 14 months

of opportunity to discover the answers.

Mr. Chairman, our country is still very much in the midst of the

war on terrorism that officially began on September 11, 2001.

Sometimes we are reminded of it dramatically as a bomb scare

shuts down a tunnel as it recently did in the Washington area.

While such episodes tend to dominate our attention, we should not

underestimate the dogged vigilance needed every single day so that

in this struggle we shall prevail.

Thieves should not be allowed to raid stockpiles of high explosives right in our backyard to sell them to the highest bidder, potentially terrorists. Uniform standards for safeguarding such materials must be established and they must be enforced.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. I also

want to thank our witnesses for agreeing to share their perspectives from this most important topic and I look forward to hearing

their views.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Lantos follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, gentlemen. If I had been in the cabinet

room of the White House and my phone went off, the President

would have taken it and put it in a glass of water. I apologize for

the phone going off.

Mr. LANTOS. We plan to do that after the hearing.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to invite our panel to come forward and

I will introduce them. We have Dr. Laurie E. Ekstrand, Director,

Homeland Security and Justice Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office accompanied by Philip Caramia, Senior Analyst,

Homeland Security and Justice Issues.

Our second testimony will be from Michael Gulledge, Director,

Office of Evaluation and Inspections Division, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice.

Our third testimony will be from Mr. Lewis P. Raden, Assistant

Director Enforcement Programs and Services Division, the Bureau

of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Department of Justice.

Before swearing our witnesses in—if they would come forward.

Oh, I see. Are they speaking from—OK. This is interesting. I was

looking and seeing no witnesses. OK. Before swearing them in, let

me 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 statements in the record and

without objection so ordered.

At this time I would ask our witnesses to stand up. If there is

anyone they may call on to answer a question, I would like them

sworn in as well if that is the case. If they would rise, raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I will note for the record all four of our witnesses

have responded in the affirmative and we will begin with the GAO.

Then we will go to the Inspector General. Then we will go to the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The way the system

works is we have 5 minutes. If you go over 5 minutes I am not

going to stop you but we would like you to be as close to 5 minutes

as possible. If you dare go to 10 minutes, things go off. Your testimony is very important and we look forward to hearing your testimony and then asking you questions.

Dr. Ekstrand.

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STATEMENTS BY DR. LAURIE E. EKSTRAND, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY PHILIP

CARAMIA, SENIOR ANALYST, HOMELAND SECURITY AND

JUSTICE ISSUES; MICHAEL GULLEDGE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE

OF EVALUATION AND INSPECTIONS DIVISION, OFFICE OF

THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;

LEWIS P. RADEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ENFORCEMENT

PROGRAMS AND SERVICES DIVISION, THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

JUSTICE

STATEMENT OF DR. LAURIE EKSTRAND

Dr. EKSTRAND. Mr. Chairman, and Representative Lantos, Mr.

Caramia and I are very pleased to be here today to discuss security

at State and local government explosive storage facilities. A report

on this issue is being issued today in conjunction with the hearing.

My statement covers three topics and let me briefly touch on them

in turn.

First, the extent to which State and local storage facilities have

been vulnerable to theft. The short answer is that no one knows.

We know that ATF data indicates that there have been nine thefts

of explosives from State and local government storage facilities

during the 3-year period that ended in February 2005 and that this

is a relatively small number compared to the 205 thefts reported

from all sources combined.

But we have reason to believe that the actual number of thefts

from public facilities could be higher than nine. While requirements for prompt reporting of thefts from private facilities are

clear, it is less so for public entities. ATF officials acknowledge that

State and local governments may be unclear as to whether they are

covered by theft reporting requirements.

Indeed, during the course of our work we found evidence of five

thefts from State and local government facilities but only four appeared in ATF’s theft data base. We are recommending that action

be taken to ensure that all thefts from public as well as private facilities are promptly reported so that appropriate actions can be

taken to recover the explosives and apprehend the thieves.

Now, let me turn to ATF oversight of State and local explosive

storage facilities. First, all facilities both public and private are required to comply with Federal storage regulations. However, only

private facilities are required to attain a license from ATF. Oversight, and that is inspection to ensure that storage standards are

being met and sanctions are administered for noncompliance, is

linked to the licensing process. That is because public facilities are

not subject to licensing. They are not subject to mandatory Federal

oversight.

The licensing process is also the main source of data on the numbers of facilities, locations, and types of explosives in storage for

private sector facilities. As with oversight, no licensing results in

no nationwide data for public facilities. During the course of our

work we identified three types of State and local government entities that use or stored explosives. They were law enforcement bomb

squads, public universities with mining programs, and transporVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:24 Jan 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25260.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tation departments. However, we were unable to gather sufficient

information to estimate the total number of facilities in these categories.

Finally, during our audit we visited 14 State and local entities,

13 bomb squads, and one university. We observed the security in

place at their total of 18 storage facilities. We found a wide variety

of safety and security measures in place across the facilities. For

example, some had fences and electronic monitoring devices. One

was in the basement of a municipal building behind locked doors.

Another was in an open area without any physical barriers. All

of the storage facilities seemed to meet ATF’s requirements in relation to security. However, this is by no means a representative

sample of public storage facilities nationwide.

In conclusion, as I indicated, we have made a recommendation

to try to ensure that all incidents of theft are timely reported to

ATF so that they can be properly recorded and investigated. Not

only would this reporting ensure investigation of crimes by ATF

but it would also help us gauge the level of vulnerability of State

and local facilities as all thefts would be required to be reported.

This completes my oral statement and Mr. Caramia and I would

be glad to answer any questions you might have.

NOTE.—The GAO report entitled, ‘‘AFT, Thefts of Explosives

from State and Local Government Storage Facilities Are Few but

May Be Underreported, GAO–06–92,’’ may be found in subcommittee files.]

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ekstrand follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Gulledge.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL GULLEDGE

Mr. GULLEDGE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos, on behalf of the Inspector General, I appreciate your invitation to testify today. We

were invited because we recently issued a report on the ATF’s implementation of the Safe Explosives Act. My testimony is based on

that review and I will discuss the issues we identified and recommendations we made and the actions that the ATF has taken.

I will also briefly discuss the ATF’s inspector staffing levels.

After September 11th Congress passed the Safe Explosives Act

to reduce the chance that terrorists could easily obtain explosives

to carry out attacks in this country.

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me. I am going to interrupt you. Mr. Lantos

and I are both having a little bit of trouble hearing you. Could you

pull the mic a little closer to you? Don’t feel you have to rush your

testimony. Just speak at a nice pace.

Mr. GULLEDGE. After September 11th Congress passed the Safe

Explosives Act. Is that better?

Mr. LANTOS. Pull it closer.

Mr. GULLEDGE. After September 11th Congress passed the Safe

Explosives Act to reduce the chance that terrorists could easily obtain explosives to carry out attacks in this country. The act expanded the licensing requirements to include interstate users of explosives and it strengthened the application and licensing process.

A key provision is that in addition to all corporate officers all employees who have access to explosives are to receive background

checks. Every explosives license applicant is also to receive an onsite inspection. Our review found several deficiencies in ATF’s implementation of the act which prevented it from ensuring that all

prohibited persons were identified and denied access to the explosives. Prohibited persons are generally felons, fugitives, drug users,

and other people who are not authorized access to explosives.

We compared a sample of ATF and FBI records and found that

about 9 percent of the employee applicants in ATF’s records had no

corresponding record of an FBI NICS check. Second, the ATF had

not adjudicated about 30 percent of the cases we reviewed in which

the FBI had completed a background check.

Third, the ATF did not promptly deny prohibited persons that

were identified by those NICS checks. The data available during

our review showed that the FBI had identified 1,157 prohibited

persons through August 2004 while the ATF data showed that

about 502 individuals had been denied access to explosives.

Another problem identified during our review was that ATF inspectors were not consistent in their enforcement of explosive regulations, the ATF plan to send all its inspectors to an enhanced explosives training course but we estimated it would take about 7

years for all ATF inspectors to attend that course.

The report that we issued last March included 10 recommendations to help the ATF improve its implementation of the act. Since

then ATF has provided information on the action it is taking to correct the deficiencies. For example, ATF has told us that it is in the

process of conducting 100 percent cross match of its data with FBI

26

NICS data to identify individuals whose backgrounds were not previously checked and has implemented procedures to ensure that

FBI background checks are conducted on all future applicants.

The ATF has also told us it has taken action on all the prohibited persons previously identified by the FBI and has taken steps

to ensure that any prohibited persons identified in the future are

promptly denied access to explosives.

The ATF informed us that through its cross match it has identified and updated the records of over 24,000 individuals that had

been cleared by the FBI and its records still showed as pending or

denied. To improve the consistency of its regulatory enforcement,

the ATF is making information more readily available by disseminating documents electronically and posting information on its

Internet and public Web sites. ATF has also told us it is improving

its training for its inspector work force, for example, by distributing

training courses on DVD so that inspectors can view them as needed.

Finally, the ATF developed an interactive CD that contains the

publications, forms, technical descriptions of explosive products,

and other information that inspectors need to conduct inspections.

I will give you a brief update on staffing. In August 2004 I discussed the ATF’s estimate that it needed 1,775 inspectors to accomplish its inspections workload. That included inspections of firearms dealers and gun dealers.

We questioned that number and we asked the ATF to revise the

projection using more accurate assumptions. Last month the ATF

provided a revised estimate that indicates it needs 1,114 inspectors. As of last week ATF told us that it has 610 inspectors on

board not including managers. Although ATF’s latest calculation is

760 fewer inspectors than before, it is still over 400 less than they

have right now. Sorry, 400 more than they have right now.

Also, it is based on the current population of firearms and explosives licensees. At present inspections of publicly owned explosive

storage facilities are not a significant portion of ATF’s workload.

Only about 100 last fiscal year. So if the ATF’s responsibility is expanded to include these facilities, the staffing requirements will

have to be adjusted further.

In summary, although our report reflected strong concern with

ATF’s implementation of the Safe Explosives Act, it appears that

the agency is taking steps to correct the deficiencies we found. We

believe the actions that the ATF has reported taking will make it

better prepared should Congress decide to expand its authority to

include publicly owned storage.

This concludes my remarks. I would be pleased to answer any

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gulledge follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Raden.

STATEMENT OF LEWIS RADEN

Mr. RADEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos, and members

of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before

you today to discuss the report by the Government Accountability

Office on thefts of explosives from State and local government storage facilities. I hope to provide you with an understanding of how

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF] can

assist in the protection of these facilities.

As discussed during this subcommittee’s August 2004 hearing,

the ATF enforces Federal explosives laws and regulates commerce

in explosives. The ATF also is responsible for regulating most explosives storage facilities in the United States. The ATF’s regulatory authority over explosives extends back to the Organized

Crime Control Act of 1970.

This statute imposed controls over the manufacture, distribution,

importation, and storage of explosives, and gave the ATF enforcement responsibility for these controls. The Safe Explosive Act, enacted in 2002, expanded ATF authority to require permits for persons who receive explosives and background checks for all licensees

and permittees and their employees who possess explosives.

Federal explosives laws require all persons who store explosives

to comply with applicable storage regulations, except for Federal

agencies. With respect to private entities, the ATF’s authority to inspect explosives storage facilities is related to its authority to regulate licensees and permittees. The ATF has warrantless inspection

authority only for persons who hold a Federal license or permit.

State and local governmental entities are required to comply

with the Federal storage regulations, but there is no mechanism in

place to ensure this compliance. Because these entities are not required to obtain a Federal license, the ATF does not have statutory

authority to conduct inspections at their storage facilities but ATF

cannot conduct voluntary inspections.

There are approximately 12,100 Federal explosives licensees and

permittees in the United States. Under the Safe Explosives Act,

the ATF is required to conduct an onsite inspection of an applicant’s storage facilities prior to issuance of a Federal explosives license or permit. The ATF also is required to inspect storage facilities at least once every 3 years after issuance of a license or permit.

During fiscal year 2005, the ATF conducted 3,800 inspections of

Federal licensees and permittees. To put these inspections in context, the ATF currently oversees approximately 118,000 firearms

and explosives licensees nationwide. The ATF has approximately

610 to 620 industry operations investigators—again, these do not

include supervisory—who regularly conduct both explosives and

firearms inspections.

Any person who has knowledge of a theft or loss of explosive material stock must report that theft or loss to the ATF within 24

hours of discovery. In an effort to keep explosives out of the hands

of those who would use them for criminal or terrorist activity, it

is the ATF’s policy to investigate all reported thefts of explosives.

38

The GAO report on explosives thefts concluded that the ATF

would be better positioned to monitor and respond to incidents of

missing or stolen explosives if the ATF clarified the Federal theft

reporting requirements to ensure that all persons who store explosives—including State and local government agencies—understood

their obligation to report all thefts. We have acted on this recommendation.

First, in conjunction with the ATF, the National Bomb Squad

Commanders Advisory Board and the International Association of

Bomb Technicians and Investigators sent a letter dated April 19,

2005, to each State and local bomb squad commander, urging each

of them ensure that all bomb squad explosives facilities were as secure as.

Second, in August 2005 ATF gave presentations on storage requirements to the NBSCAB Conference. On September 24, 2005,

ATF conducted a similar presentation at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference.

Third, in October 2005 the ATF issued letters of guidance to the

Attorneys General of each State, the International Association of

Chiefs of Police, the National Association of State Fire Marshals,

and the National Sheriffs Association, informing these organizations about Federal storage requirements, the timely reporting of

lost or stolen explosive materials, and requested that agencies with

magazines voluntarily report the locations of these magazines to

ATF.

Finally, several times a year the ATF trains State and local law

enforcement officers and bomb technicians on Federal storage and

theft reporting requirements. Again, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Lantos, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and share with

you the latest information on the ATF’s explosives enforcement efforts. We have made progress in making our communities safer,

but we know there is much more to do. We are determined to work

with you to succeed in our mission of reducing violent crime, preventing terrorism, and protecting the public. I look forward to responding to any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Raden follows:]

39

40

41

42

43

44

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. What we are going to do, Mr. Raden, is

have you move to the other side so we can actually see you. Sorry.

You sat where we put you but it would be better to have you over

there. Is that mic on as well, Bob? OK.

Let me also say that we are going to take questions. We are just

going to pursue our questions with no clock. Mr. Lantos, you have

the floor for the first round.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first

thank all four of the witnesses for their testimony. There are some

very broad and very specific issues I would like to raise. First, let

me state for the record that I am fully cognizant of the fact that

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is severely underfunded. The Bureau is not to be criticized for being under-funded.

It is to be criticized for not asking for adequate funding. I believe

that over recent times that has been the case.

I am also very conscious that ATF, as every other organization,

needed time to adjust to the paradigm shift following September

11th. Prior to September 11th the assumption was that if there are

thefts of explosives the reason for that basically is for thieves to

sell these explosives to the highest bidder.

Now we are confronted with the possibility that these could be

sold to terrorists. Since we are expending unbelievable sums of

money to deal, for instance, with airplane security, it seems incomprehensible how little attention is being paid to these enormously

dangerous items.

I also find it puzzling, and I would like any of you ladies and

gentlemen to answer me, why we differentiate between public and

private storage facilities for explosives.

The terrorists couldn’t care less whether the explosives they gain

control of come from a private facility or from a public facility. And

to have public facilities subjected only to voluntary inspection boggles the mind. It is nonsensical. Why shouldn’t we have the same

mandatory provisions for public storage facilities that we do for private storage facilities since the purpose is to prevent explosives

from getting into the hands of terrorists who don’t care whether

the explosives come from public or private facilities. I would like

to ask all four of you to answer my question which is, is there any

justification for a dichotomy between public and private facilities?

Now, I also find it extremely disturbing that years after September 11th my wife routinely has her little manicure nail confiscated

at the airport, as it should be, but there is no comparable effort to

take charge of facilities which contain hundreds of pounds of very

dangerous explosives. This is an absurdity that the Department of

Homeland Security must explain to the American people.

I find myself in the hilarious, but at a different level, very idiotic

experience of going to visit my daughter at the New Hampshire

airport at Manchester where all the people know me perfectly well.

I take off my shoes and they inspect me while conversing with me

knowing me full well on a first-name basis. Money and resources

are spent for such idiotic activities while explosives go

uninventoried, undetected, thefts unreported with potential damage of vast proportions.

Fifty-nine people were killed in India over the weekend. Fiftynine people were killed in a terrorist episode because those terrorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:24 Jan 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25260.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ists could not get hold of more powerful explosives. We are all in

agreement that on September 11th the perpetrators would have

loved to have killed not 3,000 but 300,000 or 3 million of our fellow

citizens.

This failure of the agency in charge to differentiate between nail

scissors and the theft of vast quantities of dangerous explosives literally is nonsensical. I would be grateful for your comments.

I also am intrigued by the fact that according to your testimony,

Mr. Gulledge, prohibited persons continue to have access to explosives until after their case is finally resolved. It would seem to me

that prohibited persons should immediately have their ability to

have access to explosives terminated and if they are cleared, their

opportunity to deal with explosives be reinstated rather than assuming that since they are only prohibited and the final determination was not yet made, they can continue to deal with these dangerous materials.

The final question I have and, again, all of you are welcome to

comment on it, is the nonviability of the 24-hour reporting requirement. What are the penalties if a storage facility does not report

a theft within 24 hours? Would you like to begin, Dr. Ekstrand, on

my questions?

Dr. EKSTRAND. At first in terms of why public facilities were exempt in the passage of the law, I would think that it was probably

a number of reasons and one of them is probably a States rights

issue but——

Mr. LANTOS. I am not questioning why that was so in the past.

I am asking why, at a time of a serious terrorist threat globally

which we experience every day, 1 day in India, and 1 day in London, 1 day in Baly, 1 day in the United States, this dichotomy between public and private facilities still continues.

Dr. EKSTRAND. I think that in respect it is a better question for

ATF since they are responsible for——

Mr. LANTOS. Would you favor eliminating the distinction?

Dr. EKSTRAND. I think that it is a complicated question. All of

the facilities we looked at including, and we didn’t look at the facilities near San Mateo where the theft was. It is our understanding that they all would have met ATF standards in terms of security. We think that this is a far more complicated issue than perhaps even the requirements for security at public as well as private

are not where they should be.

Fences are not required. Video surveillance is not required. We

did not feel at GAO we are in a position to prescribe what security

there should be for explosive facilities but the ATF standards are

fairly minimal in terms of security. We were not finding things

that looked like obvious breeches of that in the public sector.

Mr. LANTOS. But you are favoring, I take it, from what you are

saying, a dramatic upgrading of the standards and making them

uniform?

Dr. EKSTRAND. We can’t be very specific about it because we

didn’t do enough work but the work that we did do leads to at least

the consideration that maybe the standards that are in place are

not stringent enough for protection.

Mr. LANTOS. Do you have any comments on my other questions?

46

Mr. CARAMIA. Background checks. The question about the background checks is probably best left for the Department of Justice

and Inspector General since they did the work on that. We did not

do any work on verification of the background checks on the persons that handle explosives.

If I could just mention one other thing to elaborate on what Dr.

Ekstrand said. One has to keep in mind that these facilities even

though ATF does not have any responsibility for mandatory oversight, they are required to still comply with the Federal storage

regulations. It is not like they are completely operating out there

without any sort of regulation whatsoever.

However, right now there is no mechanism whereby ATF can

verify where everyone of those facilities are whether they are in

compliance with the regulations. In that respect there is a bit of

a disconnect. They are required to comply with the regulations but

ATF has no authority to go out there and verify that they are in

compliance.

Mr. LANTOS. Is that a bit of a disconnect or is that an absurdity?

Mr. CARAMIA. Well, it is certainly different from what is required

of the private sector.

Mr. LANTOS. Do you see any justification for a differentiation between the public and the private sector when, in fact, a terrorist

couldn’t care less where they obtain explosives?

Mr. CARAMIA. Well, since you put it that way, it doesn’t seem to

make a whole lot of sense, but as far as the way the law was written, and, again, ATF can probably speak to this a little bit in more

detail, as Dr. Ekstrand explained, it is probably a bit of a State’s

rights issue, that is, the Federal Government not being in a position to tell State and local government entities what they should

be allowed to do with, for example, their law enforcement agencies.

That could be a little bit of a sticky wicket, so to speak, and that

may be at least partially one of the reasons why State and local

agencies were made exempt from the requirements back when the

original law was passed.

Mr. LANTOS. I understand the historic reason. I am talking about

now in a global terrorism age is that any justification in your judgment for a differentiation between public and private storage facilities.

Mr. CARAMIA. I think it makes a lot of sense but it is an issue

right now of resources for ATF whether they can be able to handle

the additional responsibility.

Mr. SHAYS. I am sorry. It makes a lot of sense meaning what?

Mr. CARAMIA. It seems to make a lot of sense on the face of it.

Mr. SHAYS. To do what?

Mr. CARAMIA. That ATF would have the same responsibilities for

public sector as they do for private sector. However, there are other

issues to consider there, one of which is the ATF resource issue,

how much would they need in resources to be able to handle those

additional responsibilities.

Mr. LANTOS. The resource issue is a very simple issue. ATF has

to ask for what it needs and Congress has to provide what it deems

ATF should have. If ATF doesn’t ask for enough resources, then it

bears a considerable share of the responsibility for its failure to be

able to adequately discharge its responsibilities.

47

Let me turn to you, Mr. Gulledge. What is your view of discrepancy, putting it mildly, between individuals found to be prohibited

persons but since the final determination is not yet in they are allowed to continue dealing in explosives?

Mr. GULLEDGE. A prohibited person is an individual who by

virtue——

Mr. LANTOS. Can you speak into the mic?

Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes. A prohibited person is someone who because

they have a criminal background or have been adjudicated mentally defective or certain categories of aliens are not allowed under

the law to have access to explosives.

When an individual starts to work for an explosives company,

that company has, I believe, 30 days to submit information on that

individual to the ATF. The ATF then enters that information into

its system and conducts a background check which it does using

the FBI’s national instant background check system, the same system used for guns.

When the results of that NICS check come back, it indicates

whether or not the individual has any of those prohibiting characteristics in their background. If they don’t, then they are allowed

to access explosives. If they do, then they are denied.

During the interim between when they start to work, their information is submitted to ATF and the ATF gets those results, makes

its determination, and responds back to the company telling the

company whether that individual is a prohibited person and is,

therefore, denied or is approved. If approved, they are allowed to

continue working. The problem that we saw was that some people

were not getting the background checks requested from the FBI

and, second——

Mr. LANTOS. What does that mean, the company did not submit

the name?

Mr. GULLEDGE. The company submitted the information. We

found the individuals in ATF’s records but when we went to the

FBI to confirm that the checks had been conducted, we didn’t find

a record at the FBI. More importantly, once the FBI did its check

and ATF was retrieving the results, the individuals until they get

that background check back from the time ATF enters them and

submits the background check request to the FBI and they get it

back, the person is held in what is called pending.

We found that a considerable number of records in the ATF system were held in pending. Even though the ATF had requested,

and the FBI had completed its background check most of those people were approved. About 1,150 of them were not approved. However, a lot of those people, particularly the ones we were most concerned with, were the ones who had been found to be prohibited

persons. As long as they were still showing as pending and had not

been reported back to the company, they continued to have access.

Once the ATF makes its determination and enters into its

records that a person is denied and reports that to the company,

that individual is denied access to explosives. They can’t appeal

that but during that appeal they do not have the authority to continue working with explosives. Our concern was that even once an

FBI check was done, the individuals continued to be held in pendVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:24 Jan 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25260.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
48

ing with no final determination and continued to have access to explosives.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. I know since September

11th, and Mr. Lantos, I think, introduced this point, that since

September 11th there has been a paradigm shift. I will tell you

that since September 11th I sometimes feel like I am in the water

and I am gasping for breath and someone dunks my head down

and then I come up again and they dunk my head down. I would

imagine that is the way a lot of people feel in government, particularly as it relates to concerns about terrorism.

I just want to affirm Mr. Lantos’ point that if ATF doesn’t ask

for the money, it rests on its shoulders. If it does ask for the resources and Congress doesn’t provide it, it rests on our shoulders.

If we are not told what needs to happen, then you are depriving

Congress of the most important part of our job, information to be

able to evaluate what we do.

I am surprised that a year later, actually much more than a year

later, we had our hearing on August 2, 2004. We are beyond a year

now. I don’t really feel that much has been done in terms of responding to this issue. I am just going to also agree with Mr. Lantos that terrorists and criminals could care a twit about whether

it is a government facility or private facility.

I am also left with the feeling from this hearing that the standards for private facilities is not all that good so it is almost like an

argument why do we want to mirror what happens in private facilities. But I have heard no testimony that says that the public facilities are much better. Disabuse me of that if I need to be. But I also

have a sense that nobody cares in government about this issue to

the extent they should care.

Mr. Raden, I had mentioned before the hearing that I am a bit

puzzled by the kind of response that we are getting from ATF. Last

year Mr. Lantos asked in the hearing, and this is from the transcripts, ‘‘I am not asking you whether you want to make technical

comments. I am asking you representing the agency whether you

are prepared at this stage to recommend a complete accounting of

all such facilities which, it seems to me, is step one in regulating

them. If you don’t know how many there are, how can you regulate

them and if you don’t know who they are.’’

Then Mr. Nelson, who I think is your Deputy, is that correct, Mr.

Raden?

Mr. RADEN. Yes, sir. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Walforde Nelson, Deputy Assistant Director, Enforcement Programs, ATF, is he still in his position?

Mr. RADEN. As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, today is his final

day on the job. He is retired as of the end of the day.

Mr. SHAYS. In the response he said, ‘‘Anything we attempt, and

it is probably a good idea to get this count, would have to be voluntary. We do not have authority to require agencies.’’ Mr. Lantos

says, ‘‘Are you asking for the authority?’’ ‘‘We have not asked for

it.’’ ‘‘Why not,’’ Mr. Lantos asked? ‘‘Mr. Nelson, again, when it

comes to State and local agencies, we partner with them in many

things but we are not their regulatory agency.’’

49

Mr. Lantos, ‘‘But don’t you minimally need to know how many

such facilities are in the United States?’’ Mr. Nelson, ‘‘Could you

repeat the question?’’ Mr. Lantos, ‘‘Yes. Wouldn’t step one in dealing with theft such as this one we have here in San Mateo need

to know how many such facilities there are and where they are located?’’

So let me just start and ask Dr. Ekstrand do we know how many

facilities there are?

Dr. EKSTRAND. No, sir. We don’t. We made a rough estimate just

for internal use that in relation to bomb squads there are probably

somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 different facilities. In terms of

university related facilities and transportation departments, we

really couldn’t get——

Mr. SHAYS. So we don’t know how many facilities are so, therefore, we don’t know what facilities are. Correct?

Dr. EKSTRAND. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. Do you agree with that, Mr. Raden?

Mr. RADEN. Yes, I do agree with that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gulledge.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. So we don’t know how many facilities there are and

we don’t know—first, we don’t know what facilities there are and

we don’t know how many there are. We all agree on that.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you like to jump in, Mr. Lantos?

Mr. LANTOS. I just find this the theater of the absurd. We are

sitting here, seriously for the second year in a row, attempting to

plug a whole in facilities that hold dangerous explosives of potential great use by terrorists. All of the agencies represented here are

telling us they don’t know how many such facilities there are.

In which case the notion of regulating them, controlling them, establishing standards for them, becomes an absurdity. I find, as our

chairman does, incomprehensible that in none of the agencies represented here is there any apparent sense of urgency that step No.

1 is to find out how many such facilities there are.

I mean, it is insane to cavalierly say we have no idea how many

storage facilities there are and then talk about how we should regulate them or whether we should regulate them. What organization

would be responsible for just counting how many such facilities

there are? What would be the appropriate agency, Dr. Ekstrand?

Dr. EKSTRAND. They would come under ATF.

Mr. LANTOS. Well, why doesn’t ATF take the time and trouble to

count the number of facilities?

Mr. RADEN. Mr. Lantos, that is a good question and I do have

an answer for you.

Mr. LANTOS. Good.

Mr. RADEN. In fact, I have put together a survey. We were in the

process of getting that survey through the administrative requirements that a survey of collection of public information is required.

It needs to work its way through the department and through

OMB. In that survey——

Mr. LANTOS. When did you commence that survey?

Mr. RADEN. That survey was recently commenced——

Mr. LANTOS. What does recently mean?

50

Mr. RADEN. Within the last 2 weeks, I think.

Mr. LANTOS. Within the last 2 weeks. So 14 months ago we held

a hearing and you didn’t do a damn thing for 13 months and knowing that a hearing is coming up again 2 weeks ago you start scurrying around and counting the number of facilities. You think this

will wash with this subcommittee.

Mr. RADEN. No, Mr. Lantos, I don’t think it will wash with this

subcommittee. I had asked that question myself and when I found

out the answer was we internally had not asked ourselves that

question or had gone out to seek that information, I found that an

absurdity. When it was brought to my attention I acted upon it. It

is late. I agree with you.

Mr. LANTOS. Whose responsibility was it to begin a survey just

counting the number of facilities?

Mr. RADEN. It would have been ATF’s responsibility.

Mr. LANTOS. Who at ATF?

Mr. RADEN. It would have been my responsibility, sir, and I did

not do that.

Mr. LANTOS. When will this survey be completed?

Mr. RADEN. I cannot give you a firm date on that because we do

need OMB approval for it. On a similar topic, if I may, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure, Mr. Raden.

Mr. RADEN. That is from an ATF perspective because it was not

brought into the line of questioning from me directly. Our agency

is on record—it is a law enforcement sensitive document. I can’t

sell it with you—with the department to bring State and local

agencies and private entities under the inspection authority of

ATF. We have made that recommendation to the department. That

was back in April of this year.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me be a little critical and a little thankful at the

same time just to continue with this question. In response to Mr.

Nelson saying, ‘‘Could you repeat the question,’’ Mr. Lantos said,

‘‘Wouldn’t step No. 1 in dealing with theft such as this one we have

in San Mateo be to know how many such facilities there are and

where they are located?’’

Then Mr. Nelson said, ‘‘One thing we did in 2001 is we put out

a letter to all State and local enforcement agencies about their requirements for storage and the fact that we did a voluntary inspection some weeks ago.’’ ‘‘Some weeks ago.’’ This is in August so in

July 2004. ‘‘Some weeks ago we started developing another letter

to go out and as part of that we are again offering to do these inspections. We can certainly develop a list for this effort I would

think, Mr. Lantos. You have 39 responses in that right.’’

Let me put in my words and you can agree or disagree. We have

a letter from you, Mr. Raden, being sent out to a variety of local

government agencies. The first paragraph is the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives. ‘‘ATF respectfully request

the assistance of your association in distributing information pertinent to the safe and secure storage of explosive materials.

It has come to ATF’s attention that some State and local government entities may not be aware of the Federal requirements for the

storage of explosive materials and for the reported materials that

have been stolen. ATF is seeking to correct this by reviewing the

51

Federal requirements with these government entities.’’ Is this letter that was sent out basically in just a few—what is the date on

this? There was no date. When was this letter sent out?

Mr. RADEN. Is that the letter to the National Sheriffs Association? That letter was sent out on October 18th.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Let me say that Newt Gingrich told me one time

that sometimes having hearings accomplishes what you want to accomplish just by having the hearings. I am getting a sense that

this issue hadn’t been shown on your radar screen. It had been on

Mr. Nelson’s. He had participated in this hearing. He is your assistant and we appreciate you being here today. Is it fair to say

that ATF dropped the ball on this? I mean, was this letter of last

year finally getting sent out this year?

Mr. RADEN. Well, the letters went out after I had read the GAO

report and one of the recommendations was to collect information

and advise State and local entities of their requirements under the

storage laws and give them the information that they needed to be

able to conduct basically what would be a self inspection. But to

answer your question, it is late and I will take responsibility for

it being late. We are doing and moving, I believe, at this point in

the right direction and we were not before but I am determined to

make sure that we are.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me say that what we will do in this subcommittee is hold a hearing in Washington sometime in March if you need

to use us as a bit of an excuse with OMB. What I am hearing you

say is a few things. One is you all did drop the ball. Is that correct?

Mr. RADEN. That is correct. There is no other way to put it.

When it came to my attention I acted upon it. It came to my attention late and I hold myself responsible for it.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, that is one point. The second point is that you

have asked OMB to do what as it relates to the oversight of public

facilities?

Mr. RADEN. What we are doing, and it hasn’t gotten to OMB yet

because it is still in the vetting process, when you are conducting

a collection of information, a Federal agency is collecting information from sources, it has to go through a vetting process through

the Department of Justice and then over to OMB who then basically gives the agency the authorization to collect that information.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. What is the information you are trying to collect?

Mr. RADEN. The location of all the storage facilities of the State

and local law enforcement and other, shall we say, public entities.

Mr. SHAYS. You are saying that it has to go through vetting but

ultimately OMB has to approve it?

Mr. RADEN. OMB does not have to approve it but unless there

is something unusual or some legal twist to it that I would be unaware of at this point, I would think that it would make its way

through the system.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say one other thing. Besides having this

hearing that we will have in March, maybe the end of February,

maybe the beginning of April, but somewhere in that range, Mr.

Lantos and I, I think, will seek to speak to the Director of OMB

either by letter or in person because this is a no-brainer so we appreciate knowing that.

52

Now, I thought I heard you say besides collecting this information that it was your recommendation, not necessarily someone

else’s, that there be uniformity and oversight and that you have

the ability to have oversight besides knowing these facilities. Did

I hear that or just dream it?

Mr. RADEN. No, you heard it but perhaps it was—let me characterize it. Maybe I was unclear on it. What we have recommended

over to the department in a memorandum from our Director is that

it be examined, that ATF be given the authority to have statutory

inspection authority over State and public facilities so we have recommended to the Department to take a look at this issue, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So you are recommending that, one, you have the authority and then you are not suggesting that you will use authority

but you are saying at least give us the authority. Is that what I

am hearing you saying right now?

Mr. RADEN. I would suggest that if we were given the authority

that we would be using it. We also recognize the issue regarding

and it has been brought up in different fora including the GAO report and what my colleague at the IG’s office has said on the issue

of the resource issue. That is additional responsibility. There is no

question.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me say that one of the challenges—I speak now

as a Member of the majority party. One of my extraordinary disappointments is that what has developed in the administration has

been that once an agency has been given its budget, then it is supposed to argue for its budget, nothing more and nothing less, even

to the extent sometimes of not being honest and forthright with

Congress as to what they truly need.

It is one thing to say this is what we are requesting and this is

what the President is requesting. It is important that when you are

before committees that if they say, ‘‘Do you have enough to do your

job?’’ the answer is no if it is no, not that, ‘‘We can do it.’’ What

I am hearing you say is, one, this is going to get more of your attention that you all dropped the ball, two, that you are asking to

know about where these facilities are, and three that you’re recommending that you have the authority to have over-sighted these

facilities. Is that correct?

Mr. RADEN. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Lantos, did you want to followup on anything?

Mr. LANTOS. If I may, Mr. Chairman. As I understand it, between 2002 and the present ATF inspectors conducted 77 voluntary

requested inspections. Is that correct?

Mr. RADEN. Yes, I believe that is the number.

Mr. LANTOS. How many of these inspections resulted in findings

that were unsatisfactory?

Mr. RADEN. I don’t have that information right in front of me at

the moment, Congressman, but I could get that information to you.

Mr. LANTOS. That is not satisfactory. I mean, this hearing was

scheduled. You are representing the agency. You claim that you

conducted 77 investigations that were requested on a voluntary

basis. It is not an unfair question of me to ask what was found in

the 77 voluntary examinations.

53

Mr. RADEN. It is not unfair of you to ask that, sir. I have it in

materials but I do not have it before me. If that is me being unprepared, I apologize to you, sir.

Mr. LANTOS. Do you know theoretically if the results of the 77

voluntary inspections are unsatisfactory, what does ATF do to

bring the agencies into compliance?

Mr. RADEN. We would make recommendations to them on what

is required of them to come into compliance.

Mr. LANTOS. And how many instances did you make recommendations to them?

Mr. RADEN. Again, that relates back to the materials that I don’t

have in front of me but we would work with the departments to

ensure that they are in compliance.

Mr. LANTOS. How would you characterize the performance of

your agency in controlling depositories of dangerous explosive materials on a scale of 10 to 0, 10 being perfect?

Mr. RADEN. Well, we have a very, very dedicated work force, extremely hard working and knowledgeable.

Mr. LANTOS. That is not my question.

Mr. RADEN. I am getting to your question, sir. I would probably

rate us given what we have and what the statutory requirements

are, what we can and we can’t do in terms of combining the statutory mechanisms and the regulatory mechanisms, and using that

in judging our ability, I would give our agency about a five or six

at this point.

Mr. LANTOS. Is it part of the responsibility of the agency to vigorously advocate for adequate resources when the task it has is not

adequately funded?

Mr. RADEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANTOS. Has that been done?

Mr. RADEN. We have asked for resources. We are on record with

Congress. There are any variety of different reports that are open

source whether it is through the IG or through GAO that plainly

demonstrate the resource issues with ATF.

Mr. LANTOS. I would like to address a question to all four members of the panel. On the basis of what you know and what you

have learned, would you be in favor of dramatically upgrading the

security requirements that all storage facilities of explosive materials whether publicly or privately owned. Dr. Ekstrand.

Dr. EKSTRAND. I think we saw storage facilities that were without any barriers around them that were visible from major highways. From a lay person’s standpoint in terms of security that

makes me nervous. We also saw a storage facility that is in the

basement of a municipal building. That makes me a little bit nervous, too, but maybe from a safety standpoint rather than a security

standpoint.

I think that GAO is really not in a position to have the expertise

to determine what types of security is appropriate for these facilities. I think we saw situations that even though they would meet

ATF standards for security, from a layman person’s point of view

didn’t seem very safe. The fact that over a 3-year period there were

over 200 thefts, that again makes me feel that maybe the standards are not high enough.

54

Mr. LANTOS. How about the uniformity of standards? Would you

favor uniformity of standards irrespective of whether the ownership

is public or private?

Dr. EKSTRAND. Well, I don’t think it makes sense to have more

stringent standards for public than private because one thing that

seemed clear from our work is that the amount that is stored in

these facilities and the number of facilities are far greater in the

private sector than in the public sector. In terms of vulnerability,

the private sector is probably more vulnerable just because of the

amounts, both the number of facilities and the amount stored in

those facilities.

If there is any difference in terms of standards, then it probably

is weighed on the side of the private facilities. I certainly agree

with the tenor of the hearing that even the loss of 1 pound of explosives is a serious matter. If you can get 1 pound from public or private, then they are both vulnerable.

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Caramia.

Mr. CARAMIA. Yes. If I could just bring in a little bit from the

locations we visited. I just wanted to address one of the chairman’s

comments earlier about whether public security was better or

worse at these public sector facilities. We actually visited quite a

few where they exceeded what the current standards require right

now.

Mr. LANTOS. The current standards are palpably unacceptably

low. To exceed unacceptably low security standards when it comes

to explosives is not much comfort to this subcommittee or to the

American people.

Mr. CARAMIA. Actually, that’s true. The standards for security

are quite minimal for storage magazines. They require you to have

a magazine that is theft resistant and has locks basically. That is

the extent of the security. Some of the locations we visited, in effect, that’s all they had. There was one location we visited where

the storage magazine was sitting out next to a law enforcement

training facility.

It was sitting out in the open by itself not surrounded by any

fences. You could drive a car right up to it and walk right up to

it. Yet, that facility was in compliance with the Federal standards

so that gives you an idea of perhaps the minimum level of standards that are currently required of all facilities and that is the

same thing that is required of private sector facilities as well.

Mr. LANTOS. Any comment from either of you gentlemen?

Mr. GULLEDGE. Sir, first off, we agree that there need to be adequate safeguards in place and that they should be standardized

across public and private.

Mr. LANTOS. And that is not the case today.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Well, the standards do apply to all. As Dr.

Ekstrand’s report demonstrated, generally they are meeting them

in the public sector.

Mr. LANTOS. But they are meaningless standards. They are inadequate standards.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Well, I don’t have the information to say that. I

think first——

Mr. LANTOS. Have you not been listening to the conversation this

morning?

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Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes, sir. I have.

Mr. LANTOS. You have no other basis for learning it. What is

your judgment on the basis of what testimony we have had?

Mr. GULLEDGE. Well, first, I think I would need to know how the

explosives that were stolen were stolen. Were they inside jobs or

were they someone from outside the organization coming in. No

matter how many safeguards you have in place physically, if it is

an inside job, it is irrelevant.

Mr. LANTOS. Let me ask the other side of the panel. Is there any

indication of the proportion of inside jobs in the thefts?

Mr. CARAMIA. One of the locations we visited had a theft that involved actually the keys to the magazine being stolen. I am not

sure if that would be considered an inside job but the person did

not have to break into the storage magazine. They simply stole the

keys and then opened the door and broke in that way. We have no

other evidence based on the site visits we made of any of the thefts

that were inside jobs.

Mr. LANTOS. The San Mateo case certainly was not an inside job.

Do you agree with that?

Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANTOS. OK. Go ahead.

Mr. GULLEDGE. In deciding what you want to do with this in any

case——

Mr. LANTOS. We have decided what we want to do with it. We

want to secure explosives so the American people are not exposed

to thefts which might convey these dangerous substances into the

hands of terrorists. That’s what we want to do. We have long ago

decided that, Chairman Shays and I. That is our goal.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask our Inspector General. I am feeling

a little bit of a push back from you and that maybe I am misinterpreting it. From GAO’s standpoint we are basically hearing one,

there is erratic standards on the public side and some States may

do a good job, some counties may do a good job, some may not, and

some do not. We are hearing from them that we don’t know how

many facilities we have so we don’t know where these facilities are

and we don’t know how many of them there are.

We don’t even know who to contact because we don’t know if

they have a facility or not. We are also hearing from GAO, and correct me if I am wrong, that even if we went to the standard of the

private side, which is overseen by ATF, that standard isn’t all that

impressive. Is that correct?

Dr. EKSTRAND. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you agree with that or disagree with any part of

it?

Mr. GULLEDGE. I think I heard it a little bit differently from Dr.

Ekstrand. I think the standards are the same for both sides. The

point is that the public facilities there is variance in the degree of

protection of the public facilities. Generally all of them met the

standards if I read the report correctly. There is also variance on

the public side.

Mr. SHAYS. A comment on what you just heard?

Dr. EKSTRAND. The standards are the same across the board.

What we found when we went out was a wide variety of achieving

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or overachieving the standards. That is that some facilities had additional safeguards in effect that went beyond the standards. We

didn’t find any facilities that weren’t meeting the standards but the

standards are fairly minimal.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. So respond to that part. I appreciate your distinction. Respond to just the standards being fairly minimal. Do

you think they are minimal?

Mr. GULLEDGE. I think they are minimal. I think there are decisions that will have to be made as you go forward in this raising

the standards certainly requiring video surveillance or electronic

surveillance or physical protections.

It will be easier for some public entities as well as private entities to meet than others. Some companies that use explosives are

very small. It may create a difficulty for them. Those are all considerations. We don’t have a position on whether or not you should do

this but those are considerations.

Mr. SHAYS. Shouldn’t do what?

Mr. GULLEDGE. Implement the new standards on safeguards.

What we would try to do as——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me be clear. You have no opinion on whether we

should raise the standards?

Mr. GULLEDGE. On what the specific standards should be. Like

Dr. Ekstrand, we can’t tell you what the exact standards should be.

All we can really do is tell you the information.

Mr. SHAYS. That is because you don’t have the authority to or

you haven’t done the research?

Mr. GULLEDGE. I haven’t done the research.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Dr. Ekstrand, you made the point that one facility, if I heard you correctly, kept explosive devices in a municipal

building?

Dr. EKSTRAND. That is correct, in the basement of the municipal

building.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LANTOS. What city is that?

Mr. CARAMIA. Well, actually, when we originally did the work we

decided that we would not divulge any of the locations for security

purposes.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like for you afterwards to tell Mr. Lantos and

I what facility it is.

Mr. CARAMIA. We certainly can.

Dr. EKSTRAND. By all means.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I just laughed. I mean, laughed not at the fact

that a facility is like that but laughed that somehow we’re not outraged. You are basically saying that there are men and women and

the general public who would go to a municipal building that in the

basement there were or are explosive devices. Are the explosive devices still there?

Dr. EKSTRAND. As far as we know.

Mr. CARAMIA. As far as we know, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Well, you know——

Dr. EKSTRAND. I would point out that it is certainly a safety

issue. It is not necessarily a security issue but it is still an issue.

Mr. LANTOS. We understand that.

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Mr. SHAYS. When you heard that, Mr. Raden, what was your reaction when you heard that there was a public—that is not your

standard, correct?

Mr. RADEN. That is correct, Mr. Chairman, to put a magazine in

an inhabited building. The circumstances, as I read it in the GAO

report, is a clear violation of the existing standards and regulations.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So at least your standards would not allow for

that.

Mr. RADEN. That is correct, sir.

Mr. LANTOS. May I just raise an issue which is much more than

semantic, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Ekstrand keeps using the term minimal standards. In ordinary conversation the notion of minimal

means acceptable. If you are minimally qualified, you are qualified.

You reach the minimal level of qualification for a certain position.

I don’t think the use of the word minimal is appropriate in this

context.

These are unacceptable standards. They are not minimal standards. They are useless, worthless, pro-forma standards. They are

not minimal. They are way below minimal. Minimal would be no

more than what is necessary. That is what minimal is. If I have

the minimal qualifications to be admitted to a college, I am qualified to attend that college. These are subminimal. These are below

minimal. Would you accept that modification?

Dr. EKSTRAND. I would say these standards are the ones that are

currently required.

Mr. LANTOS. They are currently required and they are unacceptable because they are meaningless.

Dr. EKSTRAND. I really don’t want to go that far because——

Mr. LANTOS. How far do you want to go?

Dr. EKSTRAND. Well——

Mr. LANTOS. If you say minimal, you find them acceptable. Minimal means acceptable.

Dr. EKSTRAND. Well, I certainly want to indicate that they are

in accordance with ATF regulations.

Mr. LANTOS. But if ATR regulations are idiotic, that doesn’t

make them acceptable.

Dr. EKSTRAND. From a layman’s point of view we did see circumstances that did not seem very acceptable. We don’t have sufficient information at GAO to make a statement that they are——

Mr. SHAYS. Could I just interrupt a second? You make me uncomfortable when you say from a layman’s standpoint. Are you saying that you don’t have people GAO qualified to be more than laymen?

Dr. EKSTRAND. We certainly do in many respects. We do not have

people that have specific experience in relation to——

Mr. SHAYS. Then let me say this to you. That is unacceptable

from our standpoint because GAO to me is of the standard along

with some Inspector General agencies. When you all come before

us, I don’t consider you laymen. I consider you disinterested parties

in the sense that you are not connected.

If your testimony is that you happen to be a layman in this regard, I could accept that but I would like to think the people that

did the research aren’t laymen. Otherwise, your value is diminVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:24 Jan 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25260.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ished tremendously. We don’t want laymen to look at this. We

want experts to look at this. Do you not have experts to look at this

issue?

Dr. EKSTRAND. Our researchers are extremely well qualified in

relation to the work we do and I have no doubt about the

quality——

Mr. SHAYS. Do you have anybody in your department that has

expertise in explosive issues?

Dr. EKSTRAND. We have no one who has that specific expertise

but from time to time we do work with outside consultants. In this

particular case we felt that we were at least adequately trained to

determine——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me interrupt you because I know where you are

going. The bottom line is you are saying for what we tasked you

to do you had the expertise.

Dr. EKSTRAND. We feel that we did.

Mr. SHAYS. We want to bring this up to another level. I mean,

I almost don’t think we need to go much further with this panel

because what I am getting from it is that basically the local and

State and county governments, local, county, and State governments play by their own rules. There are certain standards that

are uniform but that bottom line is they are not overseen by your

agency, Mr. Raden.

I am getting the sense that even the standards for the private

sector is simply unacceptable and I agree with Mr. Lantos’ terminology. We would also agree that we would not be saying to the

States if they want to make them tougher than what ultimately we

want as good Federal standards, the States are always free.

They can’t go below the minimal but we want the minimal to be

acceptable and acceptable is not reached. What I hear from you,

Mr. Raden, that you have a lot of things on your plate to deal with.

You are going to give this higher attention. We will be able to confirm that in our hearing in Washington in February, March, or

April, in that timeframe, to give you some time.

In the meantime, Mr. Lantos and I will certainly congratulate

you whether late or not in wanting to move this up to a different

level. We will be in touch with OMB to make sure, one, you can

get the information of where these facilities are because you know

where the private site is, correct?

Mr. RADEN. Yes, sir. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Then you would want the authority to be able to step

in. I also go under the assumption that whether or not you technically have the authority or not that you will raise some questions

about any facility being stored in a public place where you may

have city workers and the public visiting. That is an outrage and

we don’t even need alliance of authority to step in.

I would like to think that you will raise some questions with

GAO immediately about that. We will as well. We want those explosives to be taken out of those buildings post haste and we would

like to make sure that is stated today, not tomorrow or the next

day.

I would just say to you, Mr. Gulledge, the bottom line to my

sense is that I would like to see that you have a greater sense of

urgency in overseeing ATF on their oversight of these issues. I

59

would like to make sure it is showing up on your radar screen a

little better.

Mr. Lantos and I, I think, waiting for the GAO report, were seeing back a little more than we should have so we are going to up

the pressure, I think, quite significantly.

Mr. Lantos, are there any questions or any other points you want

to make? OK. Then I think what we will do is go to our next panel.

Let me just say is there any question we should have asked you

that you need to put on the record? This is my reason for asking

this. I don’t want to hear later on that you weren’t asked and,

therefore, you didn’t put it on the record. If there is anything pertinent that we should be aware of, that you have made us aware of,

I want to put the burden back on you. Is there any point that any

of you want to make? Any closing statement you all want to make

before we go?

Dr. EKSTRAND. I think that I would like to add one thing, and

that is there is a real question in terms of what this security standards should be to be safe. I would suggest that over the past 3

years up until the time that we completed our review, there had

been a little over 204 thefts.

I would suggest that information on those 204 thefts could be a

good starting point to analyze what kinds of things are associated

with thefts in facilities and might help to have a data-driven way

of figuring out what kind of things are lacking that result in these

thefts. Representative Lantos asked how many were inside jobs

and the data on these 204 could help us understand that and help

us move along rationally in figuring out what kinds of standards

might be most appropriate to prevent thefts.

Mr. CARAMIA. I just wanted to clarify one other thing. You had

asked earlier about the results of the voluntary inspections that

ATF had conducted and what they had found. I would just like to

point out what we found at the locations we went to in addition to

the one we just talked about where the storage facility was in the

basement of the municipal building.

We did find three other locations that appeared to be out of compliance with some aspect of the regulations. Now, while that didn’t

appear to relate to security, in other words, it didn’t make the facilities more vulnerable to theft, it does tend to indicate that maybe

there are some public sector facilities out there that are not quite

in compliance with even existing regulations right now. That certainly raises the issue of why it is important to maybe have some

more oversight of these facilities going forward.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. GULLEDGE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one statement and answer one question that I didn’t get a chance to answer

before. I would say we do take this very seriously. The reports that

we have issued on ATF, both firearms inspection, enforcement of

the Brady Act, the Safe Explosives Act implementation show that

we take our oversight of them very seriously.

In this instance identifying the storage locations was a tasking

that went to the GAO specifically and we coordinate with each

other and we don’t duplicate each other’s work. That is why we did

not proceed with that question. We did attend their entrance briefing and we knew what they were doing.

60

To answer the question then of who should identify and inventory where these locations are, that is a separate questions of who

should conduct the oversight. I think as an alternative I would

offer that there are two mechanisms within the Department that

could be helpful to you in this. The first is the Joint Terrorism

Task Forces and the second is the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council,

the former run by the FBI and the second run by the U.S. attorneys offices.

Those councils and joint task forces have contacts with all law

enforcement agencies and other public agencies within every county in the United States and there are over 3,000 counties. One of

their duties, one of their responsibilities is to do risk assessments

and this could fit within the purview of what they are supposed to

be doing to contact their members, have them identify and report

in without going through a formal survey process.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. RADEN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos, I would just in terms of

security in the future for magazines whether private or public sector. We do need to take into some considerations, I think, in terms

of some of the unique factors.

I think some of the people on the next panel will address these

issues but the unique factors involved with some of the public sector facilities such as storage of evidence and things of those natures

in criminal cases.

Obviously you would want to ensure that your criminal evidence

had a great deal of security and I think you will find that the GAO

report demonstrated that in some situations security was above

what we have referred to here as the minimal standard. There is

also economic impacts for remote sites and why some of them don’t

have electricity.

Some of these things really need to be taken into consideration.

I know that you both will in terms of if you are crafting legislation

the type and form it will take in terms of ensuring that the best

security model for the particular individual facility is taken into account. That is just something I wanted to comment on.

I also wanted to clarify with Mr. Lantos, I did find the information on the 102 law enforcement magazines that we had inspected.

We did note nine discrepancies in those, sir, eight of them related

to the lock that was on the structure itself. It was inadequate and

was subsequently replaced and one dealt with a recordkeeping

issue. They weren’t keeping their books for a while so I did get that

information.

Mr. LANTOS. Let me be sure I understand you, sir. You say there

were 102 inspections?

Mr. RADEN. Yes. Well, there were 102 locations.

Mr. LANTOS. 102 locations.

Mr. RADEN. 102 locations.

Mr. LANTOS. Among those 102 locations, in 9 of them the security

was inadequate?

Mr. RADEN. In eight of them the locking systems were inadequate. That is the case, sir. The other was recordkeeping.

Mr. LANTOS. Ten percent of the cases had inadequate security

locks. Isn’t that true?

Mr. RADEN. That is true, sir.

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Mr. LANTOS. That is extremely alarming and I would very much

hope that all the agencies, including yours, will share the sense of

urgency that Chairman Shays and I clearly have. These are very

serious matters. These are not slight traffic violations. These cases

provide the basis for a potential terrorist attack in the United

States.

I must say that while I was very disturbed by the hearing last

year, I am no less disturbed by the hearing today because I see no

sense of urgency or an indication that the seriousness of the matter

under consideration is assimilated by those who are responsible for

dealing with these matters. The very fact that you began the survey on October 18th when our hearing took place in August a year

ago is profoundly disturbing.

Mr. RADEN. I understand that, sir, and let me assure you you

have my attention on it.

Mr. SHAYS. You know what? I think we can move forward in a

very positive way from what we have learned from this first panel.

Mr. Lantos and I recognize that we have some obligations as well.

We are going to be even more aggressive than we have been. If

that helps you persuade OMB that come March you need to have

some good news for us, that would be constructive.

I thank you all very much for your service and we are going to

move to the next panel. Thank you.

Our next panel is Mr. Fernando Gonzalez, battalion chief, Fort

Worth Fire Department, Division of Arson/Bomb Inspection; Dr.

Tibor G. Rozgonyi, professor and head, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines; Sgt. Stanley Mathiasen, chairman,

National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board; Dr. Vilem

Petr, assistant research professor, Mining Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines; Mr. James Christopher Ronay,

president, the Institute of Makers of Explosives [IME], the Honorable Don Horsley, county sheriff, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, and Lt. Gary Kirby, San Jose Police Department.

I thank you and you can remain standing and we will swear you

in. Thank you very much.

Just so you understand, all our witnesses in the Government Reform Committee are sworn in because we are an investigative committee. In my many years of being chairman now, the only one we

never swore in was a Senator from West Virginia. I chickened out.

Do we have everyone here? I think we are missing someone. Is that

correct? OK. We will wait for you to come, sir.

If there is anyone from your department that you may ask to respond to a question or your agency or whatever, we would want

them to rise as well. OK. Then if you are asked to speak, we will

have you identified then. We just have one additional person being

sworn in.

Are you gentlemen standing to be sworn in or not? OK. Fair

enough. Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. If you can remember, are you

in order of how we called your names? I think we are. We are just

going to come around this way. Let me say that your full testimony

will be part of the record. If you want to just respond to what you

have heard and respond that way, feel free. Because we have so

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many witnesses it would be good if you could stay within the 5-

minute limit. Then we will proceed with our questions. Thank you

all very, very much for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez.

STATEMENTS OF FERNANDO GONZALEZ, BATTALION CHIEF,

FORT WORTH FIRE DEPARTMENT, DIVISION OF ARSON/

BOMB INVESTIGATION; DR. TIBOR G. ROZGONY, PROFESSOR

AND HEAD, MINING ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES; SGT. STANLEY MATHIASEN,

CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL BOMB SQUAD COMMANDERS ADVISORY BOARD; DR. VILEM PETR, ASSISTANT RESEARCH PROFESSOR, MINING ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, COLORADO

SCHOOL OF MINES; JAMES CHRISTOPHER RONAY, PRESIDENT, THE INSTITUTE OF MAKERS OF EXPLOSIVES [IME];

DON HORSLEY, COUNTY SHERIFF, SAN MATEO COUNTY

SHERIFF’S OFFICE; AND LT. GARY KIRBY, SAN JOSE POLICE

DEPARTMENT

STATEMENT OF FERNANDO GONZALES

Chief GONZALEZ. Good morning.

Mr. SHAYS. I would just say the closer you are to the mic the better. I realize it presents a problem if you are reading but it would

be helpful. Sorry we are so crowded on that side. You know, I don’t

mind if one person would like to come up here. Would that make

it easier? Is it kind of crowded there?

Chief GONZALEZ. It is fine, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I think you feel a little crowded. We are not breaking

any rule, are we? OK. You can spread out a little bit and have a

little bit more room. OK. We are all set for you, Mr. Gonzalez.

Chief GONZALEZ. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Shays

and Congressman Lantos and all the other distinguished ladies

and gentlemen at this proceeding. I am Battalion Chief Fernando

Gonzalez. I am representing the Fort Worth Fire Department. Can

you all hear me OK?

We utilize four explosive magazines in our city. All of them are

alarmed and monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by our fire

alarm office. That hasn’t always been the case. At least one of the

reasons that I was invited, I assume, to this proceeding was because we have had not one but two thefts at our explosives magazines.

In 1991 we had our first burglary. Thieves tried to cut a hole in

the side of the magazine with a welding torch. When that was unsuccessful they tried to pry the roof off the magazine. That also did

not work. Ultimately they cut the locks off with that welding torch.

They stole over 100 pounds of explosives and the thieves were

never identified. However, the explosives were recovered when they

were found abandoned on a road about 3 weeks later. Not for lack

of trying but they were not identified.

As a result of that burglary, we installed an intrusion alarm on

our magazine. Approximately 8 months later we had a second burglary. At this burglary, 40 pounds of explosives were stolen. This

time the thieves used a grinder to cut the hinges off of the door.

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This time they were apprehended and the explosives were recovered again.

This second theft led to the installation of perimeter fencing with

concertina wire. I don’t know if you have my testimony with you

but there is a picture of it in exhibit A there.

Mr. SHAYS. We have your testimony.

Chief GONZALEZ. OK. Thank you. We haven’t had any thefts

since that time. I am skeptical that alone has made our facility secure, the perimeter fencing. What I think it has done is made a little too much trouble for your garden variety thief to attempt.

As a bomb squad commander there are a few security measures

that I would welcome at our facility and I think would be beneficial

for other facilities. The most prominent among them, besides perimeter fencing, would be video surveillance and audible alarms.

Theft is not the only problem. Vandalism, of course, is another

problem, in terms of destroying the explosives on the spot.

On the second front, I think it would be beneficial to mandate

BATF inspections of our facilities. There is a tendency to mass explosives in our business, not only through confiscations but through

acquisition. When budgets are tight our training aids are the first

to go.

I think mandated inspections would accomplish two things. First,

they would require a detailed inventory and detailed inventory, I

believe, would help in case there was a theft to recover them

quicker. The second effect that having BATF inspections would

have, I believe, to mitigate unsafe practices. I think they were mentioned in the GAO report also, storage of explosives with the blasting gaps or storage of explosives with deteriorated military ordinance.

At any rate, and all that being said, I thank you for your interest

in the matter.

[The prepared statement of Chief Gonzalez follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF DR. TIBOR ROZGONYI

Dr. ROZGONYI. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Lantos.

Mr. SHAYS. I need you to speak a little louder. You have a nice

Hungarian voice that Mr. Lantos can hear but for me it is a little

bit of a problem.

Dr. ROZGONYI. I am Tibor Rozgonyi, professor and head of the

Mining Engineering Department at Colorado School of Mines. I am

really very pleased and honored to practice my citizen requirement

and responsibility to testify for you.

Mr. SHAYS. It is an honor to have you here as it is with all of

you. Thank you.

Dr. ROZGONYI. We have been reviewed and asked to provide

input to your subcommittee, because to our educational research

program we store and utilize substantial quantity of explosive material regularly at the Edgar Experimental Mine.

The Colorado School of Mines is a public institution that was established in 1874 to support the needs of the mining industry. It

continues to fulfill this mission today with special expertise in the

development and stewardship of the Earth’s mineral and energy resources.

The Edgar Experimental Mine was donated to the Colorado

School of Mines after the 1880 Gold Rush. It is used extensively

for instruction, research, and testing special equipment, excavation

technology, mining metal. It is in this capacity that we use explosives and, therefore, store explosives.

As long as explosives remain the most effective rock fragmentation technology, we will educate our students on the safe handling

of explosives and also deal with industry partners to provide them

health and safety training and education.

We work with State officials and various law enforcement authorities in training of their work forces and special rescue team.

We offer education training for mining construction companies to

enable them to be certified and licensed in explosive handling, storage, and use.

We have always been mindful of the safe use and storage of the

explosives, but there has been special emphasis placed after September 11th. After September 11th, we established a special protocol for the use and safe transport and storage of explosives in the

Colorado School of Mines premises.

The document provides guidelines, information, and requirements of how we can transport the material explosives from one

place to the other. All of these requirements are in compliance with

the ATF and the State’s regulations. Each CSM employee who is

directly or indirectly involved in the utilization of explosives has

been required to obtain a ‘‘Responsible Person Letter of Clearance’’

from the U.S. Department of Justice.

We have a Type I magazine for explosive storage. It is built like

a tunnel in a mountainous area and secured and furbished with all

necessary equipment in order to deter any kind of problem.

I would like to mention that it was a little bit of a surprise to

me when I heard that some of those minimum standards were

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questioned here in the previous panel. I probably would like to

point out the mining industry, which is very conscious, the safety

and security of the explosives and have a very clear regulation

what you can do, how you can do it, how you can store the explosives.

You must dig up a certain tunnel. You must secure with a certain door and even specify what is the thickness of that steel door,

what kind of padlock you can use, how you can store the detonators

and how you can use the explosives. It is well specified so I believe

the mining industry, and coincidentally the Colorado School of

Mines, is very keen to maintain this kind of standard.

At the Type I storage facility we do have electronic surveillance

system. If somebody will break in, it will automatically inform the

campus police and the campus police very quickly inform the Colorado Spring police department and the sheriff department.

In 24 hours we report the accident if it would happen to the ATF.

I would like to report to the committee that we have a very cordial

and professional relationship with the ATF and the law enforcement agencies. As a matter of fact, I was very happy to see the

ATF manager here. We requested their visit and they came and

visited our facility and we are very happy to work with them. They

gave us advice and we upgraded the system.

What I would like to suggest for your consideration: I believe

that we wholeheartedly can support that some Federal agency

should be responsible for a nationwide repository for all explosives.

I think the cheaper system is readily available so you can go one

visit and you have the coordinate and everything where it is located.

I am more concerned with the education background of the individual who handles explosives. I am not sure that each State or

every agency or even employers are requiring. In the mining industry, they definitely do but I am not sure that in the construction

industry or in other industry the individuals who are handling and

using explosives has the minimum knowledge which is required to

handle that kind of dangerous material.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Rozgonyi follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, sir.

Dr. ROZGONYI. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Rozgonyi.

We will go now with Sgt. Mathiasen. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF SGT. STANLEY MATHIASEN

Sgt. MATHIASEN. Gentlemen, thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Nice and loud, sir.

Sgt. MATHIASEN. I am Stan Mathiasen. I am a sergeant with the

Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and the bomb squad commander for that agency. I am also chairman of the National Bomb

Squad Commanders Advisory Board.

The National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board was

formed in 1998 under the auspices of the FBI Bomb Data Center

by popular vote of U.S. State and Local Bomb Squad Commanders.

The board is composed of 12 elected State and local bomb squad

commanders from the four FBI reporting regions in the United

States and its territories. Three members are elected from each region with one new member from each region elected yearly.

NBSCAB represents all 458 State and local bomb squads and

over 2,600 certified bomb technicians. Several Federal agencies are

liaison members to NBSCAB including ATF, FBI, NIJ, and the Department of Homeland Security. NBSCAB is tasked to set standards for accreditation of bomb squads, certification of bomb technicians, review and recommendation of training curriculum, and review and guidance regarding research and development of new

tools and equipment. NBSCAB is recognized as the sole voice on

matters concerning accredited State and local bomb squads within

the Federal Government.

State and local bomb squads are aware of their responsibility to

provide security for their explosive storage magazines and to comply with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws governing

storage of explosives.

NBSCAB in conjunction with the International Association of

Bomb Technicians and Investigators has notified bomb squad commanders via a letter dated April 2005, to examine their security

measures to ensure they are in compliance with applicable laws, to

keep a current and accurate inventory of stored explosives, to improve security measures if needed, and to avail themselves of voluntary magazine inspections provided by ATF.

I have provided a copy of this letter that was sent out to the

bomb squads and would ask to have it entered in the records of

these proceedings which I understand it has. Thank you.

NBSCAB is not opposed to increasing security requirements for

magazine security. However we have several concerns. State and

Local public entities are required to comply with current ATF—as

well as any State and local—requirements for storage of explosives.

Adding new Federal requirements for lights, alarms, fences, and

other security measures will place additional compliance burdens

on public safety agencies not required of Federal agencies, or the

private sector.

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sives stored in magazines, but explosive related evidence in criminal cases are stored there as well.

The offer by the Federal Government to pay for additional security measures through Homeland Security Grant Funds, mentioned

in the proposed draft legislation, while attractive, may present a

situation where the bomb squad will receive only those funds necessary to provide additional magazine security, and will not enhance their response capability.

With the competition for grant funds among local agencies great,

I fear this requirement may actually decrease the ability of bomb

squads to obtain needed equipment. It may set up a situation

where grant administrators are required to spend funds on magazine security in lieu of response equipment.

Bomb squads are on the front line in the response to terrorism

in the United States and it is imperative that there be no degradation of operational response capabilities in these critical incidents.

While this proposed legislation stands to provide some limited benefit to public safety through the addition of extra layers of security

for stored explosives, there is a real danger that this benefit will

be offset by a higher risk to the public through a potential diversion of funds for critical operational resources.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Sgt. Mathiasen follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Sergeant.

Mr. Petr. Thank you. I think that mic may have been turned off.

STATEMENT OF VILEM PETR

Mr. PETR. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry for my Czechoslovakian accent.

Mr. SHAYS. It is a great accent.

Mr. PETR. Thank you. I am pleased and very happy that I can

testify today for you.

Just quick introduction of myself. My name is Vilem Petr.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to have you not give your introduction of

yourself. Just tell us about what you want on the record here.

Mr. PETR. OK. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Only because we are aware of

everybody’s qualifications. That is why we invited you.

Mr. PETR. OK. Thank you. I am a research assistant professor

at Colorado School of Mines. At the same time I am an explosive

inspector for State of Colorado, Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Oil and Public Safety, Denver office in Colorado.

I have two things I would like to address. One is from the end

of the user, people who are using daily explosives and also when

you can control and regulate the explosives. One part that I think

is important that also Dr. Rozgonyi mentioned for education purposes is how we can regulate and how we can use explosives.

The other part is when I represent the State of Colorado, when

I am State inspector, I would just bring quickly overview of how

many people, how many licenses we have by October 22, 2005. We

have 1,725 active Type I permits, people who physically touch explosives, and we have 675 Type II permits. This is the companies

who own explosives.

Also we have 287 Type III, the license for explosive magazines.

The State of Colorado is following Federal regulations. Also we are

controlling like if somebody will come and would like to have license from State of Colorado or practice explosive demolition or different things using explosives, they will also have to not just have

ATF license but they will have to have Colorado license.

To be able to get Colorado license or use explosives, you have to

have a minimum of 1 year experience under someone who has experience using explosives. The second part we also have is a regulation that you have to be 21 and mentally and physically able like

we have with ATF.

But they have to provide us with employer letter that they have

more than 1 year experience under supervision of somebody who

has license.

We are not just giving a license to people. I want only to point

it out. We can talk more about that later. Not all the States have

controls like in Utah or Wyoming. They are much more leaning for

the regulations and who has access to the explosives.

I will stop here. If you have some questions, I will be happy to

answer them.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Petr follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. One of the reasons we invited you was

that our reading is that Colorado has paid a lot more attention to

this than other States and we thank you.

At this time we will go to Mr. Ronay.

STATEMENT OF JAMES CHRISTOPHER RONAY

Mr. RONAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Representative Lantos. Good morning.

The Institute of Makers of Explosives is very pleased to be here

today once again having participated last year. We are the Safety

and Security Institute serving the commercial explosives industry

and the government since 1913. You may recall from my previous

testimony that over 51⁄2 billion pounds of industrial explosives are

consumed annually in the United States. All of the metals, minerals, petroleum products, construction materials, and many consumer products are available today because commercial explosives

make them possible.

Since our last meeting, the IME has completed and published

safety library publication No. 27 which I have provided to the subcommittee. It is entitled, ‘‘Security in Manufacturing, Transportation, Storage and Use of Commercial Explosives.’’ This comprehensive document addresses security in all aspects of daily operations and is intended for use by all who use commercial explosives.

The IMR is also working closely with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to develop security recommendations for Federal explosives licensees. We have also produced a

training video with ATF dealing with the safe storage of explosives.

The explosive industry embraces the oversight of the many agencies that promulgate the rules by which we are governed. We are

very proud of our contribution to the development of these rules

over the last 90 years.

I want to emphasize that the current Federal regulatory regime

works very well for the industrial sector. We believe that any

mechanism that prevents explosive materials from falling into the

wrong hands enhances security. It would undoubtedly be best to require Federal oversight of all explosive storage facilities. However,

I must emphasize that any additional mandate given to the ATF

must not infringe on its ability to maintain appropriate oversight

of the many more and much larger industrial explosives operations

and facilities. The ATF presently has barely adequate facilities to

oversee all the private sector licensees.

Finally, let me emphasize this industry’s commitment to the security of all explosives operations. We continually seek to develop

more effective and reasonable requirements that will ensure the

continued availability of our products for use in the commerce of

our Nation.

I thank the subcommittee for this opportunity and will respectfully answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ronay follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Ronay.

Sheriff Horsley.

STATEMENT OF DON HORSLEY

Sheriff HORSLEY. Thank you, Chairman Shays and Congressman

Lantos. It has been over a year since my initial testimony before

this subcommittee and my staff has been hard at work to improve

the effectiveness of our bomb squad and rectify the conditions

which led up to the July 2004 burglary of our shared storage facility located on the city and county of San Francisco Watershed

Property, located in unincorporated San Mateo County.

Over the past year we have conducted a thorough review of our

bomb squad to determine its operational status, training needs,

management oversight and feasibility of a new storage site in San

Mateo County. Last year our bomb squad had only two certified

bomb technicians. Since then we have added three more bomb technicians to the squad as a consequence of the international events.

In addition, I have mandated that my management staff who has

responsibility for oversight of the bomb squad attend the Hazardous Devices School [HDS], executive management course located at

the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. This course is designed to provide managers to effectively manage a bomb squad to ensure proper oversight and accountability.

Since the last public hearing on the subject, we have been successful in obtaining Homeland Security funding for much needed

equipment, such as a response vehicle, state-of-the-art robot and

various other mitigation tools and safety equipment that was lacking for our bomb squad in the past.

As of today’s date, however, we have been unsuccessful in finding

a suitable site in San Mateo County for storage and mitigation.

However, within the next 60 days, we will be making a presentation to a city council in San Mateo County, with hopes of using

a site within their city limits that meets both our requirements,

and that of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [BATFE].

We are currently in the process of securing a temporary agreement with another law enforcement agency that exceeds that of the

Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco guidelines within the

San Francisco Bay Area to store our explosives. Our Sheriffs Office

executive staff has inspected this storage site. In fact, I have some

photographs if you wish to see them later. They have reviewed

their security and feel that it is suitable for our needs while we

continue to search for a permanent site in San Mateo County.

The sheriffs bomb squad receives and responds to approximately

200 calls per year. When we collect explosive evidence, we render

it safe, photograph the evidence, document our findings and dispose of it immediately at a predetermined location. On certain occasions, when the explosive device is rendered safe and disassembled,

a small representative sample of the incendiary powder is kept as

evidence to authenticate the device. At this time, we are not storing any explosive evidence but we are storing evidence with a

neighboring county’s facility.

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outs, increases staff costs in terms of overtime, creates another link

in the chain of custody for those cases in which explosive evidence

must be maintained.

Sheriffs bomb technicians currently provide expert testimony

from the evidence that is collected and/or tested to authenticate

any type of explosive device for all law enforcement agencies in San

Mateo County. They do so from evidence that has been collected in

either a pre- or post-blast crime scene.

Since we do not currently have explosives to train with, we have

been doing explosive training with other local bomb squads and enrolling our staff in explosive training courses provided by both the

Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Hazardous Device School.

Some of this training could be done in house which would reduce

costs to the Sheriffs Office, and at the same time ensure that our

bomb technicians meet the minimum monthly and yearly Federal

training requirements.

As we move forward in planning to secure a new storage site, the

main affect on our agency is the inability to store explosives, explosive evidence and to assist local in-county law enforcement agencies with collecting and storing confiscated illegal fireworks.

This concludes my comments. I would like to again thank the

subcommittee for your interest in this issue and for your work in

helping to develop national standards for explosive storage facilities.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Horsley follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Sheriff Horsley.

At this time Lt. Kirby.

STATEMENT OF LT. GARY KIRBY

Lt. KIRBY. Good morning, Chairman, Mr. Lantos, and subcommittee members. I am currently a lieutenant for the San Jose

Police Department assigned to the Chief’s Office as commander of

Research and Development Unit.

The San Jose Police Department has 12 active bomb technicians

and investigators and we investigate approximately 250 to 300 explosive incidents a year. Since 1992 the department has maintained an explosive storage magazine for both high and low grade

explosives on the site of our 6-acre Bomb Range and Training Facility.

The Bomb Range and Training Facility is the only explosive magazine available for use to other county, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies within Santa Clara County. This facility exceeds current ATF explosive storage requirements as set forth in

U.S. Government codes.

In addition to the ATF storage regulations, this facility has daily

inspections of the explosive storage magazine and is completely

surrounded with locked cyclone fencing and electronic monitoring

devices.

Explosives are stored at the facility for a variety of uses which

include evidence storage of a criminal investigation, related bomb

technician duties for rendering safe explosives, rendering safe explosives for training facilities, ongoing training and special instructional courses provided in conjunction with the FBI and ATF, as

well as providing the safe storage of explosives used exclusively for

training San Jose Police Department bomb detection dogs assigned

to the San Jose Airport as part of the Transportation Safety Agency security requirements.

The BRTF is located in a heavily industrialized section of the city

of San Jose which also happens to be a considerable distance away

from residential populations and also frequent patrol activities that

would check during non-business hours.

In the past, the San Jose Police Department was confident with

the existing security measures in place for the protection of explosive materials and safety measures for personnel responding to

alarm calls on breaches in security at the BRTF. In light of the current threat environment, however, associated to potential terrorist

activity, our position and level of comfort on adequate security

measures has changed.

We, along with other associations such as the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, believe we should

elevate our ability to secure, monitor, and respond to incidents relating at our BRTF. The course of corrective action determined by

the police department to provide the desired security enhancements is to install a more sophisticated security alarms that will

detect intrusive movements anywhere on the bomb range training

facility prior to any intrusion targeting the explosive storage magazine.

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munications dispatch operators is an additional enhancement recommendation. This will not only allow for remote camera viewing

during security breaches, but also adds increased security during

training and routine explosives handling.

Most breaches in security require a post investigation that centers around such questions as what was taken, who took the explosives, and how do we initiate a timely investigation with suspect

descriptions and routes of departure. The proposed security enhancements would assist in the post-investigative process and

could possibly act as a deterrent to a breach in security by their

mere presence.

To secure funding for this project, estimated at a cost of approxi- mately $20,000, the San Jose Police Department submitted a request for funding on the 2005 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office for Domestic Preparedness, through the California State

Homeland Security Program. The request was submitted to the

Santa Clara County State Homeland Security Approval Authority

for consideration. The Approval Authority took the request under

submission and presented it along with other law enforcement

agency requests to be prioritized in order of importance as determined by the Santa Clara County Association of Police and Fire

Chiefs.

Through their prioritization process, the funding to purchase the

increased security and monitoring equipment was not granted on

the first round of approval. To the credit of the Santa Clara County

Approval Authority, this body did recognize the importance of this

equipment and committed to earmarking any identified project savings during this funding period to purchase the requested equipment.

However, in the interim, a similar request for funding has been

submitted to the Department of Homeland Security, Buffer Zone

Protection Plan. We feel this is a greater likelihood that this security enhancement will be made available through the BZPP funding rather than waiting for identified project savings from State

Homeland Security.

Law enforcement agencies nationwide continue to work together

in the fight against terrorism. We know that the use of explosives

is a key effort in the terrorist activity. I believe the efforts of this

subcommittee will assist in the winning of this war, through collective sharing and support of security enhancements that will work

toward guarding the Nation’s storage of explosives.

I thank you for the opportunity to talk to this committee and I

am available for questions.

[The prepared statement of Lt. Kirby follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We appreciate the testimony of all of you.

Let me just start out by saying I would like to know from each of

you what you may have agreed with most from the first panel and

what you may have disagreed with most from anything you heard

from the first panel. What you agreed with most and what you disagreed with most.

I am going to be looking for not long answers but fairly concise.

I want to confide with all of you that I have a flight that leaves

before 1 p.m., and if I could be out of here at 12:40 p.m., I will

make my flight fine. Why don’t we start with whoever is ready first

to start.

Lt. KIRBY. Listening to the testimony today, I think that it was

quite spirited and got to the point that although standards, though

minimum, need to be quickly exceeded. We have tried to do that.

Some of the things that I think need to be imposed upon is that

we have talked about either two types of intrusion, either internal

theft or external blatant break-ins.

Nowhere has there been a consorted discussion of how law enforcement agents such as myself and the sheriff seated here today

would be responsible for recovering and successfully prosecuting

these people that did that. As you create your standards, I would

anticipate that there would be something into the early warning

system, the capturing of photo ID and alarm systems that go to establish those procedures.

I also noticed that there was no discussion in the enhanced security within reason that these measures are using electronic devices

for monitoring of breeches, that there is backup power, and that

there are procedures set in place when there are power interruptions that inspection processes take place of those facilities. Those

would be a couple of things that I would add to for consideration.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Sheriff HORSLEY. I think in my last testimony from a year ago,

I recognized that there needed to be a national standard. Reading

the GAO report on the number of thefts that occurred just in a few

months of 2003, it was disconcerting to find out how many thefts

there were from private storage facilities. I would recommend that

there be national standards that apply to both the public and private sector, that they be consistent, and that there should be either

annual or bi-annual inspection of all of those sites.

Mr. RONAY. I would have to agree with the first panel entirely

that security should be the same for all storage entities. We have

no question that they are already required to do so but the oversight that we have discussed would be appropriate.

I really don’t have any cause to disagree with any of the presentations made except that in the development of these standards

that we have today consideration has had to be given to the reality

of conducting business in the United States, providing these products realistically to the consumers.

What might appear to be inadequate in some cases or minimally

acceptable—I am commenting on your observation, Mr. Lantos—

some of these things have been deemed to be required just for operational necessity. However, there is great room for improvement

and our recommendations in the document that I mentioned do require considerably enhanced security measures.

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Mr. SHAYS. Quickly before going to the rest of the panel, what

State to you is the benchmark that we should look to that would

toughen our standards beyond what the Federal Government has?

What State to you is the most impressive in its oversight and regulation?

Mr. RONAY. What State of the union?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. RONAY. We are dealing in the State of Pennsylvania right at

the moment with some very, very onerous security regulations that

they have put in emergency effect.

Mr. SHAYS. I didn’t ask you which is the most onerous. I am asking which of the ones do you think make the most sense? Is it Colorado? Is it what State? Think about it and I will come back to you.

Mr. RONAY. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. Am I putting you in an awkward position?

Mr. RONAY. No, not at all. I am just not sure I can answer that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Just think about it and I will come back.

Mr. Petr.

Mr. PETR. Thank you. I agree with everybody here that we need

some uniform force here who can inspect magazines, not just private or the government like a bomb squad. In my private experience, I was helping with training bomb technicians and I have buried lots of friends but I think we should have access and somebody

should overview their bookkeeping about explosive, how much explosives out, how much explosives in, who sold it, who bought it.

I think it should be not just ATF but also maybe even the States

should be involved in this regulative role.

What I disagree with, you know, the last 13 years I was here in

the USA and I saw the change of the ATF. I saw that ATF before

didn’t do too much about explosives because they were not interested. They did lots of gun control and all that. Now I think they

are doing a great job the last couple of years and I see the changes

that ATF is improving for State of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

They have only three inspectors to inspect all the magazines.

Now they have 10 inspectors and they finally are getting up to

speed. I am just saying this is from the field and I am getting feedback that they do a great job. They go back and they go in depth

with checking. I think this is——

Mr. SHAYS. So whatever we see as a state of affairs, it was a lot

worse before?

Mr. PETR. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And you have seen improvement.

Mr. PETR. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Sgt. MATHIASEN. With this morning’s testimony, I think we all

know that these standards are probably set too low and we need

to bump them up and we are in agreement with that. I was just

a little bit surprised that they did identify some thefts that weren’t

reported. In the 20 years I have been a bomb technician and a

bomb squad commander you know that when explosives are stolen

you report it to ATF. That is drilled into you day one when you go

to training.

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Mr. SHAYS. So you were surprised they were not reported and we

should be taking a better look at that and the consequences of not

reporting. Thank you. Any other point?

Sgt. MATHIASEN. The only other point is sometimes those reporting requirements sometimes are paperwork errors. Somebody

checked something in, somebody checked something out and they

weren’t on the same page. I would like to know more about what

those thefts that weren’t reported were.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Dr. Rozgonyi.

Dr. ROZGONYI. I think almost everybody took away what I was

thinking, but I fully agree that we definitely should have a common

basis for both public and private institution including universities.

Especially if you take into account the diversity of the student

body, what you are dealing with at the universities. I do not see

a clear system how we should deal with that and the liability of

the universities.

I think also that clear incidents reporting mechanisms should be

established so there should not be any kind of misinterpretation

and whom should report that one and when and how. And some

kind of consequences if it is not happening in due time. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Gonzalez.

Chief GONZALEZ. Thank you. One of the gentlemen from ATF

mentioned the remoteness of the facilities which they are by need

remote from most areas.

Mr. SHAYS. Unless they are in a municipal building.

Chief GONZALEZ. Except for that one. That is true. Because of

that remoteness it protects the thieves as well as the people around

them. Although this is a nuts and bolts issue, I guess, the security

of these facilities should be something preventative, something

prior to the magazine actually being breached because that is what

takes the time. If you actually want to prevent a thief, I think that

is where the security should concentrate.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Lantos.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all the

witnesses. I am very pleased that there is a growing consensus

among these knowledgeable people that there ought to be no differentiation between public and private facilities because it simply

doesn’t make sense, that there need to be higher standards, that

ATF needs to be better funded, and the higher standards will have

to be fully adhered to and punitive measures taken where they are

not.

I want to commend Sheriff Horsley and his department for taking these very significant steps that you have outlined to improve

security here in San Mateo County. While we were all deeply regretful that these thefts occurred here, in the long run, it may have

very positive ramifications because both the first hearing and this

hearing, the subsequent hearing the chairman is planning, and the

legislation we will introduce are the direct result of this episode

and I am pleased that from this unfortunate incident positive nationwide consequences will flow.

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I also want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for taking your

very precious time and coming out here. This is a difficult area to

come to and we appreciate your willingness to visit us.

Mr. SHAYS. My only problem is that I have family, a brother in

Hillsboro, and I didn’t tell him I was even here. He may read about

it in the newspaper and wonder why.

Mr. LANTOS. We will have a news blackout on this hearing, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask. Is there any final point that anyone

wants to make sure is on the record that needs to be on the record

so we don’t leave here without that information being provided?

First of all, I would quickly like to say give me a few of the model

States. You don’t have to give me just one.

Mr. RONAY. Yes. I was just thinking about it. I think in addition

to Colorado, Kentucky and Connecticut have excellent

regulatory——

Mr. SHAYS. You didn’t say Connecticut just because I am from

Connecticut?

Mr. RONAY. I had forgotten that entirely that you were from

there.

Mr. SHAYS. Good to know. That makes me feel very good. Thank

you.

Mr. RONAY. They are pretty good. I would make my one final

comment if I might.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. RONAY. That is, throughout the many years I have been with

the IME we have always endorsed funding for ATF to do their job

properly. We know that it is a heavy task on them and if anything

additional is added to their responsibilities, I know they have

asked and we certainly would endorse that additional funding.

Mr. SHAYS. We totally agree that if you are going to ask them

to do more, given that they are not funded enough now, we had

better come up with some dollars for it. I think that is very clear.

Anyone else like to put any——

Mr. PETR. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank by name Vince

Chase and Bob Briggs of your staff for an outstanding job.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. And thank your staff as well.

Mr. LANTOS. Jason Rosenstock, Lynne Weil, and Ron Grimes.

Mr. SHAYS. We appreciate their work as well. Is there any

other——

Mr. PETR. If you will make some changes in these regulations,

can we define some license for the whole Nation, explosive license

or explosive user that maybe ATF will double up tests that can be

uniform for each? Right now every State has different regulations.

Mr. SHAYS. I think the focus that you are making clear to us, and

others have as well, that besides looking at the facility and where

we have the facility and how we keep the facility, the people who

handle the explosive devices obviously are equally, if not more, important. That is a very key point. I see nodding of heads by the witnesses.

Any other comment before we hit the gavel? Any point that

needs to be made part of the record? OK. With that we adjourn.

I thank you for the cooperation of this panel. Excellent panel and

we appreciate your work and help. We look forward to reporting

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back to you in March about where we’re at. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m. the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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