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35–917 PDF 2007

THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY’S PREPAREDNESS 

AND RESPONSE TO ALL HAZARDS 

(110–35) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 26, 2007 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

Chart of Presidential disaster declarations and chart of disaster occurences 

by type, provided by Subcommittee .................................................................... xii 

TESTIMONY 

Canterbury, Chuck, President, Fraternal Order of Police ................................... 49 

Carr, Chief Tom, Montgomery County, Maryland, Fire Rescue Service, International Association of Fire Chiefs ..................................................................... 49 

Endrikat, Chief Fred, Special Operations Chief, City of Philadelphia Fire 

Department, Special Operations Command ....................................................... 49 

Fugate, William ‘‘Craig,’’ Director, Florida Division Of Emergency Management, Member, National Emergency Management Association ...................... 25 

Johnson, Vice Admiral Harvey, Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency 

Management Agency ............................................................................................ 8 

Selves, Michael D., CEM, President, International Association of Emergency 

Managers .............................................................................................................. 25 

Sexton, Sr., Sheriff Edmund M. ‘‘Ted,’’ Former President, National Sheriffs’ 

Association ............................................................................................................ 49 

Witt, James Lee, CEO Of James Lee Witt Associates, a part of GlobalOptions 

Group .................................................................................................................... 25 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 63 

Arcuri, Hon. Michael A., of New York ................................................................... 00 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Canterbury, Chuck .................................................................................................. 65 

Carr, Chief Tom ....................................................................................................... 69 

Endrikat, Fred ......................................................................................................... 76 

Fugate, William ‘‘Craig’’ .......................................................................................... 79 

Johnson, Harvey ...................................................................................................... 87 

Selves, Michael D. ................................................................................................... 104 

Sexton Sr., Sheriff Edmund M. ‘‘Ted’’ .................................................................... 114 

Witt, James Lee ....................................................................................................... 117 

vi 


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35917.002
viii 


35917.003
ix 


35917.004
x 


35917.005
xi 


35917.006
xii 


35917.007
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35917.008
(1) 

HEARING ON FEMA’S PREPAREDNESS AND 

RESPONSE TO ALL HAZARDS 

Thursday, April 26, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Eleanor 

Holmes Norton [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. I am pleased to welcome everyone to this very important hearing on new legislation that gives FEMA new authorities, new independence to see how the agency intends to move forward. 

Let me ask for unanimous consent, pursuant to Rule 3(d) of the 

rules of our Committee, that the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. 

Baker, a Member of the Full Committee, be allowed to participate 

in today’s Subcommittee hearing should he be able to appear. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Today’s hearing will address the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2007, which has just become effective. The 

Subcommittee called this early hearing when the slate is clean and 

FEMA has the opportunity to start anew, to allow the agency to 

indicate its way forward in its own words under the Post-Katrina 

Act and to permit first responder experts to explain their understanding. 

The Post-Katrina Act specifically clarifies this term ‘‘all hazards.’’ 

It is a term that needed clarification when FEMA became a part 

of the Department of Homeland Security. It clarifies the all hazards strategy by mandating preparedness strategies that acknowledge the necessity of building common response capabilities to 

meet specific disasters, whatever their origin. 

The Subcommittee is eager to assist FEMA in carrying out the 

Post-Katrina Act for an integrated FEMA where preparedness, response, and recovery present a seamless continuum and natural 

and non-terrorist events take the appropriately prominent place 

within FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. There is 

no need to rehash the details of how the Department responded to 

four major Florida hurricanes during the 2004 season, which were 

precursors of the larger problems that emerged from Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita in 2005. 

The agency’s reaction to Katrina exposed the weakness of segregating preparedness from the necessary functions of response and 

2 

recovery. Congress responded with the Post-Katrina Act that requires more autonomy for FEMA. The point of the hearing today 

is to give FEMA and the expert witnesses the opportunity to seize 

the initiative in describing how they believe the new mandate to 

prepare for all hazards should operate, and any differences they 

perceive between operations in the past and what they expect 

under the Post-Katrina Act. 

Hurricane Katrina taught us that notwithstanding the unique 9/ 

11 tragedy and preparedness in an era of global terrorism, our citizens face other serious risks every day, almost none of them terror 

related. The emergency responders who receive FEMA grants are 

expected to use these funds even for the unexpected, whether from 

the effects of power outages like the total New York blackout of 

1977—I was there then—the blackouts of 2003 that traveled 

throughout the Midwest to the Northeast; hazmat rail accidents in 

South Carolina and elsewhere; or Tractor Man, who dangerously 

tied up downtown Washington in 2003. 

Of course, responders must also prepare for serious seasonal acts 

of nature, as well as highly unusual natural events, most recently, 

for example, a tornado in hurricane-prone Florida. At the same 

time, FEMA and emergency responders must plan for natural disasters we hope never come, such as Governor Schwarzenegger’s 

warnings about the California levees deteriorating or earthquakes 

along the San Andreas Fault. 

The endless list of possible events suggest the seriously unpredictable nature of what is expected of the agency. How will the new 

FEMA and our responders reconcile planning for an act of nature 

in hazard-prone parts of the Country, such as California, Florida, 

and the Great Plains, with preparing for random acts of terror that 

could in targeted and un-targeted cities? 

When FEMA was created as an independent agency, it seemed 

no more likely that a section of the District of Columbia would be 

declared a disaster area as occurred because of flooding following 

Hurricane Isabel, then that the Pentagon would be attacked. Yet, 

even today a natural disaster is a more likely event here, even 

though the Nation’s capital is in the first tier for a terrorist attack 

and the last for flooding. 

Because the Post-Katrina Act is new, the Subcommittee, of 

course, can have no criticism concerning its implementation, but 

today the Subcommittee seeks the agency’s vision and plans for assuring Congress that the lessons of Katrina have been absorbed 

and all hazards will receive the requisite attention. 

The agency Administrator is responsible for developing FEMA’s 

approach for carrying out the Act’s new mandate. Ironically, however, the Administrator chose to go to a meeting with others from 

the Department of Homeland Security at the Israeli Embassy. Only 

after I called the agency director was the Subcommittee assured of 

testimony from Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson, the agency’s deputy 

administrator, leaving the unfortunate impression that the postKatrina emphasis can always be trumped, even by a meeting with 

foreigners on an issue probably related to terrorism or its possibilities. 

I hope the testimony from the agency today shows otherwise, especially considering that we have sought here to do oversight on 

3 

the new Act by allowing the head of the agency to lay out his own 

vision and views in the first instance, rather than only rely after 

the fact on oversight criticism. 

We are very pleased to welcome Vice Admiral Johnson and thank 

him for agreeing to testify. We especially welcome our expert witnesses from the emergency response sectors that must work with 

FEMA to assure success. 

I see that the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Mica, 

is here. I referenced the Florida hurricanes. I would like to ask Mr. 

Mica if he has any statement to make at this point. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I see Mrs. Capito is acting as our Ranking 

Member this morning, but I did have a couple of comments. 

First of all, I want to thank you, Ms. Norton, for putting this important hearing together and working with both sides of the aisle 

to make certain that the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 and the various revisions we have made to try to 

make certain that we are prepared, that we have the best emergency management system in place possible. So I want to commend 

you on holding the hearing. 

Unfortunately, I am now serving on six of the Subcommittees as 

the Ranking Member. I won’t be able to stay; I have got other commitments. But I did want to take a minute and also welcome the 

witnesses. I see Mr. Johnson who is with us. I want to also welcome Craig Fugate, who is the Director of Florida’s Division of 

Emergency Management. 

As you have pointed out, Florida has, unfortunately, experienced 

a number of disasters. But Florida is also widely recognized as having one of the best systems in place to deal with disasters and hazards systems in the Nation. Unfortunately, also, from some practical experience, my district has seen three major hurricanes and 

two tornadoes in the past two years, and we provide a lot of practical experience for FEMA, and I think it is very important to me 

and also the people of Florida that we ensure that the Post-Katrina 

Emergency Management Reform Act is implemented properly. 

Before Katrina, our State emergency managers had warned us 

that removing preparedness from FEMA would cause the Federal 

Government’s disaster response capabilities to in fact decline. We 

had a failed response to Hurricane Katrina in part because DHS 

removed preparedness programs from FEMA. In the Reform Act, 

we put preparedness back in FEMA, and I think that is an important step. 

After Katrina, many States were concerned that the Federal Government would attempt to take over the response to every significant disaster, whether necessary or not. Some States are more prepared than others. For example, my own home State of Florida has, 

as I said, a first-rate all hazards preparedness system. We have 

had very excellent response from State and local level, with good 

Federal cooperation in the past. 

In Florida, we have also learned how important it is to have an 

adequate alert and warning system. During the recent tornadoes in 

my district, warning people was a problem. Unfortunately, that 

didn’t happen, and that is something that we need to look at. 

FEMA’s alert and warning system uses 1960s technology. We 

need to look at integrating and modernizing the system and using 

4 

the very latest modern technology that is available so that we can 

warn people at the right time to save lives, whether it is in a tornado or maybe, as we saw a week ago on the Virginia Tech campus. We can and we must do better in being able to warn people. 

I know FEMA has a couple of pilot programs to test new technology. I think that is great, but I think we even need more. I look 

forward to working with you to develop a comprehensive modern 

warning program. 

State emergency managers have also told me the speed of the 

declaration process is problematic, particularly for individual assistance. We have seen some problems there. Unfortunately, the 

criteria are subjective and, as a result, States often ask for a declaration when they shouldn’t, and fail to request one sometimes 

when they should. Craig Fugate, our Florida emergency manager, 

and I have had discussions about this. I also had an opportunity 

to meet with other State managers of emergency operations, and 

I think we all agree that this continues to be a problem. I hope we 

can work on finding a solution there. 

Also, finally, I want to mention that I have developed draft legislation that helps FEMA provide States with excess resources and, 

in some cases, trailers, mobile homes to house disaster victims outside of a Federally-declared disaster. We have seen the difficulty in 

sometimes getting these idle assets to where they should be and, 

again, difficulty in some of these declarations. 

I look forward to working with Chairwoman Norton and other 

Members interested in resolving these problems. This Committee 

has had a long history of supporting FEMA. I think we care about 

these issues, and we look forward to working with you on a regular 

basis. 

Thank you for deferring to me. I wish I had less experience in 

this field, but, unfortunately, Florida has been victimized by natural disasters and we have a lot of experience in this area. 

I yield back. 

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

I would like to Mr. Arcuri if he has a statement to make at this 

time. The gentleman from New York. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I would like to thank 

the witnesses for being here today. We appreciate it very much. 

Many lessons have been learned in the aftermath of the Katrina 

disaster. Most troubling of all is that FEMA’s preparedness functions and assets have been redirected to a newly created preparedness directorate within the Department of Homeland Security in 

order to also undertake response to terrorism. We now have 

learned that eroding FEMA’s core responsibilities of disaster preparedness made it more difficult for FEMA to execute a responsible 

and effective response to the Katrina catastrophe. 

Straining the agency to balance responsibilities, terrorism, and 

disaster response without balanced funding is not a responsible 

way to ensure that a community or government will have an adequate response system prepared to handle any disaster, be it earthquake, flood, or terrorist attack. 

Some may think that local emergency management is as simple 

as sending firefighters to put out a fire or clearing snow off roadways after a large snowstorm. However, effective responses to 

5 

these types of disasters require local communities to develop a comprehensive approach to ensure the proper equipment, infrastructure, and first responders are in place before the disaster even occurs. 

FEMA is tasked with helping communities prepare their State 

and local emergency management officials with capabilities to adequately respond to a disaster. FEMA’s ability to execute this core 

responsibility was severely handicapped as a result of its reorganization within DHS. 

The threat of terrorist attack in my upstate New York district is 

far less commonplace than the threat of heavy rains, flooding, or 

severe snowstorms. Therefore, it is necessary to make certain that 

areas of the Country, including the district I am privileged to represent, are not left without sufficient emergency management resources to respond to the more probable disasters that plague them 

more frequently. 

The City of Oneonta, which I represent, was devastated last year 

by heavy rains and severe flooding, and is still in the process of 

fully recovering. FEMA’s response and recovery efforts in Oneonta 

have been less than exemplary, and I hope, as the agency is reconstructed, future emergency responses are adequate and timely. For 

example, there was $560,000 that has been approved for damage, 

and yet only $134,000 has to date been paid out to residents of that 

area. So something has to be done about that to speed up the response of FEMA. 

I look forward to hearing on the progress being made at DHS to 

ensure that FEMA resumes a balanced all hazards approach to 

emergency management. 

Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

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

I want to welcome Mrs. Capito and thank her for sitting in for 

the Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, and ask the gentlelady from 

West Virginia if she has a statement. 

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank 

you for holding this hearing. Before I begin, I want to mention that 

Ranking Member Graves is at a classified briefing regarding a constituent of his that was recently kidnaped in Iraq. As you can 

imagine, he is doing whatever he can to assist the family, and he 

will be here as soon as he can. 

Thank you again for holding this hearing on FEMA’s preparedness in response to all hazards. Returning the preparedness function to FEMA and establishing the national preparedness system 

were central components of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. After Hurricane Katrina, the House conducted 

an exhaustive review of what went wrong with the Government’s 

response to that terrible storm. One of the key findings of the investigation was that the Federal Government’s preparedness efforts were disconnected from its response operations and this contributed to an ineffective disaster response. 

After FEMA was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, its preparedness functions were removed. At the time, emergency management professionals warned that the four cornerstones 

of comprehensive emergency management—preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation—must be closely joined and jointly 

6 

managed. As a result, recombining preparedness with the other 

three elements of comprehensive emergency management was one 

of the central reforms of our bill. 

We also established an all hazards national preparedness system. The national preparedness system is intended to be a partnership between all levels of government. That is why we created the 

National Advisory Council with representatives from the National, 

State, and local levels. We intend the Council to participate in the 

development of every major component of the system. Similarly, we 

created regional advisory councils to improve preparedness at the 

local level. We also elevated the role of the fire administrator and 

created a special law enforcement advisor to the fire administrator. 

Law enforcement plays a critical role in disasters, and FEMA 

needs to ensure their requirements are fully addressed. 

Another important lessons of Katrina was DHS cannot afford to 

ignore natural disasters and other emergencies in its effort to address the terrorism threat. We must do both. 

This Committee supports separate grant programs for improving 

different aspects of the all hazards system. It is entirely appropriate to have terrorism preparedness grants where money is allocated based on the risk of terrorism as long as they all enhance the 

all hazards system. Similarly, we have fire grants and emergency 

management performance grants directed to the first responder 

and emergency management disciplines as long as they are consistent with the all hazards system. 

Another lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that we need to reform 

the Federal chain of command. The Stafford Act, which governs 

Federal emergency management, provides the President with the 

authority to direct all Federal agencies during a disaster. Ultimately, the President is the only one who can direct the Secretary 

of Defense and the assets of the entire Federal Government. 

To execute his responsibilities effectively, the President needs 

the advice of a disaster professional. As a result, our reform bill 

gave the FEMA Administrator the authority to manage disasters 

on behalf of the President, and we expect the national response 

plan to reflect these changes. 

Our Committee has a long history with FEMA, and I want you 

to know that we want you to succeed, and we are here to help you. 

Again, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here, and 

I look forward to your expert testimony. 

I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Madam Ranking Member 

for the day. 

I want to ask Mr. Walz of Minnesota if he has any statement. 

Mr. Baker, I have indicated and gotten unanimous consent for 

you to sit in, if you want to say a few words. You are welcome at 

this time. 

Mr. BAKER. Madam Chair, I appreciate the courtesy extended. I 

will be brief. I am here out of a sincere sense of motivation on this 

topic. 

I think that there has been a great deal of discussion about the 

general environment in which the Government responded to this 

inordinate disaster, but I want to frame the scope of the response 

in a slightly different way. All too often, people hear Katrina and 

7 

think $100 billion. The actual allocated funds made available for 

Katrina response for all purposes was slightly in excess of $32 billion. 

Now, my comment at this point is certainly not directed to our 

distinguished witness, but to the system. I wish to make that clear. 

But when people think of $32 billion, which, by the way, is a lot 

of money, but it is not $100 billion, 22 percent of that went to 

FEMA for its own administrative operations, $7.2 billion. Now, 

there are very few operations in business that take a 22 percent 

cut off the top, but let’s keep that in perspective. $7.2 billion from 

$32 billion gets us down to $25 billion. 

Okay, let’s assume for the moment we are going to side step the administrative issues, what did we do for $7 billion worth of administration. It left a net of $25 billion to be allocated to the subject target area. Just in one category alone, $2.1 billion was spent 

on the acquisition of trailers. As of this moment, there are 60,000 

trailers in storage in FEMA’s possession around the Country, many 

of which were never deployed to the intended user. 

Of those which were deployed, you have to take into account not 

the cost of acquisition, but the cost of siting the trailer; that is, 

physically getting it on the ground, delivery; that is hooking it up 

to things which make it work, like utilities; and that is handing 

over the key to the person who will occupy it, notwithstanding the 

fact there were 118,000 trailers keyed with the same lock. That 

created some interesting issues for people who wished to venue 

shop, looking for a TV. 

Let’s set that aside. The cost to put those trailers on that pad averaged slightly in excess of $70,000, troubling for the taxpayer, 

because those were temporary locations where we could have built 

modular housing on a slab for about $60,000 a site. The site as my 

source Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. 

There is not a way on earth that we could take $32 billion and 

as poorly respond to the environment in which we responded without having it been by a plan. You couldn’t do it this badly by accident. There had to be somebody thinking this out. 

At the end of the day, I hope the Committee will look very carefully at the rules-based nature of emergency response. By that I 

mean there are a set of standards which the Congress and bureaucracy has put into place in contemplation of a small geographic 

fixed, previously studied type of disaster. This one was beyond all 

the books. Notwithstanding, the rules had to be applied. 

For example, we had a law enforcement entity that responded to 

the disaster by deploying its assets to help people in search and 

rescue and in restoring civil order. Now, the way in which that law 

enforcement entity would normally get reimbursed is to get an invoice from the benefitted entity, meaning the City of Orleans, as 

one example. 

Well, there is a problem. That entity doesn’t have a mailbox; it 

doesn’t have an office; it doesn’t have employees. There is nobody 

there with which you can create the invoice. So the guy who went 

out of his way to do the right thing for the right reason, who is 

looking to FEMA to get reimbursed for legitimate law enforcement 

response activities can’t get reimbursed because there is nobody to 

give him an invoice. 

8 

Now, that is an illogical conclusion to someone who acts in good 

faith, motivated for the right reasons. 

Madam Chair, there is a long litany of things I could bore this 

Committee with, but I want to say I appreciate your courtesy in 

extending this brief opportunity for me to speak. And on any occasion that I can work with the Members of this Committee to bring 

about some rational thought in disposing of these types of illogical 

rules, I would be most happy and appreciative. 

I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, the gentleman speaks from great experience, 

experience we hope never to be repeated in anyone else’s State. 

The Subcommittee is very concerned that some quick FEMA 

fixes, particularly that would serve the Gulf Region, happened. We, 

of course, have just done perhaps the most important fix of all, and 

that is the 10 percent waiver. But we certainly have, and we would 

be most interested in the agency’s view. You will have an opportunity to give those views on May 11th, when we have a hearing 

on fixes that, in a real sense, are low hanging fruit, but they are 

the kinds of circumstances that you have just described that drive 

people crazy. So point well taken. 

I am pleased now to have the testimony of the deputy, Rear Admiral Johnson. 

TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL HARVEY JOHNSON, DEPUTY 

ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY 

Admiral JOHNSON. Chairwoman Norton, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss FEMA’s all 

hazards preparedness planning efforts and how that capability will 

contribute in significant measure to accomplishing Administrator 

Paulison’s vision for a new FEMA. 

In May of 2006, as FEMA was being pilloried in the wake of 

Hurricane Katrina, the President nominated and the Senate confirmed David Paulison as the Director of FEMA. One of his first 

demonstrations of leadership was to establish a vision for a new 

FEMA, that we should aspire to become the Nation’s preeminent 

emergency management and preparedness agency. This vision 

pointed us in the direction of all hazards response, recovery and 

mitigation, and it emphasized for the first time in FEMA taxonomy 

the development of core competencies, among them, all hazards 

operational planning. He challenged the agency to develop and 

sharpen those competencies so that they would distinguish professionalism and build a sense of purpose within FEMA to better meet 

the expectations of our agency, of Congress, and the American people. 

In October of 2006, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency 

Reform Act, and in that legislation you expanded our mission set 

to include protection and preparedness, and you emphasized again 

your intent that our perspectives encompass all hazards threats. 

Administrator Paulison added another core competency to his vision, that of integrated preparedness, which sent the strong signal 

inside FEMA and to our now broadened constituency that we 

would indeed reach beyond natural hazards to advance preparedness and protection with those now having influence as we reVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
9 

spond, recover, and mitigate against manmade disasters and acts 

of terrorism. 

A mentor of mine had a favorite expression. He said that a vision 

without action is nothing more than a dream. Administrator 

Paulison’s vision for a new FEMA is all about action. We have set 

a course to demonstrate our determination to embrace an all hazards approach to emergency management and preparedness. 

Mile markers on this course include the following: building robust regions, which means more people, more authority for the regional administrator, and higher expectations for mission performance; reaching out to embrace State homeland security administrators with the same attentiveness that we do to State emergency 

managers; establish a new law enforcement liaison to the Administrator, a direct report who will represent law enforcement interest 

and bring that perspective to all of our headquarters policy and 

program development; opening our once region response coordination centers from lights out waiting for a declaration to 7 by 24 

reaching out to State fusion centers and other agency operation 

centers to maintain constant situational awareness; establishing 

FEMA’s first cadre of operational planners in headquarters and in 

the regions; establishing Federal preparedness coordinators at the 

regions to work more deliberately with Federal and State partners 

at the field level; and establish preparedness relationships with 

counterparts in major urban areas, in addition to our traditional 

relationships with States. 

These actions are all in play and are all about reconnecting and 

fortifying relationships with emergency managers and establishing 

new relationships with the law enforcement community at the Federal and State level to actualize our vision of becoming the Nation’s 

preeminent emergency management and preparedness agency. As 

testament to this new approach, you and our Federal and State 

partners will see a FEMA more engaged in operational planning. 

That means we will sit down across the table to consider and advance the potential disasters and better plan for an integrated response and recovery. Joint terrorism task forces around the Nation 

will see for the first time FEMA preparedness coordinators and 

operational planners as teammates, we will be come informed of 

the current threats and be better able to initiate and support a 

timely response tailored to the nature of the threat, and they at the 

JTTF will be better informed as to how Federal and State response 

agencies will react and effect response to any manmade or terrorist 

event. 

Make no doubt about it, this is a new direction for FEMA. It reflects a broader mission challenge, it reflects a wider set of partners, and it reflects a greater depth of mission perspective. The 

new FEMA will require new skill sets, a greater investment in our 

people, and new tools to ensure the outcomes of safer communities 

and more effective response, recovery, and mitigation. 

Success will depend upon two primary factors: one where you 

have influence and one where I have influence. On your part, I ask 

that you act on your desires for a stronger, more capable FEMA by 

supporting the President’s request for our 2008 budget. That budget asks for new operational planners, it asks for Federal preparedness coordinators, it asks for additional watch standards, it asks 

10 

for full-time incident management teams and more effective information management systems. 

For my part, I take on the challenge to motivate a workforce, to 

bring about a culture change, and to institute operational doctrine 

and improve business processes that will affirm your investment in 

FEMA. 

To the extent that each of us is successful in our challenges, the 

American people will benefit, as they too want a stronger and more 

responsive FEMA equally capable of helping to prevent disasters 

across the all hazards spectrum, prepare communities to be more 

resilient in the event a disaster occurs, and to be present more 

quickly and to offer assistance more compassionately when that assistance is required. 

I thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I would be 

pleased to respond to any of your questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Admiral Johnson. 

In trying to understand all hazards, would you agree that if the 

agency and responders are prepared for a natural disaster, they are 

almost surely prepared for a terrorist attack and disaster? But if 

they are prepared only for a terrorist attack and disaster, they may 

not be prepared for a natural disaster? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Madam Chairwoman, I would not agree with 

that proposition. In our view, there are a number of manmade or 

terrorist evens that have characteristics that go far beyond the 

challenges of a natural disaster. For example, any chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. In those situations, rather than run to 

the event—— 

Ms. NORTON. Let’s stop right there. Because terrorist disasters 

are quite specialized, we don’t know whether to expect something 

to blow up; we don’t know whether to expect a chemical disaster; 

we don’t know whether someone will be bringing in a nuclear device. Those require people to be very—in fact, they require specialists. The police department in a city, for example, has people who 

you send out on those things that are specially trained. 

I am trying to understand the relationship between these two as 

the agency understands the relationship between these two, the 

specialized nature of preparing for and responding sometimes to 

terrorist attacks and the more predictable natural disasters where 

responders often have, across the board, training. And you have 

just started with what it seems to me are differences of the kind 

that, in my other capacity as a Member of the Homeland Security 

Committee, we have had many hearings concerning. 

So we understand all hazards in the sense that you have got to 

be prepared for either. The question I am putting to you has to do 

with the difference between the two and whether they are entirely 

interchangeable or how you think that operates. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Madam Chairwoman, I agree with your 

premise that natural disasters occur far more frequently than does 

a manmade disaster or a terrorist event. So I agree with that 

premise. As a baseline, we must be better prepared to respond to 

natural disasters. What I would offer to you is that some of the nature of a non-natural disaster, if those first responders are more 

prepared, informed about the challenges of a terrorist event, then 

they will respond more effectively across the board. But I think it 

11 

does take some training and education, preparedness, and perhaps 

equipment to be able to respond across that full spectrum. 

We probably aren’t very far apart in our views, but I do think 

that preparing for natural disasters alone would not be sufficient. 

Ms. NORTON. I just want to say, Rear Admiral Johnson, just to 

give you an example, sitting here in target city number one, I have 

had to say time and again to my own constituents stay where you 

are if you hear that there is an event. You want the honest to goodness truth? If and when there is a disaster here, I expect it to be 

far more contained. I expect that if people ran out into the streets 

from this building or from their homes, they may run into the 

chemical that could explode, that could come from a hazmat train 

wreck. I expect that if somebody is carrying a nuclear device, that 

they had really better stay put, because the whole notion of what 

effect it will have would be something that people would have to 

look at and take some time to look at. 

The reason I raise these points is because people have learned 

how to respond to disasters essentially by evacuating and by, indeed, assuming that a disaster is the same thing and means the 

same thing for all of us. I want you to take a look at the copy of 

the map that was up here and I hope will reappear. 

Where is the map? Would audio-visual please put the map up 

again? I don’t want it to disappear; I wanted to speak about it. 

Thank you. 

The map is too busy, and I am not inviting people to look at all 

those boxes. In fact, I don’t even like the map. I like maps that say 

things, come right out and say. But the map is intended and divides the Country into its various regions. If you will look even 

from afar at that map, you may be surprised to see that there is 

no part of the Country that escapes natural disasters. The only 

part of the Country that has had a terrorist event are, of course, 

the Pentagon, this region, and New York City. 

It is very easy—and I sit on both Committees, so I try to keep 

my balance. I have to keep my balance since it is perhaps easier 

for me to see the whole world in terrorist terms. One of the criticisms of the agency, when it was incorporated into Homeland Security and Katrina came, was that terrorism had in fact become the 

vision of the agency and that it was not prepared for the old-fashioned natural attack, which is I would say 99 percent, except that 

that doesn’t say it enough, it must be 99 point something percent. 

Somehow or the other, the Post-Katrina Act is meant to get us 

back into balance and show us that every single American somewhere can expect a natural event of some sort. I haven’t even covered the acts that are not of nature, that I mentioned in my statement, like the blackouts. I don’t know how many remember when 

there was a plane that hit the 14th Street Bridge here, a huge and 

terrible, unpredictable disaster. 

Emergency responders, the people with whom you relate, have to 

be far more alert in the ordinary course of business to the unpredictable events of that kind and to the natural disasters, some of 

which are expected and some of which are not. Yet, over 90 percent 

of homeland security grants are focused on terrorism, while 10 percent go to all hazards management. 

12 

I am a Member of the Homeland Security Committee. I am not 

here criticizing that division, because that division has in part to 

do with how I responded to your original notion about chemical 

spills, nuclear possibilities, the kinds of things for which obviously 

emergency responders had no reason to be prepared. So there has 

been a huge, huge amount of money going to cities, so much so that 

the Homeland Security Committee has had hearings showing that 

so much money was thrown at them for terrorism that they had 

to find other uses for it, and I will tell you they did find some uses 

for it, and some of it, I hope, spilled over into what is needed for 

natural events. 

But the second chart, the large red part shows the 90/10 percent 

distinction. I am not suggesting that our Country spend less on 

homeland security grants at this time, but the Committee is concerned that the Administration and, for that matter, others appear 

to still want to turn the relatively small 10 percent of the EMG 

emergency grant program from an all hazards program to a terrorist program, despite what we have learned from Katrina. That 

is of great concern in the post-Katrina period. 

What would be your response, sir, to that? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, Madam Chairwoman, FEMA certainly 

agrees with you of the value of the emergency management performance grant program, and we agree that FEMA will administer 

the grant programs as they are designed and funded by Congress, 

which, of course, provides an array of grants for various purposes. 

We believe that in those grants that there is benefits, as you mentioned, spillover benefits from one grant and a port security grant 

that benefits emergency management. So I believe that we think 

that the grants have a purpose. They meet their purpose. They 

have improved preparedness at large across the Nation, and that 

preparedness has brought value to natural disaster preparedness, 

as well as preparedness for a terrorist event. 

So if that addresses your concern. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to go to the Ranking Member in a moment, but the evidence for this from the Committee really comes 

from first responders. They complain that the application process 

is so tilted toward terrorism that it becomes difficult to use the 

grants for the 99.999, whatever it is, that they use. That is of great 

concern when you have got only 10 percent of the funds. 

I am asking that you look at that application process, Mr. Johnson. Give it a review and report within 10 days any self-criticism 

you may have or any changes you might want to suggest with respect to that application. 

Could I ask the Ranking Member, Mrs. Capito? I will come back 

with some further questions, but I would like to pass on to other 

Members. 

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

In preparing for the all hazards, the first thing, I understand, is 

a risk assessment of, I guess, all kinds of risks in a certain community. Are those risk assessments done community-wise, regionally, 

nationally? How are those done and how often are they reassessed? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We have a preparedness goal for the Nation, 

and out of that goal came 15 likely scenarios of events that could 

occur, and the intent is to use those scenarios and prepare assessVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
13 

ments against those scenarios which leads to a consistent approach 

across the Nation. Those assessments are primarily done at the 

State and local level, which guidance provided by the Department 

of Homeland Security. Certainly, each State has a choice into how 

they approach those. Some scenarios may be more likely in one 

State than another, but then we use the grant funds to help and 

assist in those assessments, identify what gaps exist and how best 

to mitigate those gaps. 

Mrs. CAPITO. And how often are they reassessed, or is that dependent on what the State decides? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I think it is done perhaps unevenly across the 

Country, dependent on the progress of a State in a particular area. 

Mrs. CAPITO. Well, I like the emphasis on the State and local. I 

mean, I am from a community, West Virginia, who has—we are 

filling in your flood area here and, by the way, FEMA has been 

very good with our flash flood response. But we also have a lot of 

chemical plants, and we had one of the plants that leaked right 

after the Bhopal incident, you probably remember, in the 1980s. 

Our local community, I am sure in conjunction with FEMA, got together and has a very good local emergency response plan, and we 

all know, when we heard that siren go off, what that could possibly 

mean, and your response could be so much quicker if your coordination and assessment is in the community. So I like that. 

I have two other quick questions. I know in the bill that was 

passed last year there were certain milestones that were asked for. 

That would be a Federal Coordinating Officer, national response 

plans, development of incident—you know what the milestones are. 

I think it would be very helpful if you could line out all of the different most specific requirements in that Act and give the Members 

of this Committee a time line on where you are in completing that 

so that we could then follow along and see the progress that has 

been made and maybe gig you a little more where we think more 

progress needs to be made. 

Admiral JOHNSON. We would be very pleased to do that. In fact, 

we have looked at—there were about 139 different specific requirements to FEMA in that legislation. Many due dates are passed 

without us responding yet. We are prepared to meet with your 

Committee and to review all of the tasks in the post-Katrina reform legislation and advise you where we are in the progress toward those and when we expect to deliver results for you. We 

would be very pleased to do that. 

Mrs. CAPITO. I think that would be very helpful. 

The last question I have is certainly in the Katrina disaster, my 

understanding is the lack of a primary decision maker, somebody 

who could make a decision quickly or was willing to make a decision or made a decision was one of the things that came to light 

that was sorely lacking. In the legislation there is a Federal Coordinating Officer, but I understand there has also been created a 

Principal Federal Official. Who is going to be making the decision 

here, one person, two people? How is this going to work? Certainly, 

in terms of not only cost, but saving lives and being able to respond, I think that has got to be a critical element here. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. You are very astute in that observation. We are currently in the latter stages of the rewrite of the 

14 

national response plan. One of the key elements in that rewrite is 

to bring distinction between the role of the Principal Federal Official and FEMA’s Federal Coordinating Officer. In our view, the 

FCO is the primary Federal official who engages with State officials in all emergency management issues at a joint field office. It 

is our view that the FCO is the primary Federal official in that 

joint field office and is the primary official to make those operational decisions. 

The role of the Principal Federal Official is, in sum, to make sure 

that all of the agencies that are there at the JFO play well and 

synchronize their efforts in support of the objectives that are jointly 

developed by the State and the FCO. 

Mrs. CAPITO. All right, I thank you and I look forward to the report with the milestones listed and time lines. And if you get a 

chance to talk a little bit, I am interested in your reserve workforce, but we will save that for another day. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Arcuri. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Admiral, you talked about 15 likely scenarios that have been 

identified. Could you tell us how many of those are natural, of the 

15, and how many of those are manmade? 

Admiral JOHNSON. There is one natural disaster scenario and the 

others are manmade, and they are, for example, pandemic. They 

are created to have us look at the range of events that could occur 

and to make sure that we understand we to be prepared in those 

scenarios or how each may be different and how those would apply. 

So based on your Committee premise that natural disasters is 

the common, that is only one scenario, but that will then support 

response to all the other scenarios. 

Mr. ARCURI. And of the money that you spend on preparedness, 

how much of that goes to the manmade and how much to preparing 

for natural disasters? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think your chart, in terms of grants 

and the direction of grants, your chart is accurate, that if you want 

to—for example, if you were to say emergency management performance grants is the sole grant for emergency preparedness for 

natural disasters, you could take that perspective and say that a 

small slice goes in that direction. But I believe that all of the 

grants in some form do provide common benefits that help us in 

natural disasters. So I think it is very hard to slice across that 

way, but I think the EMPG grant is certainly a primary that tells 

you perhaps not enough money is going to natural disasters. 

Mr. ARCURI. My concern is that you always think of FEMA, at 

least I always thought of FEMA, as the agency that helps us respond and prepare for natural disasters, and my concern is that 

the preparation for natural disasters is being slighted because of 

the priority that may be being placed on trying to determine different manmade scenarios. And I will bet if there are 14 that you 

have identified, there are probably 20 more that other people in the 

agency think probably should be in the top 15, and you probably 

spend a great deal of your time trying to identify what new manmade scenarios could develop and how to respond to them. My concern always is that because of that we are somehow slighting the 

15 

natural disasters that we know are going to happen in many 

places, including in my district, where we have had some severe 

flooding over the past five years. 

Admiral JOHNSON. As a Member of this Committee, I think that 

your concern for any kind of a detriment to natural disasters is a 

good concern to have, and from your perspective you should provide 

to FEMA to make sure that does not occur. 

From inside FEMA, I feel that our competency to respond to natural disasters is significantly greater now than it was certainly at 

the time of Katrina, and I think we have demonstrated that in the 

disasters that have occurred as recently as the noreaster this past 

week, and we will demonstrate that preparedness in the upcoming 

hurricane season. 

But at the same time, if we do have a non-natural disaster, you 

will expect us to be prepared and to lead the response to that 

event. So I think that we do need to look at those events, those 

challenges that perhaps we haven’t paid as much attention to, and 

to be equally prepared those, in those eventualities, to meet your 

expectations as we will in a natural disaster, but do that in a manner that does not detriment our ability to be prepared and respond 

to natural disasters. 

Mr. ARCURI. I want to ask you one more question, and it may be 

a soft ball, but I think it is important. Do you think, having 

changed the way FEMA views its role in terms of developing for 

manmade disasters, you are in a better position to assist people 

who have been victims of natural disasters? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir, I think that is an excellent point to 

make, not necessarily a soft ball because is the point of your legislation. When you bring the pieces together—preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation—there has got to be value in the synergy of bringing those pieces together, and we are seeing that just 

in the last month that we have been a new FEMA, that there is 

synergy. Looking at the grants in the non-EMPG grants, finding 

synergy in the purpose of those grants. So I think your observation 

is exactly correct, that that is going to lead to overall better preparedness as well as preparedness for natural disasters. 

Mr. ARCURI. And you don’t think we will, in the long run, have 

slighted our ability to respond to natural disasters by giving FEMA 

a larger role and a larger task? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Just like, as you approach other responsibilities, if you give FEMA more responsibilities and you follow that 

authorization with appropriate resources to do those jobs, then you 

will get exactly what you are looking for. That is why I asked for 

your support in the President’s 2008 budget request. If we assume 

more responsibility and accountability, but aren’t also resourced to 

meet those, then we are all going to have a tough day. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, sir. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Does Mr. Dent have any questions? 

Mr. DENT. Yes, thank you, Madam Chairman. I will be brief. 

Admiral Johnson, the FEMA reform bill requires that FEMA develop a strategy for rebuilding your permanent and your reserve 

workforces. When do you expect to complete those plans and can 

16 

you tell the Committee what the proposed personnel levels are 

going to be, and are you considering a reserve model like the military reserves or the National Guard? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir, and thank you for that question. 

When you ask us how we respond and meet your expectations, it 

relies in large part of our disaster assistance employees, which is 

our reserve force. They are the backbone of FEMA. They are, in 

large part, the people that you see at all disasters. And, yet, that 

system has become quite a bureaucracy. It doesn’t provide FEMA 

consistently with the right number of people that we need to respond to disasters; it doesn’t assure those people that FEMA has 

the resources to invest in them with professional development. So 

our current reserve workforce system has many, many challenges. 

We are currently undergoing a study that we hope to come back 

to you in the June-July time frame and describe to you what we 

think might be a more efficient and effective reserve program. Efficient and effective for FEMA, but also one that protects the interest, the development, the pay, the benefits of those employees 

themselves, and in our view that may require, in large sum, fewer 

resources and fewer numbers of people than we currently have 

today, and it will be modeled in large part, from lessons we have 

learned from military reserve forces. 

Mr. DENT. Thank you for that answer. I guess my final comment 

or question will be what progress has FEMA been making on forming the regional advisory councils and also those regional incident 

management teams. 

Admiral JOHNSON. We are probably within less than a couple 

weeks of solidifying the membership of the national advisory council, and our target is to have the first meeting of the national advisory council before the 1st of July. We are developing a process to 

establish our regional advisory councils based on how we approach 

the national advisory council so they become supportive. So I don’t 

believe we will have those councils identified and resolved until the 

end of summer. 

Separately, on the incident management teams, which is referred 

to as a strike team in the legislation, those will be an excellent capability for FEMA and for the Nation. Right now, we have sort of 

pickup teams, we don’t have full-time members, and that is what 

I think you expect us to provide. 

I had a brief just before I left the office this morning on the incident management team concept, and we hope to have those teams 

in place before the beginning of hurricane season this summer. 

Mr. DENT. Just a point of clarification on this presidential disaster declaration that you handed out, I live in Pennsylvania and 

we have probably more running water than any of the lower 48 

States, so we are very susceptible to flooding. I was just trying to 

understand. You are showing on the map floods and severe storms. 

How many of those severe storms generally result in flooding? In 

my State, it seems most disaster declarations are flood-related or 

storm-related, and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference after 

the storms. 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is a great question. I think that we can 

probably provide you later with exactly what our definitions of each 

of these columns are. In the severe storm, our view of those is that 

17 

is more like the tornado, where predominant damage in terms of 

both public assistance and individual assistance was not in the 

area of flood. But we can provide better statistics for you. 

Mr. DENT. I am just curious because it seems a lot of flooding 

would result after hurricanes or tropical storms. We have been 

having a lot more severe weather incidents where just a thunder 

shower turns into a major storm that results in significant damage 

and disaster declarations, and I am just trying to get a better sense 

of this. 

Admiral JOHNSON. For your region in particular, we will provide 

your staff with a greater breakdown of those incidents. 

Let me also just follow up on your question in terms of the incident management teams. I want to be clear that the legislation required three national teams and one regional team, one for each of 

the 10 regions. We won’t have all 13 teams this coming summer, 

but we will have a number of teams in order to assist in our hurricane preparedness efforts. 

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield back. 

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

I just have a follow-up question on regional office strike teams. 

My sense of FEMA is that FEMA ought to be, itself, a strike team; 

it ought to be a mobile team strike team. It seems to me the regional office strike teams are the major way for the public to regain 

confidence in FEMA if they see people who are mobile. Strike 

teams are just the word for it. I think it was special forces. You 

see, I think FEMA ought to be like the special forces, with no holds 

barred; they are ready to do what has to be done. What is your 

progress again on establishing them in every region? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Madam Chairwoman, again, the legislation 

requires 13 teams and those teams to be full-time members, and 

that requires that we have the PFTs, the actual FTE and the funds 

to support those teams. The legislation authorized those teams but 

did not appropriate for those teams, so we—— 

Ms. NORTON. You have no appropriations for these teams? 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. Did you ask? You mean to say this year’s budget. 

How about the budget for next year that you have before us? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. In the fiscal year 2008 budget 

that is before you, there are resource requests in there to establish 

one of the national teams and one of the regional teams. Our intent 

is to reprogram internal resources this summer in order to establish some minimal capability. 

Ms. NORTON. This summer to do what? I am sorry. 

Admiral JOHNSON. We will reprogram some of our internal resources to establish the first regional team, and we may very 

well—— 

Ms. NORTON. And where will that be, Admiral Johnson? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We will have the first regional team before 

the hurricane season. 

Ms. NORTON. Located where? 

Admiral JOHNSON. That team will likely be in Region 4, which 

is in Atlanta. Now, we may very well approach Congress within the 

next coming weeks with a reprogramming request that may allow 

18 

us to go further this fiscal year, but at this point there have been 

no direct appropriations for these teams. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, the budget doesn’t seem to have asked for appropriations for all of the regions. I can only think that if there is 

a disaster in some region and there isn’t a strike team there, that 

is the first criticism that is going to be made of the agency, so I 

hear you on that and I think that the agency has to give the greatest priority to these teams, somebody on the ground the moment 

it occurs. For example, does there have to be a disaster declared 

before such a team is deployed? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, let me say again that what the legislation asks for, which I 100 percent agree with, is full-time teams. 

Please understand that right now FEMA has emergency response 

teams, but they aren’t full-time members; they have another job 

they are doing today. And when that emergency response team deploys—— 

Ms. NORTON. Would you explain that? They are employees of 

FEMA? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. I am trying to think of an example in your congressional world. I may be the director of response 

in Region 1, and that is my full-time job, but if I become a member 

of a response team, I am taken from my full-time job; my seat becomes empty because I leave and respond to the event. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I would be more concerned about whether the 

people on the ground there now are trained to be the kind of mobile 

force that the Congress had in mind when it wanted these teams 

established. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think Congress had a perfect model in 

mind, and what you wanted us to do was to have a capacity to respond, but when we respond, not to detriment our capacity in our 

management in our regional offices. 

Ms. NORTON. Are the people who would have to do this now 

trained to do whatever they have to do, the same thing that the 

regional office strike teams would do if they were there, just not 

enough of them, is that what you are saying? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. We have teams now that can respond, do respond, and, in fact, States welcome when an emergency 

response team from FEMA arrives at their emergency operation 

center. We just want to have full-time teams that can exercise with 

them, train with them, as well as respond to events, without having those people depart their full-time job. 

Ms. NORTON. I think you are probably going to find some interchangeability in any case, rather than have people only be full-time 

waiting for an emergency. You probably, as a matter of efficiency, 

are going to have some interchangeability. My only concern is are 

people being trained now to be a strike team? That is really my 

question. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. We have emergency response 

teams now that did respond this last week to the noreasters, that 

did respond to tornadoes in Florida and Georgia and Alabama, that 

will respond to an event that occurs tomorrow. 

Ms. NORTON. Actually, they may get there and you might not 

even need anybody else there. In fact, we have seen, Admiral Johnson, some evidence of better preparation and response in the tornaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
19 

does that came this year in Florida. You know, the Committee 

takes real note of that, just as it took note of the problems with 

the trailers. We had to have a hearing and, unfortunately, as you 

know—and that is why I want to be clear that we did take note 

of it. People have oversight hearings when something happens that 

they think needs attention. They don’t have an oversight hearing 

when, in fact, you have the kind of response time and clear evidence of good response that you had in the tornadoes and in Florida. 

Here, I am trying to see how the new FEMA operates. Let me 

ask you if you would ask a member of the public to name five 

things that gave them less confidence in the agency, it was the confusion over the chain of command and, indeed, contradictory statements from within Homeland Security and FEMA about what happens and, indeed, what happened when Katrina broke, and who did 

what when and who should have done what when. Here is where 

people began to have real doubts about FEMA being in the Department of Homeland Security in the first place. 

Some of us were around when FEMA didn’t have to ask anybody. 

FEMA didn’t report to anybody but the President of the United 

States, and he said, what? Just go. I don’t even want to hear it. 

So that is when you got this entire Committee, 100 percent of the 

Committee, all of the Chairs and the Committee itself, sponsoring 

a bill to take FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security. 

That was about, in no small measure, who is in charge and who 

thinks he is in charge when there is a disaster. 

You would help us by positing an event or an incident and walking us through the chain of command in the agency today. There 

is a hurricane. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I will describe a hurricane that may 

occur this coming summer. There is a chain of command that exists 

at the field level. At the field level, on the Federal side, we will 

stand up a joint field office. At that joint field office—— 

Ms. NORTON. Wait a minute. Help us now. There is a hurricane. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. Then when you get into levels and all, I am trying 

to make the public understand, not to mention me, what happens. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Right. Hurricane hits in Florida. Craig 

Fugate, who will talk to you in just a few minutes, will stand his 

emergency operation center up and the State of Florida will begin 

to respond to the requirements of that hurricane. In some 

areas—— 

Ms. NORTON. Now, I know what Florida will do. By the way, they 

are perhaps better than the Federal Government. I am trying to 

find out there is a hurricane. Let me go further and say there is 

a disaster declaration, because I guess you can’t do much, at least 

at the headquarters level—and that is what I am interested in, 

chain of command. By the way, how long did it take a disaster to 

be declared in Katrina? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I believe a disaster was declared—I don’t 

know the exact date that the disaster declaration was signed by the 

President post-Katrina—— 

Ms. NORTON. Now, did you say whether the strike teams needed 

to have the disaster declared before they moved? 

20 

Admiral JOHNSON. They do not. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. So let’s assume the kind of situation that I 

think is more likely to occur than not. You have the beginning of 

what could be a major disaster. The President will, I think, quite 

justifiably say, wait one minute, when I say disaster declaration, 

I say money. And I don’t think he should go around just declaring, 

you know, from the newspapers. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. So your strike teams don’t have to wait. That is 

good. What is the chain of command? This is an agency within an 

agency. The strike teams don’t need anything from headquarters, 

they just move, or do they need anything from headquarters? 

Admiral JOHNSON. The region strike team will work for the regional administrator, and he will direct them to respond to an 

event in advance of a declaration. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. We have got the strike team not waiting for 

the declaration. What is the chain of command for what happens 

next at the Department of Homeland Security, which has the oversight for FEMA? 

Admiral JOHNSON. A Federal Coordinating Officer, FCO, has 

been predesignated for the hurricane season, so—— 

Ms. NORTON. That officer is part of FEMA or a part of the Department of Homeland Security? 

Admiral JOHNSON. A part of FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. 

Admiral JOHNSON. And that person comes with authorities in the 

Stafford Act. So for the hurricane season we have predesignated 

them already. So for each of the 11 hurricane impact States we can 

have you meet the individual who is the FCO. We predesignate so 

they go to the State now, in advance of hurricane season, meet 

with the State Office of Emergency Management—— 

Ms. NORTON. He goes when FEMA tells him to go. 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. He doesn’t have to go beyond the Administrator of 

FEMA. 

Admiral JOHNSON. No, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. 

Admiral JOHNSON. It is at our direction. The FCO arrives and 

the FCO works for Director Paulison, and the FCO has a staff that 

works for him or her. So that chain of the command is from the 

FCO back to the Administrator of FEMA. And if we resolve all 

those issues, that is where it stops. If the FCO identifies either policy or resource issues that we can’t satisfy in FEMA, then we will 

go to the Secretary. 

Ms. NORTON. So you are telling me that FEMA gets to act on its 

own unless you need more resources or unless there is a new policy 

issue. 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. That is very important. Otherwise, most Federal 

agencies never have to ask question, because policy has long been 

set by the Congress and by the agency Secretary, and resources are 

all you have got. Resources here, of course, if there are additional 

resources for an agency declaration, how do they come? The President declares a declaration. Are resources immediately available? 

21 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct. Resources are available and 

the Federal Coordinating Officer can use—— 

Ms. NORTON. And he gets those from where? He gets those resources from whom? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Out of the Disaster Relief Fund. So he or she 

will issue mission assignments to other agencies, and those mission 

assignments will be paid for out of the Disaster Relief Fund. We 

will reimburse agencies for costs incurred. 

Ms. NORTON. As I hear it, never again will we hear somebody 

having to go to the Secretary of Homeland Security once there is 

a disaster, unless the disaster presents new issues. I don’t see that 

Katrina presented any new issue. I recognize that the Post-Katrina 

Act had not been passed. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. But I don’t think that Katrina presented any new 

issue. It was clearly a hurricane; there was, you indicate, almost 

immediately a declaration and, voila, you are there. Of course, once 

one saw the size of the hurricane, one would have expected the entire Department to be involved. 

Before I ask any more questions, Mr. Arcuri, do you have any? 

I have only a few more questions that I just want to make sure I 

ask for the record. 

The Committee would be very concerned about the national response plan. Now, for the national response plan could not be more 

important—here is another one of those Federal words—because 

the first time that there would be a plan that incorporated the entire United States and all of its sectors: the private sector, the Federal sector, the States, and the local sectors. It obviously doesn’t 

say what each does in some kind of diagram fashion, but it sends 

the signal that there is a national or comprehensive vision as to 

what ought to happen in the event of an event, no matter what the 

event. Now, that is something that we are very focused on. We 

know that it is due by June, and I must ask you will we have it 

by June? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We have a team, a cross-agency team, a team 

that includes private sector, a team that includes State and local 

representation. They are working very intently to incorporate recommendations into the rewrite of the national response plan. We 

have indicated an intent to have that plan out on the 1st of June, 

and we still hope to make that target. 

Ms. NORTON. The comment period for that plan is as prescribed 

by the APA, the Administrative Procedure Act? 

Admiral JOHNSON. The comment period, when we have a draft 

of rewritten NRP, then we will put that draft out for comment, and 

that draft will go out to all the State and local agencies, private 

sector entities, all of the Federal agencies, and expect their comments to come back. 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry, did you say what the time period was? 

Admiral JOHNSON. It will go out, likely, later in May. 

Ms. NORTON. No, for comment. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Oh, it will go out for about a two week comment period. 

Ms. NORTON. Oh, my goodness. 

22 

Admiral JOHNSON. When they did the 2004 plan, more than 

9,000 comments came back, so we expect a lot of comments to come 

back that will be adjudicated by our team. 

Ms. NORTON. You know, it may take two weeks to read and understand the plan, Admiral Johnson. Where did you get the two 

week period from? You mean in June, once it gets put out in the 

first place? 

Admiral JOHNSON. No, ma’am. We will take the draft of the plan 

and that will go out for comment to our constituency groups so they 

get a chance to see and comment on the draft plan before it becomes a final plan. 

Ms. NORTON. So I guess you are trying to beat the June deadline 

if you are putting it out. The nature of the plan, the cosmic nature 

of the plan, I recognize there have been some comments, makes it 

very important that there be adequate time, and you may have to 

extend the period if there are complaints about it. 

Let me ask a final question on agency personnel. The PostKatrina Act authorizes the Administrator to pay a bonus of 25 percent of basic pay to retain an employee whose qualifications are important to the agency. Has the Administrator paid any retention 

bonus since the beginning of the year? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I would have to come back and give you the 

specific numbers. I will say yes, that we have used that authorization, and we have used other authorizations within the legislation. 

In the middle of March we reached 90 percent staffing inside 

FEMA. It has been a long time since FEMA reached that level of 

staffing, and our objective—— 

Ms. NORTON. Say the level again, I am sorry. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Ninety percent. So we have less than 10 percent vacant positions. At times we have had as many as 20 percent 

vacant positions. Last year we had 15 percent vacant positions. So 

now we are down to less than 10, and our target is to be at 95 percent staffing before hurricane season. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, the Act requires a report on vacant positions, 

number of applications for those positions, reducing the time and 

so forth. If you have got 90 percent, you may well be meeting what 

we expected; however, there are very serious issues from your 

headquarters staff that I mentioned to you the last time that seem 

to indicate a morale issue. Is the rate of retention of senior management at FEMA in your headquarters at 90 percent as well? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I don’t have—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry, is there attrition of your senior managers or are you at 90 percent there as well? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We are at 90 percent staffing across the 

board. I believe we are at 90 percent staffing with our senior management. But we are seeing, and have seen for a couple years, significant attrition from FEMA both in terms of retirements, people 

who choose to leave FEMA to work in some other location. 

So when I indicate that we are at 90 percent, that is a significant 

accomplishment because it means that not only have we hired to 

cover those who depart FEMA and hired in order to cover new positions created, but also hired to fill positions that have long time 

been vacant. So it is an issue. Attrition is always an issue. But we 

are able to move beyond that to achieve our staffing level. 

23 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Johnson, what have you done to address the 

serious morale problems that are reported out of the headquarters 

that I mentioned to you at the last hearing? 

Admiral JOHNSON. First, it would be my contention, Madam 

Chairwoman, that the letter you are referring to overstates that 

problem. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, we certainly do not—— 

Admiral JOHNSON. I understand. 

Ms. NORTON. We would never accept as gospel such complaints. 

Admiral JOHNSON. And as you indicated at our last hearing, I appreciate the context that you raise that issue and context that you 

have read many of these before and you understand that environment. What I would say is that we have addressed the morale 

issue in a number of ways, number one, by staffing. So we are filling vacant positions. More than 60 percent of the positions that we 

have filled have been internal hires, so FEMA people have had a 

chance to improve themselves and receive higher pay, more responsibility by advancing in the new positions. 

We have addressed the morale issues by bringing in good solid 

leadership, not the least of which is Director Paulison. He holds 

quarterly meetings with all hands, and held one just two weeks 

ago, at which he gets a lot of tough questions and a lot of satisfaction both for him and for the employees who get a good chance to 

engage their administrator and address their issues. 

We are very conscious of morale issues and we are very conscious 

of weariness in FEMA, people who work very, very long hours, all 

focused on trying to provide good service to the American public. 

Ms. NORTON. Have you met with employees, whether with the 

union or not, or with employees since our last hearing? 

Admiral JOHNSON. No, ma’am. I believe our hearing with you 

was on a Friday, and just the day before, on Thursday, we held an 

all hands meeting that was attended by several hundred, as well 

as a video link to all of our 10 regions. That is typically every quarter the Secretary will hold an all hands that links by video to all 

of FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, if it happens every quarter and you have 

these problems here, I again say that they must be addressed and 

again I told you we are really grown up about complaints from the 

point of view of management or labor. So I would be concerned 

about morale and indicate whatever the problem, a morale problem 

is a problem. 

Finally, as you are aware, Admiral Johnson, I was concerned in 

our hearing on the Federal Protective Service that the Department 

of Homeland Security did not require the new hire for the position 

of Director of that service to have the traditional law enforcement 

background. Apparently, he had had some training background, he 

was in the military. 

I spoke with the Chairman of the Full Committee, who has indicated that he has similar concerns, but joins me in having concerns 

about another of the criticisms of what I am sure you would call 

the old FEMA, and that was whether people had the requisite 

emergency service background. I have indicated ways in which you 

are beginning, I think, to restore confidence in the agency in some 

of the things, for example, the chain of command that you reports, 

24 

the way you handled the most recent events in the Midwest and 

in Florida. 

But I am very concerned about reports about who new hires may 

be with respect to their background and emergency management, 

since that was seen as the—if you would name again, the top 5, 

it would be that top personnel had not had emergency management 

training. For that matter, the Secretary was a judge when he was 

appointed. He was a smart man, but he had been a Court of Appeals judge. I can tell you, as a lawyer, the last thing you have 

done is to manage anything. Lawyers are paid to slow things down; 

they are experts at bureaucracy. I don’t have any particular beef 

with the Secretary with respect to that, but you can see that from 

the top on down—and that does not include you, Admiral Johnson—that kind of experience was not exactly very clear. 

Therefore, the Chairman and I have decided to ask the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the new hires and 

personnel transfers into FEMA since January 2007, to ensure the 

Committee that the new hires—and you tell us that there are a 

very substantial number of them—have adequate background in 

emergency response, which would further assure us that there is 

a new FEMA. We will also ask the Ranking Member and Chairs 

of the appropriate Subcommittee to join us in asking for that GAO 

study. 

Thank you very much for coming forward today. That is a vote. 

And would you believe it, I think even I have to vote. I can vote 

in the Committee of the Whole, so I am going to go to the floor. 

I will return forthwith. I will return almost immediately. I think 

other Members will have to remain for final passage, a motion to 

recommit, but I will return because I am very anxious to move forward with the second panel, and ask your indulgence. 

Thank you very much, Admiral Johnson, for appearing. 

The hearing will resume in approximately 15 or 20 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I have spoken with the 

Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, who came at the end of the last part 

of the hearing, with Admiral Johnson, and he indicated to me that 

he did not want to detain the witnesses. He is likely to be held past 

the motion to recommit and the vote, and he will get here if he possibly can, but he said he did not want to detain the witness. I had 

a good conversation with him and that was his preference. 

We have with us—we think the Committee will be best informed 

by asking Mr. Witt to appear on the panel with Mr. Fugate and 

Mr. Selves. Mr. James Lee Witt, who, of course, is much remembered here as the first head of FEMA in the Clinton Administration, today is CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, of GlobalOptions 

Group; William ‘‘Craig’’ Fugate, who is Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and a member of the National 

Emergency Management Association; and Michael D. Selves, who 

is the President of the International Association of Emergency 

Managers. 

Let’s start with Mr. Witt. 

25 

TESTIMONY OF JAMES LEE WITT, CEO OF JAMES LEE WITT ASSOCIATES, A PART OF GLOBALOPTIONS GROUP; WILLIAM 

‘‘CRAIG‘‘ FUGATE, DIRECTOR, FLORIDA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, MEMBER, NATIONAL EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION; AND MICHAEL D. SELVES, 

CEM, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMERGENCY MANAGERS 

Mr. WITT. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for asking me to participate in this hearing today. Let me just say I appreciate the support of emergency management by Chairman Oberstar, Congressman Young, and the hard working staff of this Committee that has 

been offered over the years. You were the lone voices expressing 

concern and raising objections to the inclusion of FEMA into the 

Department of Homeland Security in 2002, and a lot of us thank 

you for that. 

My concern at the time was that including FEMA as part of the 

newly formed Department of Homeland Security would dilute the 

mission of the Department and force FEMA to be overly focused on 

mitigating one hazard at the expense of others. It was my experience, when serving as Arkansas State Director of Emergency Management in 1980 that FEMA had been overly focused in a particular hazard at that time at the expense of others, and that was 

because of the cold war and nuclear preparedness. 

I see the current situation as being very similar to what we faced 

when I became FEMA Administrator in 1993. While the threat of 

terrorism in our world is still very real, I have always feared that 

FEMA’s position within DHS would result in a diversion of resources away from natural hazards in favor of counter-terrorism efforts. When I became Administrator of FEMA in 1993, we needed 

to refocus the agency’s priorities and resources so that many of the 

national security assets would have dual use for natural disasters 

as well in an all hazards approach. We realigned personnel and 

made sure that everything was consistent with our risk-based all 

hazards focus. 

Congress, through the Oversight Appropriations Committee, 

played a critical role in this reinvent of FEMA, which is why I believe your work here today is so important. Leaders like Congressman Louis Stokes, Congressman Jerry Lewis, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Senator Kip Bond, who worked with us and provided the 

funds to support in a bipartisan way to get things turned around 

was very, very important. The partnership between the administration and Congress allowed us to look at legislation changes and 

clarifications that made FEMA even more effective in responding. 

Let me just say the eight years I was at FEMA and the reorganization of FEMA, and the change that happened in FEMA to 

make it one of the most successful Federal agencies in the Federal 

Government at that time, that change happened because the employees in FEMA helped make change happen. We empowered the 

career FEMA employees who had been working on these issues for 

20 years and we listened to their ideas and encouraged their innovation. We instituted a new customer service training program 

where we would focus on not only external customers, but internal 

customers as well, how we treated each other. We were able to 

26 

work together and focused on one mission, a new mission for the 

agency. 

However, the career civil servants of emergency management 

knew how we could turn FEMA around. All that I and my management team needed to do was to listen and to work with them and 

establish the goals and priorities for the first year to move the 

agency forward. This effort to empower the career employees not 

only happened in Washington, but I think it is important to stress 

how involved the 10 FEMA regional offices were as well. The regional office staff established good relationships in partner with 

State and local governments, and we felt it was very important 

that we planned, trained, and exercised together with our State 

and local partners. 

We worked with our State and local partners to create Statewide plans that mirrored the Federal response plan. We believed 

that it was our responsibility to make sure that the State and local 

governments never failed in their response to a disaster, and it was 

our job to help make sure that they were successful in protecting 

the lives of property to a community. 

I think today, with the risks that we face in our Country, and 

the risks that State and local governments face, with them being 

the frontline defense of everything that happens, from natural disasters to terrorist risks, I think it is absolutely critical that we do 

risk-based, all hazard planning, training, and exercising because a 

risk-based, all hazard approach is the foundation of everything that 

we do and how we respond. 

When it comes to consequence management, it does not really 

matter whether it is an earthquake or an explosion that brings 

down a building. The response and recovery efforts are the same. 

When the Oklahoma City bombing happened, that was a presidential declared disaster as well as a crime scene. Working the consequence management classes management with the FBI, ATF, 

and other Federal agencies, it was a very good example of what 

worked, how it could work, and it was a huge success in that response, with 15 national search and rescue teams working that 

building, helping the FBI, local law enforcement to preserve evidence at the same time. 

But, in closing, let me say this. I think we, as a Nation, need 

more support for State and local governments, not only the funding 

grants and EMPG program, but we need more support for them for 

preparedness training and exercises. And I have not heard once 

today, but we need to support them in public awareness, public 

education campaigns so individuals can help themselves to be better prepared. 

Thank you for having me. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Witt, for your testimony. 

Could we hear from Mr. Fugate, Florida Division of Emergency 

Management? 

Mr. FUGATE. Thank you, Chairman Norton, Members. I have 

submitted my written testimony, so I am going to go into an oral 

statement. 

My representation here is as a State Secretary, but also representing my counterparts through the National Emergency ManVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
27 

agement Association, the State secretaries of the other 50 States 

and territories and the District of Columbia. 

Three issues that are very important to us is to maintain the all 

hazards approach. Madam Chair, you have asked this question, 

and I am going to give you an answer different than anything you 

have heard about all hazards. I am going to come back to that. 

The continued need by your Committee and Congress in the 

oversight of FEMA. Again, since the Disaster Mitigation Act of 

2000, this is really the first time Congress has actually laid out 

outcomes an expectations of FEMA. Remember, FEMA doesn’t really have any legislation that you can point to that actually describes 

it; it has always been done through variations of the Civil Defense 

Act, the Stafford Act, and budget language. 

This is the first attempt, really, to say that you should have a 

director that is qualified, you lay out expectations. Since we all 

work for the people and you represent the people, it is important 

that you maintain what those outcomes and expectations of FEMA 

should be by defining FEMA, versus only allowing it to be defined 

by budget or the interpretation of policy. 

Finally, the last thing is always it requires money. So, Madam 

Chair, as usual, you can’t make this work without funding, and if 

you only fix FEMA and you only fix FEMA, I ask you this: how 

many fire trucks does FEMA have here in the District versus how 

many fire trucks does the District of Columbia have? If there is not 

a partnership and a team built where most of our resources are, 

which are not the Federal level, I am sorry to say, even the Department of Defense does not even come close to the number of fire 

trucks, ambulances, and sworn law enforcement officers, as well as 

skid loaders, dump trucks, and public works employees in every 

community in this Country. That is the team. Those are the resources. We need to continue the Emergency Management Performance Grant funding and increase that to continue building that 

team, so in a disaster we not only look to the Federal Government, 

we are able to look to every other non-impacted State and community, and look at those resources as part of the national team that 

can meet our citizens’ needs in time of disaster. 

So with those three things, let’s talk about all hazards. We usually try to define it by disaster. I think that is the wrong approach. 

I also think it is the wrong approach to say there are natural disasters. There is no such thing. There are hazards that are out there 

that are only a disaster when we build and live in such a way to 

make ourselves vulnerable. But what do a hurricane, a wildfire, a 

drought, a foreign disease outbreak all have in common? We call 

them natural, but the reality is the response is entirely different. 

The agencies and equipment are entirely different. 

A terrorist sets off a bomb in your community. You get a letter 

with anthrax, as we did at the AMI Building in Florida. That is 

a terrorist event. Well, how do you respond to that? What is unique 

about that? What is different? Well, it is going to take an entirely 

different response for each one of those. What is the common element? This is what all hazards really means, Madam Chairman. 

Guess what? The governor of the State of Florida, Governor Charlie 

Crist, who serves the people that elected him, will be the governor 

in every one of those events. The sheriff of those jurisdictions will 

28 

be the lead law enforcement agency in every one of those events. 

The local fire department will be the first units on those scenes in 

every one of those events. 

All hazards is you need to build teams based upon your community’s resources, not the disaster, because we don’t even know what 

the next disaster is going to be. I know hurricane season starts 

June 1st, it ends November 30th, but I don’t know if we are going 

to have a storm. I cannot tell you what the next disaster will be. 

Nor can I plan for every disaster. But if I build a team based upon 

the key elements that need to occur in a disaster: to be able to 

make sure we can make our community safe by securing it; that 

we can reach the injured and get them the medical care not in 72 

or 96 hours, but in 24 hours, when you can make a difference, 

which means it has got to be local or regional-based; that you can 

meet the basic needs of your community and stabilize that loss and 

rebuild and recovery, that is what all hazard is. 

You may have different agencies that lead, just like we are facing 

wildfires and drought in Florida. Water management districts are 

the lead agencies for the droughts; our Division of Forestry is the 

lead agency for the wildfires. Entirely different issues, entirely different challenges, but it is the same team. It allows us to bring together all of our agencies at the State level—our National Guard, 

our local governments, our private sector, and our voluntary 

groups—as one team focusing on the impacts and the consequences 

of the hazard and its impacts on the community, many of which 

share many similarities, but occasionally are very unique. 

So that is how we have been using the homeland security funds, 

to build the capability and capacity unique to terrorist threats, 

weaponized chemicals, biologicals, blasts, and the unfortunate real 

big concern, improved nuclear devices. But look at what you are 

going to end up doing in every one of those disasters. You have to 

reestablish communication with the community; you have got to secure it; you have got to rescue the injured; you have got to stabilize 

it. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

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

Mr. Selves? 

Mr. SELVES. Madam Chairman, thank you for allowing me the 

opportunity to provide testimony on this important topic today. I 

want to express our sincerest gratitude for the great support this 

Subcommittee has always provided to emergency management 

community, particularly your support of the Emergency Management Performance Grant and, most recently, for the reform of 

FEMA. 

As President of the International Association of Emergency Managers, I represent 3,000 members, most of whom are local emergency managers. Because of the nature of our jobs, I am often 

asked what do emergency managers do, and I have told my county 

commissioners that emergency managers are the people you hire to 

tell you things you don’t want to hear, ask you to spend money that 

you don’t have, and prepare preparation for something you don’t 

believe will ever happen. So that is basically what we do. 

In order to address today’s topic, we need to look at a total national system of emergency management. In the past, this system 

29 

has been characterized by a cycle of neglect, crisis, and further neglect. One of my colleagues refers to this as the spare tire cycle of 

emergency management. Just like we forget and neglect the condition of our car’s spare tire until we have a flat; likewise, we forget 

about and neglect the emergency management system until we 

need it. 

This is very evident by looking at the flawed responses to Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Andrew, which were essentially repeated 

in Hurricane Katrina. Why do we seem to bounce from one disaster 

to the next? The answer, I believe, is that we have failed to commit 

to a solid, consistent, and enduring all hazards system that links 

critical partners all the time. If we had such a system, our chances 

of success would be enhanced regardless of the nature of the last 

disaster or of the next one. There are some very basic elements 

which characterize this kind of system. First, it must be comprehensive; it must encompass all potential hazards, all potential 

impacts relevant to any community. This must take into account 

all of the impacts of a disaster, not only the physical ones, but the 

economic ones, the political ones, the sociological ones. 

Second, it must be integrated. Such integration demands that 

linkages are in place and that all relevant agencies at the local, 

State, and national level are involved and engaged. Without unity 

of effort before, during, and after any disaster, the effort is going 

to be chaotic at best and, at worst, doomed to failure. Comprehensive and integrated plans on paper are not sufficient, however. 

There must be a well established collaborative attitude driving the 

system. Key stakeholders must be broadly involved, frequently consulted, and their inputs sincerely valued in order to ensure that 

roles, responsibilities, and relationships are fully understood and 

adopted. In other words, if we shake hands before the disaster, we 

won’t have to point fingers afterward. 

In order to revitalize and maintain this comprehensive system, 

IAEM would emphasize three critical areas: first, the restoration of 

the authority and the capability of Federal emergency management 

agency so that the national effort can be fully integrated once 

again. Included in this would be your continued oversight of the 

implementation of the Emergency Management Reform Act of 

2006. 

Second is the adequate funding of State and local emergency 

management agencies. Director Witt and Director Fugate have discussed EMPG and its importance, and we would simply say that 

that needs to be retained as a separate account; it needs to be 

funded at the full $375 million authorization that it currently has; 

and it must be based on an all hazards approach. 

Thirdly, we believe that there needs to be establishment and support of programs and institutions which sustain a culture of preparedness and answerability to be ready in times of crisis. That includes such things as the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which allows us to share personnel across State lines in times 

of emergency; the Emergency Management Accreditation Program, 

which is a joint NEMA-IAEM program, to ensure that State and 

local and territorial emergency management functions are consistent and accredited; and then, finally, the Certified Emergency 

Manager Program, which is an accreditation, a credentialing sysVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
30 

tem that IAEM has for emergency managers to ensure that they 

have the necessary skills land the necessary background and training that they need to do the job under any circumstances. Finally, 

we would support the Emergency Management Institute as the primary Federal entity for the development of general emergency 

management education, training, and doctrine. 

In closing, your emergency managers at all levels of government 

are constantly working to restore and improve this national system 

upon which so much depends. We thank you for your support and 

understanding in the past, and we ask for your consideration of our 

needs and our recommendations in the future. Thank you. 

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

I appreciate the testimony of all three of you. We have a few 

questions. 

They first relate to the chart that we used showing various parts 

of the Country, and, of course, some parts of the Country have 

more severe natural disasters than others. Only one part of the 

Country, where we sit, has had a terrorist disaster, yet, we have 

every reason to be mindful and prepared that that is the kind of 

disaster we were least prepared for, leaving aside the example of 

Katrina, I might add. 

This notion of all hazards you heard me ask Admiral Johnson 

about and the notion of comprehensiveness and being able to do everything because, come what may, you are going to have to do it 

anyway, was, from the very beginning, what FEMA understood, 

and once it went into Homeland Security, there was testimony 

after testimony that said that is the way it was going to be; we just 

prepared to do whatever comes up. 

A number of changes were made simply because FEMA was in 

another agency, and one of those changes was the fusing of funds 

for terrorism, prevention, and natural hazards. You heard me ask 

Mr. Johnson, perhaps, about the very small amount, the second 

chart, only 10 percent for natural hazards. I said at the same time 

I wasn’t suggesting that Homeland Security should not get the 

same funding, but I did note that keeping the 10 percent has been 

very difficult because of the application process, among other 

things. 

I have stopped using the word ‘‘all hazards’’ because I think that 

once you say that, I still don’t know what people are talking about 

and hazards have been redefined in terms of terrorism. People are 

aware that emergency managers get most of their equipment from 

the States and localities that deal with emergencies, and that terrorism presented a need for entirely new strategies, new equipment 

that the States had no reason to have. 

I would like your view of the fusing of funding; your view of the 

10 percent, bearing in mind that the Federal Government is not 

supposed to be paying for most of what emergency responders to 

because most of what they do comes out of their local budgets and 

we are not trying to displace that, nor could we. Whereas, of 

course, neither local nor the national budget dealt with so-called 

terrorist funding. 

What is your understanding of the way this funding is divided, 

and do you think it is appropriate? 

31 

Does Mr. Witt want to go first? Actually, whoever wants to go 

first. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, our experience in Florida is that, immediately after the attack, the primary focus on terrorism, which 

was actually pre-September 11th, was on chem and bio threats. We 

saw that continue in the initial appropriations after 2001, although 

we saw in the attacks the primary threat was blast crush and the 

types of injuries and deaths you were going to see with explosives, 

which had been primarily the tool we have seen in the Middle 

East, suicide bombers, suicide trucks, and those types of events, 

going all the way back to the Oklahoma City bombing. But recognizing that chem and bio was a threat, we began looking at those 

funds and how you build capacity. 

Now, Florida faces unique challenges because we are a major 

tourist destination, we have major ports. The terrorists trained for 

the attack in Florida. We had the first anthrax—— 

Ms. NORTON. Did all that come out of the terrorist funding? 

Mr. WITT. Well, the funding was coming out, for this particular 

area, was predating September 11th, were funds that were already 

made available to States began planning for weapons of mass destruction. So when you really started talking about—— 

Ms. NORTON. So those funds came from where, then? 

Mr. WITT. They came from the Federal Government as part 

of—— 

Ms. NORTON. Was this before the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security? 

Mr. WITT. Yes, ma’am. These were funds that were coming out 

of the Department of Justice, which, if you go back in history, explains some of the trouble we had as these programs began merging together. You were taking programs out of the Department of 

Justice, with their management style and application, bringing 

them in to the Homeland Security Department that had a totally 

different—well, first of all, Homeland Security had no culture because it was a collection of pieces. 

So you have one set of programming and guidance coming down 

from the Justice Department; you have another set of funding that 

was coming down from FEMA; you had other funding that was 

coming down from Transportation, all being merged into those programs. So we actually went through several years of changing and 

conflicting prioritizations based upon which way organizations 

were trying to implement these plans based upon where they had 

come from. So as programs moved, program guidance would 

change, even though the intent from Congress was the same. 

We saw money moved out of Transportation that went to Homeland Security that under Transportation would have made it eligible for Florida to fence our ports, but when it got to Homeland Security under the Justice programs, they did not do capital projects, 

so they disallowed the fencing issues but said find a way to spend 

the money. 

These were some of the challenges we faced in building our capability of responding to these threats, building capacity on top of resources we already had, and looking at the threats of weapons of 

mass destruction, but also looking at, increasingly, the real risk, 

which was going to be bomb and blast type destruction. So we had 

32 

to build more search and rescue teams; we had to increase our hospital capacity for burn and crush injuries, which we did not have. 

As we saw on September 11th, you literally had to fly burn patients from this area all over the Country because our ability to 

deal with those types of patients wasn’t very robust. Yet, we were 

spending lots of money on doing chemical protection with antidotes 

for chemical weapons that have yet to be used in the States. 

So we went through, as the States, oftentimes year-to-year, a lot 

of conflicting and often changing parties trying to build systems 

and capacities to deal with these threats, and the one thing that 

we didn’t see early on was the prevention element. We were spending a lot of time focusing on the consequence of an event and not 

as much on how to prevent and harden against events. 

Now, that has been rectified. Congress has come back and put 

more emphasis in prevention. But when you dump all this into the 

States and the local governments in what we considered a state of 

war, and trying to get ready, it produced huge challenges. To this 

day, even moving these programs back to FEMA, there won’t be a 

quick fix as we try to reconcile how we prioritize, what is the responsibility and role of the Federal Government to fund what in 

many cases is a national threat versus roles and responsibilities 

local governments have for the day-to-day emergencies and challenges they face, and making sure that is balanced. 

I think it has been one way on the weapons of mass destruction 

and terrorism. I think it needs to switch back. But I think there 

also has to be buy-in. You give us money for homeland security at 

100 percent; everything else is a match requirement. I think match 

kind of goes against being a State and local. But unless you have 

some ownership of the process, I think you get some of the results 

you have with 100 percent Federal programs. When locals have to 

punt up and those boards have to vote money for it, I think you 

start seeing where the community really puts their parties and 

their issues. 

Ms. NORTON. Do either of you have anything to say about that 

question? 

Mr. WITT. Madam Chairman, I would just say this. The money 

that has gone through the Department of Homeland Security to 

State and local governments to buy the type of equipment that they 

might need for a biological terrorist type event is basically to mitigate and prevent responders and communities from becoming a victim. 

But if you look at it generically across the Country, Florida has 

probably done a better of intertwining homeland security terrorism 

funding with the CDBG and everything that they are doing with 

State funds and all the different ones, and working with their communities. But you go into other areas and the terrorism funding 

down into some States, a lot of time it has created problems and 

making emergency management less effective than it was before 

the funds ever came there, because everybody is focusing on terrorism. 

So I have seen it working both ways. I think there needs to be, 

through this Committee and what you are doing, moving preparedness training and exercising grants back under FEMA is an excellent step, but I think as this evolves and this oversight Committee 

33 

continues to look at this, then I think it is going to be important 

that you look at what kind of standards are established—there are 

still yet no standards for inoperability of public safety communications—and other standards that people are going to have to come 

up to and meet. They are not there right now, and I don’t know 

what you—but is not good. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Selves? 

Mr. SELVES. Well, I think Director Witt referred to something 

earlier called crisis management and consequence management, 

and I think those are important concepts that we need to keep in 

mind. FEMA had always been consequence management oriented. 

In other words, it didn’t matter what the nature of the disaster or 

the event was, we planned and organized ourselves to perform 

functions that were necessary to deal with the impact of that disaster. 

All disasters pretty much have certain things in common: they 

have sick people; they have injured people; they have dead people; 

they have destroyed infrastructure; they have building collapsed; 

transportation that is disrupted. And all of those things fell under 

FEMA’s responsibility under the consequence management part of 

that. 

Certainly, FBI and the Department of Justice had equally important, if not more important, responsibilities for investigating, preventing, capturing, prosecuting, and doing all the things necessary 

to deal with the terrorist event, but when we talk about all hazards 

from an emergency management point of view, we mean all. 

And the priorities that we would set on the kinds of equipment 

that we would have, the kind of training that we would put forward would be, first of all, those things that are common to all hazards that we need to be able to provide for at the local level, and 

that would be our approach to it, and that is what we mean by all 

hazards, is that it doesn’t matter what the hazard is. We try to create a capability that is ongoing to deal with it regardless of what 

it is and when it might occur. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, when you create a whole new department 

based on a terrorist attack, then obviously you lose your balance, 

and one of the things we tried to do with the Post-Katrina Act— 

you lose the balance so bad that you have a Katrina. And one of 

the things that we are trying to do with the Post-Katrina Act was 

somehow to get that balance back. 

What all three of you have had to say about all the hazards is 

very important to us. Obviously, it hides a multitude of subsets 

when you consider what the day-to-day work of emergency responders are and consider that, nevertheless, they have to be responsible 

for whatever happens, including a terrorist event. We expect the 

Department to be able to find its way, but we are concerned that 

it be flexible enough to do so because, as it learns more, all hazards 

and some greater balance will occur, you are aware that the Congress gave FEMA more autonomy after there was a serious disagreement among Committees, indeed, three Committees, I guess, 

as to whether FEMA ought to be entirely independent. 

You heard me ask about the reporting relationship. Having made 

a compromise that leaves FEMA within the Department of Homeland Security, but with some greater autonomy, I was trying to 

34 

find out what that means. Are you convinced that the reporting relationship created by the Post-Katrina Act within the Department 

of Homeland Security makes FEMA nimble enough to move even 

though it is within a super-agency? Move and get the job done everywhere, all the time, to assist first responders? 

Yes, Mr. Witt. 

Mr. WITT. Madam Chair, I think that it is a move in the right 

direction, making FEMA autonomous with its own budget. I think 

it is important that the Administrator of FEMA reports directly to 

the President during presidential disaster declarations. I have—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry, what was that last thing you said? 

Mr. WITT. I think it is important that the Administrator of 

FEMA report directly to the President during presidential disaster 

declarations. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, wait a minute. Even though he reports to the 

Secretary, I suppose, all the time because he is within DHS, you 

think his reporting relationship should shift, is that what you are 

saying? 

Mr. WITT. The Administrator should report directly to the President during a presidential disaster. 

Also, I have a tremendous concern and cannot understand why 

they have an FCO and a PFO. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, would you describe—Mr. Selves spoke about 

that. There seems to be some real concern about this. Here we go 

with another bureaucratic term, principal Federal official. Would 

you speak in layman terms about—— 

Mr. WITT. Okay. Let me just say this. 

Ms. NORTON.—both the functions and why you think that it is 

appropriate? 

Mr. WITT. When I was Administrator of FEMA, we created the 

Federal Coordinating Officer Program. The Federal Coordinating 

Officer, the intent of that was to be the President’s person on the 

ground to make the decisions that needed to be made quickly, 

working with the State Secretary of that State during a crisis. And 

then they added a PFO. What authority does a PFO have or what 

is the intent of a PFO? I have never understood that. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, does that mean that there is a dual report—— 

Mr. WITT. I am not sure how they report. It is another added 

layer of bureaucracy between the—— 

Ms. NORTON. What did they say? Why was he added? I suppose 

I should be asking Admiral Johnson. 

Mr. SELVES. Maybe Craig knows. 

Ms. NORTON. You may be aware of what their rationale was. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, the Principal Federal Official, as it 

was originally intended to be, was for, prior to an event being declared, to help coordinate between the Department of Justice and 

FEMA. That was the original role. As it has been utilized, I have 

to take into question why Admiral Johnson stated that the Federal 

Coordinating Officer has the full authority of the President to direct activities of all Federal agencies. 

Yet, we also heard that the Principal Federal Official was there 

to referee if the Federal agencies weren’t playing nice with the 

FCO. That either tells me the FCO is impotent or the FCO doesn’t 

35 

have any authority, because as you see it, the Principal Federal Official is usually, in the hierarchy of Federal Government, a senior 

Federal official who outranks the Federal Coordinating Officer. My 

job representing Governor Crist is to go into a unified command 

with the person that represents the President and the Federal response plan or the national response plan, which just—— 

Ms. NORTON. And who would that be in your case? 

Mr. FUGATE. Under the Stafford Act and under statutes, the authority is vested in the Federal Coordinating Officer. Yet, I will 

have a Principal Federal Official assigned to us who will be, again, 

as we understand it, providing information back to the Secretary 

of Homeland Security and providing coordination between the Federal agencies. So either the FCO has authority—— 

Ms. NORTON. How is coordination with the Federal agencies done 

before 

Mr. FUGATE. Through the Federal Coordinating Officer. And it 

wasn’t so much that the Federal Coordinating Officer was in negotiation with other Federal agencies. The Federal Coordinating Officer in a declared disaster, ideally responding to a governor’s request for assistance, had directive authority to other Federal agencies. It was a tasking ability to get Federal resources quickly to 

save lives, property, and mitigate the impacts of a disaster. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, the allegation is that this is Homeland Security’s way of keeping in the game. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chairman, I cannot go into the intent or 

what—— 

Ms. NORTON. I want to know what the effect is. 

Mr. FUGATE. But I can tell you that when a Principal Federal Official is assigned to Florida, I immediately ask that they be made 

the Federal Coordinating Officer. It makes no sense to have a Federal Coordinating Officer who then has a PFO over them and a reporting relationship between the governor of the State of Florida—— 

Ms. NORTON. You think the both of those would be reporting to 

FEMA, in effect? Or do you think it stops with FEMA or the Principal Federal Official goes somewhere else, like to Department of 

Homeland Security? 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, my understanding is the Principal 

Federal Official does part of the reporting back to the Secretary of 

Homeland Security. We have only asked that those two positions, 

if they are applied in Florida, be combined so that, for Governor 

Crist, he is dealing with the President’s representative, not two different people. 

Ms. NORTON. I tell you one thing. If the whole point in a deficitridden budget, is efficiency and saving funds, I can’t imagine that 

this would be the Administration that wants to add to the bureaucracy. This is a matter of efficiency that I think should be brought 

to the attention of the appropriators and of our Committee. 

You see no separate function once a disaster has occurred? Do 

any of you see a separate function? 

Mr. SELVES. No. 

Mr. WITT. No, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Have you seen them in action? How do they operate; they are both there? 

36 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair—— 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Selves raised this point too. Yes. 

Mr. SELVES. I think the important point that our members who 

have been affected by this see—and obviously the State government is more involved in this process than we are, but our members are talking about the effects, and the effects are a degree of 

confusion. In any particular situation, especially a chaotic situation 

like a disaster, you want to have clear guidance and clear understanding of what your major partner, the Federal Government, is 

going to do. 

What our members are reporting is that, in Hurricane Katrina 

and other situations, the existence of a Principal Federal Official 

and a Federal Coordinating Officer, which is what we have traditionally dealt with, is very confusing because you don’t know—unless, as Craig has suggested, you have one person be the same two 

functions, you don’t really trust and know whether or not you are 

going to have that the decisions that are made, and that you have 

to act on as a State or local official, are going to be supported once 

it gets back to Washington. I think that is the main concern that 

most people have with this dual positions; not so much that there 

are two of them, but that they create a confusion as to exactly who 

should we listen to as far as what we can and can’t do. 

Ms. NORTON. That sounds like a disaster in the making. Suppose 

they disagree? Nobody is trying to cut the Department of Homeland Security out; okay, they are in FEMA. But it does seem to me 

that that is what the head of FEMA is for, is to keep the Department of Homeland Security informed. And if he wants to have special assistants and the rest that he learns stuff from. How many 

of these Principal Federal Officials do we have? Committee will 

find out. If trying to use money where it is needed, then I would 

be very concerned about that. 

Leaving aside the Principal Federal Official, do you think that, 

given what you know about pre-Katrina, do you think that the 

agency will be able to function adequately within the Department 

of Homeland Security? Whichever of you wishes to step up to that 

one. 

Mr. WITT. Madam Chairman, I have always advocated that 

FEMA needed to be independent and outside the Homeland Security. 

Ms. NORTON. But that is where we are now, so I need to know 

what are the—you know what the chain of command is. You have 

already told us one way to improve it: not have these two officers 

who overlap with one another. I am interested in knowing, given 

that this is where we are, what do you think is the effect and are 

there things we can do, given the present structure, to make sure 

that that is as flexible and nimble as the agency needs to be. 

Mr. WITT. Let me just add I think the changes you have made 

is a step forward. It is how those changes are implemented and 

carried out is whether or not the agency will move forward to be 

better prepared and be able to respond in support of State and 

local government. One of the biggest problems that I would suggest, Madam Chairman, that the Committee look at is not only the 

decision process in the declaration as well as the response to a hazard or an event, it is the decision process that is made in the recovVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
37 

ery of that event, and what chain of command in and who has the 

authority to do it, because I can tell you it is really, really difficult 

at different times in getting decisions made in a timely way to be 

able to not only reimburse local governments in recovery efforts, 

but to move it forward much faster than it is in today’s process. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, from the State of Florida’s perspective, FEMA is already part of DHS. I think moving FEMA again 

isn’t really getting to the bottom line. I think the bottom line is to 

continue oversight of the Katrina Reform Act. I think we lose more 

by trying to move it once again, as much as to continue the oversight and go with the basic principal that was established with the 

late Governor Chiles, Governor Bush, and now with Governor 

Crist, that in a disaster they have to have the person they trust 

managing their team that is working all those resources on behalf 

of the people that we represent. 

I think that is the important relationship. The FEMA Director 

must have clear and unabridged access to the President and must 

be seen as the President’s principal in dealing with and managing 

a disaster on behalf of the Federal Government. If they are seen 

as subordinate to the Secretary of Homeland Security during a disaster, that gives other departments the ability to negotiate with 

the Secretary for those things that they wish not to do at the direction of FEMA. And in a disaster the President needs one captain, 

one coach, one leader, not a Committee vetoing each other’s decisions when issues are being raised and governors need answers 

and citizens need help. 

Ms. NORTON. I would like all of you to comment on something 

in Mr. Witt’s testimony. Normally, everybody talks about one-stop 

shopping, but he uses another word: one-stop grants shopping for 

State and local governments. And you state, Mr. Witt, that it 

doesn’t allow the Country to prepare effectively for natural hazards 

or terrorism. Could you elaborate? Then perhaps Mr. Selves and 

Mr. Fugate would comment on that idea. 

Mr. WITT. I think when it was shifted over through the grant 

programs into the Department of Homeland Security, I think it 

was problematic for them. What is a one-stop shop grant program? 

What does that cover? I think the primary focus of it as a one-stop 

grant program under Homeland Security was it was leaning towards terrorism, not an all hazard approach in grants. I think that 

the grant program being shifted back to FEMA will add some 

value, and I think, as you look at it and as it evolves, I think it 

will improve. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Selves? 

Mr. SELVES. Yes. When this occurred, I think a lot of us in our 

community were in favor. In fact, we probably were complaining 

about the number of different stovepipe grant programs that were 

out there. How do you go about identifying where those programs 

are, who has them? How do you go about applying for them? So I 

think a lot of us in the community said, you know, we really wish 

that you would have one place within DHS where we can go and 

get whatever applicable grant for our community. 

I think the law of unintended consequences came into play here 

and what we got was a mind-set that we have to make all of these 

grants, in terms of policy, the same, and that was not what we 

38 

were asking for. What we were asking for was one central administrative agency that we could go to and say, okay, if we need grants 

for emergency management performance type activities, we go 

here; if we need money for chem bio equipment, we go to the same 

place, rather than the stovepipe systems that we had before. 

What we did not advocate, and do not advocate, is that all these 

grant programs now become similar in terms of what they are trying to achieve and so on, and I think maybe that is what Director 

Witt was referring to when he said that the impetus seems to be 

on making all of these terrorism-related because they were in DHS 

GNT and are now in FEMA. Hopefully, when they get back under 

FEMA, the folks in FEMA understand the purposes of a number 

of these grants, particularly EMPG, and understand that it is an 

all hazard grant, and has to be; otherwise, it is basically there to 

provide the people power necessary to do all the coordination, all 

of the answers to all of the questions at the local level and the 

State level that you have been asking today. That is what the 

emergency managers are there for. 

We originally had some issues because DHS says, well, you can’t 

use this for personnel. Well, that is like asking the chef to make 

a hamburger, but don’t give him any meat. You know, you have got 

to have people that make this happen, and that is one of the issues 

that we had with what has occurred with respect to the grants; not 

that they are administered in one place, but that there seemed to 

be some impetus to put them together in kind of a vanilla type situation. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, the rule of unintended consequences 

applied here. We thought, by bringing the grants into one shop, we 

would tear down the silos, break down the walls, and began to use 

those grants more systemically to solve problems than each program. The unintended consequence of that—and I don’t think this 

is an evil intent, I just think it is a natural nature within the bureaucracy—was since you had brought in Justice and those programs from there, they tried to move those grants in to fit in the 

programs that they were used to administering, they were comfortable with, they had the tools developed to assess and audit. Unfortunately, the other programs were never designed that way, so 

they didn’t fit and there was a lot of frustration. 

I think that, yes, one-stop shops are good as long as you understand that you need different tools and different measures for the 

different grants, because Congress has intended different things to 

happen with those monies. 

But here is my question. How many times do we have to audit 

the program? We haven’t basically operated under a single audit 

act, but I find that the variety of grants—I get asked the same 

questions by different staffers, generally during spring and winter 

months in Florida, on programs that are very commonly related 

and oftentimes share the same results. Yet, because it was funded 

out of this pocket or this pocket, those folks come down and do the 

same audits and over and over and over again. We follow a single 

audit act. We follow the law. Yet, we get audited over and over 

again. 

Ms. NORTON. Were they trying to find out whether you were 

using for terrorism or for some other purpose, is that it? 

39 

Mr. FUGATE. Ma’am, they are asking us and going back through 

the way they designed those grants, trying to look at performance. 

They are trying to answer questions Congress has asked. They are 

trying to answer questions the Administration has asked. It just 

seems that if we were trying to make the commonality elements in 

a one-stop shop work, we could answer those questions once and 

not multiple times. 

In fact, I believe FEMA has actually commissioned a study of 

going out and assessing how many different programs are asking 

the same questions in different areas, trying to measure what we 

are doing. We have Accreditation, we have the Emergency Management Performance Grants, we have the Homeland Security Grants, 

we have the Urban Security Initiative Grants. Well, many of them 

overlap and the questions are the same, but you are asked differently because they are different pots of money. 

Ms. NORTON. Now that Congress has at least now said, okay, 

what little bit of money FEMA has is going to be given out by 

FEMA, the tilt—it is a whole lot more than a tilt, and we heard 

the complaints, that we are too early in the Act to know whether 

it makes a different. The Committee feels very strongly that if we 

are talking about only 10 percent, the kind of soundings we get, 

that even now there are complaints about the terrorism tilt, that 

would be very disturbing. 

But bear this in mind: nobody would have funded emergency responders in the first place in these large amounts but for a terrorist event. So what you are having is a kind of mechanical distinction. People say all hazards and then they try to parse money 

as if, in fact, hazards occur as terrorist hazards, and that is all we 

fund because we are the Federal Government; you are supposed to 

fund the rest of those hazards. All hazards occur as natural disasters. And I don’t know if the Government will ever learn, but we 

are trying to learn from this last iteration of the Stafford Act. 

I have a question for Mr. Fugate from Mr. Mica, who asked that 

I ask how do we ensure the Federal response to a catastrophic disaster is proactive enough to meet the need but does not overstep 

the State’s authority? 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, you build a team. We have to recognize that there are two directions I see us going in: one is trying 

to beef up on the Federal side, FEMA and the Federal apparatus. 

Without recognizing without strong State and local emergency 

management programs, that system is too expensive and will fail. 

The way we do it is local government, State government, Federal 

Government have to work as partners, as one team. That means 

when the Federal Coordinating Officer is appointed, we go into a 

unified command meeting; I sit with them and we make decisions 

jointly. It isn’t a State mission; it is not a Federal mission; it is the 

team’s mission to meet those needs, and we have resources on both 

sides. 

But in a catastrophic disaster, I have often heard this term, 

Madam Chair, I want to define catastrophic disaster because I am 

tired of the media defining it for me. I look at a catastrophic disaster as this: when the State of Florida loses its constitutional ability to carry out its mandate to its citizens, then it is catastrophic 

and the President needs to step in. 

40 

But until such time as the governor of the State of Florida cannot carry out or is unwilling to carry out their constitutional responsibility to protect the civil rights of their citizens, the Federal 

Government is our partner, not our boss, and they come in to support the governor and his team, which is local and working with 

all local governments to meet those challenges. It becomes the skill 

of disaster. 

But we do recognize that with the threat of terrorism there may 

be that unthinkable event that results in the State government 

being the casualty and there not being a governor or not being able 

to carry out their constitutional mandate to meet the basic civil 

rights that our citizens demand, and that is when it is appropriate 

for the Federal Government to take the lead role until State government can be reconstituted. That is the history of our Country 

through civil rights, through war, and through disasters. So we 

think a catastrophic disaster, in our definition, is when we fail and 

our governor is not able to carry out, because of death or injury, 

their constitutional responsibilities; otherwise,—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, that certainly would not be most of the time. 

Mr. FUGATE. That is it. 

Ms. NORTON. It is interesting that you say that. It is interesting 

Mr. Mica thought he had to ask that question because one had the 

authority that you always hear the Federal Government say they 

defer to the States and, of course, they don’t know what is happening on the ground nearly as much as the States would, so it is 

interesting if you say in non-catastrophic disasters you still have 

a problem of the Federal Government wanting to take the lead. 

Mr. FUGATE. Madam Chair, you pass the law as a body—I hope 

you agree with it—that places the National Guard under the President in a natural disaster, but doesn’t take the authority of the 

governor to manage the disaster away from the governor. You just 

take his National Guard and federalize them. That is an option the 

President has. That is really troublesome, that we have seen all 

that type of legislation come out, thinking we learned the lessons 

of Katrina. 

If the local governments and State governments are going to 

truly be the front line, we need to support and fund them. But 

every time we come in at the Federal level and we assume more 

responsibility for their responsibilities, we develop capabilities and 

respond without really putting some onus on them to do it, you literally force State governments to make decisions about funding. 

Well, if the Federal Government is going to do it, why should we 

fund it? If the Federal Government is going to show up and do everything for us, why should we do it? 

Ms. NORTON. Well, let me ask you this. Does the fact that, for 

example, after a declaration, Federal funds begin to flow mean that 

the Federal Government feels it has got to take more responsibility 

because Federal funds are involved? 

Mr. FUGATE. Director Witt? 

Mr. WITT. Let me just say this. FEMA’s role and responsibility 

was to work with the States in making sure that they could provide 

the resources to the States that the States asked for, not to go in 

and take over a disaster. We were there in support of the States 

and—— 

41 

Ms. NORTON. Do you really think FEMA has been taking control 

of disasters, taking over disasters in the States? Did that happen 

in the tornadoes? Something happened, because Mr. Mica asked me 

to ask this question about make sure it does not step over the 

State’s authority. 

Mr. WITT. And you shouldn’t. The Federal Government is there 

as a resource to State government. 

Ms. NORTON. Is this a common complaint? 

Mr. Witt? What now? 

Mr. WITT. Is this a common complaint, that when there is a declaration, that the Federal Government does not operate as a team, 

FEMA and the rest do not operate as a team, but seem to want 

to take over the handling of the disaster? Mr. Selves? 

Mr. SELVES. I am not sure I would characterize it as wanting to 

take over after a disaster. Over the last few years, I think those 

of us at the local level have seen FEMA and the Federal partnership that has been talked about here becoming more remote. There 

is less of a person-to-person interaction so that we are working 

with people we know and trust and who understand those boundaries that we have just been talking about. 

I think one of the problems that occurs when we emphasize catastrophic disasters as we have is that in addition to what has already been said, there is also a tendency to look at the funding formulas and the emphasis on funding. If the Federal Government is 

expected to come in and play a major role because the local officials, or the State officials in some cases, can’t do the job, then, 

naturally, that funding is going to look to provide a Federal capability instead of a State and local one. 

This is a vicious cycle, because if you give us less money and give 

us less authority and so on and so forth, then the attitude is going 

to be, well, you know, they are really incapable of doing the job, 

so we have got to do it for them, and pretty soon you will come to 

a Federal allocation or appropriation that is going to stagger you 

because the Federal Government cannot do it; it has to be a partnership. 

And I think that is, over the last few years, what we have found 

to be the issue, is the remoteness of the Federal Government, the 

lack of knowledge of who those folks are, and the respect of the 

boundaries that might take place, maybe not out of any malintent, 

but because of a misunderstanding or a feeling that, well, if we 

don’t get in there and do something, right or wrong, then we are 

going to be criticized for it, so we have got to be much more aggressive with the States and locals. 

Ms. NORTON. I will ask one last question, because we want to get 

on to the next panel, that the Ranking Member, Mr. Graves has 

asked me to ask of you because you both are from Kansas City. In 

your written testimony you mention the potential impacts on Kansas City from an earthquake on the new Madrid Fault. Could you 

describe what you might face in Kansas City and what Congress 

should be doing to help Kansas City prepare? 

Mr. SELVES. Thank you. Yes, I belong to an organization within 

the Kansas City metropolitan area. I represent the southwest suburbs of the Kansas City Metro area on the Kansas side. We have 

about a half a million folks, 20 cities in my county. But we work 

42 

with all of the 8 counties in the Kansas City Metro and their emergency managers, and over the last few months, especially, we have 

been asked by the Federal Government to prepare catastrophic 

plans for catastrophic events. 

Well, if you look at Kansas City, we don’t have hazards that are 

very likely to create a catastrophic event. What we do have come 

to the conclusion is that if there is a catastrophic event on the new 

Madrid Fault, that the City of St. Louis will be rendered pretty 

much in the same situation or worse as the City of New Orleans 

was during Katrina, and we look at our major responsibility in a 

catastrophe to act as the Houston to St. Louis’s New Orleans, and 

that is something that we have just come to realize and begun to 

look at our ability to provide mass care, our ability to house and 

to take care of. 

And I think that that brings up a point that I would like this 

Committee and others to consider, and that is the support and the 

programs that are available to communities and States who are required to serve as the receivers of evacuees from disaster areas. We 

saw tremendous burdens placed on areas in Northern Louisiana 

and certainly in the City of Houston and various other places 

around the Country, and those folks were willing to step up and 

do that job, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of good policy and good 

procedures in place to help those communities out that reached out 

and helped those evacuees. So that is something we are concerned 

about in our area. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, we will make sure that Mr. Graves hears that 

response, because if ever there was an afterthought, it was about 

the receiving areas, and they still are coming back. And every time 

we do something, for example, for the Louisiana area, we have to 

do something for those other areas as well. But, again, I am not 

sure the statute makes that clear enough, and I am asking staff 

to look and see whether or not—we should not be doing that on an 

ad hoc basis, and if they need to be prepared to receive people, then 

that too ought to be a part of the homeland security mission. 

Mr. SELVES. You can tell the Ranking Member that we will be 

happy to send some of those folks up to St. Joseph as well. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Witt, you wanted to comment on that matter? 

Mr. WITT. No, I think Mike did a good job. 

I would like to make a statement, if it is appropriate, before we 

leave. 

Ms. NORTON. Please do. 

Mr. WITT. You know, the eight years I was at FEMA we had the 

opportunity to reorganize and refocus the agency into a more responsive plan and preparedness, and we focused on mitigation and 

prevention, and I would encourage you to keep the mitigation side 

of funding to States and local governments to mitigate the risks in 

these States’ cities and counties. It is so important. 

Also, let me just say I think Director Paulison is a very good 

man. I have known him for a long time; I worked with him over 

the years when he was fire chief in Miami Dade and director of 

emergency management. I think if this Committee will empower 

him and support him to make those changes necessary, I think you 

will see an agency come back strong. 

43 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I know he will be glad to have that seal of 

approval from you. 

Mr. WITT. Let me just say—— 

Ms. NORTON. We know that he had emergency management experience, and that is why he has our confidence. We want to make 

sure the GAO report that, down the line, we have got people with 

emergency management experience, because you saw what happened when the top of the agency didn’t have it, then it turns out 

that below the agency you had the same problem. They are bringing many people in, and the Chairman and I have asked for a GAO 

audit right now, before we get locked in with people who may not 

have the necessary experience. It was a shot across our bow when 

another agency in the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Protective Service, takes on somebody who was rated most 

qualified who had indeed had deep police experience and he did not 

get the job. So that is all I need to know to know that we have to 

take a look. 

Mr. Chairman, I have already indicated that you and I will be 

asking for a GAO report to audit personnel selections in the agency, and I have already said that we will ask the Chair and the 

Ranking Members of the Full Committee and of our Subcommittee 

to join us in asking for that report. And I am very pleased you were 

able to come. I know how busy the Chairman is. He had told me 

personally that I am going to come to that hearing. This is how important he believed this hearing to be, and I am happy to welcome 

a man that all of you know, because anyone who knows anything 

about this field knows Jim Oberstar, the Chairman of the Full 

Committee. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. You are doing wonderfully on your own. I appreciate that, but I do have so many requests from our colleagues to participate with delegations coming 

from their districts here, so I regret I was not able to be here at 

the outset. 

While it is delightful and important for us, beneficial to have the 

former Director of FEMA, I am disappointed we don’t have the current Director. He felt it more important to be at an embassy briefing than to be at a Committee hearing, and that is unacceptable. 

I listened with great interest to the discussion that unfolded. I 

read the testimony from all the participants at our hearing late 

last night, into the early hours. FEMA didn’t start out to be FEMA, 

it started out as Civil Defense. 

I think I just need to create a little historical context, not for the 

edification of the participants at the witness table, but for the historical record of the Committee. 

Over time, as we moved away from fear of nuclear holocaust and 

stocked up our cellars with provisions, water and cans of food, and 

learned how to dig a hole in the backyard and pull the door over 

the top of our little shelter, events were happening, tornadoes, 

snowstorms in the northern tier, hurricanes in the southern coastal 

region, and folks said we need help, and they turned to the Civil 

Defense directors respectively across the Country, because they had 

the sense of organization, a response plan, a departure plan from 

the cities in case of tragedy; they had the organizational ability, 

they had the communications equipment. 

44 

And as more demands were made upon the Civil Defense, there 

were more needs, and there were also more requests from States 

to the Federal Government to provide financial help, and in various 

cases support from the National Guard. Disaster declarations by 

the President were few in number up into the 1970s. 

But then, if you look back at the history, we began to see the rise 

of cost and frequency of natural disasters and increasing pressure 

on the Civil Defense organizations who were evolving into an all 

hazards response organization. Then came the Reagan Administration and they took a look at the funding and the response, and the 

president submitted, in 1987, a budget which totally turned on its 

head the Federal-State-local participation formula that you were 

talking about earlier with the distinguished Chair. 

In most cases there would be no Federal support under this 

Reagan Administration plan; in some cases there would be 75 local, 

25 Federal. And it was a Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 

Republican, who came to me as Chair of the Investigations and 

Oversight Subcommittee and my counterpart, Ranking Republican 

Member Mr. Klinger of Pennsylvania and said this is terrible; we 

have just had a tragedy in Pennsylvania. We couldn’t afford all the 

costs ourselves. This new policy will bankrupt towns and counties 

and townships, and we would like you to have a hearing on the 

subject matter. He was even proposing that we have legislative initiative to address the problem. So we had the hearing. 

They brought in the Civil Defense directors from all over the 

Country. We found that there was unanimous objection to this new 

policy, pointing out that these massive storms cover multi-counties, 

multi-States. They are national in interest and in effect, and we established quite a hearing record. Out of this developed legislation 

that created the structure for what became FEMA. 

And I gave the legislative draft to the Member from Pennsylvania, I said, you introduce the bill and we will have the legislative 

Committee hold hearings on it and we will move this bill through. 

He was surprised, because that doesn’t happen when you are in the 

minority, that the majority gives you a bill and says, here, you go 

and manage it, handle it. I said, no, you have done the right thing. 

You had the courage to stand up against your own administration 

on a matter that has now taken on national significance. 

So he introduced the bill, I co-sponsored it, Mr. Klinger co-sponsored it. The bill passed the House, the Senate, eventually was 

signed into law under—wrapped it into something else because, of 

course, that White House was not going to sign such a bill. We 

wrapped it into another omnibus bill and it became law. 

That Member was Tom Ridge, later the first Secretary of Homeland Security. I will never forget, after he was appointed, he came 

up to see me, he said, it all started with you. But it started with 

good public policy and, Mr. Witt, you extended that good public policy. I think the apogee of FEMA’s service to the Country. I know 

Mr. Shuster, our former Chairman of the Committee, would concur 

in this judgement of the apogee of service of FEMA was under your 

distinguished leadership. You developed a pre-disaster mitigation 

program. 

Now we have seen this thing sort of coming full circle, and when 

the Administration proposed the development of the Homeland SeVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
45 

curity Department, both then Chairman Young and I opposed inclusion of FEMA and Coast Guard in this Department. We opposed 

it at the White House in a meeting with the President; we opposed 

it at the hearing of the Committee to create Homeland Security; 

and on the House floor I offered an amendment to delete FEMA 

from the Homeland Security Department. 

I said in my closing argument for my amendment, imagine the 

scenario, the flood waters are creeping up to the eaves of your 

house; you are standing on the roof with your cell phone and a 

white handkerchief, trying to call FEMA and you get the Department of Homeland Security and they tell you, well, they are out 

looking for terrorists. That is what you are going to see if you do 

this. That is what will happen with this Department, it will be absorbed with this agency, it will be absorbed into this new Department. And the staff will be syphoned off and the money which is 

fungible will be dispersed to other parts of this grass department. 

Well, it was hardly a year and a half later that Katrina struck 

and how many images are engraved in our minds of people standing on their rooftops, waving white handkerchiefs and on their cell 

phones? Now, I was not a Nostradamus predicting the future, but 

just my own years of experience around the Capitol and in government know that when you create something this big, that is what 

is going to happen. And it did happen, tragically. 

So now the Department has come up with a new plan to recreate 

what they in effect destroyed, and, in fact, what I predicted did 

happen. Staff were syphoned off; half of them were bled from 

FEMA and shipped elsewhere, or the really dedicated professionals 

left. The funding for FEMA was dispersed around the Department. 

Now we are trying to reclaim it. The result was well experienced 

managers left or were redistributed; morale sank; well-intentioned, 

unexperienced people came in; and we need not repeat all the horror show of post-Katrina. 

Now I have confidence in Administrator Paulison; disappointed 

that he is not here today. He should have been here. He can go to 

an embassy event any other time of the week. This is a Committee 

of the Congress. And also in Michael Jackson, the Deputy Secretary who has certainly made his mark as an effective government 

manager. Now they are putting together a new program or a new 

management structure for FEMA, but we need to have assurance 

that personnel have experience in disaster preparedness, planning, 

and response. 

This is not a throw-away job. This is critically important work. 

We also have to have some structure that separates the terrorism 

response, the terrorism preparedness and planning and all the rest 

of that, which is less than 2 percent of the work of FEMA, from 

its response to natural disasters. As the then Chairman Don Young 

said many times over the last five years, four years since the Department was created, the biggest terror is a hurricane. The biggest terror is a tornado. They strike regularly. We need to be prepared more efficiency and more effectively and more currently 

against those disasters. 

What I see, among many other concerns, is that fire grants, the 

administration of which, under your leadership, Mr. Witt, was 

highly professionalized. Now those fire grants are being shifted 

46 

away from small communities into urban areas. Those little fire departments, those rural fire departments in my area—I am sure 

they are in Florida; I am sure they are in other areas of the Country—they are the first line of response. 

Breathing apparatus, protective clothing, new gear, occasionally 

a new fire truck means all the world in the response to a fire in 

a rural area where, if you don’t have the right equipment, the 

home can be gone, the summer recreation lakeside home can be 

just gone, vaporized in a very short time. Or, as we are seeing with 

methamphetamine, where fire departments are called upon to respond to a fire, they have never seen these toxic fumes before; 

green, orange, yellow, black, acrid. They need breathing apparatus 

to respond to this. This is every bit at serious as a terrorist attack. 

First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Fugate, you have had more 

than your share of experience with disaster in Florida from natural 

events, whether you have taken a look at this new management 

plan for FEMA, whether the steps taken to reestablish pre-disaster 

mitigation, whether the efforts at all hazards approach give you 

some confidence about the future of this agency. 

Mr. FUGATE. Mr. Chairman, I started out as a volunteer fire department firefighter, just like you talked about, the rural departments. That is where I came from. I was actually a responder before I got into emergency management. I look at three rules in a 

disaster or an emergency: you meet the needs of your victims; you 

take care of your responders; and the third rule is to see the first 

rule. 

So with the management plan, the changes, and everything they 

are doing, yes, I think they are going in the right direction. But I 

think it is going to take continual oversight of the people’s representatives to make sure that that direction doesn’t change. The 

problem you are going to always have with FEMA as part of a big 

organization is when the other competing needs are expressed 

without funding, they are going to look within the organization to 

shift priorities and resources. 

That is just the nature of how, as managers, we try to deal with 

increasing demands and increasing issues. So that is where I think 

FEMA, initially, going into Homeland Security, was in such a bad 

position, was that the Department of Homeland Security looked to 

FEMA because they had funds, they had personnel, and in meeting 

other challenges they stole from Peter to pay Paul, hoping that the 

system would no break, and it did. 

So that will be the continual responsibility that you and your 

members have, sir, is to make sure that that oversight continues. 

These are the important steps. But I can tell you that as much as 

Dave Paulison has my support and respect, Dave cannot fix everything before hurricane season. He probably won’t have everything 

fixed at the end of his term. But he has got to lay the groundwork, 

get the people hired, get them trained, move the program. 

It is going to take time to rebuild FEMA and to make it stronger 

and better, and it will never be completed because hopefully it will 

always be a work in progress to continue to improve so its role of 

supporting State and local governments never ends. But the 

groundwork has got to be laid, the foundation has to be built. We 

think that is happening, but it is very fragile at this point. As you 

47 

pointed out, we ran this cycle before, and without the oversight of 

Congress, that will occur again. 

I think your advantage, sir, is previously you were often fighting 

these battles and not really have the rest of the Congress understand how this was a national issue, not a State and local issue. 

I think Katrina has shown us that natural disasters, manmade and 

terrorism, can impact the entire Country, even when we are not hit 

by that disaster. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much. That is a very sound, very 

wise, balanced, thoughtful approach. 

Mr. Witt, I would like to have your observations. 

Mr. WITT. I agree totally with Craig, Mr. Oberstar. I think that, 

first of all, I think it was the right move to put preparedness training and exercise the grant program back under FEMA. I also think 

it is important that the Director of FEMA is reporting directly to 

the President when there is a Federal disaster declaration. 

I think that decision process from the State level, with the State 

director and the State, from the Federal Coordinating Officer to the 

Director of FEMA and to the President is absolutely critical, because information flow in data, flow back in with situation reports 

helps people to make good decisions faster. You cannot have a line 

of bureaucracy of reporting systems which you know very well that 

will expedite the process and the resources. 

So I agree, I think it is going to take some time to do this. I 

think that it is going to take some time to get to the moral of the 

agency back to the level that it needs to be, like it used to be. They 

took pride in what they did and worked some extremely hard, long 

days. So I think it is evolving, and I think with your oversight and 

your support and your guidance, then I think it can evolve to a premier agency in the Federal Government. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I assure you the oversight will continue. We have 

just begun. 

Mr. Selves, do you have an observation? 

Mr. SELVES. Well, for seven years, before I took this particular 

job with Johnson County, I worked for the State of Kansas Emergency Management Division, and one of my responsibilities, my 

major responsibility was to go out and to try to help the counties 

in the State of Kansas who are responsible for emergency management to create better, more effective programs, and I was frequently called before county commissioners who asked me, well, we 

don’t really have the money to have a full-time emergency manager 

in this county, but could we make the public works director or the 

sheriff or somebody else do that job? 

I would tell them, you know, it is up to you; you have the authority to put the position wherever you want it, but if you don’t make 

it a separate agency reporting directly to you in times of disaster, 

you are going to have significant problems. I said, you can put it 

wherever you want, but if you choose to make it something other 

than a direct report to you, you need to make sure that you have 

that relationship with that individual, wherever they might work, 

that in time of disaster, they are there to support you in the overall 

response, a comprehensive response to this disaster. They can’t be 

a deputy out working traffic or saving lives; they have got to be 

somewhere there who can work with you and coordinate things. 

48 

So I think the situation is similar here. The decision has been 

made to put FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security. That 

is a decision that Congress made and the President asked for, but 

you have to be very careful. You have to make sure that it works, 

that the relationships are there and that the advice is provided 

when it needs to be provided directly to the person responsible. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Right on. 

Mr. Witt? 

Mr. WITT. Mr. Chairman, let me also, on the fire grant program. 

We had a huge wildfire in Montana. Senator Backus and we went 

up, we did a fire declaration, and we went out with Governor Roscoe, we went out on the fire line, and this is how important those 

fire grants are you that mentioned. We went out on the fire line 

and we had an instant command post set up, and here were the 

volunteer firefighters responding with the U.S. Forest Service that 

none of them had turnout gear. They were in their blue jeans and 

boots. 

Another example how important this is, our son, in our hometown of Darnell, Arkansas, is a volunteer firefighter and a banker. 

I said, well, what are you all going to need this year? He said, we 

don’t have any turnout suits. This was two years ago. So we bought 

him a turnout suit and his department. So these fire grants are 

really important because they support emergency management as 

a resource and they are the fire line. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much. My staff representative for 

the northern tier of my district, Peter Makowski, is a volunteer 

firefighter. Not only that, he has his own fire truck. I mean, he is 

really into this. He bought a surplus fire truck that some department in southern Minnesota was selling. He goes out on those and 

he knows first-hand what the equipment is needed, the breathing 

apparatus that is required, the protective gear that is needed, and 

the latest technology. 

Crime is moving out from urban areas to rural areas, and we 

have a lot of hunting shacks in northern Minnesota. You probably 

have got those all around Arkansas., where they are just sitting 

there much of the year, and someone passing by in January sees 

one of those shacks, there is no snow on the roof. Oh, oh, someone 

is in there cooking meth. What is going on? Pretty soon there is 

going to be a fire, and who has to respond? 

And what has FEMA and Homeland Security been doing for the 

last couple of years? Creeping along. I heard this from the Fire 

Chiefs Association of Minnesota. They are telling us you submit 

your fire grant application, you have to show a connection with terrorism. Well, the terror is the fire. The terror is the meth lab. The 

terror is the tornado. The straight line winds at 100 miles an hour 

blew down 26 million trees in northern Minnesota. That is the terror. We have got to be prepared against that. 

I am just grateful to you. Thank you. I don’t want to prolong 

this. There are other witnesses waiting to be heard. We need to 

hear from them. 

Madam Chair, thank you very much. Thank you for also including the questions of the minority who unfortunately were not able 

to be here this afternoon. 

49 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, you never prolong; you only educate. We all sit and listen to a man who knows more about—you 

have never seen anything like it. Whatever Subcommittee it was, 

you are astounded to hear. You understand the Chairman has sat 

through all these things. The question you have to ask yourself is 

what kind of brain does he have that has actually absorbed all 

these things. 

Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank you very much. I want to say to this panel 

I have learned something. This is what hearings do for me, not tell 

me what I already know. When I learn from you, it gives me ideas 

about what to do. Vast and deeply informed experience. I very 

much appreciate your waiting through the last panel and waiting 

so long for us during the vote. Thank you again for coming. 

I am going to call up the next set of witnesses. And I certainly 

have to thank the next set of witnesses, because they have been 

most patient, and I certainly appreciate their indulgence. The fact 

that they are coming last says nothing about their importance; it 

says something about the protocol of the Congress, and the protocol, of course, is you start with the agency head and you hope, 

frankly, that from their testimony you will gather questions beyond 

those that have already occurred to you to ask the people that are 

on the job and on the ground, and I have to tell you that we certainly have some of those questions. 

We want to proceed quite quickly so as not to detain you much 

longer, and to ask that you summarize your testimony, if at all possible, because we will look more deeply at it. 

I want to thank Mr. Chuck Canterbury in particular, who is the 

President of the Fraternal Order of Police, because we just called 

him as a witness just, I think it was, last week, and I so appreciate 

your coming again; Chief Tom Carr, Montgomery County, Maryland, Fire Rescue Service, our neighbors here and part of the National Capital area response; Chief Fred Endrikat, Special Operations Chief, City of Philadelphia; and Sheriff Edmund ‘‘Ted’’ Sexton, Sr., of the National Sheriffs’ Association. 

I will leave it up to you as to in which order you would like to 

proceed. Please summarize your testimony and proceed whoever 

thinks he wants to step up first. 

Yes, Mr. Canterbury. See, he has been here before, that is why 

he is stepping up this way. 

TESTIMONY OF CHUCK CANTERBURY, PRESIDENT, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE; CHIEF TOM CARR, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, FIRE RESCUE SERVICE, 

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS; CHIEF 

FRED ENDRIKAT, SPECIAL OPERATIONS CHIEF, CITY OF 

PHILADELPHIA FIRE DEPARTMENT, SPECIAL OPERATIONS 

COMMAND; SHERIFF EDMUND M. ‘‘TED’’ SEXTON, SR., 

FORMER PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION 

Mr. CANTERBURY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate 

the opportunity. I am going to take a personal privilege. I would 

like to thank the Montgomery County officers for being here. They 

lost a first responder this morning, who died from an incident that 

50 

occurred on the 25th, Officer Lou Kaufman of the Montgomery 

County Police was killed in the line of duty. 

Ms. NORTON. We join you. 

Mr. CANTERBURY. Thank you. 

I am here today to represent the views of the Fraternal Order 

of Police, 325,000 rank and file officers, with respect to the challenges faced by DHS and FEMA, and the entire public safety community in responding to all hazard critical incidents. 

As you know, Madam Chairman, the FOP was initially very 

skeptical or charging FEMA with expanding authority over the law 

enforcement mission at DHS, and we believe that that responseoriented organization like FEMA would be ill suited to perform, 

oversee, and fund terrorism prevention activity. We were scared 

that there was something in that that just didn’t fit in FEMA’s traditional role. 

First of all, let me say that FEMA Administrator Paulison has 

been in contact with the FOP to discuss a number of the issues related to law enforcement’s role within FEMA, and since that conversation FEMA senior staff has been engaging us in ongoing dialog, and we are very pleased with that. Administrator Paulison has 

created the position of a law enforcement advisor to the Administrator of FEMA and, of course, we hope that they will be able to 

fill that position very quickly. He has also included in his staff people from the law enforcement community who bring some expertise 

and know-how to FEMA which was not there previously. 

We believe that Mr. Paulison will help to integrate law enforcement into the structure of FEMA more appropriately. To do this, 

though, he is going to need to be tenacious and work hard to ensure that there is a greater respect and understanding for the extremely important work that we do in the instance of an attack or 

a disaster. We believe he understands this and he has our full support. 

As you know, FEMA has historically been a culturally reactive 

agency, and we understand that law enforcement cannot prevent 

hurricanes or tornadoes or floods. But we do know that we can and 

do, however, prevent terrorist incidents from occurring on our Nation’s soil by preventing threatening goods or people from entering 

this Country. 

This is going to require a paradigm shift in the way FEMA works 

with law enforcement. It means that FEMA must work quickly and 

responsibly to fill the position of the Assistant Administrator for 

Grants Management and Operations. We are ready to support 

FEMA in this effort. We ask for the same respect and understanding be granted to the law enforcement community that we are 

granting FEMA in this ongoing process, and we look forward to 

working with this Committee, as well, in that, and we hope that 

with our written testimony, if there are any questions that we can 

answer from the rank and file law enforcement. 

We are very concerned with some of the changes recently at 

DHS. As you know, Madam Chairman, we testified on the reduction in force at Federal Protective Service, and in this time of disaster, today’s USA Today newspaper this morning showed two Federal officers on the border in Texas doing recovery efforts in the 

tornados that occurred on the Texas border, and I thought it very 

51 

apropos I was coming here today. Again, reaction of two Federal 

law enforcement officers that reacted with the first responders 

searching for victims of that tornado. So it does show a much more 

concerted effort than we had in the past. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Canterbury. Appreciate 

that testimony. 

Chief Carr, do you want to go next? 

Mr. CARR. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman. I am 

Tom Carr of the Montgomery County, Maryland Fire Rescue Service and one of nearly 13,000 members of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. 

The IAFC represents the leadership of America’s fire, rescue, and 

emergency medical services, including rural volunteer fire departments, combination departments, and metropolitan career fire departments. 

The Committee has wisely entitled today’s hearing FEMA’s Preparedness for All Hazards. Last year, America’s fire service responded to more than 23 million fire and emergency calls covering 

all hazards, including structure fires, emergency medical service incidents, hazmat incidents, and wildland fires. While most of the 

calls are local, the fire service has demonstrated its national role 

in disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the attacks of September 

11th. 

When fire departments take on such a natural role, their lead 

partner within the Federal Government is FEMA. Since 9/11, much 

of the focus of the Department of Homeland Security has been on 

building terrorism response capabilities. While gaps still exist, 

these efforts have helped local fire and EMS providers become better prepared than ever before for chemical, biological, radiological, 

nuclear, and explosive incidents. The IAFC understands this focus 

on counter-terrorism as a natural reaction to September 11th; however, it is important to point out that the response to most incidents, whether natural or manmade, is strikingly similar. To a firefighter responding to a scene, a WMD attack is simply a hazmat 

incident with an attitude and requires many of the same basic 

equipment, tactics, and skills. 

The backdrop for today’s hearing is so-called ‘‘New FEMA,’’ 

which is authorized by the fiscal year 2007 DHS Appropriations 

Act. IAFC supports this law and the direction FEMA has begun to 

take in implementing it. In particular, we believe that it is essential that FEMA’s budget and mission be protected from constant 

DHS reorganizations. 

Additionally, we endorse the return of the U.S. Fire Administration and the Office of Grants and Training to FEMA. These transfers create an opportunity to link response planning with training 

programs and grant distribution in a very effective manner. 

Administrator Paulison, a former IAFC president and MiamiDade fire chief, also has made a number of changes to improve 

FEMA’s logistics, disaster response expertise, and regional offices. 

We urge Subcommittee Members to continue to support FEMA’s 

new direction by giving the agency time to complete its transformation plans and by supporting its programs through the appropriations process. 

52 

Creation of a new FEMA, however, is far from the final step in 

making sure the United States is truly prepared for future disasters. Considerable work remains for the Administration, Congress, 

States, localities, and the Fire Service in terms of continuing to ensure that the Nation is able to respond effectively when the next 

major emergency occurs. 

As FEMA integrates the Office of Grants and Training into the 

post-Katrina structure, it must do a better job of understanding the 

basic fire and emergency service capabilities are essential not only 

for response to terrorism, but to other types of disasters as well. 

Creating an emphasis in grant programs on specialized equipment 

for CBRNE events may steer resources away from more fundamental areas of need. Over the long term, this approach could deprive local responders of tools necessary for an effective response 

to the next major natural disaster. Congress can play a constructive role by ensuring that FEMA administers programs such as the 

FIRE Act grants are well-funded and remain focused on the response to all hazards. 

In October 2006, a needs assessment by the NFPA and the Department of Homeland Security drives home the basic all hazards 

need that currently exists within the Fire Service. Nearly 60 percent of fire departments don’t have enough SCBA, 65 percent of the 

fire departments don’t have enough portable radios, and it is on 

and on with basic equipment. 

The FIRE Act program currently goes a long way towards helping departments address these shortfalls. Likewise, the SAFER Act 

grant program aids departments in meeting important staffing 

needs, as identified in NFPA 1710. 

Though the Fire Administration has remained in Emmitsburg 

the entire time, the agency has moved around quite a bit in departmental organization charts over the past several years. Most recently, the USFA was transferred back into FEMA, after being removed just a year ago. As this transfer takes place, FEMA has several opportunities to strengthen the USFA and better prepare both 

the Federal Government and the Fire Service for future disasters. 

The USFA should continue to work to staff a desk at the National Operations Center. This development is important because it 

increases the ability of local fire chiefs and police to plan to comprehensively respond to future threats based on the same information. The USFA also needs to update the National Incident Fire Reporting System. 

Furthermore, the USFA needs strong leadership at the top. 

Though the U.S. Fire Administrator position remains an assistant 

secretary, it has not been filled with a permanent occupant for a 

extended period of time. The IAFC supports the nomination of 

Chief Craig Cade of Virginia Beach to serve as the U.S. Fire Administrator. Congress can aid in these efforts by providing $50 million to USFA in 2008. Last year, the USFA received $47 million, 

but the President’s budget requests only $43 million for 2008. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address this Committee. 

On behalf of America’s fire chiefs and emergency medical service 

officers, I would like to thank Congress, and especially Members of 

this Committee, for your continued support. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Chief Carr. 

53 

We want to go now to Chief Endrikat, City of Philadelphia Fire 

Department. 

Mr. ENDRIKAT. Thank you, Madam Chairman and distinguished 

Members of the Committee, for this opportunity to discuss the Nation’s preparedness in relation to all hazard response. 

By way of introduction, my name Fred Endrikat. I have been a 

Philadelphia firefighter for 32 years. I also served the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue National Response System in concurrent duty assignments as the National Task Force Leader’s Representative, Incident Support Team 

Operations Chief and Task Force Leader for Pennsylvania Task 

Force 1. 

I have served in various capacities at the local, State and Federal 

levels in disaster response operations including a 40 day field assignment as the FEMA US&R Incident Support Team Operations 

Chief at the September 11th attack and collapse of the World 

Trade Center in New York City and a 30 day field assignment with 

the FEMA US&R Incident Support Team as the Operations Chief 

for Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Hurricane Rita. 

I am speaking today as a first responder, but I also have the responsibility and the privilege to speak on behalf of the nearly 6,000 

members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban 

Search and Rescue National Response System. 

FEMA Administrator Paulison and the vision for a new FEMA 

speak to a shared responsibility approach for emergency management. A cornerstone of this shared responsibility is partnerships 

between Federal, State and local government. The concept of an all 

hazards approach to this responsibility is critical to ensure that we 

are prepared to respond effectively to any significant disaster event 

anywhere in our Nation. 

Prior to the September 11th attacks, the FEMA US&R task 

forces were faced with a shift in focus due to our response to the 

bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This 

incident made us aware that we needed to be ready for more than 

natural disasters as had been our focus up until that point in time. 

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, the US&R task forces had already begun preparing for response to a terrorist type attack. Six 

US&R task forces had been selected by FEMA to begin to achieve 

capabilities to respond to weapons of mass destruction incidents. 

After 9/11, all 28 FEMA US&R task forces were issued identical 

equipment and training for response to this type of event. 

While 9/11 may have shifted the national focus to terrorism, the 

FEMA US&R program maintained the all risk focus that had been 

previously developed. As evidenced by the FEMA US&R program’s 

response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and as highlighted by 

Secretary Chertoff in his report to Congress last year, the FEMA 

US&R program was one of the Federal response entities along with 

the United States Coast Guard that was acknowledged for successful response operations. 

Immediately after the September 11th attacks, we as a Nation 

understandably focused our efforts on homeland security and terrorism and allocated significant funds to increase our capabilities 

in this one specific area. As a result, we, again as a Nation, may 

54 

have unintentionally subordinated our efforts and our capability related to other risks that we continually face. 

With limited funding amounts, we end up competing for funds to 

prepare for individual specific types of events when it would be 

more prudent and cost effective to approach our funding for preparedness from the all hazard perspective. Simply stated, there are 

too many worthy causes that have vying for a very finite amount 

of funds. 

Large scale building collapse rescue operations in a water environment in the collapsed flooded underground subway tunnels 

under the World Trade Center require the same operational capabilities, highly trained personnel, incident management protocol, 

planning functions and significant logistical support requirements 

as collapsed building water rescue operations in flooded environments in urban, suburban and rural areas of North Carolina when 

they experienced that during Hurricane Floyd or in New Orleans 

during Hurricane Katrina. 

I believe that our focus should not be on the triggering mechanism that causes a disaster. The stronger our foundation in the 

concept of all hazard preparedness, the more likely we will successfully and safely resolve any incident that we respond to. 

All disasters start as local level events, and as the response element builds ins cope and complexity, each event presents very 

similar challenges in all phases of the emergency management 

cycle: preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. The preparedness cycle and its relationship to the other phases is key. 

As we prepare to respond to any type of disaster, far reaching 

benefits will be achieved by consistently training together, sharing 

information and building relationships at all levels of government 

and all tiers of response from first responders to fourth tier, standalone, self-sufficient resources like the FEMA US&R task forces. 

Integrating common doctrine, a common concept of operations, 

similar equipment and techniques for individual response disciplines and interoperable communications through all of these 

tiers of response in the preparedness phase will allow for the most 

effective service delivery to our citizens during the response and 

subsequent phases. 

I would respectfully ask that the Committee consider the continued support of successful programs like the FEMA US&R National 

Response System. Corresponding adequate funding would ensure a 

robust all hazard emergency management system for Federal, 

State and local governments through all tiers of response. 

I would also ask the Committee to consider continued support for 

the Post-Katrina Reform Act and support for the preparedness 

function, particularly training and exercises. 

Thank you for the privilege of testifying. 

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

Ms. NORTON. Sheriff Sexton, National Sheriffs’ Association. 

Mr. SEXTON. Thank you. 

My name is Ted Sexton, Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama 

and Immediate Past President of the National Sheriffs’ Association. 

I am here today representing our 3,087 elected sheriffs as well as 

the membership of over 25,000 law enforcement professionals. 

55 

The State of Alabama has pioneered all hazard response by public safety entities by forming a mutual aid task force divided into 

eight regions. My office is the home for Region 3 Law Enforcement 

Response Team that is largely comprised of members from my office, the Tuscaloosa Police Department, Northport Police and the 

University of Alabama Police Department along with nine other 

agencies that contribute over 100 law enforcement officials to participate. 

Region 3 has the ability to function for five days in a completely 

self-contained manner for any necessary response event. Our team 

assets range from interoperable communications vehicles, mobile 

command posts, law enforcement response personnel, K-9 tactical, 

detection and protection equipment. Our Region 3 Response Team 

has experienced five hurricane deployments and numerous requests for law enforcement functions. 

The National Sheriffs’ Association has been a supporter of 

FEMA’s all hazard response but does feel that deficiencies still remain that must be addressed. First is the need for a law enforcement representative in the administrative hierarchy of FEMA. 

Local law enforcement officials will always be the first to respond 

to any terrorist event or in times of other disaster and has a 

unique responsibility to ensure that public safety is not compromised in the immediate aftermath of such a crisis. 

A law enforcement representative would be able to work with 

local and State governments to ensure adequate response needs are 

met by responding law enforcement entities while meeting the requirements of being self-contained. 

In a post-9/11 era, no public safety entity has seen greater 

change than law enforcement and its responsibility to prevention 

and protection. This law enforcement representative would ensure 

that law enforcement capabilities remain balanced among response, 

prevention and protection. 

Local law enforcement is now involved in sharing of classified information and intelligence gathering in a shared capacity with Federal and State partners. 

Secondly, NSA also believes that regional first responder committees must be implemented within the Federal legislation and sheriffs, as chief elected officials, need to be among a wide variety of 

public safety responders involved. 

One example of an issue that needs addressing is the need for 

reconfigurement of FEMA law enforcement reimbursement schedules to include aviation assets or other specialized equipment. 

Third, there a mindset and pattern of waiting for a tragic catastrophe to occur, then assessing it, then responding to it. If Katrina 

and Rita taught us anything, it is the need to make prior contact 

with responding entities so that you have peace of mind as a law 

enforcement administrator to know who is coming, what resources 

are they bringing and when can they arrive. Sheriffs I have spoken 

to and responded to, hit by Katrina, did not have means to communicate by phone or radio. 

The National Sheriffs’ Association prepared a white paper entitled Response in a Heartbeat: An Immediate Fix and a Long Term 

Solution to Response. This blue ribbon panel of sheriffs convened 

to examine lessons learned in the response to Hurricane Katrina. 

56 

A gap that we feel FEMA can take care with a law enforcement 

representative in and committees is to form regionally based organized mobile flexible forces that are able to respond immediately to 

a disaster to support local governments, much like what the State 

of Alabama has already done. Mobilization would be a simple process. There would be no need for massive negotiation and endless 

streams of red tape. Responses need to be based on seconds and 

minutes, not on hours and days. 

Fourth and possibly the most important is that reimbursement 

funding needs to be streamlined so that assets that can be called 

upon multiple times and can be reimbursed without stressing unaffected local government revenues. If we could fund EMAC support 

as FEMA does immediate needs funding for Category A and B— 

and the work we do is Category B work, emergency protective 

measures—we could receive 50 percent of the estimated costs up 

front or within 30 days of that duty. 

That would give local governments and States with a lower tax 

base the ability to more easily absorb the up-front costs. The claims 

would still have to be appropriately documented and justified, however, the long term expense to the State and/or local government 

would be mitigated. 

This could also be aided by the development and distribution of 

preplanned guidelines, a package of checklists, templates, forms 

and sample agreements that would be compiled and distributed to 

first responders. This material would guide first responder efforts 

to develop and enhance emergency operations plans, incident accident plans, prepare memoranda of understanding and complete 

NIMS, FEMA, DHS and EMAC compliant pre and post-event 

plans, reports and claims. 

Simply put, we need to streamline the process and have everyone 

on the same sheet of music. 

It has been an honor to appear before this Committee on behalf 

of the National Sheriffs’ Association, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Sexton, and may I 

thank all four of you for very helpful testimony to this 

Subcommitee. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me just try to get at some of the issues raised 

by your testimony, particularly in relation to prior testimony. 

Mr. Carr mentions, perhaps explicitly when he says, Chief Carr, 

when he says in his testimony that there was some concern that 

chemical and biological, radiological, nuclear, that kind of funding 

and the like was overwhelming funding for more traditional areas 

of need. In what way? 

Are you referring to the application process? 

Do you feel that you must apply for those funds in order to get 

the necessary funds? 

Are those funds coming out of the Department of Homeland Security and not FEMA grants? 

Would you, or for that matter the others, elaborate if you agree 

on that notion about terrorism funding overwhelming traditional 

areas? 

Mr. CARR. Well, most importantly, there needs to be a balance, 

and certainly the programs in place, the FIRE Act Grants and the 

57 

SAFER Grants, provide some opportunity for balance if they are 

adequately funding. UIC funding provides, and especially in the 

National Capital Region, a good balance of perspective on regional 

preparedness as it relates to terrorism response but also all hazards response. 

So the concern is that we continue the all hazards approach to 

funding and not focus only on the terrorism specific response. 

Ms. NORTON. Do any of the others of you have a response to this 

notion about terrorism funding? 

The reason that I was drawn to Chief Carr’s notion is he actually 

spelled out the kinds of funding one would expect to be terrorism 

funding. Part of this artificial. But, after all, probably first responders weren’t doing as much in radiological, nuclear, chemical and 

the rest when they filed for grants before. 

So I am trying to find out whether or not you really feel if you 

want some money, this is where you have got to go because this 

is where the money is. We know that is where 90 percent is, and 

of course you are eligible for both. 

We have a pretty unique situation here, Chief Carr. 

Anything the rest of you have to say, I would be pleased to hear. 

Yes, Mr. Canterbury. 

Mr. CANTERBURY. Madam Chairman, I think in the UIC areas 

and in the all hazards response equipment, in the law enforcement 

arena, one of the most important pieces that is not there is the 

human intelligence and prevention mode in the grants, and I know 

there are other justice grants 

But in the Homeland Security area for law enforcement, first of 

all, we were very lacking of any equipment for response. I believe 

the proper term for law enforcement, prior to 9/11, is canary. The 

firemen will understand what I am talking about. If they wanted 

to know something was biohazard at a truck spill, you send the policemen up. It is just kind of a joke in the first responder community. But we had no equipment. 

Now that we have got an abundance of that equipment but the 

one thing that we don’t have. You have the JTTS, but that is very 

lacking, and I think in the local arena, human intelligence gathering capabilities and prevention techniques have been very limited. 

Ms. NORTON. Is that funded out of Homeland Security? 

Mr. CANTERBURY. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. So you can get that out of Homeland Security. 

Mr. CANTERBURY. Predominantly, it was, but now that the 

money has been moved back to FEMA, we are not sure how that 

is going to work. 

Ms. NORTON. Can’t local law enforcement also apply for Homeland Security grants in its various categories? 

Yes, Sheriff Sexton? 

Mr. SEXTON. Ma’am, I think one of the problems, I will just come 

right to the core. I think what we have done is make everybody 

fight so much over the same piece of pie, it is unbelievable. We are 

all at the dinner table together but when it comes to dessert. 

Ms. NORTON. But they have got 90 percent, Sheriff Sexton. 

58 

Mr. SEXTON. Yes, but the terrorism funds right now, you have 

police and fire and sheriffs, we are fighting and elbowing at the 

pie. 

The problem is for law enforcement is we have lost 64 percent 

since 9/11 of our justice funding for under Burn, under the things 

that Mr. Oberstar was talking about for methamphet, the programs. You know we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

We still have got domestic violence. We have still got campus 

problems that we are dealing with now, mental health issues that 

are coming into play. Everything is being tied into terrorism. I 

would assume that the Virginia Tech incident will soon be labeled 

a domestic terrorist incident in order to open everybody up for additional funding. 

That is the problem with this is that we are all fighting, and I 

would love to push all these guys to the end of the table and fight 

for the same dollar, and they would like to push me back the other 

way, but that is what we have done. We have thrown police and 

fire together in the funding mechanism, and some of the things 

that we had in place prior to would have made it much more simple and make sure that we are providing in the areas we should 

be. 

Ms. NORTON. This is quite a dilemma, isn’t it? Ninety percent of 

the money is in terrorism. What we are talking about here is terrorism, and yet the police and fire have to compete because essentially they are expected to go, I guess, for FEMA grants. 

Mr. SEXTON. If I could say one last thing, ma’am, I think you are 

seeing police officers are now trying to do things that we traditionally have not done in the area of hazmat and other areas just be 

able to compete for these funds under the auspices that it is a 

crime. 

Ms. NORTON. Because that is where the money is, yes. 

Let me give you an example. I learn from examples. This is an 

example I know from Committee work in Homeland Security but 

here it comes up in Chief Carr’s testimony. 

The 65 percent number of fire departments do not have enough 

portable radios to equip all their emergency responders on a shift. 

Okay, there you have got it, all hazards. I don’t think anybody in 

the world would say that doesn’t apply across the board. 

I, by the way, am one of those Members of Congress that did not 

stand up and applaud Mr. Giuliani, and that is not because he is 

not in my party. It is because I kept reading the New York Times 

that said that the basic problem, the reason all those firefighters 

lost their lives, was that there was no interoperability, so that they 

knew not to run into that building. By the way, you had more firefighters than anybody else lost. 

Here, you are looking at the granddaughter of Lieutenant Richard Holmes who entered the D.C. Fire Department in 1902. So I 

feel this one real up close and personal. 

But, here, you have got the best example. Nobody would try to 

disaggregate portable equipment. You have got 9/11. Hey, that just 

says it all. Then you have got firefighters going into a building. You 

have got the canary and the policemen. 

Where do you apply for those funds and why do 65 percent not 

have it? 

59 

Mr. CARR. Well, one thing that is imminent is the Senate passing 

the 9/11 Commission Implementation Bill, and hopefully the House 

will pass the same bill that provides $3.3 billion in grant funds to 

deal with these specific types of issues, communications interoperability and things of that nature. 

Ms. NORTON. You can’t get that now through either of the 

fundings. 

Mr. CARR. Yes, absolutely you can. FIRE Act grants are. Communications equipment is appropriate for FIRE Act grants as long as 

the FIRE Act program is properly funded. So, yes, you can get it 

through that program. 

Ms. NORTON. What is the interoperability funding problem then? 

This keeps coming up in the Homeland Security Committee too. 

What is the problem? 

It seems to me that is the first thing everybody would want 

want, to be able to talk back and forth. Is it a technological problem that we don’t know what system to get? 

Why aren’t fire and, for that matter, all first responders talking 

to each other? 

Mr. SEXTON. Well, in our area, they are. But it is my understanding for the upcoming Homeland Security funds starting this 

year, the focus of that is on interoperability. They have dealt with 

equipment. They have dealt with training issues, building of teams. 

It is my understanding that funds this year, the priority is interoperability. 

In our State, we have 67 ACU 1,000s out plus in eight mobile 

regions. So they have done that. 

But the question that you are mentioning is that there is just so 

much technology and so much that has come up in regard to. In 

some cases, there are folks out there that want to argue about Federal regulations and APCO P25 standards and radio systems that 

are there that would allow for a cheaper mechanism So everybody 

is trying to figure out how to do this and stay within the mechanisms to be funded. 

Ms. NORTON. You shouldn’t have to figure that. First of all, this 

speaks to one of the perennial criticisms of the Department. If they 

were there, they were there for leadership. 

One of the things the Department, it seems to me, should have 

done would be to say there are priorities on things that everybody 

ought to have right now. Instead, of course, all this money went 

out, and people bought everything they could buy with the money. 

The notion that interoperability was not at or near the top of the 

list is absolutely befuddling to me. I understand the other problems, which system and the rest but in terms of priorities. 

Here you are sitting as an emergency responder, so you know 

about the firefighters problem. You know now, though, about 9/11. 

It does seem to me that if you say, all right, you all apply for 

grants and, of course, you know best of all what you need and no 

recommendations from the Department about what one minimally 

needs to have in the post-9/11 era to convert, and that is what each 

of you have done. 

You have converted from cops and firefighters to emergency responders and security officials. That is exactly what you are now. 

Nobody would have called you the fancy things before. 

60 

So somebody has to say, look, you don’t have to do this, but given 

what we saw in 9/11, given what we know is on the ground already, for example, in the firefighters case involving both firefighters and police, here are our recommendations. Now we have 

got to go out and figure out how to do it. 

This is what if I was trying to think this through based on what 

we have done wrong, so that I have some notion of what to do now. 

I am going to have a lot of other questions. I do want to ask you 

this. What kind of grants, given what is now available in the Administration’s proposal? 

I am sure you haven’t looked at it in great detail, but you have 

some sense of the kind of grants that are available, and we have 

all these concerns, some of which you have in your own ways articulated. 

What type of grants would not be eligible if we proceed in the 

Post-Katrina Act funding under the President’s proposal, do you 

think, of the kind you would be most eligible for? 

Mr. SEXTON. I think there is some confusion as to where people 

do come in and fall in regard to this in the way that the grant 

funding is coming down to the States and then applying back to 

the States again, nine times out of ten tying into some sort of 

Homeland Security. 

The thing that I think law enforcement is concerned with is, 

again, that 64 percent loss of funding that we have had since 9/11. 

Many of the issues, as I believe it was Chief Carr mentioned, are 

similar for law enforcement. We are dealing. 

Ms. NORTON. Give me examples of the kind of funding you lost? 

Mr. SEXTON. Your Burn Jag, your narcotics units. 

Ms. NORTON. Your what? 

Mr. SEXTON. Narcotics units, that has been one of the greatest 

areas of gathering intelligence, for example, on who is dealing with 

drugs, who many funding, where is the money going that may be 

going out of your State up into another banking jurisdiction and 

then over into the Middle East. 

Ms. NORTON. They will say that that is not terrorism funding because I have just been south of the border to various countries. 

While they spoke to us about narcotics, our concern—I went as a 

Member of the Homeland Security Committee—was that narcotics 

funds are certainly capable of funding terrorism, and whoever 

comes across the border with some narcotics can come across the 

border with anything else including a terrorist device. 

Mr. SEXTON. Yes, ma’am, 70 percent of the methamphet in my 

county is coming out of Mexico. So, again, there is the type of activity that we have lost funding for that ties back directly to terrorism 

and homeland security. Those are the types of things that we are 

concerned about. 

Ms. NORTON. It is interesting because again this came across in 

the Congressional delegate of Homeland Security. 

I believe it is going to be difficult. The notion of you losing funding, that kills me. I am from a big city, and that kills me, and I 

see what meth has done throughout the Country. But this is the 

kind of thing where the central need is connected to narcotics that 

we have not yet gotten the Department to understand is interVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:06 Apr 29, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35917 JASON
61 

changeable with a terrorist event, given how wide open the Mexican border, in particular, is. 

This notion of competing for funds, finally, concerns me. You talk 

about you actually feel you are sometimes competing among departments. 

In the National Capital Area, we all sit at the same table. That 

is rare. It was because I put an amendment in the House and there 

was an amendment put in the Senate that said we ought to have 

a regional body and because it is where the Federal presence is, we 

were able to get it funded for a person to be there. But, actually, 

what has mattered is not so much that person. What matters is 

that everybody now sits at the same table. 

That could happen elsewhere without funding because to fund 

some body, I don’t think has made a lot of difference. What has 

made a lot of difference is Montgomery County, Prince Georges 

County, the District of Columbia and Fairfax sit at the same table, 

and the money goes to them as a region. Then they sit together at 

the same table and figure out where it goes. 

Is anything like that happening anywhere else in the Country? 

Mr. ENDRIKAT. Madam Chairman, that happens in Pennsylvania 

through counterterrorism regions. The State is divided into nine 

counterterrorism regions, and the same thing occurs. We sit at the 

table with our neighbors. In the Philadelphia USACE Region, it is 

five counties including Philadelphia. 

But I think, as Sheriff Sexton mentioned, we do compete for 

funds, and maybe the solution for that is more funding. As we establish priorities in each of those regional counterterrorism areas 

and each of us try to build our own capabilities, without adequate 

funding, then we have to compete. 

Ms. NORTON. I think Sheriff Sexton and the law enforcement 

community have literally been robbed. I don’t think that Homeland 

Security is going to do much for meth, and yet meth is spreading 

like wildfire, and yet those funds were available. 

I am bothered tremendously that you move from one department 

and another, and the major effect you see is the loss of funding. 

Mr. SEXTON. Yes, ma’am, you are absolutely right. Right now, we 

compete for the same funds, and I think at times it does cause friction. Even in the State of Alabama, we divide our funds up through 

regions and through counties and so on and so forth. The money 

is there, but we are seeing it become much more difficult to find. 

We are still dealing, and I go back to Virginia Tech, one of the 

things that is coming out of Virginia Tech is the mental health element. So we are still dealing with some urgently desperate needs 

that have been funded in the past that we are losing, and they all 

come back. 

I have traveled to England and Pakistan and other places to look 

at terrorism, and one of the things that we are seeing in England 

is the attacks that come from within. I think as we look at what 

comes from within, we need to continue to look at some of those 

issues that give us prime indicators: intelligence, mental health 

and so on and so forth. 

That is my concern for continued funding for law enforcement 

and the fire service, certainly, and EMS needs to have continued 

funding. But I would like to see more funds channeled, so that we 

62 

are not necessarily competing to try to get dollars out of the fire 

department’s pocket. 

Ms. NORTON. If any of the rest of you have anything to say, I 

would like to hear it before I adjourn the hearing. 

I do want to say that your testimony, Mr. Sexton, very dramatically, perhaps more so than FEMA, illustrates what simply moving 

your home can do to funding. 

I have got to be frank. As I hear it, it is clear to me if I do a 

deeper analysis about where drugs come from, meth is even harder, 

although now Mexico is a major site for meth as it was not always. 

Unless you do a deeper analysis, it is going to be difficult to get 

Homeland Security to look at what they will see as basically a domestic problem. 

The answer, it seems to me, is some kind of make-whole remedy. 

The grants, the FIRE grants, look what they are called. FIRE 

grants. The very definition tells you that law enforcement was 

somewhere else. 

Mr. SEXTON. Ma’am, can I just give you an idea? When you dial 

911, you are calling folks at this table. FEMA does not answer that 

911 call. But with the capabilities that we are getting and we are 

hearing about trying to put together Federal strike teams, why not 

contract with the resources that are already there in your local governments? 

For example, they are talking about hurricane season. Why not 

contract with folks for those resources during that four to five 

month period? 

Those resources are available now if we go look throughout the 

southeastern district of the United States. So there are some ideas 

out there that local law enforcement and local fire service have 

tried to bring forward in regards to ideas to be able to better respond to national problems. 

Ms. NORTON. This is an idea that makes such common sense, one 

doesn’t understand why it hasn’t already taken hold. 

Gentlemen, I want to thank each of you for this testimony, very 

helpful to us, tells us things we don’t know, need to know, gives 

us ideas of what we need to do. 

I very much appreciate your indulgence. That is all it can be 

called in waiting for us through to the third panel. 

I want to say, of course, the record will be open for five legislative days, and I have a number of documents to be added to the 

record which I will transmit at this time. 

Again, you have my sincere thanks and the thanks of the entire 

Subcommittee for coming forward with indispensable testimony to 

our mission today. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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