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HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE AND

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING TOGETHER

TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL

OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 25, 2002

Serial No. 107–162

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

JUSTIN PAULHAMUS, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 25, 2002 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Bakas, Nicholas S., chief public safety officer, city of Albuquerque ............. 127

Busboom, Stanley L., division leader, Security and Safeguards Division,

Los Alamos National Laboratory ................................................................. 140

Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region VI, Federal Emergency Management Agency ............................................................................................ 61

Dean, Steven M., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Albuquerque, NM,

Federal Bureau of Investigation .................................................................. 71

English, Thomas L., cabinet secretary, New Mexico Department of Public

Safety ............................................................................................................. 123

Horn, Brigadier General Randall E., Adjutant General, New Mexico National Guard .................................................................................................. 133

Johnsen, John-Olav, Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience, National

Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy ................ 95

Nokes, K. David, director, systems assessment and research center,

Sandia National Laboratories ...................................................................... 52

Resnick, I. Gary, program manager, biothreat reduction programs, Los

Alamos National Laboratories ..................................................................... 6

Roth, Paul B., M.D., University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center,

associate vice president for clinical affairs, dean, school of medicine,

professor, emergency medicine .................................................................... 147

Sewell, Charles Mack, M.D., State epidemiologist, public health division,

New Mexico Department of Health ............................................................. 155

Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, National Preparedness, General

Accounting Office .......................................................................................... 27

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

Bakas, Nicholas S., chief public safety officer, city of Albuquerque, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 129

Busboom, Stanley L., division leader, Security and Safeguards Division,

Los Alamos National Laboratory, prepared statement of ......................... 142

Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region VI, Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared statement of ..................................................... 64

Dean, Steven M., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Albuquerque, NM,

Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ........................... 74

English, Thomas L., cabinet secretary, New Mexico Department of Public

Safety, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 125

Horn, Brigadier General Randall E., Adjutant General, New Mexico National Guard, prepared statement of ........................................................... 136

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 3

Johnsen, John-Olav, Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience, National

Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 97

Nokes, K. David, director, systems assessment and research center,

Sandia National Laboratories, prepared statement of ............................... 54

Resnick, I. Gary, program manager, biothreat reduction programs, Los

Alamos National Laboratories, prepared statement of .............................. 9

Roth, Paul B., M.D., University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center,

associate vice president for clinical affairs, dean, school of medicine,

professor, emergency medicine, prepared statement of ............................. 150

Sewell, Charles Mack, M.D., State epidemiologist, public health division,

New Mexico Department of Health, prepared statement of ...................... 157

Page

IV

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

Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, National Preparedness, General

Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................... 30

(1)

HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE

AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL,

CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Albuquerque, NM.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., in the

University of New Mexico Continuing Education Building Auditorium, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn, Wilson and Udall.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;

and Justin Paulhamus, clerk.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and

Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.

We are delighted to be in the territory of Representative Heather

Wilson. She is one of our outstanding legislators and an eloquent

speaker. I’ve watched her, without a note in front of her, make a

very cogent argument on the floor of the House.

And I’m glad to see Tom Udall here. Both of you are fine representatives from the State of New Mexico.

On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most devastating attacks ever committed on the United States. Despite the damage and enormous loss of life, the attacks failed to cripple this Nation. To the contrary, Americans have never been more united in

their fundamental belief in freedom and their willingness to protect

that freedom.

The diabolical nature of these attacks, and then the deadly release of anthrax, sent a loud and clear message to all Americans:

We must be prepared for the unexpected. We must have the mechanisms in place to protect this Nation and its people from further

attempts to cause massive destruction.

The aftermath of September 11th clearly demonstrated the need

for adequate communications systems and rapid deployment of

well-trained emergency personnel. Yet despite billions of dollars in

spending on Federal emergency programs, there remain serious

doubts as to whether the Nation is equipped to handle a massive

chemical, biological or nuclear attack.

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Today, the subcommittee will examine how effectively Federal,

State and local agencies are working together to prepare for such

emergencies. We want those who live in the great State of New

Mexico, and the good people of Albuquerque, to know that they can

rely on these systems should the need arise.

We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose valuable experience and insight will help the subcommittee better understand the

needs of those on the frontlines. We want to hear about their capabilities and their challenges. And we want to know what the Federal Government can do to help.

We welcome all of our witnesses, and we look forward to their

testimony.

But before that, I would yield time for Ms. Wilson, and also Mr.

Udall. So, if you have any comments you’d like to make, Heather,

why, go ahead.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

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Mrs. WILSON. Mayor Chavez, I wondered if you wanted to—I’d

yield my time to you, to welcome folks.

Mr. CHAVEZ. Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. We are delighted to have you here.

Mr. CHAVEZ. Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson, Congressman Udall, we want to thank you for coming to Albuquerque.

We’ve ordered up a little of everything; we had a little snow overnight and by this afternoon, it will be a beautiful spring afternoon.

So you’re seeing the best of our community.

We are the 28th largest community in the United States, larger

than San Francisco, larger than Miami. People sometimes forget

that. And importantly for your consideration today, the repository

of some of the best technologies that we will need going into this

new age, post September 11th.

I’m very pleased, on behalf of Albuquerque, to welcome all of you

here. I want to make sure your deliberations and your hearings are

as successful as possible. While we’re a large city, we’re still a

small town, so I’m at City Hall during the day. If there is anything

you or your staff need, please call on us. We want to make sure

that we do everything we can to assure your success here today.

Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much, from all of us, because

you’ve had such hospitality here. What a wonderful facility this is

for a hearing, so we might come back here again. Everybody has

been very happy with trying to accommodate to us. Thank you very

much for coming here. If you’d like to stay, you’re certainly welcome.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your coming here and bringing the subcommittee

here. I understand that this is part of a nationwide series of hearings, in different cities across the country, to look at how Federal,

State and local governments, and private business, as well, are

working together to strengthen our capacity to respond to terrorist

attacks.

I think there is a lot to be learned here in New Mexico, because

we have some unique strengths in combating terrorism and working together. Of course, we have Los Alamos National Laboratories

to the north, Sandia National Laboratories here; Kirtland Air Force

Base; the hub of a very strong research and development community. The the University of New Mexico and University of New

Mexico Hospital, which has the Centers for Emerging and Infectious Disease, which does some of the country’s best research on

emerging disease. In addition, we have a State health department

that’s integrated and co-located with many of the other facilities we

have here.

From that perspective, I hope there are things that can be

learned here, from New Mexico, that can apply in other parts of

the country, and maybe highlight how special New Mexico is. When

anthrax was confirmed in the House of Representatives, in two of

our buildings, this last fall, after the House was closed for testing,

the laboratories on the East Coast were kind of overwhelmed with

the anthrax attacks, and other cities on the East Coast, as well.

The Speaker of the House, his office, on a Saturday afternoon,

called me and said, ‘‘Look, we are stretched to the limit for detecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tion capability and decontamination capability, and we need some

more help. Can you get ahold of the labs, or anyone else in New

Mexico, to see if you can help us?’’

That’s how well regarded New Mexico’s capability is, and New

Mexico came to the aid of the Nation at a very difficult time. The

House has passed bioterrorism legislation; the Senate has, as well,

and we’re now working in Conference Committee to work out the

final details of a bioterrorism bill that I think will strengthen our

ability to combat bioterrorism and to detect people’s attempts to

use disease as a weapon of warfare or weapon of terror before people get sick.

I think that’s one the great advantages that Sandia and Los Alamos have to offer. They’ve been working for several years on continuous monitoring of contaminants in the water, so they can detect, in water systems around the country, whether there has been

contamination before the water gets in the pipes to your home.

They have developed surveillance research, surveillance of disease, at Sandia, the RSVP project. And there’s a grant program in

the bill, giving a preference for Federal matching funds for combined laboratories, for these medical investigators, public health

departments and universities, so that the people who are doing the

job are working together.

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today, learning

more about what works here and what we need to do elsewhere,

and what the Federal Government can do to assist. I thank the

chairman, again, for holding this hearing, and I particularly thank

my colleague from northern New Mexico, Tom Udall, for coming

down to join us today.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Udall.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you very much. Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson, and Mayor Chavez, it’s great to have you here

today.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you’re on a very aggressive national

schedule; I note you’re stopping at two of the bigger cities, San

Francisco and you’re also going to Arizona. We are very pleased

you’ve decided to make a stop here in New Mexico and highlight

the issues that are before your Government Reform subcommittee.

We very much appreciate you holding the hearing here in New

Mexico, and I’m glad that this distinguished panel will have the opportunity to tell the Congress what they are doing to make New

Mexico and the United States safer for our constituents.

Thank you, all of you, for being here.

Since last September, the importance of the issues we are about

to discuss here today have been rightly brought to the forefront of

national debate and consciousness. Multiple layers of government

authority have begun to undertake the massive project of integrating their information, infrastructure and communication system

into a cohesive unit that will ultimately provide for the safety and

health of our citizens. As this effort progresses, it’s important for

the Congress to provide oversight and to offer as much assistance

as possible to those who are working to prepare for the unthinkable.

I am glad that several representatives of local government and

law enforcement have combined with their Federal colleagues to

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provide testimony in today’s hearings. As Heather noted, we have

Los Alamos witnesses on the panel today, and I can tell you that

I am very proud of Los Alamos and the role that it has played, not

only in the identification of the genetic code of anthrax, which

Heather referred to, but also goods coming into this country.

There’s a huge threat in terms of things making it in here that we

don’t want to come in here, and they are doing the kind of research

at Los Alamos, and applying the technology, that I think is going

to make us a lot safer.

The key to all of this, obviously, are local first-responders, and

the role of these first-responders in the response to any attack is

central to the successful fulfillment of the government’s duty to

serve and protect. I’m eager to hear about their preparations. The

cooperation of the Federal Government with local first-responders

is crucial in the first minutes and hours after an attack. It is absolutely necessary that our local first-responders have the information, training and equipment they need to do their jobs, and this

information and training often come from the Federal level.

Without a centralized clearinghouse of information and a unified

decisionmaking structure, however, the efforts of our first-responders will not be as effective as they might otherwise be. For this reason, I’m eager to hear testimony today regarding efforts at the Federal level to establish protocols and procedures, to ensure that the

information provided to first-responders is properly analyzed and

dispersed to those who need it, when they need it.

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for being here, and I’m eager

to hear the testimony of this panel.

Mr. HORN. Well, I think both of your representatives do a wonderful job in Washington.

Panel one, we will begin with Mr. Gary Resnick, the Program

Manager, Biothreat Reduction Programs at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. We all know that is one of the great laboratories of the world. It developed the atomic bomb and worked with

the University of California on a number of research matters.

With panel one and panel two we will swear in all the witnesses,

because this is an investigating subcommittee. And that’s not that

you won’t tell the truth, but this is the way we operate on all of

our subcommittees on Government Reform. So, if you wouldn’t

mind standing up, and putting your right hands up.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note there are six witnesses, and they

have confirmed the oath.

Now, the way we operate is we start down the line with Mr.

Resnick, and the minute we call your name, your full document

goes into the hearing record. So you don’t have to ask us to do it.

It’s just automatic. So, with that, Mr. Resnick, we’re delighted to

have you here. So please give us your thoughts.

STATEMENT OF I. GARY RESNICK, PROGRAM MANAGER, BIOTHREAT REDUCTION PROGRAMS, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL

LABORATORIES

Mr. RESNICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representatives Wilson

and Udall, it is a pleasure to be here representing Los Alamos

today. As you mentioned, my name is Gary Resnick, and I am the

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Program Manager of the Biothreat Reduction Programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I personally have over 20 years of experience working to reduce the biological threat.

First, the word on Los Alamos. Los Alamos is operated by the

University of California for the Department of Energy’s National

Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA]. The core of our mission

at Los Alamos has been and continues to be the nuclear weapons

stockpile, but it’s important to note that during the lab’s nearly 60

years of existence, our work on nuclear weapons has enabled us to

develop tremendous expertise in complementary areas, such as nuclear nonproliferation and biological and chemical threat reduction.

We didn’t start thinking about countering the effects of terrorism

on September 12th; rather, this is something that we have been focused on for decades. Because of our years of work, we have been

able to provide technologies, people and research to the response of

September 11th.

Today, I’ll reflect on three main areas of response: Reducing the

global threats of nuclear terrorism; protecting the Nation’s critical

infrastructure; and reducing the threats of chemical or biological

attacks.

Los Alamos and the NNSA have been working for the past decade to reduce the dangers posed by the threat, in the former Soviet

Union, of lost or stolen nuclear weapons and materials by working

with our Russian colleagues to secure nuclear weapons and materials at their source, build detection systems at borders and transit

points, and detect and intercept smuggled nuclear materials at

U.S. borders and entry points.

Despite these best efforts, if there were ever a nuclear threat to

this country, the NNSA and Los Alamos stand ready to respond.

Los Alamos is active in the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or

NEST, the group that would be called to respond in the case of a

nuclear-related terrorist attack or accident.

Los Alamos also has significant efforts underway to help protect

the Nation’s critical infrastructure. One that I’d like to mention is

a joint program with Sandia that Congresswoman Wilson is very

familiar with, the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis

Center or NISAC. NISAC ties together the Nation’s largest scientific computational capabilities to enable the continuous, reliable

operation of our interdependent infrastructures, consisting of electric power, oil and gas, transportation, water, communications, and

emergency services, law enforcement, health services, and others.

Last, I’d like to discuss Los Alamos’s efforts in biological threat

reduction, most of which in support of NNSA’s Chemical and Biological National Security Program, the CBNP. Los Alamos was immediately called upon to provide expertise in identifying the strains

of anthrax, as Representative Udall has mentioned. Los Alamos

technology has been applied both in the field and in the laboratory,

throughout the anthrax investigation, and some technologies have

already been transferred to Federal authorities.

Second, long before last year’s anthrax attacks, Los Alamos had

been working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in

California, to develop a system to detect biological attacks. The result, the Biological Aerosol Sentry and Information System, or

BASIS, was deployed as part of the security network at the 2002

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Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The BASIS deployment at the

Olympics is a prime example of technologies being developed at the

Federal level and then implemented at the State and local level; in

this case, with the Utah Department of Health.

Last, I’d like to highlight a program with an Albuquerque focus,

called B-SAFER. It’s a joint effort of Los Alamos, the University of

New Mexico School of Medicine, in cooperation with the New Mexico State Department of Health. Short for ‘‘Bio-Surveillance Analysis, Feedback, Evaluation and Response System,’’ B-SAFER is designed to detect an emerging biological threat, whether naturally

occurring or the result of a terrorist attack. The system combines

the collection of clinical data, such as signs and symptoms; temperature, cough and rash, or laboratory results, with demographic

data and analytical tools designed to provide early warning to the

medical and public health community in the event of an unusual

occurrence.

I, once again, would like to thank you, in conclusion, Chairman

Horn, and the subcommittee, for inviting me to testify. As you have

heard, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is heavily engaged in

America’s efforts to counter-threats of terrorism and ensure the security of the homeland. We appreciate the continued support of the

U.S. Congress in our efforts, and look forward to serving the Nation further in these important endeavors. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Resnick follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you.

We now go with another regular witness with this subcommittee,

and that’s Dr. Randall A. Yim, the Managing Director, National

Preparedness Group for the U.S. General Accounting Office. The

GAO, as we say, is the forces that we depend upon, as Congress,

and that we give them months in advance to tell us how to put together all of these matters and what’s the best type of thing that

can be done, in terms of the hands that we all have to look at in

the private sector, the States and the cities.

And we have Mr. Yim here, and we’d like your summary of

your—because the documents put out by the General Accounting

Office are often 50 and 100 pages, and we can’t do all that today,

but we can get a good idea of the particular. They have put dozens

of terrorism documents out for the Congress, and we can’t get into

all of them, but we can start with one.

STATEMENT OF RANDALL A. YIM, MANAGING DIRECTOR,

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. YIM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your confidence in GAO.

Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson, Congressman Udall,

Mayor Chavez, members of the committee, on behalf of Comptroller

General David Walker of the U.S. General Accounting Office, I

thank you for allowing me to address this critical committee on

these issues of utmost national importance. I applaud your efforts

in arranging these regional hearings, to hear directly about the

concerns of our State and local government officials and from representatives of the private sector in our communities.

My messages today, are simple to state, but the goals they articulate remain difficult to accomplish. First, although we can

never be 100 percent secure from terrorist attack nor 100 percent

prepared to respond, we can be better prepared and more secure.

Second, to become better prepared and become more secure, we

will need a comprehensive national strategy that builds upon the

tremendous courage and resolve demonstrated by our Nation’s people following September 11th, and which binds together all levels

of government with the private sector and the people that the government serves, to form an interlocking shield against terrorism

and a mutually supportive quick-reaction response team should another attack occur. Everyone cannot do everything, and everyone

cannot and should not do the same things. Instead, we must augment, foster and maintain what particular governments do best,

and what the private sector and local communities do best. Third,

to fashion such a strategy, we will need to identify the right questions to ask and discover those key enablers to the creation and implementation of our national strategy. Is this better information

sharing in IT architectures? This is perhaps one of the most critical

enablers. Is it recapitalization of specific critical infrastructure,

such as power distribution grids or our transportation systems? Is

it a focus on future capital needs, so that we begin to create the

type of skill sets we will need in the future to effectively fight terrorism?

We will need to discover those roadblocks that must be overcome

or mitigated along the way. We will need to discover an investment

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strategy that maximizes the use of the finite fiscal and human capital resources, so that our national strategy is both supportable and

sustainable. Unfortunately, as we all know, this war against terrorism will not be won in a single battle nor in a few short years.

Fourth, we must acknowledge that any national strategy lacking

measurable objectives, measurable performance indicators, and accountability mechanisms is not sustainable. As noted by Kennedy

School of Government Professor Richard Falkenrath, who is now a

key member of the Office of Homeland Security, this is because of

a lack of performance indicators to private policymakers of the information they need to make rational resource allocations, and program managers are prevented from measuring progress.

Fifth, we need to be mindful of the consequences of the actions

we have and will take to prevent further attacks, and to respond

to attacks should they occur. We must not only look at the direct

costs of our actions, but at the secondary impacts that result. For

example, we can measure and budget the cost of new irradiation

equipment for our postal offices, but can we measure and budget

for those secondary impacts, such as the elimination of mail-order

film processing or mail shipments of pharmaceuticals? We must

look to whether our well-intended actions will cause what the terrorist attacks could not.

For example, it is hard to blowup every post office in the United

States, but perhaps not so hard to weaken the financial position of

the U.S. Postal Service and perhaps more effectively attack such a

critical service provider. We must analyze our efforts for greater security with a mind for their impacts upon our quality of life, our

precious civil liberties, our rights to privacy and the freedom to

travel and worldwide commerce that we value, and which form a

vital part of the fabric of the greatness of this country.

As I stated, these goals are simple to say, but hard to accomplish. We have not yet even identified all of the questions that need

to be asked, and clearly, we do not have all of the answers. But

although many things are not crystal clear, one thing is certain:

State and local governments, private sector and local communities,

all play key roles and must intimately be involved in the preparation of our national strategy.

Hearings such as this one today will allow all of us to hear how

the Federal Government can effectively aid our State and local governments and communities and the private sector, so that we design a national strategy that truly serves the needs of real first-responders, those actually on the frontline, should another attack

occur, and those upon whom it will depend to take those initial actions. It is only by this close coordination with our State and local

communities can we begin to address the question on the minds of

many: Are we winning this war on terrorism?

But remember, this is not a pass-fail test; this is not a quick fix,

nor a single victory that will end our efforts. Let me suggest that

the better question is not are we winning, but rather how secure

and prepared are we, and how secure and prepared should we be?

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In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me emphasize the commitment

of the U.S. General Accounting Office to assist Congress to the best

of our abilities, in whatever ways we can, on this issue of critical

national importance. We hope that GAO can assist the entire Nation in answering these key questions and meeting the challenges

ahead. Thank you very much, and I stand ready to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yim follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you.

The next witness, I’ve asked Representative Wilson to interview

him. She’s a scientist and he’s a scientist, and a very distinguished

one. So I want a scientist talking to a scientist.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, while I survived a bachelor of

science degree as an undergraduate, I would not call myself a scientist, although I am a science fair mom.

It is my pleasure to introduce David Nokes, who is an amazing

man, and he has made tremendous contributions to this country

and to our security. Mr. Nokes was laboratory manager of the year

in 1994, and has also been involved in running the Cooperative

Measures Program, working with the former Soviet Union, trying

to secure nuclear materials and other things in the former Soviet

Union.

But I think probably the greatest measure of his real contribution in this area is in the aftermath of the September 11th attack,

he was named as the single point of contact for Sandia National

Laboratories for getting Sandia technologies where they were needed, whatever part of government, wherever they needed to go, and

made tremendous contributions to the community and to the country.

It’s really a pleasure to have you here.

STATEMENT OF K. DAVID NOKES, DIRECTOR, SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT AND RESEARCH CENTER, SANDIA NATIONAL

LABORATORIES

Mr. NOKES. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson, Mr. Chairman,

Representative Udall. It’s a pleasure to be here, and I appreciate

the opportunity to testify.

Sandia is one of the three NNSA laboratories, along with Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, and we bring to the table a great

deal of national security research and development, and that’s

what I’ll talk about today.

First, Sandia was privileged to be able to provide technology to

some of the important homeland security problems that emerged

post September 11th. We had over 100 requests from the government to provide technology, and we responded to most of those.

And the list of people who came to our door is almost everyone in

government. There’s the military, for help in Afghanistan; the CIA,

for technical support for all of the technical problems that emerged

post September 11th; the post office, to talk about anthrax remediation; the EPA; and of course, the DOE and NNSA.

We provided vulnerability assessments, in the week after the attack, for all of the DOE and NNSA facilities, trying to understand

if there were particular vulnerabilities that would be susceptible to

terrorist attacks on the Nation like on September 11th.

It is worth noting that most of the technologies we offer are the

result of work done well before the tragic events of September

11th. They were the result of the national security focus of the laboratory and the continuing support of these activities by NNSA and

DOE, by other government sponsors through our ‘‘Work for Others’’

program, and by the investments made by Sandia management in

our energy-directed research and development.

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On the back table, you will see a number of the results of this

investment strategy with our internal focus on research. We have

foams that were used to remediate the House buildings. There is

a detector that is used with commercial explosive systems to allow

a commercial product to have enough sensitivity to work in airport

environments. And there are nuclear sensors. We have worked for

many, many years to try to understand how one can detect nuclear

material and detectors that would be a threat to our country, and

those devices also were provided by not only Work for Others sponsors and DOE, but also our internal research.

Unlike other problem areas, such as treaty verification, arms

control, and energy research, no government agency has a focus on

investments for homeland security technology. The investments

that are made are all tactical, trying to serve current problems,

very near-term problems, harvesting and exploiting the tech-base

of the laboratories, but they don’t extend it. And then, there is the

longer-term, high-payoff and perhaps high-risk work that will have

to be done if we’re going to have adequate homeland security that’s

affordable.

It’s been suggested that the NNSA become a resource to the Office of Homeland Security in this mission. It’s consistent with other

R&D of NNSA, and would align well with the missions and capabilities of the laboratories and NNSA.

Another point I’d like to make is the ease with which we work

across government agencies. One of the fundamental problems we

have is transitioning technology to the problems of government; the

tech transfer, if you will, within the government. Right now, about

a quarter of Sandia’s work is for other government agencies, and

sometimes the processes that allow this to happen are clumsy,

cumbersome, and could be improved, and we’d like to be able to respond to Governor Ridge’s top priorities more easily.

Finally, I’d like to point out that Sandia works closely with State

and local governments in the transfer of technology. We have a

group that designs technology to render safe bombs, including terrorist bombs. We have made that equipment available to first-responders, and we have trained over 600 local first-responders, including about 20 bomb technicians here in Albuquerque. We also

participate with the local emergency planning group, and at Los Alamos, we have our NEST and other groups available, through the

emergency response structure of the country, to respond to nuclear

incidents.

Thank you for my opportunity to testify today, and I’d be happy

to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nokes follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Mr. Ron Castleman. He has appeared before this subcommittee, and he has a broad governmental look at

the floods and all of the rest of the things that go with the Federal

Emergency Management Administration. And he is the responsible

regional director, appointed by President Bush, in June 2001, and

his States are Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and

Texas. And he comes out of the private sector, especially from the

computer language research groups, and others. So he has great

experience on a lot of these problems.

So, Mr. Castleman, we’re glad to see you again.

STATEMENT OF RON CASTLEMAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR,

REGION VI, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Congressmen Udall and Wilson. We’re glad to be here.

As you said, I’m Ron Castleman, Regional Director for Region VI

of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It’s a pleasure to

be here today to discuss how FEMA is assisting State and local

governments to prepare for potential terrorism attacks.

FEMA’s mission is to lead the Nation in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. Our success requires close coordination with local, tribal, State and Federal agencies and volunteer organizations. The Federal response plan outlines the process

by which Federal departments and agencies respond as a cohesive

team to all types of disasters in support of State, tribal and local

governments. This plan has been tested on numerous occasions

since its adoption in 1992, and the Federal Response Plan again

worked well in response to the terrorist events of September 11,

2001.

FEMA’s preparedness programs provide financial, technical,

planning, training, and exercise support to State, local and tribal

governments. The programs are designed to strengthen capabilities

to protect public health, safety, and property, both before and after

disaster strikes.

As you know, the Gilmore Commission issued its second report

in December 2000, stressing the importance of giving States and

first-responders a single point of contact for Federal training, exercises, and equipment assistance. The commission’s third report included recommendations to address the lack of coordination, including proposals to consolidate Federal grant program information and

application procedures and to include first-responder participation

with Federal preparedness programs. These findings and recommendations have been echoed in other commissions and GAO reports, by the first-responder community, and by State and local

governments.

On May 8, 2001, the President tasked FEMA Director Joe

Allbaugh with creating the Office of National Preparedness within

FEMA. The ONP mission is to provide leadership in the coordination and facilitation of all Federal efforts and to assist State and

local first-responders and emergency management organizations

with planning, equipment, training and exercises to build and sustain our capability to respond to any emergency or disaster, including a terrorist event.

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The President’s formation of the Office of Homeland Security further provides the coordination of Federal programs and activities

aimed at combating terrorism. FEMA is working closely with Director Ridge, the OHS, and other agencies, to identify and develop the

most effective ways to quickly build and enhance domestic preparedness for terrorist attacks.

This January, the President took another important step to

strengthen first-responder efforts to prepare for and respond to incidents of terrorism. The First Responder Initiative in the President’s 2003 budget calls for $3.5 billion, most of which will be distributed to States and local jurisdictions for planning efforts, critical equipment, and to train and exercise personnel. FEMA’s Office

of National Preparedness will administer these grants.

The ONP will also work with our Federal and State partners to

coordinate all terrorism-related first-responder programs, to begin

addressing some of the lessons the first-responder community

learned on September 11th. The ONP will develop national standards for interoperability and compatibility in a number of areas, including training, equipment, mutual aid, and exercising. The firstresponder grants, coupled with these standards, will balance the

needs for both flexibility and accountability at the State and local

level.

With respect to New Mexico, we continue to work closely with

the New Mexico Department of Public Safety in all hazard emergency management. FEMA provides grant funds to assist the State

with planning, training, and exercising for natural and technological hazards, as well as incidents of terrorism. We have delivered our Comprehensive Hazardous Materials Capability Development Program to nine New Mexico communities, including several

Indian pueblos.

Last year, our regional office recognized the need to take terrorism preparedness training and exercises to communities that did

not make the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici population criterion. We

worked with the city of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County, and will

continue this activity with another New Mexico community this

year. Both our HAZMAT and terrorism preparedness activities are

designed to bring together a cross-section of first-responders, fire

and rescue, emergency medical, police and sheriff’s departments, as

well as emergency managers and hospital staff.

As you are aware, New Mexico is home to some very unique Federal resources: Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, the

Nimitz Nuclear Weapons School, and the Waste Isolation Pilot

Project, among others. We have partnered with these organizations

in the past and look for more opportunities to combine our efforts

in support of community readiness in New Mexico, and across the

country.

In conclusion, FEMA is well prepared and equipped to respond

to terrorist disasters. We are strengthening our preparedness efforts now, so that State, tribal and local governments and first-reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sponders are well prepared for all disasters and emergencies, including incidents of terrorism. Continued coordination among all

levels of government will ensure a safer America.

Thank you for your time, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castleman follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

And I’d now ask Representative Wilson to introduce our next presenter, Mr. Dean.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It’s a real pleasure to have Steven Dean with us here. He’s been

in Albuquerque as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the

FBI for a little over a month.

We are very happy to have you here, even though you are formerly a Marine Corps officer. Thank you very much for coming

today.

STATEMENT OF STEVEN M. DEAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT

IN CHARGE, ALBUQUERQUE, NM, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Mr. DEAN. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson. Good morning,

Chairman Horn, Congressman Udall, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this

morning, and discuss terrorism preparedness, including terrorism

threats posed by attacks including nuclear, biological and chemical

agents. I’ll also describe measures taken by the FBI and our law

enforcement partners to address these threats.

As Attorney General John Ashcroft stated recently, ‘‘We must develop a seamless relationship with State and local law enforcement.’’ The FBI in Albuquerque, which is responsible for the entire

State of New Mexico, has embraced this philosophy for several

years. All terrorist threats received by Albuquerque FBI are immediately disseminated to New Mexico’s law enforcement community.

We participate in a group comprised of the heads of the local, State

and Federal law enforcement agencies in a monthly breakfast, and

we discuss pertinent issues with our partners, and the issues are

immense.

The State of New Mexico, as you all know, is the fifth largest

State in the Nation and shares 180 miles of border with the Republic of Mexico. We possess some of the Nation’s most attractive targets. Congresswoman Wilson mentioned Los Alamos and Sandia

National Laboratories. White Sands Missile Range, Air Force Research Laboratory, Waste Isolation Pilot Project, the very large

array, Intel, Sumitomo, and the list goes on and on.

I’d like to bring to your attention several initiatives already established in New Mexico to address these terrorist threats. They

are the Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group, the Domestic

Terrorism Working Group, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

These programs were established in concert with local, State and

Federal agencies, to include the New Mexico Department of Public

Safety and the Department of Health. Each agency participating in

these programs participated in the development of guidelines for

prevention, response, investigation and training in regards to a variety of terrorist acts.

First, the Domestic Terrorism Working Group. This group was

established in 1996, with representation from 45 local, State and

Federal departments and agencies. Meetings are held each month

at the U.S. Customs Air Branch at Kirtland Air Force Base. Since

September 22, 2001, just 11 days after the tragic attacks, these

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meetings have included international terrorism information and

alerts.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group was established in 1998, with representation from over 20 local, State and

Federal departments and agencies. Again, meetings are held

monthly. Albuquerque FBI has conducted 46 weapons of mass destruction presentations, participated in 55 weapons of mass destruction meetings, and 13 weapons of mass destruction exercises,

over the past 22 months, with our local, State and Federal partners.

The Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was established in March

2001, is comprised of sworn law enforcement members of the Domestic Terrorism Working Group, with nine full-time investigators

representing their agencies.

Several representatives from the above groups are currently participating in the development of the Terrorism Appendix to the

State of New Mexico All-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan. This

is being spearheaded by the Department of Public Safety Office of

Emergency Management. The Terrorism Appendix provides guidelines for response to incidents that are determined to be terrorismrelated.

To establish a seamless communication path with various agency

heads, our office recently met with Mr. Tom English, who is New

Mexico’s Director of Homeland Defense, and David Iglesias, who is

the U.S. Attorney. Last week, I joined the Joint Terrorism Task

Force members to provide a presentation to Martin Chavez, the

mayor of Albuquerque.

As you are well aware, each FBI Division has a Weapons of Mass

Destruction coordinator, whose taskings are to maintain liaisons

with fire, HAZMAT, law enforcement, public and emergency health

personnel, whose role is to respond to incidents resulting from

weapons of mass destruction terrorism. We actively participate in

the education of all personnel who share the FBI’s mission to prevent, deter and to detect acts of terrorism. Therefore, first-responder personnel should not only be trained on how to effectively

respond to weapons of mass destruction incidents, but also on how

to recognize weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

We’ve enlisted the help of the former chief of police of the Oklahoma City Police Department. He’s been in New Mexico at least

five times to discuss lessons learned in preparedness from the

Oklahoma City bombing. The former fire chief of the Oklahoma

City Fire Department has also been to New Mexico, when New

Mexico hosted a fire officials conference. He’s also discussed lessons

learned from the Oklahoma City bombing. And an FBI bomb technician spoke at the same conference about lessons learned from

first World Trade Center bombing. We believe these sessions have

helped, can help throughout the State, to put us all on the same

preparedness page.

Last year, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group provided four training symposiums to first-responders on recognition

and effective response to acts of terrorism, including chemical

agents, biological agents, nuclear and radiological agents, and large

explosives. They have established a secure Web site, whereby inforVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mation regarding training, exercises, meetings, and news articles

are posted.

I have a lot more information on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Working Group, and I realize I’ve run out of time, Mr. Chairman, but I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dean follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, I want to thank the FBI in your other role as

looking at the computer security matters of the Federal Government, and your people at the laboratories have just been tremendous. They’ve brought witnesses to us from around the world, and

a lot of good things have come from that. So thanks for what else

you’re doing.

I’m going to ask our colleague here to introduce Mr. Johnsen,

and he’s the Senior Technical Advisor for Bioscience, National Nuclear Security Administration, in the Albuquerque operations.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our Albuquerque Operations Office here at the Department of Energy has a tremendous

expertise in these areas, and that’s the office that’s responsible for

coordinating and guiding things that happen at both of our national laboratories here in New Mexico. We’re very pleased to have

Mr. Johnsen here today. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF JOHN-OLAV JOHNSEN, SENIOR TECHNICAL

ADVISOR FOR BIOSCIENCE, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY

ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Mr. JOHNSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson. And Chairperson Horn, thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity

to present some testimony today.

The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security

Administration have been active in bioscience research at both of

the national laboratories here in New Mexico for many years, and

this, of course, includes the predecessor agencies of the Department

of Energy. This work has been going on, in effect, since the days

of the Manhattan Project. With the increasing emphasis and the

anticipated increase in work in bioscience research and development work, the Albuquerque operations office, early in 2000, initiated what is now known as its Biosurety Program.

‘‘Biosurety’’ was a term that was coined to define and emphasize,

as a single operational concept, the integration of biological safety,

laboratory security and protection of biological agents, emergency

response and community and intergovernmental relations and liaison. Biosurety, as both a concept and as an operational approach

is now moving out to other DOE sites, and is a central tenet of the

DOE Headquarters Biosafety Working Group, of which I am the

chairman.

The working group acts as a national coordination and information-sharing body, ensuring consistency of approaches to similar

issues across the DOE complex, and works to ensure increased cooperation between the department and other Federal agencies in

the area of bioscience. Both Los Alamos National Laboratory and

Sandia National Laboratories are addressing security of laboratories and protection of biological agents in their site security

plans, and are also addressing the related emergency response

issues in their respective emergency response planning.

Again, as a central tenet of the biosurety approach, these plans,

as applicable to local law enforcement and emergency response

agencies and groups, are to be made fully available, so that the

fullest and most effective cooperation and coordination is in place

with local, tribal, State, and other Federal agencies potentially affected by such work at these national laboratories. Policies are in

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place or are being developed by the department to ensure that this

occurs.

Albuquerque Operations has issued a directive that addresses

the specific issues and requirements associated with the safe handling, transferring, and receiving of certain biological agents at contractor sites. This policy reflects a higher-level policy that was

issued by the Department of Energy in the fall of 2001, and provides additional clarification and details specific to biological

science activities using certain biological agents of concern by Los

Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

The emphasis by the department is that it provides expectations

and guidance to the laboratories, which in turn will develop the

operational procedures and site-specific policies to meet these expectations. The department adamantly holds that the fullest coordination and cooperation between the national laboratories and local,

State, and Federal authorities is critical to ensuring not only that

public trust is maintained, but in ensuring that affected authorities

and the public are notified and involved in the department’s protection and emergency response planning for events that could result

from its biological science research and development efforts.

Thank you very much for this opportunity, on behalf of the Albuquerque Operations Manager, John Arthur. I appreciate your having me here.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnsen follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much.

And now we’ll go to questions. And I’ve just got a couple of questions on a broad front, and then I’m going to let my colleagues be

the real questioners.

Mr. Resnick, I’m curious in terms of how would you rate the response to the anthrax attacks, and what do you know about this

and how many worries we should have?

Mr. RESNICK. I think the Nation has taken on a much greater

appreciation for the threat from biological agents, pathogens and

toxins, and it’s now putting that into a biosecurity and threat context. I think there has been a lot of progress since September 11th,

but there is certainly an awful lot of progress that needs to be

made.

I would say the challenge is very great, but the good news is that

the technology opportunity to now bring against that challenge, I

believe, will measure up to it, and with the full spectrum of interventional planning, I think we will develop a level of threat reduction that the American populace is comfortable with.

Mr. HORN. As you know, when this all started, particularly with

the post office and our various offices of the Congress, there was

a lot of contradictory information at the outset, and also, the steps

taken to protect postal workers was very strongly criticized, some

happenstance. What could you tell us about that? And what have

we learned about?

Mr. RESNICK. I would join in some of the earlier comments, that

the thing we have to do first is to know what we know and to make

that knowledge available to all planners and responders. I think

that is our first priority, to gather up every piece of information

that’s in every laboratory and provide that through information

technology, so it is real-time available. But once again, I think

there’s an awful lot of progress that could be made there.

Mr. HORN. Let me move to another; this is worldwide, but you’re

involved, Mr. Resnick, and also Mr. Johnsen and Mr. Nokes. Your

written testimony notes the challenges associated with nuclear material stored in the former Soviet Union. I feel very strongly, and

I did from day one in Congress, that if we don’t involve Russia with

Europe and with the United States, it will be the biggest diplomatic mistake we’ve made. And as we see, President Bush has a

very good relationship with President Putin of Russia.

And what we worry about are scientists going to some of these

nations and what we’re doing in terms of sufficiently melting down

the atomic warheads that we have on our side and their side. And

what—is there a threat here and being addressed and is it being

addressed sufficiently by those with the responsibilities of the

issue?

Mr. RESNICK. A very important question. I personally have visited several of the ex-Soviet Union biological warfare facilities, and

I think there is a very real problem here, from the proliferation of

pathogens and toxins, as well as the concepts of use outside of Russia. I think Dr. Olav Johnsen’s comments about the concepts of biosecurity, are very important, and I think we can take those concepts that are evolving in the United States and share that with

Russia to secure their pathogens and toxins, and make an overall

increase in global security a realty.

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Mr. HORN. Mr. Johnsen, got any thoughts on that?

Mr. JOHNSEN. I’m in full agreement with the need for increased

cooperation. In fact, predating September 11th, in October 2000,

there were—I believe it was approximately 26 very senior Russian,

Georgian, Cossack senior science, bioscience researchers and administrators visited Sandia National Laboratories for a 4-day session looking at, specifically, security—increasing security for the biological agents that they had and have at their various sites in the

former Soviet Union.

So this is certainly something that is recognized as a problem,

potential problem, and as a pressing need, and the national laboratories here in New Mexico, and certainly within the NNSA complex, are able to and have been working with their colleagues in

the former Soviet Union, to the extent able, that we’re able to try

to limit the proliferation of these materials. It remains a concern.

There is much work yet to be done.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Nokes.

Mr. NOKES. Yes, I’d make a comment. I think it’s not true that

the Russians don’t care about the security of their materials and

weapons, because they clearly do. I think what has happened is,

under the Soviet system, the insider was not a threat. You couldn’t

steal a weapon or material and sell it, because there was no market. That is no longer true. And so they have to change their entire

concept of securing materials and weapons.

The labs have been very active in a government program to safeguard weapons and materials in Russia since about 1992. A great

deal of work needs to be done, because they’re changing their entire philosophy of security. And I think great progress is being

made, but there is still enormous work to be done. And I really

support what began as the nonnuclear initiative and continues

today in the safeguarding of Russian materials and weapons.

Mr. HORN. Well, along that line, and I think you’ve touched on

it, and that’s after the second world war, we luckily were able to

get Werner von Braun and his German scientists on our side, and

I think one of them went to the Soviet union. And where are we

now? We had a wonderful experience with NASA and the space

capsule, and so forth, and that certainly got us working together

in a partnership, and are there other ways that we could get the

scientists of Russia, so they aren’t going off to Iran, or wherever

it is? And how are we doing on that?

Mr. NOKES. Let’s see; the Russian scientists that I have met, and

during the time that I was managing that type of program at the

laboratory, are as worried about Iran and Iraq and other countries

as we are. But the practical matter is, sometimes they’ve made offers they can’t refuse. Working with the Russian scientists has become more difficult at the laboratories in the last 2 years, because

of other, almost unrelated circumstances around counterintelligence and Dr. Lee and the perception that the laboratories working with foreign scientists was not in our national interest.

I think that it is important that we collaborate with the Russian

scientists and give them a reason to stay on the side of the good

guys, and I think that program can be strengthened.

Mr. HORN. Going back a minute to some of the ways that it can

happen, that it hurt a city, a region, whatever, and that is the toxVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00118 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ins that can be spread by airplane. And some of the terrorists, that

we know about, in terms of Florida’s school and all of that, and I

wonder to what degree do we feel there is a real problem there and

what do we do about it, because there’s a lot of ranchers, also, and

farmers, that they need it to get these certain things in their lettuce fields, or whatever it is.

Mr. RESNICK. I think you underscore the ubiquitous nature of the

threat. It’s very broad and very decentralized. And it’s not a very

simple solution to put a fence around. Clearly, it is quite feasible

to disseminate, from crop dusters, biological threat agents. It’s been

done fairly routinely for testing detection systems at proving

grounds. I think, once again, it points to the need for a very comprehensive approach to identify all of the potential choke points. If

we look at the overall weaponization scheme that an aggressor

would have to go through, start to target each step and look for the

vulnerabilities that the aggressor has to interrupt at each critical

node.

Mr. HORN. Any other comments on that?

If not, I’ll ask Representative Wilson to pursue the rest of the

questions, along with Mr. Udall.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are a couple of things that kind of came to mind as I was

listening to your testimony.

David, you mentioned the processes for other governments, governing agencies, to be able to get rapid access to the research and

document done at our laboratories. They are, I think the words you

used were ‘‘clumsy and inefficient.’’ What needs to be changed in

order for other government agencies, or State and local government, or whoever needs it in a crisis, or even preferably in advance

of a crisis, to be able to get rapid access to that technology? What

do we need to do?

Mr. NOKES. Well, see, the position we find ourselves in is when

the post office calls and says, ‘‘Please help,’’ and if we don’t have

funds in the door earmarked for the post office, we’re prohibited

from answering that call until we do the paperwork.

Now, there has been a good step forward, because Albuquerque

Area Office has provided breach funding. So if someone in the government looks them in the eye and says, ‘‘I’m going to want this

work done, and I’ll make good on the money,’’ their labs can start

the work. That’s a good start, to begin.

The problem is that the most important work is not urgent. I

mean, it’s important for us to react quickly and do the urgent

things that solve a ‘‘today’’ problem. The more strategically important thing is doing a tech transfer from the tech-base we have to

the longer-range problems that make this whole system come out

well, because we cannot just pour money into it; we can’t hire more

guns and guards. We have to find ways to identify the critical

points, the nodes, and with a technology-based solution, make security affordable so commerce goes on and we have good security at

various places in the country.

It seems to me that one way to answer your question is to have

NNSA as a broker for other government issues, as they do for treaty verification and arms control; they sponsor the basic research

that provides that technology to the Nation. You can imagine

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NNSA having that mission, of making the labs available to other

government agencies, solving problems that are, in fact, common

across the Nation. I would like to see something of that nature.

Mrs. WILSON. One of the criticisms that we hear, from time to

time, and I know the committee has heard it in other places, has

to do with law enforcement’s access to information; intelligence, if

you will, from other jurisdictions and from the Federal Government. And I wonder, Mr. Dean, if you can comment on that and

whether that’s gotten any better; what else needs to be done, so

that when a State policeman pulls somebody over, for a taillight

being out, between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, they’re able to run

the number and find out if there’s more than a taillight out.

Mr. DEAN. I think we’ve made some positive strides in that area.

We’ve enabled chiefs of police and heads of investigative agencies

to get background investigations, where we provide that information to them. We’ve also been able to add some information on terrorists in one of our data bases, called the violent terrorist file,

which would give the information to patrolmen stopping somebody.

It will tell them this person is not just a regular Joe. It’s called the

‘‘Big Talk’’ file. It’s not a perfect file, but it does identify a person

with some potential terrorist leanings.

There are still some limitations; some of the information that we

do provide to a chief of police or head of an agency is law enforcement sensitive, and because of the way Federal law is written, he

possibly could not share that with his boss. The law does not allow

us to—we’re limited; it’s secret information that we get, to normally only be disseminated within the law enforcement community.

Mrs. WILSON. One of the things I’m concerned about is that we

have the intelligence community saying things are intelligencesource protected; we have the law enforcement community saying

they’re law enforcement sensitive; and the military doing the same

thing, so that we’re not able to put together a picture that will

allow us to—one of the greatest assets we have in the war against

terrorism is information and the ability to manipulate it and share

it when it needs to be shared.

Are there things that need to be changed in the law to allow that

to happen among agencies more, so that you can tell your boss, or

even more importantly, you can tell the cops on the street in Atlanta who to be looking for, in a way that’s systematic and that

doesn’t require a phone call from one guy to another guy.

Mr. DEAN. I think it’s going to require a change in the law. We

are able to filter through some intelligence-sensitive information,

and pass it on to law enforcement, but it’s limited. So it is going

to require some change in the law in what we can put out and provide to our law enforcement officers.

Mr. HORN. Can I comment on this?

Before leaving for this trip, I sat down with Mr. Sensenbrenner,

the chairman of Judiciary, who has joint authority with our government reform on this issue, and I have put a bill in, and Mr. Sensenbrenner told me he certainly was going to give it a hearing, and

that he was all for it. We might just have it sent to the floor without even a hearing. When we get back to the district, from the constituency, we will be acting on that. They wanted to act on it on

the early homeland bill, and just for some reason, it didn’t happen.

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But using the FBI, we want, obviously, to have a person in the

police departments, let’s say, to start with, and the chief of police

of any city ought to designate one individual, and obviously, the

FBI would have to do an investigation to see if that person is worthy of the intelligence that would be used from the FBI. If you have

somebody who’s not a very good policeman, we need to know that

before we give them the intelligence. But we are making progress

on that, and hopefully, we will get that done in the next month or

so.

Mr. DEAN. I think that would be very helpful, sir.

Mr. HORN. And I’d like to have my colleagues join me on this.

Mrs. WILSON. I’d be very happy to join you on that. I think, also,

it’s not just law enforcement information that needs to be shared

and passed up. We have 14 national intelligence agencies; we have

Immigration and Naturalization Service; we have the U.S. Customs

Service; we have 56 FBI offices, and access to information is our

first line of defense. And I hope that we can work out some of these

issues. Having formerly served on the House Select Committee on

Intelligence, I know how hard it is to even share between government intelligence agencies. I think we need to get beyond it, so we

can protect ourselves and not just our sources. And I look forward

to seeing that move forward.

Mr. Johnsen, I have a question for you. I’m very interested in

this concept of biosurety, and particularly looking at the continuing

biological safety, laboratory security, protection of biological agents,

and then the response, so it’s not just proactive. On biological

agents, frankly, we really haven’t paid much attention to it before

the anthrax situation on the East Coast. And I wonder, from your

perspective, what needs to be done in order to strengthen that capacity, not necessarily at our DOE labs, although you may want to

use those as an example, but nationwide.

I was struck when we had the anthrax incidents, the first question that the FBI, of course, asked is, ‘‘Well, how many laboratories

across the country have this strain of anthrax?’’ And the answer

was, ‘‘We don’t know,’’ because there’s no requirement to even register the various strains of toxins identified by the CDC. From your

perspective, what needs to be done to strengthen the system?

Mr. JOHNSEN. First off, from a security standpoint, it’s very easy

to take the lessons that everyone is comfortable with, from protection of nuclear materials or physical property, and try to apply it

to biological materials. But the fact is that the ubiquitous nature

of these materials—they’re commonly available; they’re natural

materials; they self-replicate, in many cases—means that security,

as applied to the biological laboratory and to the biological agents

that are contained therein, really present a fairly unique set of

challenges.

The initial reaction of bar-coding vials to keep track of an inventory, for instance, is fairly meaningless when you can extract a

small amount of material from inside that vial and you still have

your vial accounted for, but not that material. The fact is that

there is a chain of custody procedure for a set of biological agents,

known as ‘‘select agents,’’ that is codified in law. Centers for Disease Control has the Select Agent Rule, and certain materials, only

in the last few years, have to be accounted for as they’re transVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ferred around between laboratories. But that’s only a subset of a

much larger group of materials.

Also, the fact is that we have no laws on the books regulating

these materials, from a security standpoint. The only guidelines—

and I emphasize, they are guidelines or recommendations—that

exist for laboratory security, biological laboratory security, exist as

an appendix to the safety manual issued by the CDC, which is, in

fact, the international gold standard that is used for laboratory

safety. But nonetheless, the security recommendations are contained within the safety manual; it’s a good set of recommendations, but it’s very broad. It lacks some of the specificity that’s

needed. So work needs to be done to strengthen that.

There is an interagency working group that has been looking at

the security of agents since January 2001. And Sandia, in fact, has

been heavily involved in supporting that. The lead agency for that

has been the USDA. And they have come up with some models that

have been put into—or tested, I believe, at a couple of their biological facilities, the USDA’s facilities. But again, a lot of work remains

to be done.

Legislation would be helpful, but it needs to be educated, carefully thought-out legislation. There are examples in the international community where security requirements have been put

into place, in one Nation, that are so restrictive that research has

suffered tremendously, and yet, real security has not been enhanced: Specifically, putting a guard in the laboratory to watch the

scientists, but a guard who has no biological knowledge. And it

really is a meaningless gesture.

Those are the kinds of things we need to avoid, while recognizing

that there are real concerns, real threats that can be addressed.

But they need to be addressed in a very careful manner.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Johnsen.

Mr. HORN. Along that line, are there certain laws that we

haven’t mentioned—I mentioned the one with Mr. Sensenbrenner,

that was a letter from myself and Mr. Shays, who has the international part on Government Reform. Are there other areas where

we should have a way to get that information to the people that

are the responders, the police, the firemen, and so forth? Anything

we’re missing, like a privacy law? Does that hurt us from getting

the information and doing something about it?

Mr. JOHNSEN. Privacy Act considerations could come into play

when you’re dealing with immunization protocols and this sort of

thing. But I don’t know that would directly affect law enforcement,

as much as just looking at the actual security of materials.

Biological safety, biological security of biological materials, while

separate, are also so interrelated that it is difficult to separate

them. They are definitely separate, but again, part of our biosurety

concept is, in the past, we have seen that these items, these areas

of safety and security and emergency response, tend to be pigeonholed; they tend to be off in their own wells. And we felt, as an

operational concept, it was important to start pulling these together, thinking of them under a single organizational or operational umbrella——

Mr. HORN. Are we able to put that into the record, or is that a

classified document?

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Mr. JOHNSEN. That is not classified.

Mr. HORN. Back to Mr. Yim. What do you have on this, because

I know the General Accounting Office has done a lot of work on it.

Mr. YIM. I think this is one of the areas, Mr. Chairman, in which

we have to look at not only the experiences from the private sector

and security of our laboratories, but we also need to look at our

laws and whether they’ve kept pace with the technology. Unlike,

for example, nuclear material, where you’re actually physically

moving an agent, sometimes from the biological aspect, we get tremendous advancements in that community and be able to transfer

code, as opposed to the actual agent, itself, and cause the same impact. Hopefully, that’s not occurring, but that is an area where

laws need to keep pace with changes in technology, to maintain security, not only now, but over time.

The transfer of select agents, for example, there may be some

simple fixes, such as requiring prior approval of transfers, and having, in that prior approval process, a cross-check with intelligence

information as to the recipients of those materials being transferred. I think that one of the issues for us is that it doesn’t have

to be an evil purpose. I mean, there are well-intentioned researchers that may be requesting agents for legitimate research purposes

that unknowingly may be creating exposures for us.

So I think the laboratory security issues and the proliferation of

both human disease and also agents that can affect our food production chains, I think, is an area of critical importance.

Mr. HORN. Representative Udall.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you very much, Chairman Horn.

One of the things that I think would make the fight against terrorism work very, very well is if citizens are involved in it, and involved in it in a significant way. I mean, in a very real sense, our

citizens can be the eyes and ears out there and help detect things.

But one of the things that I hear from my constituents, in doing

town hall meetings or having meetings with them, is that they ask

about the current alert system that we have in place, where we go

on this overall alert, terrorist alert. And I know the attorney general has now refined this, and they’re broken down into categories.

But I’m wondering what—any of the members of the panel that

have any thoughts on this, are we utilizing our citizens to the best

we could, in terms of being eyes and ears out there; what’s the best

type of alert system; are we doing public outreach and letting the

public know the kind of information that the law enforcement and

other agencies need?

It seemed to me that there was one incident that played out. It

was where, in California, there was one of the bridges that was

going to be—there was supposed to be a terrorist incident with a

bridge, and the California Governor was given that information,

and he put that information out there. And clearly, a citizen, under

those circumstances could, if they’re driving across the bridge or

near the bridge or hear somebody talking, they can then supply information.

So I guess I have a couple of questions for you, really: What do

you think of the alert system we have now? Can it be improved on?

How do we really get citizens into this fight, in terms of getting

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them involved and being able to provide law enforcement agencies

with the very best information?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Well, certainly, Governor Ridge recently put out

the program for a new alert system, and that’s getting feedback

right now. It’s not finalized yet. But we’re hoping that from the information that we—the feedback that is received, that system will

be refined so that it will become second nature to people, as to

where we are and how to understand the alert system.

The other point, I guess——

Mr. UDALL. Ron, is there any more—I know there’s a graduated

tier on there, but is there any more information being given to the

public under this tiered system that’s out there? Is that the intention of going to different tiers, is to give more information to the

public?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. I think, so that there is a more clear understanding, certainly, we’re—this proposed system is being reviewed

with States and the local first-responder community, and other parties that can help make decisions about this. So we’re getting feedback that way. We won’t be putting that out until it’s finalized, of

course, but it is being tested right now. I think there is still some

work to be done to refine that. So I don’t think we’re there yet, but

I think we will get there.

The other point that you made was how can citizens get involved,

and there is an effort, that’s just begun, with Citizen Corp, which,

I believe, will—the more citizens we get involved with those programs, such as Neighborhood Watch and FEMA, certain programs,

we’ll be able to align them with the alert system, be in a better position than we are now. We’ve got a long way to go, but we have

some things in place that, I think, are the foundation for where

this will all get better.

Mr. HORN. If I might give you an example in relation to Representative Udall’s question, it was recently revealed that Federal

officials had withheld information of a potential nuclear threat

from city and State officials in New York. Is that justifiable, to not

inform them of what they should worry about in their harbor, and

everything else? Now, I know the Coast Guard was on alert to look

at some of the cargo that was coming in, with shipments from Europe and all over the world. Is that justifiable, or should the norm

be, whether it’s secret or not secret, or that it’s not a real threat,

because you ought to get all that focus on it, with the State, city,

and all the others. What do you think?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Well, I’m not sure that I’m in the best position

to comment on that, but I believe that one of the problems may

have been the lack of a good system that every law enforcement

person and emergency management person and every citizen will

understand. And I’m only assuming that part of the problem in

that information not being delivered was a weak alert system. So

it’s my opinion, only, that perhaps this system is to try to counter

that kind of problem in the future. That’s my own personal speculation.

Mr. HORN. Any thoughts, Mr. Dean?

Mr. DEAN. Mr. Chairman, I don’t know the specifics of that particular incident, so I would only have to assume that the information wasn’t passed because of the law not allowing it to be passed.

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And I would say that’s a faulty and outdated law, that type of information has to be passed, when there’s a threat of a nuclear attack. It has to be passed.

In response to Mr. Udall’s question, since September 11th, I

think citizens have stepped up to information that not only the

FBI, the Federal and State government have put out, through the

media, with alerts, with requests for citizens to be more watchful,

be more vigilant. Post September 11th, we received thousands of

calls to our command post, from citizens, that we probably wouldn’t

have received. So I think citizens are more mindful, more aware,

more careful, and they are participating more in assisting law enforcement with potential problems.

Mr. UDALL. Do you think if they had more specific information,

they’d be able to help you more? And of course, we don’t want to

get into methods and sources and those kinds of things, but it

seems to me, when you put people on a general alert, you’re going

to get a lot of calls that maybe aren’t very relevant to whatever it

is that you’re looking into. But if you’re able to somehow use and

give specific information, you may get a lot better information back.

Mr. DEAN. I think so. I think the general alerts are very general

and very vague. And I think if specific information was disseminated, then we probably would receive more relevant calls from the

public, yes.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Nokes, what’s your thinking on this?

Mr. NOKES. Well, I was going to make the comment that one of

the problems I think the government has is that you don’t get crystal clear indications that an attack is going to happen; you get inferences. So someone has to make a judgment, is this credible and

should this be raised to a higher alert. And I think that, in the case

of New York, the judgment was made that the information wasn’t

particularly credible. And I think that’s going to be a continuing

challenge, particularly as you get more and more information, get

citizens reporting. Someone has to be in a position to assess the

credibility and the seriousness of the threats that are being posed.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Yim.

Mr. YIM. I think, also, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Udall, one of the

things that’s important on the tiered-threat system is not only a

better definition or common understanding of what information to

share, but because the system is modeled on the Department of Defense tiered system, and under the Department of Defense system,

at each tier, certain additional nondiscretionary action needs to be

taken; for instance, at each military installation, as you move from

Alpha to Bravo to Charlie, there are additional steps. I think that

would be very helpful, during the public comment period on this

system, to begin to define exactly what additional steps State and

local government should be taking as the threat levels rise, and

then perhaps that would then augment the capabilities of the local

governments to respond as threats ratchet up.

So, again, we’ll always have to balance the sharing of information, intelligence information, with the threat to the sources and

methods. But if we can begin to enhance capabilities as threats

arise, to respond flexibly, I think that will be the key.

Mr. HORN. Well, this is one of the questions we were going to

ask, and it’s relevant to this point: What’s the situation that each

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of you could provide for us, were the witnesses to submit for the

record a list of the Federal laws that they believe—you believe inhibit the sharing of information between Federal, State and local

officials? Do any particular laws come to mind on that? We know

about the FBI intelligence. Is there anything beyond that?

Mr. YIM. Well, Mr. Chairman, I’ve heard from a lot of communities that the security classifications are a tremendous roadblock.

So the legislation you’ve introduced, I think, will go a tremendous

way in handling that problem.

One of things we have to augment, however, in addition to the

classification as to who should get the information, is also the architecture, of course, to share that information quickly and effectively. And I think we’re making a lot of progress in getting common data bases that can be shared, enhancing the IT infrastructure, so that information can be pumped out.

But once we solve those first two problems, getting the architecture in place and the security classifications, there needs to be

some focus on the analytics of that. We’re going to have to be creating a pipeline, then, that will get larger and larger as we’re pumping more and more information. And I think there needs to be emphasis on the analytics of that information.

One of the things that we’ve heard from State and local governments is that they could be deluged with information and lack the

ability, the human capability or just the basic knowledge, to analyze the volume and could not sort the wheat from the chaff. And

I think that we need to have some emphasis on that, whether that

will encompass legislation or not, or just straight up, some dedication and resources to augment it; I think it’s more the latter than

the former.

Mr. HORN. We’ll hold the record over on this question for 2

weeks, and if you have some thoughts, please send it to us, so we

can put it into the final report on that.

Any other questions?

Mr. UDALL. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. HORN. Ms. Wilson.

Mrs. WILSON. No.

Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you, and we will now go to the second

panel. That starts with Mr. English and Mr. Bakas; Mr. Horn, no

relation; Mr. Busboom; Dr. Roth; and Dr. Sewell.

We thank you for coming, and as those of you know who were

here earlier, this subcommittee that I chair is an investigatory

committee, and so we’re going to ask you to stand, raise your hand

and swear or affirm the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note that the five witnesses have accepted that, and we will ask our colleagues here to introduce a

number of you, because you’re close friends.

Honorable Thomas L. English, Secretary, New Mexico Department of Public Safety.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Tom English is the cabinet secretary for the Department of Public Safety here in New Mexico. He is a former assistant U.S. attorney and was involved in the prosecution of a number of gang and

violent crimes, including the Sureno 13, and a Major in the U.S.

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Army Reserves, where he served as a JAG lawyer, and also, a longtime New Mexico State Police Officer.

Very glad to have you here, and look forward to hearing what

you have to say.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS L. ENGLISH, CABINET SECRETARY,

NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Wilson, Congressman Udall, first of all, I’d like to thank you for asking for the input

of State and local government.

We in State government recognize the Federal role in the fight

against terrorism, that to investigate and to detect. And we are

well served by the Federal Government in that capacity. Likewise,

the Federal Government must recognize the State and local role in

this particular problem area, and primarily that of being the firstresponders.

We all have the same mission, purpose, and resources, and we

should seek to unify those, our mission to protect the public before,

during and after attack, by having the purpose to mitigate and respond, with our resources that include both information and capacity. We are starting to improve on cooperation and coordination.

We saw that start with the Oklahoma City bombing, the passage

of the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act, the Office of Domestic Preparedness in the Department of Justice, but as I have seen this weekend, while fires ravaged Lincoln County in New Mexico, I know

that we face a daunting task if we are the unfortunate recipients

of a terrorist attack.

We should be well-minded that the al Qaeda network waited 8

years between their attacks. We must be ready and we must be

prepared. And we will be.

Communication is the key to cooperation. Cooperation is the dynamic that powers a coordinated response to terrorism. Cooperation hasn’t always been an operative term in Federal and State relations. There are two areas that we really need to look at, I believe, or I would ask you to look at. One is the recognition of roles

and the second is the exchange of information.

I went to a meeting with the President and Governor Ridge at

the White House in January, with the 56-some-odd Homeland Security directors. These concerns were raised, uniformly, from across

our great Nation. In response, the President, Governor Ridge have

proposed the first-responder program, which provides, as Mr.

Castleman said, 3.5 billion in first-responder money.

I know that there will be some concerns in Congress about

FEMA administering this money. I would like to point out that this

weekend, FEMA responded, not within days, weeks, months or

years, within hours, for a fire suppression grant for the State of

New Mexico. I believe that they are well-suited to provide the strategic planning to assist us in capacity building and to pass money

to local government.

I’d also like to state that this hearing is a great example of an

attempt to bring us all together. As a State manager, it is not my

job to dictate to local incident commanders what to do in response

to an incident. Likewise, it’s not for the Federal Government to dictate to State and local governments what to do. The area of inforVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00127 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mation we need access to is critical relevant information. When

DOE has Q-clearances, and Department of Defense has their clearances, and Department of Justice has their clearance, we all don’t

stand, really, a chance in local government. Make a national security clearance, clarify the exchange of information.

I’m also reminded of the radar operator at Pearl Harbor, who

thought that the information was not relevant to the attack on

Pearl Harbor. I think of the information possessed before the attack on the World Trade Center. I would love to be deluged with

information. Give us that information; we will use it.

Let there be no thoughts or misconceptions. We are ready to respond. But honesty is the best policy, and we have to admit there

are areas for improvement. We have to look for our weaknesses so

we can get better. Much like I tell my department, ‘‘We must be

one,’’ I think we all must realize we are one Nation. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. English follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. Very eloquent.

Our next presenter is Mr. Bakas.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nick Bakas is the Chief

of Public Safety here in Albuquerque. It’s a new position created

under the current mayor to kind of integrate police, fire, emergency

response within the city of Albuquerque, which gives him, I think,

a unique perspective on the problems we face in combating terrorism. He is also a retired Albuquerque Police Department officer,

the former head—cabinet secretary for public safety in New Mexico. He led State efforts during the Cerro Grande fire, and was the

head of the New Mexico Urban Search and Rescue Team. He then

went to the Pentagon following the attack on the Pentagon. So I

think he has a unique perspective to offer this committee.

And thank you very much for coming today.

STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS S. BAKAS, CHIEF PUBLIC SAFETY

OFFICER, CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE

Mr. BAKAS. Thank you. Chairman Horn, Congresswoman Wilson,

Congressman Udall, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity

for a perspective from the local level.

I am Secretary English’s predecessor at the State level, but now,

as of September 11th, numerous people have mentioned that the

world has changed, the way that government, at all levels, responds to the needs of their citizens has also changed, and part of

that change, as you’ve mentioned, Congresswoman Wilson, is that

Mayor Chavez has created this new position. This is the position

of Chief Public Safety Officer. My duties and responsibilities include the oversight of the police department, the fire department,

corrections, and emergency management.

There is an old Japanese proverb, I believe, that I think is very

operative of this position, and that proverb is that the time to dig

a well is not when you’re thirsty. So our—my responsibility, our responsibilities in general, is to provide that planning, provide that

necessary effort, so that we’re ready to respond in a time of crisis,

whether that crisis is a weapons of mass destruction incident or

whether we’re talking nuclear, biological, or a chemical incident.

On the local level—and I know there has been much discussion

about how we communicate between the various agencies; let me

tell you that it is a monumental task to communicate among local

agencies. Specifically, how do we break down some real barriers;

how do we break down some artificial barriers; how do we—as Secretary English mentioned, how do we communicate? It’s very easy

to become territorial.

I know the fire department has their issues; the police department has their issues; and Lord knows that the corrections folks

are the redheaded stepchild of the whole public safety process; no

one ever consults, refers or gives them the time of day. And this

is really not where we want to be when it comes to providing for

our citizens in Albuquerque.

Once we can get by those efforts, some real, as I say, some artificial, we have special needs on the local level. I know we’ve been

in concert with Dean Roth of the medical school. In the sense of

an emergency, what is clearly apparent is that there are special

needs of the very young and of the very old that we must address,

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and what has also become very, very clear, and important, is that

we have needs of the disabled that, in planning, we all too often

forget. We’ve solicited and are getting the input of Art Schreiber,

a local celebrity here that town, a local politician, radio announcer,

who is blind and who also will be participating with us on those

very issues of the disabled and how they relate to emergency planning.

Secretary English, his staff, my staff, we’re now meeting on a

regular basis to determine what we will need to set in place, and

we are very anxious, with Governor Ridge’s proposal, to distribute,

I believe, $3.5 million in first-responder money. Needless to say

that any of this planning, anything that we’re doing here today

with respect to planning is very expensive. And I would emphasize,

if anyone is not aware, that the city of Albuquerque is in dire financial straits, so we are very anxious to see how this infusion of

funds is going to be distributed. And with that in mind, we are in

concert with our partners at the State level and our partners on

the Federal level.

I know, Congresswoman Wilson, you mentioned that we, here in

New Mexico, stood ready, and we stand ready, to respond to emergencies of this Nation. I would be remiss if I did not say that one

of the highlights of my career, that you mentioned, was our response to the attack on the Pentagon, Flight 77. It was New Mexicans, 62 of us, that went to the Pentagon, and we did search and

recovery efforts. It was fellow New Mexicans, in partnership with

FEMA, in partnership with the country in general, that performed

magnificently. It was New Mexicans that shored up the Pentagon,

which I’m sure is a building you see regularly. The Pentagon sunk

a foot. It was New Mexicans that put that beam up on the right

side of that damaged area and also supported the left side of that

building.

So I am truly very proud. I see some other members of that

team, John Gaffney, out in the audience. I know my time is up, but

I do want to thank you, Congresswoman Wilson, for presenting us

the American flag and a letter, while we were camped at the

grounds of the Pentagon, and that went a long way to help us in

our efforts. So I would thank you, and I will conclude with that.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bakas follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Go ahead.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you very much, Nick. That was a—it was

kind of a moving experience to go over and meet with you and your

team there at the Pentagon, in those days following that attack,

and their determination to help was heartwarming.

When we’re looking at emergency response, there’s no way that

any of us can ignore the National Guard. When things go wrong,

every Governor in this country, one of the first things they do is

call out the Guard. And the Guard is among us and with us; they

are part of our communities. And when New York and Washington

were attacked on September 11th, it was Guard units that were in

the air to help protect us.

Since then, the National Guard has flown 18,000 sorties, providing air cover over this country, continuous air cover over New York

and Washington, and rotating air cover around the country. The

150th Tactical Fighter Wing, the Tacos, have been a part of that.

In addition, there is this irony that Mikey Rice, who is the head

of civil air—in his civilian capacity, the Head of Air Transportation

and Civil Aviation for the State of New Mexico, is also a brigadier

general in the Air Guard, who rotates, about every 6 weeks,

through Tampa, to be the general who is responsible for making

those orders, if there is another attack on the United States. So

there is a certain irony about the Guard and the places people

come from and the expertise that they bring.

The New Mexico Guard has sent security police overseas and has

been protecting our Air Force, our bases here in New Mexico, in

concert with the civil authorities and with the active duty Air

Force. And the New Mexico Guard also is one of the States that

has the civil response team which is set up and trained to respond

to emergencies involving biological and chemical attacks. And I

have to say that when the Speaker’s office called me that Saturday,

one of the people that I called was the Guard and General Horn.

And his people were very helpful in figuring out what capabilities

might be available in the State Guard units, including those in

Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, that might be

able to help Washington. That’s a measure of the strength of the

National Guard in our communities.

General Horn is a former fighter pilot who is now the head of

the New Mexico National Guard. He’s the adjutant general here in

New Mexico.

And I thank you very much for joining us, sir.

STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL RANDALL E. HORN,

ADJUTANT GENERAL, NEW MEXICO NATIONAL GUARD

General RANDALL HORN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson,

Representative Udall, thank you for the opportunity to speak with

you today concerning Federal support for the preparations we are

making in the face of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear

threat.

I’ve broken my presentation into distinct areas, to try to make

it easier for you to distinguish between the types of support and

coordination that we’re seeing.

The first area of concern is federally funded missions, that have

been identified, supported by the New Mexico National Guard since

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September 11th. First, we support the airport security mission,

with 47 Army and Air National Guard personnel, at four locations

around the State, to include Albuquerque, Roswell, Santa Fe, and

Farmington. The FAA has been involved with the training of these

troops, and in our estimation, has done a very good job. I would

comment that it is important that this operation stay on the current plan for transition to the civilian sector, currently scheduled

for the end of May.

New Mexico Army National Guard has recently mobilized 19 National Guardsmen to Title 10 Federal status for the Border Sentinel mission, in support of the U.S. Border Patrol at ports of entry

on the southern New Mexico border with Mexico. The U.S. Army

is our primary interface for this mission, and there are issues concerned with this mission that I’ll address a little bit later.

The New Mexico Air National Guard contains the 150th Fighter

Wing, the infamous Tacos. We currently have more than 200 New

Mexico Air National Guard personnel deployed to New Jersey, flying F–16s and operating over the city of New York in support of

Operation Noble Eagle. This mission is planned to continue for the

next 60 days.

Mr. Chairman, those are the missions that we have taken on as

the direct result of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Let me

tell you just a little bit about some of the things we were doing before September 11th, in preparation for terrorist type of activities.

New Mexico National Guard has one of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams, as they are usually referred to. This

22-person team was recently certified, and the CST aids civil responders in identifying chemical, nuclear and biological threats as

they evolve. The 64th Civil Support Team conducted a series of

joint training exercises with communities throughout New Mexico,

on 10 through March 17th of this year, the primary objective being,

was to incorporate CST response assets with local and State WMD

response agency assets. This team has setup a display in the front

lot, and I would invite you to come by after the hearing today to

visit with them and understand a little bit more about what they

do.

The New Mexico National Guard also operates the 100-person

counter-drug mission on the Mexico-New Mexico border. This program is directly aimed as stopping the flow of illegal drugs; however, it obviously has a spillover effect to the apprehension of people and products who might be trying to bring weapons of mass destruction into the State, as well.

Mr. Chairman, that’s a thumbnail sketch of the types of operations we currently work with, with regard to prevention of chem/

bioattacks. I would like to spend just a few moments to outline

areas where I think the Federal Government could help us perform

our jobs just a little bit better.

Our intrastate terror efforts will include planning, training and

participation in regular exercises. The National Guard, along with

other State agencies, is presently focused on a comprehensive interagency planning and implementation process to help us seamlessly

address threats and interface with Federal agencies. We are evaluating our communications capabilities and finding them a little bit

weak. We will be asking for Federal assistance to upgrade our comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00138 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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munications systems to make us more compatible with other State

agencies.

Another area of constant concern is the chronic underfunding of

counter-drug program. As you remember, I told you that is the 100-

person team that works with Border Patrol agencies on the Mexico

border. The Governors’ State Plans are the mechanism identified

by Congress to list the programs and missions the State wishes to

conduct in support of their war on drugs and to identify and request those Federal funds necessary to execute the program. The

return to full funding in FY03 will allow New Mexico Guardsmen

to become more effective to counter illicit drug and terrorist activities.

I would also like to address the following issue concerning the

22-person Civil Support Team. This team is made up of unique capabilities, and right now, we do not have the capability to backfill

any of those positions ahead of time. If we lose a radiological doctor, or somebody with those kinds of capabilities, it’s very difficult

to bring someone in behind that person in a timely fashion, to keep

that CST team going. So we’d request that you entertain the possibility of giving us a little backup support, so that we can fill in behind and be ready to respond to any kind of danger that would be

there.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would state that, in general, I am

pleased with the support we’ve received from the Federal Government regarding our role in the fight against terrorism. We in the

New Mexico National Guard are very proud of our part, and we

look forward to continue the efforts to protecting the country that

we all love. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks.

[The prepared statement of General Horn follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

If you want to introduce Mr. Busboom, go ahead.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Stan Busboom has more than 30 years of experience in security.

He is now Division Director of Security and Safeguards at Los Alamos National Laboratories. He served in the Air Force for 26 years

and retired at the rank of Colonel—although we wouldn’t guess it

by your haircut today.

We’re very pleased to have you here.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY L. BUSBOOM, DIVISION LEADER, SECURITY AND SAFEGUARDS DIVISION, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Mr. BUSBOOM. Or my lack of haircut.

Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Wilson, and Congressman Udall,

thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I am Stan Busboom, Director of Security at Los Alamos National

Laboratory, and in today’s testimony, I want to provide you with

a summary of the immediate actions and on-going responses to the

terrorist threat, following the events of September 11th of last

year, and how we’re interfacing with our State and local governments in those efforts.

On a day-to-day basis, just to give you some background, we employ over 400 uniformed officers to protect the 43-square miles of

Los Alamos National Laboratory. Recruit, train and deploy a highly

motivated force of men and women whose primary focus is guarding our two nuclear facilities, but as well, over 100 other security

areas on the mesas of Los Alamos. The typical recruit receives

more than 440 hours of intensive training before performing any

duties.

Our special response team—those are the SWAT team members—receive an additional 360 hours of tactical training before

they go to do anything. That special response team has over 70

members and is fully equipped with military weapons, including

armored vehicles, M–60 machine guns, grenade launchers, and

thermal-imaging sensors.

Along with all Federal, State and local government security

agencies, we reacted immediately to the events of September 11th.

I’ll provide you with a summary of our actions. Vehicle screening

posts were established outside of our nuclear facilities to identify

personnel and to provide standoff against potential vehicle bombs.

Selected roadways, paths, parking lots, and fence lines were

blocked off with concrete barriers, and we began screening all

trucks and commercial vehicles that were entering the site. Mail

and parcel delivery were intensively screened, using both x-ray machines and explosive-detection machines.

Increased vigilance was requested of everyone on the site, and we

began issuing a series of security bulletins to keep our employees

informed and to direct them to take precautionary measures. I

would mention that our employees are also a substantial amount

of the population of Los Alamos County, so we were serving two

purposes in this security measure.

Extensive consultations were conducted with the County of Los

Alamos Fire and Police Departments to predetermine response to

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any incidents and to establish a fresh understanding on how to implement the existing agreements for mutual aid in case of emergency. We also consulted Forest Service officials and the governments of our neighboring pueblos.

Immediate and ongoing contact was established with the Federal

Bureau of Investigation, and daily reviews were conducted of intelligence from all sources. We consulted with the New Mexico Emergency Management Office and briefed them on our capabilities and

our response plans.

Finally, we looked at all the potential terrorist threats against all

the targets we have at the laboratory, and we revalidated our protective strategies.

I will say that one of the most challenging aspects of protecting

Los Alamos National Laboratory is that we have an open site. We

have taken extensive measures, since September 11th, to control

our roadways and protect key facilities, but it’s very manpower-intensive. In the initial weeks following September 11th, we had

some guards putting in as many as 72-hours on post per week, a

tremendous effort on behalf of that guard force, with some cooperation on overtime waivers from the union. We never ran into a situation where we had any post unfilled. We had plenty of volunteers.

There’s plenty of patriotic folks in northern New Mexico willing to

step up to this job.

Having addressed our staffing issues by hiring additional people

since then, we are also looking at engineering and some special solutions. We do have supplemental money this year, and by the way,

we very much appreciated the supplemental appropriation we received to allow us to pay the overtime and to design some engineering solutions to our open-site difficulties. We are planning to look

at two bypass roadways that will allow us to control access, and

right down to fully closing the site, if we need to, similar to the

way it’s done at Kirtland Air Force Base.

Chairman Horn, there are additional measures that we’ve taken

that are classified. And we’d be glad to brief you and other Members in an appropriate setting.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Busboom follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, here in New Mexico, we are blessed

with having one of best medical schools in the country, and I’d

also——

Mr. HORN. I might suggest that they started the new approach,

and when Harvard finally got the publicity on it—that it was New

Mexico that started it. And I just was telling somebody, last week,

this, and what a fine school you have in medical matters.

Mrs. WILSON. See Dr. Roth grinning.

I wanted to first start by thanking Dr. Roth and his staff. This

is a University of New Mexico building that we’re meeting in today,

and I wanted to thank you, and Robin and Kathy from your office,

for helping us to arrange this on fairly short notice. I appreciate

that.

We are very fortunate to have someone of Dr. Roth’s caliber leading the medical school. He has 18 years of experience in disaster

medicine, as well as emergency medicine. Dr. Roth created the

country’s first-ever civil Disaster Medical Assistance Team, the

DMAT, within the National Disaster Medical System that was established in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was president, and since

then, the New Mexico Disaster Medical Team has developed more

experience and capability, through his leadership, than—really

than any other team in the country. We now have the Center for

Disaster Medicine at the University of New Mexico.

He has also played a leading role in establishing the National

Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, building on work that

was done at the University of New Mexico on the Hanta virus outbreak, rapidly identifying a new disease and identifying its source

and developing treatment for that.

We are very pleased to have him here as the head of our medical

school and so involved in the issues surrounding chemical, nuclear

and biological agents and their impact on populations.

Dr. Roth.

STATEMENT OF PAUL B. ROTH, M.D., UNIVERSITY OF NEW

MEXICO HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, ASSOCIATE VICE

PRESIDENT FOR CLINICAL AFFAIRS, DEAN, SCHOOL OF

MEDICINE, PROFESSOR, EMERGENCY MEDICINE

Dr. ROTH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson, Representative Udall. I thank you for those kind remarks.

Harvard tends to copy many institutions, but prominently, the University of New Mexico, in that regard.

It’s a pleasure to be here to speak to you today concerning the

state of our Nation’s preparedness with regard to biological, chemical and nuclear attack. As was mentioned, I’m here not only speaking to you as the dean of the medical school, but someone who has

a great deal of experience with disaster response. And so I speak

to you not only from a desktop background, but from firsthand experience in the field.

Just a few remarks regarding the University of New Mexico. Our

Health Sciences Center and its School of Medicine have been actively involved in anti-bioterrorism planning, training, related research, and response, for several years. Most recently, we have

been working very closely with the New Mexico Department of

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Health in planning for the use of the new CDC and HRSA moneys.

We are also rewriting our Health Science Center disaster plan to

accommodate biological and chemical events by retrofitting elements of our Health Sciences Center hospital facilities to serve as

a major tertiary care referral center with unique capabilities to

handle these kinds of special-needs patients.

We are involved, through our Bio-Defense Center, in several collaborative projects with the State and Federal Government in both

national laboratories, all of which are directed toward basic public

health research in anti-bioterrorism. They involve all aspects of

controlling the bioterrorist threat, including prevention, early detection, and therapeutic intervention. One such product is the Animal Development Center, which serves as the testing site for

DARPA, with ties to USAMRID, and assists in the development of

promising vaccines and new drug therapies.

Our Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, that Congresswoman Wilson mentioned earlier, was created a year ago, with her

support, and is focused on emerging infections to better understand

the disease process.

And finally, we have established a New Mexico Consortium for

Bioresearch, that has been formed to conduct collaborative and innovative research, with the main focus centered on anti-bioterrorism. The membership of the consortium includes the New Mexico

Department of Health, Sandia Laboratories, and UNM.

Let me comment on some issues related to Federal, State and

local efforts for preparedness, first with regard to coordination and

cooperation among Federal agencies.

I would first like to commend the administration for creating the

Office of Homeland Security. Although Director Ridge has a huge

challenge ahead of him in assuring the safety of all Americans, the

creation of this office is something that our country has needed for

a long time. I know, from my personal experience in responding to

natural and manmade disasters, that the primary inefficiencies in

these response efforts have centered on poor coordination and communication among the responsible Federal, State and local agencies. The only way that Director Ridge can successfully assure the

safety of our country’s citizens is to have the authority he needs

over the vast array of the agencies involved with bioterrorism preparedness and response.

We must clarify the relationship between the Office of Homeland

Security and FEMA. Both of these organizations have seemingly

similar missions, and it is imperative that a division of responsibility be outlined.

Next, with regard to preparation of the Federal, State and local

emergency management responders to coordinate a response to a

biological or chemical terrorist attack, in my view, we are only in

the very early stages of developing a reasonable response. For

many years, public health capacity has been gradually deteriorating, and despite much effort, still needs to be reinvigorated with

substantial resources. It will take a huge effort to reverse this

trend.

And finally, with regard to how Congress and the executive

branch can address surge capacity in the public health system, I

would like to emphasize one point, that no discussion regarding

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overall healthcare surge capacity can be complete without considering hospital capacity. There currently appears to be very little attention placed on the Nation’s medical and hospital infrastructure.

This piece to the complex puzzle of assuring our preparedness for

bioterrorist acts is, in fact, the most critical. There is no minimizing the dire straits that our country’s healthcare system is in

today. Every day, hospitals are at capacity and are constantly battling to keep their doors open for their patients.

In New Mexico, we are seeing a progressive deteriorating in our

hospitals’ abilities to admit acutely ill patients. One way we monitor our hospital capabilities is to track the number of times each

hospital diverts emergency patients away to other hospitals due to

the lack of in-patient beds. In our system today, this has been occurring so frequently by so many hospitals, that we have had to develop an inter-hospital agreement that forces all hospitals to open

when they all go on divert. That has to occur even if patients have

to remain in the emergency department for extended periods of

time.

Now we track the numbers of times we must invoke this state

of forced openings. Over the past 3 years, the frequency of forced

openings has increased dramatically, indicating an ever-dwindling

ability of our healthcare system to accommodate even the normal

volume of emergency cases. In fact, Albuquerque hospitals are

often on divert more hours each week than they are open.

Current hospital admissions data for the State of New Mexico

shows that there are over 3,000 admissions and approximately

10,000 emergency room visits each week. Clearly then, the sudden

influx of hundreds and potentially thousands more patients into

this current situation, as a result of bioterrorist attack, would result in a collapse of the system, not only increasing the morbidity

and mortality of these patients, but all of the patients ordinarily

cared for by hospitals.

That concludes my prepared remarks, and I’d be pleased to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Roth follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Dr. Sewell came in after everybody else had already

been sworn in. So we can swear you in. So if you’ll stand and raise

your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are also fortunate

here in the State of New Mexico to have a very strong and integrated Department of Public Health and epidemiological laboratory. I know that in some States, health departments are kind of

county by county. Here we have a very strong State-level Department of Health, and Dr. Sewell is the head epidemiologist for the

State of New Mexico. He has been there as the State epidemiologist

since 1989, and brings a wealth of experience in the study of disease.

And it is very much our pleasure to have you here today.

Dr. Sewell.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES MACK SEWELL, M.D., STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST, PUBLIC HEALTH DIVISION, NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Dr. SEWELL. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Representative Udall,

Representative Wilson, it’s a pleasure to be here this morning.

My name, again, is Max Sewell. I’m the State epidemiologist,

Public Health Division, New Mexico Department of Health. Secretary Alex Valdez asked me to represent him today. He had prior

commitments and could not be here. He extends his appreciation

for the opportunity to testify before this committee.

I have been with the Department of Health here in New Mexico

since 1984, and State epidemiologist since 1989. My training is in

epidemiology, public health, and microbiology, and I also represent

the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. I’m on their

executive board. This is an organization that represents epidemiologists and State and local health departments throughout

the country.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to examine how the Federal Government is assisting State and local governments prepare

for a potential terrorist attack involving biological, chemical or nuclear agents. The New Mexico Department of Health has been

working on public health preparedness for bioterrorism for over 2

years, funded through a cooperative agreement with the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention. In that time, we have

partnered with other State, local and Federal agencies in improving public health infrastructure in the State.

Contrary to the situation just a few years ago, we now work regularly with Federal agencies such as the FBI, FEMA, and our national laboratories. Historically, the New Mexico Department of

Health has worked most closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provides funding for many of our programs.

While the action of terrorists may be hard to predict, one thing

is certain: A biological attack, like the recent anthrax scare, would

manifest through the medical and public health system, and severely overburden the existing public health infrastructure. The

goals of terrorism are not only to harm people but also to spread

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massive panic and fear throughout the population. Chemical and

nuclear terrorism would also involve the medical and public health

system, but would likely manifest much differently than a biological event. National experts believe that the threat of bioterrorism

remains very real and necessitates and justifies the action that

Congress has taken in the last few years to improve our abilities

to detect and respond to any such event.

The recent anthrax episodes in Florida, Washington, DC, New

Jersey, and New York were relatively small events compared to

both historical examples and potential events. However, they clearly dominated the activity of the CDC, FBI, State and local health

departments, hospitals, and others, for several months.

I would urge you to consider the importance of a seamless response system involving Federal, State and local agencies. The recent funding provided by Congress is essential to implementing regional and State planning, disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, information technology infrastructure, communications strategy, and training that is necessary to effectively detect and respond

to any bioterrorist threat.

More importantly, the assurance of continued funding is essential to allow agencies to recruit and retain staff, build laboratory

capacity, develop and exercise response plans, train medical staff,

and develop essential communication plans to inform the public.

Having dedicated and appropriately trained staff is the most important element of public health infrastructure for a bioterrorist response and for improving public health through other essential

services.

This seamless system also needs to include FEMA, police and

public safety, fire and emergency medical service personnel, so that

first-responders and disaster personnel are similarly trained

throughout the country. We need to have similar language and an

understanding of concepts between Federal, State and local government agencies and between different disciplines, such as public

health, medicine, public safety, for example.

Last, I would like to make you aware of the need to replace the

existing laboratory facility that currently houses our Scientific Laboratory Division, the Office of the Medical Investigator and the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. The Scientific Laboratory Division

is one of five State health department laboratories in the country

to have received supplemental CDC funding for chemical terrorism.

The New Mexico Legislature has approved planning and design

funds for a new quad laboratory building, which would house all

of the existing functions, as well as the State Crime Laboratory.

Replacing this aging structure, which has greatly outgrown its existing space, with a more modern and secure facility is also a priority for us.

The potential for the quad lab to become a regional reference laboratory and to serve the needs of an expanding border population

is essential to public health and to national security. This laboratory can only happen with Federal support.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Sewell follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. You have a lot of information

that we need to know and that we need to help you. And that is

why, to all of you, if you could, take a look at our State laws here

in New Mexico, or the region, the southwest, that would inhibit the

sharing of information between Federal, State and local officials.

We have that problem at the Federal level, but it also sometimes

occurs at the State level, and so if you have something you can put

into the record in the next few weeks, we’d appreciate it.

So we can—we’ll also have the American Law Division of the Library of Congress, and we’ll see if we can’t find these laws, then.

We need to do it in advance, and we need to relate to it. And we

have legislation in, that both Judiciary and Government Reform

will work with it when we get back there. So that would be very

helpful, if you would.

I’m going to ask Mr. Yim, of GAO, to join us, and we’ll do him

after we’ve had all of the panel. We always ask the representative

the General Accounting Office to say, have we missed something.

That’s why we have him here.

Let me ask a few things, and then I’ll yield it over to Representative Wilson on most of the things. But I have been very interested

in the laboratory situation in any State, and you obviously have a

very good and what would be the major laboratory here. But if we

had a germ warfare thing, or anything else, do we have, besides

your laboratory, nonprofit laboratories that could be able to look at

and see what it is that’s going on? And you don’t know, often, for

weeks, when you have a germ warfare type of thing, and I’m just

curious, where are the other things besides your laboratory?

Dr. SEWELL. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I think,

obviously, any laboratory and epidemiologic response is very much

going to depend on the agent and how it were dispersed. Of the potential agents, the ones that are on most people’s lists of possible

agents, things like anthrax, smallpox, they all have very specific

ways they would be dealt with.

One of the interesting things is that our State laboratory, some

months ago, before the September 11th episode, and then subsequent anthrax attacks, sent out some nonpathogenic strains of anthrax to clinical laboratories, and they found that not a single one

of them were able to identify anthrax. Now, since then, that has

since changed. And there have been additional efforts to get better

training in clinical laboratories thought the State.

In most States—New Mexico is no exception—specimens are frequently referred to the State laboratory, because they function as

a reference laboratory. Specimens are also sent, depending on the

situation, to the CDC. Certainly, any suspect smallpox cases, specimens, would be sent, automatically, to the CDC in Atlanta for

analysis, because they have the reagents and capability to do so.

I think that our local hospital labs, and certainly, the medical

staff, play a key role in recognizing any potential event. They’re the

frontline, and perhaps Dr. Roth may wish to followup on that, because that’s the real key to recognizing an event, is that the right

questions are asked, the right expertise is brought in early on.

Mr. HORN. What about the universities and colleges and even

high school laboratories? If we’re trying to find out what this—

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whatever it is, and we don’t really know what it will be, can they

be of help?

Dr. SEWELL. It depends, again, on the situation. I think they may

be of help. I think that for medical-type testing, the greatest level

of expertise tends to be in the bigger commercial clinical laboratories, the State lab, and certainly the university arena. Many of

the universities have a lot of laboratory testing, but in many other

areas.

Again, there’s—I think one of the difficulties with terrorism is

that one is only limited by one’s imagination, whether there could

be some novel agents or novel chemicals, biological agents, but certainly, they tend to fall into groups. And the conventional wisdom

is that many of the agents that would be likely to be used are fairly

predictable. And they fall into things like anthrax, plague, tularemia, smallpox, for the biological agents; there are a whole host

of chemical agents that potentially could be used. Again, we do

have good expertise, both at the State lab and at the university,

in diagnostic capabilities.

Mr. HORN. Now, if we had such a situation, what’s the capacity

of the State of New Mexico, in terms of beds in hospitals and how

that would be dealt with? And would the National Guard have,

perhaps, mobile canvas-type situations that you’d have in a wartime; MASH, in essence. And I’d be interested to know if we’re prepared there.

Dr. SEWELL. I’ll take a first pass. I think that New Mexico—one

of the things we did, several months ago, was a survey sponsored

by the Department of Justice on capacity. And the results of that

survey are available. I don’t happen to recall, off the top of my

head, issues like bed capacity and county emergency management

personnel. But that was assessed during that Department of Justice survey. Perhaps Dr. Roth could comment, better than I, in

terms of the issues of bed capacity. And again, what I heard him

say, in our discussions we had before, is the system is already experiencing issues even without a bioterrorist attack.

Dr. ROTH. Mr. Chairman, in response to the earlier question,

with regard to medical staffs’ capabilities, and laboratory capabilities, the training that’s been already implemented in New Mexico

for hospital staff and in emergency departments around—really,

nationally, including New Mexico, all would allow us to better recognize, in a fairly early way, syndromes that would present in the

context of a bioterrorist attack. So I think we would be able to be

alerted. I think the area of greatest need, at this point, is to try

to consolidate this data through technology and have an opportunity to recognize this phenomena much earlier than we might at

this point.

With regard to additional laboratory capabilities, the medical

school currently has four—what are called BSL3 laboratories,

which is the second-highest safety level laboratory there is. There

are currently discussions underway to provide backup to the scientific laboratory, the Department of Health’s laboratory in the

event of the need for that level of diagnostics.

Part of what Dr. Sewell mentioned earlier, with regard to the

quad services building, is inclusive of a BSL4, at least in the very

early stages of development, which would permit us to go the next

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step in not only research for vaccines and drug development, but

again, to help back up the scientific laboratories.

With regard to bed capacity, I guess that’s where I tend to be the

most concerned. It’s my belief that we have very limited surge capacity for hospitals, as I mentioned in my testimony. If we were to

deal with—if one were to consider the worst-case scenario of smallpox, and even if we had, initially, only 50 patients that presented

to various institutions around the State, the nature of that particular disease is such that you would anticipate a tenfold next wave

of those who have already been exposed and contaminated.

Whether the system could handle 500 or 5,000, I believe, we do

not have the capability of dealing with that volume, considering

that about a third of those patients will go on to die, even under

the best of the circumstances. The necessary critical care beds for,

hopefully, preventing some of those deaths, are clearly not present

in the State of New Mexico. I don’t believe that they are present

in any State in the United States.

And that concludes my response to that question, sir.

Mr. HORN. Well, we’ll get back to a few others, then. I want my

colleagues to ask a number of questions, and then we’ll get back

to, maybe, what the National Guard is planning to do.

But I do want to throw this in, because we started these hearings in Nashville. A very fine university there, just as a very fine

university here. And one of the things we found out was that the

communication situation of the military helicopters, if you’re bringing people to the hospital and so forth, and the civilian ones, they

can’t talk to each other; they have a different frequency. So one of

the things we’ve got to deal with is how do we connect the civilians

and the military, in this kind of a situation, so they know what’s

going on.

Representative Wilson.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And just to follow on

to that, it’s not only the National Guard, but the active duty military, here in New Mexico, I would think that if we had a national

disaster, we would be searching for all kinds of capability. In fact,

down in Alamogordo, they have a lot of the surge sets for overseas

deployment, which, if we were to try to pull in the event of a national disaster, would be accessible, but it’s the planning and communication in advance and it’s the knowledge of what might be

available that’s often part of the challenge.

General, what I wanted to ask, you mentioned in your testimony

about the Civil Support Teams, 22-member team, and the difficulty

of not having the backfill capacity. What needs to change, or what

authority do you need to have, in order to make sure that if you

have a radiological doctor that’s out of service, that you’ve still got

the capacity you need to do your job?

General RANDALL HORN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson,

the issue basically becomes that we have no bench, if I can use a

sports field type of example. We have no bench. If we lose a player,

for whatever reason, a personal reason or one being engaged in the

action that they’re trained to be involved with, is we have no one

trained to fill in behind them. Each one of these 22 people are specifically trained to do a specific thing; there’s not a whole lot of

overlap between them. For instance, the radiological doctor, they’re

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not easy to come by. And we have no capability to train someone,

even partially, who could fill in behind that person should something happen. So that’s the issue.

I think the thing that needs to be done is to expand the positions

on those teams such that we could try and look ahead and say,

‘‘Well, is this position’’—‘‘is this person looking at leaving in the

near-term future,’’ and if so, it would allow us to put somebody into

a backfill position, to have them trained and ready to move in,

if——

Mrs. WILSON. Is that a question of the authorization of those

slots that you have available in the Guard, or what prevents you

from doing that now?

General RANDALL HORN. Well, we are specifically restrained from

hiring more than the 22 people that are in those slots. So it’s an

issue of a manning document, if you will; it’s what we call a ‘‘manning document.’’ We’re specifically told how many positions we can

use to fill against that mission.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you.

Dr. Sewell, what is the difference; how would you expect a manmade epidemic, an attack, to be different from a natural disease

outbreak, and what—as an epidemiologist, you look at the progression of disease and how a disease spreads. How should we be

thinking differently if that’s an intentional use of disease as a

weapon, if you will. How do we need to change our thinking for

manmade epidemics?

Dr. SEWELL. Congresswoman Wilson, I think that’s an excellent

question. Of course, we’ve had experience with all of these agents

that have been discussed, throughout history. I’m old enough to

have been vaccinated against smallpox, but from a professional

standpoint, I’ve never had to deal with it, because the disease was

eradicated from the globe. I think that the issue is that a sinister

mind could conceive of a situation that could be very disruptive and

deadly, depending on how that scenario were played out.

I think a good example would be anthrax. We’ve dealt with anthrax, here in the State of New Mexico, since it’s a soil bacteria;

it’s a disease found in cattle. Some of the old cattle trails that came

up through Texas, on up into Wyoming and Montana, the soil is

still contaminated. We have periodically dealt with cattle, here in

New Mexico, that have died from anthrax, and the testing at the

Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, here in Albuquerque, part of the

quad—or the existing laboratory facility, made the diagnosis.

I think the difference is that a terrorist could—and one of the

things that came out in the recent anthrax episodes on the East

Coast, was that, apparently, it didn’t take very much anthrax,

dried spore material, to be widely dispersed and make several persons ill and kill several people. And this was a learning curve, I

think, for the CDC and for others. Who would have predicted that

sealed envelopes going through mail-sorting machines could have

made postal workers ill? There just has not been a huge amount

of experience with this disease.

There was an episode in the former Soviet Union where there

was an accidental release that killed, I think, around 65 or so

cases, something like that. And there have been other, so to say,

accidents. But I think the difference is that an evil-intentioned perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00171 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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son could release what could literally be a small amount of material, if they had appropriate technology to release it, could wreak

havoc on a large population and kill or injure tens of thousands of

people.

Mr. HORN. Let me just ask about this vaccine. I have it. You had

it. And if you had a rogue government of some sort try to get smallpox throughout America, or even in just one city, just to make a

terror, which is what they’re trying to do, that vaccine you and I

had as little kids, and we didn’t have smallpox, but would that do

us any good at this point, and if not, what do we do about it, in

terms of vaccine?

Dr. SEWELL. I think that there’s still some debate out there.

Clearly, those of us that were vaccinated as children may have

some protection, but it’s probably greatly reduced from the protection we might have had decades ago. I think perhaps a bigger issue

would be all of our children, who have never been vaccinated, who

are completely and totally susceptible to smallpox. I think the Federal Government, in my personal view, has taken the appropriate

steps in terms of developing stockpile smallpox vaccine, to make it

available should we need it.

There are still some issues, I think, that need to be worked out

between Federal and State and local government. State health departments, for instance, cannot access the vaccine today. It’s under

the control of the CDC and released only by approval of the CDC

director. I think we need to reexamine this policy as more vaccine

is produced. The current vaccine, of course, is one that you just

don’t want to give to everybody, because there are significant side

effects of the current vaccine. So I think that we need a balanced

approach here.

But as more vaccine is produced, I think we should examine

whether we should, on a State-by-State, hospital-by-hospital basis,

have a few persons pre-immunized. We need to have a very balanced and cautious approach, I would advise.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Mrs. WILSON. Nick, I’ve wanted to ask you, you mentioned the

training for first-responders. From your perspective, being responsible for all of the first-responders in city of Albuquerque, what is

the greatest need that is currently unmet? What do your people

need that they don’t now have?

Mr. BAKAS. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wilson, just last

week, we were at our emergency command center here in Albuquerque, on the west side, specifically going through a scenario of—

I think it was a sarin gas scenario. The training that we need and

we’re trying to develop is how does the first-responder recognize

what they’re coming upon. After 30 years in law enforcement, I

don’t have a clue, with respect to an anthrax incident, a sarin incident, those types of things. Basically, our people would be going in

blind. Not only that, we have no protective equipment, going into

that type of situation.

Our policies and procedures with respect to the command center

need to be looked at and analyzed for the best effective response.

This is a totally new area for us, in how to respond. This is an

issue that we’ve never had to encounter. And as we mentioned,

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planning is key. We’re going to do exercises continuously. We’re

working, as we mentioned, with Dean Roth’s folks at the hospital

to recognize some of these issues, to make our officers aware of

these issues.

And in passing, let me also say, I know that General Horn mentioned the backfill issue. But let us not forget in our conversations

this morning, that when the National Guard is called up, the individuals you’re calling up are police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers. So the challenge for us is, when they’re doing their

active duty, we still have a city to protect and calls to respond to.

So the issue for us is a grave issue.

Additionally, what we must do within our various zones of public

safety is cross-train. There is absolutely no reason why a firefighter

cannot perform some law enforcement duties, or vice versa. Those

types of issues, clearly, have to be addressed.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Udall.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, let me thank you all for coming and tell you I think

you’re all—your testimony has been very, very helpful. And I think

you are pointing out some things where we could be a lot more effective. I think the comment by Dr. Sewell on the vaccine and the

CDC; in addition, Dr. Roth’s comment about public health and improving the public health system we’ve created, and I know, Dr. Sewell, that’s an interest of yours; we’ve let that languish too long.

And it’s not only important for terrorism; it’s important for public

health, as we’re interconnected and we see many of the diseases

that are spreading, I think, around the world. And this issue that

Nick just brought up, in terms of equipment and training.

So I think you’re bringing some very important things to the

table here today. Many of you probably listened to some of the earlier panel that were here, and you heard many of these Federal

agencies that are supposed to be interacting with you, supposed to

coordinate, cooperate, share information, understand and help you

deal with these kinds of threats. And what I’m wondering is, what

type of grade do you give them? I don’t want this to degenerate into

a piling onto the feds situation. But what are the areas that really

can be improved? Where are the areas that we’re having problems?

And really, the thrust of this hearing is how that cooperative effort

is going, and what thoughts do you have on that? And that’s to any

of the panelists here today.

Mr. BAKAS. In the absence of anybody else speaking, Mr. Chairman, Representative Udall, I would give the Federal Government,

across the board, a C-minus or a D-plus in exchange of information.

And I think Mr. Dean correctly set out that there are different statutory schemes, of which, Mr. Chairman, you’ve already spoken to,

that can be undone, that prohibit the flow of information. Some information is coming, but it’s usually very limited and very late.

Mr. HORN. Any other thoughts on that question? It’s a very important question.

General RANDALL HORN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Udall, I

think the Federal Government has been doing pretty well. I guess

I would give them more of a grade along a B. The issues that we

have in front of us, a year ago, were not even, really, contemplated.

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The issues that we have in front of us today require that we quickly throwup some kind of a guard, if you will, a preventive measure.

But what I think the Federal Government needs to start working

on now is refining those responses to the areas that we think can

give us the biggest bang for our buck.

There is no way that this government, whether it be State, local

or Federal, is going to protect the citizens of the United States

against a terrorist attack on all fronts. We don’t have the money,

and we don’t have the people. So what we have to do is carefully

decide, what are the areas that we think we’re most exposed in,

and to cover from there.

But I think what the Federal Government can mostly do is to

work on the intelligence angle and be ready to respond to the perpetrators of the attack. That’s where we can get the biggest bang

for our buck, in terms of making sure that anybody who is thinking

about doing something knows that it’s going to get back to them.

And if we can identify who that person or that group is, that’s

going to be the greatest thing we can do.

Mr. UDALL. Dr. Roth, you mentioned surge capacity. Is that

something we only need in terms of a terrorism attack, or is it

something we need, if you set aside terrorism and the threats

weren’t there and September 11th hadn’t happened, is it something

we need in terms of public health? And how do we upgrade that;

how do we move in that direction? Do we need additional Federal

resources devoted to this?

Dr. ROTH. Well, I can speak mostly to the specific area of hospital and medical surge capacity, to be distinguished from an overall public health surge capacity. I’ll let Dr. Sewell speak, perhaps,

to that question.

I think, from my personal observations, the ability of a hospital

and its medical staff to respond to significant swings in volume has

more or less disappeared. And that capability has probably taken,

perhaps, 7 to 10 years to occur. And I think what significantly

dealt a significant blow to hospital capacity was the Balanced

Budget Act of 97. That had significantly reduced resources flowing

to hospitals, and the basic infrastructure necessary to support the

reserves and the ability of a hospital to contend with significant

volumes more or less has disappeared.

We can deal with a narrow range today, but, certainly, if there

was either a natural epidemic, a naturally occurring epidemic, such

as an influenza—it wouldn’t even have to be an epidemic; a small

increase or moderate increase in the volume of individuals suffering from influenza, which is not an out-of-the-box notion, I don’t believe the average hospital in New Mexico could deal with that.

The workforce issues for hospitals has continued to deteriorate;

the ability for hospitals to hire nurses, to hire technicians. There’s

currently enough—or at least early data that would suggest that

this country will be suffering from a physician shortage, and this

is in great counterdistinction to studies done in the early 90’s, that

would have suggested that there would be a surplus of physicians

by this point. And I think, as a result of those studies, training programs around the country substantially cut back positions and

even modified the ratio of primary care to specialty programs.

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And all of these factors taken into consideration, along with managed care, I think, has not just disrupted, but I think significantly

rendered the modern healthcare system in the United States into

a very compromised position, as we currently speak. And I do not

hold out that much hope that even within the next few years, even

if there were significant changes, that we would see much of a

change.

As to what the Federal Government can do, I think issues

around reimbursement are obvious, to whatever extent some of the

impact of the Balanced Budget Act of 97 can be reexamined. Other

types of regulation that would significantly increase the costs of

hospitals are the HIPAA regulations, which is projected to cost hospitals $7 million in infrastructure costs, which could have done as

programming. I am encouraged by recent statements from the administration in regard to perhaps backing off slightly on those

issues, while trying to strike a reasonable balance to patient safety

and patient confidentiality.

But I think, with regard to infrastructure support, other grants,

personal moneys that are flowing to States for hospital capacity are

a very nice beginning. I know, in New Mexico, we’ve received under

$1 million for all of our hospitals; that can go to some extent to

support planning and maybe some education, but clearly not address capital improvement or workforce issues.

An example would be the reference I made earlier to the Health

Sciences Center, in rewriting our disaster plan to accommodate a

potential biological terrorist attack in New Mexico. In order to effectively handle patients infected by organisms that we are worried

about, it would require a substantial change in everything from our

ventilation system to the types of supplies and the training and the

preparation for our staff. We estimate that would cost nearly $3

million. That is only one facility in the State. There would be similar, proportionate increases for any hospital in New Mexico.

Mr. HORN. Any other questions?

Mr. UDALL. Just let me—Dr. Sewell, were you going to say——

Dr. SEWELL. I was just going to make a quick followup to your

question, if I may.

Mr. UDALL. Sure.

Dr. SEWELL. I’m not sure that I could come up with a letter

grade. I do think that, speaking for the New Mexico Department

of Health, we’ve been working with Federal agencies for a long

time, particularly the CDC, and we have been working with Federal and other local agencies, before September 11th. I would state,

though, that the increased funding that has come down in the last

couple of years has certainly improved that communication, because we now have some resources to do some things. We’re

partnering both with Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs. We’re working closely with the university; we have

been for many years. And we are getting to know the FBI.

I think the concern, though, that I wanted to express was in my

testimony, and the concern I’ve heard Secretary Valdez express, is

concern about whether we have the staying power here in this

country. There is a lot of concern and interest now around bioterrorism and bioterrorism preparedness. Clearly, the recent funding that’s come down for State health departments, in my view, is

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greatly needed, and we’re going to do our best to try to put it to

good use. The issue, though, that keeps coming up is ‘‘Well, will

this money be here next year and the year after, and so on?’’.

And I realize it’s hard for Congress to make a commitment way

out, on some of these things, but we do clearly need that support

to continue to allow us to do the things we need to do. The concern

might be that if no event occurs in the next year, will there be

pressure then to be reduce some of the funding that’s coming down.

And again, a request that we all stick in there for the long haul.

Mr. UDALL. Let me just thank the panel again, and tell you that

I hope this is an opening dialog with you, about how all of us can

do our jobs better, and I hope that you will not hesitate to let us

know how we can work more effectively and cooperatively together

on terrorism, or any other issues.

And I’m going to have to excuse myself, Mr. Chairman. I’ve got

some other commitments.

But once again, thank you very much for coming, and thank you

for your very good testimony.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming. I

know you’ve got a lot of constituency things to do.

I want Mr. Yim, on behalf of the General Accounting Office, to

tell us what we are missing.

Mr. YIM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It’s very hard to add to the comments of this distinguished panel.

But as an attorney, let me attempt a few comments, if I could.

First of all, I think that Mr. English points out that what we

need to do, if we’re going to have an affordable and sustainable

strategy, is to augment existing mechanisms; not necessarily build

a new bureaucracy. And I think that’s exactly on point. We need

to look at ways that we can adapt existing mechanisms, like the

wonderful FEMA response that he’s talking about, to handle the

unique situations of terrorism.

Mr. Bakas points out the need to plan now. I think that’s exactly

right. But one of the things we need to plan, also, is to look at regional aid, regional compacts, mutual aid agreements, so it’s not

just a local jurisdiction having to plan for every contingency, but

to what extent can we bring larger regions together to augment our

response.

General Horn talks about the many missions of the Guard and

the problem of backfill. I think we need to be sensitive to the plight

of the employers and the individuals, and the sacrifices when they

perform both their Guard and Reserve duties, and how can we

make it easier upon them to contribute their skills to this national

fabric.

Mr. Busboom talks about the close coordination between the private and public sector; absolutely critical. I think it’s very instrumental for us in looking at what type of Federal programs we

should design. If we’re designing programs that are very applicable

to State and local governments, they could have no applicability to

augmenting private sector resources. So are we looking at, for example, tax credits issues, or making available to the private sector

insurance, terrorism insurance; it may be harder and harder to get.

But that needs to be a fundamental examination; when we’re augVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:10 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00176 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84814.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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menting capabilities, there’s differences between public and private

sector.

Dr. Roth talks about the role of transferring expertise and surge

capacity. I think that really points out that what we need to do is

focus on recapitalizing some of our infrastructure, as a way not

only to augment that capacity, but to lessen the likelihood that

would be a terrorist attack. It could be not only hospital capacity;

it could be highway system capacities; it could be energy, power

distribution line capacities. We need to really look carefully at that.

And also the role of our hospital systems and medical providers in

early detection and surveillance; not merely response, but giving us

that extra 24 or 48 hours to respond to a bioterrorist activity.

And finally, from Dr. Sewell, the education role that he points

out, I think, is absolutely critical. One of the problems was just the

insufficiency in the activities being taken as a result of the anthrax

scares, and can we disseminate good, good scientific information, so

that our policymakers can make reasoned choices.

I think this was a very excellent panel. It’s hard to add, Mr.

Chairman, to their comments.

Mr. HORN. Let me ask you a question that a lot of citizens have

told me, and that is, with the various current reactors that we have

for getting the electricity—Illinois is a good example; much of their

electricity is generated by nuclear forms, and I don’t know the degree to which New Mexico has any of their energy coming from a

reactor. There is certainly one in Arizona, I believe. So, if you had

some nut that drove a plane into the reactor, what would that

mean to the people of New Mexico? Do we know that?

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, New Mexico does not have any nuclear reactors producing power here. We do have research reactors

at both of our national laboratories, and we’ve had some discussions, at the classified level, with respect to protecting their security. And I believe maybe Mr. Busboom may be able to discuss that

a little bit, although possibly not in this forum.

Mr. BUSBOOM. Mr. Chairman, I’d be glad to followup with you

this afternoon on that very question, while you’re at Los Alamos.

Mr. HORN. That would be fine.

Now, I mentioned that helicopter example in Nashville, and

we’ve had a lot of input from the law enforcement part on the frequencies and the broadband, and all that we’ve got to do to get

interoperability between these. What are we seeing here and to

what degree are you able to deal with it, or are you simply doing

it by region or nationally? And the frequency problem, in particular.

Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Chairman, I think we have a number of problems across the frequencies. The city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo

County, where we’re at now, utilize an 800 megahertz system. The

rest of the cities in New Mexico utilize a much lower megahertz

system. In addition to what General Horn alluded to, the fact is

that the military units are all on separate frequencies. And in fact,

current regulations require the Guard to have accountability for

the property within their stores; therefore, it’s not even within our

ability to provide them with radios to reach us on the proper frequencies. So a complete relook at this is absolutely essential to our

ability to have a unified response.

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Mr. HORN. Any other thoughts on that?

Well, if not, I want to first thank the following people, and then

I have a closing, that takes about a minute. To my left is J. Russell

George, the staff director and chief counsel for the subcommittee.

And our hardworking clerk, Justin Paulhamus, is here, and he’s

setting-up these hearings, so we can get things done.

And we also want to thank the field representative to Representative Wilson, and that’s Jane Altwies and then Raul Alvillar, who

is the Field Representative to Representative Udall.

And then Beth Horna, with an ‘‘A,’’ Facility Coordinator, University of New Mexico Continuing Education, which is this beautiful,

wonderful place, to have people from throughout New Mexico and

America, to be in this setting, where you can relate to each other

and get some ideas. We are really thankful to the New Mexico University, and a lot of Beth Horna’s team are in this building, and

if they’re around, thanks.

And the court reporter, of course, is always overworked, and

that’s Lynne Page Rasmussen. There she is. So thank you very

much.

I want to thank all of the witnesses. This was the third of a series of field hearings that this subcommittee has held around the

Nation. The goal of these hearings is to learn what our government

can do to ensure that our Nation is prepared to respond to any

threat posed to it. The testimony received today will help reach

that goal. And post September 11th, we truly live in a new world.

But you’re helping us solve some of these problems, and I think

this is a really excellent panel. So thank you.

And I’ll yield to my colleague.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for coming to New Mexico and allowing New Mexicans to tell their story

of the things that New Mexico is doing that then can be modeled

in the Nation, and things that we need to do in Washington to

make it easier to get things done here.

I do want to say that, following this, General Horn will be taking

us out to the parking lot, where there’s a demonstration set up by

the National Guardsmen and their chem/bio response gear. Everyone is welcome to come on out to see what the National Guard can

do.

Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for coming to New Mexico.

Mr. HORN. It’s a pleasure.

OK, we’ll follow the general. With that, we’re adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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