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84–815 PDF 2003

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 28, 2002

Serial No. 107–163

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

BONNIE HEALD, Deputy Staff Director

JUSTIN PAULHAMUS, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 28, 2002 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Baca, Lee, sheriff, Los Angeles County; Joseph E. Tait, executive vice

president and chief operating officer, Metropolitan Water Department;

Casey Chel, disaster preparedness manager, city of Long Beach; Terry

L. Harbour, chief, Long Beach Fire Department; Ellis Stanley, Emergency Management Services, city of Los Angeles; Bernie Wilson, Los

Angeles International Airport Police Department; and Larry Keller,

executive director, Port of Los Angeles ....................................................... 89

Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region 6, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Kevin Yeskey, Director, Bioterrorism Response Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Ronald L. Iden,

Assistant Director in Charge, Los Angeles Division, Federal Bureau

of Investigation; Patricia Dalton, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; Dallas Jones, director, Governor’s Office of

Emergency Services, State of California; and Diana Bonta, director,

California Department of Health Services, State of California ................ 6

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

Baca, Lee, sheriff, Los Angeles County, prepared statement of ................... 92

Bonta, Diana, director, California Department of Health Services, State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 70

Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region 6, Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared statement of ..................................................... 9

Chel, Casey, disaster preparedness manager, city of Long Beach, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 101

Dalton, Patricia, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 38

Harbour, Terry L., chief, Long Beach Fire Department, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 105

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

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

Iden, Ronald L., Assistant Director in Charge, Los Angeles Division,

Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ........................... 28

Jones, Dallas, director, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 60

Millender-McDonald, Hon. Juanita, a Representative in Congress from

the State of California, prepared statement of ........................................... 118

Tait, Joseph E., executive vice president and chief operating officer, Metropolitan Water Department, prepared statement of ................................ 97

Yeskey, Kevin, Director, Bioterrorism Response Program, Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, prepared statement of ........................... 17

(1)

HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE

AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL,

CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?

THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Los Angeles, CA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at the Los

Angeles City Hall, Board of Public Works Hearing Room, 200

North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Members present: Representatives Horn, Millender-McDonald

and Watson.

STAFF PRESENT: J. RUSSELL GEORGE, STAFF DIRECTOR AND CHIEF

COUNSEL; BONNIE HEALD, DEPUTY STAFF DIRECTOR; JUSTIN

PAULHAMUS, CLERK; AND DAVID MCMILLEN, MINORITY PROFES- SIONAL STAFF MEMBER.

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

Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.

On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most devastating attacks ever committed on U.S. soil. 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 communication systems and rapid deployment of welltrained emergency personnel. Yet despite billions of dollars in

spending on Federal emergency programs, there remains serious

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

chemical, biological or nuclear attack.

Today, the subcommittee will examine how effectively Federal,

State and local agencies are working together to prepare for such

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emergencies. We want those who live in the great State of California and the good people of Los Angeles and Long Beach 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 frontline. 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.

I am delighted to have today Representative Watson as the ranking Democrat on this committee. She is a member of the full Committee on Government Reform and has done a wonderful job in her

freshman year and doing wonderful work.

We are glad to have you here, Diane, and if you would like to

have an opening statement, please do.

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

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Chairman Horn, for including

me in this meeting and for holding these field hearings here in

southern California on terrorism response preparedness. This hearing provides us an opportunity to hear from the people in the State

and those at local level who are responsible for public safety in the

event of a terrorist attack.

Here in Los Angeles we know that we can count on these brave

men and women who work to protect our people and our infrastructure. We know this because we have faced calamities before, lots

of them, and the lessons that we have learned to prepare for natural disasters mean that our State and our local first-responders

possess valuable real-world experience. This is critical as you prepare to prevent or to face potential manmade disasters. These experiences can also be a value to other States and communities

across the Nation as they seek to develop terrorism response plans

of their own.

This has not been why response plans developed for natural disasters can be applied without modification to respond to this new

kind of terrorism. Preparation for response to a terrorist incident

has its own unique needs. The State of California, under the leadership of Governor Gray Davis, is to be commended for taking action as early as 1999 to approve a terrorism response plan. September 11th only proved the foresight of California’s efforts.

I believe that many of California’s efforts can serve as a model

for other communities and for the Nation as a whole. For example,

even before September 11th, California had to take a hard look at

various threats and risks posed to our State by terrorism, committing to employ our resources in the most constructive way. Our

Federal Government still has not conducted any sort of comprehensive threat and risk assessment. As a result, the President has proposed large increases in homeland security funding without objectively assessing the best way to send these funds. I hope to work

over the coming year with Chairman Horn and my other colleagues

on the Government Reform Committee to persuade the administration to conduct just that—a comprehensive national terrorism

threat and risk assessment.

But despite the differences between emergency planning for natural disasters and emergency planning for terrorism, one thing is

for sure: Both require thoughtful and ample resources and comprehensive planning. I have every confidence that our witnesses

here will describe to us the detailed results of their thoughtful

planning. Hopefully we can then take the fruits of our labor back

to Washington to press for the ample Federal resources necessary

to keep our communities prepared to prevent or respond to terrorism.

And, Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and I want to thank our

witnesses for coming today to share their insights. I will be listening closely.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And I now will yield 5 minutes to Jack

Chois the councilmember for the 5th District of the city of Los Angeles. And we are glad to have you here.

Mr. CHOIS. Thank you very much, Chairman Horn and Congressman Watson, for bringing the attention of the Congress of the

United States here to Los Angeles, and I want to welcome both of

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you and the members of your staffs to Los Angeles City Hall. It

means a lot to me personally that you would do this, because

threat preparedness has been my highest priority for the past several months, and we need all the help we can get locally, we need

all the help we can get to raise attention and awareness of these

issues. And that is what you are doing by your presence here

today. It is extraordinarily important to those of us in local government who are working on these issues day in and day out to know

your commitment and your support.

I just want to tell you very briefly about some of our accomplishments and some of our needs. I was privileged to create our Threat

Preparedness Task Force in Los Angeles over the past several

months, and we did a needs assessment, and we have filled some

of those needs. We increased funding for certain HAZMAT capabilities, we increased funding for certain bomb squad capabilities in

Los Angeles, and I believe I am going to have the support of my

colleagues on the city council within the next week, and we will

create a Threat Preparedness Trust Fund for the city of Los Angeles. So we are doing important work, but the needs are nonetheless

still great to address briefly the topics that you have set forth for

this hearing: the nuclear, biological and chemical areas.

Mr. Chairman, I will tell you that on Monday I had lunch with

our HAZMAT squad just a few blocks from here, one of our two operating full-time HAZMAT squads in the city of Los Angeles. We

have a third one that is being operated on an ad hoc basis. On

their HAZMAT vehicles, they have sophisticated nuclear detection

capabilities, sophisticated nuclear detection equipment. If you go on

to one of our regular fire trucks, Mr. Chair, you will see a big,

clunky, old box, and on the bottom of it are the letters ‘‘CD,’’ Civil

Defense. It is a 1950’s-era device that is unfortunately up to the

current threat that we face in an era where people such as yourselves are confronting the task of planning for dirty bombs and radiological releases. We have tremendous needs there, both in capabilities and plans.

In the area of a mechanical threat, we need another HAZMAT

squad in the city of Los Angeles at a minimum. That’s a matter

of a couple million dollars, and it is a real struggle here in this

building in this era of diminishing budget to secure those funds,

and that is the area where we desperately need help.

And in the area of biological preparedness, frankly, given the

tentative and teetering state of our public health system in the Los

Angeles area, we are in desperate need of Federal assistance, Federal planning, Federal funding, and indeed a national effort is no

doubt called for. I am sure that both of you would agree with me

that while a national solution is called for here, a Federal solution

is not what we need, because the first-responders are local, and the

first response will always be up to local government.

That is what I and my colleagues here spend a lot of time on.

You have a wonderful panel. In particular, I should note to you

that you will be hearing from Sheriff Lee Baca, whose efforts in

creating the Terrorism Early Warning Group in Los Angeles, an accounting organization which I have worked to get the city of Los

Angeles to participate in and fully fund, I think is a model for the

6

Nation in terms of terrorism response, intelligence and coordination.

Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much for taking this time,

because you have a real respect for what these things are all about,

and we have really used the city of Los Angeles and the County

of Los Angeles on what we have done over the years in earthquakes. We now get the rest of the Nation to face-up to something

that is not just earthquakes, and this panel will bring out a lot of

those things.

The way we operate is that we have the experts from the governmental areas in which we work, and we go right down the line, and

we don’t question them until the whole panel has got it on the

table. And then we will go down the line with each member, 5 minutes at a time, questioning.

At this time, if you don’t mind, we’ll have all witnesses rise and

raise their right hand to accept the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. So we start with Mr. Ron Castleman, Regional Director, Region 6. He is based in Dallas, TX for the Federal Emergency

Management Agency [FEMA], dear to us all, and I want to thank

your work. You have been with us already in two of our hearings,

and we are glad to have you because you always add something

new to it. And we have great appreciation for what FEMA has done

to help us with the Los Angeles River. When I went to Congress,

that was a real problem, and thanks to the Corps of Engineers and

thanks to FEMA we have got that done, and it was done within

the money that was needed, and it is now one that won’t get over

the banks and thousands of people will not have their homes

harmed. So we thank FEMA for what it has done in cooperation.

Mr. Castleman.

STATEMENTS OF RON CASTLEMAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, REGION 6, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY;

KEVIN YESKEY, DIRECTOR, BIOTERRORISM RESPONSE PROGRAM, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION;

RONALD L. IDEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE, LOS ANGELES DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; PATRICIA DALTON, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; DALLAS JONES, DIRECTOR,

GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES, STATE OF

CALIFORNIA; AND DIANA BONTA, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. For the

record, I am Ron Castleman, regional director, Region 6 of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it is a pleasure to be

here today. I am a former resident of Los Angeles County, so I am

just glad to be back here.

I want to discuss how FEMA is assisting State and local governments to prepare for potential terrorist attacks. FEMA’s vision 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 as well as volunteer organizaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions. 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. The 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 Americans. The programs are designed to strengthen capabilities to protect public health, safety and property both before and following a

disaster.

As you know, the Gilmore Commission issued its second report

in December 2000, stressing the importance of giving State and

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

and application procedures and to include first-responder participation for Federal preparedness programs. These findings and recommendations have been echoed in other commission and GAO reports by the first-responder community and by State and local governments.

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

Allbaugh to create an Office of National Preparedness with FEMA.

ONP’s mission is to provide leadership in the coordination and facilitation of all Federal efforts to assist State and local first-responders and emergency management organizations with planning,

equipment, training and exercises to build and sustain the capability to respond to any emergency or disaster, including a terrorist

incident.

The President’s formation of the Office of Homeland Security further improves 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 past January, the President took another step to strengthen

first-responder efforts to prepare for and respond to incidents to

terrorism. The first-responder initiative in the President’s 2003

budget calls for $3.5 billion, most of which would be distributed to

State and local jurisdictions for planning efforts, critical equipment

and to train and exercise personnel.

FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness will administer these

grants. 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, ONP will develop national standards

for interoperability and compatibility in a number of areas, including training, equipment, mutual aid and exercising. The first-responder grants, coupled with these standards, will balance the

needs for both flexibility and accountability at the State and local

level.

With respect to California, we continue to work very closely with

the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and other State ofVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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fices. Our mechanism to providing support in the past has been the

Nunn-Lugar 120 Cities Initiative. Recently, through our Terrorism

Consequence Management Preparedness Assistance Grant Program, we have been able to fund terrorism and weapons of mass

destruction preparedness activities at the local level. Our funds are

provided through the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and

they in turn provide them to the California State Strategic Committee on Terrorism. The areas of focus to the committee include

cyber terrorism, equipment, training, intelligence and early warning systems, medical and health resource allocations and others.

FEMA has also participated in senior official workshops, chemical weapons tabletop exercises as well as biological weapons tabletop exercises in the city of Long Beach and other California cities.

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-responders are well

prepared for all disasters, including the incidence of terrorism.

Continued coordination among all levels of government will ensure

a safer America. Thank you for your time, and I will be happy to

entertain any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castleman follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. And I should have said that automatically your fine statement, which we have all read, is, at this

point, in the record, and then if you can stay through this, we will

get to some questions.

So we have Kevin Yeskey, director, Bioterrorism Response Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from Atlanta, I

assume. How is the weather there?

Mr. YESKEY. It is about the same as it is here, sir. Good

morning——

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

Mr. YESKEY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee and panel. I am Kevin Yeskey. I am the director of the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program in the National

Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention. Speaking for all the men and women of my agency,

let me thank you for sponsoring this field hearing, raising these

important issues and for allowing us to take part.

Like all other Americans, we at CDC were horrified and saddened by the events which took place in New York City and Washington, DC, last fall. But as the Nation’s disease control and prevention agency, we were also immediately galvanized to action to

provide assistance to our partners and the affected cities and

States.

In my oral comments, I will provide a brief overview of CDC’s activities related to September 11th and the subsequent anthrax attacks and how we are working better to prepare our Nation’s

States and cities for the threat of public health emergencies, including terrorism. My written statement goes into more detail

about the overall response planning.

The terrorist events of September 11th and the later events related to anthrax have been defining moments for all of us, and they

have greatly sharpened the Nation’s focus on public health. These

events created the greatest public health challenge in CDC’s history, requiring an unprecedented level of response. CDC has deployed 588 employees since September 11th in response to the

World Trade Center event and the anthrax investigation. Within

minutes of the second plane crash in the World Trade Center, we

initiated an emergency operation center that functioned 24 hours

a day, 7 days a week.

While all commercial aircraft were grounded after the attack,

CDC was able to arrange transportation of its emergency response

personnel to New York. For the first time ever, CDC deployed the

National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, sending push packages of medical materials to New York City and Washington, DC. In response

to the cases of anthrax exposure, this program was also used to deliver antibiotics for post-exposure prophylaxis to employees in affected buildings, postal workers, mail handlers and postal patrons.

Within 4 hours after the attack on the World Trade Center,

CDC’s Health Alert Network was activated and began transmitting

emergency messages to the top 250 public health officials throughout the Nation. Over the next 16 weeks, 67 health alerts,

advisories and updates were transmitted, ultimately reaching an

estimated 1 million frontline public and private physicians, nurses,

laboratories and State and local health officials.

15

The Epidemic Information Exchange, EPI-X, the public health’s

established, secure communications network, immediately developed a secure conference site for State epidemiologists and local onsite CDC investigative teams for posting information on surveillance and response activities, including HHS reports, CDC health

advisory information and health alerts and other reports from

State health departments. The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC’s scientific publication, published reports on an urgent

basis and delivered these reports electronically to over 500,000

healthcare providers.

During the height of the Nation’s anthrax crisis in October, CDC

experienced larger than normal traffic on its Web site, conducted

daily press telephone briefings and fielded thousands of press inquiries and featured in television interviews reaching millions of

viewers. At the peak of the anthrax response, CDC had more than

200 personnel in the field assisting State and local partners and

hundreds more personnel at headquarters assisting the effort.

Overall, there were a total of 22 cases of anthrax, with 11 being

the cutaneous form of the disease and 11 being the inhalation form.

While we deeply regret each illness that occurred, we are very encouraged by the fact that none of the approximately 10,000 persons

who were given antibiotic prophylaxis developed anthrax, despite

significant exposure to spores.

Last fall’s events revealed serious gaps in our Nation’s public

health defenses against biological and radiological threats. These

gaps include inadequate epidemiologic and laboratory surge capacity and the insufficient knowledge base concerning sampling and

remediation and lack of information concerning infectious dose and

host susceptibility. In addition, the public health system needs to

improve its ability to convey information and provide treatment

and preventive measures to large numbers of persons and having

a way of assuring compliance. This will require extensive preparedness planning, cooperation across agencies between Federal, State

and local counterparts. It will also require that we work closely

with partners in emergency response community, law enforcement,

clinical medicine, academia and private industry. CDC will continue to support State and local government officials in preparing

and responding to public health emergencies, including terrorist

events, by providing assistance and technical guidance and conducting problem assessment, evacuation and relocation decisions,

proper treatment of casualties, epidemiological surveillance, disease control measures and studies of exposed populations.

At the request of the State, CDC will deploy trained rapid response teams who can assist in protecting the public’s health in an

event of a public health emergency. CDC response teams have expertise on medical management, disease prevention strategies, assessing needs, first-responder procedures, site safety, environmental sampling strategies, sampling equipment and disease and

injury surveillance. All States and localities must be prepared to

address these threats and mount an effective response.

In late January, HHS announced that a total of $1.1 billion in

funding would be provided to States to assist them in their bioterrorism preparedness efforts. On January 31, Secretary Thompson notified each Governor of the amount his or her State would

16

receive to allow them to initiate and expand planning and building

the necessary public health infrastructure. Here in California, the

State received $60.8 million in funds, and Los Angeles County received $24.59 million in funds from CDC.

In conclusion, CDC is committed to working with other Federal

agencies and partners, State and local health departments and

healthcare and first-responder communities to ensure the health

and medical care of our citizens. Although we have made substantial progress in enhancing the Nation’s capability to prepare for

and respond to a terrorism episode, the events of last fall demonstrate that we must accelerate the pace of our efforts to assure

an adequate response capacity. A strong and flexible public health

system is the best defense against any disease outbreak or public

health emergency.

Once again, let me thank you for the opportunity to be here

today. We look forward to working with you to address the health

and security threats of the 21st century. I will be happy to answer

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yeskey follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. Our next presenter is Ronald

Iden, the assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles Division,

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Iden.

Mr. IDEN. Thank you, Chairman Horn. Good morning. Good

morning, Congresswoman Watson, Congresswoman Waters, Councilman Weiss. Thank you for inviting us to join you here today to

discuss the FBI’s efforts within the southern California region to

work with our local law enforcement and first-responder partners

in addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

As you know, the FBI’s overall counter terrorism mission is to

detect, deter, prevent and respond to terrorist actions that threaten

U.S. national interests, at home or abroad, from either domestic or

international sources. At the Federal level, the FBI’s lead crisis

management and investigative responsibilities exist in a partnership alongside FEMA’s consequence management role for response

to a WMD attack and the U.S. Secret Service’s role of security

planning and management. This partnership has demonstrated

itself successfully at events such as this year’s Winter Olympics

and the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

The FBI recognizes that terrorism is a global problem with a

local impact, as was evidenced with devastating clarity on the

morning of September 11th. We understand, therefore, the importance of partnering with regional law enforcement, emergency services and health services agencies in executing our counter terrorism mission.

The Los Angeles FBI office is responsible for a 40,000-square

mile, 7-county area and a population that exceeds 17 million people. We interact with 155 chiefs of police and sheriffs, including the

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department. The Los Angeles FBI has collaborated closely with

our city, county and State partners in addressing the threat of terrorism for nearly 18 years. In 1984, we formed the Los Angeles

Task Force on Terrorism as an outgrowth of our planning and

preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics, which were held in

Los Angeles.

This task force, formed jointly with the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, has

expanded to incorporate the full-time participation of 14 Federal,

State and local law enforcement agencies. We have established additional joint terrorism task forces within our territory, including

the Inland Empire, covering Riverside and San Bernadino Counties

and an Orange County JTTF, which includes city and county agencies from Orange County, which was recently formed in response

to the September 11th attacks.

As you may know, in response to the events of September 11th,

the State of California has established regional terrorism task

forces throughout the State composed of agents from the California

Department of Justice, officers from the California Highway Patrol

and local police agencies. The FBI, the Governor, the California attorney general and their executives have worked together closely to

ensure close collaboration between those regional State task force

units and the FBI’s JJTFs throughout the State. In fact, most of

those units are co-located with the FBI’s task forces.

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In addition to establishing strong collaborative relationships with

law enforcement counterparts, the Los Angeles FBI has developed

similar relationships with emergency first-responders and public

health service agencies in order to prepare to respond to an act of

terrorism. These non-traditional efforts began 6 years ago with the

formation of the Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning

Group. The formation of this group was a direct result of strong

working relationships developed over the years between the Los

Angeles County Sheriffs and City Police Departments, the Los Angeles County and City Fire Departments, the Los Angeles County

Health Department and FBI personnel assigned to emergency operations in counter terrorism.

The mission of the Terrorism Early Warning Group is to provide

a common venue for information sharing, training and the establishment of common response protocols for law enforcement, fire,

health and emergency management agencies to WMD incidents.

Today, more than 50 agencies participate in the Los Angeles Early

Warning Group.

In addition, the Los Angeles FBI participates in extensive weapons of mass destruction training with local first-responders. Our

25-member HAZMAT team and 4 bomb technicians have participated in 5 Nunn-Lugar sponsored WMD consequence management

exercises in the Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles exercise, referred to as Westwind 99, simulated a chemical attack resulting in

2,000 deaths. Participants included local, county and State law enforcement, regional fire and HAZMAT agencies, health and emergency management agencies, the Department of Defense and various Federal agencies from the Domestic Emergency Support Team.

We have conducted hazardous materials training with many

agencies, in addition to those I mentioned above, including the

FAA, the Los Angeles Airport Police, representatives from UCLA

and county hospitals. Our bomb technicians conduct basic 1-week

post-blast schools for regional law enforcement agencies—eight annually. And they conduct one advanced post-blast school annually,

which attracts students from law enforcement agencies around the

country. Other Federal partners responsible for WMB incidents, including FEMA and the Centers for Disease Control, participated in

field training exercises, as well as national security special events,

such as the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

Recognizing the strong need for interagency communication, the

FBI has not only obtained top secret clearances for key law enforcement personnel but also for fire, HAZMAT and health personnel.

This was necessary to ensure that critical threat information could

be passed to local and State officials so that they could make appropriate health and safety decisions during the course of a WMD

terrorist incident.

Subsequent to the events of September 11th, we have also established direct e-mail dissemination of threat information to all of the

155 chiefs of police and sheriffs within our territory. We also use

the law enforcement online network, the terrorist threat warning

system and national law enforcement telecommunications system

to disseminate threat information. We participate in the State of

California’s Standing Committee on Terrorism and through that

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committee have assisted in the development of policies, including

recent anthrax response protocols.

Our outreach and training efforts have also been expanded to the

private sector, in addition to State and local government, through

our National Infrastructure and Protection and Computer Intrusion

Program. NIPCI’s Infraguard outreach component shares threat information with representatives of eight critical infrastructure sectors: banking, transportation, telecommunications, oil and gas,

water, power, government services and emergency services. Among

those partners is the Pacific Gas and Electric’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Facility.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Los Angeles division of the FBI is

quite proud of our long-standing commitment to working as a partner with State and local government in preparing to meet the challenge of a WMD terrorist incident. Chairman Horn, this concludes

my prepared remarks. I would like to express again my appreciation for your interest and examining of these issues that are so

vital to all of us in southern California, and I look forward to any

questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Iden follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you for that very thorough examination

of what is going on in California. I might add to this that we had

wanted in the House of Representatives to have the FBI work with

the law enforcement situation in the United States. And I did put

a bill in, and Mr. Sensenbrenner will move it through the judiciary

when we get back, and that will back up the FBI so you can check

on the people to make sure they are not involved with drugs or

anything else and that you can pass on the intelligence. And I

know you are already working in California, but the rest of the

country hasn’t done too much in terms of the local law enforcement.

So we now move to Patricia Dalton. She is Director of Strategic

Issues, the U.S. General Accounting Office. The General Accounting Office is the right arm of the Congress in terms of research on

financial matters and programmatic matters. And we are delighted

to have you here. And one of the roles of the GAO person on these

panels is that you take good notes and you find at the end what

have we missed, which is what we are really interested in. So, Ms.

Dalton, glad to have you here.

Ms. DALTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here in southern California to discuss issues critical to national preparedness. As you are

aware, GAO has called for the development of a national strategy

that will improve our overall Nation’s preparedness, and I will address my remarks to that strategy today.

The creation of the Office of Homeland Security, under the leadership of Tom Ridge—as you know, Mr. Chairman, GAO has called

for the development of a national strategy that will improve our

Nation’s preparedness, and I will address my remarks today to that

strategy. The creation of the Office of Homeland Security, under

the leadership of Tom Ridge, is an important and potentially significant first step. As it comes together, we believe that the key aspects of the strategy should include, first, a definition and clarification of the appropriate roles and responsibilities of Federal, State

and local entities in the private sector; second, the establishment

of goals and performance measures to guide our Nation’s preparedness efforts; and finally, a careful choice of the most appropriate

tools of government to best implement the Nation’s strategy and

achieve our national goals. I would like to briefly discuss each of

these three points.

First, the roles and missions of Federal, State and local entities

need to be clarified. Although the Federal Government appears to

be a monolith to many, in the area of terrorism prevention and response it is anything but. In fact, there are more than 40 Federal

entities that have a role in combating and responding to terrorism

and 20 entities alone in the bioterrorism area.

Concerns about coordination and fragmentation in Federal preparedness efforts are well-founded. There has been no single leader

in charge of many terrorism-related functions. The lack of leadership has resulted in the development of programs to assist State

and local governments that were often similar and potentially duplicative. This creates confusion at the State and local level, and

they certainly have called for more coordination and to have one

place to go to in the Federal Government for such coordination.

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Second, performance and accountability measures need to be included in our Nation’s strategy. Numerous discussions have been

held about the need to enhance the Nation’s preparedness, but national preparedness goals and measures, measurable performance

indicators have not yet been developed. Clear objectives and measures are critical to a sustainable strategy and for providing a

framework for our roles and responsibilities at all levels of government and in the private sector.

Finally, from a national perspective, appropriate tools need to be

selected for designing any Federal assistance. The General Accounting Office’s previous work in Federal programs suggest that

the choice and design of policy tools have important consequences

for performance and accountability. Governments have at their disposal a variety of policy instruments, such as grants, regulations,

tax incentives and regional coordination and partnerships, that

they can use to motivate and mandate other levels of government

and the private sector entities to take actions to address security

concerns and goals.

For example, the Federal Government often uses grants as a

means of delivering Federal programs. Grants can be designed to

target the funds to State and localities with the greatest needs, discourage the replacement of State and local funds with Federal

funds through maintenance and effort requirements, and, finally,

and most importantly, to strike a balance between accountability

and flexibility at the State and local level.

Intergovernmental partnerships and regional coordinations will

be a very important tool, particularly with respect to information

sharing and mutual aid agreements. National preparedness is a

complex mission that requires unusual interagency, interjurisdictional and interorganizational cooperation. An illustration of this

complexity can be seen in the ports which is certainly an issue in

southern California with the largest port in the Nation. There are

in fact at least 15 Federal agencies that have jurisdiction over our

seaports and the various functions to make them operate. The primary ones are the Coast Guard, Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, as increasing demands are placed

on budgets at all levels of government, it will be necessary to make

sound choices to maintain physical stability. All levels of government in the private sector will have to communicate and cooperate

effectively with each other on a broad range of issues to develop a

national strategy to better target our available resources to address

the urgent national preparedness needs.

This completes my prepared statement. I will be pleased to respond to any questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dalton follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. That is very helpful as the General Accounting Office always is. It is headed by the Comptroller General

of the United States. He has a term of 15 years, and he doesn’t

have to take a lot of nonsense from anybody, the President, Congress or anybody else. And in Dr. Walker we have had a first-class

person in that, he has a first-class staff.

We now move to Dallas Jones, the director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services for the State of California. Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. Chairman Horn and members of the subcommittee,

thank you very much for being allowed to testify before you today.

First, I would like to talk a little bit about OES’ role in disaster

management and then a little bit about our anti-terrorist initiatives.

We coordinate the statewide response to all disasters and emergencies in the State. Now, to manage disasters or the emergencies,

California has a unified, coordinated response involving all levels

of government. This is based on the incident and command system

and the unified command, which we saw very effectively utilized

recently at the Winter Olympics in Utah. And just prior to then,

at the DNC here in Los Angeles, where all the agencies with various jurisdictional interests and various areas of expertise all came

together and worked in a unified command for a common goal.

This didn’t come about by accident. It was developed here in

California following the major fires and activities of the early

1960’s and 1970’s. A concerted effort was made by Federal, State

and local agencies to develop a better coordination of multi-jurisdictional and multi-authority commands. It has been finely honed over

the years because here in California we don’t practice disasters, we

have them very routinely. All levels of government need to be involved and have to be involved for it to be successful.

Another response tool is the coordinated mutual aid system that

we have here in the State. The system incorporates the neighbor

helping neighbor principle and allows law enforcement, fire and

rescue, emergency management to go into neighboring jurisdictions

to help. And vice versa, if you have need, then they will bring them

into your agency. For the past several years, terrorism has topped

OES’ priority list of hazards to be planning. We have, for many

years, provided guidance on terrorism planning to local governments, and indeed we have published a guide and put out to all

local governments in 1998 a terrorism planning guide. In 1999,

Governor Davis approved a California terrorism response plan to

guide and direct the management of emergency and disaster operations related to terrorism incidents. Our office chairs the State

Strategic Committee on Terrorism, which is comprised of representatives of Federal, State and local government agencies. They

develop anti-terrorism plans, training and grant proposals.

We also provide expertise and support for State and local private

agencies in the development or the maintenance of preparedness

response or recovery plans for biological toxic substances and radiological emergencies. This includes very close coordination with the

Department of Health Services and the Emergency Medical Services Authority, which oversees the State’s health and medical disaster planning.

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Although there are other potential biological terrorist agents, anthrax became a primary concern in mail and shipping safety following the terrorist attacks that resulted in anthrax cases and deaths

in several eastern States. Since then thousands of threats have

been investigated in California and other States. As a result, our

office distributed guidelines for handling suspicious packages that

might contain chemical or biological contaminants.

Resources in that effort included a toll-free safety information

and referral line where callers can receive important non-emergency information about anthrax, personal and family preparedness as well as request copies of the California Highway Patrol’s

video for mail handling suspicious envelopes and packages.

Because the potential for chemical emergencies has been a significant issue for some time, California had a sophisticated response system in place even prior to September 11th. For many

years we have led a coordinated effort to work on hazardous materials and response planning. We also maintain a 24-hour hazardous

materials network reporting and notification system, which also

provides technical assistance in the development of training and

risk management programs. It is this system that we will continue

to build and prepare for potential terrorism events, be they chemical, biological or nuclear.

Several other efforts are underway that we believe will enhance

the State’s coordination with the Federal Government in the event

of a terrorism event or any other type of emergency. These include

an update of the California annex to the Federal Response Plan,

which is currently underway. The State has also embarked on a

major catastrophic disaster planning effort overseen by the Federal

Catastrophic Disaster Response Group. This involves State, local

and Federal emergency response agencies.

Even with all of the recent events in our Nation, we feel that

California is very well poised to effectively coordinate with local,

State and Federal agencies to manage the disasters or emergencies

of any type. This doesn’t mean that we are fully prepared for anything that may come our way. We have to continue to work very

closely with our Federal, State and local partners in the planning

efforts to identify both terrorism threats, vulnerabilities and assess

our needs for priorities.

We are very encouraged by the announcement of substantial

funding in the President’s budget, and we strongly advocate the

funds be coordinated through the State using our existing expertise

and mechanisms for fund prioritization and distribution. These systems have proven very effective time and again in the administration of prior Federal grants. A cooperative, coordinated effort involving all levels of government must occur to ensure California is

fully able to address the terrorist threat. Each of the involved specialties must be included in that planning—law, fire, health and

emergency management.

Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to come before you. I would be more than happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. That is very interesting testimony.

We now have one that is well-known to many in southern California and now at the State level, Dr. Diana Bonta, the director of the

California Department of Health Services, State of California. And

for many years, she was the director of Health in the city of Long

Beach, and it is very rare for any city to have its own health organization. The Governor picked the right person when he picked her.

So thank you.

Ms. BONTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to have you

here in Los Angeles and to see you all here this morning as well.

As the director of the California Department of Health Services,

this is the agency responsible for coordinating statewide disaster

public health assistance in support of local operations. And the department has primary responsibility for public and environmental

health operations and has major supporting responsibility to the

Emergency Medical Services Authority for disasters involving mass

casualties.

Through its disease control surveillance, laboratory, environmental monitoring programs, the department plays a central and

critical role in rapidly detecting and appropriately responding to

chemical, radiological and biological threats to terrorism. We have

had an existing cooperative agreement for bioterrorism response

planning from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and I sit on their Advisory Committee. This has been very instrumental in assisting us to buildupon the State’s emergency and

disaster response systems. We are now in our third year, and we

do have supplemental funding.

We just heard testimony from Mr. Yeskey in terms of the fact that we are receiving additional moneys. The $60 million from CDC

is for the cooperative agreement to the State and to Los Angeles

County, $24 million. I would like to also mention the cooperative

agreements for hospital planning and preparation also includes to

the California Department of Health Services $9.9 million and to

Los Angeles County $3.6 million.

In addition to that, the funding also included funds for seven cities for a total of $2.2 million, and these cities will develop metropolitan emergency bioterrorism preparedness for regional preparedness planning as a part of the metropolitan medical response systems initiative. Now, the hospital funds are fairly new; they are

going to be implemented in two phases. The first is working together with EMSA, the Emergency Medical Services Authority,

here in California to develop a State plan for the use of this hospital funding here in California. And the purpose of this phase one

planning process is an effort to foster the preparedness in the

State’s hospital and healthcare systems to respond to bioterrorist

events through a statewide assessment of unmet hospital needs.

We will, in addition, phase two, certainly we will be working

very, very closely with the hospitals so that they are looking at

their specific needs and their specific communities. Not all communities look the same, not all communities have the same needs. So

we want to be able to tailor this with input from those individual

communities as well.

We have certainly worked with a CDC cooperative agreements as

well, and this calls for partnerships, and the partnerships here in

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California include the California Conference of Local Health Officers, the County Health Executives Association of California, as

well as many other public and private sector partners. And we feel

that it is crucial for all those entities to come together. We would

have numerous meetings in which we invite all these players to the

same table to discuss their respective needs and to incorporate

them in our planning process.

We have taken an additional step, kind of an unusual one, to ensure local and State collaboration. I have entered into an intergovernmental agreement with Placer County in northern California for

the services of its health officer. In February of this year, Dr. Richard Burton, a commander in the Naval Reserves, a past Marine,

a Corps flight surgeon and a physician with several years of local

public health experience, he joined the California Department of

Health Services as a senior member of our bioterrorism preparedness planning team. And then we also lent two of the Feds to the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, someone who is

very talented from California, Dr. Michael Asher, who has been

chief of our bio lab here in California. We lent him to be used, and

so he is now functioning in Washington, DC.

I think this is very important, because sometimes we don’t understand our different bureaucracies, and the more we can mix it

up, have people from the Feds join us here, we have various CDC

physicians, epidemiologists, scientists who are assigned here in

California, and Dr. Gil Chavez, for instance, is our chief of Internal

Health. He comes from the Centers for Disease Control, and we

lent staff to Washington, and we use certain resources from our

local county health departments and our city health departments

to be able to understand each other and understand our respective

worlds.

I know that the committee is interested in the department’s antiterrorism activities as they relate to California’s public water systems, and the department is responsible for the oversight and regulation of California’s 8,500 public water systems and local health

jurisdictions participate in the oversight and regulatory process.

And shortly after September 11th, the department’s Division of

Drinking Water and Environmental Management staff met with

representatives of public water systems throughout the State.

They have been able to discuss the State’s water systems, participating in approximately—numerous numbers of meetings, and they

are looking to protect the California public. And we will continue

to dialog here with the Department of Water Resources, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to develop a response

strategy in the event of a bioterrorist action against the State

water project of the Metropolitan Water Resources, the treatment

facilities and the distribution systems. We will be certainly continuing this dialog and working with all of these experts in this field

as well.

I echo some of the testimony in terms of we have so many agencies involved at the Federal level, State level, local level that we

need to have coordination, coordination, coordination. And I would

like to close by saying that in my capacity from 1988 through 1999

as director of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human

Services, I saw firsthand that you need to have a relationship, not

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only with your public health colleagues, but with the fire department—they are represented here today in the second panel—with

law enforcement, with constituents in the community, but most importantly, with community members. If we don’t have a dialog with

the community, and certainly Long Beach where we know that the

population, 51 percent and growing, who are members of communities of color, that needed to address their specific needs, certainly

language barriers sometimes presents us with challenges, and we

need to go above and beyond to outreach the communities and

work closely with them.

I look forward to working with you as members of this committee, today and in the future, providing you assistance as much as

possible. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonta follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, as I would expect, you are very eloquent on this

subject, and you make some real good points. We are now going to

go to questioning of this particular panel, and I am going to yield

5 minutes to start with the ranking member, which is Ms. Watson

from Government Reform. And we are glad to have you today.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to

thank the presenters. I am very impressed with the report you are

giving us. I am going to throw some questions out, and all of you

can respond if you choose.

The first is in your respective agencies’ departments and programs, what are the resources, other than money, that you need?

You can go up and down the table if you wish. The other question

is that Governor Ridge has come up with the signal light—the

green, the red, the yellow and so on. Maybe FEMA could probably

respond to this best. What does that mean? When we start at the

lowest level and move on up to the most at-risk level, what does

that put into operation, what does it start? What would you be

doing? And FEMA, again, you project you do, I know, preparedness

kinds of activities. When you see those different signals, what action is taken, and maybe all of you can respond with your own

agencies, when you get those colored signals? And believe me, we

know nothing; we just know the colors. So take us from the elementary level on up.

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Well, I am not an expert on all of that yet. I

can tell you what is apparently going on. Certainly, it is not—this

is not final yet. It is still in the public response mode. We are looking to our Federal partners and the first-responder community and

anyone else who has suggestions or ideas on this program that

Governor Ridge has put forward. We think it is a step in the right

direction. Whether it will be the final form or not we are not sure.

But, certainly, as the degrees start—and being colorblind, I can

get a little mixed up in my colors, but I do know that red is at the

top, and I think it is orange that is next and so forth and so on.

What we have been doing to evaluate this, from a FEMA standpoint, is doing a crosswalk, if you will, or bridging into the various

phases of an emergency situation that we will need to trigger, such

as heightened security at one level above another.

So I think rather than going into it in too much detail, I want

to, again, emphasize that it is still a preliminary program and not

finalized yet. But I believe that some form of this, if not this program itself, will be a good structure that not only will those of us

that are in emergency management and all of our partners here

and first-responders will become very familiar with, but in the programs that we are working on with citizens for, that all of those

folks will understand it, and it will become second nature to us all,

just as the traffic lights in our streets. We will all understand perfectly well exactly where we are when this program is final.

Ms. WATSON. Let me ask the rest of you, do those signals, those

lights have meaning to you now, in terms of the planning you are

doing, the preparedness planning you are doing? We still don’t understand what happens as a result of the colors being flashed out

there? I mean where does it happen? Does it come through the

press? Is it on television, radio? What are you to do? Does anyone

know?

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Mr. JONES. Congresswoman Watson, I might take a stab at it.

Ms. WATSON. And it is good to see you, Dallas, again.

Mr. JONES. Good to see you too. I almost called you Senator, I

am sorry.

Ms. WATSON. It is all right.

Mr. JONES. The system basically is designed to coordinate activities nationally for a variety of reasons, both law enforcement, so

that we will have the ability to ramp up departments or not, depending on the depth of the threat, regionally or locally. And so the

biggest component of that system is yet to be developed, and it

really has to be developed on a local level. We are working with

all of the State agencies to try to determine, because one size

doesn’t fit all. In the Office of Emergency Services, for example, we

have emergency operation centers that we will up to full staffing

at orange or red that during normal times we have at a maintenance level. Maybe another department, like——

Ms. WATSON. You are getting the yellow right now.

Mr. JONES. Oh, OK. Yes. I am in danger. [Laughter.]

When it gets red, we duck under the table. So it is really to be

determined, and that is what—the 45-day comment period is for

that so that we can work with all the other agencies and try to get

a standardized response. The biggest problem that I see in the

whole response alert network is what are the private citizens going

to do. And that we need to get out. We are working on a public information campaign to say, ‘‘Look, you know, this isn’t about ducking under the desk when it goes red; it is about common sense

kinds of things that you can do for preparedness.’’ And so that is

going to be, I think, one of the most difficult things in the process

to be developed.

Ms. WATSON. Let me just throw this out, in our school system,

we have these alarms, and we do these exercises and so on. I think

we need, as we look at it, Mr. Chair, to have a program for schools,

their own entity, and have a program, and then for citizens. I

would suggest at the end of the hearing that one of the things we

could do as a subcommittee is use California as a model since we

are the largest State, since you all have been involved in preparedness and since we know every disaster that ever can happen, and

it happens here first, that we might be able to suggest what coordination on the Federal level would mean. Because I too have no idea

what we do when we see—I think we run underneath the table

when we see red. We used to tell our kids, ‘‘Roll over and get underneath the table.’’ We need to have in your response period some

very strong recommendations, and I think it would mean a lot to

Congress, it would mean a lot to the Federal Government, because

we all have been involved in these emergencies, and I think we

could tell the rest of the country how to respond. But if anyone else

wants to comment. Coordination, I see, is the key, coordinated efforts.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Iden.

Mr. IDEN. Perhaps I can offer a brief—Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Watson.

Mr. HORN. Please.

Mr. IDEN. The threat warning protocol grew from the need to

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tain threat information should be considered significant. And what

we are faced with in this environment is intelligence reporting on

occasion from a source who is not corroborated. What response is

appropriate to that sort of a report? You may have an occasion

where you are receiving a confluence of reports with regard to

threats to a particular sector, the nuclear power facilities or a

country, U.S. assets in Turkey.

So what is envisioned here is there might be a threat protocol

warning issued to a particular sector, issued to a particular country, perhaps a geographic region of the United States if sufficient

information comes to our attention suggesting a threat to a particular region. But more often than not, the reporting that is received

is very vague, it is uncorroborated, it is unsubstantiated, it comes

from a source, and there is certainly a need to attach some level

of significance to that information.

One piece of information of that nature might receive a very low

threat warning, because it is not corroborated. If you receive a couple of pieces of information that suggest the same sector is being

threatened or a timeframe or a particular target, then that threat

warning would elevate perhaps to an orange or a red. But, again,

as has been mentioned here earlier, this is a work in progress. It

is very difficult to handle and get your hands around, but it is important that we find some way to convey, and when to convey a

threat warning, with a level of significance to attribute to that

warning.

Ms. WATSON. Just another comment, Mr. Chair.

Mr. HORN. I am going to have to move to the next. We will have

some followup on that.

Ms. WATSON. Yes, that is fine.

Mr. HORN. Ms. Millender-McDonald.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you so much for convening this important hearing. We applaud you on the work that you have done, Mr. Chairman, throughout the information in providing these types of hearings for us to

get a grasp as to what is going on with reference to the interagencies’ coordination.

I might say that when I have convened—I serve on the House

Homeland Security Task Force, looking at transportation, as I am

a member of the Transportation Committee. And I have, in convening some of my hearings, especially down in the ports, I find that

our seniors, getting back to Mr. Jones’ statement, and the public,

just our private citizens, are really quite concerned as to what do

they do in the event of a terrorist attack and a biochemical type

of attack.

So perhaps you might want to suggest, if you have not looked at

this, and I suggest you do look at this because our seniors in

homes, our schools, when we have met with the superintendents of

schools, universities, they too are concerned about how do they dispatch students in various different buildings if there is an attack.

So that is something that we really should look at, not just agencies, not just—of course, ports are extremely important and agencies, but we should look at just our constituents and seniors.

There is a question that I have for Mr. Castleman. You said that

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ly work with States and local agencies, governments, to ensure that

their planning, training and equipment needs are met. Coming

from the local government, what is the office doing to implement

this directive?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Well, one of the things that we have already

begun to do—of course, the office is very new. It was begun before

September 11th and really we have expanded greatly since September 11th. We have begun to add more personnel in our regions,

more personnel in our headquarters office in Washington, we have

now appointed a new director of the Office of National Preparedness. So we are gearing-up.

But in the meantime, we are already working with our State and

local governments in terms of terrorism exercises. We have been

doing that prior to September 11th, but we are doing even more

of that. We are working with government entities on their continuation of operation plans. The other thing we are doing is preparing

for the hope that the $3.5 million first-responder program will be

approved by Congress, and the Office of National Preparedness will

be the division of FEMA that will deliver those grants to our

States, which will be a large task, but we are preparing to do that.

Generally speaking, though, we are doing a lot of outreach to try

to make sure that we—and I might cite something that came up

that I think that we are trying to follow this. When I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago and heard Governor Ridge speak and

Attorney General Ashcroft speak and Director Allbaugh speak at

the same meeting, Governor Ridge said, ‘‘It is not just about resources. We have got to remember that we have got to improve

methods and relationships.’’ I like the tone that he set for that, and

I also like the fact that he mentioned that this is a national issue,

not a Federal issue.

Attorney General Ashcroft said that necessity is the mother of invention, but it is also the mother of cooperation. And Director

Allbaugh mentioned that cooperation and improving relationships

is not something that can be dictated by him or anyone else; it is

a mindset that we all have to embrace. And I believe the window

of time to do that is now. So the Office of National Preparedness,

particularly at the regional level, as well as headquarters level, is

reaching out to try to make sure that we facilitate those relationships.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Well, I certainly appreciate that,

and we want to make sure that it is not just endemic to the larger

cities, that your smaller cities under 90,000 should also be engaged

in this, because a lot of my cities are fewer than 100,000 folks. Certainly, they want to dip in and be part of the Federal Government

in these efforts.

Let us see, I had one for Mr. Yeskey, but we are going to get—

in your testimony, you discussed CDC’s quick response in deploying

the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile in New York and Washington, DC. Should a biological or chemical attack occur, how would

those medications be distributed to a larger area that could encompass perhaps hundreds of miles? And that is something that everyone was thinking about during the anthrax in Washington.

Mr. YESKEY. Yes. The National Pharmaceutical Stockpile consists

of two main elements. One is the 12-hour push packages, which get

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initial antibiotics, medical materiel and equipment onsite of the affected area within 12 hours of our notification. There is a second

amount of material called vendor managed inventory that is more

tailored to the specific event. For instance, in the anthrax event,

that would be specific antibiotics that would be used. The National

Pharmaceutical Stockpile has currently 12-hour push packages located strategically around the country. So what would happen is if

we had a large regional event, we would deploy the push packages

to various areas for distribution by the State health departments

and local health departments over that wide area.

What we have also realized early on in the anthrax event is distribution of the antibiotics is probably the crucial factor with regards to time, to getting it to people, and as part of our cooperative

agreement under our focus area of preparedness planning the

Pharmaceutical Stockpile is going to be working with State health

departments and local health departments in the distribution plans

of those materials. So we would look at a cross-jurisdictional way

of dispensing these antibiotics from the initial push packages that

went to the States.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And urban areas strictly would have

the response of—in other words, you, in your whole pattern that

you have, in terms of the deployment, urban areas would not be

missed in any way by this deployment.

Mr. YESKEY. No, they wouldn’t.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. OK. Fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And we now have Representatives Waters. We are delighted you could make it this morning.

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

Mr. HORN. You are welcome. Let me continue a little bit of the

question that was started by Congresswoman Millender-McDonald.

Recently, it was discovered that some pharmaceutical company

had millions of dosages to respond to smallpox if in fact we had

smallpox contamination. Why didn’t we know where that was? We

were told there was a shortage, and that was very scary. What

kind of assessment do we do to identify medicines and medications

that may be available in the United States or in the world, for that

matter, and what do we do, not only to do that assessment, but to

determine what we need to produce or manufacture? And have we

calculated the shelf-life of medications that we know we would

need in response to certain kinds of attacks? I mean I felt a little

bit annoyed by the fact that we didn’t know that we had millions

of dosages of medications to respond to the smallpox possibility.

What can you tell me about that?

Mr. YESKEY. I will answer your last question first about the

shelf-life and defer the smallpox vaccine question and provide information for that later, at a later time. The shelf-life for antibiotics

in our National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, we have an inventory

management program that when antibiotics in our stockpile reach

1 year of their expiration date they get essentially put back into

the manufacturer’s normal stockpile and redistributed under normal distribution mechanisms. So, essentially, it is not recycling of

the antibiotics, it is just putting them back into the normal manufacturer’s distribution chain so they can be used before they expire.

81

Additionally, we have entered in a Shelf-Life Extension Program

that the Department of Defense uses that gives us another 2 years

of certain antibiotics. So as they approach their shelf life expiration

date, we can extend that for 2 more years. Now because of the size

of the pharmaceutical stockpile, some of the antibiotics we have in

there we just have so many that they can’t be recycled back into

the general distribution; they will expire. And that Shelf-Life Extension Program gives us another 2 years of utilization for those

antibiotics. At that point, they cannot be put back into normal distribution and have to be discarded. Now that is several years down

the road, so we don’t have to worry about that in the stockpile yet,

but that is a future consideration that we have to look at with the

antibiotics in the stockpile.

With regards to the smallpox vaccine, again, I will provide information at a later time on what mechanisms there are to determine

what vaccine stores there are, but the CDC takes its vaccination

policy for various vaccines. There are a number of groups, there are

experts panels, there is the Advisory Committee on Immunization

Practice that consults with the CDC and advises the CDC on how

to use antibiotics—excuse me, who should receive the vaccines, how

they should be managed, contraindications and policies like that

they advise the CDC on the vaccine usage.

Ms. WATERS. Let me ask, recently we discovered that there was

a plot by someone associated with al Qaeda to blow up a nuclear

power plant, and I keep hearing discussions about the fact that

there is really no way to secure our nuclear power plants, that they

are just sitting there exposed. Can you tell us something that we

don’t know about the ability to secure them without getting into,

I guess, classified information, but can we secure our nuclear

power plants?

Mr. IDEN. With regard to your first question, I am not familiar

with the plot that you referred to. I know that we recognize that

there is the potential threat to nuclear power facilities. Specifically,

I don’t have that information. That question would probably best

be—your second question would probably best be addressed by security folks, in our case, at Diablo Canyon, but I can share with

you that I have been to that facility, I have spent time with them,

discussed with them the security that they have in place, and it is

my belief that with regard at least to the facility that I am aware

of here in our territory, Diablo Canyon, they have got very strong

security on the ground. They would be as vulnerable from the air

as any other target might be, as you can imagine.

There is some question and speculation as to the degree of damage that would be caused by an aircraft crashing into a facility.

Those are questions that are beyond my expertise, but I can share

with you that with regard at least to the facility within our territory the briefing that I received and what I have seen suggest that

they have put a good deal of time and attention to securing that

facility from any kind of an internal or ground attack.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I heard you

mention the piece of legislation that you have before our committee, the Judiciary Committee, and that you have talked with Chairman Sensenbrenner about it. We really do need the sharing of information and whatever it takes to get clearances for our local offiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cials they need that also. They need to understand—we cannot coordinate without that kind of information being shared with everybody, and I will support that bill, certainly, when it comes before

our committee, and I think it is a good idea that you have.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you, and I hope that between you and

Mr. Sensenbrenner we will get it through to the House, and thank

you for that. I am going to yield myself 5 minutes on questions,

and I will start with Dr. Bonta.

If a massive biological or chemical attack were to occur today, is

the California public healthcare system, with its hospitals and laboratories and the nonprofits in most cases, have the capacity to diagnose and treat victims? And throw in germ toxins that somebody

could do with farming and all the rest.

Ms. BONTA. Mr. Chairman, I think we have learned from this

last several months that we are way ahead of so many States in

other parts of the country. But we have also come to the realization

that this is unprecedented in terms of really calling upon our best

skills here in California to assess what could be potential threats

against us and how to prepare for that. The public health system

has been a fragile system throughout the country, and we have certainly the world’s experts here in California and throughout the

country, in terms of knowing their science and knowing their medicine and being able to provide the best in technical services for patients. But a lot of public health is just the grunt work, I would

say, of going out into communities and doing the field surveillance,

the epidemiology and talking, communicating with communities

and being able to assess an outreach services. And in that, you can

certainly have room for improvement. This money that has just

come to us provides us a wonderful opportunity to do some of this

planning and to continue to jump start what we have already started and in the process.

But, you know, some of the questions that have been addressed

earlier come to mind that we were lacking in that communication

system. Certainly, after September 11th, here in California, the

rest of the country as well, specific to public health. We were able

to have conference calls with the Centers for Disease Control,

which every State was on a secure telephone line with Tommy

Thompson as well as—Secretary Thompson as well as Jeff

Copeland from CDC.

We needed to copy that, and we did, in California so that all 61

health jurisdictions were on a secured line in which we could talk

with them as public health experts here in California about what

were their needs, how could we plan for them. It called to mind

that we really need to work on these communications systems and

be able to enhance what we are doing. We are doing that through

a California system. We need to be able to look at disease in communities with a different type of approach than in the past, with

an urgency so that if we see something going on in Riverside and

something is happening in Jalusa, that we be able to say, ‘‘We have

something here that needs further investigation.’’

Certainly, our scientists are excellent, but the salary scales for

them have not been competitive. We frequently have a private industry that lures them to work for them. We need to be able to look

throughout the country, enhancing what we do for our workforce

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development as well. So all that is to say that I think that we are

well on the road in terms of our preparedness, but we need to continue to be very vigilant and certainly to work with this new money

to be able to do some of the work that we anticipate needs to be

accomplished.

Mr. HORN. Well, that is very helpful. Mr. Yeskey, with CDC,

would they be able to handle what potentially might be germ samples or whatever? And are you prepared to do that?

Mr. YESKEY. We are prepared to do that and assist the States,

our traditional partners of State health departments, in managing

this. You mentioned the laboratory samples and items like that.

We have a laboratory response network nationwide that includes

all the State’s public health laboratories. So if one area gets overwhelmed with sampling or requests for samples, we can identify

labs that can handle that surge and run those evaluations. We

have response teams that we can send at the State’s request to assist them in their identification, their control and containment of

any outbreak, and then we have the Health Alert Network and

EPI-X communication systems that are for the State health departments’ use in providing those communication mechanisms and

those four-on-four communications.

Mr. HORN. On that point, the progression of a particular disease,

let us take smallpox, is it at some curve of time that it could be

done within a couple of weeks, or would it just be as you are talking about, if it is in Jalusa or Ureka and it is out here in Riverside

somewhere, there must be something going on. So how do we deal

with that, that you sort of see something here and something

there? Are we really sure?

Mr. YESKEY. I think in the case of smallpox any single case of

smallpox is what we are going to consider a national emergency

and take aggressive measures to work with the State health departments in trying to identify not only the cases but the contacts

of those cases so we can immediately implement activities with the

State health departments in controlling that epidemic. Other diseases that may have a naturally occurring basis, we are going to

pursue aggressively with the States again in trying to identify the

clinical cases, trying to identify the sources and work with the

States on the lab side, on the epidemiology side and on the response side to help identify the nature of that incident, whether it

is an intentional incident or a naturally occurring incident.

Mr. HORN. Dr. Bonta.

Ms. BONTA. If I might add, Mr. Chairman, in California, 10 years

ago, through the foresight of the legislature, we were able to do a

planning process for a new State public health laboratory. It just

opened this spring. It will eventually house 1,300 people in Richmond, California. It has a viral and infectious disease lab, microbial lab, genetic disease lab and environmental health. It is a stateof-the-art, it is able to go to level three capacity in terms of containment. We were very fortunate to have this up and running before

this incident occurred. That acts as our hub here in California and

we work with over 38 public health laboratories throughout the

State to coordinate activities. But I know that my colleagues from

other States are very jealous about us having this lineup. It cerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tainly was something that was well-needed and will continue to be

very well-needed.

We are looking, as well, certainly in discussions with CDC and

with Department of Defense, at what other laboratory capacities

we will predict we may need in California in future years. And, certainly, there has been discussion at times about whether or not

level four capacity should be considered.

Mr. HORN. To what degree will the Veterans’ Affairs hospital facilities help in this? Is there a plan in California or southern California?

Ms. BONTA. Yes. In fact, as part of our moneys from both HRSA

and CDC, we are directed to work with the Veterans’ Administration hospitals. As you know, in Long Beach, we were doing that.

We will do that here in Los Angeles. Ken Kaiser, who was the

former director of the California Department of Health Services

served in the capacity of being in charge of the Veteran systems

in Washington, so we had to put some contact with him. Here in

the County of Los Angeles, Dr. Gaithwait came also from the Veteran system. So we have had coordination at a local level and at

a statewide level, and we will continue to have that as well with

the Federal facilities.

We also have here in California State-run veterans nursing

homes. We are certainly working with Secretary Bruce Fesa in the

California Department of Health Services and California Department of Veterans’ Affairs to coordinate services for veterans but

also to integrate that system. And it is very crucial for us to be able

to work closely with them.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. Any comments in response to any of the

questions we have heard so far from the panel? And then we will

go to 3 minutes now so everybody can get in a question. Yes, Mr.

Jones?

Mr. JONES. I have a response to one of the questions I think Congresswoman Watson mentioned was suggestions that were no cost

or real low cost. Technology transfer from Federal agencies in the

military to local and State government would be very helpful. As

a member of the Gilmore Commission for the last 3 years, I have

been privileged to be present for a number of classified briefings

where there were a lot of hardware, a lot of abilities for detecting

chem-bio and these sort of things that wasn’t available. We even

asked the question, could we buy it at the State or local government level if we pay for it? And the answer was no.

So, I think it is an area, and certainly there is a national security

concern on some equipment; so be it. We need to relook at, in light

of the threat that we face now, as all disasters and terrorist events

are local. Many of the Federal resources won’t be available to local

government or State government for days. Our urban search and

rescue program is set up on a 2-hour and 6-hour launch, and then

you have flight time. We are fortunate here in California we have

days, but some of these Federal resources will be several days coming in, and so we need a very robust local and State ability to respond.

The other issue I was going to mention is there is currently no

directory of Federal training programs. That would be very helpful,

I think, in sorting through some of the maze of being able to idenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tify some of these programs for local government. Denigration of

ICS and Unified Command has not bee adopted by all Federal

agencies, and we need, at least an approach should be made in that

level to move that forward.

The other one is to recognize that as we go through all of our

planning and work, that we keep in the back of our minds, at least,

that terrorism isn’t just the ones that we’re horrendously worried

about right now, but they run the gamut. As we harden our defenses and work very hard to prepare, we will very likely be pushing terrorism into areas not seen so far. So we need to make sure

that we consider cyber, agricultural, nuclear, chemical, biological

and some of the conventional approaches as we go along in the

process. Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. OK. Thank you. Ms. Watson, 3 minutes for your best

shot.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you for that comment. This is going to Patricia Dalton, because she might be the best person, the GAO, to address it. But I got a call this morning from a very upset parent who

wanted to know—because his daughter was going to school in Italy,

and as you know, over the last 24, 48 hours there have been announcements that there is some kind of planned terrorism attack.

As we go about developing strategies and preparedness, what is the

possibility of including all of our territory abroad, our embassies?

Ms. DALTON. I think one of the important things in developing

a strategy is going to be developing a communication plan that provides information to everyone as to what needs to be done or what

they personally should be taking action on, as well as governmental organizations and the private sector, and down to the individual citizen. Our plan has to be encompassing all of the United

States and its citizens so that no one is left out of that plan, which

is why we have recommended intense coordination at an interorganizational level, at an interagency level, at an intergovernmental level that also takes into account fully the private sector

and the individual citizens.

Mr. HORN. OK. Ms. Millender-McDonald.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Dalton, I would like to raise a question with you regarding—

the GAO has repeatedly criticized the massive fragmentation and

overlap of Federal efforts to combat terrorism. Have you made specific recommendations to reduce this fragmentation?

Ms. DALTON. One of our recommendations has been to establish

a focus point for counter terrorism and homeland security. As I

stated in my statement, the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security has certainly been a step in that direction, and we

would hope through the national strategy, that is supposed to be

delivered sometime this summer reportedly, that it will look at all

of the organizations within the Federal Government and their responsibilities, identify what the objectives are for the national

strategy, establish performance goals that then each organization

would fit into. It may require some realignment of Federal organizations in order to best meet our goals.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Last, Mr. Castleman, recently, the

interagencies of the Federal Government submitted a classified report to Governor Ridge. Is there any way we can have an unclassiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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fied version of this report developed on for your local and State

agencies?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. I can’t speak for the Office of Homeland Security, but my understanding is that they are working on a non-classified version.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. They are working on one now?

Mr. CASTLEMAN. That is my understanding, and we will determine for sure and provide for the record that is in fact the case.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I think it must be. As we recognized, given September 11th, that a lot of our Federal agencies

were not engaging in interagency collaboration. Well, certainly,

now we know that this should not only just be at the Federal level,

but it should be throughout the country. I would like to have some

response or if you could report back to me as to whether or not that

is going to be done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. Ms. Waters.

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. You may have answered

this, so let me ask again so that I can understand. As I understand, there is no single comprehensive plan for improving homeland security in California. However, my staff told me that actually

it has received 20 percent of the bioterrorism funding here and will

be able to receive it in 6 months after submitting a plan for the

use of the response. Also, there is some danger in having a plan

that can be accessed by others who would somehow interfere with

the plan. Well, how do you this? Do we have a plan that we are

going to submit, and is that classified? Is the Governor’s Office responsible for the State plan?

Mr. JONES. That is a very difficult area to be dealing with, quite

frankly, because of the community right-to-know legislation. I am

sorry, it is very difficult because of the community right-to-know

legislation in some areas. What we have done on a statewide level

is we received a grant from the Federal Government in approximately 1999 to work on both a vulnerability assessment statewide,

local government on up through the State, but also a statewide, 3-

year strategic plan on needs assessment. We were in the process

of that when September 11th came. We were asked by the Federal

Government to submit those plans in very basic form by December

15 of last year, which we did—a very, very skeletal plan. We are

still proceeding on the development of that plan, as far as the inthe-weeds type of needs assessment.

What we have done, because our SSCT, our State Strategic Committee on Terrorism, is through our law enforcement branch within

OES, we have deemed it to be law enforcement sensitive. So it is

not for public dissemination. Many of the recommendations that we

submitted we did put on the Governor’s Web site at his request.

The other plan that is being discussed is a separate plan, and that

is a plan as to how to utilize this Federal money that is coming

through Health Services, and they are working very hard on something to get that done so we can get that money to the local government.

Ms. BONTA. If I might just comment on the healthcare portion.

The Federal Government gave us guidelines in terms of what we

need to have appear. So, for instance, they were asking the area

of reporting of infectious diseases that we ensure that it is not—

87

a physician is not reporting a disease that we need to take note of

3 days later, that it occurs immediately. So we changed our regulations, for instance, to allow for this capacity, this laundry list, so

that we are well on our way toward completing some additional

work.

But part of the recommendations, for instance, that were public

was the recommendation that we have an inventory of specialists

here in California, so infectious disease specialists who might be

available in time of a State emergency to assist us, how we locate

them quickly, where could we utilize them, what is the

credentialing in the hospitals or other institutions so that we

quickly have this cadre of trained professional people, not necessarily the State system, but working for private institutions, but

we utilize their expertise as well. Those are the planning methods

currently in process to be able to develop that kinds of system.

We are also looking at other departments, for instance, to have

continuing education courses. Many physicians, nurses, health educators, physical therapists, all the disciplines are looking to upgrade their skills and identification of issues related to the bioterrorism. Looking at the possibility to have that online, to make

it simple, so that all of our practitioners here in California are

ready and are available and that we have inventory as well of

knowing where is the training occurring and getting that information out.

So some of it is in regards to that. Other areas are much more

complicated in terms of, for instance, hospitals where they are having individual disaster preparedness plans. And we were the first

State in the country to actually have on our Internet system guidelines for hospitals in terms of bioterrorism.

Mr. HORN. Let me conclude with one question that a lot of people

are nervous about, and that is smallpox and the fear that some

countries have smallpox germ warfare, if you will, and I would like

to know if we have vaccines for that? And the question is those of

us that got our smallpox vaccine 50, 60 years ago, in this case,

what, if anything, should be done? Is there a worry here that the

various rogue States that create some of this, what are we going

to do about it and how do we deal with it? I mean if we have the

vaccine, does it do any good for those of us when we had smallpox

that many decades ago? What is the answer, CDC, California?

Mr. YESKEY. A number of items to address your question. I guess

the law enforcement and intelligence communities will have to tell

us about the level of the threat. What CDC has done, No. 1, is they

have accelerated the vaccine production program. Before September 11th, we wanted to augment the 15.4 million doses that we

have stored and available for use, so they entered a contract with

a vaccine producer to additional vaccines. Since September 11th,

that program has been accelerated, not only in the timeline, but in

the quantity of vaccine to be produced.

Second, CDC has released to States and other healthcare organizations a smallpox response plan that describes what strategies

could be used in the case of smallpox release, domestically or globally. That plan will be updated regularly as we get additional

threat information or additional vaccine on board. CDC also has

done training for responders. Started with CDC responders and reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sponse teams to go to the field and assist State health departments

with the smallpox response. But we have expanded that training

to include State health departments and other Federal responders

who might participate in a smallpox response.

Mr. HORN. Any other comments on this particular—Dr. Bonta.

Ms. BONTA. I think that initially we weren’t sure whether or not

someone who was vaccinated 50 years ago whether or not they

would need to get another vaccine. Certainly, there hasn’t been experience with that because we were fortunate that smallpox was

eradicated from the world. We are having some good news in terms

of some of the limited research that has been done on this, so we

probably have some effectiveness in terms of community in our

population. And, certainly, Centers for Disease Control and Department of Health and Human Services have taken the lead in this

in establishing what would be the best way to protect our population.

I think, you know, the real reality is a circumstance where we

would need to consider this. We might look at rings of protection

pertaining to where the incident occurs. Certainly, it is difficult if

it were to be in multiple communities, because you would have to

be vaccinating multiple communities. But you want to be able to

prioritize and use what vaccine you have appropriately, quickly to

those populations that would present more of a risk. Here in California, we are certainly working very closely with the Federal Government in determining what is the best way for us to anticipate,

to plan, to protect our public.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. And I just want to say that you have done

a wonderful job here in making this presentation. And, Ms. Dalton,

I will let the General Accounting Office have the last word. And

what have we missed, if anything?

Ms. DALTON. Mr. Chairman, I think this has been a very comprehensive presentation. I think it has emphasized some of the

main points, as we move forward on a national strategy: The need

for threat assessments, risk assessments in all areas of our activities and the need to continuously reassess what the risks are, what

the threats are, where resources need to be placed, the need for coordination, particularly communication has been very much emphasized, and I think we need to work further in that area. I think

we have seen some gaps here in the presentation in terms of communication.

I would just end with the need for continuous improvement and

learning. We need to institutionalize a lessons learned process, that

we need to continuously improve from those things that are going

to be changing and to learn from them.

Mr. HORN. With that, we call up the second panel, and we thank

the first panel. You might want to stretch a little.

As this is an investigative hearing, we’ll have all the witnesses

rise and raise their right hand to accept the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

[Recess.]

Mr. HORN. We have Lee Baca, the sheriff of Los Angeles County,

a county of 10 million people. I remember when I was involved

with the formulation of the National Institute of Corrections I

learned many years ago that the sheriff in L.A. County has incarVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
89

cerated people as at rates almost as large as the whole Federal system. I think that with a lot of the drugs they have gotten are responsible, Sheriff, but you have, about 30,000 now incarcerated?

STATEMENTS OF LEE BACA, SHERIFF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY;

JOSEPH E. TAIT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF

OPERATING OFFICER, METROPOLITAN WATER DEPARTMENT; CASEY CHEL, DISASTER PREPAREDNESS MANAGER,

CITY OF LONG BEACH; TERRY L. HARBOUR, CHIEF, LONG

BEACH FIRE DEPARTMENT; ELLIS STANLEY, EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT SERVICES, CITY OF LOS ANGELES; BERNIE

WILSON, LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT POLICE

DEPARTMENT; AND LARRY KELLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

PORT OF LOS ANGELES

Mr. BACA. Around 20,000, give or take a few.

Mr. HORN. Is it now 20? Good, crime is down. OK. Glad to have

Mr. Baca here. He is respected throughout America, and we are

glad to have you with us.

Mr. BACA. Thank you. Good morning, Congressmen, and I would

like to also say hello to the new Members of Congress who are with

you; all of my favorite Members of Congress.

So with that, let me start by taking off where you left off when

you asked Ms. Dalton where the gaps are, and there are a few here

that we need to address. I am here not only as the Sheriff of Los

Angeles County but in the State of California the State is organized into seven emergency regions. Each of these regions is comprised of multiple counties. I happen to be in charge of Region 1.

These are neutral aid regions wherein county resources are gathered and deployed into problem areas, such as fires, riots, floods,

earthquakes. It is my understanding that California is the largest

beneficiary of FEMA assistance in the Nation, because we have repeatedly major natural disasters and of course disturbances that

require their assistance.

When Los Angeles County was put on alert by myself on September 11th, we literally coordinated the ability to deploy thousands

of fire fighters as well as police officers under a single mutual aid

plan that you heard some comment about from prior speakers this

morning. We are well prepared in terms of our ability to organize

ourselves. But your core and your key question here today is how

effectively are Federal, State and local governments working together to prepare for a biological, chemical and nuclear attack?

The answer to that question may never be known unless one occurs. However, we are going through the proper procedures to answer this question, because, one, we don’t have any gaps locally

that I can identify, other than the resources of three things. One,

first-responders need to talk to each other at command sites of incidents. We can’t do that now, and I don’t think this even capable

of being done in too many places in the Nation. Therefore, what we

need is the Federal Communications Commission to be a participant in ensuring that the radio frequency spectrum that is so valued in this Nation not be just given to the private sector on any

request that the private sector has, that the public safety system

of our Nation depends on radio communication.

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Myself along with every major city chief of police in the United

States have met recently in San Antonio, Texas in February this

year on this very issue, that when the Federal agencies and commissions who have virtual control over a resource, such as radio

frequency spectrum, are not actively engaged in discussing their responsibility to solving the problem, this causes a major concern for

me, as it does every other major city chief in the United States.

Second, we look forward to the Office of National Preparedness,

under FEMA, to get some guidelines out so that we can start doing

what we need to do to further our ability to provide first-responder

services. And so we wait. The core Federal mission, as it pertains

to justice, should not overshadow local responders’ ability to perform rescue and public safety services, as it pertains to homeland

security. The whole idea of homeland security when you boil it all

down is how well local fire and police and medical service is going

to be able to perform. There is no other group of resources that are

readily deployable, other than what are locally defined.

When it comes to the specific report I prepared,there are specific

elements common to how one addresses an attack. I have spoken

essentially about mutual aid and first-responder capabilities of this

county and the State; they are second to none. This State is the

best prepared State. Thanks to our Governor and our Attorney

General and our Department of Justice, as well as the Office of

Emergency Services, everything is in place. I also want to say that

the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, which I Chair

for the State of California, our intelligence gathering is seamless

with the FBI. The FBI is very cooperative, and we do things on a

high level of responsiveness, interactiveness, and I compliment Director Iden of the local FBI office to be my strongest ally in making

sure this occurs.

The next most important thing that we do here is our Terrorist

Early Warning Group Program, and that is first-responders need to

be tied to the intelligence links, and I have said we are, but then

we also have to coordinate with the medical group as to what goes

on when fire fighters and police officers get out on the scene of a

disaster or a terrorism attack. And so our entire planning has been

bolstered by the Board of Supervisors who have brought forth 16

more technical resources to the Terrorist Early Warning Group.

These are people who are 30 in number who do nothing but plan

for every possible attack, through scenarios, through gathering of

information of possible types of attack. When we talk about the

types, as you know, there are chemical, biological, radiological and

nuclear forms of concern that this group is responsible for organizing scenarios and response strategies in the event such an attack

occurred.

So in closing, the key here is that I have tasked a group of people

from the private sector, the community, to be part of a Homeland

Security Advisory Group for Los Angeles County. This is Chaired

by Mr. Mark Nathanson, and Orange County, I have asked Sheriff

Carona to do the same, and he has done the same. So when you

look at Ms. Dalton’s overall GAO report, which I think is a core

document here, along with the FEMA document, we are doing everything we can to interface federally, at the State level and within

the County of Los Angeles and then the bi-county of Region 1, and

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we have already solved our intelligence sharing problems up and

down the State with 300 police departments and 58 sheriffs departments. But now we have to reach out to our business community,

to our general neighborhoods, and we have to extend the strategy

of homeland security under the umbrella of the Terrorist Early

Warning Group, and that is my next effort that I have put forth

in the County of Los Angeles.

Thank you very much. I do have another meeting. I am not sure

how critical it is if I leave, but I beg your permission to do so.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Baca follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. If we have any questions, I will send

them to you, and we can put it in the record at this point.

Mr. BACA. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you for coming. We’re delighted to have today

the individual that is in charge of our water. We have not had good

testimony on that during our tour around the Nation. Joseph Tait

is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the

Metropolitan Water District. I learned when I was a Senate staff

aid in the 1960’s the power of the Metropolitan Water District and

the quality of people for its board. And a lot of things were done

in the 1950’s starting with Earl Warren and Gooding and Edwin

Knight and so forth. And Senator Kuchel, that is K-U-C-H-E-L,

who spent a lot of time on the water and how we get it to Los Angeles and how we get it to California, generally. So we’re delighted

to have you.

Mr. TAIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I am delighted to be here as a representative of the

Metropolitan Water District. I would also, Mr. Chairman, like to

thank Bonnie for her information that she forwarded to us while

we were in Washington, DC, and the support that she gave us

while we were back there last week.

As you are all showing during this recess your commitment to

this issue, Metropolitan has also shown its commitment to security

for many, many years. Mr. Chairman, you started this briefing

mentioning that the events of September 11th had changed our

lives but not brought the country or business to a stop, nor did it

bring the Metropolitan Water District to a halt either. Just coincidentally on September 11th that was our monthly scheduled board

meeting where 26 directors had to come from the 6-county service

area to the downtown headquarters building here in Los Angeles.

And if you can imagine what the chaotic environment was in a

downtown high-rise building that day, you can imagine what the

atmosphere was like in that board meeting. However, the directors

did decide to go on with their board meeting, they did not cancel

their board meeting as a result of the events, and the Metropolitan

has also taken that theme along with our 26 member agencies in

supporting security improvements.

Just to give you a little background on Metropolitan, the 26

member agencies and cities and special districts that we serve really make up the 6-county service area which Metropolitan services.

We have a 5,200-square mile territory running all the way from the

Colorado River to the Mexican border, up the coast to the Ventura

County line and then back down to the dessert into Riverside and

San Bernadino County. So we have pretty much the entire bottom

third of the State. We supply the water that impacts the lives of

about 17 million people.

As the representative of Metropolitan today and being the public

steward of the region’s water supply and infrastructure network,

we have acted prudently and swiftly to secure the precious resource

that we all use, and that is water. Several things that Metropolitan

has done since September 11th have been significant, although

under the secrecy of confidentiality as much as we could get away

with. We have completed two vulnerability assessments long before

they were called for or required or directed. Our board has apVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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proved $5.5 million in security improvements. We have not asked

for reimbursement, we are not here today with our hands out. Our

next security guard contract to cover those six counties will basically double our costs, from $11.9 million to about $20 million over

3 years to cover security for this service area.

We have taken other steps. I will give you a couple of examples.

Our aircraft that fly patrols over our water system every day have

already had two engines replaced in the last 6 months because of

the exhaustive patrols that we have embarked upon on our service

area. We have also—we are one of the first agencies anywhere to

take down critical maps and infrastructure details off of our Web

site when other folks were calling us wondering why we did that.

It was for logical and prudent reasons, as we saw, but some folks

weren’t really understanding why we did that.

We listed five areas, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, where this committee can come to the assistance of Metropolitan and the 17 million residents that we serve. And those five

areas are we really need to partner with our Federal agencies.

Those Federal agencies are such as the Department of Defense that

could forward to us the list of those chemicals and those contaminants, those exotic contaminants that exist. But because the water

district has not always been on the radar screen of national security, we do not have all of that information that we know exists,

and that could be a great benefit to us in preparing for such events.

Research and development of quicker methods to monitor those

contaminants. Currently, right now, in that $5.5 million board appropriation, we plan on accentuating our remote site monitoring

throughout our service area that gives our treatment plant operators a heads up long before that water would arrive into the urban

metropolitan area so that we can taken adequate measures to respond.

Currently, we understand that through our meetings last week

in Washington EPA plans on reimbursing some of us who have conducted vulnerability assessments and that reimbursement level

will be capped at approximately $125,000. Well, as you can see,

Metropolitan has spent upwards of $11 million more for security

than we did in the prior 3 years, and so you can see the impact

that it will on us.

Federal funding for a demonstration program for alternate water

supply protections and those protections would be whatever research, whatever monitoring, whatever testing, whatever new technologies we may employ. Our system is so large and spread out

that we would probably be a pretty good test lab for firms that are

proposing these type of devices to help us improve security.

The last one is our water supply is heavily dependent on what

the Bureau of Reclamation security measures and operations on

the Colorado River entail. Right now the Colorado River obviously

impacts many western States, and Metropolitan gets about half of

our supply from the Colorado River. So what happens on Parker

Dam and Hoover Dam and through that watershed is very critical

to southern California and the 17 million people that we serve. So

the funding for the Bureau and for their improvements would be

very beneficial.

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Mr. Chairman, you have my written testimony, and I won’t go

into detail in that testimony. Again, any way that Metropolitan can

help this subcommittee or any other Federal agency, we are here

to do so. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tait follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, that is very helpful. I might add for all of you

that haven’t been before us before that once I call on you your full

statement is in the hearing record at this point, and you can summarize it or hit the major points that you have. A lot will come out

in the question period. There are some very good questions I have

got for a lot of you.

We go with Mr. Chel. Casey Chel is disaster preparedness manager for the city of Long Beach.

Mr. CHEL. Good afternoon, Congressman Horn, members of the

committee. Thank you for the opportunity——

Mr. HORN. Are you any relation to the great Fred Chel?

Mr. CHEL. That is my uncle.

Mr. HORN. Huh?

Mr. CHEL. That is my uncle.

Mr. HORN. Yes. He was great.

Mr. CHEL. Thank you. The city of Long Beach began preparing

for a weapons of mass destruction event in 1998 as part of the

Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Program. At that

time, over 200 individuals with 49 different agencies participated

in a training program that they could take back to their agencies

to train their personnel to respond to such an act. Long Beach, as

part of the original 120 cities, also received support from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of

Justice to create a treatment and response cache of emergency

medicines to treat 1,000 patients should the need arise to better

prepare for a coordinated response. This has led to three tabletop

exercises, one functional, one full-scale and—that we have conducted over the past 21⁄2 years.

The city has also developed a committee comprised of every key

city department, local hospitals and the FBI to continually focus on

the planning and coordination efforts of the city of Long Beach. A

response cache of emergency supplies and equipment has also been

created and stands ready to respond should the need arise. We as

a city also participate in the Los Angeles County Terrorism Working Group and Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning

Group with the Department of Health and Human Services and the

MMRS Program.

The efforts of the city have been significant. The determined

threats have been identified, plans to secure and protect these

threats are ongoing, but since September 11th the increase in security at our port, the water storage facilities and the airport, as well

as the significant security and coordination efforts throughout the

city, have created a significant drain on the staff and funds for the

city of Long Beach.

Throughout all these efforts, several areas continue to be a concern to the city of Long Beach. These areas include the clear need

for funding to support local hospitals in developing response plans,

obtaining emergency supplies and decontamination equipment.

Training must be addressed. Funding to support the extended efforts of local planning and coordination efforts, funds to upgrade

the Department of Health and Human Services laboratory in the

city of Long Beach to be able to determine the credibility of determined potential threats and products quickly and accurately, funding to create sustained and local hazardous materials response

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team for the city of Long Beach. We currently do not have a dedicated team within the city. Increased funding for port security, including the addition of personnel in and around water, the boats

and other equipment, to patrol the ports and establish a coordinated response plan between our agency and the Coast Guard,

funds to train emergency response personnel to better protect the

general public and, finally, the funds to sustain the existing programs that we must find. The constant updating of medicines and

the ongoing training costs must be dealt with. These costs are significant and yet unfunded to us.

Although the efforts of the city of Long Beach have been significant, much more must be done. To truly meet the needs of the community, funding must be found to continue the efforts that have occurred so far and expand the program to better meet the needs of

the community. Unfunded mandates and the need to plan, prepare

and response to any potential weapons of mass destruction event

are significant. As I said, even though the efforts have been significant, the needs are many, and we look forward to the assistant

that we are going to be getting. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chel follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. That is very helpful, and I hope you have

got Pine Avenue, where I live, in good shape. Don’t let the palm

trees fall on us.

We now go to Terry Harbour, chief of the Long Beach Fire Department, a very fine department and one of the best in the country. So welcome.

Mr. HARBOUR. Thank you very much, Chairman and members of

the subcommittee. It is a great honor to be here, and I thank you

for this opportunity, particularly with your willingness to hear

what the local agencies have as needs and concerns.

I would like to focus on three primary areas of concern for the

city of Long Beach in the fight against nuclear, biological and

chemical terrorism. As you have heard, the efforts of Long Beach

have been significant, but more is needed to protect the community

and its citizens against terrorist acts. The Long Beach Health Services, the police department and the fire department have essential

needs to combat terrorist activities. I would like to focus and outline those needs that could be funded through your efforts at the

Federal level.

First of all, the health department needs to upgrade their existing laboratory to a Level B facility. The equipment needed would

include a chemical analyzer and a biological analyzer. This equipment would allow for anthrax testing, a quick look with a 2-hour

turnaround and a culture in 24-hour turnaround. Presently, this

type of testing has to be sent to L.A. County, and there is a delay

in the time factor to do that. Additionally, the health department

would like an epidemiology division. A full-time epidemiologist and

additional test equipment, this would enhance the surveillance and

early detection of communicable diseases of unusual occurrence,

and that is what they are really looking at, the unusual occurrence,

so that they get an early heads up if there is some type of pattern

forming.

The police department’s goal is to get two fully equipped police

boats staffed with armed officers and including electronics, weapons and the state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. These vessels

would provide on-the-water security for the Port of Long Beach and

the adjacent waterways. As you are aware, the marine waterways

and the ports are a major area of concern, and enhancing the security in these areas is paramount. This would be a joint effort between the U.S. Coast Guard, the Port of Long Beach and the Long

Beach Police Department.

Our last area of concern for the city is a Hazardous Materials

Response Team. You heard Mr. Chel speak about it. Currently, the

city of Long Beach does not have, possess the resources to mitigate

a hazardous materials emergency on its own. We must rely on outside agencies that are dedicated to other communities. Long Beach

is the largest city in the State of California that does not have a

Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Team. Simply stated, if

one of our fire fighters or a civilian was to go down in a hazardous

material spill or cloud, we currently are unable to safely perform

an extrication rescue. Funding for this program would be the purchase of a vehicle, equipment and provide the necessary training

for 28 fire fighters. It would be a 24/7 service for the Port of Long

Beach and the city. This proposal is based on the expectations that

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the port and the city of Long Beach would jointly share the annual

funding for this port-based Hazardous Materials Team.

In addition, the fire department is the lead agency for disaster

preparedness in the city of Long Beach. Additional staff is needed

in disaster preparedness and for training in coordination with the

local, State and Federal agencies, as you heard Mr. Chel state.

These are the three primary needs that the city of Long Beach

has identified as critical to taking the level of awareness and preparedness for terrorism. Again, thank you for this opportunity to

present.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harbour follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, that is very helpful, and let me just ask one

question on your testimony now so we can get it in. Did you talk

to your counterpart in Baltimore with the problems that it had

when a train was going under their tunnel there, and they really

didn’t know what was in the train. I am not sure they have pulled

it out yet, but it was a real mess and a lot of problems, and I just

wondered if the——

Mr. HARBOUR. I personally, no, have not talked to the representatives in Baltimore. I am aware of the situation and what they

had. what you need to realize is that what is on the highway and

it is placard usually, if it is in a tank truck or something like this,

which gives us a basic identification type of material and is the

NFPA placarding standards and the DOT standards, but a lot of

times you just don’t know what is in those containers and——

Mr. HORN. Well, is it a crime if they don’t post the hazardous

materials so the police department and the fire department will

know what they are facing?

Mr. HARBOUR. Well, yes, it is a crime, but the placarding is fairly

general. The DOT placarding you will see on your tankers. It could

be a 1075, what happens to the liquified petroleum gas. But the

real test is when you get the manifest off the truck. In that instance there, there was no way that they could get that manifest.

The key element of the hazardous material is isolation and then

identification, and you have to identify what you have before you

can move forward.

Ms. WATSON. On that issue?

Mr. HORN. Yes, sure.

Ms. WATSON. We had a law passed in California while I was

there in the senate that said not only is it hazardous material but

you had to document on the label. And you need to pull that up

and see if it is being enforced, because under this new threat, not

only would it destroy the vehicle and other vehicles around but

road conditions. Transportation would be affected too. So you need

to followup to see if you are covered and if the law is being enforced.

Mr. HARBOUR. Yes, ma’am.

Mr. HORN. While we are waiting for the next witness, Patricia

Dalton, take Sheriff Baca’s place so you have got a place representing the Comptroller General of the United States.

OK. We will now move to Mr. Stanley. And Mr. Stanley is the

Emergency Management Services, city of Los Angeles, so you are

in this building a lot, right?

Mr. STANLEY. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr.——

Mr. HORN. Great place. I haven’t been in it since all the modifications have been done.

Mr. STANLEY. Well, welcome back. Thank you, Mr.——

Mr. HORN. The fact that we are freezing is beside the point.

[Laughter.]

Ms. WATSON. Catching pneumonia in the meantime.

Mr. HORN. That is right. Sounds like we are back in the Carter

administration.

Ms. WATSON. It has got a mind of its own.

Mr. HORN. Well, we are delighted to be here.

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Mr. STANLEY. Thank you, Mr. Horn; we appreciate it. And members of the committee, thank you for allowing us to participate in

this process. We recognize that State and local input is essential

to the success of any homeland security efforts.

We also—from the standpoint of the local Emergency Management Office, we respect the Nation’s ability and effort to bring forth

the Homeland Security Office, and it should be made one of the

highest priorities in standardization and support of local emergency management agencies to serve as the integrating element of

homeland security efforts regarding preparedness and response, recovery from—and the mitigation of consequences of a terrorist attack.

In order to ensure that the preparedness and response to the

consequence of any terrorist attack, there must be a common infrastructure at all levels of government which has as its single objective the planning for and integration of all aspects of the potential

incident. There is and has been historically such a structure and

competence in every level of government, as well as the private,

for-profit and non-profit sectors.

The structure is integrating the emergency management system.

The core component of the system is the State and local emergency

managers who have been responsible for ensuring the preparedness, response and recovery capability of their jurisdictions. Regrettably, while this system represents the single best capability for

implementation of a national homeland security strategy at all levels of government, the State and local elements of that system has

been significantly underfunded for decades.

Funding programs such as FEMA’s State and Local Assistance

Program, the Emergency Management Assistance Program have

consistently only been available to minority agencies needing support and have only been funded at a fraction of the authorized

amount. As a result, local agencies are consistently understaffed,

often part-time and even volunteer positions. They are often very

weak at the organizational structure of local government, which

makes it difficult for them to accomplish jurisdictional-wide coordination and planning.

Their function is often not understood by local officials, and it is

often confused with that of the emergency response agencies, making it virtually impossible to gain the support necessary to provide

for a full service integrated program. They seldom have the resources to effect the vital job of performing and preparing the general public for disaster.

I mention that as a general overview of what is going on in our

country and would like to take a couple seconds to explain in Los

Angeles and in California we have a very comprehensive program.

The city of Los Angeles has what is called an Emergency Operations Board in which many of the departments, including my colleagues of the harbor and the airport, make up that particular

board. We meet regularly. Ironically, in California and in our local

jurisdiction, we have a lot of incidents. You might recall on September 9 we had a 4.5 earthquake here in the city of Los Angeles.

On September the 10th, we did a bioterrorism exercise here in the

city as part of our ongoing training programs that we routinely do.

And on September 11th, the world changed as we knew it.

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That is important because we do sit down as a community, and

we have challenges. One of the challenges that Sheriff Baca indicated was working with the FCC, looking at those frequency issues.

There is an issue now before the FCC, the 700 megahertz frequency, in which they are getting ready to auction off frequencies,

and it is important that public safety be given their critical share.

We have developed and have in place a critical infrastructure

plan that met with all the elements of EMS, Emergency Medical,

as well as our critical facilities, to make sure that we exercise them

and their plans are in place. It is important that we keep those

running. It is critically important, too, that FEMA’s programs with

domestic preparedness and especially the hazard mitigation grant

programs on pre-disaster mitigations be funded appropriately so

that we might mitigate those things in our communities that are

disaster potential.

Again, thank you. Mr. Horn, I remember testifying before you

about Y2K when you Chaired that Technology Committee, and appreciate the efforts that you have done there. And Ms. MillenderMcDonald, we testified before you recently on some of these homeland protections. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. It is good to see you again.

Bernie Wilson is the chief of the police department for the Los

Angeles International Airport. I am a 2 million mile member of

your fine airport.

Mr. WILSON. We would encourage you to increase that mileage

at any opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me today. I am a late addition to the panel, so you have no written testimony from me. But

I promise you that I will keep my verbal comments brief and I am

available for written testimony should you need it.

Before I start, I just wanted to mention something, that I had

a chance to meet with Congressman Watson and Congressman

Millender-McDonald after September 11th, and we had an opportunity to talk about the legislation that eventually created the

Transportation Security Administration, and I just wanted to say

that I am not going to take credit for the legislation, I am sure you

talked to a lot of people, but here it is a few months later and I

have heard other people say, ‘‘Thank you, it is everything I asked

for.’’ It is working out very well for us so far.

I represent a very unique community. The airport has 50,000

people or better that work there day in and day out at LAX, and

we serve about a million people a year that come through the environment. It is a very unique business environment for that reason.

It is an environment with all those people who don’t actually live

there, so we don’t have residential to deal with on airport grounds.

Of course our surrounding communities have issues with us, but it

is a very unique business community.

It is also a very unique people community. We have people who

are part of our community who are only going to be with us for a

very, very short period of time while they are changing planes or

while they are catching a plane and then they will move on. But

we still owe them a degree of professionalism and response capabilities to deal with them while they are with us.

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And, of course, it is a very unique security community. We have

capabilities because there are certain Federal requirements that a

lot of other communities don’t have. We can literally lock the place

up if we have to, as we did, as a matter of fact, after September

11th.

But recognizing we have this unique community, we also have to

look at the realities that we faced before September 11th. We are

deeply involved with interagency planning and cooperation, and

that includes Federal agencies across the entire Federal spectrum,

as well as local agencies. We were the very early starters in getting

training, what is know as the Incident Command System, which is

a standby system for dealing with emergencies that was actually

created by the Fire Service, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the

Fire Service, and every time I see a fire chief I always thank him

for it, so thanks, Chief.

The Incident Command System may have made a tremendous

impact on us after September 11th. We were able to see how it actually works from a real live incident on a massive scale, and for

a period of about 3 months or better, we were in emergency mode

all the time with not one display of ego, not one agency trying to

claim someone else’s work. It actually put them in place, and I am

very proud to say that it worked for us.

In our planning done for September 11th, we had a number of

things that we did as a matter of regular course. We have annual

tests for response to aviation incidents, whether they are aircraft

crashes, action type incidents or security incidents. And we have

also—we are kind of picking up the ball on the weapons of mass

destruction potential. For example, we now own and possess three

decontamination units, which is like a human car wash. You start

at one end and you come out the other end all scrubbed and clean

and with a change of clothing. And we were able to deploy one of

those units for the Democratic National Convention on a standby

basis. I believe we actually used it one time. We had a police officer

who had something thrown at him. They didn’t know what it was,

so we activated it, he went through it and it worked for us.

Obviously, the tests and the focus on aviation and airports was

September 11th related, but I just want to emphasize that we were

planning for a lot of things way before September 11th, and part

of that planning does include talking to people. We are members

of the Airport Law Enforcement Agency Network, which was started after the attacks in Vienna in 1985, and we were able to talk

to any airport in the country by literally picking up the phone and

talking to people on a first-name basis.

Our challenges that we are meeting in the near future, besides

continuing the recovery from September 11th issues, we are helping the Transportation Security Administration get setup. They

have a very, very tough road ahead of them to create an agency

out of nothing, and it is going to be a massive undertaking for

them. We have received absolute cooperation from them, and I

hope that we reciprocate the same. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. That is very helpful, and I hope my car

isn’t by the curb.

Larry Keller is probably one of the outstanding port directors in

the United States. I see him frequently because he wants that harVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:56 May 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00114 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84815.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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bor dredge, and we will do the best we can. He and his rival next

door, Long Beach, wherever you count it, one is one and the other

might be two, so what is it this month? I mean are you one or two

in the Nation?

Mr. KELLER. I have to say that this month, Congressman, we are

one.

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. KELLER. But Port Long Beach isn’t far behind.

Mr. HORN. OK. I will tell them that. Give them a little poke. So

it is a great port, both of them are, and they have great competition, and what they have done with the Alameda corridor, which

came out of your planning operation, and Long Beach’s planning

operation went on with it, and that is about to come on and open

on April 12, I believe. And that will be copied by almost every port

in the United States. We got there first, and we got the money

first. So glad to hear anything you want to say on this.

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Chairman Horn. Thank you, committee

members and Congresswoman Millender-McDonald and Congresswoman Waters, for giving me the opportunity to appear before you

today.

I thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Port of Los Angeles and the subject of seaport security as it relates to the international maritime traffic into and out of the San Pedro Bay every

day. As you know, the port is a public entity, and we relate to the

private businesses. So the model is just a little bit different in

terms of the partnerships that we bring to the table and people

with whom we must interact.

This hearing is to discuss ways that the city of Los Angeles Port

has prepared for a terrorist attack and improved security, what the

needs are for the city to facilitate seaport security now and in the

future and the quality of cooperation from Federal agencies.

Just a little bit of a background before I get into that, if I may.

The Port of Los Angeles is a remarkable story. In 1984, after the

main channel was deepened to 45 feet, the Port of Los Angeles was

ranked eighth in the Nation, moving 1.04 million TEUs, or 20-foot

equivalent units, the standard maritime container.

With the help, cooperation and partnership of our customers in

the Federal Government, the Port of Los Angeles is today an environmentally responsible port complex which handles more than 5

million containers in a year, while creating hundreds of thousands

of jobs, not only in our region but across the Nation. Together, the

two Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach ship roughly 35 percent

of the Nation’s water trade.

Last year’s total of more than 5 million containers marked a national record in this growth has been particularly important because the rest of the Nation and the State of California experienced

a dramatic economic downturn several times during that period.

We are in the midst of an incredible construction activity, as you

pointed out, Congressman, as we prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the future. The Alameda corridor will, as you say—

the first phase of the almost 500-acre sea/land terminal opens midyear.

However, the events of September 11, 2001 have shifted our

focus from efficiency to security, while at the same time continuing

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the through-put which is so important to our Nation’s and region’s

economy. Led by our port police force, our response was immediate

as we came down with various law enforcement officials as well as

the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs, FBI, INS, other Federal agencies and Ms. Stanley took care of the city.

Our national crisis has mandated security precautions and permanent changes in how we do our business. This is a new day with

enhanced security standards for our maritime community. We have

experienced only slight delays caused by understandable security

measures, but commerce has continued unabated.

Since September 11th, the Port of Los Angeles has had in place

12-hour shifts for port police, although we have begun cutting that

back just a bit; two patrol vessels on the water at any given time,

increased fixed post security in the cruise passenger terminal; the

addition of two explosive detection canines; increased liaison with

various Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies, without

whom the mission would be impossible; regular dive inspections of

passenger terminal, tank vessels and other sensitive areas of the

port; establishment of a joint port police/U.S. Coast Guard/Sea

Marshall program for incoming and outgoing vessels, and that includes all passenger vessels; increase inspection of truck traffic;

temporary placement of security barriers in key facilities; increased

security officer protection in port facilities and support to various

legislative, industrial and neighborhood communities on port security matters. The costs of the first year are estimated at $1.5 million to $2 million.

The city of Los Angeles and Mayor James Hahn have taken the

lead in establishing a Port Security Task Force to look at the San

Pedro Bay Port to evaluate needs, challenges and opportunities for

providing more secure ports. In our open society, the challenge is

to provide security yet to effectively facilitate commerce and traffic.

Our future security needs offer increased cooperation and support

for Federal, State and local government bodies and agencies.

Mayor Hahn’s Port Security Task Force is looking into how we

can more closely monitor who and what enters our country through

our seaports. Securing our borders and our seaports is vital to the

protection of the United States. This task force has brought together executive level participation of local, State and Federal

agencies, including the Coast Guard, Customs, FBI and INS, along

with local and national police forces, allowing the quick resolution

of issues, enhanced security and increased cooperation among all

the agencies. We believe it is a model for developing the outstanding the cooperation to protect our vital resources, and yet more

must be done.

Some other areas of port security we would like to put on the

table include development of a waterfront container inspectionsite,

or CIS, including facilities for involved agencies to look at suspect

containers within the confines of the port; a portwide identification

system to control access and positively identify all people entering

port facilities; increase port police personnel; adequately deploy and

maintain increased operational security and policing functions; development of systems and legislation to support the sharing of passenger information and crew information for vessels arriving in the

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tion and analysis of information about persons and products arriving by sea; development of a new public relations program to communicate credible terrorist threat information to the public and to

dispel unsubstantiated rumors; development of new technology to

adequately inspect more shipping containers, both here and abroad;

funding for improved audio and video surveillance and monitoring

systems; creation of a secure Internet Web site for law enforcement

agencies to act as a terrorism warning clearinghouse, and establishing a data base and central repository for intelligence that is

currently being collected by several Federal and State resources.

It is anticipated that these enhancements for port security in the Port of Los Angeles will cost $36.1 million in one-time expenditures. Because of all these factors and the new vulnerability, it is

imperative that we concentrate on maintaining and enhancing security awareness of our maritime environment. We also strive to

encourage more open information sharing, and I have said this before, among local, State and Federal law enforcement agencies in

order to be better prepared to fight terrorism as it occurs. I am

pleased to say that the Mayor’s task force is making important

strides in this area.

I want to also say that it is very important that the ACE Customs computer system is fully funded an in operation. It is an invaluable tool in spotting the right containers and the right people

to look at them. I also can’t praise highly enough the job being

done by the U.S. Coast Guard and Captain Holmes. The cooperation of all the Federal agencies has been instrumental in our effective response to date to September 11th and the continuing operation.

We must continue to work hard to be successful. We welcome

new opportunities. While we are proud of our record and accomplishments over the decade, we know that we are constantly being

challenged and will continue to be challenged by tomorrow’s security needs. Thank you for the opportunity to share this information.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much, and I wish you well. You

are in a strategic situation, and so is our Nation and our economy.

So let me start in with Mr. Tait on a couple of questions. You

talked about alternative sources of the water. Would that include

the desalinization?

Mr. TAIT. Absolutely.

Mr. HORN. And we are trying to have that happen in Long

Beach.

Mr. TAIT. Yes.

Mr. HORN. And anything you can do to be helpful, we obviously

would appreciate, because it has got to complement. Israel did it

30, 40 years ago, and I don’t know if they are still doing it, but I

happened to be there when the Sharon election was, and I chatted

with him for an hour, and he was in this desalinization again. And

when you look at the Jordan River, there is not much water coming

down there, so that big ocean is very important.

How about wetlands, would you put that in the resource for

water?

Mr. TAIT. Actually, our approach to wetlands is two-fold. No. 1,

the wetlands have often offset some of the need to actually use that

wetland water because we have been able to use an adjoining basis,

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something in the near vicinity. So we really haven’t planned on

using wetlands water. That gets into another topic of watershed

protection, and as you know, we have spent many, many dollars

protecting the watershed so that when the water does come into an

impoundment, and reservoir, such as Diamond Valley Lake, that

the water remains pristine until we receive it in our treatment

plants, thus the lower cost to treat the water because it was already in good quality when we received it. So watershed protection

and wetlands improvements are two parts of our planning process.

Mr. HORN. Well, that is a good idea, certainly, for the reservoirs

we need upstream to store that, and I have got a great program

for you. It is known as the Seretis Wetland, so anything you can

do to get that moving we would appreciate that.

Mr. TAIT. OK.

Mr. HORN. So let me ask you on—well, let me ask you first—

have Ms. Dalton say what are we missing, anything today on this

panel? And then we can go to questions from my colleagues.

Ms. DALTON. I think the panel has very comprehensively covered

some of the issues that are present here in California as well as

in all of the Nation and the resources that need to be protected,

and highlighting the importance of planning, integration of our resources and communication.

Mr. HORN. Very good. Now we will go with 5 minutes down the

line.

Ms. WATSON. Yes. Very quickly, I want to commend Terry Harbour on this report, your testimony, because not only do you make

a request but you have the dollars assigned to it. Mr. Chair, you

have got a lot of work to do. As I understand, Long Beach is the

largest city in the State of California that does not have a Hazardous Material Emergency Response Team. And I don’t know where

the funding will come for that, but my question is, and this can go

to Mr. Harbour and Mr. Keller, maybe the next attack is on cruise

ships to send a message. You know we had first with the planes,

now the cruise ships, and can I hear comments from the two of you

as to what we are doing in terms of protecting our cruise ships that

go out of the ports?

Mr. HARBOUR. I can tell you for Long Beach right now we don’t

have any cruise ships, but as you know, by the end of next year

Carnival Cruise Lines will be docking at the stern of the Queen

Mary, so it is one of the things that we are going to need to deal

with. To my knowledge, we haven’t identified it. I am sure L.A. is

an expert at it, and I would like to refer that to Mr. Keller.

Mr. KELLER. Congresswoman Watson, that is a very good question. We believe the human vulnerabilities should be placed on an

even higher plane than goods and property, and immediately after

September 11th the bookings on the cruise ships dropped about 50

to 60 percent of what had been anticipated. We immediately went

to work with what is called an early version of the Sea Marshall

Program. And that meant we put armed guards on every arriving

and departing ship who were then put on with our pilot boats or

taken off with our pilot boats. What that meant was that when the

guards were on board they secured the navigation space of the

bridge, the engine room and the communication center of the ship

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and talked to the officers and crew to make sure that there was

no suspicious activity going on.

When the ships are in port, we have either Coast Guard boats

or Port Police boats alongside 24/7 to make sure that no one approaches that boat. The boats are escorted in with an armed Coast

Guard cutter to make sure that no suspicious boats approach the

ship to do harm. We have purchased two explosive sniffing dogs to

run over the top of all the luggage that is being put on the ship.

As you know, unlike an airliner, we give the passengers their luggage back. We put in magnetometers so that all the crew and passengers are screened going in, and we have secured the area in

which the supplies, the food, any other necessary supplies for the

ship are inspected box by box to be sure that nothing is going on

that ship that doesn’t belong.

I am happy to report that as a result of these activities, passenger acceptance has been very, very high, and the booking ratio

has risen almost to 90 percent now, because people consider this

a safe vacation.

Ms. WATSON. Very good. I have one more question, Mr. Chair,

and that is for Mr. Tait. In your testimony, you talked about alternative water supplies, and my concern now it looks like the bottled

water would be available, but is it possible to require homes to

have some kind of alternative water supplier? Is there any kind of

equipment that is self-safe in terms of water supply? That is of a

big concern to us at this time, and I don’t know if Brita could sift

out whatever the bioterrorism organism might be. Is it a water system? Is there anything that could help? You know, smoke alarms

for fire. Is there anything we can do for people in their own homes?

Mr. TAIT. Point-of-use devices have always been used for what I

would call elementary or minor filtration and treatment. They are

definitely not the solution. That is why Metropolitan is promoting

maybe a joint approach with bottler and suppliers to take Metropolitan water, have those waters bottled and stored in strategic

areas. We have five treatment plants throughout the southern California metropolitan area in various counties, and so if you were to

take those bottled supplies of our own supply after it is treated and

have those available for the communities in the event of some kind

of an attack, you would raise the comfort level of the folks who are

looking for an alternative.

Ms. WATSON. We had gone through a very devastating earthquake in 1994 and we couldn’t get the supplies to the people. I

came down here to City Hall and they said, ‘‘Get a guy, find somebody with a metal hat on and stop him.’’ So at the point of use,

is there anything that can be done by the residents to purify water

in case our highways are destroyed, the vehicles that transport are

also affected? Is there anything that we can do in our homes?

Mr. TAIT. Sure. Point-of-use devices are effective. However, it

would really depend on what type of contaminant it is. And if you

also look in my testimony, partnering with DOD on what those list

of contaminants are that we are not privy to right now, that confidential list, would help us better plan. Remember when there are

earthquakes or things of that nature that really knock out infrastructure, you are really talking about just simple organics, dirt,

those type of things in the water that you would either take care

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of through boiling or through point-of-use devices. But either way,

again, point-of-use devices are still just that elementary treatment

level, so that is really not a solution, an overall solution.

Ms. WATSON. Well, it would be very helpful if you could supply

us, all of our offices, with a list of the point-of-use devices that

could be effective. I know it is elementary, but I am thinking about

transportation systems, how do we convey and transport if our

roads are knocked out? And I don’t put any of that past the terrorists at this time, so we need to look at every option we have.

With that, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you. I think

all of you have done an outstanding job in bringing us up to date.

We are going to depend on you providing us with information that

we cannot get out of Washington, DC. So we will be sure to followup with you, to call you so that we can instruct our constituents

as they call in on a daily basis. We want to give them a better comfort level than they have now. So thank you very much for holding

the hearing.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. Thank you. We have the gentlewoman from Los Angeles County and the State of California, and

that is Ms. Millender-McDonald.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. My goodness, Mr. Chairman. Again,

thank you so much for your leadership on this hearing. You have

brought us a tremendous set of panelists, many of whom I have

had the pleasure of talking with for the congressional oversight

hearing on water with Congressman Ken Talbert, and so we have

had a lot of the issues that you have presented to us today through

that hearing. And also the oversight hearing that we had, the congressional oversight hearing down at the ports with Congressman

Mark Souder.

And so with that, I mean all of you I have heard from you. Mr.

Stanley and all of you have incredible testimony. The Chief Harbour, I have not heard from you, but I have heard from your deputies and others, and you did the right thing to present us with your

testimony and dollar figures with it, because otherwise we would

not have known to what extent your requests were and the amount

of money.

I would simply say to all of you that we recognize that a lot of

you had to go into your budgets to put together a type of emergency program, given September 11th, and what this Federal Government can do is perhaps not reimburse you but further give you

the funding that is necessary to secure your various bases that you

have already spent of your own budget dollars to help us in the crisis of September 11th. So I applaud you on that, and, Mr. Chairman, I do know, in talking with the Port of Long Beach folks who

came to Washington a couple of weeks ago, they have spent an incredible amount of their own budget resources to help us safeguard

the ports. If it is nothing else, we should try to seek funding we

can to help all of these fine folks with in terms of not repaying but

to further the preparation of emergency crisis.

With that, again, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my statement for

the record. I have heard from these fine groups of people, and

thank you so much for this hearing. I am going to have to tip out

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because of other commitments, but I thank you again for your leadership.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much for coming, and without

objection, your document will be put at this point in the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Juanita Millender-McDonald

follows:]

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Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mr. HORN. Well, I share my colleagues sentiments that you have

done a wonderful job, and there really isn’t too much more to be

said. And I will incorporate Mr. Souder’s, and Mr. Keller and I

have talked about that, and it was very good testimony, and we are

glad to do it. We have got a lot of ports in this State of California,

and I know that you and Ms. Bonta said that there is about 800—

what was it, 8,800 water supplies? Let us see? Well, it is a lot, but

it isn’t in the jurisdiction of those of you here in southern California, and I guess what we will do is we will find out in San Francisco a few days from now and see if they are as well organized as

you are.

So thank you very much, and I am going to thank the people

that helped put this together, and we have many people to—J. Russell George is the staff director and chief counsel for the subcommittee. To my left here is the deputy staff director, Bonnie

Heald. Justin Paulhamus, the majority clerk—where is Justin? Is

he around? He is working back where he should be, right? And

Earl Pierce, professional staff member who is not here today, but

he helped coordinate everyone’s testimony.

And the district staff, Connie Sziebl is in the back with a red

coat, and she has been the best district director in the United

States, and everybody agrees to it. And that way we don’t have to

pay her anything. So Ryan Peterson has done a wonderful job here

with the camera, and he is an intern with us in the district office,

and Jennifer Hodges is working with him. We thank you both for

this and hope you aren’t an ice cube.

So the city of Los Angeles, a lot of people are to be thanked.

When we came into the garage this morning, people couldn’t have

been nicer, and usually when you go into some government garage,

they sort of snarl at you. Not here, they are nice, friendly people.

And Jim Seeley, of course, you all know. He is the key person in

Washington on legislation, and thank Deputy Mayor Carmel Celo,

and you heard from Councilman Jack Chois and Denise Sample

and Diego Alverez and Dary Gomez and Lindsey Watson and

Avarcay Diaz. And the court reporter is Kathleen Torres, thank

you also. It is tough when you have got to get everybody’s words

out in the right way, because we depend on it.

That is it. Thank you. And with that, we are adjourned, and we

thank you for your testimony.

[Whereupon, at 1:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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